Shadow Notes

by Laurel S. Peterson

  He’d loved the grounds, gardened them with pleasure. I still came across his books stuck in odd corners, and last week, in a little used drawer in the garage, his pipe, still redolent of the sweet tobacco he smoked. Mother even managed to keep some of his indoor plants blooming.

  I turned, feeling a draft, as if he’d just opened the door and followed me in. I didn’t believe in ghosts, but perhaps my thoughts made him somehow present.

  That was ridiculous.

  In the kitchen, I looked out at the snow-covered kitchen garden. The gardener handled it now, though Mother didn’t bother with food crops any longer, only herbs. Maybe if I stayed, I would revive it.

  Stayed?

  I walked back down the hall, wondering if Father had known all Mother’s secrets, and if so, what he thought. What story did Nat think Mother should tell me before it created a monster? I shivered and pushed open the door to what used to be Father’s office, so caught up in my imagination that I half thought it would still contain his leather chair behind the big maple desk piled with gardening and landscape design books, all smelling vaguely of earth and crushed greenery. Even his scent seemed stronger in here.

  Of course I knew Mother used this room now. She’d replaced the maple desk with a glass and chrome one, moved in some wooden filing cabinets, and installed a glass door leading out to the garden with stained glass panels on either side. The bookcases, though, were still crammed with his tomes, their little paper notes sticking out the tops and sides. His choices in paintings still adorned the wall space uncovered by books, and heavy leather reading chairs still flanked the fireplace.

  What I should have noticed first was the person dressed all in black riffling through the top drawer of one of the cabinets.

  “What are you doing?” I said it before thinking about whether or not attracting his attention was wise.

  The figure spun around, startled. He had a fist full of papers, and his face was covered with a balaclava. Without saying a word, he threw the papers at me and lunged for the garden door. I ran to intercept him, but he got there first and yanked it open. Two steps behind him, I stretched out to grab his arm and dug my fingers in. He backhanded me and things went suddenly red and black. Falling across the doorsill was the last thing I remembered.

  “Clara! Clara. Wake up.”

  Soft fingers probed my skull. I tried to pull away, but that felt even worse.

  “C’mon. We have to get you inside. Help me.”

  Was the person talking to me? I cracked open an eye, but things stayed blurry.

  “You’d better call Kyle and an ambulance. There’s a lot of blood.”

  My blood? Maybe I’d dug my fingers into the intruder’s arm deeper than I thought, but somehow, hazily, I remembered a lot of fabric between me and his skin. I tried to ask what was going on, but it didn’t come out so well.

  “She’s mumbling. Is that a good sign?”

  I finally heard the second voice.

  “How should I know?”

  Morrie and Alcott. I felt myself lifted up and deposited somewhat hastily onto the couch. “Jeez. She’s heavier than she looks.”

  “Most bodies are.”

  “God, Morrie. She’s not a ‘body’ yet.”

  “That’s a lot of blood, though.”

  I lost consciousness again. What I remember next was a piercing light shining in my eyes.

  “She’ll be okay.” New voice. “But we’d better take her in for observation. She might have a concussion, and it didn’t do her any good to lie on that cold ground.”

  Things went black again.

  Chapter 22

  I woke in the hospital. Machines beeped next to the bed; footsteps hustled along the corridor, accompanied by quiet voices. Mother sat in a chair by the window reading a book. A vase of red and white carnations decorated the institutional gray table.

  “I see you’ve decided to rejoin us,” she said, closing the book and using her finger to mark her place.

  I shook my head, too quickly. Ow. “This is worse than a hangover.”

  “Luckily, you’ll recover,” she said. “The rest of us may not,” she muttered to herself.

  “What happened?”

  “Do you remember anything?”

  “Not really. I remember going home to change. Then I started missing Dad, thinking about how we used to celebrate Christmas, the Christmas tree we’d drive to Newtown to chop down ourselves. Trying to figure out the murders. After that, not much.”

  “Morrie and Alcott found you in my office.”

  “Why did they come?”

  “When you hadn’t come back for an hour and a half, and you didn’t answer your phone, we thought it a good idea to go find you.”

  “Thanks. What happened?”

  “You were lying on the doorsill with your head cracked open. You’d fallen on the lip, so you hit not only the stone but also the hard metal track of the door. You’ve got a dent the size of the Marianas Trench in your skull.”

  “No wonder my head hurts.” I rolled gingerly onto my side, so I could see her more clearly. “Oh.” I sucked up a breath at the pain. At least a memory came with it. “I didn’t fall. Someone was going through your files.”

  “I figured as much. My papers were all over the carpet. You might pry, but you are a more careful snoop. I’ve had to look hard over the past couple of weeks to determine what was out of place.”

  So I hadn’t gotten away with anything.

  “He threw those papers at me. What was he looking for?”

  She scratched her finger inside the book, as if working at a blemish on the paper.

  I said, “You know, but you won’t tell me, yet I’m in a hospital bed and someone out there wants to shut us up. How much more risk are you willing to take to protect yourself?” That was definitely too much energy expended. My brain felt as if it would pound free of my skull. I groaned and rolled onto my back again.

