The Fey

by Claudia Hall Christian

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Three hours later

  August 19—11:24 A.M.

  Cherry Hills Estates, Denver, Colorado

  “Pumpkin, I need to speak with you,” Patrick Hargreaves said.

  Alex was standing on the back deck of her parents’ Cherry Hills home. When her parents were in town, the family met at their home after Sunday Mass.

  Today, Alex and Max were inseparable. Where one went, the other followed. John was Max’s best friend, the best friend he had lied to for fourteen years. Max might have let it go, but he felt Alex’s struggle in a deep, visceral way. When Alex withdrew into her connection with Max, everyone was locked out of the twins’ world.

  Alex turned to look at her father.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Ben suggested that you and I discuss something,” he said, “in private.”

  Alex looked at Max. Their similar faces turned to look at their father.

  “No, thanks,” Max replied. They turned their backs to their father.

  “Alexandra,” Patrick said.

  Alex turned her head toward Patrick.

  “I’ve had a very difficult night and no sleep. I don’t think I can do any more.”

  “You don’t have a choice,” Ben said. He walked to stand next to Patrick. “I’m sorry, Alex, but, after last night, we must clear the closet.”

  “What does that mean?” Max asked.

  Ben looked at Max and shook his head. “Our closet.”

  “Why do I care about the skeletons that lie in your closet?” Alex asked.

  “Because they involve you,” Rebecca said. She moved across the deck to Ben and Patrick. Patrick put his arm around Rebecca, and she smiled up at him.

  “What? Max’s not really my twin?” Alex asked. Her squinted eyes reflected her anger. “Why do we look exactly alike?”

  Ben laughed at Alex. “Picked the worst thing?”

  “I picked the only thing left that matters to me,” Alex said. “Screw this. Come on, Max. Let’s go home.”

  “Alex, he will use the truth to destroy you again,” Ben said.

  “Fine, spill it—then we leave,” Alex said.

  “We’re adopted,” Max said.

  “You found us on the doorstep,” Alex said.

  “We’re aliens,” Max said.

  “Worse, we’re illegal aliens,” Alex said. She made a face at Patrick’s latest political drama.

  “I was a girl,” Max said.

  “I was a boy.”

  “We don’t actually exist,” Max said.

  “We were conjoined.”

  “We only have one brain,” Max said.

  “Hey, that’s good.” Alex and Max looked at each other and laughed.

  “You’re not going to intervene?” Rebecca looked from Patrick to Ben.

  “They’re pretty funny,” Ben said. Switching to French, he said to Alex and Max, “Nothing pains me more than to cause you misery, especially today. After Walter Reed, you made me promise never to keep an important truth from you. There’s an important truth you do not know.”

  “We’ll do it together,” Max replied in French.

  “Fine,” Ben replied. Turning to Rebecca and Patrick, he said, “They are willing to listen if they do it together.”

  Patrick nodded. “Let’s go to my office.”

  Alex and Max followed their parents and Ben into the house and upstairs to Patrick’s home office. As Alex and Max walked past, their siblings turned to watch the glum parade. John moved to follow Alex and Max, but Alex shook her head. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, he watched them until they were out of sight.

  Patrick flipped on the office lights. He gestured toward the leather furniture grouped around his gas fireplace. Alex and Max pressed against each other in a leather armchair. Ben took the armchair opposite to them. Rebecca and Patrick sat together on the couch. They sat in silence.

  Alex scowled and looked at Max. The twins stood up from the chair.

  “Please sit down,” Rebecca said. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what you think.”

  Alex and Max looked at each other again and then sat down. The silence continued.

  “Who would like to go first?” Alex asked. Her scowl and sarcastic tone expressed her disgust.

  “I’m your father,” Ben said.

  “Benjamin, God damn it,” Rebecca said. “There are better ways to . . .”

  Alex’s fake blue eyes held Ben’s brown.

  “Metaphorically? Biologically? Spiritually? Intellectually?”

  “Biologically,” Patrick said.

  “Is that all?” Max asked.

  Alex and Max walked from the room. Alex heard their parents’ voices behind them, but she didn’t care. They walked down the stairs and out of the house to Max’s car. John ran after them.

  “We need some twin time,” Max said, closing his door.

  “I’ll wait for you at home.”

  Alex raised her hand to wave good-bye, but, when he caught her eyes, she was somewhere else. John closed his eyes and touched her dog tag around his neck. His mind filled with the horror that he had lost her forever. When he opened his eyes, Patrick was standing next to him.

  “I . . .” Patrick started.

  “You are not putting me in the middle. My allegiance is with them. Period. I’m going home.”

