Her Secret Son

by Hannah Mary McKinnon

  My gaze moved to the fluffy puppy slipper discarded on the ground, the pair with the brown eyes and pink tongue Logan gave Grace for Christmas, and which she’d insisted were the only thing that kept her feet warm. And then my eyes finally landed on the sheet-covered body on the ground.

  “No!” I yelled the word over and over as I lunged forward. “No! No! No!” until it came out as nothing more than a quiet moan. I noticed Mrs. Banks only when her thick arms went around my middle and she buried her head in my chest.

  “Oh, my Lord,” she said as I propped her up, or maybe she held me. The laws of physics made no sense anymore. “Oh, my sweet Lord.”

  Someone else put a hand on my shoulder. “Sir?”

  The police officer was minuscule, her head barely above the top of my shoulders, but her dark, oval eyes, framed by long lashes, were full of concern. Her skin, porcelain smooth and fair, was a stark contrast to the dusky circles underneath her green glasses. She looked at me and I nodded, absurdly hoping she’d tell me there’d been a mistake. I wasn’t the person they were looking for. She had the wrong house. The wrong family.

  “You’re Mr. Joshua Andersen?”

  After I’d nodded again, or maybe I hadn’t stopped, more of her words followed. They swirled around my head as if I were underwater, her sentences stubborn waves pounding my skull, searching for a way in. I looked at her name tag, which read J. Hiraoka, watched her lips as I tried to decipher what she was saying until, very suddenly, my hearing and focus all returned at once, as if I’d pressed some magic unmute button and had turned up the volume too loud.

  “...autopsy will confirm, but we believe it was severe and fatal head trauma from falling on the steps,” Hiraoka said as she looked at me, her blinking slow and deliberate, unoffending.

  Had she learned that at the academy? Taken “how to blink appropriately” lessons for when she’d have to deliver bad news? The thought made me want to laugh. Put my head back and let rip at the sheer ridiculousness of it, the craziness of the entire situation and the mere suggestion my Grace could be deceased. Laughing wouldn’t have been an entirely abnormal reaction. People do all kinds of irrational things when they’re confronted with death.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss, Mr. Andersen,” Hiraoka said, but when I still didn’t respond she continued, “Sir? Do you want to sit down, sir?”

  “I have to see.” My voice came out foreign, so alien I wondered if I’d spoken at all, so I said it again. “I have to see Grace.”

  Hiraoka and Mrs. Banks, who still clung to my arm, exchanged a glance before the police officer walked me the six longest steps of my life, while my neighbor stayed behind. All that time, right up until the sheet was removed, I tried to convince myself it wasn’t true. Couldn’t be true. But there she was; my perfect, beautiful Grace, her long, red hair framing her face, as it always did, a fiery sunset. She looked asleep, lips slightly parted, as if, any second now, she’d open her green eyes, sit up and point a finger at the hidden camera across the street.

  “Look, look, it’s over there,” she’d say. And I wouldn’t be mad. Even though it was the sickest joke she’d ever played on me, I wouldn’t be angry at all. I’d hug her, wag a finger at everybody around us because they were all in on it, and they’d chuckle, too, even after I called them a bunch of bastards.

  Yes, I’d do that. All of it. If only she’d just wake up.

  Grace lay there, her body eerily still. As I kneeled to kiss her, tears running down my cheeks spilled onto hers. My nose filled with the sweet scent of her favorite apple blossom shampoo, and I inhaled deeply until I thought my chest would implode.

  How could someone who still looked so perfect be gone?

  “Grace,” I whispered. “No, baby. Don’t go, please don’t go. We need you. I need you here with me, with Logan.” When she didn’t open her eyes, didn’t move, my heart pounded—wild horse hooves in my chest—as the sweat trickled down my back despite the fact I felt completely frozen, inside and out. I couldn’t be next to her, didn’t want to see her like this, but as I tried to get up my legs buckled and I stumbled, worked hard not go down again.

  Hiraoka’s hand went under my elbow, her grip surprisingly strong. “Mr. Andersen, why don’t we get you inside?”

