“You adopted me?” I asked.
“No,” Mom said. “It’s that—”
“Panda…Andy.” Maggie sat cross-legged on the bed. “Mom and Uncle Marcus had sex a long time ago. They weren’t married to each other, so it was wrong, but something good came out of it and that was you. Mom got pregnant with you when she and Uncle Marcus had sex.”
I looked at Mom. Her face was red.
“Uncle Marcus and I cared about each other,” she said. “That’s why we made love. Maggie is right that we shouldn’t have because I was married to your dad…to the man you’ve always thought was your father…at the time.”
“You didn’t use a condom?” I asked Uncle Marcus.
He rubbed his hand over his mouth. I knew he was smiling. Sometimes you could see smiles in people’s eyes even if you couldn’t see what was happening with their mouths.
“We didn’t,” he said. “And that was very stupid of us.”
“Totally,” I said.
“But I love you,” Uncle Marcus said. “I’ve always loved you, and I’m very proud that you’re my son.”
“Because of when I saved kids in the fire?”
“No. I mean I’m…I feel lucky that you’re my son. You’re very important to me.”
“Do you get it, Andy?” Maggie asked. “Do you understand that Daddy wasn’t your father and that Uncle Marcus is?”
“It’s like with Kimmie,” I said. “Daddy is my adopted father and Uncle Marcus is my birth father.”
“That’s right!” Mom clapped her hands. Just once. Not like at a play.
“Close enough,” Uncle Marcus said. He walked over to hug me. “I love you,” he said again.
“Me, too. Am I supposed to call you Darren?”
“Darren?” he asked.
“That’s what Kimmie calls her birth father. She never met him, but she says Darren was America Africa and was a marine and things like that.”
Maggie cracked up, so I must’ve said something funny. Uncle Marcus laughed, too. “She calls her…birth father Darren,” he said, “because that must have been his name. You can keep calling me Uncle Marcus, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. I swirled around to my computer. I couldn’t wait to IM Kimmie to tell her I had an adopted father and birth father, just like her.
“Andy?” Mom said. “We’re not finished talking.”
“Maybe that’s enough?” Maggie said.
“No, let’s finish it,” Mom said.
“I want to IM Kimmie that I have a birth father,” I said.
“I know,” Uncle Marcus said. “But there’s one other thing we want you to know. Turn your chair around again, okay?”
I swirled it back again.
Uncle Marcus sat down on the bed, too. They reminded me of an audience, all looking at me and everything.
“Keith is your cousin,” Uncle Marcus said.
“Keith?” He was wacko. “I don’t have any cousins.”
“I don’t blame you a bit for being confused,” Mom said. She leaned over and picked up a pad from my dresser. “Come sit here, Andy,” she said.
Maggie got up so I could sit where she was, even though I didn’t want to leave my computer. Mom was drawing something, though. Maybe a picture of Keith? I wanted to see, so I sat next to her on my bed.
She was drawing little people. “Okay,” she said. She pointed to a stick man and a stick lady with a dress. She wrote adopted Daddy above the stick man and Mom above the lady. Then she drew a line from them to another stick lady that was Maggie. Pretty soon there were stick people and lines everywhere. She put a lady that was Miss Sara on the paper. Then I gave up.
“I don’t get it,” I said.
Mom laughed. We all looked at her crazy drawing. “It’s a mess, all right,” Mom said.
“Want me to try?” Maggie asked Mom.
“Be my guest,” Mom said.
Maggie stood in front of me like a teacher. “All you need to know is that Keith is your cousin. Daddy—your adopted daddy—is his real birth father like Uncle Marcus is your birth father.”
“Are you his mother?” I asked Mom.
“No,” Maggie said. “Sara is his mom, like you always thought.”
I wanted a cousin. Not Keith, though. “Can I have a different person to be a cousin?”
“It doesn’t work that way, And,” Uncle Marcus said. “Keith is your cousin. He’s also Maggie’s half brother.”
I put my hands over my ears. “I’m Maggie’s brother!” I wasn’t angry, but I felt like when Mr. Krachwitz talked about A equals B equals X equals all that stuff.
“Like, here’s the thing,” Maggie said. “Keith is your cousin and that means he’s technically a Lockwood. I mean, his last name is Weston like always, but he has…he’s related to us. That’s why Mom asked him to move in with us until Sara is found. Because he’s part of our family and we should help him. And…like, you know how our family has a lot of money?”
“We’re rich.”
“Well,” Mom said, “it’s not that we’re—”
“Yes,” Maggie said. “We’re rich, especially compared to Keith. And that’s why Keith was upset the night of the fire. Remember he called you a little rich boy? He and Sara never had a lot of money, and because he had the same father, that seemed unfair to him.”
I stared at her. I was almost as confused as when I looked at Mom’s stick-people drawing.
“Do you understand any of this?” Mom asked.
“Of course I do. I’m not an imbecile.”
But all I got was that we were rich. Keith was poor. And that was totally not fair.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Keith
“DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DRIVE A BOAT?” JEN ASKED.
