by Susan Dunlap
“Janice?” I repeated, in a softer tone. I was afraid to move toward her. She looked like she’d crumble to dust at one touch. I sat, still holding the turned-off phone. It was night, but outside I could hear street noises, a bus accelerating, a car alarm whirring. For an instant she seemed to snap out of it. She looked at me, saw me, and recoiled.
Before she could move I was up and reaching for her. She pulled away, started toward the outside door, froze, and then sank down against the wall.
“Mike came here, didn’t he? Back then?” When he ‘disappeared,’ he came here, sat here, when we were waiting in Mom’s living room, terrified that he’d been in an accident, injured, dead! “He came here because . . . For the same reason I called you to come get me today. He came because he knew he could trust you.”
She was sobbing too hard to speak, but I knew I was right. All these years she’d let us wonder—I could have strangled her. Stop! Focus! I couldn’t go there, not now. I had to stay with what happened, only that. “He needed someone he could talk to, someone who would listen without interrupting every third sentence to tell him why he shouldn’t have done what he did or what to do about it, like Gary or Gracie would.”
Her lips quivered. At a better time she would have smiled at that.
“But he knew you’d be there for him, that you’d take care of him like you did when he was little and—”
She mumbled something and it took me a moment to make it out: “All along.” She looked at me pleadingly. “Both of you.”
“Like you did all along,” I said. How had I never realized that? I’d never thought of Janice being anything special to Mike, or to me. I’d never thought of Janice . . . period. Like the rest of the family. “He came here and . . .”
“He . . . he said he just needed to get away a little while. I thought he’d be gone a week. I never dreamed . . .”
“Of course you didn’t. How could you have imagined he’d disappear forever? Of course you didn’t.” But he didn’t come back. Why didn’t you tell us you’d seen him? How could you not have told us! Told Mom! I sank down beside her and pressed in close. Because we’d have squeezed you dry, every one of us, year after year, one of us after another after another. My head was spinning. I took a breath, willing myself to stay focused. Even so, how could you watch Mom year after year after year— “Where’d he go?”
“I had friends . . . in Mendocino . . . logging protesters, you know. He left in the morning. I”—she swallowed—“I packed him a lunch and gave him forty-five dollars. It was all I had in the house. I wanted to go to the bank, but he was in a hurry. He just needed to get away, he said. But I never imagined . . .”
“Of course. But didn’t you start to wonder?”
“Yes!” she snapped.
Whatever I did, I knew I had to stay still and not lose contact with her.
“I called and called, but one of my friends had gotten arrested and the others were protesting that and no one was home with their phone. No cell phones then. And then Gary called me, and Gracie—you know what Gracie thinks of me—and John, and then Gary again because he was sure he could find out something when John couldn’t. I kept saying I didn’t know anything. Finally I took the bus to the closest town up there and spent a week hunting up my friends and, of course, they had no idea where Mike was. He hadn’t meant much to what they were into. I had to really poke before they remembered he was there. They just weren’t paying attention. They had their own stuff to worry about.”
“That’s it? He walked away and vanished?” Why was that such a slap in the face? We’d always hoped that was what he did when he ambled out of the house that Thursday after the earthquake. It was the best possible outcome. But now . . . I felt—but I didn’t dare let myself feel at all. “What’d they say?” Didn’t you fucking ask?
“There was a tree sit farther north that needed a support crew. He’d gone with them.” She was shaking.
As gently as I could, I said, “How’d you discover that?”
“It took me weeks, finding out who-all was there. You don’t give out that data when you’re doing stuff that could land you in jail. I had to prove myself to each person, explain about Mike, about me, go to protests that weren’t my thing at all. I got arrested twice. That was good. Lots of time to talk in the lockup. People are happy to talk.”
“Holy crap!” I looked at this sister whom I didn’t know at all. “You were in jail and none of us ever knew about it?”
She nodded.
“And then what?”
“I went farther north and did it all over again. Only then I had some cred because, see, I’d been arrested.”
“He was gone?”
“And they were glad. One guy’d figured him for a company spy and they were all freaked. They were really relieved when I vouched for him.”
“And then?” I could have cut to the chase, but I was afraid.
“He’d headed south. There was a hot springs sort of hostel in Mexico. Turns out he’d cooked there. Who knew, eh? But it did a winter business, and by the time I tracked it down it was already May. He’d been there all winter.”
It was too much! She’d been gone looking for him all that time and none of us even wondered about her! What did that say about the Lott family? “What’d they say about him?”
“They liked him.”
“Of course.”
Janice almost smiled. People always liked Mike. “But that place didn’t work for him, long-term. Nothing did. They said . . . How they put it was, ‘He stayed alone in his soul.’”
I pressed my arm tighter against hers and we sat like that a moment.
Then she said, “And one day at the end of the season he hitched a ride north and that was that. It took me another year to get word of him.”
“How’d you do that, Janice? I mean, get yourself to the off-the-grid place? Coming back here only to get some new lead and drop everything to go off?”
