Girl in the Dark (9 page)

“Lovely fellow,” said Binnie after I had told her the whole Ray situation. “Have you figured out yet how you're related?”

We were sitting at the dining table. A mahogany antique that had been passed down in my father's family for generations. Six months after he died, his sister had asked my mother for it. It was one of her family's only surviving heirlooms, apparently. She even offered to buy my mother a new table. “Over my dead body,” my mother had snapped. There hadn't been much contact with my father's side of the family since then. Although the aunt in question
had
sent a teddy bear when Aaron was born.

“Maybe he's your brother,” said Binnie.

“No way.” But at the same time I realized how little I knew of my mother's life before she'd met my father. All I really knew was that she'd had me early in their marriage.

“Try and think. Your grandpa and grandma, let's say. Could
they
have had another child late in life?”

I tried to calculate. My grandparents had died when I was still very young.

“Write it down,” said Binnie, thorough as always.

I picked up a pen and a blank sheet of paper. “My grandma's
year of birth, I'm guessing, anywhere between 1920 and 1930. My mother was born in '48. Ray in '70 and me in '85.”

“If Ray is your uncle, your grandma would have been well in her forties when she had him. It's possible.”

“But pretty late.”

“But within the bounds of possibility, although of course we don't know the exact year your grandmother was born, so we may be barking up the wrong tree.”

“If he's my brother, my mother could have had him when she was twenty-two.”

“Totally possible.”

“He would have been around fifteen when my mother had me. Where would she have kept him all those years? Maybe he was my mother's cousin or something.”

“
I
think he's your brother,” Binnie said decidedly. She took a big gulp of wine. “Why else would your mother go to so much trouble to keep it a secret? And why be so touchy about it? Your grandparents died ages ago. Surely there must be a statute of limitations on the obligation to preserve family secrets?”

I topped off our wineglasses and took a long drink. “True, Ray could be my older brother.” I felt myself grow dizzy at the prospect.

“Let's go and look around the study.”

I giggled, the wine starting to take hold. “We can't.”

“If you have a brother, Iris, your mother has been keeping your own flesh and blood from you. You've told me often enough you were lonely growing up. I think you have every right to know the truth.”

“I don't know.”

Binnie was already on her feet. “Oh, stop acting all scared of your mother.”

“You're right,” I said.

“Do you know how to jimmy a lock?”

“Of course not.”

“Come on, you're a lawyer, aren't you?”

“And you're a journalist. So?”

“Don't tell me you've never had to break into a locked office or hidden library in order to get your hands on some secret file.”

“That only happens in the movies. Besides, I'm the most law-abiding girl in the world. Don't you know that?”

Binnie took out a hairpin and began fiddling with the lock.

“As if you'll get it open that way.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Let's find the key,” I said, finishing off the last of my wine.

My mother hadn't hidden the key to the study as thoroughly as I'd expected—probably because, living alone, she no longer had to guard against a nosy daughter or curious spouse. It was in one of the kitchen drawers, with the rubber bands, tweezers, and paper clips. It was that simple.

I turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. My heart was pounding. I had been conditioned all my life to stay out of this room.

Her study looked exactly as it had on my first and last foray some twenty years ago. The same cherrywood desk. The large armoire, which was shut. The black desk chair.

“Go on in,” whispered Binnie.

“What are you whispering for?” I stepped inside the Holy of Holies. Cautiously, as if my mother might jump out from behind the door at any moment. It smelled a bit musty, as the windows were probably seldom opened.

Binnie flung open the armoire. The shelves were groaning with files, stacks of magazines, and boxes. I pulled out a file at random
and found a pile of telephone bills from 2000. “Who the hell
saves
all this stuff?”

After half an hour of snooping, we hadn't made much headway, other than finding eight years' worth of women's magazines, two decades of household accounts, and a stack of yellowed crossword puzzle booklets.

“Doesn't your mother have any hobbies?” asked Binnie.

“Can't you see? She collects paper.” I pulled a faded blue pocket folder out from beneath a box of recipe clippings.

“Should I start on the desk?”

“Go ahead.” The folder was labeled
Ray
. I stared at the three letters for a few seconds, to make sure I wasn't seeing things. “Jesus, Binnie, take a look at this.” I opened the folder. There was nothing inside. “Oh,” I said, disappointed.