  As I shook her off, swiping my face with the back of my hand, the desire to wrestle her to the ground bubbled to the surface. I opened my mouth to scream at the pint-size police officer, demand to know how she, old Mrs. Banks, the first responders and everybody else in my fucking driveway was very much alive when Grace lay there on the freezing ground, a slipper missing. How was it they got to live when she didn’t? It wasn’t rational, I knew, and thankfully my brain, which must’ve disconnected itself from my heart in a desperate act of self-preservation, commanded my hands to stay glued to my sides.

  “I don’t want to go inside,” I said, the sentence somehow escaping my clenched jaw, my voice gruff, tired, defeated. “I have to get Logan.”

  “Your son?” Hiraoka said, and I nodded, gave my head a shake, left the officer’s quizzical look unanswered until Mrs. Banks jumped in.

  “Grace’s boy,” she said, her cheeks flooding, and she dabbed at them with a damp, mascara-stained tissue. “Oh, the poor little soul. He’ll be at school and—”

  “I have to get him. I have to tell him...” My shoulders slumped. “Oh, Jesus, what am I going to say?” The tears came again as I imagined Logan’s face, smiling and excited to be picked up early, only to learn our lives would never be the same.

  “Do you have any other children, Mr. Andersen?” Hiraoka said.

  “No...” I said. “No. It’s the three of us.”

  “Is there someone you can call?” she said. “Your parents? Ms. Wilson’s? Another family member who can come over?”

  “No,” I whispered again. “My parents...they died a long time ago. My sister’s in New York, I think, on business. And Grace’s family...” I closed my eyes. Ever since we’d met, Grace had insisted that particular can of tangled, slippery worms stay nailed shut, but I’d be duty bound to open it somehow. Her parents—wherever they were—would need to know about their daughter, too. Looking at Hiraoka, all I said was, “It’s complicated.”

  “And Logan’s biological father?”

  “He’s never been in the picture,” I said, my voice low.

  “I see...”

  “I’m Logan’s dad.” I put a hand to my chest, the words coming out louder than I’d intended. “Me. Have been for five years. But he’s only seven and he needs his mom. How will he—” I couldn’t ask how Logan would cope. It was too reminiscent of what I’d gone through when Mom and Dad had died, and I’d been sucked into a cluster of rabbit holes, each one deeper and darker than the next, and from which I’d barely returned.

  Hiraoka nodded and pressed her lips together, no doubt trying to avoid sticking her foot into other areas of the murky mess that represented Grace and my familial ties. It wasn’t the officer’s fault. Most of that particular landscape was scattered with hidden land mines even her miniature, boot-clad toes couldn’t avoid.

  “Shall I fetch Logan?” Mrs. Banks said as she rubbed my shoulder. “I can—”

  “Thank you, but I have to... I should be the one to—”

  I stopped as two paramedics knelt down next to Grace, wanted to etch her face into my memory before they took her away. I knew how the images faded—quicker than morning mist in the sun. It had been almost two decades since Mom and Dad passed, but for the longest time already, the pictures weren’t as sharp. “Where will she go?” I said. “Which hospital?”

  “I’ll find out, sir.” Hiraoka walked over to her colleagues, their faces set in identical expressions, their voices low and tone subdued.

  When another pity-filled glance landed on me, I gave in to the churning waves of emotion throwing me up and down, left and right. My legs crumpled beneath me, and
as I slid to the ground, burying my face in my hands, all I could think of was Logan, and what would happen to us now.

  CHAPTER THREE

  We buried Grace fifteen days after the accident, but it might as well have been fifteen years. It felt at least that long since we’d spoken, I’d touched her skin, heard her laugh, or listened to her read Logan’s latest dog book with him.

  The silence in the house had become deafening. The whole place filled with an oppressing emptiness, making it barren, utterly devoid of happiness, as if all the joy had been sucked out of the walls and carried away with the bitter winds.

  The longest Grace and I had ever spent apart was a week, on the one occasion I’d made it back to England, money and time not permitting other trips. Now, at the grand old age of thirty-five, years of solitude stretched out in front of me like a wanton path to hell.

