by Amy Gentry
“My impersonal essay.”
“Woods is a common enough name, it didn’t ring any bells for me. But Wheatsville did. The suburb where Peter buried himself for nine years with his new wife after he fled New York, the perfect hiding place. The Peter I knew wouldn’t have been caught dead there. Sometimes imagining him living the life of a midwestern schoolteacher, slogging away in a boring small town with a family to support, almost made up for the nothing prison sentence. You don’t forget the little things that get you through the night. But to tell you the truth, I had never really thought about the family.” She casts me a meaningful glance. “Just so you know, when he drove away that day, he only got as far as Milwaukee.”
I wonder how she can keep looking at me when I’m not there anymore. Not a person. Nothing.
“Don’t you want to know how I found him again?” she says brightly. “It’s actually quite a funny story. I’m still on the Joyner Foundation mailing list. Apparently, no one ever gets around to scrubbing the database of blackmailers and suspected murderers. Every once in a while, a holiday card or an annual appeal finds me. So, a few years after Joyner died, I’m tossing out one of their newsletters and I see Peter on the arm of Robert Joyner’s widow, Ina, at a fundraiser. Isn’t that a scream? In the newsletter, Mac.”
I can’t even focus on what she’s crowing about. One thought eclipses everything. “You knew—when we—” I break off, disgusted. “And you didn’t tell me.”
“What was there to say? I knew your father a long time ago, before you were even born. We’re not related, Mac. I’m not your wicked stepmother.” She cackles. “Don’t make such a big deal out of it.”
“Don’t make such a—” It’s no use. I look at Bethany and see, for the first time, how little she believes in anyone’s humanity besides her own. Peter Armstrong is a sociopath, she once told me, but who is she? Even now, dying of cancer, she cares nothing about the fact that she stole ten years of my life, kept from me a secret about myself that might have made me feel closer to whole. And then, when I was on the cusp of feeling good enough at last, she threw it in my face, just to watch me crumble.
“I wish you hadn’t told me. I would have been happier not knowing.”
“Happiness isn’t the point of ethical negation,” she says smugly. “Anyway, I thought you’d be pleased. He saw your keynote. He’s been following your career from afar, as have I. He seems to read the fellowship alumni bulletin as avidly as I do.” She smiles beneficently. “He’s proud of you, Mac.”
In a sense, it’s what I’ve been waiting to hear my entire life. That my father still loves to see me win.
A sickening feeling scrapes the bottom of my stomach: hope.
“If he came here to see me, then—?”
“He came here to watch you,” she says regretfully, like she’s declining a dinner date on his behalf. “He’s already gone.”
And just like that, I’m left all over again. I go dumb with grief.
Bethany straightens. “Well, now that we’re all caught up, let’s talk business.”
I’m almost relieved. I’ve been waiting for this moment since I walked in the door. “You’re blackmailing me over Rocky’s murder.” She waits a beat, and I look around. “And you’re recording this, aren’t you?”
“I learned from the best,” she says with a grin. “Now, don’t think I want to put you under undue financial strain, dear. I know what an assistant professor makes, and I think we can do better. So, here’s what I propose. You’re going to find an excuse to go to Venice, where your father is holing up with Ina in her pied-à-terre, engineer a tearful father-daughter reunion, and then milk as much money as you can out of that offshore savings account. The whole two million, if possible. Don’t worry about how. We’ll be in constant contact. I will direct you. And I’ll even give you a cut. I’m not a monster.” She chuckles, pleased with herself. “You should have seen the look on your face just now when you realized I was going to blackmail you for the same crime you’ve been blackmailing me for, all these years.”
My head is meant to be spinning again, but it’s already been spun too many times tonight. Now that we’re finally talking about money, the ground feels firm beneath my feet. I’ve always been good with money. And this money sounds familiar.
Offshore savings account. Two million dollars.
The laugh catches in Bethany’s throat, and she starts coughing and can’t stop. Her face goes red, and each percussive bark grows louder and more rasping until she doubles over, clutching at her stomach and leaning heavily on her cane.
Gradually, I allow my expression to register concern, then alarm. “Can I get you some water?” Not waiting for her to reply, I take an empty glass on the nightstand to the sink in the kitchenette and refill it. I hold the glass while she takes a small grateful sip, her face still contorted with pain.
I point to a pill bottle I brought in from the kitchen with me and loosen the cap. “Is this right? How many?”
She eyes the bottle, apprehensive even in her anguish. She clearly doesn’t trust me, and I don’t blame her. I open the safety cap for her and hand the bottle over, so she can see for herself that they’re her pills and administer the correct dosage. Her hand trembles badly, and the pills spill everywhere, but she manages to pinch her fingers around two of them and get them up to her mouth. After she swallows, she folds her lips together and mashes her teeth down, sending explosive breaths through her flaring nostrils. I help her drink more water, and some of it dribbles out of her nose. I lean over to dab at the spill on the carpet and pick up the dropped pills. When I come up, she gestures weakly toward the kitchen.
“Tea,” she wheezes softly, pointing.
“Of course.” Despite myself, my heart contracts. She would never travel anywhere without her special tea. “Can I help you lie down first?”
She nods, completely changed. Her face is flushed, the eyes rheumy behind thick, weary eyelids. Giant blue veins stand out on her temples and forehead, and her head scarf has slipped, revealing her bald skull. She looks fifty years older, a hundred. She looks like a death’s head. She looks beautiful, still.
I bend my arm supportively around her back and half lift her by the armpits, feeling her leaf-light body under all those layers. We hobble over to the king-size bed. Then I cup her body gently in my arms and arrange the pillows in an arc around her back. Once in position, she closes her eyes with a sigh.
