“I didn’t tell her yet, even though I’d planned to,” he says. “I just wanted the moment to be what it was. I didn’t want to talk about our future yet.”
I lean against the door, my legs suddenly unsteady. God, what is it like to be with a man who isn’t so obsessed with the future? One who doesn’t plan everything and try to push me into the labyrinth of calendars. Christmases with his parents. Summers at the beach. Saving up for a very structured tour of Venice, with Collette in tow.
What is it like to be wild? To not care if strangers see your bare ass bouncing up and down through the curtain of a waterfall?
When Bertram opens the door, I nearly stagger into him. He catches me, his hands tight around my forearms. I can feel his pulse thudding through his fingertips.
“Sorry,” he says, breathless. “The lock doesn’t work. I should have asked.”
Wake up, Margaux.I’ve had some version of this dream before, where I’m running but my legs won’t work. I’m screaming, but marbles fall out of my mouth and I can’t make a sound.
He’s a liar. A killer. A con man. A strange lone wolf with aVoguemodel face. I had thought his eyes were the same as Erin’s, that light, champagne-bubble green. But now I think there’s more darkness in his, like the deep heart of a wilderness somewhere. I’m in an episode ofI Shouldn’t Be Alive. I’m a hiker who went too far off the trail, missed the markers, and has spent days wanderingthrough evergreen needles and vines, all tangled and lost in him.
I stare, even though I’m telling myself to look away. To break the spell. To wake up. But he’s staring, too.
He touches my face, and his fingertips are soft. He rustles through my ponytail like a breeze.
“What happened?” I ask him. I’m desperate to know. “How did you tell Annie that you were going to be rich?”
This awakens him from some sort of trance. I see the sobriety fill his features, and then they turn sad for a flash before he locks them away.
“That’s enough for now,” he says softly, and he lets me go. “All of this was off the record, of course.”
Fifteen
“Well?” Elodie asks, by way of greeting when I call her. I’m in the parking lot, leaving Bertram’s apartment.
“I thought we were getting somewhere, but as usual he cut me off. More than that, really. He practically shoved me out the door.” I shiver at a gust of cold November wind. A lone raindrop falls on my nose, a sign of a pending storm.
“What did you find out?” she asks. “Anything good?”
“No,” I lie, as I climb into my car. Poor Elodie. She wants to be my friend because she’s realizing how lonely it is to live a double life. She hasn’t learned yet that we’re so good at what we do—and were selected by Mr. X—because of our ability to keep secrets. She’ll learn soon enough.
“What about you?” I ask her.
“I’ve just gotten off the subway,” she says. “I’m headed to see Skylar now. I thought—screw it, why not go in person and turn the day into a shopping trip?”
“Naturally,” I say. It would be nice to spend the day looking at designer bags and playing Harriet the Spy; maybe I should have gone with her instead of wasting my time here. I’m irritated that Bertram kicked me out just when I thought I was getting somewhere. The sudden emotion on his face, the intensity when he looked at me, was an open door. But he slammed it shut before I could walk through it.
I need to speak to my brother. He’ll know where to steer me, if I’m honest with him about what’s just happened.
Elodie and I say goodbye, and I make my way to the hospital. When I glance in the rearview mirror, I see a purple gel pen that must have fallen out of Collette’s backpack, and I catch myself thinking of her.
She doesn’t know anything about my family, apart from the fact that her grandparents died before she was born. She doesn’t know that she ever had an uncle, or that he’s dying.
Maybe they should meet. I can trust her to keep a secret. Hell, she barely tells me what’s going on in her own life anymore. But Collette is observant, and she’ll ask questions. She might even try to research him in secret, without telling anyone, and go fishing for details she doesn’t think I’ll tell her. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
One thing I have learned in my line of work is that the truth always comes up. Not right away. Not next week. Maybe not even next year. But someday. When she’s twenty-five, or thirty, or cradling a baby of her own, she’ll come across the information somehow and she’ll want to know why I kept it from her. Because if my brother dies,his existence doesn’t die with him. Yes, I’ve lied to Collette about her family, but if I never tell her the truth even after he’s gone, every year will be a lie, too. When I’m bringing her flowers at her college graduation, or helping her pick out a wedding gown, or coming with her to her seaside vacation to celebrate her new promotion—I’ll know something that she has a right to know.
I keep secrets from everyone, and I have my reasons. But Collette changes the game. My secrets belong to her by extension. Your child is different from your husband or your neighbor, or even yourself.
And my brother is dying. That’s the truth, even if I don’t want to admit it. In a few weeks, or months, maybe a year, he won’t be conscious enough to speak. He won’t know who’s coming to visit. He won’t be able to answer her questions, or tell her how much she looks like our mother.
“Damn it,” I mutter to the purple gel pen. Life was so much easier when the only person I had to hurt was myself. Having a daughter is like giving birth to a mirror that you can’t help glancing into.
As though in response to my frustration, the rain picks up, smashing down on the windshield so hard that I can barely get visibility even with the wipers on high.
The rain is so loud that I don’t hear the metal grinding sound or the low sputtering sound until I try to turn the steering wheel and the car doesn’t move. Then all the lights in the car go dark as the engine shuts off.
