The Truth Commission (16 page)

I got this unseemly jolt of triumph at the sight of it.

“This is awesome, Brian,” I said, sounding every inch the person who should be writing bad children's television.

And then, like I knew him much better than I did, I said, “I'm really proud of you.”

He turned his head to look at me, his face suddenly softening. His neck was thin. “Don't get your hopes too high,” he said. “I'm not.”

I stared out at the ferry terminal. Lights shone through the small portholes, but I couldn't see anyone moving inside.

“About what I said before,” said Brian. “The last time we had one of our little talks.”

I went still.

“I'm sorry. It's not my business about what goes on in your house. With your family.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Forget I said anything. I should go. There's probably a drug test waiting for me at home. Peanut butter sandwich, glass of milk, and a piss test.”

“Don't get them mixed up,” I said. And the obviousness of my avoidance and the ease with which I could be turned away from the topic made me ashamed.

“Same to you,” he said, pushing himself up.

“You going to use that card?”

“Jesus, if I close my eyes, I could pretend my mother was here.”

“Sorry.”

“You're a nice girl, Normandy Pale.”

No one had ever said that to me before, either. I liked it.

“You're a good guy, Brian Forbes.”

“But it's more complicated than that, isn't it?” he said.

It was my turn to make the snort-y noise. “Ain't that the truth.”

We got up and smiled at each other. His eyes were lovely, and I was reminded of a line in book I read once, that God exists in the spaces between people.
96
Maybe that's what the Truth Commission was. An attempt to find God in each other.

The dull day seemed to grow bright around us, and then Brian took his smile and walked away, and I already missed him.

Teacher, Teacher

The sense of having found God in someone else only lasted until I got out of the park. In the blocked-off entrance to the back parking lot of the strip mall was . . . an empty piece of pavement that should have been covered up with my truck. Nancy had been towed.

I muttered a swear and started walking. I could have called my parents or Dusk or Neil, but I didn't feel like it. The walk took about forty-five minutes, and by the time I reached our house I felt better. Keira's Crown Vic was gone. Nancy would be fine in the impound. She'd spent the night there before. One good thing about having a peculiar and fragile family is that things that matter in a regular family, like having your vehicle towed, are considered inconsequential.

Having my small transgressions overlooked had always worked for me, but the past few days had made me bold. Direct. I'd looked truth up the nose a few times and it hadn't killed me or anyone else. Instead, it had given me a rush, shaken me up, unsettled and exhilarated me. I didn't think I could go back to tiptoeing. I wanted to stomp around our house like a Lord of the Dance troupe in an uncontrolled frenzy.

My dad was in the kitchen making vegetarian chili.
Quelle surprise!

“Norm,” he said. “You're late. What's going on? I didn't hear Nancy.”

“Stalled,” I said.

“Oh, that girl,” said my dad. “Good thing she's a looker, or we wouldn't put up with her.”

“Good thing,” I agreed. “Chili tonight?”

“Yes, indeed!” he said. “Got this new recipe. Includes salsa, if you can believe it.”

“That's amazing,” I said even though it wasn't, particularly.

“You want to set the table?”

I went to the cupboard and pulled out four plates. Plain plates. Ones without our faces on them.

It occurred to me that setting a place for Keira was screwed up, so I put one back.

“Your sister's home.” My dad paused to taste from a giant spoon containing what looked to be a single kernel of corn coated in chili sauce. “I think she's sleeping. Been burning the midnight kerosene at both ends,” he said. “Set a place for her just in case she wakes up.”

“Dad, can you even remember the last time Keira ate at the table with us?”

He turned back to the giant pot and didn't answer.

“When did she get home?” I asked.

He stared at the recipe book, which was one of the cheap ones without any of the photographs that make a recipe book worth having.

“Not sure, Normandy. I'm making chili.” As though that had anything to do with anything. “Let's get things ready. Your mom will be home any minute. She had a hair appointment after work.”

It was rare for my mom to do any kind of self-care, and I knew he didn't want to ruin her afterglow.

But something had gotten into me, and I put out the three plates and then added three plain spoons and three plain butter knives and three water glasses.

My dad looked at the table settings, but didn't comment that we were short one place, or that I hadn't used any Dianaware.

I went to my room to get changed. I could tell Keira wasn't in the closet, because my room was absolutely still and calm and no light leaked out the narrow gap at the bottom of the door. My sister is one of those people who can change the entire atmosphere of a room just by her presence, even if that presence is tucked away in a closet.

My bed was neatly made and my desk was bare except for my magnifying glass clamped to the side of my desk like a clumsy bird of prey. My big laptop was closed. One wall was lined with neat plastic bins of embroidery thread, and photos of Dusk and Neil and me surrounded my old mirror. A handmade paper kimono I made last year hung above my bed, and one of Dusk's shadow box sculptures sat on a floating shelf on another wall.

