by Andrea Mara
Her mom can’t understand why she’s staying with Ruth tonight, instead of with her. In a bid to avoid the truth, Cleo said Ruth is going through a break-up. Then Delphine was annoyed that she didn’t know Ruth was in a relationship. It didn’t last long, he was a bit of a creep, Cleo explained, feeling bad for Ruth’s fictional boyfriend.
There’s a note on the table – there are fresh bagels in a bag on the counter, Ruth says, and Cleo is to help herself to juice and coffee. She’ll try to get off work at five so they can grab dinner. That gives Cleo eight hours to do what she needs to do.
Outside, the sidewalk is quieter, and she sets off on foot, retracing steps made on a different day in a different time. The street name is gone from her memory or maybe it was never there, but she’s pretty sure it was between Lorimer and Union, a few blocks before Grand Street. She’ll know it when she sees it. She makes her way along Lorimer Street, walking by the laundromat, and the bakery on the corner, its blue awning sheltering morning smokers from the unsure rain. Narrow clapboard homes in every shade of sand and sea-blue line the street, interspersed with brownstones and taller red-brick offices, looking down on their squatter neighbours. She didn’t miss it while she was gone, but now she’s here, there’s a dull ache. At Sol’s Pizzeria, she turns west onto a quieter street. Uncollected garbage topples out of trash-cans that line the sidewalk and every third house has been tagged in blue by someone called Skil or Skll.
Half a block down, she comes to it. A mint-green clapboard-fronted building, stuck between an auto-repair shop and a boarded-up construction that used to be a mini-mart, according to a faded sign still visible above the window.
She walks up the steps, scanning the front door. White paint peels off the edges and rust seeps from the handle. The stained-glass window looks too pretty for its surroundings, like a last gasp attempt at keeping up appearances. Peering inside, she can make out dark-green flooring and mud-coloured walls, and a bank of mailboxes at the far end of the entrance hall. To her right, outside the front door, there are two columns of buttons. She’s pretty sure Chris was on the third floor, and the two buttons in the middle are N. Diaz and C. O’Regan. Her hand hovers over the bell before she presses it – he’s probably not home at ten o’clock on a Tuesday morning. But she’s here now, and she really needs to make this stop. She presses and steps back, wondering what she’s setting in motion.
And nothing happens. He’s not here. Or he’s asleep. Or he doesn’t open the door to unannounced strangers. She sits on the stoop, deflated. Maybe Lauren was right – it’s a bad idea, and this is her out.
Then the door behind her opens, and a middle-aged man in sweats comes out of the building. She smiles as she gets to her feet.
“Forgot my key again,” she tells him, rolling her eyes. She watches him taking in her sheepskin coat, her green knit dress, her flat black boots. She doesn’t look like a burglar or a terrorist. In a single movement, he returns her smile and pushes the door to let her pass through. She has to squeeze to get by and she can’t tell if it’s deliberate. He smells of too much deodorant and not enough air, but she’s inside now, and he’s gone, and she’s facing up the dark threadbare stairs.
On the third floor, the first door is ajar, and Spanish words filter out – a mom cooing over a baby. There’s only one other door.
With Lauren’s misgivings still ringing in her ears, Cleo raises her hand and knocks.
Footsteps. She realises now she didn’t expect him to be here and for a moment, turning back and racing down the stairs is the most appealing move. But she stays. It needs to end.
The door opens, and she’s standing face to face with him. He’s taller than she remembers, six foot two easy. Red-rimmed eyes blink at her from under dark heavy brows. His skin is greyish white, like oatmeal that’s been let go cold, and his lips are a deep, fleshy red, a bright scar through stubble that seems more accident than design. He’s wearing a white T-shirt stained with salsa or ketchup, and dark-blue check pyjama pants. He runs a hand through thick black hair, still blinking like a mole coming up in spring.
It’s clearly up to Cleo to speak first, but she holds off, expecting recognition, then guilt. His face shows only mild confusion and much disinterest.
“I’m not buying anything,” he says, and starts to close the door.
“I’m not selling anything,” she tells him, and waits.
“Sure, well, maybe you have the wrong apartment.” He runs his hand through his hair again. He looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks.
“You’re Chris. I’m Cleo. Remember me?”
His face changes. A flicker of understanding, and something else.
“Cleo. What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you, face to face. Unlike you, I’m not afraid of direct confrontation. I don’t need to hide behind anonymous accounts and nasty messages to make my point. If you have something to say, say it to my face.” The last word is a dart, whizzing towards a bullseye.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but who do you think you are? Turning up at my door, berating me for God knows what, after what you did?”
“After what I did? I met a guy. It’s not a crime. What you did is criminal. What you’re still doing. And believe me, the cops are on to you. This is literally your last chance to stop, before they catch up with you.”
He shakes his head. “Cops? What are you talking about? That night at your mom’s? I haven’t been back since. I was drunk, and grieving. Jesus Christ, even your mother understood that.” He stops for a moment and scans her up and down. “You look exactly like her, but you’re clearly cut from a different cloth.”