She was lying sideways on my bed, totally naked, with her long tan legs stretched up on my wall. She said it felt good on her back to lie like that. I was propped up against my pillow, a beer in my hand, enjoying the view. My shoulder was killing me, though.
“I don’t know if you say ‘drive,’” I said. “I think you pilot a boat or something like that.”
She rolled her pretty, blue eyes. “Whatever. Do you?”
“Uh-uh.” It seemed lame that I’d lived on an island all my life and never piloted a boat. “Why?”
She shrugged. “I thought it’d be fun to rent one, maybe. Go out in the sound.” Her hair was spread out all around her head, and it was totally dark again. It made me wonder if I’d imagined that gray stripe. Maybe it had just been her scalp.
“Kayaks are best out there,” I said. I didn’t know much about boats, but I knew you could get stuck in the sound and the Intracoastal pretty easily. “My friend Dawn’s boyfriend works for a boat-rental place. Maybe he could give us a discount.”
“Really?” she said. “That’d be so cool.”
I stood up and pulled on my jeans. “Need a Perc,” I said.
She swung her legs off the wall and pulled on her thong. “How ’bout I make us an omelette.” She followed me, still nine-tenths naked, into the kitchen.
“Sounds good,” I said.
I had the bottle of Percocet in my hand when I heard a car door slam, then footsteps on the deck stairs. Crap. Who now? I held my breath as the screen door squeaked open, followed by a knock on the door.
Jen started to say something, but I put my finger to my lips.
“Keith?” It sounded like Marcus. I really didn’t want him to meet Jen—especially not nine-tenths naked—and have to go through that whole conversation of who she was and all that. I wanted to keep her separate from the rest of my life. She was like my fantasy girl and Marcus was too much reality for me.
I managed to pull open the door in spite of the pill bottle in my hand.
“Hey,” I said, walking onto the deck.
Marcus looked from one of my hands to the other. Bottle of pills to the bottle of beer. Then he nodded toward the trailer. “Company?” he asked.
I walked to the other side of the d
eck to get out of Jen’s hearing.
“Just a friend,” I said, putting the beer down on the dirty plastic patio table.
He smiled. “Great.” He leaned against the creaky deck railing. “I’ve got something serious I wanted to talk to you—”
He stopped midsentence. He must’ve seen the color drain from my face.
“No, no,” he said fast. “Sorry.” He went to touch my arm, but I pulled it away, remembering the last time he did that. “This isn’t about your mother,” he said. “There’s no news there. I just wasn’t sure this was the time to talk to you about something serious with…you know—” he nodded toward the trailer again “—since you have company.”
“I’ve got a minute.” I sat down at the table, mostly because my legs were suddenly giving out.
“Well—” Marcus sat down across from me “—there’re a couple of things. We—Laurel and Maggie and Andy and I—want to be sure there’s no more family secrets between any of us. And since you’re part of the family, I want to tell you something we talked about yesterday.”
Shit. How many secrets could one family have?
“Here’s the big one,” he said. “I’m actually Andy’s father.”
“Whoa. You’ve gotta be shittin’ me.”
He shook his head. “We only told Andy and Maggie yesterday, but we thought you should know, too. Not find out in some half-assed way.”
I tried to figure out what the news meant for me. “So I’m not related to Andy?” I asked.
“Yes, you’re his cousin. Jamie and I were brothers, remember?”
“Damn, is there anybody who didn’t screw somebody else in your family?”
He laughed, though I don’t think he meant to. “Mistakes were definitely made,” he said. “You can do stupid things when you’re young. And it’s your family, too, don’t forget.” He held out his hand. “Let me see the pills.”
For some reason, maybe because I was still in shock over what he’d told me, I turned the bottle over to him. He opened it, poured the pills into his hand, checked the date. “You’re taking too many, aren’t you? And it’s ten in the morning and you’re drinking beer. What gives?”
“Oh, gee, I don’t know.” The question really pissed me off. “You think I might have some crap going on in my life or something?”
“This can only make it worse, Keith,” he said, Mr. Serious now. “If you’ve got that much pain, maybe you need different meds, and you sure don’t need beer to go along with them.”
“You don’t know anything about my pain.”
“You’re right.” The sound of pans clanking together came from inside the trailer and he looked toward the door. “You know I’m a recovering alcoholic, right?”
“You are? Like, since when?”
“Fifteen years.”
“You don’t drink at all?”
He shook his head.
“Well, so why tell me this? I’m not an alcoholic.”
“I’m just concerned about the pills and the booze. Creeps up on you.”
“I’m fine.” It was creeping up on me, but so what? The pills and the booze—and now Jen—were the only things keeping me going. “What was the other thing you wanted to tell me?”
“I get that you don’t want to stay at Laurel’s,” he said, “but I’d like you to move in with me until your mother’s found.”
“No way.”
“I know you’re eighteen, Keith, but you’re not used to being on your own.”
I didn’t want him looking over my shoulder every minute. Cracking down on my booze intake. Counting my pills. “I just want to stay here,” I said.
He was looking at me funny all of a sudden. Head tipped to the side. Eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You’re not…When’s your birthday?”
Shit. “You going to send me a card, or what?”
“You’re seventeen!” he said.
“What does it matter?” I asked.
