Sybil at Sixteen (5 page)

“I didn't know that,” Claire said. “That little SOB.”

“Aunt Grace knew, too,” Evvie said. “Somebody would have told me sooner or later. Sam would have, himself, once we fell in love. It's just very hard for him, because his life with the Greenes was filled with lies. Nobody at school knew the truth. None of his friends. I was the first person he really cared about who knew the truth.”

“I can see why he didn't want his friends to know,” Sybil said. “But why didn't you tell Nicky and Megs? You must have wanted to.”

“Of course I did,” Evvie said. “I went off to Eastgate thinking our family would never have any secrets. I came back knowing that wasn't true. It was a brutally painful lesson to learn, and it still hurts sometimes.”

Sybil suspected Evvie wasn't just talking about Sam, but this was no moment to press for further details. It occurred to her fleetingly that she might not want to know what other secrets there were. Maybe she was entitled to some protection after all.

“Sam's mother is underground because the police, the FBI, they all want her for homicide,” Evvie said. “She's wanted on a capital offense, and they've never stopped looking for her. There's even a twenty-five thousand dollar reward on her head from the bank she blew up. It's something Sam's lived with for years, and his grandparents have lived with it, too, and now I live with it as well.”

“How do you mean?” Sybil asked. “I thought you said his mother hadn't contacted him in all those years.”

“She hasn't,” Evvie replied. “But the FBI's never given up hope that she will. There were FBI agents at his father's parents' funerals. There were agents at his graduation from Harvard. There'll be agents at our wedding. Our phone is tapped. I don't care. I think it's kind of funny knowing they're monitoring my calls. They must be bored out of their minds. But when Sam got the job at the
Globe
, he had to go to his editor and tell him not to ever give out Sam's home phone number to any source, in case he was working on a politically sensitive story. He figures they wouldn't dare tap his office number. That was when he decided to write under the name of Sam Steinmetz Greene. It practically killed his grandparents when he told them, but Steinmetz was his father's name, and Sam's tired of lying and hiding and not being allowed to be normal. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe he should have kept the whole thing secret.”

Sybil tried to picture denying her parents, but it was inconceivable. Her name was Sebastian and she was proud of it. Poor Sam, not even knowing which last name to use.

“I gather Mom Steinmetz has made contact,” Claire said.

Evvie nodded. “Sam got a note yesterday in the mail,” she said. “No return address of course. Just a typed note sent to our house telling him to call a certain number from a pay phone this morning at seven. So he did. I didn't like the feel of it even then, but there was nothing to say. I didn't know it was about his mother. Neither did Sam. He went to the phone booth and made the call. I wanted to go with him, but he wouldn't let me, so I guess he suspected it had something to do with her. There's a little part of Sam that he can't reveal, not even to me, and I learned long ago not to push him.”

“But he told you about the call when he got back,” Claire said.

“He did,” Evvie replied. “He took a huge pile of change with him, because he knew better than to put the call on his phone card. Close to ten dollars in dimes and quarters. We practically spent all of yesterday afternoon getting change for a dollar from every shop in the neighborhood. There was nothing in the note that said it would be a long call. I guess Sam's been waiting for that note most of his life. He knew to take a lot of coins. And he used them all up. He was down to two quarters when he came back.”

“Did he speak to his mother?” Sybil asked.

“Yeah,” Evvie said, and she began to cry again. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm just so angry, and Sam's in so much pain, and he won't let me do anything about it. He feels he can't.” She dug out some tissues from her pocketbook, blew her nose, and used the moment to get back in control. “At first he couldn't be sure. He doesn't know what his mother sounds like. He's seen some videotape of her from old newscasts, but that tape was over twenty years old, and it isn't the same. But she told him things only she could have known. Things about his grandparents. That's really all they have in common, her parents, his grandparents. So he believed it was her. I wish I had been there. I wish Sam had let me be there.”

“He must be very scared,” Claire said.

