by Dan Noble
“Good to see you,” I say.
She nods. Tugs at her ponytail. “You be careful. You understand?”
I swallow big and drive away without looking back. What did she mean by that?
It’s dumb, but I used to look at Roxanne as Mother’s alter ego, part of her, a mouthpiece for that part of her that still wanted a relationship with me. Because I knew Mother had spoken to her plenty. I sensed even when she wasn’t speaking to anyone else.
But attention is not the same as love, and Mother’s words coming from crusty Roxanne always underlined that. And now they solidify what I must do.
I’ve made a decision. I can’t live the rest of my life as a lie. At the station, I ask for Officer Lou, half thinking he won’t work here anymore. After twenty minutes, a woman in plain clothes leads me to a small room with a wood-look table and plastic chairs and leaves me with a glass of water, waiting for nearly half an hour. I’m busting by the time Officer Lou makes his entrance. He has aged, which I’m sure I have. Seeing him brings everything back—the images come faster, more intensely. It is impossible to pick them apart. But me with a rock, bashing, bashing still makes the deepest, most frequent appearance, despite what I’ve learned about Kennedy. It makes me question my motive: how can I turn Kennedy in? What will this do to Rose? It doesn’t feel right. Have I made a misstep coming here?
“What can I do for you, Millie Kennedy?”
I can see the second he realizes who I am. His eyes widen, he swallows, tries to cover his shock by sipping at his coffee. “Millie Burns,” he says after.
“The same.”
“You and your mother, you had quite an influence on me. Read every one of the authors on your mother’s boards—Steiner, Bataille, Percival. I don’t think you’re looking at the same man you saw the last time.”
“Mother would be so glad to know that.”
I ask for the bathroom, and he calls in a female cop, whom he introduces as Caroline, to take me. Back in the room, she lets him do the talking.
“So what brings you here today, Millie?”
“I—I think I’ve made a mistake.” I stand to leave.
“I know it can be intimidating, once you get here. But you came here for a reason. Why don’t you tell us what it is?”
I can’t help it. I look down at the ring, Mother’s ring on my finger. Why did I put it on? How could I have been so stupid? I described it in detail all those years ago, as I did any identifying clothing, marks, characteristics.
He must have noticed my give because he looks right at the ring. Oh, why did I come here?
“Do you want to share anything with us?”
I shake my head.
“Well, it’s funny, you coming in here today, when I got not one, but two calls about you.”
Heat rushes my face and chest.
“Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”
I shake my head.
“Your father is worried about you. He thinks you are a danger to yourself and to your daughter.”
“And the other?”
“Dr P. I think you call him Pinocchio?”
“He thinks your husband is a danger. He thinks your husband is a murderer.”
He looks directly at the ring now.
“These are some wild accusations,” I say.
“I always liked you, Millie. I felt for you. And like I said, you and your mother have changed me. The world is a very different place to me now. And I have you both to thank for that. But because of that, I have always felt a special duty to you both. I don’t like leaving cases unsolved. My old boss, he didn’t like leaving files open. So he closed your mother’s. But now, with these new leads, I can re-open it. Just a matter of some paperwork to be handled first. So. You can talk to me now, or you can wait until I come to you. Your choice.”
I don’t say anything.
“I know you’re a good girl, Millie. I know you want to do the right thing.” Why does everyone always say that to me?
The problem is, I don’t know what the right thing is. “Am I free to go?”
He nods. “For now.”
37
MILLIE
When I walk into the house, I expect the words SEEN BY POLICE to be printed on my forehead. I find him in the garden, watering the new plants, as if there isn’t a dead body there. He sees me staring at him, makes sure to catch my gaze and then looks over to where Mother is buried. “I love you, Millie. You are everything in this world to me. There is nothing, and I mean nothing more important. Do you know that?”
I gulp. I feel the truth of the words, but see them in light of Dr. P’s words: he’s a compulsive liar with psychopathic tendencies. He believes his lies, doesn’t feel any guilt about his actions. I’ve made a terrible mistake not telling Officer Lou what I know. Which isn’t to say Kennedy’s love doesn’t still have an affect on me. “I do.” Even as I say it, I know I can never trust him—or anyone—again.
