I Am No One You Know (29 page)

Once you lived on the lake, people said, all that empty space to look out on, you never wanted to live anywhere else.

As Henry approached Olcott Beach on the county highway, Crista was beginning to see that things were wrong. Not right. A boarded-up gas station, a run-down Days Inn. Businesses along the highway didn’t look very prosperous. Where was the Tastee-Freez stand? Where were the summer residents? Crista said guardedly, “Maybe—we shouldn’t be here.”

For a long moment Henry didn’t reply, as if he too were disoriented. Then he said, with an older brother’s annoying insouciance, “Where else? Where else should we be?”

“That isn’t the point.” Crista was becoming nervous. Children on bicycles were pedaling on the wrong side of the highway, very near
the right fender of Henry’s car. She saw no sign of the Ferris wheel. The roller coaster. Unless the amusement park was in the other direction, and she’d forgotten.

Well, the old school was still there: Olcott Elementary. Weather-worn and drab but still there, on the corner of…

Their old road, Post Road, running parallel to the lake, was still just gravel and dirt, unpaved. But there was a trailer park on a stretch of what had been vacant land, about a block from the beach. And the beach at this end of town, what Crista could see of it, was looking badly eroded.

This was the poorer side of Olcott. The larger houses and summer cottages were in the other direction. Post Road hadn’t prospered in the intervening years. Far from being built up and developed, as Crista had dreaded, it was becoming derelict. A number of the cottages were boarded-up, abandoned.
FOR SALE
signs looked as if they’d been stuck in the ground for years.

Crista said, for Henry’s benefit, “It’s the economy. We’re in a recession upstate. There aren’t any jobs.”

Henry protested, “But it’s the
lake.
Look at the
view.
”

Their house. The “winterized” cottage. Someone had added a carport and painted the clapboards dark green, but this hadn’t been recent, for the paint was peeling and the roof looked rotted. There was a gas drum behind the kitchen area, badly rusted. There was a pile of debris. Broken things. “It’s empty,” Henry said, relieved.

Locked up, the windows sealed over with duct tape and polyethylene sheeting. Crista said, with lawyerly attentiveness, “It isn’t for sale, though. I don’t see a sign.”

She was trying to speak calmly. This was an ordinary conversation they were having.

Henry parked the car. Neither made a move to get out.

Henry said, “Here we are.”

Henry said, making an effort not to sound accusing, “Strange—you never came back here, Crissie. When you live so close.”

“Albany isn’t close. Albany is all the hell away across the state.”

All the hell. Away across the state.
Crista was shocked, she never spoke like this.

They got out. No one was near. In the distance, children were
shouting. Though the wind on the lake was picking up, and white caps were visible, still there were sailboats some distance from shore. But no one on the ravaged beach below the road. Cottages adjacent to their old cottage appeared to be in no better condition. Crista breathed in the fresh air, hoping to clear her head. She was having difficulty breathing, as if tiny seeds or bits of lint had accumulated in her lungs.

Henry said, pointing. “The old TV antenna.”

“It wouldn’t be ours. After so long.”

“Why not? I bet it is.”

Crista was tempted to peer through a window. But the ugly plastic sheeting was a deterrent. “The carport is new, though.”

“No. Dad built that carport.”

“He did? He…I don’t think so.”

“We kept our bikes under it. You had a, what do you call it, a little kid’s bike, three wheels…”

“Tricycle.”

“Right. And my bike, we kept back here.”

The carport had no foundation, only just chunky gravel through which weeds had grown. At the rear of the carport was another mound of debris including sheets of plasterboard sprouting nails. Needlessly Crista said, “No car. They’re not home.”

“They haven’t been home for a while. See the crap in the mailbox.”

It was on the floor of the sagging porch, too. Waterstained advertising fliers, torn brochures. Henry stepped cautiously onto the porch, which creaked beneath his weight. Beneath the porch was a narrow, shadowy space. Crista was remembering that space: as a child, she’d crawled under the porch. She’d peered out from the shadows into the bright sunshine. She’d seen the feet and bare legs of adults.
Crissie? Where are you?

