Abigail wiped her eyes on the duvet, clutching Becky’s iPhone to her chest.
At least Melanie and Grahame had left her alone. Of course they had. They weren’t Nieve; they weren’t even Arthur at No Life. They didn’t know her, so they couldn’t console her. Nor she, them.
HOURS PASSED. ABIGAIL COULD hear people talking in the room across the hall. She could hear doors opening and closing, the body being taken away, cars coming and going in the driveway. She covered her head with a pillow, squeezing down on her ears. She did not want to hear.
Don’t come near me, she willed. Don’t anyone come anywhere near me.
But it was self-pity rather than grief. She knew that now. Weakness, she thought again and again as the sun turned her shades a fiery orange and disappeared.
Poor, poor Abigail. A happy future: gone. A good life: splat.
Well, screw weakness. Screw it all. She wondered if she should just get back on the plane, go back to Glasgow. At least there she knew how to deal with unhappiness, having never expected anything else. Here, in this weird wonderland-now-hell, she had no idea how to cope.
TWO DAYS LATER—AFTER silent meals, after silent retreats into silent rooms, and after the very occasional silent hug (Abigail counted three with Melanie, two with Grahame: all random)—she sat with her new parents in the backseat of an old-fashioned, shiny-black car. It was like the ones Royals took to do that dumb wave, minus the pageantry.
A long line of similar vehicles followed them. Down they went, through tree-lined streets … past the gated houses, out of the neighborhood, and finally along the beach. The hearse led the way, Becky in charge of this somber parade.
Grahame sobbed occasionally into Melanie’s shoulder. She wiped his tears with her hanky, held him tight.
Abigail had cried however long she’d needed to cry in private. Right now, she held in her tears. She observed. There was no way in hell she’d ever go back to Scotland. Of that she was sure. She wasn’t exactly in robot mode. She wasn’t sure if she could ever return to robot mode again. But she refused to break down.
Besides, she was a pro at death. This was the second funeral she’d attended in a week. Of course, only three people had managed to make her mother’s: four if she included the priest. Her sister’s funeral was the polar opposite. The church was overflowing with well-dressed mourners, choir singers, violinists, and extravagant floral arrangements.
As Abigail took her seat in the front pew, her eyes zeroed in on the large portrait of Becky. There she was, pictured on a sumptuous, rose-littered table near the coffin. Interesting: that smiling face in the photo was quite a few years younger than the Becky she knew. Long hair. Fresh-faced. No piercings. Grahame had obviously chosen a shot that he approved of.
As for their father, he’d written a eulogy, but only managed a few words before collapsing into a blubbering heap. Mr. Howard walked up to the front of the church and rescued him, taking the sheet of paper and reading out the story of Becky’s life. Amazing, like a true politician, he managed to make the speech sound fact-ridden and insincere. “She loved art at school, was an excellent swimmer, made an impression on everyone she met …” If Becky could hear, wherever she was, she’d be rolling her eyes and exhaling big puff of pot smoke.
As for Melanie, who knew what was going on under that black hat? Maybe Melanie was a bit glad. She was so very still in her tight black dress, meticulous makeup, and perfect hairdo. Maybe she worried that the slightest movement would betray the truth: I am free. The difficult teenage stepdaughter was gone; replaced by a pliable new one, grateful to have been saved.
Abigail began to feel sick. She snuck a quick scan of the congregation, hoping to spot Stick. She wondered which costume he’d choose to wear, graffiti artist or posh ass. He was the only person she wanted to talk to, the only person whose shoulder she would have welcomed.
He wasn’t there.
The last time Becky had seen him, she’d called him “sweetie.”
Not so sweet after all, Abigail thought numbly. Maybe that was for the best.
THE CEMETERY WAS PERCHED on a bluff overlooking the ocean. A very expensive plot, by the looks of it, with room for the rest of them when it was their turn.
How tidy! Abigail thought as the coffin was lowered into its hole. This is how it all ends. I will be buried in a place I don’t know with a bunch of people I don’t know.