My hand trembles so severely, I drop my keys in the dirt. He leans down to help me pick them up and our hands touch. He sees the ring. My throat goes dry. Suddenly there’s the loud noise, an incredible halo around everything.
Kennedy’s words come loud, deafening, and I’ve dropped down to the floor.
“I love you. I love you. I love you,” he says.
I’m not paging-in, I tell myself. It’s a dissociative episode, which makes me feel not full of his love, but of loneliness, of the terrible sensations of everything around me, and the memories, before I black out.
38
MILLIE
On my last day at work, I was jubilant at the idea I’d camouflaged my pregnancy from Mr. Tyler all those months. You’d think I’d been up for an Oscar. In his version of my life, I’d gone on, a single girl, groomed and headed for bigger and better things. Perhaps that version still exists somewhere, too. But I’ve never run into her.
“What about Chico for a baby name?” Kennedy said that evening of the last day at the office, tin trays of dumplings once again between us. We ate in a cloud of new intimacy. A child, a shared income between us.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“What? A girl could rock Chico.”
“We’re not naming her Chico.”
As I stretched to pick up his empty plate, he hooked a finger over my knuckles, what he called ‘locking me on.’ Was that a character behavior he’d given himself? Something to ground him into the mind’s eye?
“What is it?” I said, suddenly cold all over.
Sighing, Kennedy turned my way and looked as if he wanted to say something. Instead, he shook out his head and shoulders, and grimaced. So many secrets. Which had he wanted to share? Was he about to confess about the reality of our situation? About the cancer?
Chicorella kicked. When I put his hand there and she did it again, Kennedy’s throat jumped, his eyes glassed.
“What is it?” I was suddenly terrified and had no idea why. I didn’t allow myself to think about analogical brain functions then.
Visibly straightening himself, Kennedy’s green eyes went dead in a way I’ve never seen before—the way a movie character playing dual roles often affects for the alter ego.
“I just liked Chico was all,” he said, deadpan. Liar. And what of our little “Chico” now? Had it been the cancer, or the web of lies that got him so upset? What would become of Chicorella now, a product of a sham like this?
“You’re a kept woman now,” Kennedy had said, carrying me over the threshold of Mother’s house—our house—on my last day at the office. I liked it. Now it all looks so sinister. Was I so transparent that I could be played so easily?
Still, what followed was what I can only describe as my most organic phase. Without an alarm, I rose peacefully each morning, never once wondering what I ought to be doing, or feeling guilty that my time wasn’t being spent properly (that would come later, of course).
Smug, I wanted to scream it from the rooftops: “This is the meaning of life, people!” I
knew this would disappoint Mother, this warm acceptance, this comfort with what you were given, so I relished it. Now this all reads shamefully. I think of another phrase of hers: Perception relies on a naïve realism. Well, maybe Mother, you were right about that.
Instead of fretting, I read my way through Mother’s giant book collection—the Emerson, Whitman, Baudelaire, Flora’s Interpreter, and Flannery O’Connor, and pieced together a narrative of the world I don’t think I could have before pregnancy. The new experience of Mother’s world was unrecognizable with a life growing inside me. I jotted down whatever helped me to make sense of things on my Quelque Chose.
Would I have changed anything, I wonder? I don’t think I could have even if I’d wanted to. I loved Kennedy too much. I loved who I was with him. And despite everything I know now, I am scrambling to find a way to hold onto that feeling. Because it was the only time I ever felt good. Angry, frightened, betrayed as I am, I don’t know who I’d be without him. This is what I’m thinking when I come to.
39
KENNEDY
It’s a stifling ninety degrees, dynamite sky. I call Seb and tell him Millie is not doing better and he shouldn’t expect me in before next week. She’s been strange with me since she saw Emily’s hand. It’s obvious we’re all better off without her, and it doesn’t matter how that happened. So letting her think she killed Emily, rather than admitting it was me doesn’t make any difference. As a matter of fact, it’s better this way because she’ll feel indebted to me for keeping her secret, and for loving her warts and all. Which is good because she’s pretty pissed at me about keeping the cancer a secret. Just imagine if she knew I’d killed her mom, too.
