The Faithful

by S. M. Freedman

  The two agents shook hands, and Josh watched Carl climb into his Chevy Suburban and pull away. Carl hadn’t offered his continued help, or asked to remain in the loop.

  That’s what it looks like when you start doubting the institution you’ve spent your life serving, Josh thought grimly. He felt a momentary stab of guilt at being an instrument in the older man’s loss of faith.

  “Hello? Helloooo? Ahem. Well. Please tell Joshua it’s his mother calling. Again. Is he there? Hello?”

  Josh yanked his tie loose, listening to his mother’s raspy breath on voice mail as she waited for him to pick up. “Well, I don’t know where he might be at nine o’clock at night. Joshua!” She was yelling now, reminding him of the way she had called him in for supper as a child. “Hello?”

  Josh grabbed a beer out of the fridge and popped the tab, taking a long and much-needed swallow.

  Her voice became a low, raspy whisper. “Listen, tell Joshua the head nurse is stealing from me. My silver brooch is missing this time, and I just know . . .”

  He hit the “Stop” button on his phone. He had eight more messages, and he was certain they were all from his mother. He pressed “Delete,” and then jumped guiltily when the phone jangled. “Hi, Mom. I was just listening to your messages.”

  “Joshua, where have you been? I’ve been worried sick!”

  “Working. Remember, I told you I was going to Oregon for that missing child case?”

  “You told me no such thing, Joshua.” There was no point in arguing.

  “You have my cell number. Call me on that; I always have it with me.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to bother you while you’re at work. I know how busy you are.”

  Josh took another long swallow of beer. “It’s no trouble, Mom. And by the way, when you call my house, you’re leaving a message on a machine, remember?”

  “What are you drinking, Joshua?”

  “Just water. Listen, I just got in and I’m exhausted. Can I call you tomorrow?”

  “Look into that head nurse; she knows I’m on to her. I think she’s trying to get rid of me. I keep warning her my son works for the FBI, but that doesn’t stop her from stealing from me. And I think she slipped some pills into my drink at lunch today. I slept all afternoon.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true. And your silver brooch is in the safe-deposit box. Remember?”

  “Who said anything about my brooch? She’s taking money from my purse, Joshua.”

  “I’ll look into it tomorrow.” There was no point in reminding her she didn’t have any money in her purse. It was an argument he couldn’t win.

  “Good. Have you called Gloria yet?”

  “Who?”

  “For heaven’s sake, Joshua. Gloria! The nurse’s aide.”

  “Geez, Mom. I’m not calling her.”

  “Why not? She’s a lovely girl. She even gave me a pedicure the other day. You could do much worse.”

  Josh stifled a groan. “I’m not interested.”

  “Why not? I know she’s not the prettiest girl, but I hear they’re doing wonders with laser treatment these days. Those pockmarks could be fixed, if that’s your problem.”

  “She’s twenty-two.”

  “Joshua, you keep letting these opportunities pass you by. I want to see you settle down. I’d like to hold grandbabies in my arms before God sees fit to take me home.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you dating anyone?”

  “Listen, I’ll come by tomorrow. We’ll have dinner together, all right?”

  “You’re married to your job, Joshua. But the job won’t take care of you when you’re sick, or—”

  “Let’s talk tomorrow, okay? Love you, good night.” He dropped the phone back in its cradle. Then he got another beer out of the fridge and carried it upstairs to the bedroom.

  “Hi Frieda, thanks for meeting with me.”

  Her hand was warm and damp. Frieda Sutcliffe weighed nearly three hundred pounds. She was dressed impeccably in a black suit, gold blouse, and black flats. Her legs bulged like sausages inside her support hose.

  She sat down behind her desk, for which he was grateful. He preferred to avoid the distraction of being able to look up her skirt. From past experience, he knew she preferred those shiny beige support panties favored by grandmothers the world over.