“I know,” Evvie said. “You're right. He's always been scared his mother would turn up. He's always been scared that she wouldn't. It's his mother, you know, and she abandoned him. Whatever else she's done, she abandoned him. He was lucky his grandparents took him in. God only knows what might have happened if they hadn't. I hate her so much. I've never said that before. I never had anybody I could say it to. I hate Linda Steinmetz for what she did to Sam.”

“Why did she write to Sam now?” Sybil asked. “Does she know he's getting married?”

“She wouldn't care even if she did know,” Evvie said. “Actually, she might know. Sam said she knew he'd graduated from Harvard, knew where he was working. She obviously knew his address. Maybe all these years she's had friends tell her about him. Sam swears his grandparents have had no contact with her.”

“Did he tell them about the phone call?” Claire asked.

“That was one of the things we fought about,” Evvie said. “No, he didn't. And there was a reason why she wrote now, and not two years ago, or two years from now. She needs something from him.”

“What?” Sybil asked.

Evvie took another deep breath. “This would be funny if I didn't love him,” she said. “It seems Linda's suffering from kidney disease. She's begun dialysis. But she can't stay in one place too long, because of the FBI, and there's a tremendous amount of paperwork involved in getting the dialysis paid for, and she can't become too visible to any section of the government, so that's out, and she can't wait around for a cadaver donor for a kidney transplant. So she needs a healthy kidney, and she needs one fast, and she figured her best bet was for Sam to donate one. He has a spare. He'll never miss it. Sam is to drop everything, fly clear across, well I can't tell you where, and get tested to see if his kidney is compatible. And he's doing it. He agreed! That's what we were fighting about when you came this morning. We've been fighting about it since he made the phone call. He's crazy. He owes this woman nothing. She never did a thing for him except give birth and maybe change a diaper or two. His father wasn't any better, but at least he had the decency to die. Not Linda Steinmetz, though. Not tough-as-nails Linda. The invisible woman. Twenty-one years without even a birthday card, and poof, she needs Sam to risk his life, and she doesn't hesitate for a moment to ask. And he agrees. That's what I can't get over. I'm Sam's family. Me and the Greenes, and his aunt Ronnie. Not this stranger.”

“Maybe he's just curious,” Claire said. “There's got to be a tremendous need to actually see, if only for a moment. Look at Nicky.”

“What about Nicky?” Sybil asked.

“He never knew his father,” Claire said. “That's all. And I know how much he wishes he had had the chance to.”

“His father died,” Sybil said. “Sam's known for years his mother's alive. There's a big difference.”

“The need must be the same, though,” Claire said. “Besides, what does it matter? Has Sam left already?”

Evvie nodded. “He took the shuttle to New York,” she said. “That was part of the plan. He can't even fly out from Boston, in case he might be followed. He isn't being followed. His family's paranoid, but they've never worried about that. From New York, he's going to fly to wherever. He has an assumed name. She gave it to him, and she'll have fake ID waiting for him. It's a nightmare. He couldn't use any of his credit cards, so we've been doing everything with cash, using all our cash-machine cards to make withdrawals. He's traveling with all that cash, and he's going to a strange city under an assumed name to meet his mother, and he's going to have to act like she really is his mother, so her doctor won't suspect anything, and then if everything works out, he gets to stay there for major surgery. And I'm supposed to act like this is perfectly all right. He'll call me from pay phones when he can at my office at school. Short calls, just in case the FBI gets wind of something and starts tracing my office calls. Sam's going through the worst thing in his life, and he's deliberately keeping me out of it. I wish she'd die. I wish she'd die right now, before there's any need for the surgery. I wish the FBI would find her right this very minute. I wish Sam would come to his senses, and fly back home now.” And this time when she began to cry, neither Claire nor Sybil tried to stop her.

“Maybe they won't be compatible,” Claire said. “He might have his father's blood type or whatever.”

