Unearthly Things

by Michelle Gagnon

  The corners of Alma’s mouth drew down. She plucked at her polyester knit pants and said, “Your mother . . . she leave. Very angry with me.”

  “Why?” I asked in a strained voice. “Why was she angry?”

  Alma sighed heavily and muttered something in Filipino. I shared her frustration. The language barrier between us rendered something that was already difficult nearly impossible. She took the album and withdrew a folded piece of paper from the back. It was old and creased, worn thin by repeated handling. Opening it, I recognized my mother’s handwriting.

  I read it through twice.

  Dear Ina,

  I wanted to let you know that John and I have had a little girl. We named her Janie. Dad said that neither of you ever wanted to see or hear from me again, that I was dead to you both, but I’m hoping you’ll be able to change his mind. This isn’t the old world anymore. I know he has a hard time with that, but I was never going to marry a Filipino man. I’ve loved John ever since I can remember. I would never have been able to love anyone else, not even to make you happy.

  I miss you, Ina. I love you. I’m sorry you didn’t approve of our marriage, but we’re happy. And maybe, now that you have a grandchild, you’ll be able to convince Ama to change his mind. I hope that someday we can see each other again, and you can meet your granddaughter.

  Love always,

  Halina

  I looked up. Alma was sitting rigidly in the chair, her tiny hands clenched in her lap. Tears rolled from behind her glasses, dampening her cheeks.

  I sucked in a deep breath of air, feeling dizzy. I didn’t have any letters from my mother, and the fire had destroyed everything with her handwriting on it. Holding this thing that she had not only touched but poured her soul onto . . . it was like having her in the room with us. I could practically hear her saying the words.

  When I spoke, my voice trembled. “So you didn’t want to meet me?”

  Alma’s wrinkles deepened. She reached out for my hand, but I drew back. It had been sixteen years since she’d received this letter; in all that time, she hadn’t contacted us. She’d shut us out, to the extent that when my parents made their will, she wasn’t included as a potential guardian. My father’s parents hadn’t bothered to meet me, either, but they’d still been listed first. Followed by virtual strangers.

  Alma cleared her throat and said, “I want to, but your grandfather . . . he very angry with your mother. Wouldn’t let me.”

  “You could have come anyway,” I argued. “You could have told him to go to hell.”

  She was already shaking her head. “Your grandfather say no.” After a long beat, she added, “So sorry. So very sorry.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what you expect me to do with this. Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

  It suddenly dawned on me that the Rochesters must have known, right from the start. Richard had been my father’s best friend; he’d said that Alma practically raised them. So my mother had grown up here, too.

  Slowly, I turned my head toward the bedroom where I’d been sleeping. “That was her room.”

  Alma nodded, and I closed my eyes. No wonder it had seemed so familiar; when she’d decorated my room in Hawaii, my mother had given it a similar feel. A bed like the one she’d slept in. A bureau, in the same spot on the opposite wall. It must have been painful for her; but she’d probably missed home as much as I did. Her home here.

  I was having trouble sorting through the flood of emotions. Sadness, because the letter made the heartbreak of losing my mother feel fresh. Anger, because she’d reached out to try to bridge the divide, and her own mother hadn’t responded. Hurt, since my own grandmother had refused to meet me. And humiliation, because for months the people I’d been living with had kept the truth from me.

  Including Alma.

  “I can’t stay here,” I said, rising to my feet.

  “Please.” Alma placed a hand on my arm, but I shook it off.

  “No,” I said flatly. “If you didn’t want me then, I don’t want you now.”

  “Not safe!” Alma insisted, raising her voice.

  My eyes went to the chair blocking the door; she was right, it wasn’t safe out there. And I couldn’t exactly bed down in Georgina’s room, a dozen feet from Richard.

  It was comical: Here we were, in an enormous house, and there was nowhere for me to sleep.

  “Janie,” Alma said tremulously. “Please—”

  “Leave me alone.”

  I stormed into the bedroom—my mother’s room—and slammed the door. Now that I knew, I saw the signs of her everywhere. Even the quilt on the bed was nearly identical to my old one.

  My knees started to give. I stumbled to the bed and collapsed on it. Clutching a pillow to my chest, I stared up at the ceiling. I lay there for hours, wide-awake. I heard Alma’s bedroom door open, then close. The creak of bedsprings. Eventually, muffled snoring.

  Turning on my side, I curled into a ball. I was tempted to tiptoe back into the other room and get the letter, run my hands over it, memorize every word. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was only a pale vestige of her, like trying to grasp a shadow. My mother was gone—really, truly gone. And she’d died thinking that her own mother hated her.

  I felt a surge of rage toward Alma. What kind of person turned her back on her only child? It was no wonder Mom had always looked pained when I asked about her parents. And how unfair that my sweet, loving, generous mother was dead, and this cruel woman was still alive.

  I swore an oath to never speak to Alma again.

  Tomorrow, I’d gather up my things and go somewhere else; maybe Helen’s family would take me in. If not, a hotel. I’d get in touch with Mr. Briggs and tell him what had been going on. I’d let Kaila and her mom know, too. Then if anything happened to me, at least there would be people asking questions.

