I smiled. This, I remember him telling me.
“But the money had to go into the family pot. We were allowed to keep ten percent, like a reverse tithe. Danny, the thing is, while it sounds crazy, other than the Jeanette thing – which I, for one, just tried to ignore – a lot of it worked. He gave self-esteem to a bunch of kids who had none. We cooked and cleaned together and we still played games on Friday nights.”
“Sounds nice,” I said. “That part, anyway.” I couldn’t get the image of a man who would have had to have been in his thirties at the time, taking a twelve-year-old girl into his bed.
“Eventually things got weirder, though. Michael set up a quota – any kid over twelve had to bring in a certain amount of money each week, and he didn’t care how we got it. Stealing, whatever. Then he started a chocolate-bar scam – you know, kids wandering around shopping malls selling chocolate for a youth group or whatever? Well, every Saturday a few of us got dropped off at a different part of town and we had to pretend we were selling chocolate in support of our local 4-H club, or whatever he thought up that week.”
Our steaks came, but I barely noticed.
“It was still fun. I mean Michael had a whole elaborate system of rewards for kids who brought the most money into The Family. He had a great sense of humor, though not about himself – he couldn’t take a joke on himself, that’s for sure.”
“It sounds like he was building his own army of misfits,” I said. I cut into my steak. Beautiful.
Jack talked about starting to realize, when he was fourteen and thick in the grip of adolescent hormones, that Michael was encouraging Jack to have sex with one of his “sisters.” They weren’t related by blood, Michael told them, so there wasn’t anything wrong with it. Michael told Jack that it was a reward because Jack was bringing a significant amount of money into the house – he was tutoring students in math after school and on weekends, and of course he only kept his ten percent.
“One early evening I was in the stable, mucking out the stalls. Jeanette came in – I guess I would have been turning fifteen by this time, so Jeanette was fourteen – and without a word she pulled me away from what I was doing and…”
I put my fork down.
Jack didn’t look at me. “Danny, I was a kid, a horny kid who had been told that this was normal. It was my first time, but of course Jeanette knew what she was doing.” I thought I was going to be sick. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. I couldn’t blame Jack, I couldn’t. He was a kid, he didn’t know any better.
“I’m sorry, Danny, I’m sorry, but you have to know this. This is key to what’s going on right now.”
“Yup,” I said. “Keep going.” I sipped my water. I needed my head to clear up a bit, or I was scared I would do or say something I would regret, and all I should be doing was focusing on getting the twins back.
Jack and Jeanette became obsessed with each other, like any other young couple in love. Jeanette would sneak out of Michael’s room in the middle of the night and climb up to Jack’s top bunk. There were fewer boys now, Jack told me, and the bottom bunk was empty. After six months or so, Michael took Jack aside and told him that this was okay – as long as Jack kept being a “strong member of The Family,” things like ready access to whatever girl he wanted could be his. So Jack and Jeanette kept up their nighttime assignations, and things continued, as happily as they could.
“You’ve got to understand, Danny,” Jack said. He finally took a bite of his steak. Blood was congealing on his plate, and I lost my appetite. “This was my normal. I didn’t know any different, really. I mean, I went to school and everything, played baseball, all the normal things guys do. But we had no TV in our house, no visitors, no other family. Our moral code was Michael’s.”
I nodded. I tried to understand.
One day, however, Jeanette didn’t crawl into Jack’s bed, and not the next night either. When Jack saw Jeanette over breakfast the second morning, he saw that she had bruises on her throat, and she was quiet. When he tried to touch her, she jerked away and continued cooking bacon.
“I went to Michael right away. Michael said that physical violence was only called for against our enemies, never The Family. But Michael explained that Jeanette wasn’t bringing in her fair share, that at her age – fifteen, at this point – she had to earn her tithe.” Jack stopped, and laughed. I didn’t like the sound of it. “Her tithe, can you imagine?
“Michael had set up dates, as he called them, for Jeanette. Pay dates. He was selling her. I guess on the second night, the man got too rough with her. Tried to choke her.”
