The Girl I Used to Be (15 page)

I bring it back to Nora. “Frank told me he keeps finding red roses on Naomi's grave. This must be one of them.”

“Maybe it's from one of your mother's old admirers,” Nora says.

I go still inside. “What did you say?”

Nora looks at me for a long time. Finally, I'm the one who has to look away.

She touches my shoulder. “Oh, honey, I've known for a while now.”

“Did you see me take that Halloween photo of me and my parents?” I still can't look at her.

Her tone is colored with warmth. “I saw you.” I turn to look into her kind face. “Really saw you. Anyone with eyes in their head would see you were Terry and Naomi's daughter. I should have spotted it the first day, no matter what you said your name was.”

“My name really is Olivia now.” Even though I've lied to everyone, it stings a little that she thinks I lied to her. “The lady who adopted me changed my name.”

“Does she know you're here?”

I'm not sure Tamsin even knows I'm alive. “The adoption didn't last. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. But I want to find out the truth about who killed my parents. I'm starting to figure things out, but people will stop talking if they know who I am.” I take a deep breath. “What was she like? Naomi, I mean?”

“She was a smart girl. Kind. A good mother. She read to you, and she loved to make you laugh. Your parents always loved you, even if they didn't always love each other. And I think they did love each other. They were just young.”

“I never even got to know her. To know them. Talk to them.” My throat closes with tears. “Why didn't the killer take me, too? They might as well have.” The shell I've built up in layers around myself over the years has developed too many cracks.

“But you're still standing.” She takes my warm hand in her cold one.

We start down the hill. Two men are at the bottom. One is riding a kid's bike that's way too small for him. The other blows his nose into the dirt, which is beyond disgusting, then wipes it on the sleeve of his heavy coat. They both look homeless.

My shoulders hunch. Nora, tottering along in her knockoff Keds, looks like the perfect victim. Neither of us is carrying a purse, but that probably won't stop them. I'm sure they'll ask for money. Or demand it.

We haven't seen anyone else since the woman with her dog. I scan the rest of the cemetery, but it's empty. Even if I were to shout for help, the houses are too far away. I have to be ready to protect Nora. To put myself between them and her.

Nora's been watching her feet, but now she lifts her head, just as the two men notice us.

This is it. I exhale and tense my muscles.

“Benjy!” Nora shouts, waving.

“Flora Nora!” The guy in the heavy coat lopes up to us and gives her a hug. He's got a ruddy face and red hair. I recognize him from the funeral.

“Who's your friend?” she asks him, but the other guy is already riding away from us. And Benjy doesn't answer.

“Benjy, this is Olivia,” Nora says, undeterred. “She just moved in next door. Olivia, this is my friend Benjy.” The two of them—the age-spotted old woman and the man whose slack mouth has more holes than teeth—don't belong together. At least not in my head. But in hers, it's clear they do.

She still has her arm around his waist, but he's not looking at me. Instead, he's staring at the rose in my hand. This close, his sunburned face is familiar. I flash back on the red-haired guy in the yearbook photo of my parents and their friends. Now I see the resemblance between this dirty, homeless man and that boy.

“You're Ben Gault, aren't you?” I ask.

He doesn't answer, but his eyes go wide. Pulling free from Nora, he turns and begins to run away.

 

CHAPTER 32

A BROKEN STAGGER

“Ben!” I shout. “Hey, wait a minute! Benjy! Can I please just talk to you?”

He keeps running. “I'll be right back,” I tell Nora, and then sprint after him. In his heavy coat and falling-apart shoes, he's not very fast.

Finally, he stops and turns toward me with his hands up. He's trembling. “I'm not hurting anything.”

“It's okay. Don't be frightened. It's just that I saw you at Terry Weeks's funeral, and I want to ask you a couple of questions. You're Ben Gault, right?”

He shakes his head. “The guy whose name's on my birth certificate is dead.”

I blink. “But you
are
Ben Gault, right? You were friends with Terry Weeks and Naomi Benson?”

