Dead Letters

by Caite Dolan-Leach

  “Um, well, see, the coroner was able to find a few pieces of dental evidence, and he says they’re a match with your sister’s records. He’s ruling it a homicide.”

  20

  Taped to the windshield of Wyatt’s truck is a letter: T.

  Dear Tangled, Trusting, Trepidatious Twin,

  Ta-da! Is the Truth tentatively trying to tell itself? Are there tantalizing tip-offs and traces of what truly transpired? Tell me, tricksy twin, tell. I’m pretty sure I’ve surprised you, either way. Tell the truth. You weren’t expecting: teeth!

  I know, I know. A little tawdry, right? A bit gruesome, gauche, gory even. But the evidence doesn’t lie. Our good friend the coroner might, but dental records are dental records. Tough titty!

  I’m sure you’re scrambling around, looking for elegant solutions and a taut explanation for all this. I’m sure your mind is running at full tilt, tracking down any missing pieces and filling in the blanks where you’re just not sure. Much as I have been doing these last few months. When there’s a hole, the brain races to plug it, to stop the hemorrhage, stem the tide, close the gap, make up the difference. When you wake up and can’t remember where you’ve been for the last twelve hours, your brain helps you out. Oh, generous synapses! Oh, mysterious neural connections! The brain abhors a vacuum, and it will cram just any old thing in there, to make sure no one notices. But, of course, everyone does. Except you.

  So. You have some questions for which you need answers. And you will. Answer them. If only because I don’t believe in leaving strings loose, untied, untethered. Test those theories! Ask yourself the hard questions. Does Zelda think she can get away with this? What can her long-term plan possibly be? Where is she right now? Who is she? Hilariously enough, these are questions we’ve been asking all along, our entire lives, right? Can we pull this off? Who are we? What are we doing?

  Or here’s another option: Quit now. Don’t keep reading these letters, don’t finish the story, don’t find out what happens. Settle down with Wyatt. Why not jettison practicality, chuck your qualms aside, and externalize your vast anxiety, go forage in the garden for the biggest zucchini?

  But here’s a tantalizing piece of encouragement. You have all the information you need, right now. You know where I am already, and how I’m doing this. If you use your brain and just THINK, you’ll be able to figure it out. Unless, of course, you’re concerned. About your brain, I mean. Does your brain work the way it should, Ava dear? Have you noticed any Symptoms of your own? (Did you seriously think I skipped S? S has been there all along, skittering along the surface, sucking up space, scaring us shitless. As I suspect you have suspected before.) How’s your clarity these days? Let’s find out.

  You’re holding the next letter in your hand. Unearth it, uncover it. Underneath these carefully constructed surfaces we conceal our missing pieces.

  Your Taunting, Terrifying, Treacherous Twin,

  Z is for Zelda

  I read the letter aloud to Wyatt in his truck as he drives toward Watkins Glen. He is quiet, staring out the windshield with a blank expression. At one point, I lean over and try to squeeze his thigh, but he shrinks from my hand, and I withdraw, hurt.

  “Do you think…” he begins after I’ve read the note. “Do you think she could be dead?”

  “I mean…” I’m about to say “maybe,” but I don’t. “No, not really. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “But then the teeth?”

  I shrug. “I’m sure she thought of something. Bribed someone. I don’t know.”

  “But—” he tries again.

  “I just don’t think so. She’s jerking us around, Wy.”

  “Ava, you need to seriously consider that you’re not being entirely logical about this whole thing. I mean, I know you think you know her inside and out—”

  “I do, though. That’s what she’s counting on. And she knows me—that’s how she’s orchestrating this whole elaborate thing.”

  “Don’t you think it’s possible that you’re maybe projecting?” he suggests quietly.

  “Not really,” I snap. I drum my fingers against the panel of the door. I got off the phone with my father a couple of minutes ago; apparently they managed to track him down somewhere in town, and he’s going to meet me at the station. He took Opal home to look after Nadine. She said she didn’t want to come. I don’t blame her.