“Why do you think it matters? You can’t live alone.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
He shook his head. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said, “but I have to talk to DSS about this.”
“No fucking way! They’ll stick me in some group home.”
“I have to,” he said, like he’d go to prison or something if he didn’t. “No choice. But I’ll see if they’d let you live with me, since we’re related.”
“Marcus.” I was pleading with him. “Just let it go. I’ll be eighteen in a few months, anyway.”
“Then you can just move in until you turn eighteen. Or your mother’s found.” He shook his head, motioning toward the trailer. “This is no good, you living here by yourself, Keith,” he said. “You can see that, can’t you?”
I thought of Jen inside, making me a perfectly nutritious omelette. Taking care of me.
“I’m not moving in with you or anybody,” I said. “I’ll split first. Someplace they won’t find me.” He didn’t say what we were both thinking. It would be pretty hard for me to blend in with a crowd.
“Sorry, Keith.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I’ll let you know what they say, all right?”
I blew back into the trailer once Marcus drove away.
“He just figured out I’m seventeen!” I said to Jen. She was standing in the middle of the room, dressed now, with a spatula in her hand. “He says he has to report it. It’s his solemn duty or something.”
“Can’t you live alone at seventeen?” she asked. “I mean, if you kill someone at sixteen, you’re considered an adult in North Carolina. So, why can’t you live alone? That’s insane.”
“No shit.” I was freaking out. I wondered if I could live with her. If she’d ask. But I’d have to let someone know where I was in case my mother was found.
“They’ll make you go back to school,” she said.
“And stick me in some foster home. Probably a group home with a bunch of nutcases. I won’t go.”
She turned off the burner under the eggs and sat down at the little table. “I think they can make you,” she said.
“Like how? You mean physically?”
She nodded. “I think the cops can force you if you won’t go on your own.”
I dropped into the other chair. “What am I going to do?” I felt beaten down. I’d die in a group home. With my face, I’d be the one getting all the grief. Getting beat up. It was so stupid. I was fine in the trailer.
“I don’t know, baby,” she said, reaching across the table and running her fingers over my fucked-up left hand. “All I know is, somebody really turned your life upside down.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Maggie
“I DON’T BELIEVE THERE ARE ANY GOOD PEOPLE IN THE WORLD,” I said to Dr. Jakes. I was sitting on the edge of the leather chair and my voice was louder than usual. Too loud.
“What makes you say that?” he asked.
“I think people put on a show that they’re good,” I said. “Maybe they even start to, like, believe it themselves. But people are really…not evil, exactly, but they just care about themselves. They don’t really care about who they step on. They just pretend like they do. You can’t trust them. You really can’t trust anyone.”
He frowned at me. “Where’s this coming from, Maggie?”
“From everywhere!” I said. I’d just told him about the depraved mess that was my family. Did he really need to ask me where my distrust was coming from?
“Can you be more specific?” he asked.
“Take Ben, for example,” I said. “He was this sweet, wonderful guy. I would have trusted him with anything.”
“You trusted Ben with your heart.”
I rolled my eyes. “That sounds so melodramatic.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s true,” I said. “I trusted Ben, but he was just looking out for number one. Everything he said was a lie. And then there’s my father, who was…” I gripped the arms of the leather chair. “God, I tho
ught he was so amazing, and all the time he was cheating on my mother with Sara. And Sara is, like, this perfect supersweet kind of person, and she deceived my mother, not to mention her own husband. And my mother screwed my uncle when she was married to my father. And that brings me to my uncle, who was screwing his brother’s wife. And all these people—you’d meet them and think they’re, like, the best people in the world.” I turned my hands palm side up. “See what I mean?” I asked. “There are no good people. Not really. My little brother’s good, because he doesn’t know any better, and even he’s probably hiding something. Some dark side. There are no good people left.”
“Left?” Dr. Jakes raised one eyebrow over his striped glasses. “That implies you think there used to be good people in the world.”
“Left in my mind, I mean.” He could be so literal.
“If all those people you mentioned are not good, are they bad?”
“Yes!”
“Your father was bad?”
I couldn’t quite say it. I nodded instead.
“What about you?”
“I’m the worst of them all,” I said.
He sighed and put down his pen. I didn’t know why he always had that pad and pen on his lap. He hardly ever wrote anything down anymore.
“You’re trying to paint things as either black or white,” he said. “As either good or evil. It’s never that neat.”
I leaned my head against the back of the chair and looked up at his burned-out bulb. Was he ever going to replace that thing?
“Are you feeling some envy of Andy, Maggie?” he said out of the blue.
“Envy?” I lowered my head to look at him again. “No way. Why would I?”
“Well, now he has a living father and you don’t.”
“Oh, no. I’m really glad for him.” I was. “He loves our uncle. Well…my uncle. His father.” This was going to take some getting used to. “Of course, I wish my father was alive, but I’m not envious of Andy.”
“You wish your father was alive, terrible person though he was.” Dr. Jakes smiled at me.
“Right.” I was annoyed by the Gotcha! tone in his voice.
“Why did your mother decide all of a sudden to tell Andy and you about Andy’s paternity?”
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