“My life?”
“She was the one who got the fire department there the night you reported your sister as missing. Without her, nobody would’ve ever shown up for you.”
“Nobody called the fire department. I called 911.”
Detective Montgomery looked at me, started to say something, and stopped. He delved into his desk mine of mail, papers, and notes. He excavated Summer’s two journals. I trusted him with Mama’s handmade gifts to search for clues, not to question clues I found.
“I want you to read through these,” he said. “I think you’re missing some things.”
“What?” I asked.
He shook his head, and then he spoke quietly.
“Autumn, you know, I was thinking you would come clean with me. You seemed to be getting to that. Now, you’ve paused. I want to get you some help.”
“Help? Oh, how convenient. Everybody’s a psychologist these days.”
“No, everybody’s not. But I am.”
“Oh and you just happened to take a pay cut, and risk your life every day, to work for the NYPD?”
He should have been of more use to me by now. This wasn’t working out.
“I’m serious, Autumn,” he droned. “My work with you hasn’t gone anywhere. You’re just using me to indulge yourself and go deeper into this than I thought you would.”
“I’m gonna go as deep as I have to,” I said, “to find my sister. Even if the detective assigned to her case doesn’t care.”
“I am not assigned to your sister’s case. I’m assigned to yours.”
Control. I had to find it.
I had to get it. I threw up an instant wall between Detective Montgomery and myself. No more walks down my memory lane, hand in hand with my confidence. No more relaxation. No more long conversations. And, he certainly could never show up at my door again, to recommend anything to me.
I would end things nicely. He would not have a clue how I felt. It was easiest.
“Thank you for all your help,” I smiled. “I know you care. But I think you’ve done all you can and I need to move on to people who can do more for this case.”
“Autumn,” he said, “we met at Harlem Hospital, right before New Year’s Eve.”
I had not been a patient in a hospital in years, before this spring. After the bus ride with Asha. For dehydration and exhaustion and low blood sugar. He kept on.
“A police officer was with me when I first interviewed you, yes. But police often sit in on volatile patients. Especially when a patient is suicidal.”
His voice drifted. The room spun.
“Patient? Suicidal?”
“You wanted to believe I was a detective. I thought you were joking. Then it seemed like how you wanted to open up to me, so I allowed it. It’s my fault for not correcting you sooner. Which I’ve tried to do, by the way, as you’ve had me and an overwhelmed precinct look for a woman we found no signs ever existed. I’ve found some truth in these journals you told me were Summer’s. Like why you told me they were hers.”
“They are Summer’s! And I need them back. They’re heirlooms.”
“Yes, please, read them. I’ve marked pages I think tell us why Summer isn’t here.”
I seized Mama’s work, Summer’s thoughts, my possessions. I unzipped my purse to drop in the journals. I looked around the office. On the table was an hourglass, something I’d never noticed before. Near the smooth, round, shiny stones and picture of his family. The water cooler was in the corner, as usual.
“I need to talk to your sergeant,” I hissed.
“I don’t have a sergeant,” he said. “I don’t even have a boss. I do pro bono work here when I have time. This is just a Police Athletic League. They loan me space.”
“What’re you . . . ?”
“All this time, you’ve been thinking you were visiting a police station?”
He reached for a manila folder on his desk, pulled out the same gridded sheet he always pulled out when we talked. It was clear. He stopped talking to make several notes in a top grid. I reached over his desk and snatched the paper away.
“Autumn!”
I was a fast reader. I had a near-perfect verbal score on both the SAT and GRE. I read for a living, mostly shit that needed to be fixed. I blogged, blabbed, without a comma out of place. I could glance at a page for a few seconds and know what it said, interpret meaning, harvest context clues. I needed no time to grasp his notes: “Client is in advanced stage of derealization, bordering on full disassociation. Client is in fuller characterization of an altered personality, a woman with a missing twin she calls Summer and has possibly presented as before in therapy or with others.”
He reached for the papers. I threw them onto the floor.
