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Chapter Twenty – Mourning

He banished me to Skylar’s room to sleep alone. I wandered into my old room, but someone had been camping out in there. Must be Spike, judging from the camouflage sleeping bag and the mustache grooming tools. I wondered why. If his mom or his girlfriend kicked him out, couldn’t he just tell us?

As I tossed and turned in Skylar’s old bed, I wondered if Spike moved in to protect me, the way Trevor used to sleep on the floor outside my room so many moons ago. I admit it comforted me to think so. Several times I snuck out and put my ear to Trevor’s door. I could hear him in there. Sometimes he played Haydn. There was light beneath his door.

Toward morning my body betrayed me and fell asleep. I awoke all of a sudden, propelled out of a bad dream as out of a cannon, sitting up fearful and guilt ridden. I’d killed Colleen. Someone killed Colleen.

Then I remembered. Trevor killed Colleen; the same way Oz murdered my mother. It came on the sound of an echo; a short, sharp sound like a shot. Had I dreamed it or was it real? I bolted out of bed. Jake’s door was open, his music playing, but he and Shelley were gone. Was it a door slam that I heard?

How Shelley, Spike and Jake be so clueless as to eat breakfast? Couldn’t they taste the air and just know it changed forever? How could they act like it was just another day?

I put my ear to Trevor’s door and listened. Violins. Haydn’s Creation. A very bad sign.

I worried what was he doing in there. He used to cut himself when he was younger, but I didn’t suspect he’d regressed that far. Working on a plan to turn himself in? I couldn’t let that happen. I hammered on the door.

“Trevor!” I shouted. “Don’t do it! Let me in!”

Nothing. I could feel him alive in there. I swear I could feel him, I could still feel his love for me. I would make him listen. I ran through Jake’s room and bathroom to the other door, but Trevor had thought to lock that one as well.

“If you don’t open this door,” I lied, “I’m going to do something terrible to myself!”

He opened it instantly and leaned out. I was so relieved. Did I think he had killed himself? He seemed at peace. I drank in his beautiful face and tired unfocused eyes fading to pewter-color. He wore just a t-shirt. Not yet dressed for court.

He kissed my forehead.

“Don’t you dare do anything terrible to yourself,” he said, smiling as if making a joke. “What a loss that would be to literature. Don’t you realize everything terrible has already been done? Now it’s time for the wonderful things.” He looked me up and down, leaning out of the death room into the light. Into life. Kissed me, right on the lips. His lips were so real, so warm. For the first time ever he broke away before I did.

“I was crazy to think I could pass you off to another man,” he said.

He sniffed the air, hungrily, like a patient recovering from illness. “I’m starving. I could eat anything.”

“Egg foo yung?”

“Sure. Whole-wheat toast. No jelly. Bacon, if you can find it.” He closed the door and I heard him lock it.

I walked toward the stairs, just in case he was listening. I didn’t believe him for a second. I knew he was lying to get rid of me. In Skylar’s bathroom door there’s an old-fashioned skeleton key. Fortunately Vermillion has such antique locks they are easy to pick. In a house where every key is a skeleton key, every day is Halloween.

I thought I heard the music stop. Then I heard the door unlocking. I peeked around the stairs.

The door opened, then closed again. Re-locked.

There was now a note on the door. I tiptoed up.

On a plain white sheet of paper, written in capital letters, this is what it said:

BRONTË, THIS IS YOUR BIG BROTHER SPEAKING.
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO COME INTO THIS ROOM.
CALL 911 IMMEDIATELY.

I was still reading it when I heard the shots. There were two of them. So the shot that woke me was a prophecy, not an echo.

Spike said afterward that people think you can’t shoot yourself twice in the head with a pistol, that it’s just a reflex, but he says he’s known of cases where it’s happened. You just have to be very determined and have plenty of follow-through. Trevor was always gifted in that department.
He was on the bed, the bed he would never let us share because it so enshrined his self-disgust.

His head was mush – the eyes were gone – and there was blowback – what had they called it in the courtroom? – high velocity spatter along the white wall. Whatever had been Trevor was gone, now, his brain and his future blasted into space. Trevor my father, my mother, my lover, my brother, the giver of all my life’s good gifts, was no more. In a world without Trevor, who would ever know who I really was?

That dead thing was still his body, his so-familiar body lying half along the bed and half along the floor, but I didn’t touch it. I should have been afraid of him before; but I was much more afraid of him now. Poor Trevor, this death was foretold from the moment he killed Colleen. He had grown up cutting away pieces of himself he thought he could live without; this time he guessed wrong. The Luger had spun away from him along the once-polished floor. I stepped over it on my way to the mantelpiece.

You couldn’t miss the envelopes, lined up neatly in a row. Four of them. One was marked, The Prosecutor, one was marked For My Father, one for Jake and one said, Brontë. I was thinking fast and clearly. Who was the poet that said death is the silver backing on the mirror that allows us to see anything at all? I knew what I had to do, and there was no time. I owed him. In spite of what he had said our guilty pleasures were my responsibility. I especially regretted using Jake’s come-on line. And I owed Oz. Maybe it was revenge, the way Craig said, but what did I have left? Oz took away my mother. That is the crime beyond forgiveness. I would have to make sure he would never get away.

I grabbed all four envelopes and the pad he had written them on. I found the note Oz wrote in Trevor’s wastebasket, a basket empty of false starts—because Trevor knew exactly what he wanted to say. I locked in Skylar’s room when I heard feet on the stairs, and voices.
“What was that?”

“Brontë? Trevor?”

I could hear them running and whispering. Pounding up and down the stairs. Someone screamed. Shelley’s voice.

They would be in here in a minute.

I turned on the Skylar’s shower for the noise and sat down on the tiled floor next to the toilet exactly as if I was about to vomit. But what I planned to regurgitate was Trevor’s last words.

I opened the letter to me first. It was written in Trevor’s backward sloping hand, the penmanship he hated because he thought it made him look “dumb.” He could never master Oz’s confident loops and swirls. It read,

Cherry Vanilla,
Forgive me for everything. I write this knowing that you will, because I know for certain that you love me. Knowing that makes it all worthwhile, even the things that I did that were wrong and I regret. I don’t so much regret what I did as who I am, but what I do next will wipe regret away. Last night you wouldn’t listen to me when I told you of your absolution. Let me once again emphasize that fact. Go, be free, and spread your wings. God loves you as much as I do. He made you the way you are to have the best of everything. And I know you will. Bless you. I demand you have a joy filled life. I die happy in that certainty. None of this was ever your fault (underscored many times). I kiss you and hug you. I wish I could be with you on your wedding day the way I always imagined, but from heaven or hell or wherever I’m going, know that I will be looking back on you with pride. I’m eternally grateful to you for being born and for making me so happy. Trevor

I put that letter in my shirt. I was so glad he didn’t mention the murder. If he had I would have destroyed this letter, too, because that has to be erased, but as it was I could save it forever, pack it away in my “trousseau” trunk with my poems and diaries.

The letter to Jake began with “Brace yourself, bud,” said Oz told him the prosecution would announce in court that Shelley and Brontë were his sisters, and abjured him to start conducting himself accordingly. There was no reference to the murders except for the oblique closing line: “Forgive me. Remember, nothing is bad or good but thinking makes it so.”

He hadn’t been able to believe that himself. Well, at least that letter was OK, too. I decided to give it to Jake later, and tell him Trevor told me to.

I destroyed the note from Oz. Tiny pieces, flush flush. The other two letters were longer. Both were full confessions. He told Oz he never intended to let him take the fall and he just couldn’t believe the jury would convict him, but now that it looked as if they might, he had to take action. He didn’t mention the death of my mother. He didn’t mention finding out that I was his real sister. Right at the end he was protective of Oz’s feelings, Oz, who used his son like a canary in a mineshaft.

Flush, flush. The letter to the prosecutor was the same confession he had given me, but in more stilted language. He added some details he hadn’t told me. For example he said he looked in the window and saw Oz sleeping on the sofa. I’m pretty sure that was a lie he thought up in his effort to get Oz off the hook, otherwise he would have mentioned it.

I found it much easier to picture Oz standing in the darkness, watching the inevitable unfold, feeling smug and safe. Somebody allowed Colleen to bleed out while Trevor rushed back to the party. In the unacknowledged war between father and son, Oz must have felt he was the lifelong victor. Was it his plan that Trevor would stand up in court at the eleventh hour and rescue him?

Ironic that the son who couldn’t trust his father was so trusted by that same father! But Oz’s solipsistic universe can’t envision suicide. Probably he pictured to himself a sensational last minute public confession to the delight of jury and press.

He fatally underestimated his son’s sense of shame because it was an emotion he couldn’t feel himself. Was the suggestion that I get pregnant an end run around this very possibility, subtly trying to undermine Trevor’s right to take his life if it became unbearable?

The letter didn’t even mention my mother, didn’t mention our newly exposed connection. He told them Oz was an innocent man and they should let him out right now.