A strange and restless defiance moved in me and I guess that's what made me open the closet door. As I'd expected, Keira wasn't inside. The shock was that her sketchbook
was
. I recoiled at the sight of it lying on top of her lap desk. Usually, my sister kept that book clutched to her chest like an attaché case containing the red button.
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I stared at it.

Like the coward I am, I edged to the door on her side of the space and listened. Total silence. I picked up the heavy pad and carried it into my room, my heart thudding in my chest.

The first pages were all drawings of the same man. Twenties, handsome face, disheveled hair, half smile. Dimples.

I felt like I'd stolen her diary. I guess I sort of had.

In one image, he stood at the front of what appeared to be a classroom. Keira had drawn tiny handwriting on the whiteboard. The man was in midsentence. The drawing was hasty but full of urgent accuracy. Keira's strengths as an artist are many, but she's particularly good at people.

Some pages were covered in three or four portraits of the man's face. Each one made me want to look deep inside him. A full-page illustration showed him at a desk, head down, reading.

She'd captured his face in so many iterations that he seemed almost alive and moving from image to image. Then came the extreme close-up. It was done in ink and the perspective was off.

I realized why. His face was shown from below, putting the viewer beneath him. The man was almost unrecognizable, his face twisted.

“What the . . .” I whispered as I stared at the drawing.

It was the work of a superb illustrator, and something about it was terrible. It was the face every woman is afraid to see.

With a growing dread I turned the next page and saw a drawing that made me go even colder.

This one showed the man falling from a great height. His face, tiny now, was still twisted, but this time with fear.

What the hell
were
these?

Keira's stories always started in the drawing pads. But this wasn't a story. It was a series of increasingly disturbing portraits of the man who had assaulted her.

I checked the front of the pad. Maybe this wasn't the right one. But I'd seen her carrying it around the house. The top corner was folded and frayed.

Slowly, I carried it back to the closet and placed it on her lap desk in the exact position I'd found it, backed out of the closet, and shut the door.

xxxxx

When my dad called, I went to dinner. He'd reset the table for four, with full Dianaware: tablecloth
and
place mats, cutlery, salt- and pepper shakers, plates. I ate the vegetarian chili. The salsa was a nice touch.

Keira didn't join us. My mom's hair shone in the bright kitchen lights.

When we were done, I cleaned up.

I sat and did embroidery under my magnifier for a few hours, and then I went to bed. My eyes, tired from staring at stitches, were drooping when Keira opened the closet door.

“I forgot my drawing pad,” she said.

My breath grew ragged and shallow.

I didn't know whether to be relieved or upset when she came out of the closet and climbed onto my bed. “Can you switch on the light?” she whispered.

It occurred to me that she didn't need a light to lie on my bed and tell me things I wasn't sure I wanted to hear. But I turned the lamp on anyway.

“Did you look?” she asked simply.

“Yes.”

“So you know.”

Did I know? I guessed I did.

“Those pictures, they're of your teacher. The one you went hiking with.”

“Jackson Reid.”

I waited.

“I thought he liked me,” she said. “But when we went to the hiking cabin, he . . .”

“I'm so sorry,” I said.

I could feel small jerking movements on the huge mattress, and I thought she might be crying. Her face was buried in the hood of her sleeping bag and hidden in the shadows. Just the shine of her eyes reached me.

“l feel so stupid,” she said after she'd gotten control of her voice.

Seeing my sister, so odd and oblivious to normal human interactions, hurt like this was too much for me and I started to cry, too. Unlike Keira, I couldn't do it quietly. My sobs were loud and wet and messy and I kept wiping my sopping eyes with the sleeve of my long T-shirt and the blanket.

“Have you told anyone?” I asked, knowing that she hadn't. She hadn't even mentioned the affair, if that's what it was, before it took a violent turn.

“I was just so shocked. I never expected him to . . . do that.”

That set me off again. I felt kind of stupid that I was crying harder than she was, but I couldn't stop myself. All the tension of the past few months was coming out, whether I liked it or not.

“Are you going to tell anyone?” I asked when I had regained a tiny sliver of control.

“No!”
Her voice was vehement. “It would ruin me. I'd always be that girl who got raped by her teacher. I'm already strange.”

I would have protested that she wasn't strange. That no one would think the fact that she'd been assaulted was her fault. But my sister
was
strange. And she was famous. Whether they blamed her or not, people would be fascinated.

“What about a teacher? You could talk to someone at G. P. Our new guidance counselor is really good.”
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Keira snorted. “I don't think so. This is a little beyond the Art Farm's capabilities.”

The image of the final drawing in the book rose in my mind like a specter. I wanted to ask about it. But I didn't. I didn't. I couldn't.

I could feel my face working as I considered what to do and what to say. I knew I looked ugly in that moment. I knew she was watching me. Nothing was ever simple with my sister watching.

“Just telling you about it has helped. Drawing and talking. Those things are good medicine. You're good medicine, Norm,” she said. And I felt that old thrill. My sister trusted me. She'd told me about the affair. Now she'd told me about the terrible thing that had happened. About the worst betrayal possible. Her trust had to mean something. But I wasn't sure I could handle it.