Before Crista could prevent him, Henry tried the door of the cottage. Luckily, it was locked. He said, “This was where it began. Just inside the door. He’d just come home. It was late. She came to unlock the door because she’d locked it against him, he was yelling at her to let him in. He was drunk. I was still in bed, I didn’t see him get the
hammer from the closet. Or maybe he brought it in from outside. The carport.”

Crista said, “There wasn’t any carport. It didn’t exist.”

“Or out of a drawer. In the kitchen. He had it.” Henry paused, stroking his straggly beard. His voice was strangely thrilled, tremulous. “I heard her scream before she was hit. Because she knew what was going to happen.”

Crista said, “No. She struck him first. She had the hammer. I saw.”

Henry stared at her.
“You
saw? How?”

“I was awake. I was watching. I heard the car. I heard him calling for the door to be unlocked.”

“
I
was awake, I was standing behind Mom. You weren’t even out of bed.”

“She struck him first. She had the hammer, out of the closet. She had it ready, she had it raised, when he broke the door in.”

“He didn’t break the door. It was just the screen door.”

“The screen door. It was latched, and he kicked it in.”

“But he had the hammer, Crista. He came in with it. She was wearing just a nightgown. A short nightgown, with lace straps. She was afraid of him. She’d been on the phone with somebody, then she’d gone to bed. We were all in bed. You were sleeping when it began, you were just a baby.”

“Oh, no. I saw it.” Crista stepped onto the porch and took hold of the screen door and shook it. The screen was badly rusted. Both the screen door and the inner door were locked. “She was awake, and waiting for him. She’d been drinking, too. Nobody wanted to say, how our mother drank. It was just beer, but she drank. She’d been on the phone with somebody she knew, some man. You never knew, but I knew. I’d seen them together. They’d meet places, like at the 7-Eleven. Nobody wanted to say, afterward. She’d been crying, carrying on. When he came home, she came at him with the hammer. She hit him, he got it away from her—”

“Crissie, you’re wrong. You never saw that.”

“He wrenched the hammer out of her hand, because she was going to kill him. He got it from her—”

“It wasn’t like that, God damn it. He dragged her outside. He had
the hammer, and he dragged her outside and was hitting her. She was already screaming. She broke away from him, and he chased her down onto the beach. She was barefoot, in just her nightgown. He tore it off her. I saw.”

“
I
saw. I was awake, and I was watching. She had the hammer, he took it from her. She said things to him. She provoked him. She laughed at him, she was always laughing at him. She wanted to kill him.”

“He was the one who was drunk. He’d come home drunk.”

“She was drunk. He swung at her, to scare her off. He didn’t mean to hit her.”

Henry laughed angrily. “Of course he meant to hit her! He’d hit her plenty of times before. He hit me, and he even hit you. For wetting the bed.”

“He did not. My father never touched me.”

“Lots of times he did. It wasn’t just her and me.”

“He loved me. He loved me best.”

“Maybe he did. So what! He was a drunk, and he was an asshole, and I’m glad he killed himself, he should have killed himself a long time before. Mom was the one who tried to protect us.”

“She provoked him. There was this man who’d come over, when Daddy was away…”

“They were all friends. There were lots of people. They drank out on the beach. They were young.”

Crista, stepping from the porch, was demonstrating the hammer swing. There was no hammer in her hand but she could see it, and she could feel its weight. Henry was staring at her as if he could see it, too. Crista said, “Like this! She came at him swinging. She came at him, like this.”

Crista swung the invisible claw hammer back behind her head, and over, in a swift deadly arc. Henry leapt out of the way of the blow.

“Crista! You’re crazy.”

“Because I didn’t see what you saw? I know what I saw.”

“You saw nothing. You were back inside the house.
I
saw.”

“I saw her swing at him, and I saw him take the hammer from her. She ran away from him, and he followed her, and I—I didn’t see anything after that, it was too dark.”