Flush, flush to all of it, even the envelopes, even the first blank sheets of Trevor’s writing pad. Far from grudging Skylar her updated amenities I welcomed them. My toilet would have clogged, but Skylar’s Quadraflush swirled everything effortlessly away down into darkness.

The sirens grew stronger. Why were they in such a hurry? They couldn’t put Trevor back together. Not all the king’s horses or all the king’s men could ever do that. Did they think we were all the captives of a crazed gunman, were they sending the SWAT team, what Spike calls “the green boys”? Spike himself had worked his way through the first door and found out my hiding place. Now he was shouting, hammering on the bathroom door.

The door splintered under his weight and Spike fell into the room. His stricken face melted at the sight of me.

“Jesus! I thought he killed you!”

Poor Trevor! Barely dead and already subject to misinterpretation. This too, was Oz’s fault. It was a good thing I hadn’t left the fate of his memory in his own hands.

Spike picked me up and rocked me like a baby, murmuring, “Dangerous, dangerous man.”

Did he mean Trevor, or Oz? No sense in arguing. Like a rabbit in the mouth of a very big dog, I felt it best to go limp.

It’s pleasant to be rocked. I am the baby after all. Still, the Brontë in me challenged him. “Why would Trevor ever kill me?”

“Well, obviously he could never really have you,” said Spike.

Poor Spike! Imagine being that big and that strong and that old and still not realizing you can never really have anybody. He nuzzled my neck like a mother bear trying to recognize a cub feared gone for good.

Jake appeared wild eyed in the doorway. “Why did he do it? Why? Why?”
I roused myself for one last volley.

“Oz confessed to him,” I told them both. “He’s as guilty as hell of both those murders. Trevor was sure he’d be convicted and die.”

Jake and Shelley both began to cry. I closed my eyes and felt the vertigo of a future in which my mother’s and my father’s, murderer and murderee’s tendencies warred within me. But even if temperament and talents are inherited, isn’t what I do with them entirely my own choice? No more court for me, not ever. At last I was free to leave this place and become myself. I was finally all grown up.

Spike was kissing, kissing my face and neck. Who would have thought such a big man, a Hulk, a Python, capable of such butterfly kisses? Men are eternally surprising. If I closed my eyes I stretched out again on that hot dock years ago, when Trevor kissed me back to life. Trevor had won after all. Death locked me into his template harder than his life could have. And if I wasn’t finished with Trevor, I was free to seek him still. He laughed at reincarnation, but said that love is immortal. Aunt Shea says someone you love is inside you always. So I lay there smiling while Spike kissed me with Trevor’s lips.

THE END

Chapter Nineteen – Murderous

It was a single sheet of paper. I read it over his shoulder.

Dear Trevor, it read,
I strongly suspect the following information will not be news to you. Tomorrow Buford will announce in court that DNA results prove Brontë and Shelley are my blood daughters, and therefore, your sisters. You truly share designer genes.
Both Renée and Mary Elizabeth asked me never to tell a soul, and I gave them my gentleman’s word, but circumstances have clearly conspired to relieve me of that pledge.
It was simple, it was logical and it was planned. Mary Elizabeth was frustrated in her efforts to become pregnant through her husband, was impressed by my bloodline, and so solicited my help through my wife, your mother, Renée.
I was glad to oblige. Mary Elizabeth wished to have a daughter and so I accommodated her by coming as close to coitus interruptus as is humanly possible to still deposit seed. Scientifically it is well accepted that deep thrusting produces males. Female sperm may be slow, but by an amusing trick of fate they have far more stamina than the male of the species!
Our efforts were successful; resulting in the birth of Shelley and Mary Elizabeth was so pleased that when she judged her time was right she requested my services again.
I know you love those girls as I do and therefore alert you to use your best judgment, either to prepare them for a fact I suspect will secretly delight them, or even to keep them from court if you think it best.
In haste – your loving father – Oz.

I saw Trevor’s face literally empty of blood. His eyes shuttered, his color fell away. His skull poked out of his face and gasped at me.

“Jesus Christ,” he moaned, “We’re white trash.”

I thought he would fall. In grabbing for him I dropped my glass of wine. It spilled red across the floor, running in bloody rivulets between the wide, uneven floorboards. I pushed him down into a sitting position in an armchair, trying to get his head between his legs.

He seemed to have stopped breathing. A rasping noise exhaled from his exoskeleton. His past and future were sucked right out of his body. His waxy, frozen skin rubberized at my touch. I tried to make him drink my but my own hands were shaking too much to hold it to his lips.

The death’s head spoke.

“I knew this day would come,” he said.

He was blaming himself. Trevor’s so predictable! I could see it happening and I was helpless to prevent it. I was mad enough at Oz to murder him, myself, right here, right now.

“I knew this would happen. Carnal desire got in the way.”

“But Oz knew the truth all along,” I reasoned. “He knew, but he didn’t he tell us. Ask yourself why.”
Trevor flicked away my question like a bug. He always was pigheaded.

“He gave his word.” He looked away from me, out the window, beyond the world. What did he see?

“He could have discouraged us. Instead, he did the opposite. We were just his experiment. His little bit of fun.”

“You’ve always been unfair to him,” said Trevor colorlessly. “It’s weird, because of all of us you’re the most like him. You go your own way. You have his life force. You always get what you want and that’s a fact.”

I just don’t lie about it! Trevor tried to get what he wanted too, and look at him now, dying right in front of me.

“Oz makes mistakes – I’m not denying he made mistakes,” Trevor went on, “Don’t you see they come from his exuberance? That life force. He didn’t understand that we couldn’t live up to it.”
“Oh yes he did!” I spluttered. “He knew you had a conscience. Stop apologizing for it.”

I couldn’t believe it. He was making excuses for his father! Abruptly I stopped talking about Oz. I’d reach him another way. It was my turn to save him.

“We made a mistake,” I said. “We were lied to. We didn’t know. In the absence of truth we have to carry on as best we can. Come on. Let’s make a pact not to be ruined by this.”
Trevor had collapsed in his chair, folded his shoulders and put his head in his hands. A little boy again. Was this the first time roles had been reversed and I had comforted him? It seemed impossible but I couldn’t remember another occasion. I knelt beside him trying to worm my hot hands into his closed, cold ones. I ran through everything I could think of that might make him feel better.

I knew it wasn’t the time to debate about civilization, its conventions and its discontents, to tell him that Lord Byron loved his sister all his life and it was a good thing, otherwise he never would have loved anybody, or to argue that because we were only half-sibs it was only half as bad. If I couldn’t get him angry at Oz, the author of all our misery, there still had to be something I could say.
“We can make up for it,” I suggested as gently as I could manage. “We can atone. Aren’t the Christians big on redemption? Now that we know the facts, all we have to do is promise that we’ll never touch each other – that way – again.” It was going to be hard, but if we were in different states obviously it could be done.

He rendered me a scary smile.

“You’re just looking for an excuse to leave,” he said. “So we can have a relationship in letters, like Heloise and Abelard. “From the flame to the flame.” Don’t you see it’s too late for that? It’s too late for everything.” He rose and began prowling restlessly around the room, leaving me still sitting, helpless and uncertain, on the floor. He began picking things up and putting them down again, a candlestick, a paperweight. He went to stand by the window, looking out. His back to me. He muttered something to himself, but I couldn’t be sure what it was. It sounded like, “I’m so fucking worthless.”

“I seduced you,” I reminded him. “I talked you into it. Remember?”

He glanced over at me with a horrible leer.

“Brontë the rapist?” Hollow laugh. “I don’t think so. I groomed you. I plied you with drink, I wooed you with gifts. It was always my responsibility. It was always my idea. My obsession.” He shuddered. “I knew it was wrong. Your conscience is the part that hurts when everything else feels good.”

He opened the window and shouted out into the rainy afternoon, “I fucked my little sister!”

I pulled him back and slammed the window. This craziness was disturbing.

“You have to calm down. It was an accident. A mistake. You’re always saying sins can be forgiven. It’s not the sin against the Holy Ghost.” Trevor’s told me no one agrees what that sin is, but whatever it is, it can’t be incest.

For a frightening moment he seemed to contemplate striking me. Then he gave me a terrible, sly look I will never forget. It was a look of contemptuous abandonment. He thought I was abandoning him because my love had never been as big as his.

“Remember how I spanked you and you hated me? Turns out that’s the only thing I did right. I should have spanked you and spanked you, even if it drove you away. Instead, I fucked you.”

I recoiled. You can’t argue with a person who’s out of his mind. Plus, he’s way stronger than me.
“That’s the kind of big brother I am,” he went on. “You can come to me for anything, but you’ll only get one thing. Now I have to challenge myself to a duel.”

He laughed. “What a worthless loser.”

Those were Oz’s favorite insults. Worthless. Loser.

I was still casting about for ways to save him. He liked church so much. He believed in it. He always wanted to go more than any of the rest of us, even Colleen.

“Why don’t we get a priest?” I offered. “Tell him everything. Confess and repent. Don’t you believe that? The priest can’t tell on us, he has to keep it secret. We say we’re sorry and he absolves us. Then we separate and promise never to do it again.”

He looked into my face hungrily.

