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I lived with Jackson Hyde!
How did I not know this?
My thoughts have been racing, searching through all the nooks and crannies of my troubled mind, trying to shine a light in the shadows, but I’ve found nothing. My foster care experience is hidden in the murky depths of the past.
I cannot remember any of it. A chunk of my life. Gone. No. Not gone. Erased.
In its place is a dark, gaping hole of nothing but uncertainty.
It’s deeply unsettling. Surely I should remember…something?
Ana stirs. Her eyes flicker open and find mine.
Thank God.
“What’s wrong?” She blanches, and she sits up, her face strained by her concern.
“Welch has just left.”
“And?”
“I lived with the fucker.” The words are barely audible.
“Lived? With Jack?”
Swallowing down my agitation, I nod.
“You’re related?” Ana’s shock is palpable.
“No. Good God, no.”
Frowning, she moves over and tugs back the duvet; it’s an invitation to join her. I don’t hesitate. I need her—to anchor me to the now and to help me make sense of this alarming news and this huge gap in my memory.
Right now, I’m untethered.
From everything.
Kicking off my shoes and clutching the photographs, I slip in beside her and drape an arm over her upper thighs as I lay my head in her lap. Slowly she trails her fingers through my hair; the gesture is comforting, and it calms my troubled soul. “I don’t understand,” she says.
Closing my eyes, I picture Welch and recall the throaty rasp of his voice as he briefed me. I repeat his words for Ana, editorializing a little. “After I was found with the crack whore, before I went to live with Carrick and Grace, I was in the care of the state of Michigan. I lived in a foster home.” I pause and take a gulp of air. “But I can’t remember anything about that time.”
Ana’s hand stops and rests on my head. “For how long?”
“Two months or so. I have no recollection.”
“Have you spoken to your mom and dad about it?”
“No.”
“Perhaps you should. Maybe they could fill in the blanks.”
I tighten my hold on Ana, my life raft. “Here.” I pass her the photographs. I’ve been poring over them in the hope that they might stir a dormant memory that’s buried deep. The first depicts a scrubby little house with a cheery, yellow front door. The second shows an ordinary working-class couple, and their three scrawny, unremarkable children—plus Jackson Hyde as an eight-year-old, and…me. I’m four years old, a small scrap of humanity, with wild, haunted eyes and threadbare clothes, clutching a filthy blanket. It’s obvious that the four-year-old is severely malnourished—no wonder I’m always nagging Ana to eat.
“This is you,” Ana gasps, and stifles a sob.
“That’s me.” My voice is bleak; right now, I’ve no words of comfort left for her.
I’ve got nothing. I’m numb.
I stare out at the dusk. The sky is streaked in pale pink and orange that heralds the coming darkness. A darkness that claims me as one of its own.
A husk of a man once more. Hollowed and empty.
I’m missing time. Missing a part of myself that I didn’t even know existed.
And I don’t understand why.
I’m scared to know why.
What happened to me back then? How could I have forgotten it all?
I cling to the residual anger that simmers beneath the surface. It’s aimed at Carrick and Grace.
Why the fuck didn’t they tell me?
I close my eyes. I don’t want the darkness. I’ve lived in it too long.
I want the light that Ana brings.
“Welch brought these photos?” she asks.
“Yes. I don’t remember any of this.”
“Remember being with foster parents? Why should you? Christian, it was a long time ago. Is this what’s worrying you?”
“I remember other things, from before and after. When I met my mom and dad. But this… It’s like there’s a huge chasm.”
“Is Jack in this picture?”
“Yes, he’s the older kid.”
Ana’s silent for a moment, and I hug her harder.
“When Jack called to tell me he had Mia,” she murmurs, “he said if things had been different, it could have been him.”
Revulsion shudders through me. “That fucker!”
“You think he did all this because the Greys adopted you instead of him?”
“Who knows? I don’t give a fuck about him.”
“Perhaps he knew we were seeing each other when I went for that job interview. Perhaps he planned to seduce me all along.” Ana’s dread echoes in her voice.
“I don’t think so. The searches he did on my family didn’t start until a week or so after you began your job at SIP. Barney knows the exact dates. And, Ana, he fucked all his assistants and taped them.”
Ana’s quiet, and I wonder what she’s thinking.
About Hyde? About me?
I could have ended up like Hyde if I hadn’t been adopted.
Is she comparing me to him?
Fuck. I am like Hyde. A monster. Is that what she sees?
That we’re the same?