Then, astonishingly, my sister fell asleep on my bed.

A Classic Story

Why did I call Sylvia? I guess because when I woke up to find Keira gone, my brain immediately started looking for someplace to put the load of bad news she'd left with me the night before. I was in no way equipped to deal with something this serious. What if he did it again to someone else? I had a duty to report it. Sylvia was an experienced and worldly person. She was used to dealing with problems, even really big ones. After all, she worked with artists. If anyone would know how to help my sister, it would be her.

People might wonder why I didn't tell my parents. All I can do is repeat that they are not truth handlers or reality dealers.

I texted Neil and Dusk and told them I was going to be late and they should drive themselves to school. I managed to wait until 8:30 a.m. and then I called Sylvia. Her assistant answered. He sounded like he spent the first few minutes of the morning sucking on helium balloons.

“I'm calling for Sylvia,” I said.

“She's in a meeting right now. Who may I say is calling, please?”

“Normandy Pale.”

“Oh,” he said, unmoved by that information.

“Keira Pale's sister.”

Silence.

“One moment, please.”

A shuffling sound. Then the same complaining cat voice came back on the line.

“Can I take a message?”

“If you could just tell her that Normandy called.”

“Uh-huh. So that's Normandy Pale? Keira Pale's sister?”

I'd never called an agent before. I thought they were supposed to have efficient, powerhouse assistants. This one sounded like one of Mary Norton's Borrowers.

I confirmed the details and hung up. The phone rang when it was still in my hand.

“Normandy! You never call! You never write! It's so great to hear from you, honey. What's up this fine morning?”

“Other than the voice of your assistant?” I said, because I try and be clever when I speak to Sylvia. Sometimes I even pretend that she's my agent. God, I'm so sad sometimes.

“Kevin?” she said. “He's the grandnephew of the head of the agency. He's eleven. It's Nepotism Day or something, so he's being my assistant.”

“Oh,” I said. “I'd like to get in on that sometime.” I was not entirely joking.

“Absolutely. When there's a Long-Distance Nepotism Day, you're the first person I'll call.” I could hear her attention wander, the way it always did when she spoke more than a few sentences to me that weren't about my sister.

“Look, I don't want to be inappropriate or—”

“Never!” she interrupted. “Just let 'er rip.”

“We're—I mean, I'm a little concerned about Keira,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, her voice rising until she sounded a bit like her eleven-year-old assistant.

“She goes out a lot,” I started. “Since she came home from school.”

As I spoke, I knew I was taking the long and winding road to get to the point. But I couldn't just blurt it out. Before I went any further, Sylvia cut in.

“Probably just enjoying her new place. I know you're used to having her around and that she likes to work in your shared closet? Isn't that right? God, I love that detail. It just blows people away. But you've got to give her space to change. Grow.”

“New place?”

“And now that she's paid off your parents' house and made so many other changes in her life, it's natural that things will change. Dynamics shifting all over the place. I'm talking tectonic movement here.”

“What?” I said, every inch the dimwit.

“Your parents didn't tell you?”

To say “what?” again would make me sound even dumber than I felt, so I squeaked out a reply in a voice so small not even a Borrower could have heard me.

“When Keira decided to sell the option to Diana, it all happened in a rush,” continued Sylvia. “She was so excited to renew our agreement. We've worked together for so long. She felt bad about our little breakup. Then the first thing she planned to do was to go to the bank and surprise your folks by paying off the mortgage. She's wanted to do that for a while. Your parents have worked so hard to support her. And you've been a big support, too, obviously. The three of you have been such good sports about the stories. When I think of them slaving away delivering the mail and operating a horse-drawn milk truck or whatever it is. God, it's such a classic story.”

“I—” I felt like a fish flapping on the deck of a boat. What the hell was she talking about?

“How thrilled were your parents when she told them?”

Suddenly, it seemed important to play along. Pretend I had the smallest clue what she was talking about. “They were surprised,” I said.

“Thanks to my persuasiveness the production company was willing to send part of the money as soon as she signed. Half of mid-six figures is no joke. Usually, it would take much longer to get the money in hand. I was shocked the mortgage on that place was still so high,” she said. “And your school must cost a fortune. No one's going to be going to your dad to ask for financial-planning advice. Well, no worries. You are all going to be well taken care of. Now what was it you wanted to talk about?”

The distraction was fogging up her voice again.

“Nothing. I just wanted to . . . nothing.”

“Normandy, honey. You tell that sister of yours to call me as soon as the new book is ready for me to look at. I'm going to time the announcement of the option deal to coincide with the announcement of the pub date of her new project. Wham, wham! At first I didn't want to delay the option announcement, but now I see the possibilities. Keira was smart to make us wait.”

“Right,” I said.

Then Sylvia hung up and left me wishing someone would just bash me in the head and get it over with.