“Give it to me,” said Binnie, so I handed it to her. Opening it, she started waving it around. A photo fell out of one pocket.

I picked it up from the floor. My hands were shaking. The photo showed a boy of around five with tousled brown hair. He was sitting on a little red bike, smiling faintly.

Binnie put a hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“It's the spitting image of . . .” I began.

“Aaron!” Bennie exclaimed. “That hair, that look in his eyes, and just look at those legs!”

We both stared at the boy's skinny legs emerging from a brown pair of shorts.

“I bet he's your brother.”

I shook my head. If Ray was my brother, why had my mother kept me in the dark about him? Where had he been all those years? It just couldn't be true.

“What are you going to do?” asked Binnie. “Go visit him? He'll no longer be this young, of course, and definitely not this cute.”

“Ray B., the Monster Next Door,
” I said, more to myself than to
her. I looked at the boy in the picture again. His knee had a big bandage on it. “When or where did it all go wrong? What do you think happened?”

“I'm doing my best not to make any
unpleasant
observations about your mother right now.”

“Totally.” I stared at the photo, hoping to find some clue. But the sidewalk behind Ray's bike could have been any place. There was a bush of rose hips in the background, but that didn't tell me much more.

“It doesn't help a child's development, of course, to be abandoned. How old did you say he was by the time you were born?”

“Fifteen, I think.”

“Do you think your father knew about him?”

“No,” I said firmly, though I had no idea where that certainty came from.

“Your mother must have kicked that boy out when he was very young. There's no other explanation.”

“Maybe he was violent and unmanageable.”

“But why the secrecy? Why keep him hidden?”

“I don't know,” I said. “But I do know that I want to meet him.”

I was starting to get used to the rhythm of my new surroundings. Wake up at seven. Shower, get dressed. Breakfast, therapy, lunch, work, dinner. Lockup and lights-out at eight. I tried to be as invisible as possible. The other patients scared me. They were loud. They were nosy. They bragged about their crimes. The less attention they paid to me, the better.

The only person who really bothered me was a guy named Rembrandt. He was a short little black fellow who'd been there only three weeks, but for some reason had everyone at his beck and call in just a few days.

Whenever he walked into a room, they'd all turn around and yell out in unison, “
What's up, bro?
” With anyone else, it was just “Hey, you.”

Then he'd strut into the room, chewing gum or dangling a cigarette at the corner of his mouth. Like some cowboy sauntering into a Wild West saloon.

“What a shithole, man,” he'd say.

Even the social workers tended to leave him alone. I saw that Mo was keeping an eye on him, but he didn't say anything to me.

“So I was just talking to that fat-ass shrink, and she asks me what I'm
feeling
when I'm offing someone.”

Rembrandt flopped down on the couch. All the others crowded around him, except for Ricky and me. Ricky was sitting on the floor talking to the television, and I was standing by the window staring at the gray brick wall, my back to the others. In the window's reflection I could see what was happening in the room without having to be a part of it.

“So I say, ‘What do
you
feel when you boil an egg for breakfast?' She just looks at me like the stupid bitch she is. ‘Sugar baby,' I say, ‘that's the way to look at it. For me, wasting someone is easy, like farting or watering the plants.' ”

The other patients started to laugh, as usual.

“Me, I get horny as hell,” growled Eddie. “Nothing gives me a hard-on like putting my hands around someone's neck and giving him a good squeeze. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze until the body goes limp.” Eddie gave a little mock demonstration.

“That's enough,” said Mo. “Save it for the next time you see the shrink.”

“Sure, man, whatever you say,” said Rembrandt. “You just doing your job. Same way I used to do mine, nice and cool. You know all about that, don't you, Mo.”

The others started laughing again.

According to Hank, Rembrandt had been a hit man. He'd worked with all the top crime bosses. “He's got connections; we got to stay on his good side,” Hank had told me in the smokers' yard. Hank always asked me to go with him even though I didn't smoke. Out there, he told me what the other guys were in for. Hank himself was in for a series of aggravated assaults, Ricky had gone after his mother with an ax, and my former cellmate Eddie had a habit of raping and killing women. I had to listen to Hank's stories because I didn't have the guts to tell him he smelled bad and that I hated how he blew smoke in my face and that I was freezing in the windy courtyard.

“Yeah, you're real tough, Rembrandt,” Mo said. “But you'll learn soon enough it won't do you much good in here.”

