People Who Knew Me (32 page)

She gives me the look I've been dreading, the look that says she's not sure she trusts me, the look that says she doesn't know who I am.

“He's been alive this whole time?” she says.

It's still sinking in, this truth.

I nod.

She wriggles herself out my grasp and releases the grip on herself, drops her arms at her sides like they weigh a hundred pounds each.

“Are you freaking kidding me?”

She shrieks these words as she backs away slowly, as if I'm wielding some kind of deadly weapon.

“Claire,” I say. “I'm sorry.”

She's standing several feet away from me.

“You're not sorry,” she says. “You never would have told me if you weren't dying.”

She shouts the word “dying.”

“Is this, like, your attempt to confess all your sins?” she says. “Am I supposed to just forgive you?”

She's screaming.

Every step I take toward her, she takes one back.

“Claire,” I say. “Stop, let's talk—”

“No,” she says. “You don't get to do that.”

“Claire.”

“Does he even know about me?” she shouts.

When I hesitate, she says, “Are you serious?” Then: “That is so fucked up.”

She runs through the sand toward the car. I go after her.

“Claire,” I say when I catch her. I'm out of breath, gasping, leaning on the hood of the car. She's waiting at the passenger's-side door, probably hating the fact that she can't just drive herself away from here.

“Just take me home,” she says. “And don't talk to me.”

*   *   *

It is fucked up, Drew not knowing. Claire isn't wrong, and I shouldn't have expected that she would just blindly accept how my past choices have affected her present. What was I thinking, harboring that expectation? I honor her wishes. We don't talk. I want so badly to talk, to try to explain, as futile as it may be. She stays in her room. I can hear her on the phone with her friends. The way she describes the situation makes me sound heartless. Maybe I am.

I have to tell Drew. Somehow. The idea of calling him makes my throat clamp shut, though. I've called him before. The week after I brought newborn Claire home, there was that gang shooting on our block and I panicked. I thought maybe I'd just go back to New York and tell everyone I had a moment of insanity, a psychotic break. They would blame it on 9/11, excuse it. I dialed Drew's cell phone number, a sequence that remains imprinted on my brain despite active attempts to forget it. Sometimes, still, I dream of the numbers, see them lined up before me. He picked up on the third ring. It sounded like he was in the middle of a grocery store or a mall. There was so much ambient noise. I hung up immediately. He was going on with life, on the assumption I was gone. I couldn't just go back to him. The very next day I saw that classified ad for the tiny cottage house in the canyon.

There was another time, too, right after I had that unbelievable run-in with Jade at the crafts fair. I was in the middle of a shift at the bar and I thought of Drew, so suddenly that I wondered if it meant something. There was a pay phone right outside. I figured I'd use that, not my own phone or the bar's phone—just in case. I stood in the phone booth for a good five minutes, trying to remember the last time I'd been in one. In college, I guessed, though I couldn't retrieve a specific memory. They're like upright coffins, aren't they? Someone had etched a heart into the metal phone box—
A
+
M Forever
scrawled inside of it. Drew and I had etched
D
+
E Always
into a tree trunk on campus the year we met. I wondered if A and M kept their promises to each other.

I dialed his number slowly, each push of a button exaggerated and dramatic. When it started ringing, I froze. I could hear my heartbeat. What time was it in New York? After seven o'clock. Dinnertime. After two rings, there was the click of a pick-up.

“This is Andrew,” he said.

Again, I hung up. I stayed standing there, hand still on the phone. Andrew? Did he say that because he didn't recognize the incoming phone number? Was he trying to sound professional? Did he have a profession that would require him to sound professional? Did his new girlfriend or wife prefer “Andrew” to “Drew”? Or, was that just the name he chose to use now?

It occurred to me: perhaps we both became new people.

I didn't call again. The pay phone was removed a couple months later—by the city or the phone company or whoever is in charge of the fate of pay phones. There's just a square of dirt where it used to stand. There were other times I wanted to check on him, but I didn't dare call from a traceable line. And now there's the Internet in all its glory, so much more useful than it was when I first came to California.

Four years ago, I created a fake Facebook profile—under the name Jane Smith—so I could browse. Just a few clicks and there was Drew—looking the same, smiling, some kind of lake or ocean in the background. I visit his page every now and then, the same way you visit a blog you remember liking once and always forget about. He remarried, which comforts me more than it saddens me. I don't know when he remarried. It just says
MARRIED TO LISA SHAW
next to a little heart icon. Lisa Shaw. She didn't take his name. I like that he's with that kind of woman. His photos are private, so I can't see Lisa Shaw, or their children, if there are children. He only shares his personal life with “friends.” I am not his friend. After fourteen years, sometimes it's hard to believe I ever was, let alone that I was much, much more than that.

I've found Marni on Facebook, too. She's married—in spite of herself. She's childless and working at a Manhattan ad agency, which reminds me that not everything in life goes haywire. Nancy, not surprisingly, doesn't have a Facebook page. Neither does my mom. Google has nothing to say about them, either.

I text Paul to ask him if Facebook is an acceptable way to contact Claire's father.

He writes:
Remember when I said you're not a coward? I take it back.

Ha. You see my true colors now.

Let me know how it goes.

I click “Send Message” on Drew's page. A box appears. This box is for friends messaging each other about an upcoming party or their date last night. It's for reminders like,
Hey, you left your sweater at my house. I'll bring it when I see you on Tuesday
. It's for casual conversation. It's not appropriate for what I have to say. And yet it will have to do, because, like Paul has finally realized, I'm a coward.

I type:

Dear Drew … or Andrew … or Andy:

It makes me sad that I don't know what you go by anymore. To me, you were always Drew.