  “What did you do?” Erin screamed at her father.

  “It’s none of your business, Erin. Go back inside,” Patrick said.

  “Oh no. I let you push Alex away once before and did nothing. I’m an adult now, and you will not push my sister out of my life again. I’m leaving. Come on, Matt,” Erin said.

  Matthew raised his eyebrows. Turning into the house for their jackets, he ran into Colin.

  “What’s going on?” Colin asked.

  “Dad pushed Alex and Max away again. They’re really gone this time.”

  Colin shook his head.

  “You never understood, did you Dad?” Colin said. “They don’t need us. They never needed us. We need them. This family can’t survive without them.”

  Turning, Colin walked past Matthew on his way with their jackets and Erin’s purse. Without another word, Matthew and Erin got in the car. They followed John’s car out of the driveway. Colin and Julie came out of the house.

  Colin put a hand on his father’s arm, “You’d better fix this.” They climbed into their car and drove out of the driveway.

  Samantha stood in the doorway. With a flip of her hair, she walked to her car.

  Patrick turned to see Rebecca come from the house.

  “Where did everyone go?” Rebecca said.

  “They left with Alex and Max,” Patrick said.

  “I guess it’s clear where the children stand,” Ben said.

  “They can’t be serious,” Rebecca said.

  “You’ve never understood them, have you Becky?” Ben shook his head. “Colin’s right. Those two don’t need anyone. They never did. It wouldn’t surprise me if you never heard from them again.”

  “What about you?” Rebecca asked.

  “They’ll speak with me when they are ready,” Ben said.

  “You lied to them as well,” Patrick said.

  “Only because it’s what Becky wanted.”

  “It was for the best,” Rebecca said.

  “How you can say that? You’ve lied to them for more than thirty years. A moment ago, you had the chance to be honest, to tell your story, and you refused to speak. You broke their hearts, and it’s for the best?”

  “Benjamin,” Rebecca said. She furrowed her brow. “Please.”

  “You never care who you hurt, Becky, just as long as everything looks right. I wonder how much comfort you will get from everything looking right when your children don’t speak to you. Those are great kids—better than you, better than me. You’ve been so ashamed at how they came to be that you don’t even know them.”

  “And I suppose you do?”

  “Alex was married f
or ten years, and you had no idea, not even a clue. Do you know why she didn’t tell you? They got married so fast, it wouldn’t look right to you. That’s what our daughter told me two days after she married John Drayson. ‘Mom won’t think it looks right.’”

  “Getting married in thirteen hours doesn’t look right,” Rebecca said.

  “And not knowing about it for ten years does?” Ben asked. “God, Becky, have you truly turned into the bitter old witch that your mother was?”

  “Ben,” Patrick gave a low warning.

  “You never knew her, Patrick. That woman was evil. Becky, you used to say that she was evil. Now, without hesitation, you lay the same crap on your children.”

  Ben and Rebecca stared angrily at each other.

  “I’m sorry. I need to leave before I say something I regret.”

  He walked to his Government-issue sedan. Patrick and Rebecca stood on their porch.

  Alone.

  FFF

  August 19

  Alex and Max went to the only place they could think of—the archery range. They had learned to shoot with a longbow when they were nine years old. Alex moved on to shooting handguns, while Max continued with archery. He won a variety of competitions in the way Alex had won awards with her Glock 9mm handguns.

  Max drove to a members-only archery range in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. They unpacked his long and short bows, as well as a micro-compound bow he was experimenting with, from the back of his Cherokee. Without saying a word to each other, they found a lane under the shade of a large Cottonwood tree. They took turns shooting and retrieving arrows in silence.

  After all, what was there to say?

  Everything they thought was true about them was false. Alex replayed in her head all the times she had said, “It’s a Hargreaves thing.” She wasn’t a Hargreaves. She had no idea what a Hargreaves was or wasn’t.

  But hell, she wasn’t married, either.

  Some super spy. How could she have missed it? Samantha, Colin and Erin look like each other. They look like Patrick and Rebecca. Alex and Max only look like each other.

  And John?

  She had more information on John Kelly than any person on the planet, and, still, she had no idea that her precious John was John Kelly. Or that John Kelly was married. She held the tidal wave of overwhelm at bay by placing another arrow in her bow and letting it fly.

  “We should eat,” she said. She retrieved an arrow in the deepening night.

  Max packed their gear.

  The streets were Sunday quiet as they drove through Morrison, Colorado. Near the edge of town, they stopped at a small locals’ bar. Pushing baseball caps low over their eyes, they went in one at a time to avoid the “Are you identical twins?” crap. They hid at a booth near the back. Max ordered burgers, French fries, and beer. They drank their beer in silence. Neither Max nor Alex wanted to break the silence, the surface of their calm. When their burgers arrived, they looked at each other and ate them in silence.