Anyway, Tomorrow’s my appointment and who knows what that will bring? I’m sure Millie realizes that if she tells anyone about Emily’s unfortunate death, then she’d lose Rose to the authorities and me to cancer in one fell swoop. I believe our secret is safe. It would be the biggest tragedy if I died and my daughter thought she came from monsters.
Never thought I’d be a luggage man, but here I am. Turned it into something profitable. Something to provide for my family in the way they deserve. And that makes me a powerful man. But these lies I’m telling, that’s something else—it’s the ultimate power, to be able to roll them off so perfectly, so believably, to make our lives whatever I want them to be.
I’m up before Millie; poor thing was having one of her episodes all night. She must be guilt-ridden. I’m starting to feel like she should be. I’ve told it this way so well that it’s stating to make sense: why couldn’t she have killed Millie? And now it felt like the right way to move forward, to keep us together. I would—and have—done anything to do that. That’s what I’ve always said and I’m upholding it.
She comes down all tiptoes and clenched muscles, and I watch her make her way to the kettle. It’s so cute how she drinks tea instead of coffee. I’m sure she thinks it’s romantic. Her waste of a mother used to drink tea, too. Poor Millie. I saved her. And what we have is the real thing, despite everything.
A husband who keeps her darkest secrets and loves her despite that? Well, that’s right up her alley. I’ve taken our perfection and made it even more perfect. It’s got all the drama and richness of fiction, which of course is everything to her. Of course, I might be dead soon, but at least she’ll teach my kids I was the man she loved, who loved them, a hero. I stand a bit taller, walk up behind her and put my hands around her.
She stiffens. Poor thing, she must be feeling so guilty for what she’s done.
“Allow me,” I say, and make her tea just the way she likes it. Then I make myself a coffee and take it out to the improving eyesore that is our yard. There is the fresh smell of mint.
Quiet at a human hour, the garden is ethereal now. The new plants are taking root and plenty of new shoots have sprung. Pink sky, stringy, translucent cloud leftovers. Looked at from the right angle, they are noble. Like me, I think. Emily is buried there, under the rhododendron, where we can keep an eye on her. All this time it felt comforting, but now it’s like looking at the last piece of the puzzle. With the peace I feel at the moment, I can almost believe the world is telling me that the tests will come back clear.
But hang on. Wht’s this? Looking down, I see Millie’s footprints in the packed dirt, but then a second set of tracks from a man’s shoes, continue on past mine through the gate. A man's been out here during the night. In my yard! What the fuck? I follow the tracks to a scrolled iron chair, and then, oh God, no. To the rhododendron. I must be too late. Does she know the truth? Or has she turned herself in? Regardless, with a body, they’ll work out it was me, and not her. They have ways of discerning how tall or strong someone must have been to deliver that kind of blow. And there’ll be DNA. There’s always that.
I laugh out loud despite myself at the obviousness of Millie’s “secret” endeavor to find things out on her own. Accept the truth, Millie. You killed her. That’s the way this story goes. But why be so obvious about it? Why not wipe away the tracks? Again I laugh out loud. When you know someone so well, it’s an amazing thing. I recall how sloppy she is about these kinds of things when she’s tired. That must be what’s happening here. I recall during Rose’s first three months getting salt in my coffee more than once. We’d say Rose was in on the joke because she’d squeal and motor her dimpled legs as I puckered and forced myself to swallow.
“Think that’s funny?” I’d say, using that dumb baby voice I swore up and down never to use. There’s not much I wouldn’t have done for a flash of those gums back then. Not much has changed in that department.
But all of a sudden, my mood turns. As much as I don’t want to, I’m going to have to change tack. Millie should have hidden her tracks better. Now I have no choice but to silence everyone who knows, for good. It was either her dad or Dr. P or that cop—Officer Lou from back during Emily’s disappearance investigation. That’s everyone. I can handle them. I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m already getting a handle back on all this.