Jack’s voice was low, and I had to lean in to hear.
“I skipped school that day, and Michael and I talked for hours. He told me that he had a dream of creating a sort of empire, a business model of multiple income streams. That’s what he called us, by the way – income streams. He said he saw something in me, knew I was smart, a leader, and as he had raised me, he knew he could trust me. He said that for those of us who stayed loyal to The Family, you know – untold riches and success could be ours.”
“Sounds more like the mafia than a cult,” I said.
Jack smiled. “Sure. An even more twisted one, where you bring in broken kids and train them up to follow.” He pushed his plate away. I had never seen Jack leave a steak on his plate. “Anyway. That was the day that I knew that I would leave Michael, leave this place, and never look back. I would take Jeanette with me. I didn’t tell Michael that, of course. After our talk, Michael decided that we had a piece of business to conduct.”
I stayed still. I didn’t know if I wanted to hear what this piece of business could be.
“Michael drove me out to the farm where Jeanette had been hurt the night before. Some rich rancher had died and left everything to his shit-bag son, and Michael said the son was blowing through his father’s money so fast there would be nothing left in a year. Michael said the guy was actually doing drugs. Michael thought people who did drugs were the lowest strata of society. Bottom-feeders, he called them.”
“And him a pedophile,” I said. “Nice.”
Jack continued. “I was full of rage. You know?”
I nodded. I knew.
“Michael pulled up this long, winding driveway. On the mailbox it said ‘Heart’s Content.’ He named his fucking house Heart’s Content. This almost made me want to kill him more than anything else.” I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I knew the feeling – when you have hatred in your heart, anything can feed it.
“This skinny fucking idiot opened the door in his bathrobe, with a cocktail in his hand. It was early afternoon, just after lunch, and this guy didn’t look like he’d been to bed yet.”
I fiddled with my wine glass. Been there, done that.
“I didn’t know how to control my temper yet. I just looked at this guy, just stared at him for a minute. I know he said something to me, but I have no idea what. Then before I knew what I was doing, I was pounding him down. Punching. Kicking. I remember the glass in his hand sort of smashed against the wall and I caught a piece of it on my forehead.” Jack showed me the tiny scar that I’d noticed hundreds of times before and never bothered to ask about. He’d been a hockey player, after all.
“Then Michael was behind me. He stood there watching me, with his arms crossed, this – look on his face. Approval, I think. I’m still not sure.”
Someone cleared our plates, but I barely noticed.
“When I was done, the guy was pulp. I mean, he was still breathing, but his face was nearly unrecognizable. My hands weren’t much better.” I looked at Jack’s hands, which had touched me so gently. But I had also seen what else they could do.
“Then Michael kind of moved me aside and crouched down, whispered something in the guy’s ear. I couldn’t hear him. Besides, my blood was still up. I couldn’t hear anything. Michael went into the kitchen, cool as anything, and came back with a bag of ice for my hands. Then he disappeared down the hallway. He was gone for minutes – I don�
�t know, maybe five, ten minutes? When he came back, he was carrying a gym bag, swinging it from his hand like he was on his way to a racquetball game, not a care in the world.” Jack stopped for a minute and shook his head. It was all I could do not to reach over and stroke it.
“Michael just stepped over the guy on his way out like the guy was a piece of dog shit on the ground, and he led me back out to the truck. He sort of threw the gym bag on my lap and when we were on the road he told me to open it.” Jack ran his hand over his mouth, which seemed dry. “It was money, Danny. Bundles of twenties and fifties. There was about a hundred and fifty grand in that bag. Sitting in that truck, it just hit me: Michael knew. Somehow, he knew what this guy would do to Jeanette, and he knew what I would have to do to the guy. He knew.
“Michael just laughed and laughed, driving home, like it was the best day of his life. Which it probably was. I remember saying something about the police – I mean, wouldn’t the police be after me? Wouldn’t the guy call the cops? And Michael assured me that it wasn’t possible. It was all taken care of.”