At the graveside, a girl Abigail’s age read a pretentious poem. (The girl hadn’t been at Abigail’s homecoming party.) Another stranger sang a tear-jerking ballad. Abigail had only known Becky for a few days, but she knew Becky would have howled in protest at this charade. She found herself thinking of Nieve’s funeral. She knew nothing about it, but she was at least certain it had been real. She knew it had been down-to-earth, honest, appropriate. It hadn’t made Nieve out to be a saint, hadn’t overly celebrated some random part of her life. (Swimming competition? Really?) It had been the kind of funeral that would have been perfect for Becky.
Oh, how tasteful the hors d’oeuvres at the reception afterward!
How plentiful the excellent wine!
How sad, sad, sad all the strangers!
That wasn’t entirely fair. Grahame’s suffering was real. He sat quietly at the bar, drink in hand. Mr. Howard and Melanie took turns to comfort him. Abigail felt too awkward to make her own move. Besides, what could she say? A hug might prompt some outburst, and she didn’t want to start crying, not here. So she kept her distance. But mostly she was afraid. She was afraid of what he really thought, what everyone really thought.
Three days after Abigail had snatched a spot in this family, Becky had snuffed herself out.
Whenever Abigail caught someone’s eye, she couldn’t help but wonder if they were rendering judgment. You’re no better than a murderer.
Enough. Time to leave. She strode out the door, down the driveway to a steep rocky path that led to the shoreline, and past boats moored in front of an exclusive yacht club. Soon, she was onto the beach. Kicking off the heels Melanie had bought, she walked barefoot in the hot sand for a long while—further and further away, as far as possible from that tragic farce of a funeral reception. For Becky! Exhausted, she sank cross-legged in the shade of a secluded dune. No use caring about ruining her new dress; she’d never wear it again. She wiped the sweat from her brow and touched the chain and key around her neck, the one Nieve had given her. It was a small, insignificant object, like her mother’s photo. Like Becky’s iPhone. Artifacts of the dead.
Almost without thinking, Abigail pulled the iPhone from the black Hermes purse Melanie had loaned her. In the past forty-eight hours, she’d keyed the pin number a few times, 9746—and had even found their Shining video file—but she hadn’t mustered the courage to open it. Now, sitting in the sand all alone, Abigail pressed PLAY.
Waves crashed on the shore in front of her as the small screen lit up. An unpleasant thought occurred to her as she stared at the tiny, jerky image of herself. Did Becky already know what she was going to do? Is that why she’d suggested they focus on fun that day? Is that why she’d made a point to tell Abigail both the pin number and her phone’s hiding place?
Abigail: “She’s filming me.”
Squeaky-Voiced Finger: “Well stop her.”
Abigail: “I don’t know how.”
Squeaky-Voiced Finger: “Grab it, grab it, the phone, grab it.”
Becky’s face filled the screen. “HEEEERE’S BECKY!”
Popcorn. Laughter. The image spun abruptly from floor to ceiling.
Abigail thought that the video might bring her to tears. But now she was confused and pissed. The girl who’d made this silly little film was raucous, full of life. And that night, she’d killed herself? Abigail watched the video again, pausing on the close-up of her sister to study her face: bright, intensely happy, almost unbearably beautiful. She replayed. Then again.
With each viewing, Abigail’s confusion intensified. She remembered something Becky had said in the
pool: “I don’t want to get all heavy right now. We’ve got all the time in the world for that.” She remembered how the visit to Joe at Juvie had affected her, how she had promised to break him out the following day. Something had upset her when they were with him, something she’d wanted to hide …
Abigail’s grip on the phone tightened.
Back at the house, Becky had mentioned that her computers were back on. It was one of the very last things she’d ever said, in fact. If she had killed herself, something must have happened to drive her to it. Had somebody wanted her to see something? Had someone been snooping around and discovered something they shouldn’t have? Was that why the computers had been confiscated?