“I don’t think I can promise that,” he said, and he began kissing me. Not like an older brother. For a scary minute I thought we might end up having sex right there.

At that point I didn’t know what to do. It’s not like I had never heard of addiction, but how do you manage it? I was afraid of him now. He was too much for me. It’s seductive to love someone who knows you so well, but they also know your defenses. There’s no retreat, no privacy.

Time to make up my mind. Who did I want, anyway, the older brother who cared for me, sheltered me, promoted my interests, looked after me but saw himself justified in correcting me, or the lover who adored my body and whispered eternal devotion in my ear? Restless under bondage, I had chosen the lover, but only because like the vine that’s part of pole it clings to, I couldn’t imagine myself without him.

Fortunately his powerful will stopped him just in time.

“See?” he said, “You’re just bursting with self-control.”

It wasn’t fair of him to accuse me! I was fighting for air, trying to stay on top, riding his madness the way Oz rode the bulls, rode the hurricanes. I did it because I had to; Oz did it because they were the most dangerous things he could find. Besides himself.

Trevor began slamming his fist against the wall, so hard his knuckles bled, crying with each blow, “We—knew—it—was—wrong.”

I was afraid someone would hear us and come in. Where were Shelly and Jake, anyway? Probably down in the gym fighting over the oblique machine.

I no longer knew if I was winning or losing.

“Let’s go to Reverend Beasley,” I urged, “We’ll tell him. Ask him to forgive us.”

“Yes, someone will have to know,” Trevor agreed. The old Trevor looked desperately out at me, a prisoner behind the shadowed eye sockets. “Come here.”

I didn’t want him to see my hesitation as he reached out, enfolded me in his arms and hugged me. I tried not to shrink away.

“I’m sorry about you,” he said. “This has all been so terrible for you. I promised always to take care of you and never to hurt you, and look what I did.”

This latest persona caught me so off guard I burst into tears. It felt good to cry.

“It’s been terrible,” I agreed. “Don’t you see it isn’t our fault? Oz lied to us on purpose. He played with us like he always plays with people.”

“Children think untruth is the worst thing,” Trevor assured me, stroking my hair. “You know what’s worse? Being in charge and making the wrong decision. Having to live with that.”
His pain seemed to have eased, so I pressed on.

“I know there’s a way out of this,” I said. I think I had some kind of confused vision of shaved heads and saffron robes. We should leave this place, this accursed haunted house. Burn it to the ground. Give Skylar the money. Writers work better when they’re dispossessed. Some would argue it’s a precondition.

“Of course there is,” said Trevor, kissing the top of my head. “You’re absolved. You were always innocent. Go in peace.”

I was so scared for him. Did he think he was God, or at the very least, Reverend Beasley? Trevor was the last member of our family I would have speculated was in any danger of going insane, but here we both were in looney-town.

I tried agreeing with him. Maybe that would work. “You’re absolved, too.” I echoed. “I mean, it’s not one of the worst sins, is it? It’s a sin of love. Don’t they call sex one of the “warm” sins? I mean, it’s love. It isn’t murder.”

He stared at me intently. “Oh, it’s murder all right,” he said. “It’s murder, too. Go over there and sit down. You need to be very grown up right now.”

I was beginning to cringe like a dog at this “sit down” command because something terrible always followed, but in truth I was glad to get away from him.

I pulled up a chair. We were eye-to-eye, face-to-face. He held my hands.

“I’m sorry about all of it,” he said. “Believe me; I didn’t intend for any it to happen. Not this way.”
“What?” I tried to brace myself for something awful. What could be more awful than what we had already lived through?

“I killed Colleen,” he said.

At first I couldn’t comprehend the actual words. I could see his mouth moving, but it didn’t seem to be English. I creased my forehead, making a supreme effort to understand.
“I killed Colleen,” he emphasized.

Then I got it. Then I understood. It was the Jesus thing. He was going to take on Oz’ sin and rescue Oz. He was feeling damned, so he would offer himself up as a sacrifice to get his soul back. That would be his penance. If he was in jail for the rest of his life he wouldn’t have to worry about self-control, or lack of it, would he? On top of that he’d be getting constant punishment all over the place.

Now it was Trevor who needed rescue. It would be so cruel if Trevor’s fetish for playing the knight in shining armor became his own undoing. Oz had blinded his son with lies, replaced him with this sacrificial mock-up. Trevor was the replicant.

Our father. No, his father, I rejected that DNA. How Oz must have exulted in his good fortune at having a son so hungry for serious responsibility, so much easier to manipulate than that not-very-bright, self-obsessed clone Jake.

I knew I had to choose my words carefully to find the ones that were most effective. Get him to see that in his father’s lifelong quest to sharpen and rarefy his own exquisite appetites, Oz had turned into a monster. Oz’s deliberate wildness meant he alone reserved the right to teeth and claws.
Could I sell this concept to poor blind Trevor? He’s too accustomed to thinking that he’s the only one who can see things clearly.

Couldn’t he understand that we had already suffered enough, that even our most memorable celebrations were games played in a graveyard?

Now the puppeteer was in jail where he belonged. With luck there would be no money for appeals. I refused Oz’s fathership. Now I treasured the elusive Mr. Barringer – in the permanence of his absence, he was anyone I wanted. Even if I was in truth my father’s daughter, I must be also my mother’s.

So I had to try.

“This is all Oz’ fault,” I began. My hands were hot; his hands were so cold, lying passively in mine. He stared into my eyes, downloading his soul into mine, as if he’d have no need of it again.
“Maybe,” agreed Trevor. He continued smiling in that oddly distant manner. Was he drifting too far from me? “Don’t you see that’s a ‘chicken and egg’ argument? Maybe it’s all Oz’ father’s fault. Maybe it’s Cain’s fault. Maybe Cain was Adam’s fault. At some point somebody has got to accept responsibility.”

It’s usually a bad sign when a conversation goes Biblical. I felt dizzy, as if the oxygen in the room was slowly being replaced by some poisonous substance.

I tried changing the subject.

“I think Oz may have killed my mother,” I suggested.

“Oh, I know he did,” said Trevor. “He told me. But he didn’t kill Colleen. He shouldn’t go to jail for a crime that I committed. That wouldn’t be right.”

I just stared at him. Speechless.

“Colleen was contemplating abandoning us,” said Trevor. “I protected you from knowing how bad it was. She had already abandoned you.”

There seemed no way to stop this runaway craziness. My mind was a blank. I massaged his limp hands, trying to push life into them, the way he had pushed his life into me. Isn’t love a question of balance, of who at any given moment has more to give? This time he was the needy one.
“You can’t have done it,” I told him. I’d boss him, the way he bossed me.

“I gave her chance after chance. I gave her plenty of chances. It was bad enough that she wouldn’t put you through Napier—“

“I hated Napier,” I interrupted. “I didn’t want to go. They threw me out, remember? I was happier in public school.”

He shushed me. In his upside-down world what I thought or wanted was of no importance.
“This is not about happiness, you poor idiot,” he corrected. “Or we would never escape the sty. You needed to graduate from a decent school and she didn’t care. She could have gone to bat for you, could have talked them out of it. Other parents do it all the time. She chose not to. I overlooked the real pearls just for Skylar, all the designer clothes. Always Skylar had to have everything just a little bit better. When Colleen said you should go to the University of Arizona just because it was free, when she said she wasn’t going to sell any more stock options but was keeping them for retirement, that was it for me. That’s when I lost it.”

“I didn’t mind any of it,” I protested. How to explain to him about writers and dispossession? “It was OK with me, OK with Shelley, too. We got it. Skylar was Colleen’s real daughter.”

He looked at me as I’d just said I’d be perfectly happy eating junk food for the rest of my life.
“Unfortunately your tastes are notoriously degraded,” he lectured. “It isn’t up to you to see what you can live without. It’s up to me to get the best for you.” His face contorted. “Oz did fail us. Oz was a wimp. He couldn’t stand up to her. And that wasn’t all of it. She wanted to sell this house. She was angry about the termites. She as much as said our family wasn’t worth it. She actually had a realtor come over and give her a quote. She said once we were all in college there was nothing keeping them here.”

“But the house was Oz’ too. They would have to make the decision together.”

“But don’t you see? She was manipulating Oz. It’s like blackmail.”

“No one could manipulate Oz,” I scoffed.

“She could. She called the police on him. She knew all about him and she had all the money. He’d already spent all his money, buying this place, taking care of her. Of us. He was too generous.”
I certainly understood Colleen wanting to flee to some small apartment. If she wanted a rest, she was entitled to one. It’s harder picturing Oz in a condo. He requires an estate, a kingdom. A principality. But how to get Trevor to see that a hovel is better than a blood-spattered swimming-pool?

Trevor continued, “Oz told me what he had done to your mother, all those years ago. For exactly the same reason, I might add. She was threatening to separate us. She had no idea what a proper upbringing was all about! She was going to take you to the States – thanks for all your assistance, bye bye and have a nice life. She would have raised you Catholic! She knew he couldn’t afford to follow. She just looked on him as a stud. Of course it made him angry. What she didn’t know was that he had set himself free from the “cult” of the “mother”. He knew he was the better parent.