The phone rings and I run inside to grab it. Millie must be upstairs because she’s nowhere in sight.
“Kennedy speaking.” It’s amazing how my voice can sound so normal. I am very good at this. People are always charmed by me.
“Hello, Mr. Kennedy, it’s Cindy, from Dr. Kramer’s office.” She’s flirting shamelessly, as usual, even though she’s connecting me to the man who will deliver a death sentence.
“Hello, Cindy.” I grab for purchase on the wall next to the phone. I look outside to where Emily’s buried, to regain that sense of control over my destiny I felt moments ago.
“I’ve got Dr. Kramer for you. Hang on, Sweetie.”
“Mr. Kennedy? I’ve got excellent news. The tests are clear. Turns out there was some muddying of the results of your diagnostics; you had a false-positive. I do greatly apologize for the stress this must have caused you, but false-positives are more common than you might think—the risk is over 60% for men. But these new results are consistent with all the other tests you’ve had since you’ve been in my care. Congratulations. You are healthy. And I don’t think you’ll have to worry about this again. We’ll keep doing the periodic testing, but consider it preventative. Go live your life.”
When I hang up, I feel euphoric for a moment, until I remember the task at hand. I’m going to live my life in prison if I don’t do something about this. You have the control, I tell myself. You know what you have to do.
40
MILLIE
When I come to, I’m lying on the living room sofa. Rose is sitting in the pink afternoon sun at the kitchen table, busy with something she keeps calling “hone work.” I excuse myself down to the basement filled with things Mother used to love, wedding gifts, things she’d made a big show of keeping after the divorce, only to smash them—boxes and instruction leaflets and all—into mosaics named “Him” and “That Woman.” They still hang in her office. She’s a master of fusing art and life. They’re good.
Last year Kennedy and I had sorted through whatever was left, and after keeping the salad spinner and the New Jersey tea towel, we donated the rest of the garish statuettes and novelty tablecloths to charity.
“What do they think I spend my time doing?” Mother had asked when she’d see these abandoned gifts down here all those years ago before her disappearance. “Throwing dinner parties for tacky idiots?” After considering her own question, Mother had answered it. “Well, I guess you project your own reality onto others.”
I throw my head back in laughter at the memory. No one I’ve met speaks the way she does. And with her, I felt like part of her tribe, and lucky to be. But there were other times, and other feelings.
This leads me to wonder how my father could have willingly left her. When I think of my father’s wife Tennessee, as I do now, it is often framed in the context of that, because she could never compare. But this time, it sits differently. What have the relics of my father’s reality become down here? What has appropriating them as items on my endless lists of Quelques Choses done but make the things more real? I’m starting to be cognizant of the tricks my mind has played on me.
I don’t mean to, but I start smashing. And once I do, I can’t stop. Now my father and mother’s Quelques Choses are Quelques Choses quite different. I have the power to change, too. Even if it does involve destruction. Maybe change always involved destruction. It certainly has for me. Still, as I look around, I can’t help but think it all looks truer this way. I should have done this years ago.
The relief is palpable. I can feel my shoulders sinking down my chest, my breath reaching deeper. I don’t think; I simply act. It opened the floodgate. Though Rose is upstairs, I allow myself to sink down against the wall, rest my head on my shoulder, and allow my mind to go blank. I’m defocusing. My mind is clear. This is the way creative types prime their brains for their best work—it’s a state without judgment, a state where everything needn’t make sense. A non-fiction tome Mother often referred to was big on that. I’d always read between the lines, believing there was more to it than the words on the page prescribed. Somewhere in that space was where I was meant to weave Mother’s mantras: always carry a book with you; ground your reading in reality; what is real? But what exactly was that something more? A magical portal that special people could reach if only they could connect properly with the words. She was so obscure that I became convinced this was the only thing she could have been getting at, the only goal that could be so important she left us all behind in pursuit of it.