“Ben Gault, that's just a noise.” His hands fall loose by his sides. “A sound. It doesn't mean anything. Of course, the government comes looking for Ben every now and then, but that's okay. I no longer have anything to hide. I don't steal. I don't even beg. I feel the eyes on me, though.” He makes a V with two fingers, points it at me, and then turns to tap it on his forehead. “I hear people talking about me.” The whites of his eyes are the only clean-looking part of his face. “That's why I have the earplugs. So I can sleep at night. But the voices sneak in anyway.”

He's clearly off. Mentally ill? Asperger's? On drugs? But he doesn't seem dangerous, and Nora considers him a friend. And he might know something about my mom. “Can I just ask you something? About Naomi?”

His eyes narrow. “Don't look at me with those please-help-me eyes. Out here, you can't be all nicey-nicey.”

I hold out the rose. “Did you leave this at Naomi's grave?”

“I didn't steal it.”

“I believe you. But why did you leave it?”

“She listens to me.”

The present tense makes me shiver. I repeat what Frank told me. “I heard that you talk to her gravestone.”

“I don't talk to her gravestone.” His laugh is gently mocking. “I talk to Naomi. You think the dead don't hear? You think they don't talk back? Nora knows what I'm talking about.”

A sudden odd hope fills me. What if he's right? When I leaned down to pick up the rose, if I had listened hard enough, would I have heard my mom's voice? What would she have said?

“What does she tell you?” I ask, but Benjy just looks at me blankly. “What does Naomi say to you?”

The light is gone from his eyes now. “The dead leave you alone, unknown, bones, no phones, rolling stones. Only there
is
moss.”

His words make a kind of strange sense, even down to the moss. Many of the words chiseled on the old headstones have been filled in by lichen. “So Naomi doesn't say anything to you?”

“She knows I'll be there soon.”

I flinch. “Don't say that. You're still young.” He doesn't look young, though. The dirt ground into his face emphasizes the lines on his forehead, around his eyes, bracketing his mouth. Maybe street years are like dog years.

A puzzled look comes over his face, and he takes a step closer. Involuntarily, I step back, but then he takes two, until he's nearly close enough to kiss me. He smells like sweat and pee and mothballs, like something forgotten, rotting in a greenhouse.

“Naomi?” He tilts his head so far to the side it looks like it will come off his neck.

He's not asking a question about her. He's asking a question
of
me.

He thinks I'm my mom.

“No, my name's Olivia. Naomi's dead.”

“Naomi!” He grabs my hand so hard the bones grind together. It's all I can do not to pull away. “I'm sorry,” he says. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”

I force out the words. “What are you sorry for, Benjy?”

“You know.” He looks away, breaking eye contact. His mouth curls down at the corners as if he's going to cry.

“I don't. Tell me. Tell me what happened to Naomi. Tell me.” I have to swallow before I can go on. “Tell me what happened to me.”

“After, I looked for you.”

I interpret. “You were one of the people who looked for evidence. After”—I can't bring myself to say
my
—“the body was found.”

“We were out in the woods, the woods, the trees were watching, so I watched, too. And I saw—I saw.”

“What did you see?” Which
we
is he talking about? Is he saying he was with my parents when it happened? Or does he mean the search?

He looks past me with unfocused eyes. “In the daytime, when I go outside, I used to show my friends what they hadn't seen before. Like the hello, see you later, like the halo, when I was twenty, when I began preaching the truth.” With his free hand, he points above my head. “See, the light which is your halo.” He leans closer, and his sour breath washes over me. “You know, aura. That's why everyone can't see that. If you, if you got some of the drugs, maybe you can see, maybe you can't.” His face twists with anguish. “I know what I saw. Everyone knows what they see. But I don't know what's for real or not.”

“What did you see, Benjy?” My blood chills. “What did you see?”

“Orange trucks suffer. Snow blood dogs hand in glove”—he looks up from our linked hands to me—“run. They say run!” He lets go, turns, and begins to run again, a broken stagger.

I watch him go, feeling as if I've been underwater, drowning, and now I've come back up for air. Come back to reality.