“But that’s just it,” she tells him, her voice calmer. “Turning up to shout at my mom is something I get. Sending vicious messages to a complete stranger is an entirely different thing.”
He pulls the door wide and she thinks for a moment he’s going to invite her in. But he steps forward and pushes his face towards hers. The smell of last night’s beer mixed with stale coffee hits her, and she steps back.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” he hisses.
She steps back again, searching his eyes. They’re haunted, but it’s all there, raw and open. If he’s hiding something, he’s very good at it.
“Okay, maybe we can start over,” she said. “Someone has been sending anonymous messages to a friend of mine – someone who saw a photo she posted on social media. A photo of me. And that person has been trying to find me. If it’s you, then here I am – you can stop messaging.”
He looks blankly. “I haven’t been messaging anybody.” Then he sighs. “Let’s talk inside.” He pulls the door back, and Cleo steps in. The heavy drapes are drawn although it’s mid-morning, and she can just about make out a battered red sofa and an overflowing ashtray. The air is stagnant with stale cigarette smoke and unwashed skin. Empty beer cans line the floor beside the sofa. A fly buzzes from one end of the apartment to the other, over and over, trying to get out but finding no chink.
Chris pads across to the window and pulls the drapes. October sky lightens the room but only just. The furniture is dark and mismatched – an IKEA end-table beneath what looks like an antique lamp. A sleek flat-screen TV beside a vintage bookcase. He sees her looking.
“I took some of her stuff. Shannon’s, I mean. We had different tastes.” He doesn’t explain who had which taste.
He indicates that she should sit, and she does, wondering what Delphine would say if she could see her now. He drags a chair over from the table and puts it opposite the sofa, as though they’re in a therapy session.
“You don’t have work today?” she asks, lifting a stack of PR magazines off the couch and putting them on the floor.
“I left my job a few months ago to work for myself,” he says in a way that doesn’t invite further questions.
She imagines he doesn’t meet clients in his apartment. If he has any clients at all.
She takes a breath. “I’m very sorry
about your sister. I should have said that first.”
He accepts with the briefest of nods.
“And I’m sorry for turning up at your mom’s that night,” he replies. “I was so angry when Shannon died, and I needed someone to blame. For a long time, I focused on Marcus, imagining what I’d do to him once he was let out of prison.” He sees her face change. “Obviously I wouldn’t really do anything. And I know it’s not the healthiest way to deal with things, but –” he shrugs, and doesn’t finish.
“And then, when Marcus died?” she prompts.
“Yeah, when Marcus was killed, I should have been relieved or even sorry for him, but I was just angry that I never got to confront him. I needed a new focus.” His chin is down, and he looks up at her through lowered lids.
“A new enemy,” she says softly.
“Yes,” he says, almost whispering, “someone to blame.”
“Except you couldn’t find me.”
He nods. “I tried your apartment but there’s someone else living there now. I asked around among people who knew Marcus, but nobody seemed to know anything. Then I remembered Shannon saying he’d met you in The Cornerstone on Lorimer Street, so I went there one night. I asked the manager about you – I said I was an old friend.”
He pauses, waiting for her reaction but she doesn’t say anything.
“The manager was cagey at first but when I said I heard what happened with Marcus and was worried about you, she opened up. She said she wasn’t sure exactly where you were but that anyone would deserve a year-long vacation in Europe if they’d been through that. I could feel my blood pressure go up as she said it – my sister was lying in her grave, and you were swanning around Europe getting a suntan.”
He looks up at Cleo, accusation in his eyes. For having an affair or taking a vacation, she’s not sure.
“Chris,” she says softly, “it’s not a vacation. I moved there after Marcus tried to kill me. You know that, right? That he tried to kill me?”
The accusatory look is gone, replaced with something else, but she’s not sure what. Empathy? Or resentment, because she’s still here and Shannon is gone?
“Yes, I know all about it. And I’m sorry – what you went through is horrific. But –” he stops again.
“What, I brought it on myself? Chris, nobody brings someone like Marcus on them – not me, not Shannon.”
“This is hard to explain,” he says.
She nods for him to go on.
“You had cuts and bruises, you were in hospital, police interviewed you, he was arrested. You were a victim in the truest sense. The proof of it is in your hospital reports and his mugshot and in your old boss talking about how you deserve a year-long vacation.” He stops to swallow, and she doesn’t interrupt. “But Shannon took her own life. She’s a victim too, but there’s no acknowledgement. There’s shame and there are whispers and there are lowered eyes when my parents go to Mass on Sundays.”
“So you wish she could have had my ending?”
He nods.
“And I hers?”
“No! No, because . . .” He looks up at her, and his eyes are the saddest she’d ever seen. “Because even with what little I know of you, Cleo, I know you wouldn’t have done it. You’d never have jumped from a fourteenth-floor window over someone like Marcus. But Shannon did, and I can never get past that.”
Chapter 39
Neither of them says anything for a while, as the truth of his words hangs between them. His head is in his hands, and if he looks up he may cry, so Cleo lets the silence linger long after uncomfortable.
Eventually he straightens up, ready to talk again.