  As I finally drifted off to sleep, I felt fingers stroking my arm, then my hair. Humming, close by my ear. My eyes flew open, and I practically launched out of bed, ready to scream at Alma.

  But no one was there. Suddenly wide-awake, I sat up in bed. Was it my imagination, or had the room grown even colder? I scrambled for the pouch tucked under the pillow. Finding it, I held it up in front of me like a shield.

  “Leave me alone,” I said sternly. “I just want to be left alone!”

  I held my breath, ears straining. The room was silent. I finally lay back down and closed my eyes, still clutching the pouch in both hands. But I was unable to fall asleep.

  As the first rays of sunlight peeped beneath the curtains, I finally gave up. I felt hollowed out, and ravenously hungry; the hospital Jell-O hadn’t exactly been filling.

  I crept out of the apartment and made my way to the kitchen, wincing every time a floorboard creaked. I made a fresh pot of coffee, and boiled some eggs on the stove. After devouring them with three slices of toast, I felt moderately human again.

  My hunger sated, I sank down in a chair and put my head in my hands. My temples throbbed in time to my heartbeat, probably an aftereffect of the drugs. Maybe that’s why I’d thought there was someone in the room with me last night. It was actually kind of surprising that I wasn’t imagining worse things than someone petting my hair.

  “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

  I raised my head. John was standing in the doorway. “I thought you were all in Napa,” I muttered.

  “I decided to skip it this weekend,” he said casually. “Wasn’t in the mood for a party.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  He crossed the room and sat beside me. “So. How was the loony bin?”

  I made a strangled noise and said, “Not funny.”

  He regarded me thoughtfully. “Guess you discovered the sad truth about Mother Dearest.”

  I looked at him. It was hard to know if John was really on m
y side; better not to trust any of the Rochesters. “I think she actually believed I was Eliza,” I said, watching closely to gauge his reaction. “She’s completely insane.”

  “Well, not completely,” he said with a faint sneer. “Mostly, though.”

  “She said a weird thing on the drive over, too,” I added with forced nonchalance.

  “Really?” he asked, matching my tone. “What was that?”

  “She said she should’ve done this years ago. But she only just met me. So why would she say that?”

  John didn’t answer for a few minutes. We sat in silence, listening to the kitchen clock tick off the minutes. I’d started to think he wasn’t going to answer, but abruptly he said, “Let’s just say you don’t know the whole story about Eliza.”

  “Of course I don’t,” I grumbled. “Because none of you tell me anything.”

  “Every family has secrets, Janie.” He leaned forward on his elbows, glaring at the countertop.

  “Yeah, well . . . since your family’s secrets always seem to mess up my life, if you really want to be my friend, maybe you can fill me in,” I retorted.

  His face looked pained. “You think you want to see what’s behind the curtain, but trust me, you don’t.”

  “Try me,” I said, crossing my arms. He must’ve known about Alma, too, and he hadn’t said anything. I clenched my jaw. It was really hard not to go off on him about it, but so far John had been the only Rochester to tell me anything at all. This was probably my last chance to find out what the hell was going on; I couldn’t blow it. Not yet, at least.

  After another long pause, John said, “Let’s just say that Eliza’s death wasn’t mourned as deeply as it might have been otherwise.”

  An image of the girl with white hair flashed through my mind, and I repressed a shudder. “That doesn’t explain anything,” I grumbled. “Who didn’t mourn her? And what does that have to do with anything, anyway?”

  John’s lips were clamped tightly shut, as if he’d already said too much. “It’s complicated.”

  “Complicated how?” I said, throwing up my hands. “Let’s see: apparently your mom is insane, Nicholas starts fires, your entire family is stealing my money, and, oh yeah, you and Daniel did something horrible. Is that it?”

  With his usual bemused grin, John said, “That’s not even half of it, Janie.”

  I made an exasperated noise. “Seriously? Oh my God, I’m so sick of all of you.”

  “Sometimes secrets can keep you safe,” he said in a flat voice.

  I couldn’t help myself; that remark hit too close to home. “Sure,” I scoffed. “Like no one mentioning that I have a grandmother? And by the way, she lives here?”

  John looked surprised. “So Alma finally told you?”

  “Yeah.” I could still feel the letter in my hands. “And finally is kind of an understatement, don’t you think?”

  “It wasn’t our place,” he said, suddenly sounding much older than his years. “Look, I heard that when your parents ran off together, it pissed off a lot of people. Especially their parents, and my dad.”

  “That’s stupid,” I grumbled. “They were in love. Why shouldn’t they have gotten married?”

  “The heir to one of the oldest fortunes in town, eloping with the maid’s daughter?” John snorted. “Scandalous. It was all society talked about for years. We feed on that sort of thing, Janie. It’s like caviar for us.”

  “Oh, the horror,” I said sarcastically. “Not the maid’s daughter.” The way he’d said it implied that my mother was some sort of gold digger. I remembered her pulling double shifts at the island hospital, not only because we needed the money, but also because she genuinely adored the work. She loved helping people, and people loved her. The other nurses had affectionately nicknamed her “Saint Halina.” Someone like Marion could never hold a candle to her. Neither could John, for that matter.