Now she did smile. “It made me what I am today. The family thinks I’m a flake. Don’t bother trying to deny it. To John I’m irresponsible. Gracie thinks I’m lazy. Gary—he’d never say this straight out—but he wonders if I’ve got brain damage from too many drugs. And Katy keeps saying, ‘You have a master’s degree; you could get a teaching job. Why are you sitting around, doing gardening jobs, running errands, doing all this half-assed stuff?’”
“Because you had to, right?”
Her eyes widened. It was a moment before she said, “Yes. Because I had to go to meetings, to marches, spend hours on the Net, call sources in India or Nepal in the middle of our night. I couldn’t keep any job with regular hours.”
I nodded. “For years I’d spot guys on the street I thought were Mike. I’d go racing out of cafés without my coat, forgetting my purse, totally abandoning whomever I was with. I’d only have to chase for a block or two. But you did it big time.”
Her mouth quivered. For a moment I thought she’d cry, but she didn’t.
I couldn’t put off asking any longer. “And now? Where is he now?”
“I don’t know.”
No!
“He was in Maine two years ago, working on a lobster boat out of the Stonington Co-op. But lobster fishing’s way down. And now I don’t know. It’s funny, it’s as if he and I have walked through these last twenty years hand in hand, but separated by a year or so and by geography. As if we’re not going anywhere, but together.”
“But you think he’s still alive. Still in good shape?”
“Oh yeah. I mean, why wouldn’t he be?”
Why wouldn’t he be? She could have been talking about okra! Okra’s in the store, why wouldn’t it be? Why wouldn’t he be? My hands were knotting into fists. Focus! Damn it, focus! I exhaled slowly, then said, “Okay. It’s got to end. You have to tell John and get him on it. It won’t take him a year; it’ll take him a week. It’ll—”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t not.”
“I promised Mike.”
“He’ll get over it.”
“John wouldn’t take me seriously.”
“Surely—”
“That big family meeting you set up, the last-ditch effort? No one even called me.”
“Oh.”
“I’m not complaining. I’m not this distant from the family by accident. I can’t see them. I’d have to be lying all the time. I don’t care much anymore, except about Mom, but most of all I can’t see her.”
“Oh, God.” Now I did wrap my arm around her. “All this time. I’m so sorry. Listen, I’ll do it. I’ll get John on this.”
“No! Not John! Mike would—”
I lost it. “Janice, what the fuck is going on with Mike? What is it that is such a big deal that he’s put his family through this for twenty years?”
“He didn’t want to hurt the family.”
I snorted.
“No, really. He was in such a bind—”
“Why? I can’t imagine any scenario that’s worse than letting all your brothers and sisters put their lives on hold and leaving your mother to think you’re dead. Look at us: Katy’s the only one with a decent marriage. It’s like the rest of us froze in time when Mike walked out. I just thought I was in love with a guy because our connection was that we didn’t ask any questions. So, what’s this thing that’s so important to Mike that he could let it paralyze us all these years?”
She took a deep breath and then another, and then shifted so she wouldn’t be looking at me. “The summer before he left—”
“The summer before the earthquake.’
“He worked with Dad.”
“On a job he hated,” I said.
“Right. He tried to avoid it, but we all forced it on him. John kept at Dad, reminding him that he’d made a job for him and would have for Gary, so why not Mike? Dad was in charge; he could hire. Gary chided Mike about being lazy. Even I thought Dad was being unfair to Mike and said so. Everyone had an opinion. So, in the end Mike went to work for Dad, doing foundation work in the Marina.”
“Omigod! The foundations that failed in the earthquake!”
“Right.” She inhaled and let out her breath very slowly. “Dad . . . this is what Mike discovered. Money was tight. Mike was in college, Katy’s husband had gotten laid off, and Dad had cosigned the note on their house, I’d—I’d borrowed money for grad school and hadn’t paid it back. Mom and Dad had gone on that big anniversary trip to Australia. It was all coming due. So Dad cut corners on the materials. If the earthquake had been smaller . . . if he’d been working in another part of town where the ground didn’t turn to mush . . . But, Darcy, people died.”
I was sitting with my head in my hands. My hands were nearly over my ears. I didn’t want to hear. Dad? “There’s got to be some mistake—”
“There isn’t. Trust me. Trust Mike. If there had been a mistake, he’d be sitting right here. But there is no mistake. And Mike never would have hurt the family. But he couldn’t stay here, knowing about Dad. He couldn’t bear to face Dad, because, of course, Dad knew. Why do you think he had another heart attack? The one that killed him.”
“But then, after he was dead—”
“I’m not certain he ever heard that Dad died. But even if he did, what was he going to do, come back and tell the family he left because Dad was a chiseler who killed people? How could he do that to Mom?”
“Are you saying he’s alive, but he will never be able to come back? No! That’s not going to happen. I don’t care what comes out. You find him. I’ll deal with John. I’ll smooth this over with everyone. I’ll lie for you; I’ll lie for him. I will do whatever I have to, but I can’t stand knowing he’s out there and I can’t see him!” Now it was me who was sobbing.
And it was a few minutes more before I said, “Do it now. Okay?”
She nodded. She looked empty.
As I sat there, in the swamp of our emotion, I thought of Gabriella. Our entire family had devoted our adult lives to finding our brother. Her long-lost brother had done something really stupid before he left, but he came back, he rang her bell, and she didn’t even open the door.