“She’d been drinking a lot and taking Valuim. I feel like I should have seen it coming, and yet I never dreamed she’d do something like that. Even looking back, even with all the guilt and the what-ifs, I still don’t think I could have guessed it. It’s just such a leap – drinking too much one minute, to jumping out a window the next. Leap. Bad choice of words.” There’s a ghost of a smile, then it’s gone.
“Did she leave a note?”
“An email. Very twenty-first century, right?” He searches on his phone for a moment, then passes it to her. “She sent it to my dad, and he forwarded it to me.”
Cleo clicks into an email with the subject line Marcus and reads.
Dear Dad,
Something is eating me up inside and I can’t go on any more.
Goodbye,
Shannon
Her skin prickles. She’s never read a suicide note before, and didn’t imagine something so clinical and short. She looks up to see Chris watching.
He nods. “Yeah, not much there, is there?”
“What does she mean when she says something is eating her up inside?”
He shrugs. “The break-up with Marcus. Clearly. It’s in the subject line.”
“Yes, but why the word ‘something’ – doesn’t that suggest it’s more than the break-up?”
Chris shifts in the chair and sits up straighter. It’s an old office chair, and doesn’t look very comfortable. His or Shannon’s, she’s not sure.
“Who can guess what was going through her mind that day? Like I say, she was drinking too much – she wasn’t very coherent in those final weeks.”
“Do you have Shannon’s cell phone? Maybe there’s something there to explain what the ‘something’ was?”
Wordlessly he walks to a room off the kitchen – his bedroom presumably, and comes back with a cell phone and charger. It takes a minute to charge enough to power it on, then he hands it to her, and she starts to go through Shannon’s email inbox.
“Sorry, do you mind if I do this?” she asks, glancing up at Chris.
He shrugs. “Knock yourself out. I’ve already looked – it’s all spammy newsletters. She was always signing up for things.”
There are hundreds of newsletters from dozens of online stores, and Goodreads notifications still arriving every day. Cleo shakes her head. It’s odd to think of all these messages flying into the inbox of someone who has been dead for a year now.
“Shouldn’t you unsubscribe from all these mailing lists?” she asks Chris.
Another shrug. “Does it matter either way? I don’t use the email for anything, and she’s gone.”
“Do you mind if I take a look through what she was sending and receiving towards the end?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
She scrolls back to November, to the day Shannon died – the last time she read any of the newsletters or notifications. There’s a PayPal confirmation showing a refund from an online clothing store, more Goodreads messages, an out-of-office reply from someone called Hayley with a New York Sun-Herald email address, and a message from a Jessica at NurtureUs.com. Cleo glances up at Chris, then clicks into the email.
Dear Shannon,
Thank you for contacting us here at NurtureUs.com. We’d love to help you through this beautiful time as your baby grows inside you. We can teach you about nutrition, exercise, and what to expect. We have a Deluxe Mama package that would be just perfect for you, for $199.99. It includes videos, newsletters, and three Skype calls, plus a beautiful baby-shower gift two weeks before your due date. If you’d like to proceed, just click here to register.
My very best wishes,
Jessica
Whoa. She looks up at Chris again. Surely at the autopsy they’d have noticed if she was pregnant? Maybe only Shannon’s parents were told? Cleo clears her throat.
“Did you find something?” Chris asks.
“Maybe. Did you . . . did anyone suggest at any point that Shannon was pregnant?”
Pain crosses his face.
“No. But she couldn’t have been – the medical examiner would have told us. And she wasn’t seeing anyone, not since Marcus left her.” There’s still a hint of accusation there. “Why are you asking?”
She holds up the phone so he can read Jessica’s email. He shakes his head, baffled.
“I don’t get it.
Why would she consider something like this if she wasn’t pregnant?”
Cleo’s not sure either. She keeps scrolling, flicking past little bytes of Shannon’s life, the before and after looking very much the same. She goes back to the clothing refund. Two sweaters and a pair of pants. Did she think they wouldn’t fit any more if she was pregnant? But there are other refunds dotted around her inbox. Maybe she was just an impulse night-time shopper – buying drunk and returning sober.
An idea forms. Cleo goes to Shannon’s Sent Items folder, and searches for NurtureUs – she might have contacted them directly through their website, but with a bit of luck, there’ll be an email. And there is.
Hi,
My name is Shannon, and I think I might be pregnant. I can’t tell anyone in real life, and was wondering what kind of information you can provide?
Regards,
Shannon O’Regan
She thinks she might be pregnant. So she hadn’t tested yet. Maybe that’s what happened – maybe by the time Jessica replied, she already knew she wasn’t? Could it be the ‘something’ she referred to in her suicide email to her dad? Marcus had said they were strict Catholics – maybe she couldn’t tell them about her pregnancy. Jesus, surely that’s not what made her jump?
“Would she have told you or your parents if she thought she was pregnant?”
Again pain flashes across his face. “I don’t think so. We were close, but there was some stuff we never talked about. And she’d never have told my parents – they’d have lost their shit completely. They’d have disowned her. They’d literally have thrown her out.” He stops, realisation dawning. “No, that’s not it. That’s not why she jumped. No fucking way. She wasn’t even pregnant, for God’s sake!”