Complicit Page 17

  I head off in search of answers I may not wish to find.

  4

  EPISTROPHY

  FIFTY-ONE

  Driving Dr. No up the dark winding Mount Diablo roads to where my sister waits, I feel more like an impostor than ever. Only I’m not sure whether I’m playing at being the good guy this time.

  Or the villain.

  I park in the empty lot of a campground just north of Rock City. The campsites are closed, but apparently my sister’s found a way to stay here. She found it the way she always finds things, I suppose. Through deceit, manipulation, through offering herself up to the first lonely park ranger she stumbled upon.

  I can only imagine.

  The winter wind hits me with a sucker punch the moment I step outside. With the elevation change, the air is brutal. It’s biting. It’s bone cold. I circle the looping dirt trail, trudging around and around beneath night gloom and looming trees. The rain hasn’t started up again, but everything feels dank, loose, and close to melting. Moisture coats my eyelids, beads the bridge of my nose.

  My seeking takes on a sense of desperation. My sister’s not where I expect her to be. She’s not in any of the numbered campsites. She’s not in the ranger’s trailer, which is set off from the main campground and appears to be empty. I find an old pink and yellow Honda scooter shoved off the roadside into a brambly thicket of blackberries, but when I call Cate’s name, there’s no response. I call out again, and I’m on the verge of breaking down under the weight of my own questions, when a familiar scent hits my nostrils.

  Smoke.

  My heart lurches and my hands die. Just like that, I’m disarmed, helpless, but still I follow the scent, sharp and burning. I move fast up the mountain, sidewinding over slick rock like a dog after a lure, single-minded and nose to ground. There’s a second nesting of caves up here, ones steeper and more dangerous than those at Rock City. Ones with no name.

  This is where I find her.

  Cate stands outside the cares, on the edge of the craggy cliff, all skimpy clothes and cigarette blazing. Her knees bump dangerously against the stone retaining wall that’s meant to keep people from slipping over. Her dark hair, lit up by the fire crackling in the cave behind her, whips and puffs in the blowing wind, spreading out wide, like a cobra’s hood. Her back is to me, but she knows I’m here.

  She always knows.

  I force myself to walk along the narrow path, heading straight for her. I am cautious and I am scared. This is as far outside the chords as I’ve ever played. But somehow it feels right.

  It feels like destiny.

  As I approach, Cate turns. We stare at each other. The fireglow strikes her and she’s not screaming at me this time or throwing bricks, so at last, I am able to take her in.

  My sister is smeared eye makeup. She’s bare feet and bruised legs in winter. She is fucking beautiful and she is utter madness.

  She’s Cate.

  After all this time.

  “Oh, Jamie,” she says, and I start to cry.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t even know what I did. But I’m so sorry.”

  She reaches out and wraps her arms around me in a way she hasn’t done in years. In a way nobody’s done in years. It’s maternal in the most tragic of senses—like she wants to use her body to protect me from the wind, the elements, the harsh realities of the world.

  Like she’d do anything to save me.

  Maybe that’s been her fatal flaw all along.

  Protecting me from myself.

  “You know, don’t you?” she whispers in my ear.

  I nod. I’m embarrassed to be crying, but now that I’ve started I can’t stop. Emotion spills from me, twined with grief and fear and mostly fear. “I know I did something bad. Something that has to do with our mom. Nothing else makes sense. But I don’t know what it is. Help me remember. Please.”

  Cate holds me tighter. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  She looks down. “Your hands. Are they—”

  “Yes, they’re numb.”

  She nods. “Once I tell you, you can’t go back, you know.”

  “I know that. But please, tell me everything.”

  “Okay,” she says. “Come sit by the fire, then. And listen.”

  I let her help me into the cave.

  I let her help me sit down.

  I close my eyes.

  I try and hold on.

  FIFTY-TWO

  My sister’s voice is all goose feathers and hard truth. In her Cate way, in language peppered with fucks and assholes and goddamn cocksuckers, she tells a tale that starts with “once upon a time.” It’s the tale of a golden-haired girl, one who lived alone with her two beloved children—a boy with a grim owlish nature and a girl as sleek, slippery, and cool as a pussycat.

  It’s also a sad tale, what Cate tells me. Maybe a cautionary one, too. I’m not sure. The girl in Cate’s story had no money and she lived in a basement in the shadow of an oil refinery, on the bad side of a depressed town. She loved her children, Cate says, but love wasn’t enough in her world. Money was what mattered, and so the girl worked three jobs and left her children with her upstairs neighbor when she was gone. The owlish boy hated this. He was colicky and sad, right from the start. No one could soothe him and his early days were spent screaming in a barred wooden cage called a playpen, while the neighbor’s Great Dane barked and barked, right in his face.

  As the boy grew, his sadness grew with him. Only his sorrow evolved, spinning into something different, something darker, something quiet and cutting and sometimes cruel. At school when he was mad, he would hurt other children. He hurt his teacher, too. Cate says he always cried about it after, but after was always too late. Eventually his school didn’t want him and this broke his mother’s heart. She didn’t have the money or the power to convince them that five-year-olds deserve second chances. That what he needed was help.