  I rubbed my throbbing temples; my headache was growing by the minute. Arguing with him was a waste of time, though; his worldview was so stunted, he’d never understand. So instead I said, “It was almost twenty years ago. Are you telling me that people here are so lame, they’re still talking about it?”

  “People have long memories.” He eyed me. “I will say, Alma practically dragged Dad to the hospital yesterday. I don’t think there’s any way she would’ve come back without you.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s too little too late,” I huffed, feeling another surge of righteous indignation.

  “And when we got the news about the helicopter crash, she didn’t come out of her apartment for days. I think she regrets it, Janie,” John said quietly. “Your grandfather was seriously traditional. Having a daughter disobey him was probably too much for him to take.”

  “That’s kind of racist, don’t you think?” I snapped.

  “No, it’s the reality,” he countered. “Your grandmother moved here when she was eighteen. It was an arranged marriage, and she was raised to obey her husband. I know that sounds kind of old-fashioned, but that’s the way they were. If she’d gotten on a plane to Hawaii, he probably would’ve completely lost it.”

  “So she’s a coward,” I grumbled, wondering how he knew so much about Alma’s life. She didn’t seem like the type to share.

  He shrugged. “I think it’s more complicated than that. Alma loved him, and she didn’t want to lose him. But that meant giving up your mom, and you. By the time he died, you were already ten years old. She probably thought it was too late.”

  He fell silent. I puzzled over what he’d said; it was nice to finally have some of the blanks filled in. That didn’t mean I could forgive her, though.

  “Why are you defending her?” I finally asked. “You’re usually the first to say something awful about someone.”

  “Not Alma,” he replied with a faint smile. “She’s pretty much the only person who’s ever been nice to me.”

  The way he said it pierced my heart; looking at him, I could see Nicholas in ten years. He’d also learn to bury the hurt so deep it would become nearly impossible to see, forming a cold shell around himself as protection. I hated the thought.

  John gave me a funny look. “I was named after your father. Did you know that?”

  I shook my head slowly.

  “I met him once, when he came back for your grandfather’s funeral. He slept on the couch in the study after dad got him drunk.”

  “When was that?” I asked, astonished.

  “Let’s see . . . I was fourteen, I think? So three years ago.”

  Of everything he’d told me, this was the most startling. I tried to wrap my mind around it. Dad had been back to San Francisco that recently? Why hadn’t he taken us to the funeral, too? I’d been old enough to go, and even if I’d never met him, he was my grandfather.

  Thinking back, I could remember my dad being unusually sad and introspective a few years ago. He’d sit on the porch staring out at the water for hours after dinner every night. Mom had been evasive when I’d asked what his deal was; she just said to give him space. At the time, I’d chalked it up to a midlife crisis.

  I’d always thought the three of us were so close, much tighter than most families. And now that they were gone, I was discovering how much I didn’t know about them. I sat back in the chair and blew out a breath, suddenly exhausted again. “Well, crap.”

  “Exactly,” John said with a laugh. “See? I told you it was complicated.”

  I glared at him.

  “So what else do you want to know?” he asked.

  I wasn’t sure I could process any more surprises, especially since my head felt like a melon on the verge of splitting in half. “Is there any aspirin around here?” I asked.

  “Sure.” John went to a cupboard on the other side of the room and sifted through a stockpile of bottles, coming back with aspirin and a glass of water. As I popped
two in my mouth and washed them down, he asked, “So what are you thinking? Spa day? Or just a mani-pedi?”

  “I’m going surfing,” I announced. It had only just occurred to me, but that’s exactly what I needed: a couple of hours in the water would help wash away the stress and anxiety.

  John cocked an eyebrow and said, “Cool. I’ll come with.”

  “Wait, what? But—”

  He was already trotting away, leaving me scowling at his empty stool. I had no intention of taking him with me; the whole point was to spend some time alone. I gritted my teeth; what did he think, that I was going to give him a free surf lesson?

  Minutes later, John reappeared in jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and a fleece. It was pretty much the most dressed down I’d ever seen him.

  “What?” he demanded, seeing my look of incredulity.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Listen, I’m really not up for babysitting right now.”

  “Neither am I,” he said breezily. “I’m in the mood to catch some waves.” He tossed me a pile of clothes. “There’s a Speedo in there with the tags still on it; Georgie had a crush on a water polo guy for, like, a minute and bought a dozen of them. She won’t even notice it’s missing. The other stuff is from my personal closet.”

  I took the clothes and said, “Um, thanks. But listen . . . you need a wetsuit, and none of the surf shops are open yet.”

  His forehead wrinkled. “What makes you think I don’t have a wetsuit?”

  I shrugged, nonplussed. “You do?”

  “Of course,” he said. “In the back of the garage, next to my long board.”

  My jaw dropped. I hadn’t seen any other surf gear in there, but then again, I hadn’t really looked; Bob had allotted me a space by the front wall. And the garage was huge, large enough for five cars parked side-by-side.

  John seemed to be enjoying my reaction. “So,” he said. “Are you going to get changed, or what?”

  I tugged at the pajamas self-consciously and grumbled, “Fine.”