  She pulled the tab on the Diet Coke he passed across the desk, and took a long swallow. Her only availability was over the lunch hour, so he had offered to bring sandwiches from Schwartz’s Deli. He handed her a pastrami on rye and unwrapped his turkey with hot mustard on the corner of her desk.

  “No problem. How goes it over on Pennsylvania Avenue? I hear you got a promotion.”

  “That’s Senior Special Agent Joshua Metcalf to you.” He winked over his bottled water and took a sip.

  “Oh my.” She pretended to fan herself with a napkin, and then smiled. “Congratulations, Josh.”

  “Thanks. How are things at ED?”

  “Same old, same old. I’m counting down to retirement. Only two years, three months, and seventeen days left.”

  “So you’re taking early retirement?”

  “You flatterer.” She waved off the compliment and took a hefty bite of her sandwich.

  “How is Todd doing these days?”

  She swallowed and shrugged. “Better, I think. He’s alive, at least. Thanks to you.”

  Frieda’s son had been a member of the Metropolitan Police Department. Josh met him while working a joint investigation into a series of bank robberies involving a Colombian drug cartel. During the investigation, information surfaced about a storage facility where the cartel was believed to be hiding the stolen goods as well as a large shipment of crack.

  The SWAT team penetrated the facility, but either the information was bad or the cartel had a snitch inside the department. Whatever the reason, they found nothing except used furniture and a whole bunch of gun-wielding Colombians. Six officers were wounded that night: two from the FBI and the rest from the police department. One of them died in the hospital the next day.

  Todd Sutcliffe took a bullet to the head, and the shot was both lucky and unlucky. The bullet ricocheted off his skull, never penetrating the brain. However, it severed his spinal cord between the C3 and C4 vertebrae, rendering him a quadriplegic.

  Josh had pulled an old sofa down over the top of him, cocooning Officer Sutcliffe in the triangle created by the seat and backrest of the sofa. It protected him from detection and from further injury by stray bullets, and had possibly saved his life.

  Under the same circumstances, Josh would have preferred to die, and he suspected Todd felt the same. Nevertheless, Frieda Sutcliffe was eternally grateful to Josh for saving her only child’s life.

  “All right, Josh. I know you didn’t come here for a social visit. What can I do for you?”

  “Know anything about the PSST?”

  “We fund the test, although it’s not my department. Why?”

  “What can you tell me about it?”

  She shrugged her meaty shoulders. “It’s run by NCES. Testing is done in all public schools from kindergarten through seventh grade. We’ve been funding it since sometime in the sixties, I think.”

  “Do you know what kind of questions are on the test?”

  “I don’t. Why?”

  Josh hesitated. “I need to keep things confidential, Frieda.”

  She eyed him carefully. “Of course.”

  “Do you know anyone in NCES I could talk to? Is there anyone you trust?”

  Frieda leaned back in her chair, mulling it over. “I know a couple of data-entry clerks, but I doubt they’ll be much help. I think you want to talk to Connie Fisher. She’s an acquaintance, but I’ve known her for fifteen years. We go for lunch every few months. She’s in the Post-Secondary Divisi
on, so not quite what you’re looking for, but perhaps she’ll be able to guide you in the right direction. Let me give her a call.” She picked up the handset and started pressing numbers.

  “Thanks. And Frieda . . .”

  She waved a hand full of gold rings at him. “Yeah, yeah. Top secret, I know. Connie! It’s Frieda. How are you, darling?”

  Josh waited while Frieda exchanged the necessary pleasantries before getting down to business.

  “Do you remember the FBI agent who saved Todd’s life? Can I send him over to you? He’s got some questions . . . No, nothing to do with you, it’s about the PSST. Right. I know. But listen.” She held up a hand as Josh opened his mouth. “This needs to be kept quiet. Great, that’s perfect. When? Okay. I’ll tell him. Thanks Connie, I owe you one.” She laughed at something Connie said. “Right, you got it. See you next week, then.” Frieda hung up and scribbled on a pink Post-it note. She peeled it off the pad and handed it across the desk.