29
JANICE WANTED A week to work her networks, a week before I told the family. I talked her down to a day, with a check-in before I’d say anything to anyone. To her it was no time at all, to me an eternity.
In the meantime, I needed to get Tancarro to at least describe Hammond, or the Hammond of twenty years ago. It wouldn’t be much to go on—well, next to nothing unless he had a birthmark on his forehead or three ears—but at least I wouldn’t be sitting on a trolley next to the guy and not know.
As for Gabriella, I had to get in her face and let her know what an ass she’d been. I’d tell her what I’d learned about her brother during his long absence. Him helping out Zahra. How he struggled against his own fear year after year. I wouldn’t mention the smuggling or other things she wouldn’t want to hear—that’s what police were for. Maybe my information would be a gift, the way Guthrie had viewed what he was returning to her. Maybe it would just make her feel lousy. That would be okay, too. I wouldn’t be doing it for her. It’d be for him, likely, the last thing I’d ever do for him.
What I did not want, however, was to piss off Higgins. Or distract her from however much effort she was making to find Hammond. Or, worse yet, run into her there.
Nor—God forbid—did I want to run into my family. Not before I figured out how to pass on Janice’s information without setting them at her throat. I wanted to do the right thing.
“I want to do the right thing, Leo.”
“One might say that would be returning one of Inspector Higgins’s phone messages.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
“When?”
“Right after you absconded through Mr. Tancarro’s rear door. That’s pretty much a quote.”
“Nothing since then?” Nothing useful to me.
“Nope.”
“Did she sound threatening?”
He hesitated. “Threatening? No. ‘A competent police department never lowers itself to threats.’”
I laughed. “Now even you’re quoting my brother, John.”
“He called, too.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I said I’d pass on the messages. I know you worry I’ll give away secrets or be pushed to push you. I’m truthful; I’m not obedient. Still . . .”
“Right. I’ll check in with them before they all end up here.”
Leo and I were sitting in his room, him cross-legged on his futon, me on a zafu on his carpet. It was midday, and warm for San Francisco. He was wearing a black T-shirt and drawstring pants. He looked like he was melting down into his futon. I’d made tea. Making him tea had been one of his first requirements of me when I became his jisha, his assistant, and now the simple, focused actions had pulled me from the turmoil of my worries into the calm of the room. I’d poured the tea and we each held a small handle-less cup gingerly, waiting for it to cool enough for us to drink.
As if reading my thoughts, Leo said, “Such a simple process. So many actions all coming to one point.”
He was asking, “What’s your point?” When I didn’t—couldn’t—answer, he began recounting once again the story of Seijo, the Chinese girl whose father promised her to her cousin but suddenly announced he was giving her to another man. He paused and nodded at me to pick up the thread.
“Her lover stalked off because he was offended.” Like Mike, sort of. “She followed him because she loved him.” Like me, like Janice, like all of us. “And when they came back home to her father, it was because they missed him. They missed the decent person he had been before he did that terrible thing. Her lover-husband was still caught up in the broken promise, but she wasn’t and so she could walk back in the house without hesitation.” Oh. “If her father had been an evil man, the story wouldn’t exist. They wouldn’t have been shocked by his betrayal; they wouldn’t have wanted to come home.” Oh.
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“I need to talk to John.”
He nodded in response to my certainty. “But?”
“But? Well, unless Janice works a lot faster than I’m thinking she will, John can wait till tomorrow.”
Leo had to be baffled, but he chose not to show it. He raised his cup, took the smallest of sips of the still-too-hot tea, and set the cup on the napkin on the floor.
“But Guthrie? If Guthrie was Seijo and he was aggrieved that his parents left control of his inheritance to his sister . . . but that’s more like Seijo’s lover, the guy who’s indignant. So if Guthrie’s like the lover . . . but that doesn’t make sense.”
“Koans are like dreams. All the characters are you. And the story varies depending on the translation.” He paused. “Things change.”
I smiled. Things change: Suzuki-roshi’s answer to the question, What is Zen? I’d heard it condensed to just “change,” since “things” have no permanent being. “Well, Guthrie sure changed. The guy I knew had done a world of changing from the pain in the ass his sister knew.”
“Why did Seijo come back?” he insisted. “The story says it was because she missed her father. But what did she really miss? What really drew her back?”
“Oh, of course. Herself. The story says that when she and her husband came back to her father’s house, the husband went to apologize to her father and her father said, ‘What are you talking about? Seijo’s been here, in a coma, the whole time.’ Seijo came back because of her ‘self’ in the coma. And when her self in the bed saw her, the two came together and she was whole. When the halves come together it’s the first time she stands up and takes an action on her own. Up till then she’s just been reacting. Ah . . . she came back to be real.”
I sipped the tea. It had cooled now. “Guthrie wanted to return something to his sister. Maybe something that would make things right.”
“And that would be . . . ?”
“Okay, so I still don’t know what he wanted to return. But, Leo, you remember you said I was stuck, like Seijo in the bed, paralyzed by my need to find Mike. My whole family is.”