“I can show you all my notes,” he said. “I have nothing to hide. But you need to be prepared for what they say and ready to hear it all, to move forward.”
“Client? Derealization? Altered?”
“Autumn, you threatened to jump off your roof. Had it not been for your neighbor downstairs, you might have done so. The lady saw you pacing the roof. She called 911. It was too tricky for them to come in behind you, so the fire department set up a landing apparatus while you carried on. They said you sounded very angry. But, you never jumped. You climbed down their ladder on your own.”
“You’re getting me mixed up with my sister, Detective Montgomery. Of course,” I laughed. “Of course. Our father was a fireman. She would have listened to them. All this time, you knew my sister climbed down a ladder and you didn’t tell me? Where is she?”
“You climbed down the ladder. You claimed to be ‘Summer Spencer’ on your intakes, insurance forms, everything. But your IDs said ‘Autumn.’ Police clarified that.”
I heard him, but nothing made any sense. I paced around the office.
“You said you were only up there to look for your sister, Summer, not trying to harm yourself. There’s so many cases in that place. Your insurance only allowed so much, so hey. That’s the system. Your word was taken and you were released. I agreed to treat you for free. You went home with Chase. He was very upset, so we never got to talk.”
So now Chase was in on it too? No wonder he dashed out and never returned.
“There’s no twin,” I heard. “You pretend you have her, but there’s no evidence of her. You walked out up to your own roof. It was only you, Autumn. I know that now.”
The water cooler was in the corner. Was he giving me water or vodka? Was I getting drunk to let this go on this long? It would have no smell, but the taste . . .
“You’re trying to make me go crazy,” I said. “You will not. If everything I’ve been through hasn’t done it so far, you’re not gonna start me to it now.”
“And we need to move on to everything you’ve been through so this part of you can speak of why you created Summer, and why you need her so badly.”
I grabbed my purse so fast everything in it spilled. I captured the journals first. I panicked to put it all back in: my Carmex, my creamy lipstick, my perfume, my travel-size lotion Chase always gave me from his business trips, my things—not Summer’s, or some woman who thought she was Summer, or some woman who made Summer up.
I knew who I was.
I put my purse over my shoulder and used the chair for balance as I stood again.
“As a professional,” Detective Montgomery went on, “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I let you go now. Please, Autumn, just stay. I really want to talk some more.”
The softer he became, the louder I roared.
“I don’t need hospitals or doctors or talking,” I shouted. “I am not crazy.”
“You’re not crazy at all. You’re remarkable, one of my most high-functioning clients. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have some traumas to address. I can help you do it, but not by hiding behind Summer anymore. We must talk about you, Autumn.”
“I’m never talking about anything with you again.”
I ran around him to the door, looking for someone
else in the hallway through the see-through glass. The days, weeks, and months I wasted thinking Montgomery was an ally skid across my mind like pages in a book and kept landing back to this page, here now, and the words on it.
“Autumn, please,” he yelled.
He moved his back against the doorknob.
I had never fought with a man. I never thought Montgomery would be the first.
“I can help you,” he said, glancing out of the door’s window. “I want to help you. When your mother died, a lot of what was pent up inside came flooding out—”
I battered him with my purse, at his face and chest and stomach. He put up his hands and would not move away. I had nowhere to go. I was trapped and cornered. He could grab me before I broke through the window. I ran behind his desk.
“Just let me out of here. I have to go home. Please, just let me go home.”
He kept on, away from the door and toward me with large hands, a big face, and a chest so wide I could not see beyond it anymore.
“You needed someone. A sister who could paint and draw. The artist. The one who was adventurous and risky, while you stayed quiet and routine. A protector . . .”
“I’m not listening anymore.”
I pounded my palms at my ears. The whole room compressed to nothing but his voice. And I couldn’t quiet it even as he fell to a near whisper.
“Who talks about Summer, but you? Who else asks about her?”
“It’s all still fresh,” I cried. “She only went missing in December.”