“Is that right? Ooh, now I'm scared.” Rembrandt got up from the couch and walked slowly up to Mo until there was hardly any space between them.

I felt the hair on the nape of my neck stand on end. Even Ricky realized something was up. He stopped talking to the TV. The only sound left in the room was coming from the television set.

“You're breaking the rules,” said Mo, not twitching a muscle. “I've given you a warning. You've ignored it. So you're confined to your suite for the next forty-eight hours.”

Rembrandt stood his ground. “What rules you talking about, Mohammed? Rules that say we're just supposed to do like we're told, like a bunch of sheep? That all we can talk about is the weather, because anything else is
out of line
? That we're not even allowed any fucking porn in here, so that all of us is walking around with a full load?
That
what you getting at?” Rembrandt's arms were hanging loosely by his side. But you could tell he could lash out at any moment.

“Got
that
right,” Eddie chimed in, but no one was listening to him.

“Okay, Rembrandt, now you've gone too far. Forty-eight hours have just become seventy-two.” Jeannie must have heard the commotion, because she had come over and was standing next to Mo. She was wearing a flimsy blouse; you could see her bra. I didn't think it was the right kind of thing to wear in a place full of sex offenders.

Rembrandt turned his attention to Jeannie. “Has anyone given you a good banging lately, girl? 'Cause the way you dressing, you need it bad.”

“That's enough,” said Jeannie. “I'm calling security.”

“You do that, sugar, be my guest. Think I give a flying fuck
about spending some time in my room? Why don't you take me there yourself?”

Mo made a show of pressing the beeper attached to his belt. I heard a loud buzz and doors locking automatically.

“Shit, man!” Rembrandt grabbed Mo by the collar. “I was just messing is all. What a pussy you are.” He shook Mo from side to side with each word. The chain holding Mo's ID badge snapped and fell to the floor.

“Hey,
cool
it,” said Jeannie. She didn't sound cool at all. Her boobs were heaving up and down under her white blouse. I couldn't keep my eyes off them. “Let go of him, or you're in serious trouble.”

“Stay out of it, bitch.” He let go of Mo and it looked as if Jeannie was next. I turned around. If I'd had the guts, I would have rushed to Jeannie's aid.

At that moment the doors opened and six guards stormed inside, brandishing clubs.

Ricky began wailing loudly. “They've come for me! Don't take me! Don't take me!”

“They ain't after
you,
stupid,” snarled Eddie.

Rembrandt was seized and handcuffed by two of the guards. The whole time he was yelling terrible stuff. About God and Mo's mother's cunt and how “You're all getting it in the ass.”

The guards dragged him away. Just before they pushed Rembrandt violently out through the doors, he suddenly glared at me. I looked around. I was the only one standing on the far side of the room.

“I'm going to get you! I'm going to get you!” He was screaming so loud that his voice cracked. I'm not even sure if he was really looking at me or at the gray brick wall. All I know is it scared the shit out of me.

“There goes our great connection.” Hank walked up to me. “He'll be in the cooler for a nice long time.”

I didn't answer him. Why did Rembrandt have it in for me, the way everyone always seemed to have it in for me in the end? I couldn't think of a reason. Had I missed the signals, as usual?

I had discussed this with the shrink back at the Mason Home. He had shown me pictures of faces. I had to tell him if the people in the pictures were happy, angry, or frightened. Later on he'd added startled, relieved, sarcastic, and incredulous. The last three were hard. I still wasn't very good at telling which was which. You can never be totally sure. You can't just ask someone, “Is the emotion you are feeling right now relief?”

Mo rearranged his collar and Jeannie had tears in her eyes. She was sad, that was easy to tell. Everyone was just standing around. What were we supposed to do? Should we just go back to our usual activities?

“Back to your suites,” said Mo. “We're all going to cool off for a while.”

We walked to our cells. Nobody was joking. There wasn't even any grumbling. There was a buzzing sound and the doors locked. I stood in my empty cell and thought about how good it would have felt if the fish had been there waiting for me.

“Hey, Raynus,” I heard Eddie shout. “Your little girlfriend, the bitch you're so sweet on, she almost got it good, didn't she.”

I walked into the shower stall, sat down on the closed toilet seat, and put my hands over my ears. “Saturn, Maria, Hannibal, François, Margie, Peanut, Venus, and Raisin. And King Kong. We mustn't ever forget King Kong.”