One of Us Read online

I doubt he had much patience for the tales of his wife’s heroic seventy-two-hour struggle to expel me before finally succumbing to the C-section that would scar her perfect pale middle for life. Her postpartum depression was easily blamed on the difficult labor, but I always assumed some of it came from her inability to make a boy. Now I know this failure may have affected her in ways that even someone as perceptive as me could never have imagined.

  The first Walker was a pretentious peacock who appreciated aesthetics, but at his core was a grasping, driven man who wanted people not only to be in awe but to cower. The result of this philosophy when it came to building his home was a fifty-five-room, turreted, Gothic edifice, but one made of a rare ashen rose stone he had imported from New Mexico. On sunny days, the hundreds of diamond-shaped window panes sparkle fiercely, but I never found this to be a pretty sight. To me the entire house seemed to be on fire.

  Clarence opens the front door on my second ring. He hasn’t changed a bit. He always seemed old to me, even when I was a kid. I rarely noticed him. He went about his job with the stealth of a spy, occasionally appearing in some random room where he’d stand silent and still like a piece of human furniture, but I never doubted his control of the household. Even Anna seemed intimidated by him, but I think this was because he didn’t come from around here so there was no way for her to gather up every piece of gossip about him and his family. She regarded him as a loose cannon because she didn’t know anything about him and therefore didn’t know what he was capable of doing.

  His face registers a moment of surprise at the sight of me, but he’s too good at his job to allow any sign of unpreparedness to show for long.

  His eyes flicker away from me.

  “Miss Dawes, what a pleasant surprise. Are your parents expecting you?” he says while fixing his gaze firmly over my shoulder like a new recruit addressing his drill sergeant.

  After Anna’s death, he was never able to make eye contact with me again. He looked around me but never at me, his eyes straining in all directions like a blind man who knew he wasn’t alone in a room but wasn’t able to find the other person he sensed was near him. Sometimes I wanted to grab his hand and place it on my shoulder just for fun and call out, “Here I am,” but I was always afraid once he found me he’d start screaming and my feelings would get hurt.

  “I don’t think so,” I answer him. “Are they here?”

  “Your mother is. Your father is in New York on business but expected home later tonight.”

  I bob my head to try and put myself back in his line of vision but he glances beyond me at my car.

  “Do you have any bags?” he asks.

  “No, not now.”

  I walk past him into the house.

  “I won’t be staying tonight. Where is Mom?”

  “I saw her in the kitchen a moment ago.”

  I hand him my coat and walk quickly through the house, not bothering to glance in any of the magnificent rooms. I know the contents by heart and I’ll have plenty of time for reminiscing later.

  Mom’s in the kitchen, like Clarence said. She’s just leaving it carrying a cut-crystal pitcher full of gin and tonic.

  She looks good for an old lady. She’s still thin, still fashionable in a pale gold lounging outfit of loose silky pants, a sleeveless turtleneck shell, and matching cardigan. Her hair’s white now but the shade isn’t all that different from the shade of blond it used to be. She’s kept it long and has it piled on her head in a silvery smooth chignon. She has wrinkles, but they don’t take away from her excellent bone structure.

  When she sees me, she lets out a small shriek and drops the pitcher on the floor. It shatters on the ceramic tiles into a million glass shards.

  The liquid seeps toward me. I pick up my foot so my boot won’t get wet.

  “Hello, Mother,” I say.

  “Scarlet, you almost gave me a heart attack.”

  “Did you think you saw a ghost?”

  “What on earth are you doing here?”

  “Visiting my parents.”

  “Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?”

  “I wanted to surprise you.”

  “Well, you succeeded.”

  To my amazement, she drops to the floor, ruining the knees of her satin pajama pants with the spilled booze, and begins scraping the glass shards into the palm of her hand.

  “Mom, you’ve got servants to do this.”

  “Clarence!” I call.

  He’s already in the room. He must have heard the glass break.

  “Mrs. Dawes had a little accident,” I explain. “Could you clean this up and bring her a fresh pitcher of drinks into the sunroom? And I’ll have a Jameson on ice.”

  “Of course.”

  Clarence gets down on the floor beside Mom.

  “Mrs. Dawes, are you okay?”

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine.”

  “You cut yourself.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  There’s an awkward moment where Clarence can’t figure out if he should get up first and assist my mom because he’s a servant and his job is to be helpful, or if this will offend my mom because it will remind her that she’s old.

  My mom solves the problem by getting up first. She’s not as spry as she used to be, but it doesn’t take her too long.

  “I’m a mess,” she announces once she’s back on her feet. “Excuse me. I’m going to change and I’ll meet you in the sunroom.”

  Mom has changed the décor since the last time I was home. The sunroom used to be filled with tons of plants, bright pink wicker furniture with plump floral-patterned cushions, and soft chenille rugs. It was always warm like a jungle.

  Now everything is modular and white. Armless chairs. Lacquer cubes for tables. Sectional leather sofas with chrome legs. Vanilla shag rugs. It’s the kind of room that screams out for a muddy footprint or a blood trail.

