I’m more agitated than I should be by this, and I feel like snapping at her that it’s not on my copy of the album, or any other that I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen a lot of them, because, crazy lady that I am, sometimes I visit the P section of a music store just to pick one up and turn it over in my hands), but I stop myself.
“Oh, you know what?” she says after a minute. “You’re right, it’s not on the American version. It was a bonus track on the European release. It’s one of those hidden tracks—you know what I’m talking about? It’s not listed in the credits, it just starts playing after the last song is over.”
I absorb this. Given the number and scope of the surprises I’ve had this week, this one shouldn’t even register. But it does. I thought I’d done such careful research. I thought I knew every song Milo had ever recorded.
“Why did they do that?” I ask. “Why didn’t they include it on the American album?”
“I’m not sure,” she says. She stops for a red light. “I don’t follow that stuff. Probably their label didn’t think it was commercial enough or something. It’s kind of a funny song for them. It’s about little kids, you know, like brothers and sisters on a car trip? It’s about how they create this little world apart from the adults, until one of them tattles and brings in the parents. Then that person’s the traitor in the backseat.”
She sounds so casual, as if this is something that may or may not be of interest to me.
“Can I hear it?” I ask. My voice sounds tighter than I’d like. I take a breath.
“Sure,” she says. She turns the stereo on again, presses the back arrow on the CD panel.
The song begins, and I see what she means about its being a departure for the band. It’s softer, more melodic than most of their other work, and it has the same sort of rhythm as a waltz. It’s the kind of song you enter like a corridor; from the very first notes, I’m inside the music, traveling toward an uncertain destination.
Milo begins to sing, his voice vibrating in my chest.
Dad drives, like always
Mom asks, “Did you pee?”
Look over the guardrail
down to the bright sea
We might stop for ice cream or some other treat
if no one turns traitor in the backseat
Yesterday Disney,
Tomorrow San Fran
Remember the guy with
the bright orange tan?
My side’s a mess, but you keep your side neat
It’s a whole separate world here in the backseat
We laugh and we fight and
we ask every minute
when we’ll get to the house
with the mystery in it
Up front they use phrases like “power elite”
And for now there’s no traitor in the backseat
I stare at my hands in my lap. I’m hardly breathing.
You call me a retard
I call you a gnome
With both of us here
we’re not far from home
We play license plate games till I see you cheat
It’s my turn to be traitor in the backseat
There’s an instrumental bridge here; the music swells and then drops away for one final quiet verse:
Now there’s darkness and firmament, water and foam
With only me here, I’m a long way from home
And I’m wishing you were here to notice me cheat
It’s your turn to be traitor in the backseat.
Chloe switches off the CD. My throat aches. I focus on the registration sticker in the corner of the windshield, reading the backward letters to keep myself from crying.
I’d like it if Chloe wouldn’t talk right away; I need a minute. But she asks, “So what do you think? It’s a good song, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I say. “It is.”
“Milo’s good at capturing those kinds of little moments,” she says. “I totally remember what that was like, going on road trips with my family.”
I look at her. Does she not understand my own connection to the song, the emotional undertow I’m fighting? Perhaps not. She’s very young still, and I don’t know how much she knows about Milo’s family history. He’s made it a rule not to discuss it publicly.
But I’m wrong. “How old was Milo when he lost his dad and sister?” she asks.
“Nine,” I say quietly.
“Poor kid,” she says. And already she’s understood something I was not entirely willing to see when we were in the midst of it: that Milo’s loss was at least as profound as my own. For all the energy I’ve spent in my writing life considering the taxonomy of human pain, for all the times I’ve told students that the key to creating a sympathetic and three-dimensional character is compassion, I turned out to be spectacularly unsympathetic when it actually mattered. My grief was proprietary. I wanted it all to myself.
“I can’t even imagine,” says Chloe. “I mean, I sort of can—I know what it’s like to lose someone you really love. But now that I’m a mom …” She trails off. “You know, I guarantee you, that’s something that people are going to try to use against him, now that all this is going on.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Oh, you know, that he suffered this huge loss when he was little. Like that might’ve warped him or something. I’m sure people are looking for ammunition to explain why he might’ve killed her. I remember reading once that some huge percentage of serial killers had traumatic experiences going to their grandparents’ funerals when they were at a formative age and seeing the bodies in the caskets.”
I stare at her. “Lots of children lose family members and don’t grow up to be murderers.”
She laughs, which startles me. “Oh, God, I know. I wasn’t saying that I thought that. Just that, you know, people are ruthless about this kind of thing.”
I sigh. “I’d like to talk about something else, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, sure. Sorry.” She gives me a rueful smile. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“That’s all right.” I wait for her to change the subject.
“So what was Milo like when he was little?” she asks. “I’ve heard some stories about his teenage years from Joe, but I’ve always wondered what he was like as a little boy.”
I try to think how to answer. As a little boy, Milo was many things, and he was not the same child at eight that he was at eleven. If it were possible for me to sum him up with a few adjectives, our relationship might be simpler. I settle for generics. “He was a great kid. Funny. We never knew what was going to come out of his mouth.” It’s all true, but it doesn’t begin to tell the whole story.