I drank my water and looked down. It was all becoming too, too clear.
“That was it, for me. That was the moment that I knew I was out. But I also knew that I couldn’t let Michael know that. If I let him know that – well, I had a feeling I would end up worse off than that fucking miserable prick in his dead daddy’s mansion.”
“How much longer were you there?” I asked quietly.
“Two more years,” Jack answered. “I graduated early, got the scholarship, but didn’t wind up going to that school. I had been planning for a while, you understand.” He ordered a coffee. I shook my head. “I knew I was going to disappear. If Michael thought I was at Berkeley, I would always be there for him. I had my papers ready. I had saved up for nearly two years, for good fake papers.”
“Oh.” Somehow, I hadn’t thought of that. Jack MacRae was not, of course, his real name.
“Scott,” Jack said, half smiling at me. “Harper.”
“Scott, huh,” I said softly. “Nice to meet you.”
“Scott is dead. He died twenty years ago. But – well, they found me. And you. And Ginger and Fred.” Jack looked squarely at me.
“Right,” I said. “Right.”
21
Jack and I sat and talked for another hour or so. How he had gone to school in the Midwest under the name Jack MacRae.
“How did you pick it?” I asked. I smiled at him, trying to see a Scott Harper in there.
“When I was very little, I remember Doreen saying her mother was Scottish,” Jack said. He smiled. “And I just always liked the name Jack.”
“Me too,” I said, and realized I was whispering. Jack grabbed my hand.
“Danny, you have to hear the rest of this,” he said. “All of it.” I nodded.
Jack had gone through his young adulthood as happily as he could. He worked hard. He had girlfriends here and there, but the messed-up nature of his earliest relationship haunted him. He left the States and took a job in Toronto. He had what he called “flashbacks,” periods of paranoia that Michael and the others had found him. He didn’t trust anyone – until me. And Ginger, eventually, and Fred. But no matter how happy he was with me and my family, fear and paranoia were his constant companions. He told me he didn’t remember things about some of our marriage, at least towards the end when he unplugged our phone unless it was absolutely necessary, and insisted that we keep the drapes closed, twenty-four hours a day.
Then after we’d split, Jack had really gone off the rails. Six months of calling me, thinking he was being followed daily, then in a moment of clarity, he said, he checked himself into a hospital.
“In the States,” he said. “Good private hospital.” I nodded. He could afford it.
He stayed there for three months, he said, during which time the psychiatrists had him on a pharmacological regimen that seemed to suit him. They said he wasn’t schizophrenic, just severely bipolar, with paranoid delusions.
“Oh, is that all,” I said.
When he got out, he continued working. Took the gig in Bermuda, then on Grand Cayman, then back to Bermuda. He didn’t socialize, he said. Other than a few “paid companions” here and there, he kept to himself. Information I didn’t need to know. It got lonely in Bermuda, he said. An island of 65,000 people, and the ex-pats and locals had a very strict divisive line. Ideal, in a way, for a loner like Jack, but at the same time, not anonymous enough. He said he didn’t really talk to anyone during that time. Once or twice a year he’d phone a couple of his buddies from hockey back in Canada, but that was about it. “Fighting?” I asked. He nodded slightly.
“Just enough to keep my hand in,” he said. “Getting old.”
“Working out, though.”
Jack smiled. “Of course.” He took a swig from his glass. “Then,” he said, “Ginger called.”
He said she was lonely, that Fred was away all the time. She was concerned for him, she said. And wanted to talk about me.
“She knew, Danny,” Jack said. “About the crack.”
“I know,” I said. “Jack. I’ll never be able to shake this guilt.” He looked at me for a minute, and put his hand over mine.
“Danny,” he said. “You’re going to have to. You have responsibilities.” I nodded. I wasn’t sure what they were, but he was probably right.
“Continue,” I said. I let his hand stay on mine, until he decided to move it.
