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You told her not to. You specifically said you’ll never see each other again.
Plus, my inner mentor is proud that she decided to ditch a deadbeat like me. This is exactly what I wanted her to do. Start putting herself first.
I shove the USB into my laptop. An array of videos appear in quick succession. I click on the first one. On the screen pops the face of a youthful-looking, tired-yet-happy Patrice Corbin.
What. The. Fuck.
It takes me a full minute to get over the initial shock and focus on what’s happening in the video. By then, I have to replay it. Patrice gurgles and smiles at a surly-looking baby—supposedly me—before putting me to her breast. Baby-me sucks hungrily, one fist curled around a lock of her raven hair to ensure she is not going anywhere. She strokes my head—it is full of black straight hair—and laughs softly.
“Oh, I know,” she says in French.“Your meal is not going anywhere, and neither am I.”
Something weird happens inside my body. A rush of nostalgia, or maybe of déjà vu. An awakening. Clicking open another video, I see baby-me wobbling around in nothing but a diaper in an apartment I don’t recognize. I’m guessing it is the apartment Patrice had rented in New York. The one she supposedly lived in by herself.
My mother runs after me, giggling. There’s a conversation in French in the background, possibly between members of her family, who must be in town. When she finally catches me, she flings me in the air and blows raspberries over my belly, and I laugh, delighted, my chubby arms reaching to hug her.
Another video. This time at the Corbin mansion. I’m about three and helping Patrice wrap Christmas gifts. We talk in length about butterflies and boo-boos. Every so often she stops, puts a hand on my arm, and tells me, “You know what? You’re so smart! I’m so glad I have you.”
Another video. Mom and me on a ski trip. I try to eat the snow. She pours juice concentrate over it. I brighten up, and we eat it together.
Another video. We’re making a cake. She lets me lick chocolate off the whisk.
At a swimming lesson, we wear matching swimsuits—me in trunks, she in a bikini—same lobster pattern.
Flying a kite. I bump into a bench, fall, and start crying. Patrice rushes to me, sweeps me up, and kisses my knee better. We choose a superhero Band-Aid together. It’s the last Spider-Man one, so she suggests we go to the pharmacy together to get some more.
Who took these videos? Who was behind the camera?
I sit back, rubbing at my temple. Though I have no memory of any of those things happening, now that I’ve seen these videos, blurred pieces of my past click together into a bigger, more elaborate puzzle. Idoremember the Manhattan apartment, cramped and out of style. I remember going to Calypso Hall with my mother when I was very little. Remember being carried in her arms often.
I remember her fights with my father, though unlike his relationship with Miranda, there wasn’t a lot of screaming and no hurling objects at one another. Patrice was quiet and fierce and knew exactly what she wanted. And what shedidn’twant—my father.
I remember her to be good. Kindhearted. A free spirit. Not absent, uncaring, and disinterested. And I remember the day she gave up, packed us a bag, and moved us to Manhattan. How she apologized to me ten thousand times as she secured me in my car seat and said, “I know you deserve better. Youwillget better from me. I promise. I’m just figuring it out.”
Tipping my head back, I close my eyes and grimace, the rush of memories moving through my body like an earthquake.
My mother wasn’t a thoughtless monster. She was full of passion, fun, and compassion. And my father had resented her because all those positive traits were never directed at him. He chose Miranda, and Patrice chose to move on. The mere idea of her moving on without him, not fighting for him, made him deliver the ultimate punishment—he’d poisoned me against her. Tarnished the one thing she valued. My good memories of her.
It takes me a couple of hours to go over all the videos. I watch them on loop, in a trance, inking every single moment into memory. When I’m done, I save all of them to my Dropbox and remove the USB.
I wonder why, of all places, this thing has found its way to Paul’s. I guess the content of the package I received today was Paul’s little Grace shrine. Grace was in possession of this USB and decided to keepit somewhere I’d never find it. That couldn’t have been her apartment. I had the keys.
Why hadn’t she given it to me?
The answer is clear. She didn’t want me to have it because a part of her loathed me enough to deny me this peace of mind. My thinking Patrice was an awful monster worked to her advantage. The more broken I was, the less I expected of her. My expectations from the fairer sex were so low that I’d readily accepted a woman who tried to kill me when we were teenagers.
Grace never loved me. I always knew that, deep down, but this USB is the final blow.
The surprising part is that I never loved her either. As I sit here, in front of a mountain of evidence of her affair, it is clear to me that this asshole Christian was right.
I was obsessed with her.
I mistook fixation for affection. But wanting my stepsister had very little to do with Grace as a human and a lot to do with proving something to myself. That I’d won, after all. The endgame—the biggest game of all—wasn’t something I could afford to lose. Funny thing is, I lost it, anyway. And survived to tell the tale.
The only thing I ever wanted from Grace was her full and complete submission. Not her body. Not her love. Not her babies.
This explains everything. For instance, why I felt cheated and robbed more than heartbroken when Grace passed away. Like the universe had fucked me out of a perfectly good deal. My business sensibilities had been affronted. I’d invested time and resources in that woman, and it frustrated me when I didn’t see a return.
The proximity to Bumpkin didn’t make matters better. Seeing the woman turn inside out as she mourned her husband only highlighted the fact I really didn’t care all that much for my fiancée.