You're probably wondering who this is. You don't know a Jane Smith. That's what you're thinking, right? My profile name is fake and my one photo, of the sun setting at a beach near where I live, doesn't offer many clues. Even if I told you it was in California, that wouldn't help. You might not think you know anyone in California. But you do.

My name is Connie Prynne, but it used to be Emily Morris.

Yes, your Emily Morris.

How do I say this? What happened on September 11 didn't kill me—not physically, at least. I'm alive.

If you don't believe me, try this:

You have a mole on your lower back, placed as if to mark the very end of your spine.

On the day of our wedding, your mom brought a bouquet of carnations. I knew the shaking in her hands was getting worse because I could hear the flowers rustling in the plastic as she tried to hold the bouquet steady during the ceremony.

We adopted Bruce when we were right out of college, clueless but full of love.

Our first and last apartment was on Irving Avenue. We had a neighbor named Jim. He had pet parakeets and wore the same windbreaker every day.

Do you believe me now?

There's only one real purpose to this message: To tell you about Claire. She turns fourteen in May. It was time to tell her about you, her father.

I don't know how to explain why I left New York. I had to. If you have questions, I'll answer them. We weren't happy—you and me. We both know that, don't we?

Anyway, I'd just found out I was pregnant, then 9/11 happened. I left. I gave birth here, in California, the place I call home now. She looks just like you.

I would have called, but I didn't want to catch you off guard. Or maybe I didn't want you to hang up on me. This way, you can take your time with what I've said and respond—or not—as you see fit. I can only imagine what I put you through. I'll understand if I never hear from you.

—Em

818-555-0198

I don't mention Gabe. And I don't mention the cancer because I don't want that to be the reason he responds, if he responds. I read it through one time. Then again. And again. The cursor seems to blink at me faster and faster, with greater urgency. I hit “Send” and the message disappears. I close my laptop, place it back on the coffee table. I stare at it and wait. I've already decided that I won't tell Claire I sent the message. If he doesn't respond at all, I'll act like I never contacted him. She'll resent me and what I've done—
that is so fucked up
—and I'll have to live, or die, with that.

 

TWENTY-EIGHT

It's not like Claire to oversleep. Maybe she's exhausted from yesterday, from the disastrous trip to the beach. I, for one, didn't sleep at all last night. I was up thinking about Claire's hatred of me while simultaneously waiting for Drew to respond to my message. It says “Read” next to the message, so I know he's seen it.

I go to her room and knock lightly on the door.

“Claire?” I say.

Claire never misses school. Come hell or high water, she goes to school.

There's no answer.

“Claire?” I say again.

I turn the knob quietly, push the door open. And there is her bed, carefully made. No Claire.

I text her.

Where are you?

I go through the motions of a normal day, trying to trick myself into believing it is a normal day. There has to be an explanation. After I shower and eat my cereal, there's no response, though.

Claire, this isn't funny. Call me
.

I call Al. He hasn't heard from her.

“Is her backpack there?” he asks.

I go check, rifling through her room. “Doesn't look like it,” I say.

“Well, then, she's taken off somewhere,” he says.

Al would probably be a good parent. He has the “calm, cool, collected” thing down pat.

“Don't worry, Con,” he says. “She's at that age. I'm sure she's fine.”

Al doesn't know I told her about Drew. Al doesn't even know about Drew. What am I supposed to say to him?
You know how your girlfriend took your daughter and left you? I did the same thing.

*   *   *

After eight o' clock, I call the school. They say Claire isn't in homeroom. I thought for sure she would be. Like I said, Claire never misses school. I call Heather's mom and Riley's mom. They haven't seen her or heard anything. They both say, “But Claire's such a good kid,” which just makes me think she didn't leave on her own accord; someone took her, like in a
Dateline
episode. I don't have Tyler's mom's number, but Riley's mom does.

“Ty isn't here, either,” his mom says, with less worry in her voice than I think she should have. She sounds relieved almost, maybe assured that Claire is with him, that this is some kind of teenage scheme as opposed to abduction.

“Any idea where they might be?” I ask.

“God, I don't know,” she says.

“They can't be far. They can't drive.”

I don't even know how or when Claire and Tyler convened. Was it last night?

“I bet my older son is involved,” she says, still too calm for my liking. “Let me call him and I'll call you back.”

I wait an agonizing five minutes before she calls.

“I was right,” she says with satisfaction. “I promised Trevor a new paint job for his car and he came clean.”

I don't care about your bribing tactics, lady.

“He says he picked up Claire last night and took them to the beach.”

“The beach?”

“He says they wanted to camp there.”

“Is that even legal?” I say, then catch myself: “Never mind, what beach?”

“The one at the end of Topanga Canyon.”

“I'm on my way.”

“Thanks,” she says, as if I'm doing her a favor, as if this isn't any kind of emergency. “Tell Ty he's in big trouble.”

*   *   *

The beach parking lot is mostly empty considering it's a Monday morning. At first I think I'm at the wrong spot. I don't see them. But then, down by the shore, two silhouettes come into view. They're sitting cross-legged, facing the ocean. The wind whips. They must have been freezing last night.

They don't hear me coming because of the sound of the waves. When I appear, it must seem like I came out of nowhere. They're both startled. They stand at attention like military cadets.

“Mom,” Claire says.

She probably thought it would take me longer to find them. She wanted me to worry, to feel the same panic she felt when I told her I was dying, the same rage she felt when I told her about Drew.

“How did you—”

“Doesn't matter,” I say. “I'm glad you're both safe.”

Tyler looks embarrassed. I'm sure Claire put him up to this. It's easy to blame the boy, when you're the mother of a girl, but this has Claire written all over it.

“We didn't have any tests or anything at school today,” he says, trying to make it okay.