“You’re above that, Brontë, you were raised better, you’re not familiar with the way those women think. It’s greed. They misinterpret gentility as docility. They force men to get rough with them. “What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine.” A man takes up arms. That’s the definition of a man; he’s a tool-using animal.

“So he stood up to her, and she wound up dead. Tell some people the truth and their heads explode. He knew he’d been clever. He knew I was the only one who could appreciate what he’d done, knew I was the only one he could tell. Seemed foolproof to me. Your mother didn’t even have an autopsy! Of course people would think it was an accident. Brilliant! It happened overseas, years ago, so I didn’t think there would be anyone besides Oz who even remembered it.

“That’s why I suggested we get the pool repaired before your graduation. The Urquhart’s party was the perfect opportunity. I knew Colleen wouldn’t go because, after all, it was only for the kind of people whose children go to public school. I thought Oz would be out, or at least spending the night on his computer like he always does.

“Pretending to get drunk was easy. No one even knows what you’re drinking if you never put down your glass. Fayette didn’t want anything to do with me because I acted like I might throw up on her. When all eyes were elsewhere, I ran through all the back yards and no one saw me except Woofer and Tweeter. They’d never bite me. They’re my buddies.

“Colleen always stepped out for a smoke before going to bed, and I thought I could rely on her to be too cheap to turn the pool lights on. I was exactly right. I went up to her and said I had something important that she ought to see. She came right away. When she asked me what I was doing home I just said it was a bad party and I’d left early. She thought I’d had a fight with Fayette. She—“

“What about Oz?”

“What about him?” Trevor halted in full spate. “It never even occurred to me that he would be suspected. I figured actual innocence is always the best defense; I never thought the police would frame an innocent man just because they didn’t like his lifestyle. Call me naive. I admit it. The only evidence against him that amounts to anything is in your mother’s case.

“What happened to the benefit of the doubt? I mean it could have been an accident. We’ve got all those experts to say so. What are they, idiots? If it has to be murder, then why couldn’t someone break into the back yard to kill her, climbing the fence, which is what really happened?

“But they never gave a damn about anything except proving it was Oz. Without me stepping in, that jury is going to convict him. It’s been a real education in American jurisprudence I can tell you. Forget ever being a lawyer. I don’t know how those guys can stand themselves. Being a used car salesman would be far more honorable.”

“As he spoke his inner rage was building. His face had darkened under ancient bruises. I thought suddenly of the time a deer wandered through the gates and got trapped in the pool house. It went crazy in its new environment; we found skin and blood and broken glass everywhere. Oz said later it fought to the death against its own reflection.

I believed Trevor now. I had to. It was a depraved heart murder after all. Trevor was the lion Oz teased and tormented, then loosed upon the world.

At last I saw the threat Trevor tried protecting me from for all those years. He had met the enemy, and he had become him.

“How could you call yourself a Christian and kill Colleen?” I demanded. Everyone’s a freakin’ hypocrite! Even Trevor.

He sighed. “People won’t read scripture. They’ll do anything to get out of it, and as a result, they’re uninformed. God says, sometimes what’s necessary is not peace, but the sword.”
I turned away so he couldn’t see the tears in my eyes.

“It couldn’t have been a sword. So what did you hit her with?” Ten thousand spots of blood. How could anyone actually do something like that to another human being? Someone who’d loved them? How could he?

He worked his jaw furiously, remembering.

“One of Bobby Urquhart’s titanium golf clubs,” he said. “At least, it was supposed to be titanium, but do you know it broke? It was probably adulterated – everything’s worthless nowadays. That scrappy Colleen wouldn’t die. I had to keep hitting her. I was so surprised when I heard those two women had the same number of cuts on their heads. Made me feel close to Oz. I thought I hit her at least a hundred times. I had to keep hitting her because she kept getting up. It was like we were mechanical figures, marionettes on a cuckoo clock. I was committed to keep hitting her as long as she was committed to getting up. My arms ached for days.

“Looking back on it, she should have pretended to be dead. That would have fooled me because I was so eager to get out of there. All that courtroom crap about waiting for her to bleed out was bull. I’d worked the timing out to a half an hour. Nobody thinks anything about losing sight of somebody at a party for a half an hour. As far as all the other drunks know, you’re still there. People lose all sense of time.

“Plus they automatically lie about where they are, who they’re with and what they’ve been doing, at a party. God knows how long that killing really took. While I was in the thick of it I was so afraid you’d come out at sunrise and I’d still be there, slugging away. You’d think these women would be delicate. Oz said after the initial push he scarcely touched your mother at all.

“But with Colleen I was up against that white-trash ancestry, that half-Injun great-grandfather of hers who worked along the railroad. The minute she stayed down I gave thanks and lit out running. I put the golf club safely in the Urquhart’s trash, but old Mrs. Urquhart actually saw me in my bloody clothes. Asked me if I’d had an accident. I said Fayette had thrown a vase at me, and that was almost true. It just happened on another night. Mrs. Urquhart was the one who insisted on getting me Bobby’s clothes to wear. Said he wouldn’t even miss them and I guess he didn’t because he never asked for them.

“Blue shirt, blue blazer, khaki pants, striped tie. Everyone has those. I knew old Mrs. Urquhart would never think of talking to the police. She said something about “going to the beach house” so I assumed she’d be out of town. I just put my bloody clothes in a garbage bag with rest of the Urquhart’s party trash. Must be in a landfill somewhere. The ridiculous thing is that the police could have found everything they were looking for if for one second they’d opened their minds to the possibility that it might have been anyone but Oz. They just took against him from day one.”

People do have that reaction, and that’s definitely Oz’s fault. Oz cultivates it. I walked to the window. I was afraid if Trevor touched me, he would feel my fear of him.

“I saw you in different clothes,” I said wonderingly. “But I figured you’d been sick. There was a lot of that going on.”

Trevor, the designated driver, can play a terrific drunk when he has to. He sure fooled me. I remember putting my arms around him, helping him upstairs. That was the first time I’d taken care of Trevor.

Had I fallen for him at that second, as I contemplated the power of role reversal? Funny how many true things come out of lies. Lies are hard as cement, but the jungle of truth keeps growing insistently up right through it. The deeper I fell into Trevor, the less I really knew him. I had lost the writer’s advantage, being on the outside looking in.

“They’re not going to convict Oz,” he told me solemnly. “Don’t worry, I won’t let it come to that.”
I felt completely helpless. Oz had finally done it. He had committed the perfect crime, the one where you get someone else to do it for you without even asking them, and then they’re glad to take the fall. How had Trevor not realized that of course they would come after Oz in force? He believed what he wanted to believe, just like the rest of us. Face it — Oz absent, me in Trevor’s bed and himself helming the household, wasn’t that irresistible, lifelong dream?
He would never see it but I couldn’t give up.

“Oz made you do this, don’t you see? He used us. He made us do everything.” Thus I threw to the winds those magic nights. I had to.

Trevor’s face took on that frozen Praetorian dog-like stare. Impenetrable by such as me.
“With his hypnotic powers?” Trevor shook his head. ”That’s not the way it works, Brontë. I don’t hold with this fashion of being the victim, blaming authority for everything and you shouldn’t either. Of course we’re programmed, we’re all programmed. But we also have free will. I’ve had more of that than most. I’ve always been able to do whatever I wanted to do. No one put that golf club in my hand. I’d like to be sorry. I’d like to wish it all away. Every time I think of those things Colleen was saying about you—if you knew—“ his jaw worked angrily. “When she saw you with that dreadlocked dude, she said you’d gone “native”.”

I couldn’t believe Colleen would ever badmouth me to Trevor. The most she would have done was compare me unfavorably to Skylar. He should have taken it in stride.
“I bet Oz told you that, right?”

Oz had played him, no mistake. Oz knew Trevor’s weakness. And Trevor’s weakness was me.
“Oz told me everything,” said Trevor confidently, conveniently forgetting that something Trevor could have really benefited from knowing – namely that we were brother and sister – was a deep-dyed secret until only yesterday. If I reminded him, he would only make excuses, better ones than Oz could be bothered to think up for himself.

That withholding look suffused Trevor’s face. He would never let me win this argument. He retreated from me, cutting off my power like yanking a light cord.

Chapter Eighteen – Misbegotten

Trevor appeared in the doorway to the bathroom wearing a pair of Jake’s silk boxers. Shaving. Ah, the homey morning scenes of winter.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” he said. “We’ve got to do laundry today.”

I reached out and grabbed his leg. It was hard and strong, pumping with blood. So alive. My leg. The part of myself that was male. Accessible any time.

He patted my head like I was his pet.

“You all right?”

It was all coming back to me.

“I had a horrible nightmare,” I said, shuddering. For once I wanted no retrospect. I just wanted to be rid of it.

“I noticed. What was it about?”

I almost didn’t want to tell him. Sharing it gave it more life. But if I didn’t try to give it away, it might stick to me forever.