This demon went on.
“Do your neighbors mention her? Why hasn’t your family come to New York to help you look for her? Outta all the men in New York, you just had to take your sister’s? I’ve been to your home. I only saw pictures of you, not one with a twin or any other woman who looked like you. Not one. I glanced at a recent life insurance policy, I assume your mother’s? You were the only beneficiary. I did not see why your mother would leave Summer out. Up until then, I believed you, Autumn. Then, well . . . I didn’t. I just couldn’t understand why you were only talking to me to find a woman who was never here.”
I moved under the window. I stood on weary legs, cold and shaky arms holding me. I pressed one ear against the wall to muffle this man’s voice, his lies, his wickedness.
“How come nobody but you ever tried to push an investigation? Not one friend.”
“They’re failed artists,” I sobbed. “Climbers. They can’t climb someone who’s not here. They’re just users. Druggies even.”
“Were those your friends?” I heard, like an echo. “The ones who never called back about an investigation in a woman named ‘Summer’? You were the one with cocaine in your system. I have the medical records. Your name is on them.”
The hard wall hurt my shoulder as I pushed into it. I could not bust through concrete and pour myself out onto the street.
“All right, Autumn,” he sighed. “Let me see you home now. If you can show me a piece of mail or bill for Summer, and not for your mother or you, I’ll believe you. If you can show me a picture of you with your sister, I will believe you. I make mistakes, too.”
“I’m never showing you shit again.”
“Autumn, please listen to me. Sometimes, people dissociate from themselves. Altered personalities sometimes take years to come out. When your mother died . . .”
“Split personality disorder?” I talked into the cinderblock wall, rubbed my cheek on its textures. I could have beat my head into it. “That’s not even real. It’s just phony people on talk shows.”
“It’s not called split personality anymore. It’s called dissociative identity disorder. A fragmented identity. A multiplicity of selves. Amnesia, from one part to another. Or, the forgetfulness you have in extreme. Impulsive behavior. Flashbacks. And yes, self-harm.”
I started to choke. He left me and went to his water cooler. He brought me a plastic cup of water. But I wanted myself to choke it out. I coughed, sat down on his chair, and held my stomach. I clung to my purse, the only thing in here besides me that I knew well.
The awful man sat on the edge of the desk. I turned his chair around to the wall, to keep my back to him so he would not talk anymore. I had letters, cards, presents, and pictures from my sister. I even started and ended my period with her. It’s just how symbiotic and synergized we were, sepia skin and auburn hair, size 8 feet. Only our personalities, resumes, and dental records looked different. A monozygote, just split off into two beings. I was here, still, to keep our cells moving around the world a little while longer.
Grandma sat in the rocking chair and she crocheted the maroon blanket I couldn’t wait to have, but Summer took it always without giving me a turn.
“Your mama’s water broke in my front yard when she was squat down eating dirt. She was like my Aunt Cassie down South. But we ain’t have no iron pills back then. We do now. But your mama threw down those pills from the doctor and went right back to digging that dirt. I let her go ahead. She carried you over the summer, the worst time.
“It was so hot the day you was born your mama almost laid in that hospital by herself. Summer supposed to be over, but seem like it was just starting. Wasn’t enough money in the world to get us out from under them fans. Top of September and your daddy ain’t have no air conditionin’ in his car. I don’t even know if they had it in the cars back then. So I wanted to name you Summer. That fit you best. Your mama said it sound like a porn name. I wouldn’t know. I ain’t never seen no pornos. But she said Autumn, close as it was, could make sense. That’s how you got your name. I love both just the same.”
Summer even took my name.
“Autumn,” the man in the room with me interrupted, “there is no Summer. I thought she could be a delusion, and you’d need medication. But you don’t hear her or see her. You’ve been saying the opposite. You only identify with her, and sometimes even as her.”
The man in the room smiled at me. We were still and calm, together.
