Bloodline(41)

Dark clouds roll across his forehead. “A house in San Diego. My dad. Or at least the guy who told me he was my dad. He was an angry fellow. Drank a lot, listened to the radio all day.”

“What kind of work did he do?”

“No kind. He was in the war. Lived off his pension.” He scowls. “Got more money because he had a kid.”

The pen and pad lie in front of me. I watch him speak every word. “What about a mother?”

“My father said she died in childbirth.” He drags off half the cigarette in a single suck.

“So your dad lied? Banked on you not remembering you’d been abducted?”

He shrugs.

I back it up. I need to get something solid from him. “Do you remember playing with two classmates that day in kindergarten? Aramis and Quill?”

His eyes drop. “No,” he says.

But he’s hiding something. What would an honest-to-god journalist do with this story? It’s a big one, I can feel it, but only if I get it right. “Where’s your dad now?”

“In the ground.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.” He stabs the cigarette into the ashtray. “Happened ten years ago, and he was a bastard. I took off when he kicked. Traveled all over the world. It was in Florida where I met the hypnotherapist.”

The waitress sets down a cup of hot water and a tea bag for me and refills his coffee even though it’s still nearly full. She’s so busy smiling at him that it almost overflows. He grins back.

“What was the hypnotherapist’s name?” I ask.

“You ever been to Florida?”

I’m aware he isn’t answering my question. “No. Where in Florida were you living?”

“A little nowhere island called Siesta Key. It’s got a couple hotels. A restaurant with the coldest beer you’ll ever drink. Jobs that don’t require much. They don’t pay much, either, but you don’t need it. Fresh fruit growing on trees. Everybody’s welcome.”

The way he says it, he believes it. “Sounds perfect.”

He leans in. I feel the heat of him. “We could visit sometime.”

My intake of breath is so loud that the man at the next table turns to look. The heat I’ve been feeling, he’s sensing it, too? “I’m pregnant.”

He chuckles, a soft, private sound. “That was quick.”

“My husband. My boyfriend, I mean. We live together here in Lilydale.” There was no need for me to say that. Wasn’t his right to know. I don’t want to lead him on, though. And I want him out of my head.

“Sexy.”

I can’t read his intention. “Do you mind if I take some photos? For the follow-up article?”

“Knock yourself out.”

I set up the camera and begin snapping. “Hypnotherapist?” I repeat from earlier to keep him talking.

He taps out a new cigarette. He’s so photogenic.

“Yeah,” he says. “I was bartending in Siesta, minding my own business; then I started having these weird dreams. A friend suggested I see a hypnotherapist on the mainland. You ever been hypnotized?”

I take the last of the photos and shake my head as I put away the camera.

“It’s not like you think. You don’t start quacking like a duck or anything. It just relaxes you, real deep. It was when I was under that I remembered that I was Paulie Aandeg.” Cigarette smoke licks his cheeks. I want to taste it so bad, that smoke, draw it in like dragon’s breath.

“At first it came back in fragments,” he continues. “Like Polaroids in my head. A house. A yellow room in that house with a little bed against a wall. That sailor suit. Then a name. Paulie Aandeg. When I searched for the name in the papers, I found it in the Minneapolis Star.” He taps the upside-down articles between us. “So, I made my way up here, and now you see me.”

I watch my hands reach for the tea packet, hear the crisp sound of paper opening, see the bag dunked in the water. “How can you be sure you’re Paulie?”

He rolls up the sleeve of his T-shirt, revealing a tan, muscled bicep. “See this?”

On the upper outside of his left arm is a smallpox vaccine scar.

It’s in the shape of a figure eight.

A scar exactly like Deck’s, and like mine.





“Wake up, honey.”

It’s my mom, whispering to me. I don’t want to wake up. My bed is so toasty. I’m safe in it. Plus, it’s the weekend. The only time I’m allowed to sleep in. I’ll get to my homework. I always do.

“Honey, wake up.”

She’s shaking me now, her voice growing urgent.

I grumble. I don’t want to open my eyes, don’t want to start my day. I roll over, ready to nestle back into my blanket, when my heart’s gripped by a fist of ice.

My mother never calls me honey.

Joan, always, no exceptions, not even Joanie. But I don’t want to end the dream, because then my mother’s voice will disappear. I miss her so much. It’s an ache inside the tenderest part of me. How do you go on with life after your mother dies?

I couldn’t.

That’s why I didn’t question Deck showing up right after her funeral, adoring me, sewing me right up into his life before I had a chance to blink. I needed someone to belong to.