The Language of Secrets (11 page)

To tell Amy the truth would be to risk losing her, and Justin knew he couldn’t survive that. So he pulled her closer and said: “We got off the subject. Tell me about being in the shower and the connection you made between World Craziness and what’s going on with your crazy husband.”

Amy didn’t cuddle against him as she usually did; she stayed sitting upright, leaving a little distance between them. “I was just thinking,” she said. “You know, about the bad things in life. And I
realized that from the very beginning there’s been a map. Starting with the Bible, the Old Testament. There was the flood, then Noah and the rainbow. And the whole story of Christ, the Crucifixion and then the Resurrection. Then all through history, the same thing. The Dark Ages and the Renaissance. Hitler and the Holocaust, then D-day. Communism, then the Berlin Wall comes down. Segregation, then Martin Luther King and the first black person ever to be secretary of state. It’s always been there, the map to the way life works out. There’s always evil but it never actually wins. It has its moment, but it always gets pushed back by something good.” Amy stopped and looked at Justin. “I wanted to tell you about that. I thought maybe it would help.”

Justin was watching flickering shadows from the firelight play across the ceiling. “Amy. Before the rainbow, the flood wiped out everything and there are still a hell of a lot more black guys in the slammer than in the White House.”

“Well, you know what?” Amy got up from the sofa and angrily hit the wall switch, blasting the room with light. “You’re not a black guy and you’re not in the slammer and you haven’t been wiped out by a flood. You’re a guy with a great life and a few odd memories, and there’s no reason we can’t go to Hawaii and make my father happy. What good is it doing for you to sit around here being tormented? I’ve got news for you, Justin … you’re wallowing. And it’s getting old. I’m tired of it.”

To Justin, Amy’s statement sounded petulant and spoiled, as if she was refusing to have compassion for what he was going through. He was hurt, and the hurt flamed into anger. “Well I’ve got a suggestion for you,” he said. “The next time you’re standing around in the shower, revving up to think some deep thoughts, you might want to run a quick Google search … Try ‘Self-Centered Daddy’s Girl.’ It’ll be a real eye-opener.”

Justin grabbed the remote to turn up the volume on the TV and block out the noise and the chaos—the sounds of Amy storming up the stairs and the rain pounding on the roof and a child’s voice endlessly repeating, “Do I know my name? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. My name is Justin. And my name is Fisher, too …”

*

The storms were over. The rain was gone. Southern California was itself again. Pretty women in shorts and jogging gear had emerged from under raincoats and umbrellas to resume their parade on Santa Monica Pier. Just below them, Justin and Ari were descending a flight of concrete steps that led from the boardwalk to the sand. It was a Monday morning and the beach was almost deserted.

Ari had a deep tan and was wearing loose-fitting slacks and a golf shirt. “Bermuda was fantastic,” he was saying; “L.A., not so good. Got back last night and found our whole downstairs full of mud. My wife’s going to have to take the baby and stay with my mother. How about you? Everything hold together okay?”

“Yeah,” Justin said. “More or less.”

Ari glanced at Justin. “Okay. I’m thinking maybe that’s enough chitchat. Talk to me about what’s been going on.”

Justin followed as Ari walked over to a shuttered lifeguard tower. They sat at its base, both of them looking out at the ocean. “When we talked the last time,” Ari said, “you’d seen a red-haired woman. At your hotel. And you had the feeling she was, or perhaps represented, TJ’s mother.” Ari waited. It was obvious that he was trying to gauge Justin’s reaction. “You told me it rattled you, because you could recognize his mother, but you couldn’t remember who TJ was.”

“That’s not exactly true,” Justin said.

“What part of it don’t I have right?” Ari asked.

“You have it all straight. That’s what I told you. But I don’t think it’s true that I don’t know who TJ is.” Justin was enveloped in cold, but he knew it had nothing to do with the temperature on the beach. It was emanating from some internal place, somewhere lifeless and bereft.

“Tell me what you mean,” Ari said. “Why isn’t it true that you don’t know who TJ is?”