  “You’re taking her for dinner tonight at Filomena’s. Don’t look at me like that; you can afford it after that nice promotion.”

  Swallowing hard, he nodded. What he really feared was canceling another dinner with his mother. He’d never hear the end of it.

  “Thanks, Frieda, I really appreciate it.” He stood and shoved the pink note into the breast pocket of his suit. “How will I know her?”

  “Oh, that’s easy. Just look for the classiest woman at the bar. And then find her polar opposite. That will be Connie.”

  “Right. Well, thanks again.”

  “Oh, and Josh? Watch out. She gets a bit flirty when she’s had a few martinis.” She laughed at him. “Don’t look so worried. I’m sure you can handle it.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When I awoke, the dream-woman was standing in the corner of my bedroom, by the dresser. I closed and opened my eyes several times, but there she stood.

  She was watching me with those sad brown eyes, her red hair like embers against the white wall behind her. There was a dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her skin was creamy, like expensive silk, and became rosy as it approached the plunging neckline of her blouse.

  I closed my eyes again, trying to shake the dream that was not a dream, and when I opened them this time she was gone. Shuddering, I rolled over, only to come face to face with her lying next to me, smiling. Her teeth were white and straight, save for one in the front that was enchantingly crooked. She reached out to touch my cheek.

  The screaming woke Dan and he charged into my bedroom wielding a frying pan. He had passed out on my couch in the afternoon, and I had left him there.

  “What the hell, Rowan?” Some of Dan’s hair was standing up, while other parts were mashed flat to his head. His clothes were wrinkled and twisted around, as though he’d spent the last few hours in the middle of a tornado.

  His eyes were red and wild as he scanned the room. He held the frying pan above his head, ready to bash in somebody’s skull. It was part of a set from Le Creuset, so heavy I needed both hands to lift it, and could have done some serious damage if the intruder were flesh and bone. In this case, I doubted it would do much good.

  “Stop screaming!” Dan yelled.

  I hadn’t realized I still was, and closed my mouth. The silence that followed was abrupt.

  “What the hell happened? I thought you were being murdered in here or something!”

  “Sorry. Just a bad dream, I guess.” Without looking, I knew the woman was gone. Not that Dan would have been able to see her, anyway.

  “What’s that smell?” he asked.

  “Violets.”

  He dropped the pan to the floor and rubbed his temples, moaning.

  “Do you have any Advil?”

  Dan insisted on taking the shift at work by himself, leaving me alone in the pooling shadows. I moved through the house, turning on lights and tightening the slats of the blinds against the darkness.

  As a balm for the solitude, I found a comedy on HBO and turned up the volume. A frozen pizza went in the oven, and I opened a can of Coke and poured it over ice.

  I ate the pizza off a napkin on my lap, focusing on the TV in an attempt to dam up the river of questions threatening to drown me in fear and confusion.

  When every last crumb was devoured, I turned to the task at hand. Starting in the office, I systematically tore the place apart. Although I found every textbook and notebook from every course I had ever taken, there was nothing from my childhood. It was like I hadn’t existed before nineteen. There were no photo albums, no old greeting cards, nothing.

  A large manila envelope in the bottom desk drawer contained all my vital documents, such as they were. My university degrees got tossed on top of the desk, along with my passport, while I focused on the remaining two documents: my birth certificate and high school diploma.

  The birth certificate looked legit to me, but what did I know? It had an embossed seal that said “State of Illinois, Certificate of Live Birth.” Underneath were the particulars, including my name, Rowan Jane Wilson, and my date of birth, May 24, 1981, at 3:18 a.m. The place of birth was listed as Saint Anthony Hospital, Chicago, Illinois. My father was listed as Thomas John Wilson; his date of birth was September 28, 1949. My mother was listed as Jillian Mavis Wilson. Her maiden name was O’Connor, and her date of birth was July 12, 1953.

