The Vanishing Year(69)
The wall opposite the bed is exposed brick, each painted a different color, and the overall picture is a rudimentary sun in shades of orange and reds. It seems much too feminine for him to have done himself. The rays are curled around each brick, vinelike and intricate.
I make up the bed and climb inside. I fall asleep in my clothes, staring at that sun, wishing for all the world that it gave off some warmth.
? ? ?
I sleep in fits and starts, shooting up straight every half hour, at every car that starts, every door that slams, never sure if the noise is real or imagined. My dreams are vivid and violent. Evelyn carrying babies in a tattered dress, like a zombie. Caroline running from a burning building. Henry, shot and bleeding on the floor of Cash’s apartment. At five, I realize I’m famished and wander out to the kitchen. I find Cash’s kitchen cabinets and refrigerator well stocked with coffee, eggs, bread. I work quietly, using only the stove light so as to not wake Cash, who snores like an old steam engine from the love seat.
While I work, I examine my options. I can’t stay here with Cash. I could probably call Lydia, but I can’t shake her I-told-you-so face when I tell her Henry went to Japan. I can’t stomach the idea of painting a rosy picture of my marriage, either. No, better to just leave it alone for now. Cash, with his unassuming open-ended questions, is easier.
Henry will come home today and I check my phone, wondering why he hasn’t called. He should have landed. When the sun rises, I plan to go to the police station, meet with Officer Yates, figure out what is going on. I resign myself to the fact that today is the last day I will fully live under the guise of Zoe Whittaker. Hilary Lawlor has been an apparition in my mind for five years, existing only subconsciously. The jig is up. Henry will know my past, my drug use. Evelyn. Some of it I can keep hidden, certainly the details are mine to spare. My throat closes up with shame at the mental snapshots: stealing pills. Those shiny, glistening moms, so perfect it hurt. Those giant thousand-dollar wobbling prams. Legs piled like matchsticks in the backseat of a car. Me, drunk on whiskey, falling in the street while Mick and someone else held me up. Evelyn, abandoned in a morgue cooler. That I left my mother’s body to rot. I’ve never listed it all out, not even to myself. My sins are smaller, less significant, and more manageable if they remain in their individual compartments.
Henry won’t understand any of it. He’s never been poor. Desperate. Lost. Henry, above all else, has always been consistently, unflinchingly found. Certain. Linear.
I think of Joan then, my sister tucked in her childhood bed, only about ten miles away. If I truly believe I am in danger, that someone has come back for me, then so is she. We’re twins, the same faces, mere miles apart. It’s a reach, but it worries me. I can’t help but feel a small thrill, that soon I will meet her. Then a stab of fear that my life will smear into hers, that whoever is after me will somehow find her first. Because I know now, there is someone, some nameless, faceless person who is watching me. Coming for me. I have no idea what they want, all I can do is wait.
I can’t fix Evelyn. I can’t go back and make right what I’ve done. I left her, first to die, then to rot. The woman who loved me, raised me. I could never right those two wrongs.
I think of Caroline with a sweet baby boy. Six years old, with sticky hands, gap teeth, and shaggy hair. She is a mother now, a real one this time, with responsibilities, playdates and schedules, kindergarten, and T-ball. Whoever called Caroline is watching me. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being monitored. They could find Joan. It’s possible. Technology has made everything so incredibly possible. The world is smaller than it’s ever been.
I calculate the distance between Cash’s apartment in the Village and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. It’s not far. Twenty-five minutes by cab, maybe? My heart picks up speed.
Cash wanders into the kitchen at seven, as I’m sipping my third cup of black coffee. My eyes feel tacky behind the lids, sore and scratching.
“So, today, will you call your sister?” He opens his mouth wide, half yawning, half stretching.
“More than that—I’m going there.” I run my fingertip along the lip of the coffee cup.
He covers his surprise. “Really? When?”
“As soon as this coffee kicks in.”
“Why?”
“I haven’t been entirely truthful with you.” I stand up, blow out a breath, sit back down. “When I lived in California, I got mixed up in some really terrible things. I was a mess. I did drugs, I even sold drugs.”
“I can’t tell you how this blows my mind.” Cash smiles. He stands up and retrieves a plate of cinnamon rolls from the refrigerator and motions for me to take one.
“You don’t seem shocked?” I tuck one foot under my leg, touch the icing with my index finger. It comes away white and sticky.
“Zoe, a lot of people do drugs, sell drugs, clean up their lives. Change their lives. It’s really not that shocking.”
I turn this over, the idea that maybe the life I’ve been desperate to bury under layers of silk Chanel isn’t as awful as I’d thought.
“I’m a different person, sometimes I think maybe that person didn’t exist, or at least I wish she didn’t. She wasn’t a particularly good person, I don’t think.”
“You’re too critical. Young people do stupid things. It’s the basis for every coming-of-age romantic comedy I’ve ever seen. It’s the plot of most novels. The basis for a zillion rock songs.”