Satisfied that she’s comfortable, I go to the kitchen and find the wooden tea chest in a drawer. I pick up one of the little pouches and tear open the cellophane wrapping. It is really excellent tea. Close up, I am filled with admiration for the clever little drawstring bag, the tiny shriveled blossoms and twigs.
By the time I come back with it a few minutes later, Bethany is barely awake, her breath whistling softly through cracked lips. I stand beside her, hesitant.
“Bethany.”
“Hmmm.”
I swirl the spoon in the steaming tea, agitating the honey at the bottom of the mug and absentmindedly compressing the tea bag against the side to hurry the steeping.
“Why did you write that letter for Gwen?”
“Hmmm, Mac. Are you still thinking about that?”
“Yes, Bethany.” I keep stirring the tea. “I am.”
She looks like a puppet, strings cut, lying motionless in a heap. I hand her the mug, and she begins slurping at the rim.
“Careful, it’s hot.”
She takes a slower sip, sighs. Her eyelids flutter, her speech slurs. “You think I sold you out for Rocky.”
“Didn’t you?”
She drains the rest of the mug, and I take it before she drops it on the bedspread.
“You have to know everything, don’t you?” She smiles at me weakly, her eyes already starting to fade. “You think everything’s going to be better if you just know a little bit more. But it won’t. It really won’t.”
“Tell me.”
She lifts herself as high
up on her elbows as she can and leans over to whisper in my ear. “You didn’t need the Joyner, Mac. Gwen . . . was perfect. But you . . .”
She opens her mouth to say more, but falls back to the pillow with a grunt. I don’t need to hear what she thinks of me. She’s told me before. But I lean as close as I can anyway. Her breathing is already so weak I can barely feel her words, much less hear them.
“. . . you were magnificent.”
She falls asleep. Soon she will be unwakeable.
* * *
It’s time for me to go.
I place Bethany’s room key in its sleeve next to the empty mug on the nightstand and arrange her arms on the bed-spread.
Then I reach under the bed for the laptop I saw when I bent down to pocket the pills after Bethany spilled them. The dictation app is open, the bar undulating with every rustle. I close the app and delete the file. Then I place the laptop on her bed next to her and carefully wipe it clean with the edge of the sheet. I pick up her hand and, using her finger, type a single word.
Goodbye.
The Fentanyl patches take some finding, but that just gives me a chance to scrub every surface I’ve touched in the past hour with a towel. In the bathroom, I find an unopened box of five patches. I peel them open and apply them, one by one, to her bare arms.
Probably no one will find her until tomorrow. Most of the broken pills in the drawstring tea bag will have dissolved among the chamomile blossoms, but the patches and the note will point police in the right direction. It won’t be hard for anyone to believe a woman who once wrote that the only ethical way to live is not to live at all had negated herself at last.
I’ll be on a plane to Italy by then. I have a wedding to attend, a father to hunt down, and $2 million to claim. It’s Lily’s money, really, since my father stole her identity to hide it, and I’ll make sure she gets good use out of it. I’ll buy land upstate and start a school for equine therapy where Lily can live and work—Mom, too, if she wants. I know of a wonderful property that should be coming up for sale soon. It’s a working farm, with horses. All very American.
But right now, I have to get back to my room, shower, and change. I have a job interview in a few hours. I’m underprepared, but I think I’ll do just fine.
Acknowledgments
Happy books are all alike, but every unhappy book is hard to finish in its own way. Thanks to all who believed I’d finish this one, starting with my amazing agent, Sharon Pelletier, whose vision, values, and intelligence make the industry, and thus the world around her, a better place. It’s such a privilege to work with you, Sharon. Tremendous thanks to my editor, Jaime Levine, for lending this book her ferocious energy, empathy, and brainpower just when it needed it most, and for great conversations even before we worked together. (Is there a more auspicious way to meet one’s future editor than at a bar in St. Petersburg, bonding over a shared love of Sara Gran?) To the brilliant Helen Atsma, whose enthusiastic support early on made this book possible, thank you for urging me to take the time I needed to get it right. Lauren Abramo at DG&B continues to work miracles with my foreign and audio rights, and Michelle Triant at HMH is a goddess among us. Erin DeWitt helped me untangle a thoroughly knotted timeline. The cicadas thank you.
Many thanks to the talented members of my writing group—Alissa Jones Zachary, Linden Kueck, Dan Solomon, Paul Stinson, and Victoria Rossi—and to the wonderful Mary Helen Specht, who’s always up for coffee and commiseration. Zack Budryk and Lubna Najar swooped in with character help at the eleventh hour. Thanks, too, to Laura Trice and Shirin Kaleel for life support via group texts about babies who somehow became toddlers while I wrote this book.
Long ago, I survived my own grad school journey with help from Art and Lyn Gentry, Alissa Zachary, Nina Cartier Bradley, Lubna Najar, Michelle Yacht, Jett McAlister, Margaret Wardlaw, and so many more that the full list is twice as long as this book. Special thanks to Debbie Nelson for asking me if I was depressed (I was!), and to everyone working on behalf of grad students and contingent faculty.
Last and best thanks to Curtis, whose formidable brain no less than his unflagging love and support makes everything feel possible. In writing and in life, you inspire me to do and be better.
Visit hmhbooks.com to find more books by Amy Gentry.
About the Author
© Matt Valentine
Amy Gentry is the author of the best-selling thriller Good as Gone, a New York Times Notable Book, and Last Woman Standing as well as Tori Amos’s Boys for Pele, a nonfiction book for the 33 1/3 series. She is also a book reviewer and essayist whose work has appeared in numerous outlets, including Salon, the Paris Review, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Austin Chronicle. She holds a PhD in English and lives in Austin, Texas.
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