“I dreamed about my mother. She was really there. She looked right at me. She tried…she tried to speak to me.” My own voice trembled as I spoke. Could there be any moment more fearful than when the dead rise and accuse us? Isn’t every horror based on that? Trevor detached his leg gently and wandered back into the bathroom to wash his face.

“Well, you know what Jung says about dreams,” he threw over his shoulder.

I crawled deeper into the bed. It was too cold in the world. Maybe I wasn’t ready for the quotations of Great One.

“No, what does Jung say?” No comfort to be had in our cave of sex. He was right about the inevitability of laundry. Everything stank of sweat and blood. His sweat, my blood.

“Jung says you’re everyone in your dream. So it was you, yourself, that you dreamed about.”
Trevor isn’t often wrong but I knew he was wrong this time. Funny that he who formally pays homage every Sunday to the power of the spirit could be so dismissive of my Big Moment. I spoke to the dead. This time Aunt Shea was right: my mother was trying to open up an avenue of communication. But what was she trying to say? I, who was notoriously bad at languages, needed to learn hers.

I threw back the covers. The butterfly bloodstain on the bed was a Rorschach to the one on my own thighs. Bloody scenes of winter. What if my period lasted the whole trial, my body weeping in sympathy to the spatter evidence?

In court today the state was putting on the crime scene expert, to walk us through the “slaughterhouse” our swimming pool had become. Every day was blood-day. Trevor might think a visit to the laundry room would fix things; I knew better. I could defer my dreams like the rest of them; no Olympic fencing school for Jake, no college for Shelley, no job for Trevor and no writing for me, or I could stand up for myself. Take charge of my own life.

“I’m not going,” I said.

“What’s that?”

Trevor appeared in the doorway, his face glittering with the freezing cold water Oz always recommended as the final step of a gentleman’s toilet.

“I’m not going to court,” I said. “I’m never going again. I think he’s guilty as sin.”

He lifted me out of bed with such force I thought he was going to launch me out the window but instead he threw me over his lap and spanked me. I had never been spanked before, not by anybody, though Oz had often threatened and even as I heard the loud, openhanded smacks and felt the sting on my flesh I couldn’t believe it was happening. On my bare skin it hurt like hell. I didn’t make it easy for him. Rocking, kicking and thrashing, I ultimately slid back down to the floor and looked up at him.

His face was filled with blood, his eyes glowed electric blue.

“That’s what happens to spoiled brats. After all he’s done for you. Don’t you ever say that again, to anybody.”

Volcanic rage sprang me to my feet as I flung myself at the door. How dare he! He was a monster, sanctimoniously disguising his hunger the better to eat me alive. Even if he was prisoner of his moods, I didn’t need to join him. I fumbled for the lock but he caught me easily.

“You haven’t even heard the defense,” he asserted, exactly as if what had just happened was a debate instead of a beating.

“Don’t touch me,” I spat at him, “Don’t look at me, don’t speak to me. Ever again.” I was fighting to get out.

His face crumpled. Behind the mask of fury the little boy peeked out. He had come to save me from the bully but the bully was himself. He fell to his knees embracing my hips, kissing my sore rear. He buried his face in my stomach. I tried kicking him away.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I’ll never do it again. Do you want me to cut my hand off? I’ll cut my hand off now.”

He had successfully immobilized me.

“Don’t be disgusting.”

He wouldn’t let me go, carried me back to bed.

“It was the demon. Remember the demon that we talked about? If you don’t forgive me, Brontë, I’ll kill myself.”

“Just let me go,” I begged. He was too intense, I was too young, but suddenly he was making love to me all over again, pushing me backward with the power of his desire, licking the blood off of my thighs. It really was disgusting this time.

“Why would you want to run away from me?” he asked me. “Stay with me. Stay with me.”

I locked my legs and pushed him away.

“Stop,” I said. And he stopped. I turned my face away. I felt the tears on his face where he rested against my shoulder. Some people define love as loss of control, when aren’t yourself but are lifted up by something much more powerful. I had thought that before, but I didn’t like Trevor out of control. Did that mean I didn’t love him?

There was a knock on the door and Mina’s voice said, “Get a move on, you two.” She knew exactly where to find us.

Now Trevor was kissing my neck and hair, so tenderly, with the touching little butterfly kisses I used to find so irresistibly seductive. Was the old Trevor back?

“I give up,” he said. “Whatever you want. If you don’t want me anymore, then I’ll have to live with it.”

“I just don’t want to go to court any more, ever again. It’s like being flayed alive.”

“Except that.” He shook his head. “You have to go.”

He had me pushed right up to the door so I couldn’t move. I still refused to look at him.

“Then afterwards I want to go to the University of Arizona,” I said. “As soon as this is over.” It was the meanest thing I could think of to say. But I was finished playing house.

He was silent for a while, but I could feel his breathing. His eyelids quivered like an epileptic’s.
He said, “OK.” He didn’t move.

“I can’t get up until you forgive me,” he said.

“I forgive you.” Said coldly. Withholding.

He stood up and looked down at me.

“I’m really sorry,” he said. I didn’t like him looking at my naked body. I didn’t want to expose to him my burning bum.

“Hand me a robe.” Not a request. An order.

There was no robe. Everything was dirty. He stripped the sheet off the bed.

“And I’m wearing whatever the hell I want,” I said.

Jake was right, we were all in hell. If Vermillion hadn’t been haunted before, it was haunted now. In Colleen’s closet her ghost offered me her bright yellow Easter suit.

I soon regretted my choice, because the foetogs took extra pictures of me. Isn’t it maddening when someone you’re furious with turns out to be right? If I’d only dressed the way he told me to I could have had the cloak of invisibility I always claimed I was trying to achieve. Maybe I didn’t know myself as well as I thought.

Oh well, back to my day-job in hell. Now that it was no different from my night-job, what did it matter where I was? On the stand was the head crime scene tech, a gangly, loose-jointed bald man named Ditmer wearing someone else’s suit. A slight lisp made him a particularly annoying witness. Trevor and Jake took one look at him and mouthed to each other, “Hand job.”

Ditmer testified that he’d counted more than ten thousand separate drops of blood. He was one of a kind. I wondered how many little boys say to their mothers, “I’m going to count blood spatter when I grow up!” A character in a novel I haven’t read yet, I can tell you that.

And wouldn’t you know it, he had photographs. Lots and lots of huge color slides. The jury opened their collective mouth at the crazed-looking washes of dark red on the pale blue walls. After a moment, Shelley covered her eyes. I couldn’t look either.

Ditmer said he spent three days “stringing” the scene. I remembered that. I had seen him playing “Charlotte’s Web” out there.

“String theory,” said Trevor, and everyone smirked but me.
“What does that mean, exactly?” Fawna Fryssen asked him.

Stringing means he ran a string from each dot out into space, trying to figure out where it had come from. When he had enough strings he checked where they all crossed and voila, that was where the blood originated.

“In other words, where the first blow was struck?”

“Objection!” shouted Craig. “Putting words in the witness’ mouth!”

“Well, she doesn’t say what caused the blows,” said the judge. “I assume the fact that Ms. White-Hawke died of blows and bleeding is uncontested. It’s what caused the blows that’s the subject of this inquiry. Objection overruled.”

“Why doesn’t he swear himself in so he can testify?” Craig muttered to Oz as he sat down.
“If you look at the conjunction, here,” Ditmer pointed at his proudly photographed knots of string, you can see the blood originated from a point in space.”

“You mean that Ms. White-Hawke’s head was in space when the blow was struck?”

“She hit – something hit her – that is no longer to be found. Several blows. Here, here and here.”
“So they didn’t originate from her striking her head against a surface?”

“No, that looks quite different. See, here’s a mark on the concrete floor where she hit her head. It’s more of a smudge.”

“How could blood come out of a head in space in the manner you describe?”
“Well, she must have been struck by something. Some object.”

Jake yawned. Shelley’s eyes were closed and she was slumped as if asleep. I wondered what she was thinking. As for me, my butt hurt too much for me to be thinking of anything. I had discovered why some people like being beaten. It certainly takes your mind off other things.

I stopped listening, staring instead at Ditmer’s back while he lurched around in front of the jury explicating his fossil record of pain. There was another string, this one hanging from the back of his suit coat. If you pulled it, would his case unravel?

As for Oz, his back was ramrod straight as he craned his neck to see. What was he thinking as he gazed at this handiwork? I knew him very well, so I must know what he was thinking. Survival of the fittest. “Might makes right.” Words that echoed through my childhood.

What had my mother called him? An anarchist? An absurdist?

How could we ever have suggested with a straight face that this in any way was accidental? The only amazing part was that he thought he could get away with it.

Maybe he didn’t think. In spite of his pose of constant, complex ratiocination, I recall times when Oz behaved blindly. Rage was usually attached. I could see them having some kind of drunken dispute about his checkbook or sex life. Poolside, alas.

My only question at this point was, did he kill my mother too? Or did her easy, unremarked expiration simply give him the idea?

“Your witness,” said Ms. Fryssen.

I snapped back to attention. Craig rose, swelling to his feet like a big dangerous fighter coming out of his corner.

“Would you like us to take down the slides?” Buford asked his rival courteously.