  “What do you think?” Alex asked. She pushed her fries across the table to Max.

  “A lot of different things. You?”

  “Me, too. Plus, my feelings are hurt,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’d like to say that I don’t know who I am and get all dramatic about it. But I’m still Max’s twin. That’s who I am.”

  “And I’m Alex’s twin.”

  “I don’t know how to express how I feel.”

  “Me, too.”

  “In the course of twenty-four hours, I’ve lost my husband and my family.”

  “Misplaced.”

  “Right,” Alex said. “Like I misplaced them somewhere and can’t find them. I feel . . .”

  “Ashamed,” Max replied. “It’s like Ben gave voice to something that’s always been there. I mean, Mom isn’t exactly nice to you.”

  “Or you.”

  “They’re also great parents. They love us, and we love them.”

  “I love Ben, too.”

  Max shook his head.

  “What?”

  “I love Ben, too. He’s been very kind to me over the years. I’d be in Paris . . . Like when I was starting as a lawyer? Ben would stop by the apartment just to say ‘Hi.’ He’d stay just to talk to me. I mean, really talk to me, like I mattered to him. I always knew Dad loved me, but I’m not sure I mattered that much.”

  “It’s not like there’s a set of good parents and another set of bad parents. We’ve been lucky.”

  “Very lucky.”

  “I still want to cry my eyes out,” Alex said.

  “Me, too.”

  “John’s not my husband. Erin’s not my little sister. Sami’s not my big sister. And Col . . .”

  “I hear you say that—‘John’s not my husband,’—and I . . .” Max pressed a hand against his heart.

  “Me, too.”

  They fell silent.

  “Do you want to go home?” Max asked.

  Alex shook her head.

  “What home?”

  Max reached across the table to grasp her hands. They held each other’s eyes.

  “When I was in the field, I used to stay up to watch the stars after everyone was asleep. We’d be in the middle of no-where-stan, and I’d imagine being at home. Home with you. Home with John. I could hardly wait to get there. I always jumped up and down on the plane wanting it to go faster so I could be home. I wished on a thousand stars that I could blink and be home. Home.”

  Alex stopped talking while the waitress cleared their plates and brought another round of beer.

  “I had a home built with walls of lies. My parents aren’t my parents. My husband isn’t my husband. My siblings aren’t even really my siblings.”

  “I’m still your twin,” Max said.

  “God, I hope so. Maxie, what do we do?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “I don’t want to see them.”

  “Mom and Dad?”

  “Rebecca and Patrick. We should call them that now.”

  Max nodded.

  “Patrick is going to want to talk to you. You’re his favorite.”

  “I’m not his child,” Alex said. “Why would he want to talk to me?”

  “There’s more to parenting than biology.”

  “Well, he’s going to have to get in line behind my used-to-be husband.”

  They fell silent. The waitress came around to see if they wanted another round. Alex never looked at her. She was just a voice in the middle of the storm.

  “I felt like I belonged to Dad. You know,” she looked up at Max. “I was General Hargreaves’s daughter. I belonged to him.”

  “Now we don’t belong anywhere,” Max said.

  “Right,” Alex said. “That’s the best way to say it. We don’t belong anywhere. Except . . .”

  “To each other,” Max finished.

  Alex nodded.

  “Do you want to go back to Denver?”

  “I need to deal with John. What do you want to do?”

  “John’s my best friend, Alex.” Max tried to come up with words for himself and his softhearted twin. “I don’t really care if he’s from Ireland or is in the IRA or whatever. He’s stood by me—and you—for a long time.”

  “He’s a good friend,” Alex said. “Yeah, I get that. In some ways, it’s not a big deal. I mean, I married him and stayed married to him, right? It doesn’t really matter that we aren’t married officially. I’m not embarrassed or ashamed or feel some moral dilemma about sleeping with him for all these years. I love him.”

  “Even now?” Max asked.

  “More than I can express. Yes, I love him. That’s what makes all of this so hard.”

  “It’s the lie,” Max said.

  “It’s the lie.”

  “I think he was ashamed of being victimized.”

  “Like Mattie is ashamed of being a hostage?” Alex nodded. “I get that here.” She pointed to her head. “But here?” She pointed to
her heart and shook her head.

  “Let’s go back,” Max said.

  “We gain nothing by postponing the inevitable,” they said, voicing Patrick’s favorite saying in unison and laughed.

  “Should we turn on our phones?”

  “No,” Alex said. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  They drove to Denver in silence.

  F