by David Bell
“Don’t worry about that one,” Madeline said. “She has a good mother. And a good example of how to be strong.”
Janet walked back to her desk, and Madeline followed. Janet wanted to put her head down, to lose herself in work as long as possible. But Madeline had something else to say.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said.
“Yes?”
“I saw that you’re getting your wish. They’re moving Justin’s body.”
“That’s right.”
“When is that going to happen?”
“The coroner is holding the body until the state crime lab reports their results. If they’re able to use the DNA they got, then the body will be released back to us. After that, I guess.”
“Make sure you let me know. I want to be there for you.”
“Thanks. I will.”
But Madeline still didn’t leave. She leaned down and lowered her voice. “Is your dad going to go to the reburial?”
“I have no idea. Why do you ask?”
“I just remember Justin’s first funeral. Your dad didn’t shed a tear. I know how men are, you know? But still, didn’t shed a tear. I guess I just hoped you could both go. You were so young the first time, and he was…Bill. I thought, well, in a way this is working out to give you a chance to really say good-bye.”
“And what if it isn’t Justin in the grave, Madeline? What if it’s really my brother sitting in a jail cell not speaking to anybody?”
Madeline didn’t say anything to that. Janet didn’t think anybody had an answer for the question.
Chapter Thirty-nine
The answer came to Janet later that same day.
She had managed, late in the afternoon, to lose herself in her work for the first time in close to a week. A proposal to change the way faculty compensation was budgeted had landed on her desk in midmorning, and Janet spent most of her day reading it over, entering data into her computer, drafting an e-mail to send to the dean himself about whether the plan was feasible. She didn’t even look up from her computer screen until Detective Stynes stood next to her desk, his hands folded in front of him, a worried, pitying look on his face.
Janet could tell he knew something.
And her mind raced to guess.
“Can we talk somewhere private, Janet?” he asked.
Without saying anything, Janet led him across the hall, to the same conference room where she had spoken to Kate Grossman. Janet’s thoughts remained unfocused. She felt almost hysterical. She wanted to laugh, then cry. And when they entered the room, she thought, somewhat irrationally, that the drapes were out of date. What a dreary little room this is, she said to herself. I don’t think I ever want to come in here again. With anyone.
They sat down, and Stynes cut to the chase.
“The results of the DNA test are back,” he said.
Janet wanted to cry. She felt the tears welling.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but the results show with a high degree of probability that the body buried in that grave is your brother’s.”
The tears didn’t come. Janet felt some energy slip out of her body. Her spine became loose and springy, like a bouncing, flailing child’s toy. She slipped forward, out of the chair and onto one knee on the floor. Stynes reached out, placed his hands on her arms, and braced her. He kept her from going flat on her face.
But she didn’t cry.
Had she ever cried for Justin? Really?
Had she cried as a child when he first went missing? Had she cried at his funeral?
For a long moment, they sat like that, Stynes holding her limp body. But she didn’t faint or black out. She saw the details in the carpet. The loose threads, a paper clip shining in the fluorescent lights. The energy came back quickly. She felt her spine stiffen, felt the strength return. She pushed against Stynes, lifted herself back into the chair.
“Are you-?”
“I’m fine,” she said.
She slid back against the chair as Stynes let go. She pushed her shoulders back, lifted her chin. She would be fine. She knew it was likely it would be him. She could accept that.
Justin was gone. He was really gone.
It was over.
“Would you like me to call somebody?” Stynes asked. “Do you have a friend here?”
Janet shook her head. She was fine. And she didn’t want anyone else in the room. Certainly not Madeline. She could hear the news from Stynes, take the blow, and then figure out what to do next. She had to tell her dad, had to tell Ashleigh. She had to tend to the details of the reburial once they released the body.
“And they’re certain?” Janet asked.
“Yes. As close to one hundred percent as they can get. They were able to recover some very usable DNA, and the comparison was relatively easy as far as those things go.”
“And the man in jail?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“And Dante?”
“They tried but couldn’t recover anything that might be able to prove or disprove Dante’s guilt. I don’t think this changes much.”
“Thank you for telling me in person.”
“Janet, there’s something else.”
“I guess reporters will hear about this soon-”
“Janet? The tests showed something else.”
“Maybe we’ll get back to a normal life now. Maybe after the reburial-”
“Janet.” Stynes’s voice grew louder. It focused her, brought her back to the matter at hand. She looked at Stynes, saw the pitying look in his eyes. He had something else to say to her. What else could he possibly have to say to her?
“Okay.”
“Janet, they also tested your father’s DNA against the sample from Justin. Like I said, they do this to increase the likelihood of an accurate reading. When they received the results from that test, they found that your father and Justin share no genetic material. They’re not biologically related in any way. Justin is your brother, but he’s not your father’s son.”
Janet still felt strong. Something hot and red rose inside her chest. She no longer saw Detective Stynes sitting before her. She saw a small man, an imperfect man, one who couldn’t even manage the simple matter of reporting the results of a DNA test.
