May We Be Forgiven Part 55

We play Monopoly. The phone rings again and again, no message.

"Just so you know: The person I text is a friend. The person who keeps calling I'm not so sure about."

On Sunday afternoon I take Ashley back to school. We bring Tessie along for the ride-Ashley wants to bring the kitten too, but I tell her it would be hard on the kitten's mama. I give her a new watch that I found in the "gift" section of George and Jane's closet. We talk about cutting back on watching television and reading more; I make some suggestions of books that might replace her television habit-Charles d.i.c.kens, Jane Austen, George Eliot, the Brontes.

"All men," Ashley says.

I shake my head no. "George Eliot was a woman, as was Austen, and the Brontes." I promise to send her some. "I think you'll like them; they're cla.s.sics, and a lot like soap operas-in fact, that's where the soap-opera writers get their ideas from."

"Don't push it," she says.

"Look at Shakespeare, look at Romeo and Juliet, it's all right there..." I tell her.

She takes her bag and gets out of the car, planting a foggy kiss on the closed window. I beep and wave.

Two days later, the missing girl is found in a garbage bag.

Dead.

I vomit.

The newscaster p.r.o.nounces "a tragic end to this story."

I know it is not about me, but I feel guilty; perhaps it is my feelings about Jane, about Claire, my Internet escapades, and the woman from the A&P, who may or may not be the dead girl. It may not be logical, but the depth to which I see myself as criminal, despite my recent best efforts to rehabilitate myself, is real. It is only a matter of time before the cops are at my door. Hours pa.s.s. Days. If I had no other responsibilities, I would consider suicide. This may strike you as an overreaction, but what I am trying to say is that I feel guilt, shame, and responsibility on a profound level. Clearly it's not just about the dead girl. I am aware of the damage to everyone-it's as though this girl and Nate and Ashley weren't real, as though nothing was real-except the stirrings below-until all this-until I got to know them. Before this I was detached. The depth to which I now feel everything, when it is not paralyzing, is terrifying. Again, I vomit.

That evening, just before dusk, the doorbell rings. She is standing impatiently on the flagstone step. "I thought you were dead," I say.

"May I come in?" she asks.

I am alternately angry and relieved. My tolerance for not knowing, for obliviousness, is gone.

"Who are you?" I ask.

She says nothing.

"Your ID belongs to a dead girl."

"I found it," she says.

"Where?"

"In a trash can."

"You have to call the police."

"I can't do that."

"I am not going to continue this conversation until you give me your real name and address." I hand her a Post-it and a pen. She writes down the information and hands the paper back to me: Amanda Johnson. "I'm Googling you," I say, walking away-leaving the front door open.

"You might also use my father's name-Cyrus or Cy."

"I will," I say, yelling from deep within the house. According to the Internet, her father, Cyrus, now in his late seventies, was the top dog of a large insurance agency and was forced out following a corporate scandal.

"He stole money," she yells a moment later.

"Apparently," I say. "And you were the maid of honor at your younger sister Samantha's wedding and played the flute at the reception, 'a once-promising flautist.'...Are you still playing the flute?"

"f.u.c.k you," she says, coming into the house and finding me at George's desk. "I told you I played the flute."

"So how does it happen that you've got a dead girl's ID?" I ask.

"Like I said, I found it."

"Like I asked-where?"

"In a trash can in the parking lot of a church."

"And you didn't tell the police."

She shakes her head no.

"Why not?"

"It was a while before I put it all together, and because I go there and I don't want to have to stop going there."

"To the church?"

She nods.

"On Sundays?"

"During the week." She pauses. "I have a problem."

"You drink?"

She shakes her head no.

"Drugs?"

"No."

"s.e.x?" I ask, somewhat guiltily.

Again, she shakes her head no.

"Then what?"

She begins to cry.

"Is it so bad?"

She nods.

"Tell me," I say. "Really, Amanda, you can tell me."

"I can't," she says. "If I tell, you'll never trust me."

"It's not like I trust you now," I say.

She laughs and starts crying again.

"Shoplifting? Eating issues?"

"Quilting," she blurts. "I'm a quilter, okay?"

