The Thought Readers

by Dima Zales

  I imagine my moms decided to ask Kyle to come around when I was growing up so I’d have a male role model in my life. However, their choice for the task couldn’t have been worse. As far back as I can remember, I’ve butted heads with Kyle. Pick an issue, and we’re likely to be on opposite sides of it. Doctor-assisted suicide, the death penalty, cloning humans, you name it, and you can be sure we’ve had a shouting match over it. I like to think of myself as a free thinker, while Kyle clings to what was digested and fed to him by some form of authority, never stopping to question anything.

  The biggest mystery to me is actually why someone so traditional even accepts my moms’ relationship. My theory is that he has a mental disconnect. I imagine he tells himself that despite their marriage, they’re just best friends who live together.

  I also think he has a rather tragic crush on Lucy. He would call it brotherly love, but I’ve always been skeptical. Especially given his very professional, cold attitude toward Sara, a woman he’s known for over twenty years. An attitude that was chilly all along, but grew downright frigid after the huge fight they had when he decided to discipline me with a belt when I was nine. I was clever enough to scream and cry like a banshee, and predictably, Sara had a major fit. She actually threw a vase in his face. I think he had to get stitches. After that, he only used words to discipline me, and his interactions with Sara became even more aloof.

  Having said all that, after I stopped needing to deal with Kyle regularly, I began to feel more fondness for the bastard. I know he usually means well. He’s the closest thing to a father figure I have, and he did come around a lot, generally with good intentions. He told me cool stories about back in the day when he and Lucy kicked ass and took names—stories Lucy never chose to share, for some reason. And I wouldn’t be half as good a debater now if not for all that arguing with him. For better or for worse, he played a role in the person I’ve become, and that’s an honor usually reserved for people you consider close.

  “How’s work?” Kyle asks. “Are we due for another financial meltdown anytime soon?”

  Kyle isn’t a fan of anyone in the financial industry. I can forgive that; few people are fans of them. Or should I say of us? Also, only a tiny portion of the population understands the difference between bankers and hedge fund analysts, or can tell any financial professional from another.

  “Work is great,” I respond. “I’m researching a biotech company that’s going to use magnetic waves to manipulate human brains for therapy.”

  Lucy narrows her eyes at me. She knows I’m trying to start an argument again. But I have to hand it to Kyle: this time, he doesn’t take the bait. Usually he would go into some Luddite bullshit about how frightening and unnatural what I just said sounds, how dangerous it is to mess with people’s brains like that. But no, he doesn’t say anything of the sort.

  “I’m glad you’re making a name for yourself at that company,” he says instead. Is that an olive branch? “I was just on my way out, but I’ll see you at Lucy’s birthday party in a few weeks.”

  “Sure, Kyle,” I say. “See you then.”

  He walks out, and Lucy walks out with him. He probably came to get her advice on a case. He does that to this day, despite not having been her partner for decades.

  “When will you grow up?” Sara chides, smiling. “Why must you always push people’s buttons?”

  “Oh, that’s rich, you defending Kyle.” I roll my eyes.

  “He’s a good man,” she says, shrugging.

  “Whatever,” I say, dismissing the subject with a single word. The last thing I’m interested in right now is an argument about Kyle. “We need to talk. You should actually sit down for this.”

  Alarm is written all over Sara’s face. I’m not sure what she imagines I’m going to say, but she has a tendency to expect the worst.

  “Should we wait for your mother?” she says. They both say that in reference to the other, and it’s always funny to me. Your mother.

  “Probably. It’s nothing bad. I just have some important questions,” I say. Despite everything, I feel guilty that I’ve worried her.

  I notice that she pales at the mention of important questions.

  “Are you hungry?” she asks, looking me up and down with concern. Please, not the too-thin talk again. If it weren’t for Lucy intervening, my own lack of appetite, and my stubbornness, I would be the chubbiest son Sara could possibly raise. And the fatter I’d get, the happier Sara would be as a mom. She would be able to show me around and say ‘see how fat he is, that’s how much I love him.’ I know she got that ‘feeding is caring’ attitude from Grandma, who wouldn’t rest until you were as big as a house.

