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“No, mostly for you. You couldn’t have a bastard grandchild running around. Especially not one with Josh’s bloodline.”
My mother shrugs. “I don’t expect you to understand. What is she like?”
“What do you care?”
Another shrug.
“She looks just like Josh.”
“As I said, I’m glad I put her up for adoption.”
“You had no right.”
“You were unconscious.” She waves her hands about in a manner that is so unlike her. So out of control. “You were in a coma. We didn’t even know if you were going to live after the complications. And I wasn’t going to have that bastard child running around ruining my life, opening me up to rumors. After everything I’ve worked for to besomeone.”
“You’re not someone, Mother. You’re someone evil.”
42
BROKEN HEARTS AND EMPTY GRAVES
JOSH
No sooner do I drop Cassie off at her parents’ home than I hustle over to Marten Drive, to the house I grew up in. And as it happens, the house my father and his brother grew up in. My father, Jericho, and his twin brother Jeremiah.
There’s some stuff in the attic, other than Christmas decorations that I found last time I was seeking those out for the holiday. That wasn’t this year, of course, since I was head-fucked over Cassie at the time. It might have been the year before that I ran across the plastic bin with Jeremiah’s name on it.
Well, to be completely honest, it wasn’t Jeremiah’s name. It said Jer on it. That’s all. But I already knew it wasn’t my dad’s. I had opened it and found the source of Mrs. Ransom’s rancor. I’d never shared it with anyone. Not yet. I was giving serious consideration to letting Cassie have access to it.
The house on Marten Drive smells musty again. Already. We’ve been gone a few weeks, and it didn’t take long for it to become forlorn and abandoned. I ignore the neglected odors and make my way to the hatch in the ceiling of the hallway. The one that leads to the scuttle attic. Pulling on the string that’s dangling from above forces the doorway to open into a maw from which a ladder drops. I climb the ladder, flipping the switch to the naked bulb on the wall right next to the hatch.
Moments later, I’m pushing aside Christmas decorations and boxes with old clothing and memorabilia which Dad accumulated over the years. The last time I’d seen Jeremiah’s bin, it was right there, in the back corner. No reason it shouldn’t still be there. Dad’s gone, and Isaiah would never have a reason to go in there. I also couldn’t see Billie climbing up here. Not with that belly she’d had every time she’d been here.
There it is. A faded blue bin. Ancient. God knows how old it is. I pull it forward and forgo the temptation to open it up here. I’ll take it downstairs and get comfortable. Who the hell knows how long it will take Cassie to talk to her mother or father or both. I figure I have lots of time to go through it. Excavating the details contained within this box will keep me from dwelling on how Cassie’s been lately.
She’s pulled away from me, and I’m not sure I completely understand it. It started when her mother disowned her. Until that point, man, we were going gangbusters. Everything was great. It was back to the old Josh and Cassie.
I blow the dust off the lid and then begin to cough and sneeze at the motes flying around, lit up by the muted sunshine coming in the windows. Finally, the dust settles, and I uncap the bin. It’s not a large container. Not like the big ones Mom set up with the Christmas decorations and school memories from Isaiah and me.
I begin to take the items out. An assortment of letters, held together by a rubber band that’s now crusty and stiff with age. The letters are addressed to Jeremiah Tamez in sloping, feminine handwriting. There’s no return address, but there’s one name where the return address would be. Margo. Well, of course, that’s Margo Ransom, Cassie’s mother.
I disentangle the rubber band, and as expected, it snaps into several pieces, no longer doing the job of holding the letters together. Some of the envelopes are postmarked, and some are not, clearly hand-delivered. Probably to this very house.
Jeremiah lived here for a few years. Then he left for South America. Then he came back. Then he left again. And he never came back. He died in Puerto Madryn several years ago. Actually, many years ago. He was a diver and did some sort of job for the government with deep-sea research and also freelanced as a scuba diving instructor for tourists or something. We never saw much of Jeremiah after he decided he didn’t want anything to do with shrimping and gave my dad ownership of his boat. Which is the one that Isaiah has now. After dumping all his possessions that didn’t fit into a backpack, Jeremiah took off for Argentina. We saw him once or twice after that before we heard that he’d died.
There was no body to bury, so he’s got a marker next to my father's, but it’s an empty grave. Dad never gave up hope that his remains would be found and returned one day. I’m not quite the optimist. I figure the sea’s taken all of him there was to take and that sharks digested him long ago.
Thinking of empty graves makes me think of our baby girl’s empty grave. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in there. I thought, once, long ago, of digging it up, but the notion that I might be wrong and some other child’s remains would be resting there bothered me, so I didn’t.
Guess I’ll never know the answer to that one. At least I know that our baby didn’t die, even if she’s someone else’s baby right now. My god, how that fucks with my head, day in, day out. I try not to obsess over it. I shove it to the back every time it tries to resurface. Most times, I’m successful. Some, not so much.
Odd that Cassie didn’t ask me her name. It’s Sophie. Pretty name for a beautiful little girl. Maybe Cassie didn’t want to know her name because that would make the pain and the loss that much more devastating.
I set the letters aside, and a photo falls out from in between. It’s a picture of Jeremy. Who, of course, I know is Jeremiah’s son, even if the name didn’t proclaim it loudly. How does Cassie not know this? How does Jeremy not? Well, I guess they really never knew Jeremiah. Guess I don’t feel like I did either. Dude stayed away so much. Seems he only came into town a couple of times, just enough to impregnate Margo Ransom. Next to Jeremy in the photo is an image of Liam. Who, by the way, is the spitting image of my uncle and my father. So yeah, there’s that too. Maybe that’s why Margo hates him. Who knows?
I tuck the photo back into the stack of envelopes. Randomly, because I’m not sure exactly where it fell out of.
On top of the stack is a journal. Not a fancy, girly one, but a beat-up leather journal. I’ve seen this before. Ages and ages ago, in the middle of the night, I got up for a snack. My father had crashed on the couch, and this had fallen out of his hands. He had obviously been reading it and had fallen asleep. I found it beside the coffee table and couldn’t resist taking a gander at it.