“Because when I saw the woman in the hotel, it wasn’t the same as remembering someone I had known from the outside, the way I would remember a friend or a neighbor or something like that,” Justin said. “It was a feeling of knowing her from the inside, from a place that was intimate. I knew her as if I had been a part of her. I knew how she smelled … fresh, like lilacs. And how her hands felt … that they were soft and cushy and the palms were this pale pink color. The tops of her hands were smooth and rounded, like pillows. And I could feel how warm the place was at the base of her neck where it went down to her shoulder. I could feel the warmth of it on my cheek. And I know the vibration of her voice.”

“The vibration of her voice?” Ari spoke softly, the way he would have spoken if Justin had been asleep and he hadn’t wanted to wake him.

“I could feel it on my ear. The vibration.” Justin leaned back against the wood of the lifeguard tower. It was cool, slightly damp, and veined with sand. He closed his eyes and listened for the vibration of that soft murmuring voice. He couldn’t make out what it was saying, but he could feel himself being caressed by a gentle hand. He was nestled in a place of perfect safety. Slowly, he began to hear the words hiding in the whispers—simple and comforting, like the feel of a string of wooden beads worn smooth by touch and time. “Oh how I love my TJ. Oh how I love my baby.”

Justin lingered for a moment in this strange place—the place
where he was so lovingly held in the arms of a red-haired mother. After a while, the sensation slipped away. But the knowledge it left was inescapable. “I don’t know who I really saw at the hotel,” he told Ari. “But I know who I
thought
I saw.”

“Who?” Ari’s voice was almost inaudible above the breaking of the waves.

“I thought I saw my mother. A mother I didn’t know I had. Until now.”

“And how do you know it now?”

“I just do. I know it. I know her. I know how it felt to be held in her lap.” Justin turned to look at Ari. “I know that I loved her.”

“Justin, when you called me from the hotel, in your message you said that when you saw the red-haired woman you knew who TJ’s mother was.”

“Right.”

“So what are you telling me now?”

Another chill passed over Justin. “I’m telling you I was TJ and that the woman was my mother.”

“But if you began as Justin Fisher,” Ari said, “the Justin Fisher who grew up on Lima Street, whose parents were Caroline and Robert, and you’re here now and you’re Justin Fisher, then where’s TJ?”

“I’m not sure where he is,” Justin said. “But I know he’s looking for me.”

*

After his meeting with Ari, Justin had decided not to go to work. He’d headed up the coast and turned inland. He’d spent hours driving in the hills above the little town of Ojai, trying to piece together the mystery of TJ and the red-haired woman.

And now he was coming into a house that seemed unnervingly quiet. It was almost six, around the time when Amy and Zack
should be in the kitchen—Zack in his high chair, Amy feeding him his dinner while silly kid songs were blaring from the sound system. Instead, there was silence.

Last night, Justin had slept on the sofa, and he’d left the house before Amy had come downstairs this morning. He’d wanted to avoid the ongoing fight about the Hawaii trip.

It was only now, as he was walking into an empty kitchen, that he came to an odd realization. He’d had not a single thought of Amy or Zack for the entire day. He had forgotten them, and now it was as if they’d disappeared.

Justin was suddenly desperate to find Amy. Her name came out of him in a hoarse shout. As he ran into the living room, she was coming in from the patio, holding a teddy bear and a tiny pair of sneakers. Seeing her filled him with an incredible sense of relief. “Amy,” he said. “You’re here.”

“Not for long. Daddy’s having a car pick him and my mother up and then they’re coming for us. They’ll be here any minute, and I still don’t have all of Zack’s things packed.” Amy’s tone was careful and controlled.

“What? Why are you packing?”

“Hawaii. It’s my father’s birthday, remember? The plane leaves in two hours. Do you want me to throw some things in a bag for you?” Amy quickly went up the stairs.

Justin followed her and pulled her to a stop just outside their bedroom door. “But I told you. I can’t do it. I can’t go. Not until we get things worked out, until I can talk to you and explain.”

Amy stared him down. “It’s my father’s birthday. Nothing you can say will make me believe we have to spoil it for him. You’re being a prick, Justin.” She wrenched free of his grasp. “My first choice is for you to come with us. But either way, Zack and I are going.”

She moved toward the bedroom. Justin blocked her path. “We
need to work this out, Amy. This thing with your father, it’s got to change.”

“Justin, either get packed or get out of my way.” She shoved past him. In the same instant, the doorbell rang.

As he stood in the bedroom doorway, Justin watched Amy go out onto the balcony and lean over it. Then he saw her blow a kiss. And he heard her call down to the waiting limousine: “I’ll be right there, Daddy!”