“I can help you find Summer, so you can talk to her again. That’s what you want. Thank you for trusting me, to share her with. So, can we talk about you?”
“No,” I said. “No.” And then, “Never.”
I caught the man off guard. I do not remember turning the doorknob.
Maybe I ran through the door. My Foxy Brown inside could do that. Where was my pistol? A lady officer was alone at the front desk. Then I heard her and the man calling my name. But I ran and ran and ran. Across 151st Street an ice cream truck almost struck me. I did not stop to check the direction of home. I did not need to. I could walk Harlem in my sleep. But I couldn’t go home. Not now. So I just ran and ran and ran and ran . . .
NINETEEN
I ran in a maze between St. Nicholas and Edgecombe before I tripped forward up a sudden hill. I didn’t know I busted my bottom lip. I knew I hit it, and it hurt.
I ran past stares, snickers, and wide-eyed gazes. Cathy’s Park Slope co-op was near the Days Inn of Brooklyn’s downtown, off a few trains I was sure branched off of the F, which branched off the D, which was waiting for me down in the 145th Street station.
I wasn’t totally sure of Cathy’s address. My phone was dead. I would walk until I recognized it: by a waterless fountain in a taller brown building’s courtyard. The upper apartments had outdoor balconies. The grass was always neat. Maybe the gardener would be out, and allow me in. People of all colors and ages would come by. Some would have little dogs. One of the people would trust me . . . Cathy Adeosun, you know? She has a son and just had a little baby girl?
She lived on the ninth floor. I knew this from the number of birthday cards, holiday greetings, and gifts for her children I mailed. I would knock on every door in the hallway. If she was behind none, I would go back down the elevator and start on the other side. Or, maybe I would put my ear to every door until I heard her tell Oscar not to run so fast and to put his underwear back on. Sara would be crying. I would hear Fela Kuti, Miriam Makeba, Manu Chao, or Onyeka Onwenu.
I would stay on her carpeted floor with pillows beneath me, underneath fabric with winding histories Cathy would tell me. I would fetch her breast pump, warm bottles in slightly furling water, change diapers, unhinge the stroller, and take Oscar to a Disney movie or to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal. I would go with her to visit her parents in Bed-Stuy, where their brownstone sat on Gates Avenue. We would drink wine while her mother approved of everything I said, and eat lots of bread and rice and lamb.
I walked off the D to wait for the F at West Fourth Street. I gave $5 to a fervent bucket drummer and took a pamphlet from a Jehovah’s Witnesses team. Then a train with a dull orange bullet flew to the platform and stopped. I pressed my lips together to dull the pain. White collars rushed on at Delancey and Broadway, to stand at the sweaty poles. The train came up above ground across the bridge I did not remember from my previous trips to see Cathy. I guessed it was the Manhattan Bridge. After the bridge, dark suits departed in clusters at Marcy Avenue and Hewes Street. I blended in with the people left behind with me, mostly Black and Latin. I kept my eyes on the city gliding past the window, moving as if it had wheels and I were stationary, fixed, constructed, indestructible, and eternal. I waited to hear Seventh Avenue. The train would plunge underground again at some point. Fewer stops then, more gliding. I needed to close my eyes, to forget this whole day.
I wouldn’t let that outrageous man up in Harlem get to me.
THE CONDUCTOR ANNOUNCED MYRTLE. I opened my eyes. Bushwick Shop and Save in the train window. A laundromat popped out below the platform. A market on the other side. A row of restaurants. The rush-hour people. Percolating blight.
I needed to get off and find somewhere to use a toilet. The ride was so long.
The Myrtle Avenue noise made 125th sound quiet. Four thoroughfares crisscrossed the intersection. The density of storefronts, hair salons, beauty supply stores, markets, bodegas, furniture stores, and apartment buildings engulfed my attention. I ignored the men who stared at my face. I did not feel my Foxy Brown anymore, to suck my teeth or roll my eyes or share my offense with a glare. I felt limp and trounced.
Speaking of Summer Page 16