“You can leave them up,” said Craig as if they didn’t matter a damn. He eye-locked his quarry.

“Do you know that in 1996 your lab was the focus of a complaint filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation?”

“Objection!” cried Buford. “That was before this witness’ time. This witness is not bound by anything that might have occurred at a place where he was not employed in 1996.”

“He may not be, but his lab is,” said Craig.

“Well, the lab is not testifying. Next question, please,” said the judge. But now the jury was aware of it and that’s all Craig cared about.

Craig rowed his burly shoulders through the air, closer, closer to Mr. Ditmer like a shark sighting lunch.

“Are you aware of the work of Dr. Pring?”

“Everyone’s aware of the work of Dr. Pring,” responded Ditmer with hauteur. The lisp spoiled the effect somewhat.

“Are you aware that Dr. Pring recommends lasers because stringing is imperfect?”
The victim shook his head like a bobble-headed doll and gazed nervously in the direction of the jury.

“Different departments have different budgets. Stringing has always worked for us.”

“Well, I’m sure it’s always produced the results you wanted,” Craig said silkily, then, before Buford could object, inquired, “I believe you said something before about 10,000 drops of blood?”
The witness nodded mutely.

Now Craig’s arm included the crime scene slides.

“Isn’t it true that you treated the blood evidence with Luminol?”

“We did,” agreed the witness cautiously. “Some of the less visible portions. In order to bring out the—”

“But doesn’t squirting the liquid cause the blood to run? Aren’t these run-marks? Here? Here? And here? Please show the jury where you sprayed the Luminol?”

“I don’t know, because I didn’t spray it personally,” spluttered the witness.

Craig threw his arms into the air in disgust.

“I put it to you that you and your minions have dramatically altered this crime scene.”

“I don’t think so.” Ditmer managed to raise his head and yet flinch at the same time.

“Don’t think? But don’t you need to know beyond a reasonable doubt? Have you any photographs of this crime scene before you interfered with it?”

“I didn’t take the photos,” said Ditmer. “I don’t know—”

“Your Honor,” said Craig, “Improper foundation. Move to strike the entire testimony of this witness. This witness cannot testify to these crime scene photos. He didn’t take them.”

“Your Honor,” protested Buford, pushing out from his corner, “The witness was testifying to a specific matter – connecting blood dots – and using the pictures to illustrate his work.”

“But how can he connect “dots” he – or others – have smeared?” said Craig, making sure the jury was getting an earful.

“He has a point, Mr. Buford,” said the judge. “You’ve got to lay your foundation. Introduce the photographer and then whoever sprayed the Luminol, then you can bring this witness back.”
“Your honor, we can’t get those two witnesses out here at such short notice. Can’t we just stipulate that the evidence is out of order for…for housekeeping reasons?”

“I’m not stipulating to anything,” said Craig. “A man’s life is at stake.”

“How about if I give you the afternoon off and you put them on tomorrow,” suggested the judge in his abrupt do-things-my-way-or-I’ll-have-you-all-executed voice.

See what court is like? Hurry up and wait. It must wreak hell with the digestion. Imagine what a terror this guy is at home. I’d be willing to bet he’s a screamer and a pill-popper.

“Your Honor,” said Buford, “Tomorrow we have the DNA expert in the Mary Elizabeth Barringer matter. He’s flying in. That’s the only day he can appear.”

“Then you’ll have to put your crime scene techs on after that,” said the judge. “Your scheduling is not my business. It’s your lack of scheduling that’s my business. Don’t disappoint me. Court reconvenes tomorrow at nine am.” He banged his gavel.

DNA results in the Mary Elizabeth Barringer case? What could that prove? It couldn’t prove she was not my mother. I had seen her face.

We were all starving and stopped for Chinese food at the Party Doll. It was only eleven o’clock so the place was empty. Our small group was glad to eat alone.

Wrapped in the ecstasy of General Tso chicken and Moo Goo Gai Pan I forgot all about the damn case, my aching bum, everything. I can see why people get fat. If love is uncontrolled, pleasure needs careful calibration. Otherwise you can’t feel anything.

Craig moaned with ecstasy over his bird’s nest soup. “That’s good enough to raise the dead,” was his comment.

An overstatement, alas.

After lunch Trevor went shopping for my laptop but I refused to go, choosing the grocery store with Shelley and Jake. If Trevor thought he could seduce me with a laptop he was very much mistaken. Craig and Mina drove up to D.C. to confront and threaten Dr. Pring.

When Spike dropped us off at home there was a FedEx guy waiting, trying to get a signature for a letter. It was for Trevor, from Oz, but it was really light. Oz likes explaining himself. Would a confession be so short?

I thought of ways to steam it open, but it had one of those pull strings so it seemed impossible to avoid detection. I’d just have to wait.

I was eating Trevor’s share of leftover Chinese food in the honeymoon suite when Trevor finally came home. Skylar’s fireplace may be gas, with fake logs, but the heat given off is real.

Maybe that was why I felt my face flushing as I demanded, “Where the hell have you been?”

“I have a lot of things to attend to,” he said. I noticed he was carrying a bottle of Arbois Pupillin les Terasses and made a mental note to soak off the label. A bottle of wine and two glasses. I was too proud to ask him if he’d purchased my laptop.

“I thought you never wanted to see me again,” he said, using the corkscrew from his Swiss Army knife.

“You got a letter from Oz,” I said, waving it.

He poured us each a glass. He took a sip from his and sighed.

“Go away so I can read it,” he challenged, holding out my glass.

I took the glass. I did not surrender the letter.

“I think it concerns me,” I told him. “Aren’t we in this together?”

I didn’t know how right I was.

Chapter Seventeen — Mortality

We ordered Italian but it hardly mattered. Horrendous testimony removed the edge of pleasure from that meal. Shea was right about one thing; I was glad I missed it. My appetite, at least, was intact. Court had been dismissed for the day, ostensibly for some juror’s medical appointment, but more probably because no one could face food after the morning’s testimony. The sibs were divided on whether the worst moment came from the pictured avalanche of gay porn found on Oz’s computer or from Fryssen reading aloud Oz’s description of what he required in a partner.
Jake said, “I wouldn’t have figured him for a bareback rider.”

He was the only one who could joke. He suggested that maybe the jury members got aroused and were frisky to go pouncing on each other.

“You know everyone on that jury buys porn,” said Jake as we attempted to picnic unfestively in the limo. “It’s like the number one U.S business. They’re the usual bunch of hypocrites.”

My memory pulled up their sourdough faces. Could the prosecution have managed to assemble the only group of twelve non-porn consuming people left in the US of A?

“Why did Oz describe himself as “cut”?” whispered Shelley.

“It just means circumcised,” Jake told her. “Everyone who’s anyone is cut.”

“It could mean he’s ripped,” said Trevor.

First they get the little cut, then they get The Big Cut, I thought. Then they have to be “ripped”. No wonder men are so angry all the time. I was getting an education all right. I considered teasing Craig but he would know Mina told.

“The jury doesn’t know it was for fun,” worried Shelley. “They’ll think he wanted to replace Colleen with some twenty year old cadet.”

“I thought we’d established that they don’t think,” said Trevor.

“Of course they’ll think it’s awful,” exploded Craig. “That’s what inflammatory means. The prosecution wants them making the most important decision of their lives in a haze of crazed revulsion. Face it, we’re screwed on this one.”

“Let’s not get neurotic now,” said Mina, who was nibbling around the edges of her sandwich like a little mouse. Seeing the black look on her boss’ face, she amended, “Ok, let’s all get as neurotic as possible.”

“It’s not like he was advertising for a snuff flick,” said Jake. “Just a little B & D. I mean it’s like caviar, how do you know you don’t like it if you don’t try it?”

“And it’s all just jargon anyway,” Craig insisted, “Everybody uses the same words in those ads. But the only way I can prove it is to introduce a thousand other ads, and this jury can’t handle it and this judge won’t allow it. The world has changed and I, as the messenger of that unwelcome information, must be punished. I’m telling you, we’re screwed. We’ve got to get this case to another court any way we can.”

Trevor studied me thoughtfully. I must have been crazy to think I could keep anything from him. Spike wouldn’t tell him a direct lie, not even to protect me. I’d have to confess eventually.

“You look terrible,” he criticized. And after all that time I spent repairing myself, too. No one else had noticed. “Want to tell me about it?”

“Did you rat me out, Spike?” I demanded.

“The press ratted you out, cutie,” he said. Spike, too, could eat. His appetite was unaffected. “It’s a big story.”

Yeah. Tears, melted cheese…it has everything.

“So someone clue me in,” said Trevor.

I hated telling him with the rest of them listening. This was all Spike’s fault.

“I went to see Aunt Shea,” I admitted. “She wanted to give me something.” I turned to Shelley. “Did you know the Chagall belonged to our mother?”

“That woman is a Pechvogel,” said Trevor. I hate hearing Oz’s words out of his mouth. They are not the same person. “She wants to separate us. You should never listen to the Shorts. Everything in the house is yours one way or another.”

