listen,’ said Alex desperately.
‘Mom was so wonderful,’ I said. ‘Let me remember her the way I want to. I don’t have a dad. I’ve made peace with that. I’ve gone on with my life.’
‘Your life,’ said Alex scornfully.
I thought about Gerry, our house, and our dog. I didn’t want to look into the shadowy places – the night of the murder, the way love could turn on you. ‘How can I marry him?’ I said. ‘We both know what can happen, Alex. How it can all just . . .’ I opened my fingers as if releasing a bird, then dropped them to my lap. ‘How it can all just go wrong.’
‘You have to believe in something,’ said Alex.
‘Why?’
Alex wouldn’t meet my gaze. After a minute, he reached out and took my hand. I watched the campfire. We were high on a ridge, and somewhere beyond us was the sea.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Okay. Say what you want to. Go ahead.’
Alex swallowed. He squeezed my fingers too hard as he spoke, as though I would escape if given the chance. ‘In the case files,’ he said, speaking quickly, maybe afraid I’d interrupt him, ‘the detective wrote about household items that were found at the scene of the crime. In other words, they were found in Mom and Dad’s room. I got him to send me a list of the items. One was an earring, a jade earring.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ I murmured.
‘Lauren, please. I’m just asking you to hear me out.’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘A mysterious jade earring. Go on.’
‘Why do you have to be so difficult?’ said Alex angrily. ‘I’m just wondering, Lauren. Why can’t you shut up for once?’
I pulled my hand away, made fists in my lap. ‘It’s just . . .’ I said. ‘It’s ridiculous, Alex! An earring? She could have borrowed some earrings. Someone could have given them to her – a patient, a friend – who knows?’
Alex pressed his lips together. He breathed out through his nose, then spoke in a measured tone. ‘Lauren, I need you to listen. For me, okay?’
I nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘So I didn’t remember Mom having any fancy things. I didn’t want to get Dad’s hopes up, so I didn’t tell him anything, but I did ask him if Mom had any expensive jewelry, and he said no, just her engagement diamond. The earring was an antique. I got the police to send it to me, and then I traced its origins. It was bought at Harry Winston in 1968, then sent to a woman named Pauline Hall. They even had her address.’
I felt a twinge of jealousy at the thought of Alex and our father chatting on the phone. It wasn’t that I didn’t want a father – I did. But I had loved him so fully, a girl’s love, and he had betrayed us all. I felt a familiar rush of anger and need; they were bound together for me. So as not to be subsumed, I shoved the surging back. In my mind, I pictured a heavy metal door. I closed it with all my strength and tried to listen to Alex.
‘I made a list of people named Pauline Hall,’ said Alex. ‘In New York and around New York. And I . . . I called them. I called them all.’
‘Oh, Alex,’ I said.
‘Please be quiet,’ he said. He stood, facing away from me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
Alex didn’t say anything. ‘So that’s it,’ he said. He turned back around, his eyes burning. He crossed his arms over his chest. ‘A dead end, okay? You were right. I just wanted you to know.’
‘Is that all?’ I said.
‘That’s all,’ said Alex. Unburdened, he was my brother again: wistful and sad, with really good posture.
‘What do you want me to do about all this?’ I said.
‘I just wanted you to hear me,’ said Alex. ‘I just wanted you to know.’
That night I lay awake with the name Pauline Hall spinning in my head. My heart was beating too fast. I thought I could hold it together but was scared I could not. I climbed from the bunk and took three Tylenol PM tablets. In time, I fell asleep.
Chapter 4
Alex’s apartment, one half of a duplex, was right underneath Interstate 35. When he had parties, you could sit outside at his splintered picnic table and watch the lights of cars flying by overhead like spaceships. Alex played sad jazz music or heavy metal from his computer speakers and stood by his barbecue, poking meat with giant tongs, usually wearing his favorite yellow T-shirt, which read ‘good times’.
It was completely dark on the morning I picked up Alex to take him to the airport. Though it was early September, it was clammy and warm, no hint of fall, which didn’t arrive in Austin until late October. Around Halloween, the weather shifted abruptly from scorching to tepid, then in December to vaguely chilly. January held a few thirty-degree days during which people pulled out parkas and even fur hats, and by March it was hot again. Once every few years it snowed for twenty minutes to an hour, and people crashed their cars or stayed home from work and school to marvel. I had never seen a snowman in Austin.
‘Hey,’ said Alex when he opened his front door.
‘Hey,’ I said.
Alex picked up his duffel. It was a flowered bag; Alex had bought it for cheap from REI online. It said hannah on the side, and sometimes I wondered about the woman who had ordered it and then changed her mind. I saw her as a stewardess from Honolulu, a woman who had finally admitted a wheelie bag was more damn practical.
Alex seemed thin in his worn jeans and black cardigan sweater with a white button-down shirt underneath. He was good-looking in an unkempt way – you wouldn’t guess he was a medical doctor in his Converse sneakers. He looked more like an out-of-work actor or a philosophy graduate student. But Alex stood with his shoulders back and had a loping gait that told the world he was someone important despite his scruffy getup.
I didn’t turn down the radio; it was Love Songs for the Lonely, my favorite show. On the drive to Alex’s apartment, the husband of an elderly woman had dedicated Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ to his wife. ‘She’s sitting right here with me now,’ he had told the DJ, ‘and she’s as beautiful as the day I met her at the Dairy Queen on Hamilton Boulevard.’ The radio show was syndicated, but it didn’t really matter in what city (or town) Hamilton Boulevard was located. At least not to me.
‘I’ve got to say, I’m excited,’ said Alex, settling next to me.
‘How nice,’ I said, putting the car in gear. Whitney Houston ran out of steam, and the DJ (her name was Mary Helen) began talking to a high school freshman who had been dumped by a baseball player. ‘My heart hurts for you,’ said Mary Helen, ‘but you have so much happy ahead, honey, and this is just God getting you ready for your real true love.’ Mary Helen cued up ‘Like a Virgin,’ which seemed an odd choice.
‘What a load of crap,’ said Alex, snorting.
‘I love this show,’ I said.
‘I find that really strange.’
‘What?’
‘You are the least romantic person in America,’ said Alex.
I felt a headache gathering behind my eyes. ‘That isn’t true.’
‘Forget I said anything.’
I didn’t answer, but I knew Alex was wrong. I was filled with desire. I read romantic novels. I watched Lifetime television. I wanted love so badly it made me feel sick sometimes, scraped out. But I knew the cost.
The sky lightened as we drove south on Airport Boulevard. ‘I’ll be honest with you,’ I said. ‘I feel like maybe you won’t come home.’
‘Hey.’