  My high school diploma was less informative. It was from Jones College Prep in Chicago, and said I had graduated with honors in June of 1999. Closing my eyes, I tried to picture anything about my high school years, about graduation, anything.

  It reminded me of having a word on the tip of my tongue, but being unable to pull it forward. My early life was shrouded in darkness. The first thing I could clearly remember was moving into my dorm room at MIT that fall.

  I carried both documents back to the living room and opened my laptop. Jones College Prep’s website was full of pictures of happy and well-adjusted-looking teens, all engaged in wholesome school activities. The building and grounds in the background didn’t spark any memories. I had no recollection of spending four years of my life there.

  There was a transcript request form on the Student Record Services page, so I filled it out. Not surprisingly, there were no Google hits for either of my parents. All the links for myself were university- or job-related.

  On the Illinois Department of Public Health and Illinois Vital Records websites, I filled out requests for another birth certificate for myself, as well as my parents’ marriage and death certificates. Since I had no idea where either of them was born, I didn’t bother requesting their birth certificates. I paid extra for the documents to be shipped by UPS next-day delivery, although it would still take over a week to process.

  Once that was done, I grabbed another Coke out of the fridge, poured it over fresh ice, and stood at the counter taking big gulps and debating what else to do.

  It was beyond disconcerting to have my solid foundation ripped away. I wondered if this was how people with head injuries felt, like something that had always been in their grasp had turned to vapor. No matter how hard I tried to grab at them, the memories were dissipating before my eyes, leaving nothing but a gaping black hole.

  Even worse than the loss was the suspicion that new memories were waiting just beyond my view, ready to fill the empty space with something far different from what had been removed. It was terrifying, and more than anything I wanted to bury my head in the sand.

  But wasn’t that what I always did? How many years of my life had I believed in a childhood for which I apparently had no documentation, no photos, and no proof? And before now, it had never even occurred to me to look.

  I had created blinders with which to shield myself, focusing on the narrow path directly in front of me, and pretending what I glimpsed out of the corners of my eyes didn’t exist.

  My avoidance of mirrors was a perfec
t example, but there were many others. How often did I turn on the TV or radio to drown out the voices that wanted my attention? How often did I turn on every light in the house so there would be no shadowy corners in which someone might hide? How often did I walk past people I knew no one else could see, and pretend I couldn’t see them, either? And when they reached out for me, I quickened my pace just the way city folk did when passing a homeless person begging on a street corner.

  And though I knew it was time, long past time, to take off the blinders and see what I had been ignoring, the idea was terrifying. I dumped the Coke into the sink, ice and all, and popped the tab on one of Dan’s beers.

  “Bottoms up!”

  It went down in five disgusting swallows, and I belched like a frat boy. Down went a second beer, and then a third. I stood by the sink, belching and willing it all to stay down.

  Within minutes, there was a warm rush of booze-induced relaxation. I headed for the bathroom, staggering a little and bumping into the doorframe as I passed.

  Taking a deep breath, I positioned myself in front of the mirror. Ignoring the thunder of my heart against my rib cage, I forced my gaze up to the mirror.

  The dream-woman wasn’t peering over my shoulder, as I had expected. All I saw was my own pale face. My eyes were wide and bright with fear, my mouth drawn into a pinched line. There were faint lines crinkling the corners of my eyes, and a dusting of freckles dancing across my nose and along my cheekbones. My red hair, pulled back from my face in a messy ponytail, had yet to show any signs of gray.

  The contours of my face were fascinating, as were my green eyes. How strange were a human’s eyes, with their black pinpoints in the center, a pathway that could be followed inward to the very beginning, to the creation spark, an eye corridor right to the center of I.

  As I watched, the small wrinkles around my eyes smoothed away, and my face rounded out. My nose grew rounder, too, and freckles disappeared from my cheeks. My lips plumped up, rosy and fresh with youth.