I realize I should never have left Nora alone. What if she's fallen while I've been gone? Had a heart attack? What if the other homeless guy has come back for her? I break into a run.

I find her sitting on a bench. It's a relief to see that her color is better.

“Sorry I left you.”

“You took off like your hair was on fire. How do you know Benjy? What did you want to ask him?”

“He was friends with my parents, and Frank says he talks to my mom's tombstone. I tried to ask him about it, but he didn't make much sense. About all I understood was that maybe he saw something in the woods back then. Or thinks he did.”

“He may not know, himself,” Nora says. “He's gone in and out of reality for years. At least the reality we understand. To him, it's always real.”

Where does the truth lie? Is Benjy terrified by what he saw? By what he imagines he saw?

Or could it even be by what he did?

 

CHAPTER 33

THE GIRL I USED TO BE

The day is just beginning to cool off as I head home to get ready for the party at Duncan's house. After a quick shower, I dress in cutoffs and the white peasant blouse I got at Goodwill and put on Nora's necklace again. I've been wearing it every day. She told me earlier that she doesn't have the energy to go to the barbecue tonight.

Since it's only six blocks away, I decide to walk, and I text Duncan that I'm on my way. Carrying a bowl of grapes, I set off down the hill, past the old cemetery. Soon the mouthwatering smell of grilled meat fills the air. The street is full of cars, and the yard is full of people.

Duncan steps out on the porch. When he sees me, his face lights up and he waves. I remind myself that we are only pretending to be boyfriend and girlfriend. I weave around clumps of people, recognizing some faces from the memorial. Stephen Spaulding, the police chief, is deep in conversation with Sam. His black pants and polo shirt still look like a uniform.

The house is lived in and comfortable, with hardwood floors, a well-used leather couch, and books everywhere. In the kitchen, Duncan's mom is digging in the fridge but straightens up when she sees us. She's dressed in jeans and a sleeveless top. Her feet are bare.

“Nice to see you again, Olivia.” I feel her eyes measuring me before she turns to her son. “Hey, Duncan, I was sure we had a new bottle of ketchup. Have you seen it?”

He shakes his head.

I hold out the bowl of grapes. “Where should I put these? They're already washed.”

“That was sweet of you! The food goes in the backyard, which is where all the kids are hanging out.” She turns to Duncan. “Although I guess you guys are a little too old to run through the sprinkler or toss the beanbag.”

“You're never too old to cornhole,” says a man holding a spatula as he comes in through the sliding glass door. His dark hair is cut close to his scalp, and his eyes are such a pale gray they're almost silver. I only need to look from him to Duncan to know it's his dad.

He sticks out his hand, which is covered with dozens of tiny cuts in various stages of healing. “Hi. I'm Gregg. With three
G
s. Which can be confusing to some people.”

I hold up my bowl of grapes as an excuse not to shake hands. I need to be careful that neither of his parents notices my scar. “Hi, Gregg with three
G
s. I'm Olivia with a bunch of vowels.”

He grins. “Good thing neither of us is a Scrabble word.”

“Olivia just moved into the house Terry's wife used to live in,” Duncan says.

“You mean Terry's girlfriend? Naomi Benson?” he asks. “Naomi and Terry were never married.”

“Yeah, Naomi's house,” I say. “Hers and her mother's.” I don't mention me. “Did you know them well?”

Gregg takes a second spatula from a crock on the counter. “Audrey knew Naomi better than I did. Terry used to live next door with his dad, so the three of us went hunting together a few times.” He hands the spatula to Duncan. “Can you come help me out at the grill? Everyone's ready for round two.”

As they leave, Audrey says, “Naomi and Terry's little girl used to play with Duncan.”

I want to keep the focus on my parents, not on the girl I used to be. I steer the conversation back around. “What was Naomi like?”

“She was pretty. Quiet. Smart.” As she speaks, she opens the refrigerator again and leans in, shuffling containers and bottles. “When she got pregnant, she started knitting all these little booties and sweaters.” Her voice is muffled. “Terry was more a life-of-the-party type guy. When they said he killed her, we didn't want to believe it, but then again, you never want to believe stuff like that.”