  We pull up outside and I hop out, not waiting for Wyatt to park the truck properly. I run through the glass doors, which seem strangely illuminated on the otherwise darkened street. Marlon is sitting in the waiting room, surrounded by “If You See Something, Say Something” posters and pamphlets on domestic abuse. He looks rough around the edges, his stubble thickening and his eyes raw. I’m glad he didn’t get on a plane back to California. I’m more than glad. I’m deeply relieved.

  Wyatt walks through the door a moment later, and I expect there to be some sort of bristling, on both of their parts, but instead Marlon looks up at Wyatt with a haggard plea, naked pain etched upon his face, and Wyatt just walks over and sits down next to him. When he gives Marlon a very masculine pat on the shoulder, my heart breaks a tiny bit. The lighting is surreal, and I suddenly feel insanely, absurdly irritable.

  “Jesus,” I spit out. “Do they need so much fucking fluorescence for the waiting room?”

  I pace the floor a bit twitchily. Wyatt eyes me with concern. I feel unhinged and am tempted to get up on a chair and take out the offending bulbs. I’m considering this obviously inadvisable course of action when two cops walk into the room. It’s Healy and someone I don’t recognize. The new guy has a traditional buzz cut and a slightly puffy look. From the way they’re standing, I can tell that Healy is the top and this new fellow is the bottom. I’m relieved that Roberts isn’t here. Maybe he had the good sense to get himself excused from this lovely moment of sharing. I have no patience right now for one of Zelda’s useful fuck-buddy friends, not when my nerves are so frayed.

  “Hi, there. I’m Officer Healy—we spoke earlier—and this is my colleague Officer Giles. We’d like to talk to you about your daughter—and sister—” He acknowledges me with a bob of his head and glances at Wyatt.

  “This is Zelda’s boyfriend. And mine,” I interject. Wyatt turns very pink, and Marlon jerks his head upright. Even from the corner of my eye I can see his jaw tightening and his neck straining in purplish anger. The cops look very uncomfortable. Officer Giles clears his throat.

  “Normally when we’re notifying next of kin—” he begins, and Officer Healy looks at him in alarm.

  “So we’re next of kin? Meaning she’s definitely dead?” I say with an inappropriate chortle. Wyatt gives me a look very similar to the one Healy is giving Giles. “A comedy of errors! LOL!” I don’t seem to be able to stop; I reflect that I’ve lost any ability to censor myself, if I ever had that skill. But didn’t I used to be composed? Isn’t there a self, a me, that is articulate and poised? I smooth my striped dress over my hips and rub my lips together, evening my lipstick in an attempt to reassert myself as a reasonable person. Where is my Parisian self, my good self? Evidently, I abandoned her the minute I got off that airplane.

  “What my colleague is trying to say,” Healy starts to explain, addressing himself to the men, since I’ve so thoroughly discredited myself, proven myself to be a hysterical female, “is that we’ve had some bad news from the coroner. I hope this isn’t completely unexpected, but we were able to match Zelda’s dental records to the remains of the body we recovered in the fire. As of just one hour ago, the coroner issued a death certificate for Zelda Antipova after completing a full autopsy on the remains. I know this must still be difficult and shocking for you, but we wanted to let you know as soon as possible.”

  He’s actually doing a very good job, I think. He sounds professional, practiced. I wouldn’t expect that these guys have many opportunities to use their next-of-kin speech. Maybe he did some Wikipedia research to polish his delivery.

  “Do we—do you nee
d me to sign anything?” Marlon asks flatly. It is one of the most definitive assumptions of parental responsibility I have seen him take. A signature. I’m impressed by this as well. Damn, everyone is just terrifically impressive in here.

  “We have some papers for you. Unfortunately, we are unable to release the remains into your care at the moment. Dr. Whitcross is ruling the death a potential homicide, and we will need to continue the investigation.”

  “Whitcross?” I say, suddenly alert.

  “Dr. Whitcross, the coroner,” Giles adds formally, trying to redeem himself.

  “The younger or the elder?” I press. Marlon and Wyatt frown at me.

  “The son. The younger,” Healy answers. Gales of giggles peal out of me. Of course! Very cute, Zelda. Everything falls into place with a soothing click, puzzle pieces fitting together. “Shock is very common when hearing this news. What you’re experiencing is completely normal,” Healy continues, reassuring me. “We have a grief counselor and a nondenominational chaplain who would love to meet with you and help you work through this.”