  Not punishment.

  Or shame.

  Cate says an evening came soon after when the golden-haired girl had to go to work and the boy wanted her to stay. So he dumped milk all over her shirt. On purpose. The girl went to go change but it was the boy’s seven-year-old sister who became angry this time. She was sick of his tantrums and his problems, and she slapped him right across the face! Hard.

  Cate says that for once, the boy didn’t scream or hit back. Instead he slunk from the room while his sister cleaned up the milk. Moments later, she heard a gunshot coming from the bedroom they shared. Then another. Cate tells me she ran as fast as she could, terrified the boy had found the gun their mother kept for protection and shot himself. Instead what she found was her baby brother, alive, with the gun clutched in his tiny talon hands and the golden-haired girl lying on the floor in front of him. Beneath her stretched a pool of blood as dark and rich as rubies.

  Cate tells me that for one shining instant, her little brother was smug. Pleased with what he’d done.

  And then he wasn’t.

  Then he cried out for his lost mother, a sick, broken, babyish sort of sound, and his sister felt so guilty, hitting him the way she had. When the cops and the coroner and the social workers came, she whispered that it had all been an accident, a terrible accident, and if they didn’t exactly believe her, well, they didn’t ask more questions because there wasn’t anyone left to ask. The boy wouldn’t talk, and when they were finally alone, in the darkness of night, his sister held him in her lap and whispered in his ear.

  She would take care of him, she promised.

  She would keep him safe, she promised.

  She would never let anyone find out the truth, she promised.

  Ever.

  Then, Cate tells me, she folded her arms around me and held me close, so close, until I almost stopped breathing. Until all I heard was the soft beating of her heart. A sound that was rhythmic.

  Soothing.

  Hypnotic.

  FIFTY-THREE

  There are some dreams you can’t wa
ke up from. These are the dreams that try and trick you. The ones that lull you into believing you’re awake, that your eyes are open and your mind knows what it’s doing. But it’s a lie. In reality, you’re paralyzed. And when something terrible comes for you, you can’t move.

  No matter what you do.

  No matter how hard you try.

  The story my sister tells is not a nice one.

  It is not a dream I want to be having.

  But it’s mine.

  I can’t escape it.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  When I open my eyes, I’m sitting with Cate in the cave with my back hunched against the sharp rocky wall. My bones are still cold. My hands are still dead.

  I absorb her words. Slowly. I probe around in my mind and my heart for any hint of recollection. Of understanding.

  Could I really have done what she’s saying? Killed my own mother in a fit of rage … out of spite?

  It doesn’t feel right, this version of the truth. It’s like trying on a stranger’s skin or waking up in a land whose language makes you foreign, but given what I know about amnesia, I guess that’s the point. Not remembering has a purpose. An empty mind can be filled with such palatable lies. And when I think of Darlene and Miss Louise, with their coy, careful words and sad, shifty looks, I realize perhaps there are some truths that nobody can handle, and which everyone is more than willing to forget.

  But from one truth follows so many others. I don’t need Cate to tell me that, and it’s no feat of cognitive reasoning to deduce that if I’ve forgotten one dark shameful moment from my past, I’ve forgotten more. That for me, perhaps, forgetting isn’t passive, but active—a means for me to flush my worst and weakest moments from my spotty mind like loose change or gum wrappers or anything else I can’t bear to carry. That maybe nothing can bring those memories back. Not therapy. Not my sister’s own impassioned attempts at hypnosis.

  Nothing.

  “The barn,” I say dully. “I did that too, didn’t I? And you took the blame?”

  My sister nods.

  “That’s why my hands go numb. It’s when I’m around you, right? Or when I feel guilty for setting the fire.”

  “Yes,” she says. “That’s what I think, anyway.”

  “But why? Why would I do that?”

  “I don’t know why. I always thought you were mad at Hector for something. Or Danny even. But tonight, after hearing about this phone you dug up, maybe it was Sarah all along, huh?”

  “Sarah?” I say. Again it feels wrong. But in the way the ocean tide rolls out to reveal the life thriving beneath the waves, as I force myself to think back, it’s the memory of those texts I found on the throwaway cell phone that brings clarity. Those awful, incriminating texts, the ones I’d always thought my sister had sent but had never really understood.

  hey sarah.

  look out your window

  hope you’re not slow

  better be fast

  better hurry

  better

  run.

  The voice inside my head is stern now, disapproving. It says, Cate may not know why you did it, but you know, don’t you? You hated her. You always hated her, and my shoulders droop and my heart sinks, because the voice is right. I did hate Sarah. The way she mocked and bossed me. The way she looked down on me and made me feel small. I’d wanted her out of my life. Scooter’s, too.

  She made me very, very angry.

  And I don’t like to be angry.

  I look up at Cate, her gaunt face, her haunted eyes.

  “You’re not going to do that passing out thing, are you?” she says sharply.

  “N-no. I don’t think so. I think … I think I’m in shock, maybe. But you’re right. What you said about Sarah.”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s not enough. But I am.”