  The fact that Sara doesn’t pursue the food topic now shows me how concerned she is. Is it some kind of guilt thing? Does she suspect what I’m about to ask?

  “No, thanks, Mom. I just had some sushi,” I say. “But I would love some coffee.”

  “Did you go out partying all night?” She appears even more worried now. “You look exhausted.”

  “I didn’t sleep well last night, but I’m okay, Mom.”

  She shakes her head and goes into the kitchen. I follow. Their house is still unfamiliar. I preferred the cramped Manhattan apartment where I grew up, but my moms decided a few years back that it was time for the suburbs and home ownership. At least they have some of the same familiar furniture I remember from childhood, like the chair I’m now sitting in. And the heavy round kitchen table. And the cup, red with polka dots, that she hands to me. My cup.

  “I smell coffee,” Lucy says, coming back.

  “I made you a cup, too,” Sara says.

  “You read my mind,” Lucy responds, smiling.

  I decide I’m not going to get a better segue than that. Is it literally true? Can Sara Read Lucy’s mind?

  “Mom,” I say to Sara. “Is there something important you want to tell me about my heritage?”

  I look at them both. They look shell-shocked.

  “How did you figure it out?” Lucy asks, staring at me.

  “I’m so sorry,” Sara says guiltily.

  The vehemence of their reaction confuses me, considering my relatively innocuous question. I haven’t even gotten to the heavy stuff yet. But it seems like I’m onto something, so I just say nothing and try to look as blank as I can, since I’m not sure what we’re talking about. I sense we’re not exactly on the same page.

  “We always meant to tell you,” Sara continues, tears forming in her eyes. “But it never seemed like a good time.”

  “For the longest time, until you were in your mid-teens, we couldn’t discuss it at all. Even among ourselves,” Lucy adds. She isn’t tearing up, but I can tell she’s distraught. “We even tried reading books about it. But the books recommend saying it as early as possible, which we didn’t do . . .”

  “Saying what?” I ask, my voice rising. I’m reasonably certain I’m about to find out something other than what I came here to verify, since I’m not aware of any books about Reading.

  Sara blinks at me through her tears. “I thought you knew . . . Isn’t that what you want to talk about? I thought you used some modern DNA test to figure it out.”

  A wave of panic washes over me. I try not to phase. I want to hear this.

  “I want to know what you’re talking about,” I say. “Right now.”

  I look at them in turn. Daring them to try to wiggle out of it. They know they have to spill the beans now.

  “You were adopted, Darren,” Lucy says quietly, looking at me.

  “Yes,” Sara whispers. “I’m not your biological mother.” She starts to cry, something I’ve hated since I was a little kid. There’s something wrong, weirdly scary, about seeing your mom cry. Except—and the full enormity of it dawns on me—she’s not my birth mom.

  She never has been.

  Chapter 13

  How would anyone react in my shoes?

  I don’t know if it’s seeing my moms so upset or the news itself, but
I can’t take the flood of emotion for long. I phase into the Quiet. Once the world around me is still, I pick up the coffee cup and throw it across the room. It shatters against the TV, coffee spilling everywhere. I get up, grab the empty chair next to the one where my frozen self is sitting, and hurl it across the room after the cup, yelling as loudly as I can. I stop myself from breaking more stuff, though; even though I know it will go back to normal after I phase out, it still feels like vandalism.

  Then I take a couple of deep breaths, trying to pull myself together.

  This explains things—things that Eugene and Mira told me about. Sara didn’t lie to me. She never had my ability. She reacted to my descriptions of the Quiet as a normal person would. I should probably feel relieved. I feel anything but.

  Why would they not tell me? After all, it’s not like we haven’t had conversations about being adopted. We had them all the time. Sort of. We talked about how Lucy didn’t give birth to me, but loves me just as much as Sara who, allegedly, did. This would’ve been just more of the same.