She grins. “Sounds like not much has changed. Any embarrassing anecdotes I can torture him with? Pants wetting or thumb sucking or whatever?”
Her voice is completely jovial—no edge that I can discern—but the question makes me uncomfortable. I don’t understand yet what we’re supposed to be to each other. She’s not a daughter-in-law by anyone’s definition, but we’re bound together by a child I didn’t even know existed until a few hours ago. And I still don’t know exactly how she and Milo get along. Do they act like friends or exes or something completely different?
“Well, since I’m hoping to stay on Milo’s good side, I think I’ll keep those to myself for the moment.”
“Wise woman.”
I need to put an end to this conversation. I can’t think about it now, not when I’m so close to seeing Milo. “Where does Roland Nysmith live?” I say.
“Near the Presidio. His house is amazing, you’ll see.”
“And what’s he like?”
“Hmm,” she says. “Not what you’d expect.”
I’m not sure what I’d expect. Roland Nysmith has lived a very public life, and I know as much about him as anybody does. I was in high school and college in the mid-seventies, when his band, The Misters, first started making headlines. The Misters were a progressive rock band from England—somepl
ace south of London, I think. In 1977 they released a concept album called Underneath, which told the story of a futuristic world in which human beings have built domed cities under the sea. It was trippy music, ponderous, self-indulgent, very seventies: music to get high to. Everyone in my dorm had a copy. The following year a full-length concert film was released, documenting several weeks of The Misters’ tour of Japan. I remember seeing it at a midnight showing on campus—that was the kind of movie it was—and falling asleep partway through. Later, after the emergence of VCRs, I heard that the movie had gathered a cult following and that there was a drinking game in which viewers had to take a shot every time Roland Nysmith used the word “consciousness.” But by then I was older, married, and a mother, and my interests lay elsewhere.
Roland Nysmith now, in his fifties, is not someone I know much about. But he’s the kind of artist whose name evokes respect, if only because of the longevity associated with it. In more than thirty years, he’s never stopped making music that people like.
“It sounds like he’s been very supportive of Milo,” I say. During that last Christmas together, I remember Milo telling me that Roland Nysmith had taken an interest in Pareidolia; later I read that he had helped produce the band’s second and third albums. But that kind of involvement doesn’t automatically translate into housing an accused murderer. What I’m getting at here is, Roland must believe Milo’s innocent, right? Do you think so, too? But I can’t ask those questions straight out.
“Yeah,” says Chloe. “He’s a loyal guy. He also just likes Milo. He’s been kind of a father figure to him since early on.”
I think of Mitch—down-to-earth, wry man that he was—and wonder how he would feel to think that his role has been filled by a person who once appeared onstage in a bodysuit covered with fish scales. I suspect, actually, that he’d be amused, and I spend a moment trying to imagine what joke he might make, but I’m not as funny as he was. In any case, Mitch isn’t here, and for quite some time I haven’t been here either. I suppose I’m glad Milo has had someone to look up to.
“Were you …” I hesitate. “Were you and Bettina friends?”
Chloe shrugs. “We didn’t really know each other that well, in spite of Milo and Joe spending so much time together. She wasn’t … This sounds awful, but she wasn’t the type of woman who has many other women friends, you know what I mean? You kind of got the feeling she’d spill all of your secrets when she was drunk and hit on your boyfriend when you were out of town.”
I make a noncommittal noise. Something else occurs to me. “Did she know about Lia?” I ask.
“No,” Chloe answers in a tart tone that suggests she doesn’t like this piece of the story. “She did not.”
“Really?” I ask.
“I never wanted it to be some big secret,” Chloe says, “but the fact is, Milo did cheat on Bettina to be with me. She was a fairly possessive person, and I guess Milo didn’t think she’d react well to the news.”
I absorb this quietly. I’ve only just come into this drama, and I don’t feel it’s my place to comment on it.
“The weather’s changed,” I say. When we left Chloe and Joe’s, the sky was gray and overcast, and now there’s sun lighting the street and reflecting on the bay.
She shakes her head. “It’s not that the weather’s changed, it’s just that we’ve driven across it. This neighborhood is always sunny. Microclimates. We’re almost there, by the way.”
We’ve come into a neighborhood of astonishingly big houses, and I know which one is Roland’s as soon as Chloe turns the corner. The street is clogged with parked cars, and at least a dozen men with cameras stand in the road, talking and smoking, all of them careful to keep one eye on a white stone mansion rising above them. It’s a beautiful house—I suppose a real estate agent would refer to it as neoclassical or some such thing—and it towers over its neighbors, owing to a combination of hilltop placement and a street-level garage that makes it look as if the house doesn’t really begin until the second floor.
“Crap,” says Chloe. “We’ll go around back.”
As she slows the car to turn it around, the photographers swarm to peer in the windows. I don’t know whether they recognize me or Chloe, or if they’re just covering their bases, but there’s a frenzy of picture snapping and video recording until Chloe leans on her horn and revs her accelerator and they scatter.
“Leeches,” she says. She drives around the corner and approaches a wrought-iron gate with an intercom. She opens her window and presses a button. “It’s Chloe,” she says, and after a minute the gate swings inward.