Shite. Abigail might have been clutching at straws, anything to believe that her sister was not consumed by depression and hopelessness—anything to ease the guilt that Abigail’s arrival had contributed to her death. But, no: it didn’t add up. Becky wasn’t that good an actress. Nobody was that good an actress. She hadn’t been phony with Abigail on their “fast-forward bonding day.” When she’d said that the two of them had all the time in the world, she’d meant it.
So … why? There was some kind of countdown in Becky’s life—but to what? She was always in a hurry. Why have a “fast-forward bonding day” if you had all the time in the world?
Abigail switched off the phone. Too hard to look at. Too painful. Too fast, too fast, she thought for the first time since boarding the airplane back in Glasgow. Instead, she stared straight ahead. Somewhere out there, she thought, somewhere beyond where the water blended into the horizon, was the world she had come from. A rainy, miserable, and awful world.
Only now did she wish she’d never left it.
BECKY JOHNSTONE’S BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE
Abigail painted the words, graffiti-style, as best she could. She filled each letter with bright colors using the brushes she had purchased right after the funeral. In the days since, she’d practiced on plain paper many times. Now she felt accomplished enough to do it for real.
Well. Close enough. It wasn’t as easy as it looked, but the end result would have to do.
The idea had struck her on the sand dune. If Becky had taken her own life—and Grahame and Melanie and the police all believed with certainty that she had; the official investigation was now closed—then Abigail wanted to understand why. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that something terrible had driven Becky to it, something terrible after Abigail had seen her last. It was the only possible explanation. There had to be clues in the past, both recent and distant. So Abigail intended to get to know her sister from start to finish.
In truth, the deeper truth, Abigail also wanted something more than the iPhone as a memento. She had next to nothing to remember Nieve by. It was too late for her. But Abigail would fill this book with every detail she could find about Becky Johnstone. She would channel every ounce of that old robot precision into this one project. If she’d done this for Nieve; if she’d created something more meaningful—anything—that would help her remember, to celebrate, to grieve … then maybe she could be at peace with Nieve, too. Free of Nieve, if she were even more honest with herself. Free of Sophie, too. Would she ever be free of the mother she never knew?
Maybe through Becky, she could be.
This book would be Becky’s biography, her legacy, her tribute. A way to cope with the tragedy. Closure. But, most important: a search for Becky’s motive.
Abigail’s eyes burned as she wrote the dates below the title, American style.
07-04-1994 – 05-08-2012
Less than nineteen years. Stray cats lived longer lives on the streets of Glasgow. Billy had outlived Becky. It wasn’t right. Anger welled up inside her again. But she quashed it. Paint now dry, she turned to the first fresh blank page of the book. Ever methodical, she would start at Day One. For this, she needed assistance.
AT DINNER, ABIGAIL CHEWED on the gristle that was Melanie’s beef stroganoff. All three labored over the food in silence, their new routine. Eventually Abigail gave up trying to eat and slid the lump of meat into her napkin.
“I was wondering if I could look at some of the things from when Becky was little,” she braved. “Do you have photo albums? Her birth certificate?”
Grahame stared at her for a moment, perhaps surprised she’d spoken. “Of course.” Dinner forgotten, he stood and retrieved a photo album from his den and waved her into the living room. “Come and sit with me for a while, come.”
Melanie continued to eat, head bowed, as if she hadn’t even heard the exchange. Abigail swallowed and nestled into the sofa beside her father.
He took a deep breath before speaking, his eyes on the album. “Listen, Abigail. I know this must be impossibly difficult for you. But I want you to know two things. The first is that you, here, now, becoming part of my life—it’s a miracle. I cannot even begin to tell you how grateful I am. The second is … I want you to understand it’s not your fault. Becky was—well, she was mixed up. But this had nothing to do with your coming here. Do you understand that?”
Abigail bit her quivering lip to stop the tears. “How can you be sure?”