  Mom reappears. She’s changed her entire outfit even though her pants were the only thing that got wet. Now she’s wearing drapey wide-legged coral pants and an even drapier sheer blouse over a camisole.

  She has a million of these kinds of outfits, but I guess it makes sense: loungewear is the uniform of the professional lounger.

  She stands in the doorway and attempts a smile. I notice she’s bandaged her hand.

  I walk toward her with my arms open.

  “How about a hug?”

  She embraces me with all the maternal enthusiasm of a stop sign.

  “You look good, Mom.”

  “So do you.”

  Her eyes run expertly over my midthigh length dove-gray sheath with a fine silver thread running through the tweed. I changed after visiting with Marcella.

  “Nina Ricci?” she inquires.

  I smile and nod.

  “Did you end up getting that Galliano we looked at? The blue tattered silk?”

  “Of course.”

  She takes a seat on one of the sofas and I sit on a cube. I openly stare at her, but she avoids looking at me. I think she may have some idea why I’m here.

  “Those Dior peep-toe booties are adorable, too,” she tells me. “You have the legs to wear them.”

  “So do you, Mom.”

  “I’m too old for that now. Women my age shouldn’t wear miniskirts and stiletto heels.”

  “Some do. What about Beebee?”

  Her wounded hand flutters in the air in a gesture of annoyance.

  “Oh, don’t get me started on Beebee. Did you see them, by the way, when they were passing through Paris last month?”

  “I did everything possible to avoid them. They’re pigs.”

  Now she finally looks at me. Her eyes are as blue as they’ve always been. Age hasn’t faded their intensity. I used to wish I might see some fondness or kindness in them or even mild interest, but any stores of sof
t emotions she ever possessed were gone by the time I knew her. Whether she lost them during her own childhood or if her years with Dad did it, I’ll never know.

  To her credit, she’s the only person I know who can make a heated, vulgar feeling like disgust look cleanly, coldly lovely.

  “Why do you have to be so hateful?” she asks, tilting her head to one side like an elegant well-fed shorebird calmly contemplating a fish she has no need to eat.

  “I’m not hateful,” I tell her. “I don’t hate anyone. In order to hate, you have to care first. You know I don’t care what people do just as long as they don’t bother me.” I pause.

  “Is Dad here?” I ask her.

  “He’s in New York.”

  “You didn’t go with him?”

  “He was only going overnight.”

  “How’s Wes? The girls? I brought them gifts.”

  This piques her interest. I almost detect a twinge of panic on her face. Does she think I’ll tell Wes what I know if it turns out I know what she thinks I might know?

  She’s always been closer to Wes than she is to me. He’s more important to her. Again, it’s a penis thing.

  “Are you planning to see them?” she asks.

  “I don’t know what my plans are.”

  Clarence finally shows up with the drinks and the tension level drops dramatically.

  I sip at my whiskey while Mom practically gulps at her gin and tonic. It can’t possibly be her first drink of the day. I chalk up her eagerness to nerves.

  “Do you remember that awful prison of a boarding school you sent me to when I was thirteen?”

  I expect a frown or a pout of disappointment but she gives me a strained smile.

  “Where did that come from? You always say things so abruptly.”

  “It’s called honesty.”

  “No, I think it’s called abruptness.”

  “Well?”

  “You were out of control,” she says, relaxing back into the soft white leather. “We had to send you somewhere. And even if you’d been a model child, you still would’ve been sent to a private school in your teens. You know that. Wes went to a private school, too.”

  “It was a nuthouse. We had to see a shrink twice a week.”

  “It most definitely was not a nuthouse. It was a private school with an agenda. No different than a Catholic school. If we had sent you to one of those, you would’ve had religion classes instead of psychoanalysis. It’s the same thing.”

  “Religion is a form of therapy?”

  “Whatever gets you through the night, dear, as the saying goes.”

  She holds her drink out to me and smiles again.

  “Cheers.”

  We clink glasses.

  “Any particular reason you brought this up?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m feeling nostalgic. The year I was sent away was really the end of my living here. After that school there was another one and then college and then real life.”

  “You’ve always been welcome to come back anytime.”

  “That’s big of you, Mom. Actually, the main reason I came back was to talk to Anna’s cousin, Marcella. Have you ever met her?”

  “It’s idiotic,” she says, her fine features puckering prettily again in disgust. “I can’t believe you’d be taken in by something like this.”

  I don’t say anything. I just watch her and drink.

  “It did occur to me that she might try to get money out of you after she couldn’t get it out of me, but frankly I didn’t think she’d have the nerve or the resourcefulness to be able to track you down.”

  “I think it’s true,” I tell her. “The accusation is too bizarre to be something Anna just made up. And why write it down? Why keep it all those years?”

  “How am I supposed to explain the actions of a crazy person? The woman was seriously disturbed.”

  “Then you’re saying it’s not true.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then you won’t mind if I show the letter to your husband?”

  She bows her head slightly. This time when she raises her glass to her lips, I notice a slight tremor in her hand.