  “I’m sorry, too. I mean, I came back here because I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to see if I could set you off. But I didn’t have to confess to the fire, back then. No one made me. It just felt like a way to atone for what I’d done all those years ago. A way to make me feel less crazy. Only once I was locked up, there was no grace. No absolution, like they tell you in church. It was just … awful. So I wanted you to feel a little bit of that awfulness, too. Even if you didn’t remember why.”

  “I deserve to feel a lot worse than that.”

  “No, you don’t. Hearing tonight about how you tried to protect me by burying that bag, not knowing what you’d done, well, hell, it reminded me that you’re not a bad person. Just sick. Very, very sick. But you’re still my owl. You’re still in pain. And I’m still your sister. Crazy Cate.”

  I shake my head. What else can I do? I can’t say anything to that. What I’ve done, who I am, it’s indefensible.

  Her voice softens. “You know, the story I wanted you to read in that book wasn’t Electra.”

  “What was it?”

  “Antigone.”

  Of course. The one I haven’t read.

  “What’s it about?” I ask.

  “It’s about a girl who stands up for what she believes is right. A girl who stands up for her brother.”

  “What happens to her?”

  “She dies. On her terms.”

  I crumple then. I’m crushed. I can’t look at my sister anymore, because I’m lost, drowning, swallowed up by the misery of it all. By the way that there’s tragic and tragedy and the fact that our lives have been both all at once. Without me even knowing it. Deep down, I’m stupid, I guess. Or blind. Maybe, like Oedipus, I’ve always been blind—believing I can understand the ways of the world. But there’s no outsmarting fate and there are no miracles to question. The past is what matters and it’s the one thing that can never be changed.

  No matter how badly you want to.

  No matter how hard you try.

  “You’re not crazy,” I tell Cate.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

  “You’re not,” I insist. “You’re my sister.”

  “That’ll do it,” she says, and somehow we’re both able to smile.

  “I have something to show you before I go.” She reaches and pulls an item from her purse. Holds it in front of me.

  It’s a photograph. I lean forward to see it better, but it’s a portrait of a young woman. She’s almost a child, really. And she’s beaming like the sun. Her blond hair falls into her face. She’s gazing down at a baby swathed in blue.

  “Cate,” I whimper. “Is that—”

  “It is,” she says. “And you.”

  My chest knots up, shortening my breath. “She’s beautiful.”

  “Yeah, she was. She really was. I had another photo, too, but the goddamn rain ruined it.”

  “Don’t go,” I say quickly. “Danny still loves you.”

  “I know he does. I was with him the night of the fire, the night I saw you sneak in. He never believed In it and he waited all this time. But…”

  “But what?”

  Cate pushes her lips into one of her enigmatic smiles. “But I have what I need right now and it’s not love.”

  My heart aches. Like that night in her room all those years ago, before she walked herself into a courtroom to be sentenced for something she was innocent of, something I’d done, I am losing my sister. Again.

  She touches my cheek. “Promise me you’ll get help, Jamie. You’ll be an asshole if you don’t.”

  I give a hoarse laugh. “You think they’ll help me in jail when I get arrested for that pet store fire?”

  “You won’t get arrested. I already called back and gave the cops about twenty other license plates. They know I’m a hoax. They don’t have any evidence.”

  “But I did it.”

  She blinks. “Oh.” Then: “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Get help,” Cate repeats firmly. Then she leans forward, reaching for the photograph resting on my lap.

  “Don’t take that,” I say. “Please.”

&nbs
p; “This is the one thing I can’t give up. It’s all I have of her. I’m sorry.” With a rueful look, Cate plucks the faded picture from me and slips it into her purse. Then she uncrosses her legs and reaches for her shoes, which sit beside her. My heart beats very fast. My hands tingle. Faintly. Like an omen. Or a warning.

  I want that photograph.

  Pressure builds inside me, volcanic strength. Only what’s growing inside me might be hotter. More powerful. More explosive.

  I want that photograph.

  Cate uses the tip of her finger to wedge one of her shoes over her heel. She reaches for her purse and goes to stand up. In a moment she’ll be gone.

  Forever.

  It happens. My hands come back to life and I lunge for Cate. She cries out when I grab for her, and twists her body. The movement catches me off guard. Wrapped together, we writhe and stumble out of the cave, into the night. We crash against the stone retaining wall. Cate’s legs press against it, then her hips and her back. I’m pushing her. She starts to slip over, but won’t let go. She fights back, clawing at me, kicking, punching, shouting, anything.

  I fight harder.

  I think

  this is madness

  I think

  this is sick

  I think

  I won’t let her beat me.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  There are some dreams you can’t wake up from.

  Ever.

  These are called nightmares.

  FIFTY-SIX

  When I open my eyes, I don’t know where I am.

  I’m outside. Alone. Walking down an empty road. Trees surround me and everything is black. It’s night and the air swirls with a howling wind and thick rolls of lowlying ground fog. I’ve got a jacket on, but it’s not enough. My teeth chatter. I tremble with each step. My body feels bruised and stiff.

  How did I get here?

  My head spins. I feel dizzy, so I stop walking. I look around. I don’t see the Jeep anywhere. There are houses on the hillside above me, resting on stilts and pressing into the earth. Their lights are all off.

  It must be late.