“That's what I keep hoping,” Evvie said. “But that might be even worse for him, knowing he couldn't help. I don't know. Claire, I am so frightened. I'm more frightened than I was even in Eastgate, when I learned everything. It's like the accident. It's that kind of fear. So many things could go wrong. He might even die. And there's nothing I can do.”

“You have to tell Nicky and Megs,” Claire said. “Everything. You're too deeply involved now. They have a right to know.”

“Do you think so?” Evvie asked. “I've wanted to tell them for so long.”

“Tell them,” Claire said. “Thea, too. It's not just Sam's secret any longer. It belongs to all of us now.”

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

“I don't like this situation at all,” Meg declared the next morning over breakfast. “I was up all night worrying about Evvie and Sam.”

“They'll be fine,” Claire said, nibbling on a slice of toast. “They always get through things. That's their main strength.”

“How can you be so sure?” Thea asked. She'd come home around the same time Nick and Meg had, and got to hear the second telling of the story with them. “Sam and Evvie have never really had a rough time before. It's always been easy for them.”

“The accident wasn't easy,” Claire said.

“They were hardly around for that,” Thea replied. “Sam left the next day, and Evvie didn't stay home much longer. I love them both, but they're one of those golden couples that nothing bad ever happens to.”

“Unlike you and Kip,” Claire said.

“We buried his sister together,” Thea said. “I'd say that was rough.”

“Will you both calm down,” Nick said. “I don't care for squabbling this early in the morning.”

Sybil didn't care for squabbling at all. She still felt raw from the day before. It was odd how much Sam's anger continued to bother her. She knew now he hadn't been angry at her, but his words still stung.
Damn sisters
.
They don't belong
. When Sam had his crisis of the soul, he immediately rejected the family he'd loved, or seemed to love, for close to six years.

“I hate to think what Evvie's going through,” Meg declared. “So many things could go wrong. Oh, Sam will probably breeze through the surgery, if he has it, and his mother obviously knows how to escape detection. But there are so many risks, and Evvie must feel so desperately shut out.” Almost instinctively, she reached out for Nick, who took her hand and clasped it between his own.

“They'll be fine,” Claire said. “Sam's been dealing with this situation one way or another most of his life. He has his own tricks for escaping detection.”

“That reminds me,” Nick said. “How is it you've known for so long now, and you never told us?”

“I found out at Christmas two years ago,” Claire replied. “There were other things going on. Sam's mother never came up in conversation.”

“That's not an answer,” Nick said.

“Nicky's right,” Meg declared. “You should have told us, Claire. This is a family matter, and we had every right to be informed.”

“It was Sam's secret,” Claire said. “Not everybody has to know everything for this family to function. As a matter of fact, some things are best left unknown. I only found out because Aunt Grace told me. Have we forgotten how free she could be with secrets?”

“All right, Claire, that's enough,” Meg said, and Sybil once again had that uncomfortable sensation of being outside the family. She could see Thea was puzzled, too. At first that relieved her: Thea was outside things as well. But then Sybil got angry. Nobody ever told Thea things. Sybil was different. She was harder. She was as hard as Claire, who seemed to know everything.

And how was it that Claire, who made a point of circling in her own orbit, did know all these secrets? And why was it that Claire, who had shared everything with Sybil from measles to her deepest longings, had kept so many secrets from her? Sybil was starting to worry just how many secrets there might be.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Thea said. “I don't know what anybody's talking about in this family anymore. I don't know why we're feeling so sorry for Evvie and Sam when they've both been lying to us for years now.”

“They had to lie,” Claire replied.

“You would say that,” Thea declared. “You like lying. You think it's all a game. But I thought if this family believed in anything, it was honesty.”

Claire snorted.

“With Claire as an exception, of course,” Thea continued. “But the rest of us have always been honest. There's never been any reason to lie. Whatever we've done, whoever we are, we can accept it and deal with it. Suppose we had known about Sam's mother. What difference would it have made?”