  I take more deep breaths. I sit on the floor and perform the meditation I have used four times already today.

  I begin to feel better—well enough to continue talking, at least. I look at the shocked expression on my frozen face. I reach out and touch myself on the elbow. The gesture is intended to comfort the frozen me, which, once I do it, seems silly. The touch brings me out of the Quiet.

  I take a deep breath more demonstratively in the real world. “If you’re not my biological mother,” I manage to say, “then who is?”

  “Your parents’ names were Mark and Margret,” Lucy says. To my shock, she’s crying too—something I’ve almost never seen her do. A knot ties itself in the pit of my stomach as she continues, “Your uncle might’ve told you stories about Mark.”

  I’m almost ready to phase into the Quiet again. She said ‘were.’ I know what that means. And I have heard of Mark. He was the daredevil partner who worked with Lucy and Kyle.

  “Tell me everything,” I say through clenched teeth. I’m trying my best not to say something I’ll regret later.

  “Before you were born, we really did go to Israel, as we always told you,” Sara begins, her voice shaking. “It’s just that what happened there was different from what you know. Our friends Mark and Margret approached us with a crazy story, and an even crazier request.”

  She stops, looking at Lucy pleadingly.

  “They said someone was out to kill them,” says Lucy in a more even voice. “They said Margret was pregnant, and they wanted us to raise the child. To pretend it was our own.” She gets calmer as she tells this, her tears stopping. “We always wanted a child. It seemed like a dream come true. They were the ones who came up with the whole sperm bank story. They said the danger they were in could spill into your life if anyone ever found out about the arrangement. I know it sounds like I’m making excuses for not telling you, but when they got killed, just as they moved back to New York to be near you . . .”

  “Lucy and Mark were close,” Sara jumps in, wiping away the moisture on her face. “Back then, they worked in the organized crime division together. Lucy and I just assumed the unit where they all worked had something to do with why Mark was killed, which is why I begged your mother to switch to another division.” She looks at Lucy again, silently urging her to continue with the story.

  “I investigated their deaths,” Lucy says. “But I still, to this day, have no idea who killed them and why. The killer left no clues. The crime scene was the most thoroughly investigated one in my career—and nothing. All I know is that Margret was shot in the back in her own kitchen, and it looked like Mark was killed a few seconds later when he tried to attack the person who shot her. There were no signs of a break-in.”

  My mind’s gone numb. How am I supposed to feel about something like this happening to the biological parents I never knew existed? Or about them giving me to their friends to raise, even though they knew they’d be putting Sara and Lucy in danger?

  I can’t take it anymore, so I phase into the Quiet again.

  Once everything is still, I walk up to Sara, whose face is frozen in concern. I still love her, just as much as I did on my way here. This changes nothing. I’ve always loved Lucy the same as Sara, despite knowing we’re not related by blood. As far as I can tell, this is no different.

  I put my hand on Sara’s forearm and try to get into the state of Coherence, as Eugene called it. I’m so worked up that it’s much more difficult this time. I don’t know how long it takes before I’m in Sara’s memories.

  * * *

  We’re excited Darren is going to visit.

  I, Darren, feel ashamed somehow at the intensity of Sara’s enthusiasm. If it makes her so happy, I should probably visit more often.

  We’re devastated at having the dreaded adoption conversation with Darren, after all these years. Our own little family secret. Before I, Darren, am naturally pushed out by getting to the present moment in Sara’s memories, I decide to go deeper. Picturing being lighter, trying to focus, I fall further in.

  We’re watching Darren pack for Harvard. We’re beyond anxious. I, Darren, realize that I am not far enough and focus on going deeper.

  We’re on a date with Lucy. She’s the coolest girl we have ever met. I, Darren, realize how creepy this thing I am doing can get, but I also know that I can’t stop. I overshot my target memory mark and need to go back out of this depth, or in other words, fast-forward the memories. I, Darren, do what I tried before when I wanted to get deeper into someone’s mind, only in reverse: I picture myself heavier. It works.