Henry said, “Look, there were witnesses. Even if they didn’t see,
they could hear. All along the road. He was shouting at her, he was going to kill her. People would tell police, Rick Eley had been hitting and threatening his wife for months. We all knew he’d hurt her seriously one day. We thought he’d hurt the children, too.”

Crista said stubbornly, “Daddy meant just to scare her off. That was all he meant.”

“He broke her skull! But that wasn’t enough, he kept hitting her with the hammer. I wish I’d been big enough and strong enough to stop him but I wasn’t. He was sobbing, and cursing. He called her all the names. She was dying, and he called her all the names. That’s the kind of asshole murderer he was. Son of a bitch fucker murderer.
You
weren’t here. You were hiding up at the house.”

“I heard it. I heard her screaming at him, how she hated him.”

“He left her down by the water. He left her half naked—our mother. Her skull was smashed, there was blood all over, a trail of blood. He smashed her brains out. Then he came for us.”

“She was the one who’d started it, Henry. She provoked him.”

“He was the one with the woman friends.”

“I heard them arguing—”

“I heard them arguing—”

“She accused him—”

“He accused her—”

“She caused it.”

“He was the murderer.”

They were speaking sharply to each other. Henry gripped Crista’s shoulders, and shook her. Crista shoved him away: she wasn’t a weak young woman, her shoulder and arm and legs muscles were small but hard, well developed. They were on the beach, Crista stumbling from Henry. Their feet sank into the wet packed sand. A sudden stench of rotted kelp, fish, clam shells. Everywhere were shards of glass, beer cans, Styrofoam cups. Higher up, on a gravel road perpendicular with Post, several children straddling bicycles were watching. Henry said, furiously, “He wanted us to go with him. He came back to get us, there was blood on his hands and that’s why there was blood on us. Know what he said?”

Crista was pressing her hands against her ears. She hadn’t heard a word her brother had said.

“He said, ‘How’d you kids like some Tastee-Freez?’ He tried to grab us. You were out of bed by now, and outside, you were in just pajamas, and he grabbed you. It was around 1
A.M.
He wanted to take us with him in the car, the son of a bitch wanted to kill us, too.”

“He did not. I don’t remember any of that.”

“Look, he tried to drag you into the car with him. That’s why there was blood on you. You were screaming. You knew what he was going to do. You were only six, but you knew.”

“I—didn’t know. I didn’t see any of it.”

“I pulled you away from him. I got you out of his hands. I dragged you with me under the porch. We hid under the porch. That’s what saved us. We were hiding under the porch in the dirt and he was too drunk and crazy to get hold of us, he drove away in the car and left us and that’s why we were saved, that’s the only fucking reason we’re alive today.”

Crista laughed. This was so ridiculous.

“I hate you! I wish you were dead, too.”

“You’re hysterical.”

Henry would have grabbed her except Crista was too quick for him. Her hand leapt out, her nails raked his face. Blood appeared on his pitted cheeks like astonished cries. Henry swore, and shoved Crista hard, and she stumbled but didn’t fall, thinking
The children are watching: witnesses.
Even in her fear and confusion she was thinking like a lawyer. She backed off, seeing the fury in his face. Who was this ghoul-eyed bearded man, advancing upon her? She ran, her feet sinking in the sand. Ran along the littered beach in the rain, her elbows at her sides, sobbing and laughing to herself.

When had it begun to rain? Within minutes the sky was dark, the lake had become choppy and agitated.

Instinctively she knew where to run: that sandy spit of land thick with saplings. There was a decayed log that had been there for decades. Crista crouched behind the log, hoping to hide. It was raining harder. Rain on the heaving surface of the lake like machine-gun bullets, sprayed. She heard someone calling
Crissie? Crissie?
headed in her direction.

W
HICH ONE AM
I, people used to try to guess. But no longer.

Are you Jamie, or are you Jorie?
they would ask smiling. As if we had a choice which we could be. As if there is something to make you smile, just seeing twin little girls.