  “Do you have a pamphlet?” I ask, cackling. He has already started to reach for one when he realizes that I am joking.

  “Ava, maybe I should take you home.”

  “Are you driving, ma’am? It seems you’re under the influence.”

  “I never understood that phrase,” I muse. “Is anyone not under the influence? I mean, of gravity, of their mood, of their basic driving ability?”

  “C’mon, Ava. I think it’s time for bed.” Wyatt reaches a hand out to me, and I take it a bit loopily. Home to bed. Yes. That sounds like a good idea.

  We drive back to the house silently; I can tell he doesn’t want to ask me what’s going on, is concerned for my state of mind. So am I. As he prepares to pull into the driveway, I balk.

  “Nononono. I don’t want to go in. Opal. And Nadine…” My mind recoils at having to face either of them. And I don’t want to be in her room.

  “Do you want me to take you to the trailer?”

  I consider this. It’s a better option, for sure. But I don’t want to be surrounded by her things, her smells. I want distance. I shake my head.

  “Okay,” Wyatt says grimly. “The Darling house it is.” He swings the truck back onto the road and keeps heading up 414. I settle into the seat. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been to the Darlings’. Strangely, I find the prospect comforting. I pull my phone out and send Nico a text, asking for a favor. I’ve nearly figured Zelda out; I just need a few more scraps of information.

  It’s late, but it’s not so late that Wyatt’s parents are asleep when we get there. The lights are on in their big bungalow, nuzzled back into the woods, up a long driveway. They don’t have a lake view from their land, but they do have thick groves of conifers and an impression of abiding coziness, tucked back from the road. A nest. They were the sort of people who put solar panels on their roof in the seventies, who have been growing organic vegetables their whole lives. I glance at Wyatt as we park the truck, to see if he looks apprehensive. Neither of us wants a repeat of the unpleasant scene the last time I was here.

  Wyatt’s parents had disagreed quite strongly with me on whether Wyatt should follow me to Cornell or accept a scholarship to Northwestern. His parents wanted him to get away from Watkins Glen, to explore. Subtext: Fuck someone less uptight. Possibly with dreadlocks. And a penis. Break some rules. They looked at me and they saw my mother, Cape Cod, the pristine world of white conservative Democrats who spent their lives grimly peering out of their floor-to-ceiling windows and suffocating behind their bourgeois pretensions. They could imagine, as I could, Wyatt proposing to me with some moderately expensive conflict diamond, our organized and efficient wedding on the shores of Seneca Lake. We would make our own decorations, and the bridesmaids would wear matching navy blue dresses, tasteful and flattering. We would have two kids, possibly move to Ithaca. I would drink the way my mother did, and Wyatt would be the sort of man who wore khaki pants and drank beer from cans on the weekend while mowing the lawn with a kid on his lap. We would care deeply about how our living room was decorated, and we would invite Dora and Steve over on Sunday afternoons to play with the kids. Dora would occasionally feel the absurd impulse to wear pearls, although she didn’t own any real ones, a feeling she would repress and wave off with an amused flutter of the hand, but it would somehow return to her when she was sipping port from Waterford glasses at our big dining room table. Steve would refrain from smoking pot on the days he came over to our house, because it would make him feel wiggy to stand on our white carpet while baked out of his mind.

  As Wyatt opens the door for me, I wonder if they have shaken off the ghost of that possible future, as I have. None of that will happen now; they dodged the bullet. I have no doubt they smiled in shocked pleasure when Wyatt mumbled to them that I was moving to Paris. We hadn’t been speaking then, but I’m sure he eventually answered their questions about where I had gone. And I’m equally sure that they lit up a celebratory spliff at the news, toasting their son’s newly recovered future.