  “We both know he’ll insist on knowing if it’s true or not, and he won’t take your word for it,” I go on. “And there is a way to find out the irrefutable truth nowadays. A very easy way.”

  I continue staring at her, willing her to look up at me, but she won’t do it. She slowly, distractedly swirls the ice in her glass and watches it closely.

  “I always wondered why you kept her as a nanny. She never struck me as being well suited for the job. She didn’t really have any qualifications. Now I know. It was to protect your secret. She knew what happened. Not only that, you forced her to help you.”

  “I didn’t force her to do anything,” she counters harshly, finally glancing up at me, then immediately dropping her stare back into her drink.

  “I told you it’s a lie.”

  “So I can show it to Walker?”

  I get no reply.

  “Personally I think he’ll be more bothered by the deceit than the violence. What do you think?”

  “What do you want from me?” she asks in a low voice.

  “I want to know if it’s true and if it is, there’s one other person involved in all this who’s just as guilty as you are and maybe even more repulsive. I want a name.”

  She raises her gaze and sits perfectly still, holding her glass in two hands now like a beggar might hold out a cup for some change. She fixes her eyes on a point in the past. I watch her and wonder if she thinks about it every day, or only occasionally, or maybe never, and which of these would make her a more terrible woman.

  She has always been capable of exquisite acts of ruthlessness because she has no allegiance to anything but her family and her wealth, but now she knows I have even less than that.

  “I want a name,” I repeat.

  “Go away, Scarlet.”

  “Sorry, Mom, but you’ve just guaranteed that I’m going to stick around. I’m going to stay until I find out what I want to know. What I deserve to know. What do you have to say to that?”

  Her eyes open so wide they seem to fill her face and a pale blue pulse begins to flutter beneath the tissue thin skin of her fragile throat.

  She’s afraid, but the moment passes.

  A private smile spreads slowly across her lips and she raises her glass to me in another salute.

  “Welcome home, darling.”

  twelve

  DANNY

  LIKE MANY BOYS WHO never knew their own fathers, Carson Shupe was a collector of father figures: a math teacher who was the first person to tell him he was smart; a young loan officer who lived briefly in the apartment across the hall who was the only man he ever remembered not sleeping with his mother; a black mechanic who worked in a nearby garage who let him hang out and drink Cokes and watch him work on cars; a long-winded assistant manager at a White Castle who was his first boss; a potbellied pharmacist who also lived across the hall and who did sleep with his mother and also molested him for several years when he was a child.

  In speaking about all of these men, Carson painted pictures of astounding individuals who possessed a rare mix of machismo and sensitivity. They were patient and caring, yet stern and demanding; encouraging and playful, but tough and dogmatic: all the qualities a boy wants in a dad and all the ones he needs. I highly doubt they were any of these things. I imagine the one quality they all had in common was time on their hands.

  They’re all here, though, sitting in the gallery at his execution. It’s bigger than I expected and much more opulent. The seats are upholstered in red velvet. The walls are covered with colorful tapestries of hunting scenes. A chandelier of polished deer antlers and candles hangs from the ceiling. The flames sputter as if unseen
lips are blowing on them, and the wax drips liberally onto the laps and the tops of the heads of the spectators, but no one seems to notice.

  The district attorney is here and all the members of the prosecution team. I wave at Sam, the assistant DA I worked with the most. He sees me but doesn’t wave back.

  Carson’s defense attorney is here, too, and the two psychiatrists who testified on his behalf. Behind them sit a quartet of silent, broken men, and I know without knowing that these are the fathers of the murdered boys.

  I search but none of the mothers are here. I realize there are no women here at all.

  Men continue to file in: prisons guards, inmates, the judge, reporters.

  Along the very back of the theater where the light is dimmest I see a group of figures I can’t identify. I strain my eyes and begin to make out their white hoods. They start to slowly shuffle down the aisle toward their seats. Their ankles and wrists are shackled.

  It can’t be the Nellies. The Nellies are dead and there’s no such thing as ghosts. It must be Tommy and the others in their memorial service getups. But why are they here? They have nothing to do with Carson Shupe.

  And why am I looking at the spectators? I should be sitting with them. We should all be facing the stage.

  “Tommy!” I call out.

  I expect my voice to echo around the cavernous room but it goes nowhere.

  I hear the clack of Rafe’s candy coming from under one of the hoods.

  “Rafe!” I cry.

  “Mommy!” I cry.

  She materializes out of the blue along with Molly and Fiona. They’re all the same age. They’re all young women the way Mom described them in her hospital room. Their skin is gray. They stare with their mouths open. Fiona is dressed in an old-fashioned long dress from her era. Molly wears jeans and a Speed Racer T-shirt, the cartoon I was watching when Mom’s screams ripped through the house when she found Molly missing.

  Mom is in a straitjacket.

  “You were supposed to protect her,” she says.

  “I was too little,” I plead with her.

  “You were her big brother. It was your job.”

  Carson strolls in wearing street clothes. He joins the women. He stands next to my mom and puts his arm around her shoulders. On one of his mangled fingers with the shiny pink tips is a big ruby ring.