Conundrum (6 page)

Anne huffed while she spoke. “
Your mother is almost sixty, right? She’s alone, no husband, no one to take care of her. All she has is you three kids. And money. She knows no other way to
e
nsure your loyalty and devotion than
with
bribery and threats. Give you money, make you
her slave
. She’s done it to Neal, to Raff, and to Jeremy. She
owns
the lot of you. And I’d hate to see the day when any of you double-cross
es
her.”

I stopped abruptly
,
and two joggers almost ran me down.
One mumbled some profanity.
“
I thought you liked my mom. What’s got
ten
into you?”

Anne led me
over
to one of the picnic tables
positioned
askew
on the sand.
The ocean thrashed and rallied against the shoreline a hundred yards away.
We sat and she scrunched her face. “I know you don’t want to hear this. You never do. You’re fiercely protective of your mother. And I understand that. But, your brother’s trying to kill himself, and your husband’s just walked out.
Neal floats from job to job, watching baseball from your mother’s couch.
And in the midst of all the chaos is Ruth, orchestrating this, to her delight.”

“What? You think she’s happy Raff wants to die? Please, get real!”

“No, of course not. But it’s all about control. Controlling her empire and all the players in it. The world’s a stage, Lis, and your mother the director. You take all your cues from her.
Try to see it from Jeremy’s side for once. Try to distance yourself a little and stop playing the part of the loyal
,
dutiful daughter.
”

“I’m just trying to keep the peace. Hold us together. Help Raff
—
”

“
Lisa, forget
trying to save Raff
.
Y
ou gotta save yourself first.”

“
Look,
I know you have more insight into my family than anyone else, but it doesn’t give you the right to pontificate.”

Anne shrugged, and that one gesture carried layers of meaning. She would acquiesce—for now. But that little twitch of her shoulders was also a subtle brush-off and insult. It said
,
Lisa, you are so dense. Just wait. You’ll see
.
 
.
 
.
My gut began its familiar knotting
. I’d had enough of this topic.

“I have this strange idea,” I said. Anne spotted my strategy right away and sighed in exasperation. We’d pick up where we left
off
on
some
other
day
, of that I had no doubt.
Anne always scored. And I loved that bulldoggedness about her. If I ever needed an advocate on my side, she’d be my first pick. I felt sorry for the poor slobs that had to sit in a courtroom and listen to her diatribes. Just the thought of watching her in action gave me chills.

“I’ve been thinking about my father—who died when I was four.”
I told her about my father’s death and the mysterious and suspicious circumstances coloring my early years
—
years she’d never heard about.
Being so close throughout our childhood, it might have seemed strange that I’d never broached the subject. But that just showed how my father had been so neatly erased from my life after he died.
I wove what bits and pieces I had into an incomplete
and unsatisfying picture, and gave that to her to
pick apart
.

“Wow, pretty weird,” she said. “But fascinating.”

“So what do I do now?”

“Well, it seems to me the person who’d
best
know the truth about your dad would be his brother. Do you have any idea where he could be?
Maybe you could talk with him.
”

The thought
had
never occurred to me.
My uncle.
“Maybe still in New
York
?
That’s where my dad gr
e
w up.
I don’t even know
my uncle’s
name.
Or if he’s even alive
.
”

“Did your mom ever
mention
him?”

“For some reason I remember he was a doctor,
or
something medical.”

“So, that wouldn’t be hard to look up.
Sitteroff’s not that common a name
, is it?
Check the library. Medical journals. Call the AMA. If he’s practicing medicine, he’d be registered or licensed somewhere.
It’s a place to start.” Anne put a hand on my shoulder. “I think it’s a good idea, digging into your past.
You should learn more about your dad—it’s a giant puzzle piece missing from your life. And m
aybe you’ll uncover something that will help Raff. You never know.
The truth can sometimes set you free.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Although, truth
sometimes
wield
ed
a sharp two-edge sword.
But what could it hurt to look for my long
-
lost uncle?
I suddenly had a
strong
need to find him. I could look up references to my father too. Maybe he’d written articles, abstracts in physics quarterlies or other academic publications.
I stood and wiped sand off the seat of my jeans.

On the way back to our cars, Anne was quiet. I tromped at her side, my mind wheeling with plans and ideas.
The Marin County Library would have limited resources, but I could go into the city. I had nothing to do the rest of the afternoon. Two gardening jobs, big estates, but I could start on those tomorrow.

“My mom once told me about the time she went to the
public
pool with your mother.” Anne said, the words coming out in a rhythm with her pace. “You and I must have been five or so.
”

“Hey, I remember that pool. Didn’t they bulldoze it at some point?”

