Catherine asked, “Are you sure this time?”
I nodded. “Are you ready?”
“I am ready.”
She sat at the circular dining room table, nervous, sweat beading on the tip of her nose. Her brown eyes became vulnerable. She held herself, rubbed her hands up and down her arms.
She said, “Remember this.”
“What?”
“I am the one who told you to keep that . . . that package. I told you to keep it. You were going to throw it away, destroy it, and I am the one who told you not to throw it away.”
“I know.”
“Because I knew this day would come.”
“I know.”
“I am the one who fed you, who made sure you had clothes on your back.”
“And you put a knife or a gun in my hand, sent me to kill.”
“Bad people. They were all bad people.”
“Some people deserve to die. You told me that. Some people deserve to die.”
She pulled her lips in, closed her eyes for a moment, then once again looked at me.
She nodded. “That is what I told you.”
“You said my father told you that. And that was a lie. Everything has been a lie.”
All of my phones rang at once. The phone from the Lebanese. The satellite phone from Scamz. My iPhone. The house phone rang too. All phones went unanswered.
We sat still until all the ringing and buzzing stopped.
Catherine wrung her hands. “Before you open it . . .”
“I’m listening.”
“See me as who I am now. Don’t see me as you saw me . . . when you were younger.”
“When you came into my room. And abused me.”
“That was not me. That was someone else, someone young and foolish.”
I rubbed my temples. Wiped my eyes.
Then I opened the FedEx box, ripped open the edges, pulled out the envelopes.
Catherine sat across from me, tears falling down her face.
Catherine was X. Steven was Y. I was Z.
I opened Z first. Then I opened X. Left Y sitting to the side.
I read Z. Then evaluated X. Read the words from DNA Solutions.
Lightning flashed behind my eyes.
I held the truth, a reality she couldn’t change, couldn’t manipulate with lies.
It hurt. It angered me.
My right hand turned into a fist. I said, “How do you do it?”
She took deep breaths, let them out in short, nervous bursts.
“How do you lie so convincingly? Is that part of your job?”
I didn’t think I would be angry. I had told myself that I wouldn’t be angry.
It was a deadly struggle.
I said, “You’re. My. Mother.”
She swallowed, moved her hair. She couldn’t look at me.
I closed my eyes, tried not to explode. A thousand flashbacks from my childhood. Sex. Drugs. Violence. Johns. Whores. Guns. Knives. Death. And incest. Half the time we had no food. Scapegraces eating cold chicken given to us by some goddamn stranger. Eating greasy-ass handout chicken. Eating scraps from someone else’s red-and-white bucket. Being homeless all across the United States and up into Canada.
She said, “I gave you what you wanted. What you
needed.
You needed me to not be your mother, and I gave you Margaret. I took the memory of my dead friend, a friend who was murdered, and I made her your mother. I gave you your freedom from me. All you had to do was walk away. All you had to do was leave and forget about me. But . . . you wouldn’t let me go. Yes, I am your mother. The woman who birthed you. But I am not the one who did horrible things to you. That was Thelma. And Thelma is gone. Thelma is . . . dead. She is dead.”
“Why would you do that?”
“All of my life . . . I have been . . . I have told men what they want to hear.”
“Like a whore.”
“I gave you what you wanted. I gave you what you wanted.”
I knew twenty-two ways to end a life. I imagined doing all of them to her.
The perfect end to a Shakespearian tragedy. No, not Shakespeare. Sophocles.
Oedipus the King.
The Greek tragedy about the fucked-up royal family. A man who killed his father. And slept with his mother.
I stood up, broken, and moved toward the woman who had mind-fucked me all my life.
I heard the boys. Heard Steven and Robert laughing, arguing, playing. That sound of their merriment saved her. I put my back against the wall, held my head in my hands.
The boys. Steven and Robert. They didn’t ask to be born into this madness.
This was bigger than Catherine and me. Bigger than any fool in this room.