I hate talking about this! My mom, she isn’t to blame. I used to hate Jorie but I don’t now. Nobody’s to blame but especially not my mom.
I want to see my mom now…
O.K., if I tell you how it was can I see my mom? I hate people lying to me, I don’t trust anybody any more, like at school my teacher saw me crying and the nurse told me she would keep any secret, she promised, then right away I told her about Jorie she was on the phone, and everything changed after that. I hate how everybody treats me like a young kid when I am thirteen years old.

No we are not identical twins. We are what is called “fraternal” twins. (“Fraternal” meaning brothers, boys. Like there is no clinical term for twin sisters like us.)

Are you Jamie, or are you Jorie?
Daddy would ask teasing and pretending not to know. But that was a long time ago when we were little and you could mix us up, before Jorie began to change.

F
IRST IT WAS
the back bedroom which anyway she shared with me who was her twin sister people said was the “normal” one. Just to have a place for her that was set off from the place for us. Because the house is small, and there were four of us. And then when the screams and kicking were too loud and the neighbors called to complain and too much damage was inflicted it was the clothes closet in the hall with everything taken out, and then the cellar, not the whole cellar but the storage room where water leaked sometimes, after a heavy rain, and the lightbulb swung on a chain Mom removed out of a fear that Jorie would leap up and seize the bulb in her teeth, bite the glass, and swallow it.

Neurological impairment
were the words we came to learn
frontal lobes, cerebral cortex
just naming these scared me
dyslexia, attention deficit disorder.
Just the sounds, the syllables as in a foreign language. And I said to Mom, will it happen to me, too, I’m like Jorie aren’t I, I’m Jorie’s twin aren’t I, I was crying saying to Mom how scared I was, don’t lock me in the cellar with her, Mom, you won’t Mom, will you? and Mom hugged me, and my little brother Calvin, we were both crying and Mom hugged and kissed us and her face was wet with tears saying, Oh never.

Can I see my mom now? When can I see my mom?

I miss my mom. I hate it here, I’m so lonely.

The beds smell here. The mattresses! Kids my age, you’d think they wouldn’t be wetting the bed! Bad as Jorie. But Jorie meant to be bad, wetting the bed, and that’s different.

A
T FIRST IT
was just the bedroom when Mom gave Jorie her medication so she’d sleep. The door didn’t lock so Mom tied a cord around the knob and I helped her fix it on both sides tied tight and sometimes we’d push a heavy table against it and mostly that worked if Jorie didn’t fly into a rage and push out. Because in her rages she’s
strong.
You’d be scared of her, too. She scratches, and she bites. These marks on my arm, see? Mom said to say it was just cat scratches which was what I told the nurse but she examined them, she said, These are teeth-bites, human. Right away the nurse saw, there was a look in her face like she was scared, herself. And I knew there was danger, and I tried not to cry. But I was weak, I gave in. I hate myself for giving in!

It wasn’t Mom anyway, it was me. That’s what I told before but nobody would believe me. It was
me.

The back bedroom was where we slept anyway. There was nothing wrong with making Jorie stay in there sometimes so Mom could have some peace, she said. She’d take one of Jorie’s tranquillizers herself, she was so nervous. The pills didn’t always work with Jorie so Mom would take them. There was nothing wrong with that room till Jorie trashed it. Smashed the window with her bare fist, bled all over the windowsill, the rug, the bed. My bed, too! And she was laughing, like it didn’t hurt her at all. Like she didn’t feel anything, and Mom almost fainted. I hate seeing blood, it makes me go weak and sick but Jorie just laughed waving her hands and splattering blood where she could.
Jam-ie! Jam-ie!
she shouted at me laughing and running at me like it was a game of tag, smearing her bloody hands on me.

And she’d wet the bed, our bed, in the night. How many times she did this I don’t know. When Daddy was still with us he’d make a face, crinkle his nose, and walk away saying
Bad! Bad girls
like there was no difference between us. But Mom always knew.

You wouldn’t expect a girl of ten, eleven, twelve years old to wet the bed, you’d know she was doing it on purpose. More than once Jorie did this giggling to wake me, and torment me. And when Mom came stumbling and groggy Jorie said in this hateful singsong voice
It wasn’t me it was Jam-ie! Jamie went pee-pee in the bed! Shame-shame Jame-Jame!
like she was five years old.

