“Yes.” I go with it. Allison has always held an unmitigated brilliance. Deep down, I’ve always known she was the smarter one in the family. I never once believed I was pulling anything over on her. Even when I was deep inside of Hailey Oden’s body, I knew that I knew my day of reckoning was just around the corner. It was Allison’s angry eyes I saw when I closed mine all those months ago. And rightfully so. Because for the months leading up to it, while I was deep inside of Allison, I used to make myself see Hailey. Get me off a little faster, harder, and it only led to destruction. Instead of trying to fix what was wrong with what I had, I stepped in shit and smeared it over the proverbial carpet of our lives. My stench is so great it has gone over all the world. And I brought my daughter down to eat it. That’s the most damning part. In a roundabout way, this little girl too, and for a second I’m overcome with guilt and grief for what I’ve cost everyone in this room.
Ota bounces her finger over the first eye and nods to Allison before proceeding to trace it with her finger. She does the same with the second eye, only she looks to me that time. She lands a lanky little finger, the size and shape of a runt French fry over the third eye before looking past the two of us at the fluffy stuffed letters nailed to the wall that spell out Reagan.
Allison gasps. “This is Reagan’s eye?”
Ota gives a solemn nod, her gaze lost in my wife’s as if they have a supernatural connection. She resumes her attention to the page at hand and proceeds to color in Reagan’s eye in haste, sealing it shut forever.
Reagan’s eye is closed. I may not need a road map to figure out what that’s supposed to mean, but I’m not sure I believe it.
It can’t be true.
Reagan can’t be dead.
Reagan. Dead Reagan.
Dear God, no.
13
Allison
The sky clots up with soot as the day turns ashen, and the evergreens that line our home lean across the roof like insolent shadows bearing down their judgment over us. Fall was crushing us with those pregnant, tenebrous clouds. Every chimney in the neighborhood spewed the thick scent of charcoal, choking out the oxygen in the air. We didn’t have a need for oxygen anymore. Without Reagan, we couldn’t take our next breath.
McCafferty let James know she’d be here in fifteen minutes as we pace the living room like skittish caged animals. She wasn’t taking no for an answer. She certainly wasn’t about to wait for morning.
“I can’t do this,” I say it mostly to myself, rubbing down my arms, staggering from one foot to the other as if the motion alone could somehow bring me comfort. “I need to get some air.” That horrible drawing. The unholy eye with its final curtain call makes the bile stir up in the back of my throat. All signs point toward Reagan’s death. Dolla Chetney shouted it from the rooftop as if it were a winning lottery number. And when Ota showed up solo I wondered. Had they been purposefully separated? Why did they keep Reagan? Do they even realize they gave me back the wrong child? Maybe that’s what comes next. Some big press conference to let them know there’s been a mix-up. But what if it’s too late? Yes, all the signs point to something tragic. They did weeks ago, only I was too blinded by hope to see them.
I snatch the keys off the hook and pull a trench coat out of the closet. “I’ll be back in a minute. I just need to clear my head.”
James catches me by the waist as if we were teenagers. “But—”
“I know. I said I’d be right back.” I give a hard glance upstairs. “Watch her.”
In some barbaric move to preserve our trump card, James proceeded to jam the door to Reagan’s room from the outside. I’m sure she could get out if she really wanted to, but the poor thing doesn’t have the energy. She’s so listless, so dehydrated, nutrition and oxygen deprived. In the mother of all ironies, Reagan will come home, and I’ll go away for unintentional homicide.
James tries to increase his grip on me, but I slink away and open the door enough to let in a whistling wind, Mother Nature berating us for doing to someone else’s child what someone else has done to ours.
“Where are you going?” His eyes do their best to beg me to stay.
“Just out.” I seal the door shut behind me, careful not to slam it and invoke the curiosity of the dwindling number of reporters getting paid to eat their Subway sandwiches and guzzle their half-gallon Cokes to the tune of their intermittent laughter. The ranks have diminished. The world is losing interest. But after McCafferty shows up, after Rich does, it will all ratchet right back up again.
I drive past the infantry of evergreens, their judgmental boughs all pointing down at me as if to call me out on my own indiscretion. I don’t know that I would call Len an indiscretion. James and I weren’t married. But I’ve perpetuated the lie for almost seven years and going strong. A part of me thinks why back down now? And the other part of me says the fever of this nightmare won’t break until I tell James the truth. Like any good parent, I’ve devised a way for this to somehow, existentially, be all my fault. I already know that James is absorbing the blow. This is where he spent his childhood. He’s the reason we’re back here. His home turf. But casting blame his way feels a little too convenient. I like to make things difficult. That’s my specialty. I’m not letting James and his I-slept-with-a-glorified-stripper-and-now-I’ve-lost-my-family head game get to me. I get to own this one, James. You might have plunged your penis into someone else’s body for three weeks straight, but I’ve pulled the wool over your eyes for over six long years and never felt half the remorse that you did.
Len is dead. Len was already dead before I knew I was having a baby. James and I were in love, locked and loaded and ready to roll the marital dice anyway. What reason, outside of cruel honesty, would I have to tell him the truth? James wouldn’t have cared. Or at least I’d like to think so.
I wonder where Reagan and I would be if I had told him the truth all those years ago.
My car makes a left and I come to. Driving with only half your mind at attention to the task will land you in exactly this type of seedy end of town, past the homeless shelter where I half-expect to see Charles on his daily do-gooder mission, past the hotel that doubles as a brothel, past the church that doles out salvation—and straight for the no-tell motel where I left Heather and her make-believe daughter. Finally, after all these years, Heather Evans and I have something in common. We both have an invisible child.
I park and head up the back stairs as icy bites of wind chew at my flesh with their knife-sharp teeth. I’m showing up unannounced, a surprise visit that will probably make her year. No sooner do I reach the crest of the stairwell than a short stalky woman in a blue janitorial uniform jumps backward out of Heather’s room with a shriek. I watch as she swims uneasily down the hall hissing frenetically to herself, making the sign of the cross as she disappears out of sight.
My heart jumps into my throat as I race to the room, my feet stall unnaturally on the threshold. The blackout curtains are drawn, dampening the light right out of the room, save for the flood coming through the door. My eyes dart directly to the desk, directly to a very slumped over Heather Evans.
“Heather?” I start in slow, her motionless body lies limp. “It’s me, Allison. Your very best friend.” I try to evoke a chipper tone as I come up behind her, but my voice shakes beyond recognition. And then I see it. A scream gets locked in my throat.
The head of a hatchet lies firmly embedded in her forehead as a pool of crimson waterfalls over the side of the desk. Her hair is matted in clots, but her eyes, they’re looking right at me, lifeless, and yet so very aware of my presence.
A choking sound comes from my throat as I clap my hand over my mouth. A rumple of voices emit from downstairs, but my feet remain frozen, my joints locked and unwilling to move.
Her hand lies over her cell phone. Clean hand, no blood.
God—no, no, no, don’t do it.
I reach down and swipe it up, bolt out the door and down the stairs before the small crowd amassed around the screaming woman ever maneuvers in Heather’s direction.
“Dear God,” I hiss as I carefully back the car out. No sudden moves. I roll past the curb and stop abruptly as a tiny bobbing head steps in front of the car. A little girl, a little older than Reagan strides by, ponytail, big dark eyes—yellow pinafore. Her head turns abruptly and she shoots a quiet look my way.
“Ota.” Her name burps out in the expanse of the car and I sound like a donkey braying. She walks on by adjusting a shiny pink backpack over her shoulders and my body turns into one raging pulse.