"We all feel like quitting sometimes. You mean you quit a lot?"

"QUILT," she shouts. "I MAKE f.u.c.kING QUILTS. And if I tell the police, they won't believe me, and then the whole wretched story will come out, and it will all be an enormous mess, and I'll be more alone than I already am."

"Do you know who killed the girl?"

"No."

"Okay, well, that's a start."

She's still crying. "I'm a liar," she blurts.

"You do know who killed her?"

She shakes her head. "I'm a compulsive liar, I lie about everything. That's why I go to that group at the church, it's a group for liars; even just then I was lying. I don't f.u.c.king quilt, and if I tell the police, they'll think I'm lying, since that's what I'm there for. That's why, the other day, it was so important to me that I told you the truth about the seven-layer bar-the gift that I bought you and ate."

"Slow down," I say.

"What's the point of telling the police?" she says.

"It's a clue-like, maybe the woman was robbed, maybe the killer left something of his own in the same trash can, maybe his fingerprints are on the very same piece of ID you're using, maybe they're going to trace it all back to you and say you're the one who did it."

"Maybe I should just burn the ID," she says.

"Destroying evidence," I say. "How about just going to the police and saying, 'Hi there, I found these in a trash can and realized they belong to the girl in the garbage bag.'"

"It's kind of fascinating," she says, "what you find in the garbage."

"What made you look in there?"

"I don't know. Something caught my eye. I used to have a boyfriend who was into Dumpster diving."

"Why would you appropriate someone else's identification?"

"Haven't you ever just needed to be someone else?" she says.

I shrug no.

"I was working, I had a job, I lived in Brooklyn. I really liked it. I was dating this guy, flawed but a warm body; we had a cat. And then my mother fell and my father couldn't take care of her, and so I came home, and it's like sinking into quicksand. I had to give up my job, my boyfriend wasn't really into family. Let's be real, let's not drag it out, I said, but I'm coming back soon. He didn't believe me. He kept the cat, won't let me see or speak to her-says I'm an unfit mother."

"Your friends?"

"My boyfriend didn't like most of my friends, so I'd already dropped them. I lost my health insurance and stopped taking my medication and started taking my mother's, which is covered-but it's not really the same."

"I have lots of medication," I offer, wondering, is everyone on medication?

She says nothing.

"It still feels like something's missing from the picture-you're taking care of your parents and you're pretending to be someone else? Amanda?" I repeat the name. "Amanda, was that always your name?"

"Are you picking on me? I feel like you're picking on me."

"I'm just trying to understand. When you're taking care of your parents, are you yourself, or this other person-the a.s.sumed ident.i.ty?"

"When I'm taking care of my parents, I live in the bedroom where I grew up, with my same books and toys on the shelf, and it's like I'm still in junior high, like I just got home from school and happened to find them there, sitting on the living-room sofa, but maybe now my dad has wet his pants."

"Do they know what year it is?"

"Sometimes, and sometimes it changes many times in the course of a day. 'Do you have homework?' my mother will ask. 'Just a little,' I say. 'I may have to go to the library-so-and-so's mom is giving me a ride.' When I take them to the doctor, she asks, 'How did you learn to drive, and do your feet reach the pedals?'"

"And what do you say?"

"I'm tall for my age." She pauses. "This is my life for now," she says.

"And later?"

"I'm leaving and never coming back."

She says this and I'm frightened-I don't really know her, and I already feel abandoned. Racing thoughts: What about me? Take me with you-we'll go to Europe, we'll travel the globe.

She notes the shift in my expression. "Oh, come on," she says. "Really? You're living in your brother's house, wearing his clothes, and I'm living with my parents-you can't think this is a relationship?"

"We need to find the guy who put the girl in the garbage bag. I would feel a lot better if that was resolved."

She gathers herself to leave. "You've been watching too much TV."

In the morning, the phone again summons me. I answer quickly, thinking it might be her. "Is this Harold?" a woman asks.

"Yes."

"Good morning, Harold," she says, "this is Lauren Spektor, the director of celebrations here at the synagogue."

"I didn't know there was a director of celebrations."