I knew: Jorie was not to be judged by normal standards. We all knew, even Calvin. And yet.

Sometimes I hated her, wished she’d never been born. Or that she wasn’t my twin. So that people look at her, and look at me. And think
Is she crazy too? She must be!

One thing about Jorie, she never lies. Maybe she doesn’t know how. Maybe that part of the brain that lets you tell lies is part of her brain that is damaged.
I never lie, either.

“S
PELLS
” M
OM CALLED
them. “Spells” was Mom’s word for everything from Jorie spitting out her food and gagging like it was some reflex, like she couldn’t help it, when she was little, to the way she was this past year screaming at us like she hated us so veins stood
out in her forehead and her eyes bulged like a wild animal’s that has been trapped and is dangerous. “Spells” were when Jorie’s face went dead-white and she fell to the floor kicking, thrashing, convulsing
(epileptoid
these convulsions were called though Jorie was never diagnosed with actual epilepsy). Mom would know that Jorie hadn’t swallowed her pills only pretended to, when these “spells” came on.

Mom wanted to believe that there was “good” Jorie and there was “bad” Jorie and it was “spells” that were the cause for her being bad, and would pass. Like a spell of lousy weather. A spell of lousy luck. Mom would say
Honey c’mon! Please honey c’mon snap out of it
like it was something Jorie could shake off like a dog shaking water off its fur.

Well, sometimes this did seem to be so. When we were younger, I think. Jorie wasn’t so sick then, maybe. She’d be “acting up” to get her way, trying to get Daddy’s attention, teasing Mom, taking my toys, snatching food out of my fingers she didn’t even want but threw on the floor. If anybody was around like visitors (Mom used to have visitors then), Jorie would clown and squeal and act up to get attention, she was jealous if anybody talked to me for just a minute and nudged me aside or pulled my hair.
Jam-ie! Ug-ly!
She’d be biting her lower lip and laughing and her dark-honey eyes sly and so beautiful you wanted Jorie to be good, and to be well, you wanted to think she was just playing a little rough, she didn’t mean it. You’d forgive Jorie anything, she was so pretty.

Obsessive-compulsive. Nonverbal learning disability. Hyperactivity. Mild autism.
These are words they gave us. Scary words that made Mom cry. Pressing her hands over her ears.

A beautiful angel child everyone believed her, when she was little. And this was true. I am not beautiful but am an ordinary girl. When we were little I cried when Jorie cried like a single skin enclosed us but Jorie could not be trusted, she’d kiss and cuddle and wrap her snaky arms around my neck then (for instance) bite my ear, and wouldn’t let go when I screamed in pain, or (for instance) she would get me to tell her some little thing and go running to Mom with it, shouting, laughing, repeating it so the words were nonsense, but so loud, Mom had to rush her into the bathroom, try to quiet her down, later it would be the closet, and later still the storage room in the cellar.
The neighbors will call the police. Jorie, no!

Mom loves me, and Mom loves Calvin, but Mom would love Jorie best if Jorie got over her “spells.” Everybody could love Jorie best. (Even me.) We wonder, does Jorie know this?
Wants to break my heart
Mom would say. So exhausted sometimes she would lie down on the sofa saying
What did I do to deserve this, how is this my fault.
After Daddy left a few years ago.
It is not my fault. I know!
Mom would say.
It is nobody’s fault.
To Calvin and me she would say
It isn’t your sister’s fault, you know that don’t you
and Calvin and I would say
Yes Mom.

At first Daddy wouldn’t believe how bad Jorie could be, Jorie hid her badness from him. She was his angel, so pretty and sly-eyed like she was winking, teasing, playing a game with just Daddy alone.
Angel-baby
Daddy called her, then seeing me watching, my thumb in my mouth, Daddy would say quickly,
You too, Jamie. You’re Daddy’s angel-baby, too.
But Daddy was gone a lot. Daddy did not know.