“No, you’re wrong.”
“They double-check their work.”
“You’re an asshole,” she said. She wanted to push back from the table, to lash out at Stynes. If she were a man, she’d hit him. He couldn’t say these things about her family. About her father. “That’s a lie.”
Stynes didn’t look wounded by her words. His expression didn’t change. He just looked tired.
“I’m not lying, Janet,” he said.
“Then they’re lying. Or they’re wrong. Crime labs make mistakes all the time. I see it on the news. The police make mistakes all the time. And so I can’t know that what you said about Justin is true. None of it is true.”
Speaking the words allowed her anger to ebb. She heard the irrational tone of her voice, the snapping, bitter quality to what came out of her mouth. Her chest still burned with an internal redness but it was not as hot. This was simply a problem that could be solved. They had messed up the test. How else to explain the nonsense Stynes was repeating to her?
Stynes remained calm in the face of her outburst. He nodded, his face and demeanor full of sympathy.
“This is something you’re going to have to take up with your father. The test results are conclusive. They don’t leave room for error. I can go with you when you talk to him if you want.”
Janet tuned him out. She didn’t need his pity. She didn’t need anyone’s pity. Her mind spun. Her father wasn’t Justin’s father? Justin was her half brother?
And then she had another thought: was her father really her father?
Who was he?
“I have to go home,” Janet said.
She stood up, although that word resonated in her head. Home. She thought she knew what that meant. Even after everything th
at had happened, at least she knew what that word meant. Battered and bruised and complicated, she knew where home was.
Didn’t she?
“Let me drive you. You’re upset.”
Janet held out her hand. “I’m fine. I can get myself home.”
“Can I follow you?”
She walked over to Stynes and held out her hand. He looked down at it, his face puzzled. They shook. “I know it was difficult for you to have to tell me this news,” she said. “Thank you.”
“I’m sorry I had to tell you,” he said.
“No, I know it’s your job.” She let go of his hand. She didn’t even know why she shook it, except that she felt like she wanted some kind of connection, something to show that she recognized the importance of what she had been told. She didn’t want him to think her irrational or incapable of accepting the worst. She was capable. She knew she was. And she had to believe Stynes knew it too. But still…she wondered. “Are you sure, Detective? About all of this? Are you sure?”
Stynes nodded. “I’m sure.”
“My brother’s dead. Really dead. And my father…”
“I’m sorry.”
But she didn’t want to hear that, didn’t want to or need to hear those words, so she left, heading for home.
Chapter Forty
“Dad?”
The house wasn’t just quiet-no TVs playing, no conversation or music. It felt quiet. Still. Like something had been removed. But she worried that the thing that had been removed had always been in her head: her own notion of home. Did the place just feel different because of what Detective Stynes had told her?
Janet went down the hall to the bedroom. The door was open, the bedclothes pushed down. The TV was off. She stepped back into the hallway. The bathroom was empty as well.
“Dad?”
As she drove home from work with Detective Stynes’s words spinning through her head, she tried to make sense of it all. And worst of all, it did make sense in ways Janet didn’t want to admit. Justin’s paternity made for a grand unifying theory of her father-why did he refuse to speak about the past? Why did he not cry at Justin’s funeral? Why did he throw those photos away? Because Justin wasn’t his? And the fact that it started to make sense made Janet feel even worse.
Her dad had known all along and didn’t tell Janet. Her mom must have known all along and never told. Who were these people after all?
Janet walked back out to the living room and into the kitchen. The lights were off, the late-afternoon sun slanting in through the back window. The trees in the yard provided shade and made the kitchen darker than the rest of the house during the summer. He was there, sitting at the kitchen table, an open bottle of beer in front of him. He didn’t say anything when he saw her, but he studied the look on her face.
“Is Ashleigh home?” Janet asked.
He shook his head. “She’s out with that boy.”
It looked to Janet like he knew, like he was anticipating the very question she was about to ask, but she asked anyway.
“Why did you provide that DNA sample, Dad?”
He nodded his head. There was nothing left to hide. He asked her to sit down across the table from him, and she did.
“It’s true,” he said. “That’s why I gave the sample to the police. I suspected it was true. Believed it really, all these years. I saw this as an opportunity to end the speculation for both of us.”
“You knew?”
“I suspected,” he said. “Your mother suspected, too. Nobody knew for sure. Nobody ever did a test or anything. Until now.”
“You wanted them to find out? With this test?”
“There’s no other way to prove it,” he said. “And I wanted you to find out. I thought you should know. This business with Justin and this man in the jail, I watch it tearing you apart. And now Ashleigh’s getting involved. We don’t need it, Janet. It was time to end it, and I hoped this would be the thing to do it.”
“Who’s Justin’s father?”
“I figured you would be able to guess already. It’s someone who was close to us at one time.”
Janet started to speak, then stopped herself. She thought about it.
“Ray Bower,” she said.
