“I woke up one day and found out I wasn’t who I was,” he said.
“Excuse me?” I smiled, confused.
“My parents are not my parents,” he said. “They kept that little detail from me until I was sixteen.”
“Oh.” I nodded. “You were adopted.”
Ivy had never told me that. Did she know? Had he chosen me for his biggest secret?
“Plucked like a piece of fruit,” he said.
Now some of this made sense to me. “And you know that my father’s identity was kept from me until recently, too,” I said.
“Yeah, everyone knows that.”
“So that’s what you meant when you said I had been in the land of disappointment, too?”
“Yes, but at least you now know lots about your family background. I’m sort of just me,” he said, forcing a smile. “I’m like out there in space with no gravity pulling me anywhere.” He paused. “You’re the first person I ever told that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, the worst thing is to say that. You should know. We don’t want people feeling sorry for us. And you know what? I bet your brother, when he realizes it all, won’t want anyone feeling sorry for him, either. Pity can be like poison, no matter who spoons it to you.”
I sat back. He was right, of course, but he had a condescending way about him, which still irked me. Whether he was bitter or not, he had to learn not to behave as if he had all the answers. Would I tell him? Would I care enough to tell him?
Maybe he saw the disapproval in my face. His expression quickly softened. “They have interesting desserts here,” he said.
“That shepherd’s pie was quite filling. Thank you,” I said, my voice sharper.
He signaled for the waiter abruptly. Did he now think I wanted to get away as quickly as I could, that I didn’t want to hear about his troubles?
“I enjoyed it,” I said. “Thank you for taking me here.”
He looked at me oddly. “I’m not that sensitive,” he said. “I don’t have to be placated.”
“I wasn’t saying it to make you feel better, Dillon. I was saying it because I believed it. I know you suspect everything and everyone because of how your parents handled the truth about you. I could be the same way, but not everyone lies. And if someone was placating you, he or she obviously cared about you enough to avoid upsetting you. Everything is not so black and white.”
My stern response took him aback for a moment, but only a moment. “Everyone lies sometimes, whether it’s placating or not.”
“Not all the time,” I countered. “You can’t treat people like they all do, always. If you believe that, you’ll never be anything but alone, whether it’s floating in space or walking through our school hallways as if you’re walking on Mars.”
He took out money for the bill and placed it on the table. “Ready?” he said. He wasn’t one to take any criticism. That was for sure, but I could be just as stubborn.
“No.”
“What?”
“I changed my mind. I need something to sweeten me. I’ve been eyeing that apple pie. I’d like to see how it matches up to Mrs. Marlene’s.”
He looked stunned for a moment and then, finally, with no inhibitions, laughed harder and louder than I thought he could. It made me smile.
“I think I’ve just met my match,” he said.
“I wonder if you would know.”
“Okay. Okay.” He signaled for the waiter. “Truce,” he begged.
Afterward, he was even far more talkative on the way home than he had been on the way to the restaurant. In fact, it was as if a dam had broken. I had the feeling he had been waiting a long time for someone he could speak to without worry and hesitation, someone interested in him enough to stand up to him.
“I’m conflicted about pursuing my genealogy,” he said. “On one hand, I suppose it’s only natural to want to know what you hatched from. Are you Russian, English, French? Was your father a serial killer? But on the other hand, I think, why would I want to know about people who were willing to give me away? They should be on the bottom of my list, not the top.”
“Maybe your mother had no choice.”
“You mean, maybe she was fourteen or something? Yeah, I thought about that. She had kept it secret that she was pregnant, and when her parents found out, they made all the arrangements. But don’t you see? If I don’t find out the truth, I can create all these different stories for myself and discard one to take another when I’m bored with it.
“Maybe my mother was someone famous and had to keep her pregnancy a secret. Maybe she had an affair with a powerful man or a famous politician, and she didn’t want to have an abortion even though he volunteered to take care of everything. Someday I could walk into an office and tell my father, ‘I’m here. I’m the baby you helped give away.’ There’s a look I’d love to see in person, huh? Was I there to blackmail him? Just make him feel terrible? Get a job? Find my mother? It’s a novel. What do you think? Which makes me more interesting, being the lonely adopted guy or the guy who pursues his parentage and stumbles on one of these stories?”
I thought about my own situation, the years I had spent not knowing who my father was. And of course, I thought about now, about getting the knowledge that would end my relationship with Ryder before it had a chance to develop into anything.
“Maybe you’re better off being your own person, completely,” I said. It came out far more cynically than I had intended.
I knew that took him by surprise. Of course, he had no knowledge of what Ryder and I were becoming before my father’s and my mother’s confessions. All people knew was that we had gone boating when we shouldn’t have. No one knew what really had gone on at Wyndemere, no one but our parents and Mr. Stark and Mrs. Marlene.
He looked at me curiously.
“What?”
“Funny to hear you say that now. Look at what you’re inheriting.”
“Yes,” I said, and under my breath added, “look at what I’m inheriting.”
I left that hanging. He glanced at me but didn’t pursue it. How well he knew me already, I thought.