She parks in a paved courtyard, and we get out of the car. She leads me up a winding brick staircase and rings the doorbell.
“He must be here,” Chloe says. “Those guys”—she gestures down toward the street—“would know if he’d gone out.”
The door opens, and Roland Nysmith stands before me. His face is angular, the structure of it more pronounced than it was when he was younger, and his hair is cut down to gray stubble, but I recognize him immediately as the man I’ve seen in magazines and on album covers since I was seventeen. I never hung a poster of him on my wall, but I knew plenty of girls who did, and even under these circumstances, I’m aware of a faint charge of astonishment running through me in a flimsy twitter. I actually feel some measure of awe at finding myself in this man’s presence. Are there people who feel this way around Milo?
“Chloe,” he says, leaning in to give her a kiss on the cheek. I’m surprised to find that even his speaking voice is familiar to me. “And who is this?”
“This is Octavia Frost,” she says. “Milo’s mother.” And to me, “Roland Nysmith,” as if I may not know.
Roland smiles and holds out his hand, giving me a curious and frankly appraising look. “A pleasure,” he says. “So you’re the famous writer.”
I actually blush as I shake his hand. The phrase is embarrassing and untrue, especially coming from a man who has lived in the bone-white light of true fame for all of his adult life, but I don’t think he means it to be sarcastic.
“Nice to meet you,” I say. I pause. He’s still looking at me in that strange way, as if he’s trying to soak me up. “And, belatedly, thank you for all of the kindness you have shown my son.”
He puts up his hands in a gesture of modesty. “Not at all,” he says. “Don’t be silly.” He steps backward for us to pass. “Come on in, both of you, won’t you?”
We walk into an entryway with yellow walls and a black-and-white marble floor. I look to my right, down a hallway that leads into a dark-paneled room with a grand piano, then straight ahead into a sitting room with a boldly patterned rug and several orange couches. I’m hoping to catch sight of Milo before he knows I’m here, but he’s nowhere to be seen. The scope of it all amazes me. This is a city where you certainly pay for space.
“If you don’t mind,” Roland says, “I’m expecting a phone call, but I hope you’ll make yourself at home. I’ll just be a trice.”
It finally occurs to me that we’re dropping in unannounced. “Of course,” I say to Roland. “I’m so sorry to bother you. But can you tell me … is Milo here?” My voice rises, betraying my nervousness.
Roland smiles at me. “Yes, of course, Mum,” he says, and I’m not sure I like that. I’m not his mother. “Milo and Joe both. They’re up in the library.” He turns to Chloe. “You know the way, don’t you, darling?” He turns away from us and walks toward the room with the piano.
“Yup,” says Chloe. “Don’t tell them we’re here, okay?”
“Not a word,” says Roland, over his shoulder. I watch as he walks through the paneled room and disappears through a door at the other end.
Chloe gives me a smile. “Here we go,” she says.
I follow her up the stairs and down a wide hallway. There’s deep carpet that muffles our footsteps, though I don’t know if this is a good thing or not—do I really want to take him by surprise? As we walk toward an open doorwa
y at the end of the hall, I hear voices. First Joe talking in a quiet monotone, and then Milo’s voice rising with emotion. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but he sounds like he’s crying.
My heart is beating like crazy. Chloe stops and stands to the side. She points to the room ahead of us and nods. She’s sending me in alone.
I walk the last few yards slowly. I’m frightened in a way that strikes me as ridiculous.
I step into the room and stop. Joe is slumped in a red armchair, leaning his head on his hand. He looks miserable. And there’s Milo, my beloved, my boy, pacing the floor and sobbing. His hand is on top of his head, pulling his long hair away from his face. His face is red, and he has a jagged line of scrapes and bruises on his forehead and one cheek. He looks like he hasn’t had a bath in days.
He sees me and freezes. I’m prepared for anything except what actually happens.
“Mommy,” he says.
He walks over to where I’m standing and crumples against me. I put my arms around him cautiously, then pull him closer when he doesn’t move away. He rests his head heavily on my shoulder, and I turn to whisper into his hair, the way I did when he was a child. “Milo,” I say. “It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.”
He pushes his face into my shoulder. I can’t hear what he’s saying. “It’s all right, baby,” I say again.
He pulls back and looks at me wretchedly. “I did it, Mom,” he says. “I killed her. I think I killed her.”
From the Jacket Copy for
THE HUMAN SLICE
By Octavia Frost
(Farraday Books, 2002)
The day we all began to lose our memories was a Tuesday.” So begins Octavia Frost’s startling and poignant new novel, The Human Slice. When Hope Russo begins to forget her most painful memories, her family wonders if it’s a psychological defense mechanism; after all, she’s still reeling from the recent death of her young son, Jonah. But it soon becomes apparent that Hope is not alone. People all over the world are suffering similar memory losses, a phenomenon soon dubbed WSA (Widespread Selective Amnesia): happy memories stay in place, but unhappy ones simply disappear. Only a small minority, including Hope’s mother-in-law, Linda, seem to be immune from this epidemic.
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