“Here.” He handed her a clean tartan handkerchief from his trouser pocket then drew another deep breath. “Let me tell you a story. Dennis—Mr. Howard—and I had a best friend at school.” He flashed a bittersweet smile at the memory. “Ian Baker. Bakes. Inseparable from kindergarten. As teens we went a bit wild. Drugs, booze, tattoos … Dennis and I grew out of it. We were competitive academically, and we wanted to do something greater, something of service. I suppose it’s what led me to the military. But Bakes, he floundered. Got kicked out of school. Turned to crime. He broke into a house when he was seventeen. His plan was to steal money for drugs. The woman who owned the house also owned a gun …” He didn’t finish.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too.” Grahame absently stared down the photo album. “He was so bright, so funny. He just got into the wrong things, didn’t know when to stop, took it all too far. Of course we blamed ourselves. I gave him his first joint; Dennis showed him how to hotwire a car. Blamed ourselves like we’re all doing here now. But the truth is, for Bakes and Becky, you can’t blame anyone. All you can do is get on with things, to make sure people like them—unsettled people—have a chance, that they are given the right direction. So, no blame, okay?”
She nodded, wiping her eyes with the tartan. “Okay.”
“Are you okay?”
“No.” She managed a sad laugh through her tears. “Sorry.”
“Please, don’t apologize. I’m not okay, either.”
Abigail glanced back into the dining room at Melanie, who’d begun clearing the table. She saw now why Becky had called her the Stepford Wife. Her expression was grim, but not pained. If anyone exemplified robot mode, it was this woman. Abigail was almost envious.
“Melanie is okay,” Grahame said, following Abigail’s gaze. “She’s tougher than I am. A tough cookie. She grew up in a trailer park, can you believe it? Parents died when she was fourteen. She keeps things on track. I’m so thankful to have her. I’d be a wreck without her, even if …” He swallowed. “And you. I’m saved by having you here. My lost little girl.”
Abigail nodded. She was tempted to ask what brought his lost little girl here in the first place. Grahame never once addressed the subject of Sophie Thom. Not now, not with Becky, not since she’d arrived. Was it because Sophie fell into the Becky and Bakes category? Had Sophie been nothing but trouble for Grahame? Was the whole Socialist Workers Party thing his last foray into a wilder side he’d forsaken, or maybe even a noble attempt to save the woman he loved? Were the mixed CDs the last remnant of that effort to save her?
The questions died in Abigail’s throat. Instead, she simply leaned over and hugged him.
He hugged her back.
It was the first time Abigail felt no awkwardness with her father. She didn’t let go for a long time.
Born: 07-04-94, Western Infirmary, Glasgow.
Wow. Not only was Becky’s middle name “Sophie”; she was born in the same hospital where Sophie had died. Three blocks from No Life.
Mother: Sophie Thom-Johnstone.
Father: Grahame Johnstone.
Weight: 7 lb. 10 oz.
Address: 18 Henderson Street, Hunter’s Quay, Dunoon.
Siblings: X.
ABIGAIL SCANNED THE DOCUMENT on the printer Melanie had bought, reducing it so it fit the first page of her book. Pasting the back carefully with glue, she pressed it onto the paper. Item one: completed. The first photo in Grahame’s album had been taken in France, or at least it looked like France; that was the Eiffel Tower, yeah? Becky must have been around two, chubby, rosy cheeked, and smiling broadly on a stone balcony—hotel room, probably—with the tower in the background. There were no earlier photographs.
So. Becky’s first years were a gap, a void. She didn’t want to ask Grahame about them. He had enough on his plate. She’d have to think of some other way. Maybe there was a pediatrician’s file or something … As she was mulling, Abigail remembered what she’d stolen from No Life, what she’d stuffed in her Nike bag, what she’d never bothered to unpack. Not that she’d forgotten, obviously, but she knew the mere sight of it would make her sick and take her right back to Glasgow. Still, there was a chance it contained some information about her mother and sister. Biting her cheek, she reached up to the hiding place in the top shelf of her closet.
Down came the backpack, flopping on her bed. Her fingers felt damp and clammy as she unzipped it and removed the familiar orange file from the bottom of the bag.
ABIGAIL THOM.
50837.
A wave of nausea rose in her stomach. No matter what, no matter how far she got from Scotland, she would always be Child Number 50837.
The file was divided into sections: Information. Correspondence. Reports.
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