When we pulled up to Wyndemere, I saw Dr. Seymour’s car. My father’s limousine was there as well.
“My brother’s doctor is here, and so is my father.”
“Oh. I hope nothing bad is happening.”
He sat back, thought a moment, and then reached into his pocket and took out his poem.
“I’d like you to have it,” he said.
“Really, but . . .”
“I wouldn’t have written it if I hadn’t spent time with you. You’re the muse.”
I took it. “Thank you.”
“Maybe you’ll come up with a title for it.”
I nodded. Then he got out and came around to open my car door. Instinctively, I looked up at my bedroom window, but Ryder wasn’t there. Of course, I was worried about him, but I was also happy he wasn’t watching us.
“Thank you for a lovely time,” I said.
“Would you like to go to another movie with me? There’s something playing at the art theater I think you’d enjoy. Friday night?” he blurted as if he couldn’t say it any other way.
“Yes,” I said, this time without a moment’s hesitation.
His whole demeanor changed, with a warmer, brighter smile. He walked me to the door.
“See you in school,” I said.
“Yes. ’Bye,” he added, then started away, stopped, and rushed back to kiss me before I had a chance to prepare for it. He hurried to his car.
It gave new meaning to “stole a kiss,” I thought, smiled to myself, and entered Wyndemere, feeling as if I had just stepped off a wild merry-go-round.
But I was about to get on another.
8
THE HOUSE WAS so quiet that my footsteps echoed from the foyer to the top of the stairway. I heard a door close above and saw my mother starting down the steps, her left hand sliding along the mahogany banister. She wal
ked with her head bowed, something she often did when she was whispering a frantic prayer.
“Mummy?”
She paused when she saw me. “Oh, Fern. I’m glad you’re home.” She had one of her lace handkerchiefs clutched in her right hand and quickly dabbed under both eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I asked quickly. I could feel the static in the air.
She continued to descend. “Ryder had a setback of sorts,” she said, approaching me, her eyes red with worry. “Dr. Seymour and Dr. Davenport are still with him.”
“What? What happened? What’s a setback mean?”
She stood there, looking like she was struggling to find the right words. Whatever had happened had clearly overwhelmed her, and it took a great deal to overwhelm my mother.
“I’m not sure how to describe it, really. We’ll have to wait for Dr. Seymour’s diagnosis. Ryder had something of a tantrum is the best way I can put it.”
“Tantrum?”
She nodded toward the living room, and I followed her. She sat on the settee and lowered her head to take a deep breath. I quickly sat across from her, anxious.
“What do you mean by ‘tantrum,’ Mummy?”
“He tore up his room, smashed some things, broke a mirror, and threw some of his clothes about, among other things. Mrs. Marlene and I were reviewing what we needed from the supermarket when we heard this horrible commotion coming from above. Fortunately, Mr. Stark was repairing a light fixture in Dr. Davenport’s office and joined us. He was able to subdue Ryder, and I called Dr. Davenport, who called Dr. Seymour. He rushed over and gave him an injection of something to calm him. He’s dozing now on the settee in his room. His bed is . . . wrecked.”
“Wrecked?”
She shook her head and took a deep breath. “You’d think a tornado had gone through the room. They’re discussing whether he should be brought back to the clinic.”
“Oh, no.” Tears rushed into my eyes from every direction. “What happened to him? He was doing so well, looking healthy, exercising with his father, enjoying his things, and eating well, too. You even said he was making progress with his memory, Mummy.”
“I don’t know, Fern. You have to remember that losing your memory, short-term or not, is very traumatic for anyone, especially for someone as young as Ryder. I know he’s terribly frustrated. Sometimes when he’s sitting with me in the living room while you’re at school, I see the struggling going on in his face, in his eyes. From time to time, he recalls certain things, yes, but it’s difficult for him, because he remembers only this and that. It’s not a complete memory, complete recognition.”
“I know.” Of course, I had seen that, too.
“Dr. Seymour said on more than one occasion that his recalling a detail here and there is a good thing, even though not recalling it all leaves him angry and exasperated. Frankly, I don’t see how that’s true. To me, it’s tantalizingly cruel, but I’m no psychiatrist. All I know is when I remember little details in my life, usually that leads to something bigger, something significant, whether happy or unhappy. For Ryder, it’s like following a hallway that runs into a wall. All you can do is turn around and follow the same path back so you can start again. Torture, I’m sure.”
I stared at the floor. I knew in my heart that whenever Ryder saw me, he was battling with his memory of us. His eyes were bursting with the torment of the struggle, and it was on the tip of my tongue to end it by saying, Yes, I’m your half sister, but when we didn’t know that, we were becoming lovers.
Right now, I was feeling terrible about feeling so good a few moments ago outside the front door of Wyndemere. It was the same way I felt on Christmas and every time we all laughed and Ryder looked lost. He might force a smile, mimicking the rest of us, but I knew he was crying on the inside and suffering more because he didn’t know why. He didn’t even know what had happened to him, exactly. Did he actually ask? Did they say you had to remember it all yourself? What a giant tease.
