Oblivion (31 page)

“—and I remember the day she died. The day Palmer buried her. The day I climbed up the cliff to give her the only thing I had left of my past. My rosary.”

“So, it’s true?” I grasp my mother’s graphite-stained hands. “That baby was yours?”

“Palmer said she was Satan’s spawn, that’s why she had to die.” Her eyes moisten with tears. “She never had a chance, always belonged to God. Never officially existed. I never went to the hospital.”

“I remember you pregnant.”

“You do?” My mother’s smiling through her tears, as if she dreamt she won the lottery.

“Recently. I haven’t always remembered.”

“You put your little hands on my belly. You liked to feel her kick. Remember?”

I’m nodding, tears in my eyes, too. I do remember.

“I set the stone from the rosary in a ring for you.”

I grasp the ring in question.

“To bond my daughters forever.”

“Was Palmer her father, too? Or was there someone else?”

Her smile fades; she turns back to her sketch.

I sigh. “Mom?”

She shakes her head.

It was a lot of information, actually. I shouldn’t be disappointed that she’s so quickly gone again.

She begins to hum.
Let my love open the door
.

Text from John:
Calliope … Greek, muse of poetry. ironic? or is it me?

I already knew this, but I have to agree. Definitely ironic.

I text back:
check Cleo
.

John:
Cleo or Clio?

I wonder why it matters.

Me:
both
.

My mother pipes up: “I remember the day I married him, you know. He was supposed to save me.”

“Married? You married Palmer?”

I feel a headache coming on. I shouldn’t stay here much longer. She’s in decline, and I feel the words beginning to stir:
bliss bliss bliss
.

I text:
can we research marriage records?

As far as I knew, my mother and Palmer had never been married.

John buzzes back:
Cleo … Greek. to praise. form of Cleopatra … also Greek, glory of the father
.

Well, that sounds like Palmer.

And another:
Clio … Greek, muse of history
.

Something inside me clicks, as if I’ve just tapped another piece of a puzzle into the frame. No matter what the police say, no matter how Ewing cautions me not to believe it, I know now. I had a sister.

“Palmer put him under the cobblestones,” she says.

I flinch. “Who?”

“He made me dig the hole.”

I’m heady. I think I’m going to pass out. I ring for an orderly.

“Who’s under the cobblestones?”

“Calliope, you remember him.”

My heartbeat is a clamor in my chest. “I don’t remember.”

“I could never forget.”

I lean against the wall and allow myself to sit, while the world spins madly before my eyes.
Bliss
. I reach for a pen. Flip to a blank page in my notebook. The lines on the page begin to blur, then wiggle, until they’re pale blue tethers yanking me into a catacomb in my mind.

I’m violently ill, hurling into the sink and leaving muddy, bloody handprints on the pink porcelain. I taste the earth and the soft salty essence of holy water.

My back is raw with lacerations. Leather cuts through skin like a hot knife through butter. And dirt burns when it rubs into the wounds.

Dirt bleeds from my sweatshirt onto the mosaic tile floor, turning the already dingy grout lines black.

The water is running in the tub. I want to lie beneath the stream. I want to die. I step into the tub, let the cool water soak my clothing—my T-shirt, bra, panties, socks … but I don’t know what’s happened to my pants. I watch the fabric meld to my body like a second skin. I want to feel the warmth of the white room. Want to go back there, to the
place where I’m safe. I concentrate on the sounds rising up from the Vagabond below me. Someone’s singing:
Let my love open the door
.

I know the song. Remember it. From a long time ago.

Muddy water circles the drain. I watch it until it all runs clear.

I’m shivering beneath the chilly stream, but I have no towel to warm me when I step out.

The linoleum is cold beneath my feet, too, but I don’t feel it. Not really. I don’t feel anything beyond the burn of Palmer’s belt against my back.

I listen for the song, but it’s not there. The Vagabond is dead below me now. Which means it’s late. Too late, even, for the quiet alcoholics and poetic minstrels, and for them, it’s never late enough.