  I’d been hiding in the kitchen for the last five minutes, resting my hands on the sink and staring out of the window as I listened to the hubbub from the people who’d come back to the house after the service. I closed my eyes and exhaled deeply, reminded myself it was so much worse for Logan. When my sister planted a soft, hesitant kiss on my cheek, I pretended to busy myself by rinsing a cup I’d only just washed.

  “How are you holding up?” Lisa said as she rubbed my back, something she’d done when we were kids and I’d showed up in my big sister’s bedroom, terrified by another nightmare.

  “To be honest, I’m not entirely sure.”

  “Me, neither. I still can’t believe it. Poor, poor Grace...and Logan. And you.” When her swollen, big blue eyes welled up again, she turned away for a moment to wipe them. “I wish we had a finite amount of tears,” she said, “because surely we’d have used them up by now.”

  “Have you spoken to Ivan?” I said.

  “A little.” She nodded, bit her lip. “I’m glad he came back.”

  A smile teased my lips upward, although it felt like I was wearing a Halloween mask where the holes for the eyes and mouth didn’t line up properly. “Steady on, did I hear you say something positive about my best friend? That’s a first.”

  She frowned, took a sudden interest in rearranging the already alphabetized spice rack. “I meant I’m glad he’s here for you. He was about to board a flight to Texas—”

  “I told him he didn’t need to come back right away.”

  “Sure he did. He’s known Grace longer than either of us. You said it yourself. You’re best mates. You would’ve done the same.”

  “Would I?” I snapped, my cheery facade a crumbling old stone wall in the English countryside, thrashed and beaten down by the rain.

  “Course you would. You’d have dropped everything, too,” Lisa said, her attempt at defusing the tension before it mushroomed only too obvious.

  “Easy to say when you’re the one with the offensively large paycheck. And you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” The muscles in my jaw worked overtime as I spat the words. These days I was ever-ready to pick a fight; fair or unfair, I didn’t seem to give a shit.

  Another frown crossed Lisa’s face, but it disappeared in an instant when she put her arms around me, pulling me closer when she felt me resist. “Is that the best you can do, baby brother? Because you can lash out at me all you want. I’m not going anywhere.”

  My shoulders dropped as the desire for another argument with my sister, the person who’d done nothing but be there for me since...well, forever, slunk out of my chest and disappeared. “Why am I being such an asshole?” I whispered. “Honestly, I’m a total bastard to you and Ivan these days, and—”

  “I don’t think that,” she said. “And I’ll bet you anything he doesn’t, either.”

  I looked at her, almost challenged her and called her a liar before letting it go.

  “The service was lovely, wasn’t it?” Lisa held up a hand before I could answer. “And I know it’s bloody ridiculous to say because there shouldn’t have been one in the first place.”

  It was true. It had been lovely, as these things went. I’d even managed to get up and say a few words without breaking down again. The sky had cleared, and by the time we’d said our final goodbyes to Grace, the sun shone, making the snow-covered trees glisten like something out of an ironic, two-faced fairy tale.

  Now here we were, a few dozen people, Grace’s colleagues from Ruby & Rose’s Bookshop, my bosses, Ronnie and Leila, a few friends and neighbors, some people from Logan’s school. All dressed in somber colors, speaking sotto voce, crowded into our little rental home with its quirky, now inappropriately jolly blue-and-orange kitchen, trays of prepackaged sandwiches and the odd homemade dish on the dining table. “Need You Now,” Grace’s favorite Lady Antebellum song, was playing softly in the background.

  “I talked to Logan earlier,” Lisa said. “He told me all about why dogs have wet noses. Something to do with it cooling them down, apparently.”

  I tried another smile, felt it fit a little better this time. “Yeah, he’s still obsessed. Before Grace—” I swallowed the jagged lump in my throat “—before she left, he begged for a puppy at least five times a day.”

  “Poor kid. It’s a shame about your allergies, but you remember how bad they were.” She grabbed a dishcloth and dried the cup, stared out the window. “He seems to be handling the whole situation incredibly well.”

  “Better than me.” I looked at my sister, studied her furrowed brow, her head tilted to one side, her thick, blond, wavy hair falling past her shoulders onto her tailored suit and slender frame. She’d driven back from New York within hours of me calling, and had refused to leave my side since, comforting Logan, helping with the arrangements, making decisions about flowers (lilies or roses), music (classical or contemporary), coffins (oak or elm) and urns (aluminum or pewter) when I couldn’t speak, let alone make a coherent choice.

