by Megyn Ward
I stare at her for a few seconds, trying to figure out what she’s looking for. What she wants to hear from me. If she wants me to tell her the truth or if I’m supposed to feed her the same bullshit line my regular GAL feeds me every time I bring it up.
Matthew, I understand you think you can take care of yourself, but you lack resources. You have no support system. No marketable job skills. Nowhere to live. No way to take care of yourself. I can’t, in good conscience, start proceedings when all of these factors point toward your failure as an emancipated adult.
Translation: No one wants you. No one wants to help you and you’re too fucked-up to help yourself.
Instead of answering her, I bitch out. Looking away from her, I just shrug. “If you read my file then you know why—probably better than I do.”
Giving me a small nod, Catherine leans into the space between us to lift the folder off the coffee table. Settling it into her lap, she flips it open to a place she has marked with a paperclip. “After witnessing the homicide of his mother, Cynthia Lynn Collins, at the hands of his father, Matthew Emmett Collins Sr. on 2/12/01, Subject was abducted by father and held captive for approximately 55 days. During those 55 days, Subject’s father allegedly abducted and murdered eleven women before being apprehended. The whereabouts of their remains are unknown, but authorities believe that Subject has knowledge of their location but refuses to cooperate, either out of fear or possible loyalty to his father.” Flipping to a different place in the file, she keeps reading. “Subject has made repeated requests to start emancipation proceedings, siting that he can “go live with my rich brother” but it is this writer’s belief that subject’s emancipation and subsequent freedom would not be in the community’s best interests.” Closing the file, she tosses it back onto the table in between us. “She thinks you’re dangerous, Logan,” she tells me, her soft green gaze sharpening on my face. “She thinks you’re like your father. That you sympathize with him—that, if given the chance, you might emulate his behaviors.” Her gaze softens a little when I flinch but she doesn’t stop talking. Doesn’t temper her words. “She thinks you have anti-social and narcissistic personality disorders but have somehow managed to convince the clinical team here that there’s nothing wrong with you and she seems quite sure that if we let you out of here, you’re going to hurt someone. She sites your paternal grandfather’s refusal to take you in after your mother’s death and your father’s arrest as evidence that you’re dangerous.”
She hasn’t said anything I didn’t already know. Nothing new but hearing it out loud still hurts. Still makes me feel like shit. “Is that what you came here to say?” I can barely get the words out past the dry knot of bitterness lodged in my throat. “Did you come here to tell me you think she’s right?” For some reason, the idea that this woman thinks I should be left here to rot, like everyone else, bothers me.
“No—” She shakes her head again and sighs. “I just want you to know what we’re up against.”
Up against?
Before I can ask what she means, she reaches into her bag to pull out a notepad and pen. “Actually, I went to see your grandfather yesterday. I was hoping maybe—”
“He doesn’t want me,” I say it quick, final. “Whatever you’re looking for from him, he won’t give it to you. Not if it has anything to do with me.” I wait for her to tell me I’m wrong. That my grandfather regrets leaving me in this place. That he loves and misses me. Wants me to come home.
When she doesn’t—when all she does is stare at me with wide, sympathetic eyes, I shrug my shoulders and look away because it’s either act like I don’t give a shit or start crying like a little bitch.
And I stopped crying a long time ago.
“Okay.” Clearing her throat, Catherine, clicks her pen and sets the point of it to her notepad. “Tell me about this rich brother you keep talking about—who is he?”
“Tob,” the name comes out rough, squeezed past a throat that’s suddenly too tight. I clear it and start over. “His name is Tobias. Tobias Bright. He’s not my real brother.” I hate saying it. Tob is my brother—my real brother—but this woman is a lawyer—she needs facts, not sentiment. “He was a resident here. He aged out a few years ago—he’s twenty.”
Scribbling furiously, she stops and looks up at me, suddenly skeptical. “Tobias Bright—the real estate tycoon?”
“Yeah—that’s him.” I laugh because Tob would hate hearing himself being described that way. “But it wasn’t Bright back then—his last name was Sawyer. He changed it when he turned eighteen.”
She starts writing again. “And if I reach out to him, he’s going to agree to help us get you out of here?”
Even though she’s not looking at me, I nod at her like an idiot because I’m afraid if I open my mouth to answer her, I’ll start bawling like a baby.
She believes me.
She thinks I’m worth saving.