“Yeah. To build that subdivision—over in Corte Madera.”

I recalled
a gigantic rectangular pool with low and high diving boards. Tons of kids yelling. A lifeguard with a bullhorn, blasting “no running allowed.”
I used to love swimming at that pool during summer vacation.

Anne continued
.
“
Raff and Kyle were splashing around
with the bigger boys
, playing Marco Polo
. We were playing on the wide steps with our mothers sitting on the le
d
g
e
, dangling their legs in the warm water.
Mom
said you slipped and floated down to the bottom of the shallow end. But the bottom of the pool was slanted
, remember? By the time my mom and your mom stopped chatting and looked back over, you had disappeared.”

Instantly, I conjured up a memory. Lying on my back, feeling the rough concrete grazing my
shoulder blades as they scraped along
,
looking up at the wavering images through the surface of the water
, blotches of color, distorted faces
. The sudden quiet and the
al
luring weightlessness.

The memory jarred me with its sharp sensations, but I didn’t recall being afraid.

“I remember
.
 
.
 
.
”

“You do?’ Anne asked.

“But I
mustn’t
have been underwater that long.
Someone
jumped into the pool and rescued me. All the adults gathered around me
,
and I remember their concerned faces and shouts of
relief
. That’s weird,” I said, exploring the textures that memory brought back—the hefty smell of chlorine, the hot sun on my face as I lay on the pool’s ledge, the cacophony of voices as women in
rubber bathing caps and
cotton one-piece
swim
suits fussed over me.

“
That was my
mom,” Anne said.
“She’s the one who jumped in.”

I slowed down and looked
at
Anne.
I tried to conjure up the face of my rescuer, but I drew a blank.
She continued
, but her voice was measured
. “Before Mom died, she told me how she spotted you gliding down into the deep end, underneath all the myriad of kicking legs and paddling arms.
She hollered and shook your mother’s shoulder, pointing at you. She could see your eyes wide
open
in surprise, your limbs unmoving.
When she turned and caught
the expression on your mother’s face
, she was so shocked
,
she couldn’t move a muscle. A moment later, after shaking off her surprise, she threw
her
sun
hat to the ground
and dove into the deep end. She wasn’t the best swimmer, but that
fact
never entered her mind. She
managed to bring you to the surface and
pull you
over
to the side of the pool
,
where a dozen hands yanked you up and out.”

I stopped at the end of the pathway, where our cars
baked
in the noonday summer sun.
I strained to remember
,
but
only recall
ed
a whoosh of motion, someone pulling me to the surface, my head emerging into a sea of air
, sucking in and filling my lungs.

Anne gave me a big hug, her arms familiar around my waist.
“Funny, you remember that day, and I don’t recall it at all. I probably never even noticed you
disappeared.”
She unlocked her car door, then turned back to me.
“Let me know if you find anything at the library.
You’ve piqued my curiosity.
”

“Anne,” I said, pulling keys from my pocket. “Why did my mother’s expression cause your mom such distress? What did she see?”

Anne shrugged noncom
m
ittal
l
y but I made her look at me. “
Something that frightened her. Like your mom didn’t want to listen, didn’t want to acknowledge the danger you were in.”

“Maybe my mom thought she was joking.” I added, “That was a long time ago, and
I’m sure the incident happened so fast,
all those impressions were a blur
.”

Anne nodded, but it was clear she didn’t agree with my assessment.
If she had more to say on the subject, she kept it to herself. Just why had she brought that up anyway?

I watched Anne get into her car and drive away. Suddenly another memory came out of nowhere
—t
he time I accidently set the house on fire.

I was about ten, and Raff was
sleeping over at Kyle’s
. Neal was in the den watching TV.
Th
at
night
was my first stint as babysitter. Neal and I had finished dinner
,
and the dishes were loaded in the dishwasher.
I
went to my room to do some homework and
had lit a
taper
on the nightstand next to my bed, but didn’t think to move the large box of matches away from the
candleholder.
I
had
forgot
ten
all about it
when I went to join Neal
to watch my favorite show—
Time Tunnel
.
By the time I smelled smoke, half my room was up in flames. My mother was at her business manager’s house, going over investments and taxes. My mother made a lot of money buying and selling commercial real estate, on the advice of her manager.
That was how she supported us after my father died.

I
rushed into the kitchen and
dialed the
phone
number she left for emergencies.
Harv Blake
put her
on the line
,
and when I told her about the fire, she told me to get bowls of water and put the fire out. Then
I was
to
run into the street and yell “fire.” Th
at
was in the days long before 911. I did as she said, and by the time the fire trucks
had
come
screeching
up to our house, I had the fire put out, but smoke filled every room in a thick hovering cloud.