God, how long have I been here?

My gaze is stuck to a red felt-tip pen abandoned beneath the sink.

I fish it out. Press the tip to the wall. I write:

I KILLED HIM. I KILLED HIM.

The pen won’t stop. I can’t make it stop. My words keep flowing over the old, floral wallpaper. I’ll cease breathing if I force the pen to still. I can’t stop, can’t stop, can’t stop.

Breathing is writing. Writing is breathing.

The red words spin around me like neon spaghetti. I can’t keep up. I’m stumbling, tripping, tumbling.

He’s slashing my body with his belt.

I remember the knife resting on the marble ledge of the fountain. It’s the same weapon my mother used on him the day he sent her away, the knife with the ivory handle and the ebony cross inset.

I hear the blade cutting through denim.

I’m bleeding.

Blood on my hands.

Dripping to the ground.

So much blood.

I hear her in the distance: Hannah. She’s screaming.

“Miss Knowles?”

What? I feel a jarring sensation, as if someone’s shaking me.

“Callie!”

“Yeah.” Slowly, my mother’s room blends into view.

My hand aches. My head pounds.

“Callie.”

“John.” I focus on the sound of his voice, look up at him.

My mother is staring at him, as if she wants to reach out and touch him, but the orderlies are holding her back.

“You okay?” John asks.

I glance down at my notebook:

Perpetual perpetual perpetual bliss bliss bliss bliss Stripped linens dried in the breeze of the sea strippedstrippedstripped Ignorance is perpetual bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss

I
t’s dinnertime by the time Detective Guidry drops me off at the Hutches’ house. He’s taken my notebook—and my testimony, what I know, what I’ve remembered, what I think it means. I’m exhausted. I just want to sleep. From the front door, down the broad hallway, I see a carry-out pizza box on the center of the round breakfast table. Lindsey and her dad are locked in a stare-down across the table, which I relieve when I close the door.

“You’re back.” Mr. Hutch smiles. “Are you okay? The detective said there was an incident with your mother.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m okay.”

“How is she?”

“She’s … you know, okay.”

“Can we finish this later?” Lindsey asks him.

“No,” Mr. Hutch says. “Callie is family, and this involves her, too.”

“I can come back later,” I offer.

“No,” my foster father says again.

“Ohhh-kay.” I lower myself to an empty chair between him and Lindsey.

Mr. Hutch offers me a hand and takes up Lindsey’s. With a reluctant roll of her eyes, Lindsey takes my outstretched hand, too.

“Dear Father,” Mr. Hutch begins to pray, “we humbly accept your sacrifice …”

Prayer has been an integral part of my life since I took my first breath. But I’m uncomfortable with this blessing tonight. After the day I’ve just endured, the grotesque things I heard and remembered, I can’t contain my tears. I sniffle through the blessing and bleat out only a meek amen.

None of us touches the pizza.

In silence, save my occasional whimper, we stare at our barren plates. Mr. Hutch holds tight to both our hands.

“I guess I’ll start.” Mr. Hutch gives a firm nod. “Mom and I are going to be fine. I don’t agree with what she’s doing, but I respect her calling. Either way, you’re my girls. My commitment to you—to both of you—won’t falter.” At last, he releases our hands. Reaches for a slice. Pops open his can of soda.

Lindsey and I share a glance, then follow his lead in serving ourselves.

“Lindsey, this rumor you posted on Facebook.”

Oh, God. We’re going to talk about it. All of it. My cheeks flush. My tears intensify. Lindsey looks almost sorry for me.

“You know this could cause us a lot of trouble. Not only for Callie, but for the state to deny our application.”

Application? My glance darts to Mr. Hutch, but he’s still staring at his daughter.

Lindsey refuses to look at him but shrugs and lifts her slice of pizza. “So could a divorce.”