“I think most of it belongs to Skylar,” I said. I hate it when Oz calls my relatives “the Shorts.” They might be fat and plebeian, but I’m the only true shorty here.

Shelley licked her lips like an appetite-less anorexic.

“I don’t know how you can stand being reminded we’re even related to those people.”
“Well, we are,” I said. “Aren’t you the least bit interested in reality?”

“I don’t know,” said Shelley, “Maybe she wasn’t our mother, really. Maybe we were adopted, or stolen. You know how people lie about things. And when it happens overseas…”

In answer I silently opened the white leather photo case and handed it over.

“Wow,” said Shelley. “She looks like you.”

“Brontë is a replicant,” sneered Jake.

Shelley’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t look like anybody,” she wailed. “I don’t fit in anywhere. No wonder Oz tried getting rid of me.”

Trevor embraced her, put her head against his chest. “We can’t let this trial drive us apart,” he told her. “That’s what they want. Remember Oz saw each you being born? We all belong. Nobody’s a replicant.”

Shelley accepted his handkerchief.

That night my mother came to me. I awoke running. Running from the torch-bearing villagers who wanted to kill me because I was unlucky enough to be a member of the cannibal family, and I ran into that same dusty crypt I had seen hundreds of times in bad-to-worse late night movies. Looking for a place to hide. Ah! A sarcophagus! The unimaginative villagers wouldn’t have the guts to look for me there. But when I slid off the heavy granite lid, my mother was inside. She opened her eyes to look at me.

She was wrapped up like an Egyptian, holding a pair of riding whips in her crossed hands, her face painted blue and gold, but I recognized her immediately. It was my mother, and she was younger than me. Younger than I had ever been. With that weird intelligence found only in dreams I knew that although I was only dreaming she was coming to me the best way she could and I was bizarrely grateful. It meant some part of her was still alive.

Between our eyes shot a jolt of lightning, her mind downloading into mine an avalanche of terrible pictures in which she and Colleen became one. I had to wall them off, delete or save or look at later. It was too much. My memory was weak, just as Oz’s computer always warned us, and I was lacked the firewalls of age. Her eyes pleaded with me, the pupils deepening, opening out like flowers.

I didn’t want to hear what she was trying to say. How could I be my mother’s keeper? She acted like it was up to me. Was she saying, “Save me,” or was I saying them? I heard the words ringing in my head; sharp and clear as glass. She tried moving her lips as if to speak, but prying her lips apart cracked open her mask, and I saw the corpse inside. Her broken, bloodied teeth could not hold back the bubbling blood. It poured out, engulfing us. We were awash in it, the coffin was floating, and I was clinging to it as if to a raft.

If I didn’t wake myself up I was going to drown in my own mother’s blood. It was too terrible to be borne. With a massive effort of will I hauled myself up out of the dream, hand-over-hand into the choked stillness of the darkened room.

Was this real life? Where was I? I wasn’t in my own bed. Not that I “owned” anything, it seemed. Trevor wouldn’t allow me in his bed, so we must be in Skylar’s. The mosquito netting hung from the canopy, like cocoon-like wisps of the dream chrysalis from which I had exploded.

Was I caterpillar or butterfly? I couldn’t be anything without Trevor, he must be somewhere, he was my lucky charm. Only his absence gave the nightmare the power to come and get me. I wanted to go back, to long before this mess, but if I went back too far I risked losing the good as well as the bad. If Colleen wasn’t dead, then Trevor had never loved me. Somehow I convinced myself that life and death, everything, was up to me. I shot out of the bed, tangled my feet in the blankets and hit the floor sobbing.

I wasn’t alone, after all. Trevor pushed out of the shadows, gathered me up, held me, rocked me, comforted me. Trevor was there to stroke me, kiss me, suck my nipples, roll his cheeks in the cavern of my belly, hoist me up by the hips into himself. We had the power together, between us, to summon up light against the forces of darkness, even if we burned our own bodies for fuel.
If you could magically find out the last time you would ever make love to somebody, would you want to know? Oz says everyone should live as if they’re just about to die. Make love every time as if it’s the last time. My atoms into your atoms, says Whitman.

Chapter Sixteen – Mortgaged

Oz says regret is an inherently degrading emotion. On that point he and Colleen were agreed; nostalgia is one thing, but there’s no percentage in second-guessing. Preserve at all costs that forward motion.

I lay in bed staring at my new dark suit without enthusiasm. I definitely didn’t want to wear that again. I was always surprised that after a bout of nocturnal wrestling, I didn’t wake up taller.

Shouldn’t we have exchanged more than fluids during the night? I teased myself imagining what it would be like to be Trevor for the day.

I’d be knotting a pink tie to go with my white shirt and my dove-colored suit, looking beyond myself deep, deep in the mirror.

“That’s not a “mourning” color,” I said. Two can play the criticism game.

“It actually is,” he said. “It’s a color called “ashes of roses”. Do you need to be dressed?”
It wouldn’t be the first time.

“No,” I yawned. “I have to take a shower.” I smelled like chum. “What’s it doing out there?”

He glanced out the window. “Raining.”

“See? The universe itself feels our pain.”

“The pathetic fallacy,” he said, and kissed my forehead with a feather’s touch. Then because I was the most pathetic of the fallacies, he brought me coffee and a dark pink dress of Colleen’s. Not really ashes of roses, more like cerise. I thought it had a rather old-fashioned cut, with its high waist and pencil skirt.

“Would look nice with pearls,” he suggested meaningfully.

I covered my face with the blanket. I knew it would be hard work talking him into letting me wear my turquoise jacket. Artists use color to repel pathos. Substituting one fallacy for another.

“Listen,” he said, taking me into his lap, “At least we’re going through this together. Think about poor Oz.”

Yes, think about poor Oz, in “protective custody” so he doesn’t wind up incarcerated with men who don’t realize that he is a “top”, always a “top” and only a “top”. Poor, poor Oz.
Trevor placed me in the shower and turn the spigot. The tardy are punished. There was no hot water left.

Eventually I added my cold one to the array of haggard faces in the limo. Craig was clutching a can of Red Bull, Jake looked like he had forgotten to remove his eye makeup, Shelley’s hair seemed lank and uninspired and Mina’s glasses were smudged. Was nobody getting any sleep? Only Spike appeared chipper as usual.

As I claimed my corner of the groom’s bench it was Spike who put a note in my hand. Written on Marriott Hotel stationery it said,

Brontë, I would love to catch a glimpse of you before I leave. I have something of your mother’s that I want to give you. I’ll be having lunch at the Marriott at exactly noon today if you or your sister want to join me. Believe me, today will be a court day you’d like to miss.
Love, Aunt Shea

That was clever. Clever to address the note solely to me. She must know Shelley wouldn’t speak to her. Leaving the inclusion of Shelley strictly up to me, she minimized her chances of a turndown.
I decided not to tell Shelley. Why tell her, when she not only wouldn’t go, she would probably insist on my not going too? She might even tell on me, “for my own good,” that’s the sort of thing older sisters are primed to say. As if Shelley, who spends her evenings making out to French porn, knows anything about my “good”. I knew the “gift” thing was probably a ploy. Should I subject myself to emotional blackmail just to receive some unlustrous object of specious provenance?

Still, doesn’t hurt to dream. Kind of a necessity since I missed my dreamtime last night. My whole body ached like I had played the Super Bowl. I allowed the motions and counter-motions of court to flow over me as I contemplated a mystic, magic item, waiting for me in Aunt Shea’s suitcase, a portal sent by my wizard mother; an item of psychometric alchemy transporting me back in time to meet her face to face. Damn I wanted it bad.

My mother was so far dead as a result of this damn trial that any clue was precious. Oz might call Shea a witch, but think, what if she was? What if she possessed a sorcerer’s rabbit hole powerful enough to launch me back into my mother’s arms?

My mother. I was familiar enough with the work of the Brontë sisters to know “the little brown wren” thing was just a disguise. She was only trying to navigate the universe, to maximize knowledge and pleasure, minimize pain and prejudice, just like the rest of us. If death is an unmasking, then my mother was free. I still needed all the masks I could get and I would be grateful just to touch with my hand any discarded masks of hers.

Shea was smart to choose a public place. She couldn’t throw things, rend her garments or try to manhandle me. I could leave if she got obnoxious. I think at least by now I’ve learned how to leave; I know how to get out of places where I don’t want to be.

When Shea said I’d want to skip today’s session, I knew she referred to the computer expert. He was supposed to testify about the pornographic images and emails found on Oz’ hard drive and Craig was battling to keep out what he could.

I let them fight it out till eleven thirty when we gained a bathroom break.

But instead of stepping into a stall, I only had to step through the double doors and I was free.
Or almost free. Spike came right after me.

“Don’t you know it’s rude,” I said to Spike, “To read other people’s private mail?”

“Special circumstances,” he grinned at me. “How did I know it wasn’t a death threat?”

“Well, now you know it was just an invitation to lunch.”

He bobbed his head in a mockery of servitude. “And the lady needs a ride.”