  “He’s an amazing kid,” Lisa said. “Incredible.”

  I leaned over and peered through the kitchen doorway. Logan stood near the dining room table, from the looks of it wishing he were anywhere but there. He’d already changed into his puppy-print pajamas and held Biscuit, a four-inch, dark-brown-and-beige stuffed dog I’d given him a few years back, and which had become his forever friend. Grace had patched Biscuit up so much it barely held together. With the tatty thing firmly clenched under his arm, Logan looked even more lost and vulnerable, exactly how I felt—hollow, insignificant, like someone had scooped out my insides as if I were a jack-o’-lantern and left me on the deck to rot.

  When I caught his eye, I gave him a small wave. He raised his hand, turned and walked to the front door. A few seconds later, he reappeared outside the kitchen window and sat down at the little mosaic table Grace had salvaged from a charity shop and spent hours cursing under her breath while she repaired it. As he put his head in his hands, a fresh rush of guilt coiled its way around my middle, squashing me tighter than a belt half a dozen notches too small.

  I often joked I’d fallen in love with the brown-haired, green-eyed toddler a good few beats before I’d fallen for his mom. Both Grace and I considered the fact I wasn’t Logan’s biological dad—and had missed the first two years of his life—a mere technicality. We’d never hidden it from him, had agreed we’d be completely honest about everything. Except for the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa; we weren’t monsters. But now I had an awful, despicable secret I couldn’t shove into the category marked “keeping childhood magic alive.”

  The salt. I didn’t know if Logan had heard Grace remind me about it that morning, and I hadn’t told him I’d forgotten, which made me a liar by omission, and a coward by default. I hadn’t admitted it to anyone else, either. Not Ivan, to whom I’d regularly spilled my guts since he’d decked me with an impressive right-hook when we’d first met at the boxing club, and definitely not Lisa. I couldn’t face watching the way she felt about me transform into abject disgust again, exact
ly the way it had when our parents had been killed. She’d denied ever thinking that their deaths had in any way been my fault, said it had never crossed her mind when I’d accused her again—in another of my drunken moments—of secretly blaming me. I disagreed with her pushback, but had kept my mouth shut from then on. Sometimes face value is your only friend.

  “Josh?” Lisa’s hand was on my arm. Had she been talking all this time? Had I answered? I didn’t recall words coming from my mouth. Then again, I didn’t remember much of the last two weeks; the lack of sleep and unbearable roller coaster of emotions had anesthetized most of my brain the way booze used to. Maybe that was why, so far at least, I’d resisted the urge to drink.

  “Do you want to rest?” she said. “I can tell everyone to leave. They’ll understand.”

  I shook my head. “No, I can’t sleep.”

  At least that was true, and Lisa being there was a relief, and I was grateful to her, Ivan, whom I’d last seen talking to Ronnie in the living room, Mrs. Banks, who’d checked in on me daily, and everybody else who’d dropped off cards, flowers and enough casseroles to last until summer. But, and this made my selfish prick levels skyrocket to never-before-seen levels, at times the sympathy was overwhelming, stifling—a thousand woolly blankets piled on top of me in a heat wave.

  All I wanted was for everything to go back to normal, for Grace to burst in through the front door with a bottle of her favorite nonalcoholic margarita mix in her hand, a smile on her face and another cheesy movie suggestion we’d pretend-argue over, a fight she always won.

  I rubbed my hands over the five o’clock shadow. Until that morning my cheeks had no longer been covered in the trendy stubble Grace found “hot,” but a prickly mess she’d have bugged me to shave, or at the very least questioned why I was impersonating a hedgehog. Even after I’d got dressed, I’d still barely recognized myself in the mirror. The only suit I owned hung off me as if I’d borrowed it from my granddad. My hair needed a cut in a bad way—I’d long abandoned trying to stop it from sticking up at gravity-defying angles—and its mud-brown color looked dull and faded, the graying at my temples more prominent, or distinguished, if Lisa was to be believed.