It was just after ten-thirty in the morning and already it was over. Caroline was back in the house on Lima Street.

They had left less than an hour and a half ago, the six of them, in Robert’s Toyota, rolling out of the driveway under a blue sky ribboned with snow-white clouds. Robert was at the wheel, Caroline beside him, and Julie and Lissa in the backseat, wedged between Robert’s parents. To anyone giving them a quick glance, they would have looked like a family beginning a casual morning outing—heading, perhaps, to a late breakfast or to a shopping mall. But upon closer inspection, the Fishers presented a strange tableau.

Lissa and Julie were pressed tightly together—unnaturally still, with the look of spellbound children caught in a dark fairy tale. Their matching navy blue coats were immaculate. Their hair was perfectly smooth. Their eyes were downcast, unfallen tears suspended on their lashes.

Robert’s mother had an air of disarray, as if she had dressed in a panic, or a fury. Her face was parchment white against the
somber dark of her clothes. Her eyes were only half-open, swollen and red-rimmed. Every few moments, she would glance at Robert’s father and he would look up and hold her gaze, as if he’d been waiting for her to turn in his direction, as if he was on the verge of saying something. But then he would seem to lose his nerve and look down at his hands. They were resting on his knees, roving the fabric of his trouser legs in tight, trembling circles.

After a while, he would look up again, toward the front seat, where Robert and Caroline were.

Robert was gripping the steering wheel with a peculiar ferocity. His expression was closed and marble-hard. Caroline’s expression, on the other hand, was as undefended as an open wound. She had the look of someone who was seeing indescribable horror.

When Robert had stopped the car at their destination, he came around to the passenger door and opened it. Caroline sat motionless. She left him no option but to lift her out of her seat.

Robert was forced to move her across the gravel parking lot in the same way he might have moved a lifeless mannequin—by holding her around the waist and raising her slightly off the ground.

Robert’s parents and the girls followed as Robert maneuvered Caroline through a haphazard arrangement of low headstones and modest grave markers. Their progress was slow. The ground was an uneven mottle of frostbitten grass and cold, hard-packed earth.

As Robert and Caroline finally came to the far edge of the cemetery and Caroline saw the tiny casket waiting to be lowered into the ground, a wail came out of her so guttural and raw that it sounded as if it had been uttered by a wild animal. At the sound of Caroline’s scream, Robert’s mother shrieked and collapsed against his father.

“What’s wrong with Mommy and Grandma?” Lissa whispered.

Julie looked toward Justin’s coffin. It was silver-colored and little, blanketed with a spray of red carnations. “It’s because Justin is dead,” she said. “And now he has to be in that box and stay in the ground forever and never come home with us again.”

Lissa grabbed Julie’s hand, squeezing hard enough to make it hurt. “That’s a lie,” Lissa shouted. “Justin is an angel now and angels don’t stay in the ground. They go to heaven and they live there forever.” Lissa glared at Julie. “Say it. Justin isn’t dead. He’s an alive angel. Say it!”

“Justin’s an angel,” Julie said.

“Angels are just like people.” Lissa was crying now. “They need their families to love them. So we’re never going to forget Justin. We’re going to love him always.”

“We’re going to love him always,” Julie whispered. “I promise.”

And then the blank-faced minister standing on the other side of the open grave said the Lord’s Prayer and made the sign of the cross and commended Justin’s soul to God.

Robert lifted Caroline into his arms and carried her back toward the car. His mother followed them. His father retrieved a carnation that had fallen from Justin’s coffin. None of the adults noticed Julie trailing after Lissa. Lissa was walking toward the minister.

“I brought this for my brother, so he could have a friend.” Lissa took a small frog from her pocket. “When Justin gets to heaven, could you ask God to give it to him, please?”

The girls then turned and ran past the coffin, fixing their gazes high, not wanting to see the darkness at the bottom of their brother’s open grave. Justin’s funeral was over.

Now Caroline, Robert, the girls, and Robert’s parents were back on Lima Street.

Upstairs in the bathroom, Caroline was still in her coat, standing
at the sink, holding a glass under the open faucet. Water was cascading over the sides of the glass. The cuff of her coat sleeve was soaked, the wool sagging, heavy and cold against her wrist.