I had been planning on taking a cab and sticking Aunt Shea with the bill, but, what the hell. Why not show up at the Marriott in a limo? Let the old bat know I was well taken care of.

I was sitting up front with him so I saw him pull out his cell phone.

“Don’t you dare tell them where we’re going.”

“I’ll just tell them we’re getting lunch. Otherwise Trevor will send the cavalry after you.”
True, I thought. Smugly.

“To the Marriott, Jeeves,” I directed, “Unless you’d rather find a skeezy dive and do shots.”

“I’ve had all my shots,” said Spike.

The Marriott is between the highway and mall.

“Come back for me in a half an hour,” I ordered.

“Not on your life,” said Spike.

Valet parking is always happy to look after a limo. Spike went to sit at the bar. Catching up on those inoculations, presumably. I felt reassured when I saw him swivel his stool around to watch me. Would he rescue me if she made me cry? Would he rush forward, guns blazing? It was comforting, knowing he was there.

She was sitting right in the window, just like a person who doesn’t have to think about hiding from the press. Well, so far they hadn’t followed us. I stood looking at her a moment until her psychic perimeter alarm went off and she turned and recognized me.

She was wearing the same baggy zebra outfit she’d worn in court, so either she was traveling light or she’d hit the Krispy Kremes full throttle and nothing else fit.

She smiled and gestured to the other seat. It was the other side of the table, so outside the danger zone. I sat down.

“It was nice of you to come,” she said in a formal way. “I’m sorry we had to meet under these circumstances.”

I tried picturing her as a little girl. She was the eldest, the Trevor of that family, so maybe she’d never been young. I tried picturing her and my mother as two little girls cuddled under the blankets giggling together. It was hard because she was just a plump, middle-aged lady sitting without makeup in a patch of full sun. She looked old; faded; unimportant. I was glad of it, because that made it easier to steel my heart against her. In case there was any steeling to do.

“I’m on one side and you’re on the other,” I said. “I don’t want to get into an argument about it.”
I didn’t go so far as to say he was innocent. None of us was innocent; I had been on trial for quite awhile in my own head and I was not coming out of it very well.

“I understand,” she said.

The busboy came to try to look down my front as he noisily poured water. Both Shea and the busboy looked as if they were trying to think ways to touch me. Fortunately, neither of them tried.
“I’ll have the croque monsieur,” said Shea.

Imagine mistaking a busboy for a waiter!

“I’ll git yr wyter,” he said with that unmistakable mountain twang. You have to have an ear for it. Sometimes it’s incomprehensible. Here’s a boy who should keep his mouth closed at all times.
To my relief Shea didn’t make me beg for my trophy. She felt around in her massive flocked carpetbag-purse thing and produced a small, white leather case. It was shabby, some of the leather peeling away. It looked to be a traveling picture frame, the kind you can carry with you anywhere, then set it up where you happen to be. Ideal for me, really, in my evolving restlessness. I held my breath as I opened it.

I knew it was a picture of my mother. But it looked like a picture of me.

“It’s your mother at eighteen,” said Shea. Unnecessarily.

I realized then; I knew what I’d lost. As the tears spilled out I felt enough anger to explode the planet. I couldn’t even feel the rage through the horrible pain to the roots of my hair. Shoot her, Spike. Shoot her now.

I rubbed my face with the huge white napkin, not caring where my eyeliner went. I tried so hard to stop the tears and harden them inside me.

“She’s not gone,” said Aunt Shea, patting my hand with such a light touch I wasn’t able to bite her. “I speak to her every day. When you’ve really loved someone – I hope you find out – they’re inside you always.”

I cried and cried. It was awful. Where was Spike?

“She’s recently bereaved,” Aunt Shea explained to the waiter. “I’ll have the croque monsieur.”
“Water,” I gasped. “Evian.”

I was so glad no one was here, no one knew about this. Maybe I could pretend it never happened. Could I stifle Spike if I had to?

Curiosity kept me looking at the picture. It was easier than looking at Aunt Shea. My mother’s hair was a little longer than mine and exactly my shade of red, but unlike me, she’d tried to straighten it instead of allowing it to explode in all directions. She didn’t seem to be wearing makeup and I couldn’t see the telltale freckles, but that was my own face, all right. She wore just enough of a summer dress to show off her knobbly shoulder bones. Thinner than me; a young woman with appetites either unrecognized or under fierce control.

Her expression, also, was one never seen on my face. It was sweet, full of hope, unembarrassed about being caught dreaming. I imagined having a conversation with that face. It would probably be interesting and easy; she looked so sympathetic and thoughtful.

I wondered what she would say about Trevor and me. Would she forgive me? Maybe it was her fault in a way; giving me a genetic code that longed for deathless ardor.

“So where have you decided to go to college?” Shea asked in a bright, false manner. I lowered the picture and looked at her unwillingly.

“Georgetown.”

“Georgetown, oh my,” she said. Impressed. It made me like her less, if that was possible, that she should be so much like everybody else. Predictability being the opposite of freedom. Or was it me who was predictable, for wanting to go Ivy?

“Maybe I won’t go there,” I spluttered. “It’s expensive. I have a free scholarship to the University of Arizona.” I got that on my own, so I should be proud of it.

“I would think the Chagall would take care of school for both you and Shelley,” she sniffed. “That was one of your mother’s favorite pieces. Unless he’s already sold it .”

He hadn’t sold the Chagall. When Shelley started Sweet Briar Oz did sell something. He sold the folding leather camp bed reputed to have belonged to Gilles de Retz, and he complained a lot about it, too. But everyone agreed Sweet Briar was the perfect place for Shelley.

Funny he’d never mentioned that the Chagall was ours. I was kind of surprised he hadn’t sold it because he called Chagall “middlebrow.” I assumed it was Colleen’s.

“Oh, we’ve still got it,” I said. Lied. “We don’t sell things.”

I was angry about all the insulting financial testimony about how desperate we are. I bet if I opened her checkbook and looked inside, I wouldn’t see anything to brag about. A retired art teacher nobody’s ever heard of!

Her sandwich arrived, gooey melted cheese over two kinds of meat, sporting a pair of sword-pointed toothpicks. In case we wanted to duel. Could I defend myself without Spike’s help?
Shea sniffed at my assertion. “Needs must when the devil drives,” she said.

Even though I was clearly drinking Evian, the busboy came and poured more water. He would have given me a bath if I’d asked him. I might have liked that, actually. A lunchtime wet t-shirt contest is just what the boring old Marriott needs.

I was calmer now. The other side of my mother’s picture was a mirror. I dipped the napkin in the busboy’s water and tried to clean my face.

“Any idea for a major? Favorite subject?”

What is this? The Spanish Inquisition? I looked pointedly at my watch.

“Writing,” I said. “I want to be a writer.”

Shea smiled, her facial creases opening like crevasses. “Your mother would love that, of course. She tried to guarantee it by giving you your name. Do you see yourself working in publishing?”
How to explain that I don’t see myself working? I loathe being told what to do.

“I see myself traveling the world,” I said.

“Who are your favorite writers? Alice Hoffman? Anita Shreve?” She made a massive effort. “Anne Rice?”

Who the hell were those people?

“I like the Russians,” I said.

She nodded officiously. “The Brothers Karamazov,” she offered.

I adore Dostoevsky, but why admit that to her?

“I prefer Pushkin, Goncharov, Turgenev,” I said. “Goncharov’s my current favorite. He wrote only one novel and he never finished it.”

“Oh. Like Mendelssohn. Unfinished Symphony.”

Honestly, the woman was an idiot. First off, he was a musician. And Mendelssohn composed more than one thing, but why argue with her?

“I confess I don’t know the writers you mention,” she admitted, busily chewing and speaking with her mouth open. “Education never stops.”

She slid a card across to me. “Let me know your address. When you get settled.”

Was there any possibility anybody would be speaking to anybody after all this was “settled”? I took the card. I noticed she had a website called RealArtByShea.

“What kind of art do you do?” I asked her.

“Found pieces. Sculptures. Collages. Some jewelry.” She fingered her necklace. “These are antique Christmas lights.”

They were little glass balls, strung together on golden thread. I had to admit they were charming.
The press had found us. A shape appeared right in front of me flashing away. I reeled, dazzled. Spike was at my side in a moment, elbowing them aside. He isn’t afraid to knock people down. He took me out through the kitchen.

“Any way out of here?” he asked a pair of Mexicans wearing chef hats.

Nobody argues with Spike. They gestured. Soon we were out on the loading dock. He used his cell phone to ask the parking valet to bring the limo around.

I regarded him suspiciously, “Why are you being so nice to me?” Maybe he’s the one selling secrets to the tabloids.

Spike tucked in the collar of my jacket.

“You remind me of a kitten I used to have. Same color and everything.” He patted my back. Once again, the baby needed burping. “Jesus, you look horrible. So how was it?” he inquired.

I didn’t want to talk about it. “God-awful.”

“We’re supposed to get lunch. Anything special you’re in the mood for?”

I gave the matter my deepest consideration. It’s the flywheel of my personality that I’m always hungry. Why should Aunt Shea be the only one to eat?

“I could really go for a meatball sub.”