“Yeah,” I finally manage to say. “Tob’ll help us.”
“Well then…” She looks up at me and her smile kicks into overdrive. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Thirteen
Jane
Boston, Massachusetts 2019
Instead of going to my mom’s like I’d planned, I chickened out and ended up back at home, digging through my dirty laundry until I found the pair of jeans I wore to the hospital.
Not obsessed.
Curious.
It’s okay to be curious.
Sending up a silent hallelujah that I was too lazy to do laundry yesterday afternoon like I’d planned, I dig through the pockets until I find what I’m looking for. Unwadding it, I sink down to sit on the floor of my closet next to my hamper. Smoothing the wrinkles out of the piece of paper against my thigh, I turn it over. Scanning the page, I take in the heavy, dark print that covers it.
It’s a letter.
To Logan.
From his father, the serial killer.
I shouldn’t read it.
Whatever it is, it’s private. It’s subject matter sensitive enough to make Logan angry.
I should return it.
I know where he lives. I can stick it in an envelope and send it back to him. Even drop it by the bar tomorrow after work or just give it to Patrick to give to him.
Instead of doing any of those things, I do the one thing I shouldn’t.
I read it.
May 19th, 2019
Dear Matthew ~
It’s been a long time. Longer than I’d like, but you continue to insist on making my attempts at communication difficult. I fail to understand where all this anger and resentment is coming from. Haven’t I done what a father should do and lead by example? I’ve forgiven you for your part in my predicament—why do you insist on clinging to old, useless sentiment? When are you going to accept that you can’t run from who you really are? When are you going to come to terms with the fact that you can change your name a hundred times, but it will never change the fact that I’m your father? I’m in your blood. I always will be. You can’t hide from who you are—what you are—any more than you can hide from me.
I speak from experience when I tell you that the sooner you stop fighting it and accept who you are, the happier you’ll be. I anxiously await that day and hope that when you finally do, you’ll share that happiness with me.
Until then ~
Your Father
The words on the page start to jumble and jump around, and it takes me a few seconds to realize why.
My hands are shaking.
No matter what it says, this letter is not from a loving father, looking to mend the rift between him and his son. It is not a letter from a father reassuring his son that he’s been granted forgiveness for his transgressions. That he has a place in this world. That he belongs to someone.
This letter has claws. It has teeth. Every word of it sharpened to a razor’s edge. Meant to cut. Draw blood. It’s a reminder than Logan will never escape him. That he will never really get away from the mons
ter who is his father.
Because that monster lives inside him.
Closing my eyes, I can see Logan standing over me, letter clenched in his hand, and pushed close to my face while he accuses me of being the one who shoved it under his door yesterday morning.
Are you the one who found me? Shoved this under my door this morning? Are you one of his?
Suddenly his behavior makes perfect sense. What would I have done? How would I have reacted if the very same day I got a letter like this shoved under my door, some total stranger followed me and spouted off things about me that she logically has no way of knowing.
I’d be freaked the fuck out.
And then, when he demanded answers to how I knew who he really was, I got cagey and refused to tell him. I gave him some flimsy-sounding excuse about—
There’s a knock on my front door, and I scramble up to push my way out of my closet and into my bedroom. Tossing the letter on top of my dresser on the way out, I hurry across the living room to stop in front of the door, just as the second flurry of knocks start up.
Checking the peephole, I pull the door open to find a slightly scowling Noah on the other side of it. Sticking my head out the door, I look to see Silver’s front door hanging open down the hall. “Hey, kid,” I say, finally aiming my gaze in his direction. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” The scowl on his cute little face fades away into a wide grin that makes me realize how much I miss picking him up from school every day. Now that Tobias is in the picture, school runs are his job. I’ve been benched, and even though I pretend to be relieved about it, it mostly sucks. “Mom’s home from the hospital and she says she’s starved, so Dad ‘n me are going to pick up a pizza and some ice cream. Dad wants you to come over and sit with her so he won’t worry, but Mom says he’s just being ridiculous.”
“Pizza?” I look over my shoulder at the cheap plastic kitchen clock hanging above my kitchen sink, expecting it to read sometime in the late morning. It’s nearly one o’clock. “Uhhh, sure,” I tell him, putting my plans to visit my mom on hold. I can always stop by after work tomorrow. It’s not like I’m in a hurry to tell her I’ve made a mess of things.
