Exposed (Madame X, #2)(19)
I try to find something more to say, something intelligent, but I am numb and reeling and shocked and unable to think or process or feel. “So you were able to discover all this just . . . by making some phone calls?”
He shrugged. “Essentially. I mean, I guess I’m downplaying it all a bit. It was a lot of work. I must have made two or three hundred phone calls over the last few days, chased down hundreds of dead ends looking for someone with concrete information on you and your family. And even then, once you guys made it here, the trail sort of goes cold. Your father worked his ass off, seventy and eighty hours a week, and your mom was a maid in a hotel, worked similar hours. Quite a step down for you guys from the life you lived in Spain, is the impression I get. You went to a public high school, but I couldn’t track down anyone who actually knew you personally. A couple teachers who taught you, but again this is New York, and the classes are huge and it’s hard—if not impossible—for a teacher to recall any particular student, especially one from over ten years ago. You were quiet, kept to yourself, spoke fluent but accented English. Did your work, didn’t really stand out in any way. Decent grades, but not great. You were adjusting, I guess. No close friends.”
“Do I . . .” I have to pause to breathe and start over. “Do I have any family? In Spain, I mean.”
Logan shakes his head, his eyes sad. “No, I’m sorry. Your parents were both only children, and their parents died when you were young, when you guys still lived in Spain. I even tracked down where you guys lived here in the city, but the apartment building where you lived didn’t keep your stuff after your parents died. I mean, no one told them, right? So they put your stuff in storage for a while in case you came back, but your folks were dead and you were in a coma, and then you woke up not knowing who you were. So eventually they sold it or trashed it.”
“So really, I’m back to where I started. No family, no real identity. No belongings of my own.”
Logan sighs. “I guess so. I guess all that information doesn’t really do you any good, does it?” He sounds bitter.
I realize I’m being incredibly ungrateful. “Logan, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make light of what you’ve given me. I have my name. I know my parents’ names. That is a gift I shall never be able to repay.” I place my hands over his, around the coffee mug.
He shrugs, a gesture of dismissal. “No big deal.”
“It is, though, isn’t it? To have my name?”
His eyes go to mine, and their fierce indigo brilliance pins me. “It’s only as meaningful as you make it. It only means something if you do something with it. Identity is what you make of it, X, Isabel, whatever you want to call yourself. And that’s really it, isn’t it? What you want to call yourself. Who you want to be. All of us are looking for our identity, aren’t we? I mean, we grow up, we spend our lives searching for meaning, for substance. To matter. That’s why people drink, or do drugs, or gamble, or get tattoos all over their bodies, or make art, or play music in a band, or write books, or sleep with a different person every night. To figure out who they are. For some people, their identity is rooted in their history. I mean, where I grew up, I knew people who’d lived their entire lives in San Diego, never left it. Their parents moved there, and they were born there, and they’ll never leave. Their dad was a lawyer, so they’ll be a lawyer. That’s easy, for them. It may not be much, but it’s who they are. Others, it’s harder, isn’t it? I had to make my own way. I had to decide what I wanted to do with my life. Did I want to be a gangbanger, a drug dealer, a criminal? Did I want to end up dead, or in jail? Then I was a mechanic in the army. And then I was a security contractor, a soldier. And then I was nothing. I was wounded, flat on my back in a hospital with no future and a dead-end past. I had to start over. I had to decide all over again what I wanted. Who I wanted to be. I’ve always loved creating, using my hands, being active. So I got into house flipping.” He flattens his palms on the table, and I can’t help but be drawn to his hands, to the weathered lines, the roughness of them. They are such big, strong, capable hands. Hard as rock, rough as cinder blocks. “I ripped up old floors and knocked down walls and tore out cabinets. Stripped the houses down to studs, to bare bones. And I made them new, built new walls, new cabinets, new floors. I made them beautiful, and I sold them. And I turned that into a lucrative business. That’s my identity. I build things. I built houses, and now I build businesses and sell them. Kind of like what I did with houses, but for entire companies.”
“You rebuilt yourself.”
He nods. “More than once.”
“How do you do it? How do you build an identity?”
“Takes guts and determination, I guess. Like anything else in life, really. I mean, you look at your life and your skills and you decide what you like, what feels right, and you follow that where it leads.”
I stare down at the tabletop. “I don’t know if I can do that. The life I have, it’s not perfect, but it’s what I know. And it’s all I have. It’s all I’ve ever had. I mean, yes, you’ve told me I had parents, and that I went to school, but where does that take me from here? How does that help me know what to do about Caleb?”
I hadn’t meant to ask that last question, but it just came out.
“I can’t decide that for you. You have to figure it out for yourself.” He won’t look at me.