  She looked up, willing herself, perhaps, to the task. “It’s a long story, but—”

  The door swung open.

  “Hello, Constance, Clara.” The chief loomed in the doorway, his entrance unbelievably ill-timed. “I need to hear about your intruder.”

  “Could you, maybe, come back in a little bit? My head is killing me.” Besides, Mother was just about to tell me what I’d waited fifteen years to hear. I pulled the blanket up to my shoulders.

  He ignored my request, pulling out his phone to type notes. “Male or female?”

  “Male, I think. His face was covered. Not much of a figure, if it was female.”

  “Height? Weight? Distinguishing features? Attire?” I did my best, but even his hands had been covered.

  “He was searching the file cabinets?”

  I nodded. Immediately regretted it.

  “What was he was looking for?”

  “Don’t know.” I glanced at Mother. Regretted that.

  “Constance? Do you?”

  Mother pursed her lips.

  Kyle settled himself at the bottom of the bed. My head twanged with the movement. “It would be really useful if we knew what the intruder was looking for. That way, if, say, we caught him, we’d have leverage.” He looked back and forth between us, waited out our silence.

  Mother liberated her bookmark from a stack of magazines next to her chair. I could now see the book title: Living with Grief. Why would she still need a book like that, all these years after my father’s death? She slid her sweater off the chair’s shoulders. “Chief DuPont, I am going to take my daughter home and tell her a story. When I am done, I will tell you everything you want to know. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.”

  Kyle didn’t look happy. “I have your word on that, ma’am?”

  “You have the word of a Montague, Chief DuPont.”

  She didn’t mean to
, but she lied.

  The doctor said I should stay another night in the hospital for ­observation, but Mother insisted we were going home. He cautioned me to rest for a few days and to let him know immediately if anything changed. I could come back in a couple weeks to have the stitches removed. They wheeled me to the hospital entrance, and I clambered into the car.

  When we arrived home, she settled me in my father’s old office on the couch, with blankets tucked around me, looking out at the fading winter light.

  “I’ll get us a cup of tea.”

  “I’m not an invalid, Mother. Just sit down and tell me.”

  “I know what you are. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.” She left, delaying the inevitable. I wanted to hear, but after all this time and all this secrecy, maybe I didn’t want to hear. Maybe that’s why Paul kept the file from me, why both he and Kyle told me I wasn’t ready.

  Through the French doors, the doors through which the intruder had fled, I could see my father’s formal garden, the snow-covered outlines of tiny boxwood in knotted formations around the slender stalks of rose canes. In the summer, their reds, mauves and pinks gleamed against the graveled path.

  I missed my father so much. Just his steady presence had kept me on track through all those difficult years when it seemed Mother’s goal was to make me feel small. He never interfered, and I had come to understand that whatever relationship I forged with her had to be because of my own backbone, not because someone else protected me. I wished he hadn’t had to die for me to get it.

  She carried in a tray with teapot and mugs, sandwiches and cookies. She smiled ruefully. “I’ve not baked for a long time, so forgive the effort if it’s not quite right. I needed something to occupy me while I waited for you to recover.” She waved her hand at the papers and boxes. “Something besides this clean-up.” Apparently she’d been reorganizing them.

  I didn’t ever remember her baking. I didn’t even know she knew how.

  She poured me a mug and handed it across. I sipped and picked up a sandwich. It was turkey salad. “Is this Richard’s Christmas turkey?”

  She nodded. “They said we could finish celebrating when you were better. I told them I would host New Year’s. I’m not sure Richard is doing well.” She seated herself across from me in a wingback chair. “You’re up for talking? You’ll tell me if you get tired?”

  “Yes,” I said, thinking I needed to call Richard.

  “It’s a long story, but it’s about you and me, and our gift. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but when I’m finished, perhaps you’ll understand why.”

  I wished she would get on with it. How bad could it be?

  “When I was fifteen—” She stopped, pressed her lips together. The skin around them bleached out under the pressure. She suddenly thrust back her shoulders and started again. “When I was fifteen, I was raped. You’re the result.”

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t feel any part of my body. Rape? I was a child of rape? How had she lived with that?

  How would I?

  A moment ago, I thought I was coming into a stronger, more centered self. Now I felt shame at having been born, at being the result of my mother’s pain, as if I was at fault for what happened.

  “Why did you keep me?” I whispered.

  “Clara, I love you so much, and I am so sorry your life began that way, but I wouldn’t trade you for anything. I only wish I hadn’t had to experience what I did for you to come into the world.”

  Everything about my mother fell into sharp relief: the ambivalence, the coldness, the distance, the books about trauma and grief, the meditation, the therapy. Finally, she made sense. But now I didn’t make any sense at all.

  “You are the reason for Hugh’s murder, Hetty’s murder, the break-ins here. I know who’s behind it, and I’m pretty sure I know why, but I can’t prove it. I’m telling you so you’ll protect yourself.”

  “From whom?”

  “My rapist.”

  “You know who did it? Why isn’t he in jail, rotting away in solitary confinement?” Rage welled up, momentarily relieving the shame that threatened to overwhelm me.