I swipe my keys off their hook before stepping out into the hall. Pulling the door closed behind me, I double-check the lock before following him down the hall toward his own open door. I can hear Silver and Tobias negotiating the amount of jalapeños he’s willing to have added to their pie.
Stopping in the doorway, I take a few seconds to take it all in. It looks like Silver opened a flower shop in her living room. They’re everywhere—dramatically intricate arrangements and sweet, simple bouquets stuck in jars filled with water to keep them from dying. A blush pink teddy bear, bigger than Tobias, propped up in the corner. A giant stuffed giraffe, its head scraping the ceiling, standing sentry over the sofa. And gifts—an Everest-sized mountain of them—crowding the tiny dining room table I helped Silver rescue and re-finish from a thrift shop when she was pregnant with Noah and freaking out about how she was going to be a terrible mother because she didn’t have any furniture in her apartment.
When she sees me in the doorway, Silver rolls her eyes and sighs. “I told you I don’t need a babysitter, Tobias,” she says, pinning him with a murderous glare. “I had a baby—I didn’t fall out a five-story window.”
Before Tobias can launch his defense, I push myself out of the doorway with a laugh. “That’s good,” I tell her, avoiding looking at Tobias all together on my way to the kitchen. “Because I’m not here to babysit you. I’m here to raid your fridge.” Pulling it open, I survey its pitiful lack of contents. Aside from the usual line-up of condiments lining the door-side shelves, I see nothing except a few sticks of butter, a half-empty milk carton, and wilting head of lettuce.
“Good luck,” Noah says as he scrambles up to take a seat on the stool at the counter behind me. “It’s empty. Because of the baby—that’s why we have to eat pizza on a Sunday.” Reaching for the butter, I pull it out and turn to set it on the counter to find him shaking his head in disbelief. I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing out loud because this is a kid who’s whole life has been turned upside down and the fact that he’s being forced to eat pizza on a Sunday instead of on its usual Saturday is obviously the straw that might break his six-year-old camel’s back.
The struggle is real.
“I’ll put together an online order and have stuff delivered while you and your dad are gone. Any special requests?” I ask while I hunt through the kitchen cabinets for the bag of popcorn kernels I saw in one of them the last time I foraged. Finding them, I give my booty a celebratory shake that has Noah dissolving into a fit of giggles.
“Can you get me some capers and lemons?” he asks me in a stage whisper, leaning into me across the counter for dramatic effect. “I want to make—”
“No chicken piccata,” Silver calls from the living room where she’s changing the baby’s diaper. “I can’t help you with it, and your grandfather has his hands full with the restaurant while I’m on maternity leave.”
“I don’t need help,” Noah gripes back, turning around to look at her through the open doorway. “I’m six now, remember? Chicken piccata is a baby dish. I don’t need—”
“Noah James—”
“I’ve got an idea,” I say, while I haul Silver’s rarely used commercial-grade stock pot up from one of the lower shelves and set it on the stove. “How about I be Noah’s sous chef.” Clicking on the burner, I adjust the flame and pour some vegetable oil into the pot. “I’d love to learn how to make chicken piñatas,” I offer, purposely butchering the name in hopes that Noah will giggle again. He doesn’t.
“We’re having pizza tonight,” Silver announces while she snaps the baby’s onesie back together, each word punctuated by the metallic click of a button. “I’ve been craving it for days now, and those stupid fancy restaurants in that god-forsaken hospital say they’ll make you whatever you want, but god forbid you tell them to put jalapeños on a fuc—”
“Tomorrow.” Tobias cuts her off with a decisive nod of his head. “Noah and Jane will make chicken piccata for dinner tomorrow night—tonight we’re having pizza,” he says, giving me a pleading look. “Are you busy tomorrow?”
“Nope.” I shake my head, mentally postponing my trip to my mother’s indefinitely. “My Monday is wide open,” I say, looking at Noah over my shoulder while I add a pat of butter to the oil in the pot and top it with popcorn kernels. “Deal?”
“Deal,” Noah grumbles as he slides off his stool with a disgruntled sigh just as my popcorn starts to pop.
Fourteen
Logan
I didn’t really think this through. I was so focused on getting answers that I never considered how seeing her again after all these years would make me feel.
The memories that it would drudge up.
How uncomfortable I’d feel, sitting at her kitchen table, watching her while she pours me the cup of coffee I said yes to, just to make her happy.