“Not unless it directly, negatively effects Callie’s well-being, and—”

I push back from the table. “I should really—”

“Stay,” Mr. Hutch says.

I freeze.

“I mentioned the word,” he says. “That’s true. But mentioning divorce and following through with it are two different things. Now, if the state sees fit to deny our application to adopt Callie because of it—”

Adopt me?

“—well, I think we’d appeal their decision. All should go as planned, if you can manage to keep your hands off the smoke.” He lifts his soda to his lips.

I catch Lindsey’s glance, the one that’s pleading with me to take the heat for her. I offer a subtle shrug. Her family’s done a lot for me. I owe her … don’t I?

Maybe if she hadn’t been such a bitch …

“So whose is it?” His can clinks against the tabletop.

“Mine,” I say. “It’s mine.” In the periphery, I see Lindsey’s shoulders relax a little, as if she’s just released a long-held breath.

Her dad is staring at me. I feel it. “Look at me, young lady.”

Slowly, I trail my gaze to meet his.

He presses his lips together, refuses to blink. When I can hardly stand it another second, he sighs. “I’ve been through your file. I know what you’ve been through, what you’re
going
through. I also know you have a tendency not to take your Ativan because you feel detached when you do—yes, I’ve spoken with Dr. Ewing. So the question is this: why would you partake of a recreational drug with many of the same effects? Why would you risk doing something illegal, when you don’t even want to take your pills?”

I’m not good at lying. I don’t know what to say. I can’t argue with his logic.

“It doesn’t add up, Callie.” He raises a brow to his daughter. “Lindsey? Anything to add?”

“No.” Her voice is nearly a whisper.

“Why I found it in your closet, for starters?”

“I … don’t know.”

“I’d like you to be straight with me.”

When she sighs, her breath sort of stutters, like she’s trying not to cry.

“In with the marijuana,” my foster father says, “I found
a pack of Seasonique. That’s birth control.”

Lindsey and I share another glance. She’s the first to look away.

“So how is it that we assume Callie’s pregnant if she’s been taking the birth control pill?”

Oh, God. If I’m not red with humiliation, I’m on fire. The silence is deafening. Mr. Hutch’s stare won’t relent, as if he’s attempting to burrow a hole with the power of his gaze in the middle of Lindsey’s forehead.

Finally, she lets out an audible sob. “She’s taking the heat for me, okay?”

“Okay.” Mr. Hutch nods. Reaches for his daughter’s hand.

She allows him to take it, but won’t look at him. “Okay.”

“You’ll start counseling next week. The sooner the better, before the adoption application is reviewed.”

It’s really happening. They’re adopting me.

My fingertips tingle, and a new river of tears starts to flow. I’ve never known how I would feel about this news, even when Lindsey and I were best friends. It feels sort of like a betrayal of my mother, but also like I’m holding magic beans. There’s no telling what may sprout from this
bon chance
, and if I’m honest with myself, I know that my mother is traveling another path now, a path she wouldn’t expect me to follow.

“But this damn Facebook post,” Mr. Hutch continues. “Lindsey, if the social workers catch wind of this, there’s
going to be an investigation. I’ll be questioned, you’ll be questioned. Callie will be examined. Even when they learn you lied about her being pregnant—”

I let out a sob, which shakes me to my very core, and pinch my eyes shut, but I know he’s looking at me.

After a few dreadful seconds of dead air, he reiterates: “They’ll have to determine whether there’s any truth to what you’ve been saying.”

“I’ll tell them I made it up.”

“But why?” Mr. Hutch asks. “Why would you say such a thing?”

I hold my breath. Wait for Lindsey’s reply. Our gazes lock.

“They’ll want to know,” Mr. Hutch says.

“It’s …” Lindsey’s attempt to formulate an answer falls short, but she quickly redirects. “Maybe this just isn’t meant to be. Maybe she doesn’t want to be in this family.”

“Callie?” Mr. Hutch turns to me.

“You’ve been good to me. I appreciate everything you’ve done. All of you.”