Jack and Ginger talked on the phone once a week or so, for a few months. He was getting worried about her, sensing there was a lot she wasn’t telling him about what was going on in California. She would never talk about Fred, but she talked about the boys a lot.
“Did you know Matty came first in his class last year?” Jack said. “He’s a smart kid.”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t know.” There was so much I didn’t know. A fresh wave of guilt washed over me, and made me nauseous.
“Don’t throw up, Danny,” Jack said. He knew me well enough. “Stay calm.”
“I’m fine,” I said. I took a sip of his soda, and nodded for him to go ahead.
Jack decided to go to California and see Ginger and Fred and the boys. Take a holiday from the islands and see what life was like in the real world. When he got there, he said, he knew something was wrong. This was not the Fred he knew when we were married. He was paranoid, angry, never home.
And Jeanette was living there. As the nanny.
Jack shook his head. “The second I saw her, Danny…” Jack stopped. “It was as though the world had ended, for the second time.”
I didn’t know whether the first was when he left The Family, or when I had left him. I didn’t think I wanted to know.
“At first, I didn’t know how to play it,” Jack said. “When I was finally able to get Jeanette alone – and she did a lot to prevent that – she pretended she didn’t know who I was, that she had never seen me before. She pretended so well, and it had been so many years…”
“You almost believed her,” I said.
Jack nodded. “Well, not really, of course. But my head…”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
“Ginger and Jeanette were thick as thieves,” Jack said. “Did everything together. Ginger told me she never wanted to hire a nanny, wanted to take care of her own kids, but Fred insisted.”
“So I gather,” I said. A fresh wave of anger at Fred made me close my eyes.
“But once Jeanette was there? Ginger loved her. They had fun. And I couldn’t figure out what the game was. I mean, Jeanette seemed to really love the boys, and I knew Ginger loved having her there. And… well, I liked seeing her too,” Jack said. He looked at me. “You left me.”
“Oh my God, Jack,” I started to say, but he stopped me.
“Danny, I’m sorry. I understand. I shouldn’t have said that. It was just – I was vulnerable.”
I didn’t want to hear this. I had to hear this.
“She told me tha
t she’d stayed with Michael for five years after I left, but things were never the same. And she knew Michael wouldn’t let her leave of her own accord, so she started saving her bits of money until she could get far away.”
Despite my hatred for the woman, I shivered. I could imagine what she had had to do to earn that money.
“We had a little thing again,” Jack was saying. “I was lonely. It was nothing.” Jack looked at his hands and squeezed them together until the knuckles went white. It had been a long time since I had seen that gesture. “Ginger never knew. Or – oh God, I think she didn’t. I hope Jeanette never told her. It was just brief. But, Danny, Ginger told me that Jeanette had been recommended by a friend of theirs, of hers and Fred’s. It was a fluke, as far as I knew. I mean, how could it not be? Jeanette never saw a picture of me around the house either, and said she had no idea of my connection to the family.”
“And you believed her?” I put my glass down. I needed crack. I couldn’t deal with this. “The one time you choose to put your paranoia aside.”
“Ginger’s not much for pictures,” Jack continued. “I mean, you and I had been split for a while. How could she know about your sister? I thought that was too paranoid, even for me.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “Obviously I was wrong,” he said.
Pure bloodlust. That’s what I realized I was feeling. I wanted so badly to hurt this woman, to give her a small taste of what she had done to the people I loved. And I wasn’t feeling quite as warm towards Jack – or Scott – now either. How could he believe that woman?
“What about the drugs,” I wanted to know.
“I don’t think they were doing drugs yet,” Jack said. “I mean, Ginger knew you were. She talked to me about how worried she was, how you wouldn’t let her fly out and visit you. But Ginger still looked like Ginger. Maybe a tiny bit thinner, but really, she was doing the whole Orange County thing, and I could see how Fred was pressuring her to be a different person. I tried to talk to him, you know, man to man and all that crap Fred likes,” Jack said. “But he wasn’t listening. Seemed paranoid.”
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