  There is music playing in the living room, and a sense of festivity hangs in their warmly lit wooden house. The rustic beams reflect the golden light of candles and domestic content. Whereas Nadine’s house is all clean modern angles, hard surfaces, and glittering glass, the Darlings’ house is cluttered corners, stacks of paperbacks, mismatched rugs, the mysterious scents of herbs (weed and sage, mostly) wafting through the rafters. I have always treated them coolly, concealing how desperately envious I was of their silly, cheerful home life. I wanted what they had; I had no desire to replicate my parents’ life or my mother’s fantasy of connubial and familial bliss. I always wanted to say, I’m not a threat to you! I want to learn how to do this, to leave the pillows scattered on the floor for three days, to drink out of smudged, mismatched glasses. To unclench. But all they saw was my hostile face, carefully sketched in neat eyeliner, swatches of blush, tidy dresses with reasonable necklines, thin ankles displayed in delicate, impractical flats. Or maybe that’s what I wanted them to see.

  Dora and Steve are sprawled on the couch, their legs laced together and Janis Joplin crowing on their record player. They glance up in stoned surprise when we enter.

  “Wyatt!” Dora says, standing. She looks the same as ever: dark hair flat and volumeless, her face without makeup, a formless dress made out of that ubiquitous yoga material highlighting rather than concealing her squarish, lumpy figure. This is a woman who doesn’t, hasn’t, will not diet, who does not and never will apply expensive cream to her jawline. She smells of patchouli and tomato sauce. I am bowled over when she gives me a hug, a real genuine snuggle hug. “Ava. Christ. I’m so very sorry about your sister.” She pulls back and looks at my face, searching for me in the familiar bone structure of my sister. She has grown accustomed to Zelda, and I am an interloper wearing her body. She squeezes my wrists affectionately, and I try to smile.

  “Thanks,” I manage. Steve has joined his wife, and he, too, gives me a hug, as well as a peck on the cheek. I smell his sour breath and the scent of primo marijuana that lingers in his bearish beard. His hairline has receded since the last time I was here, and his potbelly is more pronounced beneath his loud Hawaiian shirt. “Hi, Steve.”

  “Ava. You poor thing. Cosmic injustice.” He pats me on the shoulder, with Dora still holding one of my wrists, and I am claustrophobically aware of how close they are. The Darlings are touchers. I take a step backward, unable to help myself.

  “Can I just—can I get myself a glass of water?” I say, already moving toward the sink. As I face the cabinets and reach for the cleanest glass in sight, I scan the counters for any open bottles of anything. Wyatt’s parents drink, but not the way mine do. They are happy drinkers, the sort of people who can leave a bottle of wine unfinished, out in the open for a day or two. They tend to be high most of the time, so they’re not into purely sober living, but they don’t spend their days in the dereliction of
the addicted, with the relentless anxiety that there will never, in all the world, be enough. I fill a glass from the tap. They don’t have a filter installed on the faucet like Nadine does, which means their tap water tastes a little iffy.

  “Want something to drink, bunny?” Steve asks me, and I catch both Dora and Wyatt glancing from me to each other. I wonder if Zelda has been especially slushy while she’s here, or if I was messier than I remember during that last year at home. I wonder how long it took before Steve was calling Zelda “bunny.” He’s never called me that before.

  “Whatever’s easiest,” I answer, relieved. “Thanks.”

  “How about a beer?” Steve asks, heading to the fridge with a bouncy gait. He walks like the steps he takes are too big, as though he’s almost hopping from one foot to the other, on the outsides of his feet. He fishes out an unlabeled bottle of beer from the fridge, cracks it open, and presses it into my hand, with another squeeze to my shoulder. I look at it before taking an exploratory sip. “I’ve been brewing a bit, recently,” he tells me. “This batch is pretty good.” He nods. “Extra tasty.” I smile a thank-you, feeling relief at the cold bottle in my hand.

  “Any news?” Steve asks. I look over at Wyatt, unsure what to say.

  “They’ve verified that it was Zelda in the fire,” he answers stiffly. Dora and Steve both flinch, and their faces crumple simultaneously in the identical expressions of the long married.

  “Oh, God,” Steve says. “That is just awful. Shit. I’m so sorry. I mean, I know we were sort of expecting that, but we were definitely holding out hope.”

  “How is your family doing?” Dora asks.

  “Not at all well. But then, that’s been the status quo for a while now,” I answer.

  She snorts, then realizes that the statement may have been intended as a provocation and squints at me with a hint of the old suspicion.

  “Well, I think any family that goes through this sort of thing gracefully lacks a soul. You all are enacting your karma, and that’s all,” she says.