It got so that Mom could not take us to the playground, or would have to go to different playgrounds in different parts of the city, for there was the danger of Jorie hitting other children, taking away their toys, or sneaking up to scare them like she was hunting them, it was a game to make her squeal with laughter. The other mothers tried to be nice to Jorie but it was no use. You could see they felt sorry for Mom and for me who was the twin sister of the strange little girl who could not be trusted for five minutes not to misbehave, they felt sorry for Calvin in his baby buggy but finally they did not want us anywhere near. They took their children away from the swings, the teeter-totter, the monkey bars, the sand boxes. They took their children away from the wading pools. As if these places were contaminated. As if Jorie, squealing and screeching and jabbering in her high-pitched way at (for instance) some little girl’s left-behind doll in the sand like it was an actual baby, could contaminate an entire playground, an entire park. In the beginning Mom would plead
Please forgive me, I am so sorry. I guess you can see that my daughter is—is not—well.
But later Mom could say nothing for the other mothers fled from us, and at this time there was trouble at school, even in the special class that Jorie was in. And Daddy was gone more and more, and Mom was on the telephone a lot, and crying, or trying not to cry.

Almost it’s worse when your mom is trying not to cry than when she’s crying. Because when she’s trying not to, you think you can help
her not to cry, somehow. You can hug her, or kiss her, you can cuddle against her. But if she’s crying it’s too late, like a window that has been smashed. And so you start crying, too.

Jorie laughed at Mom, at such times. Jorie called me
Silly-baby ugly-Jamie
and pinched me like I was to blame for Mom’s weakness. Jorie has always had an instinct for weakness in others, even adults. Even her teachers. Jorie is scornful of weakness, especially she hates Mom when Mom is weak and so Jorie provokes Mom into becoming angry with her, carrying her kicking and screaming with laughter down into the cellar, Mom panting, red-faced, her arms wrapped tight around Jorie’s arms to hold her, for if Jorie refuses to take her medication, Jorie will only get worse, her skin burning with fever, it’s only a matter of time until Jorie lapses into one of her spells, thrashing and convulsing. And sometimes these seem deliberate, and sometimes not.

It started that way. Just to have some peace in the house. Just for a while. So Mom could rest. So Calvin could nap. So I could do my homework. It wasn’t more than an hour, or two hours. Later it might be longer. Four hours. Five. Because the house was so peaceful without Jorie.
Your sister is safe. Under lock and key, and safe
Mom told Calvin and me, trying to smile but her eyes were scared.

Because the quiet of the house was so good! Because when you have such quiet you want it to go on, and on. And Mom knew this, and was scared of what this could mean.

You could not hear Jorie in the cellar, with the doors closed. The neighbors could not hear. And maybe the TV on, or the radio in the kitchen. So quiet! You could hear airplanes taking off and landing (our house is near Newark Airport) and children shouting in the neighborhood, dogs barking, cars and trucks passing and sometimes sirens, but inside the house it was quiet, peaceful like a dream.

My heart was not beating fast and anxious and there was not the strain beween my shoulder blades I felt when I sensed Jorie behind me. In the kitchen, I helped Mom make meals. We laughed and joked together like normal people. There was not the risk of Jorie rushing into the kitchen, humming and chattering to herself, smirking at us or ignoring us, rummaging through the refrigerator, dropping and breaking things. There was not the risk of Jorie turning the TV up loud in the other room, high as it could go. Of Jorie teasing Calvin till
he cried, then laughing at
Cal-vin Cal-vin bab-by bab-by
so Mom would have to intervene. There was not the risk of some neighbor telephoning us, or pounding on the front door because Jorie had slipped out without Mom knowing and had been throwing stones at children playing up the block, or tormenting somebody’s dog, or frightening somebody by peering in her window, or running in front of cars passing on the street, seeing how close she could come to being hit. There was not the risk of one of Jorie’s spells ruining our dinner-time together, Jorie making gagging noises because she didn’t like the food, or suddenly collapsing out of her chair onto the floor, kicking, thrashing, choking, “convulsing.”