“Dr. Seymour says he’s struggling not only to remember facts but to have emotional reactions to things as well as people. He still stares at the trophies he won, stares as if they were won by someone else. He’s very unsure of himself, how he should behave, what he should dislike and like and . . .” She paused, deciding whether to go on.
“And what, Mummy?”
“Ryder said an odd thing this morning.”
“Why was it odd?” I held my breath. Did he admit to having deeper feelings toward me?
“He was eating some peach jam on toast, when he stopped chewing and looked at me and said, ‘I have the feeling I never liked peach jam.’ I assured him he had and I wouldn’t give him anything he didn’t like, but he was still skeptical.” She leaned forward. “And to tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure he had said it because he truly wondered or if he had said it to shock me. Ryder could be quite impish, even as a child.”
She paused, and from the way she was looking at me, I could tell that she had something to add, something I might find personally unpleasant. I could read my mother’s face as well as she could read mine.
“What is it, Mummy? There’s more.”
“Your father is going to ask you as well, Fern, so please be forthcoming.”
“Ask me what?”
She sat up straight, firm, what I playfully called “English firm.” “Have you . . . talked to Ryder about your little love affair?”
My face lit hot like I had just stepped into a sauna. “I wouldn’t call it a little love affair, Mummy. It didn’t go that far. We were just getting to know each other in deeper ways.”
“Whatever, Fern. This isn’t the time to play semantics. Did you talk about it recently with him, even suggest it?”
“No, not a word. If you accumulate all the times he and I have been together, I’ve barely spent a full hour alone with him since his return.”
“It’s not a matter of how long you have spent with him; it’s what was said when you were. And I wasn’t hovering over either of you night and day.”
“It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t said!”
There was never this much distrust between us when we lived in the help’s quarters at the rear of the mansion, I thought. Crossing over to the main house was like losing all your innocence and all the faith you had. This was a different world within the same mansion.
Despite my denial and how vehemently I had said it, my mother still looked quite troubled. A thought both exciting and frightening burst like a Fourth of July rocket in my mind. There was more. He wasn’t only talking to her about peach jam or anything else that was minor.
“Has he said something about it to you, something you had to ignore, Mummy?”
Her hesitation widened her eyes. “No, not in so many words, but I was mother enough to that boy to know what’s turning inside him, even in the condition he’s currently enduring.”
My brain felt like it was twirling like a top. Was he finally understanding his feelings for me? Was the confusion now disturbing, resulting from my apparent indifference? Was that the reason for his tantrum? Should I have disobeyed my parents and spoken to him about it?
I was about to tell her that I had seen Ryder in my room just before Dillon and I had left for lunch, but before I could, we heard Samantha scream as she burst into the house.
“I’m home!”
My mother rose quickly and went to the doorway.
“Stop your bloody yelling and get in here,” she ordered.
Practically on tiptoes, Samantha entered the living room. She recognized that my mother rarely took as stern a tone with her. It was a reluctance on my mother’s part that always annoyed me. For as long as I could remember, she leaned more toward feeling sorry for Samantha than chastising her properly. Samantha was not one to appreciate the way my mother sympathized with her. She was one to exploit that kindness.
“I didn’t do anything,” she said before either my mother or I could speak. Of course, that immediately stirred my suspicions.
Sam
antha had gone to Raegan Kelly’s house for the day, and I knew that Raegan, as hard as it was to believe, was even more spoiled than Samantha. She was one of the three girls who had gotten the hairdo Samantha talked our father into letting her get. Raegan lived in a fifty-five-hundred-square-foot Victorian-style house that was quite historical. Of course, her parents had restored and upgraded it. Her father owned and operated one of the biggest plumbing-supply companies in the county. He drove a Bentley. Raegan’s mother, heading many charities, had been Bea Davenport’s closest friend. They gave each other “snob transfusions.” It was how Samantha became so friendly with Raegan, whom posh Bea had thought was one of the few to be worthy of Samantha’s time.
Some of my classmates, mostly the girls, loved to tell me about Raegan Kelly’s clique, of which Samantha was a member. A story always began with “Since she’s your half sister . . .” I could see the glee in the informant’s face and the faces of those around us listening. Now that I was Samantha’s half sister, I had to share in her sins and indiscretions. Supposedly, Raegan’s little house parties usually involved some pot, alcohol, and quite a bit of sexual talk. I had warned Samantha about what I heard, and of course, she denied it. Right now, she was glaring at me, suspecting I had told my mother something.
“This has nothing to do with you, Samantha,” my mother said. “Unless you have something to tell us about things you’ve said to Ryder that might have upset him.”
“I didn’t say anything to him,” she said reflexively. She looked at me and then at my mother. “About what? What do you mean, ‘upset him’?”
“Ryder had a bad episode. Your father and Dr. Seymour are still with him discussing whether he needs to be in the clinic again. You were told what things you should not speak about. Did you talk about any of those things?”
“No,” she said. “Maybe Fern did,” she quickly added.
“No one is blaming anyone right now,” my mother said, the frustration draining color from her face. “All right. Go up to your room. If you have any schoolwork left that you were supposed to do, be sure to do it. We’ll have dinner at the usual time.”
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