Catherine was scared shitless. She didn’t run. She sat with her arms folded, bounced her legs, lips tight, eyes closed, remembering all the lies, swallowing them over and over like she was swallowing hot semen.
What she had done to my body and my head, it was irreversible and irreparable.
She said, “I have asked God for forgiveness. I have fallen to my knees and bowed my head in supplication, begged for forgiveness. If God can forgive me, why can’t you?”
“Because I’m not God.”
“Why do you act like one? Why did you bring me to North America and lord over me?”
A man could always forgive. Forgiving wasn’t the problem. Forgetting was the problem.
She said, “I admit my faults. I made bad choices. I didn’t do a good job rearing you.”
“You didn’t rear me. You used me to kill. Whores, con men, and thieves reared me.”
“But I did what I had to do to protect you. I could’ve left you on the steps of a church the day you were born. I could’ve abandoned you on the steps of a home. Or left you in the garbage. Many frightened girls leave their newborn babies in trash cans. But I kept you and reared you. I had nothing, was in a strange country with no money, and did what I could. Yes, I was a horrible mother. But I did what I had to do to protect you.”
I swallowed pain that went down like razor blades. I walked toward her, moved past her angst, went into the kitchen, and poured myself a glass of water. Needed cold water, not hot tea. I looked out at the boys, then poured a second glass of water, went back into the dining room, put that glass of water down in front of Catherine, next to her cup of tea.
She sipped her water and put the glass back down on the table.
I asked, “Who was the man you had over?”
The new conversation stunned her, caused her jaw to drop, left no room for lies.
She asked, “How did you . . .”
“Are you still a sex worker?”
She shook her head. “Don’t believe you asked me that.”
“The man you brought here in the middle of the night, what do you know about him?”
“How did you know about him?”
“Knowing is my business.”
“You’re spying on me?”
I repeated, “What do you know about him?”
“He’s my friend.” She took another breath. “We go to movies.”
“You’re a liar. I don’t know you. You’ve lied about so much.”
“I am not a sex worker. You know I am not a sex worker.”
“Where do you and your friend go to the movies?”
“In Austell. The theater around the corner.”
“When do you go to the movies?”
“During the day. When the boys are at school.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“Borders.”
“Which Borders?”
“In Austell. On East-West Connector.”
“You met him at a bookstore.”
“Is Alvin spying on me?”
I paused, almost snapped and told her the truth. I backed away, didn’t play my hand.
My eyes went to that FedEx package. To the DNA results. Fuel to my anger.
I said, “You sucked that man’s dick in the living room and the boys were upstairs, a few feet away. I know how I grew up. I know how they grew up. They’ve seen things that children shouldn’t see, things a child shouldn’t see his mother do. I saw your life, know Steven saw you working as a whore in London and wherever you were before you ran to London. I know Robert . . . his mother . . . he has probably seen the same. I want that shit to end. I brought you here because I want that shit to end.”
She was rattled, embarrassed, confused, and angry.
“Robert and Steven. Did they see me with him?”
“If you are back to whoring . . . don’t conduct your business . . . in the goddamn living room.”
“Stop accusing me of being a sex worker. That life is over. I swear to God.”
“They didn’t see. The boys didn’t see.”
“Then . . . how would you know what I do inside my own home? How would you know what I do when you are not here? When you are hundreds of miles away, how do you know?”
Silence.
“I’m a woman, Jean-Claude.”
“I know you are, Catherine.”
“All of my friends, I left them behind. I have the boys. Only the boys. I love them. But I get lonely. I need . . . adult conversation and interaction. I need . . . I am a woman.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve done so many bad things in my life, but I am still a human being.”
“Are you?”