Her dad nodded. “Our best friends, the Bowers. Your best friend, too. Michael. Your mom and Ray had an affair back when you all were little.”
Her father didn’t meet her eye. He looked at the tabletop as he spoke. She saw the pain etched on his face, something that hadn’t left him even after twenty-five years. She thought about backing away and not making him relive all of it. But her desire-her need-to know outweighed any concern she felt for her dad. She’d waited too long to know these things, things she didn’t even know she needed to know.
“Did you know about this when Justin was born?”
He sipped his beer. “No. I suspected something was going on between them before Justin was born. They were awfully cozy, the two of them. More than you would expect from a man and a woman who are just supposed to be friends. But when Justin was born, I tried to put those thoughts aside. Your mother was a good mother-she really was. You know that, right?”
“I do.”
“I don’t want that memory to change for you. This story doesn’t invalidate what she was to you or what you remember her to be. You got that?”
“I’ve got it, Dad.”
“She was devoted to both of you, you and Justin. But when Justin was about two, I guess, things started to change again. I noticed the flirtations between her and Ray, just like before. They made jokes that only the two of them laughed at. They shared looks, you know?” He shook his head. “I hate to even say it. It makes me sound like a goddamned woman. But I knew something was going on there. Hell, maybe I even accepted it a little bit. I thought whatever it was would blow over, that it would cool off. I thought as long as we had the kids, your mother and I, that it wouldn’t matter what went on with anything else. I guess I thought that would trump everything. Little did I know.”
“No one could blame you for saying or doing anything.”
“I know. But I didn’t do anything. I just stewed. I think I deserve more blame for that, for just sitting there and taking it like an asshole.”
He stood up and placed his empty beer bottle in the sink. He reached into the refrigerator and brought out another one, twisted the cap off, and drank.
“Would you get me that wine?” Janet asked.
He grabbed the wine bottle and a glass and brought them to the table. He sat down with his beer while Janet poured her own drink. She needed it to listen to the rest of his story.
“Remember how fair-haired Justin was?” he asked. “Completely blond?”
“Sure.”
“Neither your mom nor I were blond, even as kids.”
“But that doesn’t mean anything.”
“He didn’t look like me, Janet. I could tell. I know you don’t like to think about it, but you look like me. But Justin, do you know who he looked like? His coloring, the shape of his mouth?”
“Michael.”
“Right. I wouldn’t have thought about it, but my suspicions made me look at those things closely. Janet, this is awful to say, but Justin just never felt like my kid. Not like you did. Not even the way Ashleigh does. Something told me he wasn’t mine.”
“But you never asked Mom?”
“Never. I didn’t want to know the answer. I came close a hundred times. Lying in bed, sitting at this table.”
“So you never talked about it?”
“We talked about it. Once. One day. That’s when I found out everything for sure.”
Janet tried to remember the times she had seen her father cry. She could remember only one-at her mother’s funeral. Janet’s recollections of Justin’s funeral were fuzzy, so she could rely only on Madeline’s memories and the words she heard from her father in the kitchen. But it seemed safe to say he’d shed tears only for her mother, and while he silently cried in the kitchen, his should
ers shaking a little, his face buried in his hands, she decided she really didn’t know what to do. She stood up and came around to his side of the table and placed her arm around his back. He didn’t acknowledge the gesture, but it seemed to bring him relief. His tears slowed and then stopped pretty quickly after that, and Janet returned to her chair after first grabbing a box of tissues off the counter and placing them in front of her dad.
He used one to wipe his face, his big hand making the gesture seem odd and almost comical. He took another drink and cleared his throat.
“I’m still crying over her,” he said. “Like a fool.”
“I think we can all relate to having strong feelings for someone, whether it’s good for us or not,” Janet said. “When did you talk to her about all of this?”
“About the affair?”
“Yes.”
“The day Justin died.”
“That’s when she told you?”
“That morning. Before we knew anything was wrong. That’s why I didn’t go to work that day. And when the police came, we told different stories. Mom said I was home, but I said I went in to work like any other day. I lied. I knew I didn’t go, but I lied to them because I didn’t want to have a bunch of questions asked. ‘Why didn’t you go in to work as usual?’ That kind of thing. I tried to keep it simple by not telling the truth. Later that day, Mom changed her story because I told her I didn’t want people to know the real reason I was home that day. It was embarrassing. And it really didn’t matter, because Justin was gone, and that was everybody’s focus.”
“Did the police ask you about the contradiction then?”
“I kept expecting them to, but they didn’t. I don’t know why. I think once they heard about a suspect being in the park, they zoomed in on that. I know that cop, Stynes, came here the other day because he suspected me. I know that. But they didn’t have any reason to suspect me besides that. I had no record. I never hurt you kids.”
Janet didn’t argue with him, but she knew her father’s detachment and demeanor made him a target as well. These were the same things that made Janet suspect him, the very things they were talking about in the kitchen. Her father felt emotionally detached from Justin his whole life-and that detachment could easily be read as suspicious.