“We don’t have to sit inside,” I tell her as she turns toward me, mug in hand. “We can sit outside on the front porch if you want.”
“Here is fine,” she tells me, setting the mug in front of me, before turning away from me again to retrieve her own cup and a plate of store-bought cookies. “Unless you’d feel more comfortable outside.”
I would.
I’d feel more comfortable outside.
Where there are witnesses.
People who will call the police if I do something bad.
People who will hear her if she screams.
Because even though I’ve never hurt a woman in my life, never even wanted to, I don’t trust myself not to.
Don’t trust the monster that lives inside me.
Usually, I can ignore it. The part of me that whispers that I shouldn’t be left alone with women. That I might be dangerous to them, but finding that fucking letter shoved under my door, coupled with the whole sce
ne with Jane at the hospital yesterday, has left me raw. I can’t ignore that part of myself because it’s not whispering anymore.
Right now, it’s screaming.
“No.” I shake my head. “Here is fine,” I tell her because even though I’m terrified, I can’t tell her the truth without admitting why. “I just don’t—”
“I’m not afraid of you, Logan,” Catherine announces plainly, setting her own cup and the plate down between us before sliding into the chair across from me. “I’m not afraid of you because there’s no reason for me to be,” she says in that same blunt tone while she pushes the cookie plate toward me. “Oreo?”
I don’t want a cookie any more than I wanted the coffee, but I take one anyway. Twisting its top off, I pop it into my mouth and chew. It tastes like chocolate-flavored glue. Taking a drink of coffee to wash the taste of it out of my mouth, I nod. “You told your daughter about me,” I say, matching her blunt, decisive tone. What I don’t say is that doing so goes against attorney/client privilege. That she could be disbarred for it. “And I’d like to know why.”
“I didn’t tell Jane anything.” Sighing, Catherine takes a cookie for herself and dunks it into her coffee cup. “She went through my work files when she was fourteen and found yours. I think the fact that you two were roughly the same age…” She lets her explanation trail off with a shrug. Lifting her cookie to her mouth, she bites the soggy half of it off and chews slowly like she’s trying to figure out a better way to explain how it happened. “I was young when I had Jane—too young,” she tells me, deciding to take the circuitous route. “I was fifteen. When other girls my age were getting ready for their first homecoming dance or studying for their learner’s permit, I was learning how to change diapers and how to bathe an infant.” I don’t tell her these are things I already know. That I knew everything there was to know about her and her daughter before I even knocked on her door. “She was such a good baby, and everyone loved her,” she says, beaming at me with pride. “More than once, I was approached by social workers and adoption advocates, urging me to do the right thing. To give her up for adoption. They told me I was too young to be tied down to a baby. That I had my whole life ahead of me, and it would be a shame to waste it, fighting a losing battle. Attempting to break a cycle that I’d been caught up in since the day I was born—but I couldn’t. I was too stubborn and selfish to give her up. I loved her and was determined to keep her. She was smart and precocious, and as she got older, I…” She cocks her head and sets her half-eaten cookie on the table next to her cup. “I didn’t know how to be a mom,” she says with a shrug. Despite the casual way she says it, I can tell the admission bothers her. “I wasn’t even thirty, and I was trying to raise a teenager. I didn’t know how to do that, so I settled for being her friend. Most of the time, it worked out, but there’s always been a lack of boundaries between us.” She shakes her head like she’s afraid I’ll misunderstand. “Not disrespect. Jane was never that kind of teenager—she was never disrespectful or out of control—but she’s never been much good at curbing her impulses, and I’ve never been much good at curbing them for her.” Picking up her cookie, she drowns the last half of it in her coffee cup. “So, that’s how it happened. I came home late from work—it was the day we met. The day I sat in on your visit with that awful FBI agent and the prosecutor—I had your files with me, and instead of taking my work bag into my room like I should’ve, I left my bag on the kitchen floor and headed for the bathroom to take a shower. When I got out and headed to the kitchen to start dinner, Jane was sitting at the table, reading your file.” Rather than rescuing the cookie from drowning, she abandons it altogether, letting it sink to the bottom of her cup. “She started peppering me with questions—who administered your psych eval? Was I the one who wrote your case notes? Were they accurate? Did I think you were dangerous? That’s the only question I answered, Logan,” she tells me, reaching a hand across the table to cover one of mine. “I told her no—I absolutely did not think you were dangerous. I still don’t.”