  We’ve been obsessing about Israel for months. Our heritage must call us, as our mom Rose said. I, Darren, realize that Rose is Grandma and that I am close—and I jump a bit further this time by picturing myself heavier again.

  We’re in Israel. It’s awesome. Even Lucy’s initial grumpy ‘there are almost no other Asians here’ attitude gets turned around after spending a day at the beach.

  We look around the beach. The view is breathtaking. I, Darren, make a note to visit this place someday.

  “Hi guys,” says a familiar male voice.

  We’re shocked to see the M&Ms, Mark and Margret, approach our chairs. So is Lucy, we bet. What could they possibly be doing here, in Israel? The last thing anyone expects when going overseas is to meet friends from New York.

  I, Darren, see them, and Sara’s surprise pales next to mine. It’s not like they look exactly like me, Darren. But it’s almost like some Photoshop genius took their facial features, mixed them up, added a few random ones, and got the familiar face that, I, Darren, see every day in the mirror.

  “What are you doing here?” Lucy asks, looking concerned.

  “We need to talk,” Mark says. “But not here.”

  I, Darren, picture feeling heavy again, so I can jump forward a little more.

  We’re listening to the M&Ms’ crazy tale.

  “Who’s after you? If you don’t tell me, how am I supposed to help?” Lucy says in frustration after they’re done. We feel the same way. We can’t believe our friends are springing this on us and telling us next to nothing.

  “Don’t ask me that, Lucy. If I told you, I’d put you and, by extension, the unborn child in danger,” Mark says. I, Darren, realize that his voice is deep, a lot like the voice I hear on my voicemail. My voice.

  “But what about you?” we say, looking at Margret. “How will you be able to go through with this?”

  Margret, who has been very quiet through this conversation, begins crying, and we feel like a jerk.

  “Margie and I are both willing to do whatever it takes to make sure our child lives,” Mark says for her. “Regardless of how much it hurts us to distance ourselves this way.”

  “So you won’t come back to New York?” Lucy asks. That’s our girl, always the detective, trying to put every piece together.

  He shakes his head. “My resignation is already prepared. We’ll stay in
Israel until the baby is born, then come back to New York for the first year of the baby’s life to help you guys, and then we’ll move to California. We hope you can come visit us in California once the baby is older. Tell her—or him—that we’re old friends.” Mark’s voice breaks.

  “But this makes no sense,” Lucy says, echoing our thoughts. “If you’re going to quit and move anyway, the child should be safe enough—”

  “No,” Mark says. “Moving barely mitigates the risk. The people who want us dead can reach us anywhere. Please don’t interrogate me, Lucy. Just think how wonderful it would be to have a child. Weren’t you guys always planning to adopt?”

  “We couldn’t think of better people to trust with this,” Margret says. “Please, help us.”

  We think she’s trying to convince herself of her decision. We can’t even imagine how she must be feeling.

  “We’ll pay for everything,” Mark says, changing the subject.

  We’re in complete agreement with Lucy’s objections to the money, but in the end, the M&Ms convince us to accept their extremely generous offer—money we didn’t even know they had. We know what Mark’s approximate salary range is, since he works with Lucy, and he can’t be making that much more than she is. To someone with that salary, this kind of money is unheard of. Nor is it likely that Margret makes that much. We wonder if having so much money has something to do with the paranoid story of people coming after them.

  I, Darren, however, don’t think it’s the money. Could it be the Pushers? After all, Pushers killed Mira and Eugene’s family. Could they be behind killing mine? Learning more about Pushers becomes much more personal for me all of a sudden.

  I, Darren, can’t take any more of this unfolding tragedy. I might come back here someday, but I can’t handle it right now. Still, like a masochist, I progress into the memories.

  We’re driving back from Margret and Mark’s funeral. We haven’t spoken most of the way. We have never seen Lucy this upset.

  “Please talk to me, hon,” we say, trying to break the heavy silence.