“I had not been with a man . . . since London. And not like this. Never dated. Wasn’t sure I knew how. Wasn’t sure if I could. The first men who touched me, they were relatives that molested me. When you are a girl and that is all you know, that is how you learn to relate to men. Many men have touched me, out of need, out of anger, but never out of love. This is the first time I’ve been with a man who . . . he only knows me as Catherine. That was who he was with. He was with Catherine. Not with the girl from Yerres. Not with the woman you remember when you were a boy. Not with the woman you beat with your fists and put in the hospital, then came to Amsterdam and London to find with all of that hate in your heart. He was with the woman I am now. He was with Catherine. There was no money exchanged. He took me skating during the day. We went roller-skating at a rink in Marietta. Once we walked on the Silver Comet Trail. Once we walked the Chattahoochee Trail. Another time we went to the cinema. We held hands at the cinema. That was new for me. It was like . . . a fantasy. Something I never had the chance to do as a young girl. A man’s touch that wasn’t about violence or sex. Or about me needing money. That’s what regular people do. They meet. Talk. Decide if they like each other enough to date. They date. Then they decide whether they want it to be more.”
I raised my hand. Had heard enough.
She asked, “How did you know about him coming inside my home?”
“What does he know about you?”
“I can’t hide my accent. I told him I was from Paris. I created a life for myself. A new, respectable life. Said I was married twice in Europe. Once to a German, once to an African. Marriages that I don’t want to talk about. I told him what I have told everyone else. He respects that. He knows I love books, that I love movies, that l love languages. He thinks I’m funny. He laughs at my jokes. He tells me that I am beautiful. He admires me for being a single mother raising two energetic boys.”
“World-class liar. That’s what you are. A world-class liar.”
She shook her head, lowered her face into her palms.
I stared at the DNA results, two-thirds of X.Y.Z. resolved.
It took a moment before Catherine raised her head, her body language weak.
There was one more test result between us. One more variable in the equation.
The answer to Y. The answer to Steven.
The boy with the blond hair. The boy who spoke German as if it were his first language.
I opened the DNA and read his truth. Read what Catherine already knew.
I read it over and over. What I read didn’t change. Another truth stared back at me.
I looked at Catherine.
“Jean-Claude . . .”
It took me a moment to find my voice. “Steven told me he shot a man.”
“Steven told you that.”
I stared, waited for her to talk.
She said, “A man who . . . was beating me.”
“That had to be déjà vu.”
“It was.”
“You get all of us to kill for you. All of us.”
She didn’t say anything.
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Where were you that time?”
“Begleitagenturen
.
”
“The kid killed a man in Germany.”
“A customer who attacked me.”
“Like when we were in Montreal. Or was it like in North Carolina.”
She sad nothing.
I moved my hands from my neck, rubbed my temples and my forehead.
She wiped her eyes.
I said, “Stop crying.”
“God. I can’t cry? You tell me to not cry like you own my anguish. You give orders, do this, do that, not do this, not do that . . . like . . . like . . . like that horrible man.”
“What horrible man?”
She said, “My father.”
“Those tears are no longer currency.”
Tears fell as her nose filled with snot. I went to the kitchen, grabbed a few napkins and handed them to her. She thanked me, then blew her nose over and over.
“You make me feel like a prisoner.”
“What were you when you were whoring on Berwick Street? Did you have a house, a decent roof over your head? Did you have a car? You lived in the gutter. You have lived in the gutter all of your life. I pulled you out of that gutter. Now you’re in a dream house. Living a middle-class life. And you know how all of your bills get paid? I do things to make this possible. You don’t have to work. All you have to do is live a decent life and take care of those boys. Stop crying. And give me a break with that prisoner bullshit. If anyone is a prisoner, if anyone in this room is a prisoner, it sure as hell isn’t you.”
“What am I doing here?” She spoke in a strong whisper, one filled with anguish and anger. “You pay for my life here, yes, and I appreciate that. But there is no freedom. You tell me I am still that bad person, that young girl who was so terrified of the world, that young girl who was abused, that young woman who sold herself to people . . . to strangers . . . and did that to feed herself . . . took strangers to bed to feed and clothe you as well. Over and over I sold myself for you. Now . . . somehow you watch my every move and you talk as if you have the power to sanction every aspect of my life, even my tears.”