  “I couldn’t prove it, Clara. He paid off the doctor who examined me after the rape, and the ob-gyn I saw while pregnant. He’s a powerful man.”

  “Who is it, Mother? You have to tell me who my real father is.”

  “He’s not your real father. The man who raised you is your real father. This man conceived you in hate—and you must never—ever!—forget that.”

  “Who is he?”

  She bit her lip again. Lights from a passing car flashed across the doors, probably the patrol car the chief had promised would regularly check the house.

  “Andrew Winters,” she said.

  Something inside me, like a soft burrowing animal, hunkered down at her answer, as if it were satisfied that what it had known all along were suddenly proven true. The rage sharpened, but I focused it. I needed to know more.

  My hands gripped handfuls of blanket. “What happened?”

  “I made the mistake of telling Mary Ellen about my intuition. She told Andrew. I was so lonely, Clara. No one understood. And then my mother grounded me when she found out.” She rubbed at a spot on the tray with her fingertip.

  “Andrew cozied up to me. He sat next to me in class, offered to carry my books, ate lunch with me and your father. I started to get disturbing images, all about burning and fire.” She laughed a little, like metal on slate. “Maybe he’ll end up in hell…

  “He finally got around to what he wanted, which was for me to use my gift to see if he should run for class president, if he should apply to Princeton or Yale, if he should run for local office after college. If he would ever be President. I was to become his personal fortune teller, and God help me if I got the answers wrong.”

  I held still, fearful any movement would throw her off her story and ignite my own brushfire of feelings.

  “The previous year, the boy who ran against him in the school election got into a terrible car crash. He almost didn’t walk again; he didn’t make it back to school for the rest of the semester. Some people said Andrew tampered with the brakes on his car. He hadn’t done it himself, he never does anything himself. He set up a favor system—he’d help you get a good test grade or get a bully off your back and you’d owe him—a sort of whispery economy floating just below the radar. No one would talk about it, because Andrew always knew if you’d stepped out of line and he made you pay.”

  “He raped you himself.” Invisible question mark at the end.

  She re-crossed her legs the other way. “It was a personal rejection. I’d wager it was the first and last misstep he ever made.”

  “What did you do when he asked you to predict the future?”

  “You know it doesn’t work that way. I only got the burning images, and I figured those didn’t fit his plan. I very sweetly told him that I couldn’t help him. He didn’t ask again; instead, he found me after the honors convocation, the one event my mother had allowed me to attend. I was receiving an award for an essay I’d written about the mystic Julian of Norwich. Your grandfather was late picking me up, and Andrew offered me a ride home. I felt the fury billowing off him and told him my father would be worried if I wasn’t there when he arrived. I wasn’t anyway because Andrew manhandled me around the side of the school behind the dumpsters, forced me down on the filthy ground and ripped away my skirt and panties.”

  “Mother!” Shocked, I started to get up, but her hand locked me in place.

  “You need to know he’s vicious, Clara. I’ll spare you the worst of it, but he slapped me repeatedly, until it felt like my cheek would crack open. My left eye swelled shut, my lower lip split. Broken glass on the asphalt sliced into my back; I needed stitches there and in my vagina. He bruised my face, wrists, upper arms, and thighs, and t
he ground scraped my back and thighs. The doctor spent a long time that night digging out glass fragments.”

  “How could the doctor see that and not turn Winters in?” Wasn’t that medical malpractice? I was twitching from side to side, as if the movement would dispel my rage.

  “Dr. Hankin had just been caught on the drug charges, and—”

  “Hankin?!”

  “Andrew’s father persuaded the medical board that Joe deserved a second chance and the new practice in the city. It’s probably why Wendy pulled that hysterical stunt on you in Whole Foods the other day. I would imagine Andrew’s been pressuring Joe to keep his mouth shut.

  “Joe did something for me, though, and that’s what Andrew is after. Joe took tissue and semen samples. This was before rape kits were in common use, but he knew what to do: he wrote up and dated his report, and his nurse signed as a witness to my examination. Just before you arrived home, I finally managed to get some of Andrew’s DNA by swiping a glass he set down at a party. I had a DNA test done, proving you’re Andrew’s daughter.”

  I nodded, remembering Dr. Hankin swabbing my cheek fifteen years before. I hadn’t thought a thing about it. I’d gone in to make sure my vaccinations were up-to-date before leaving for France. Apparently, Mother had had it tested then, compared Andrew’s to those results.

  I thought, picked out the core piece of information. “Winters wants to be President.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what the intruder was looking for. That report. The DNA test.”

  “Yes. And I don’t know where it is.”

  “I took it from your cottage. It’s in my night table upstairs.”

  Chapter 23

  We stopped, encased in the kind of silence horror brings. All ­politicians weren’t evil, but this one was, and he needed to be stopped.

  “I’m sorry.” I rubbed my hands down my thighs. I couldn’t stop trembling.

  “Sorry for what?”

  “Because of me, you can’t move on, you can’t forget. I’m amazed you can bear to look at me.”