At once the pressure flooded out of him. He dropped the tonearm; dropped his head so low it seemed to retract into his torso, keeping his back to me as he spoke.
“Gimme one reason why I shouldn’t call the cops on you.”
I am the cops. But I wasn’t a cop, not then.
“You have a half brother. His name is Peter. Beverly’s son. I’m here on his behalf.”
“That doesn’t sound like any kind of reason to me.”
“He’s asked me to search for relatives.”
“Still not a reason.”
“To be clear, it wasn’t you he asked me to find, but his sister.”
Norman Franchette snorted. “Claudia? Good luck with that.”
“Not her. This would be your half sister.”
I set out a printed copy of the snapshot. “We think this is her.”
A beat. He turned, corkscrews of hair swinging. Spread his fine white fingers on the countertop, bracketing the photo to hold it at bay. “Where’d you get this?”
“Beverly had it hidden. Peter found it after she passed away.”
“Jesus…Look at her. She was one skinny-ass bitch, wasn’t she?”
That’s who Beverly was to him: always and forever the skinny-ass bitch who’d split his nuclear family. Though his flat tone made the contempt come across as rote rather than active.
“What’d she die of,” he asked.
“Cancer.”
“Whaddaya know, that’s what got my mom, too. Maybe Gene has a type, huh? Nose em out, like one of those cancer-sniffing dogs.”
“I take it you’re not in touch with him.”
“Gene? He’s alive?”
“He was, as of a few weeks ago. I called him to ask about the baby.”
“Holy hell…Fuckin engine that don’t quit. Did he cuss you out?”
“He hung up on me.”
“Losing your edge, Genie.”
“What can you tell me about the baby?”
“Nothing. I never met her.”
“Her name?”
Norman frowned. “This guy’s her brother and he doesn’t know her name?”
“He never met her, either. We can’t locate her. Gene and Bev kept her a secret from him.”
“Figures.”
I waited for him to continue, but he said no more. “Do you know it?”
“You’re asking if I know her name.”
I nodded.
He eyed the photo, as if afraid he might conjure her into the flesh by speaking. “Mary.”
The sound of one word: a key turning. I had to restrain myself from pumping a fist. “Mary Franchette.”
“Yup.”
“Any idea what happened to her? Peter thinks she may have died young.”
“Died…? I never heard anything like that. I gotta think my mom would’ve said something if the kid died.”
“Or been adopted.”
“I mean. I don’t know. I told you, I had nothing to do with her. Any of them.”
“Your mother kept tabs on Gene.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Is that how you heard about the baby in the first place? From her?”
“I guess so. I can’t think who else would’ve told me.”
“It must have upset her, when the baby was born.”
“My mom? Fuck, yeah. She never got over it. Him, on the other hand: He made up his mind to leave, zhup.” He slashed at the air. “Me and Claudia, we didn’t fit the theoretical model no more. He just stuffed us in the trash.”
If he didn’t care for what you were saying, or if it was something he already knew, he’d turn on his heel and walk away, right in the middle of your sentence.
“Truth be told I didn’t mind Bev. Little I knew her, she was wallpaper. I mean, it doesn’t excuse what she did, but she’s what, twenty years old? Talk about predatory. You try pulling that shit today? Psssh. Out on your ass. I always wondered if they had an S-and-M-type thing going, you know? Like he tied her up.” He snickered. “Or the opposite, they get into the bedroom, she’s whips and chains and he’s begging her to stomp on his balls. Makes you think.”
“What about Claudia?” I asked. “Did she ever meet the baby?”
“Not on your life. She didn’t have any love lost. Couldn’t wait to skip town, the first opportunity she had, she took it. Me, I’m cursed with the fatal flaw of a warm, beating heart. Now that you mention it, adoption’d be a real Gene Franchette way to solve the problem.”
“Problem?”
“Getting rid of a kid.”
“What makes you think he would want to get rid of her?”
“He had his fill with us. He was old. You think he wanted to start changing diapers? Not that he ever did that.”
He picked up the snapshot. “This is really her, huh? You can’t see her face.”
“It’s the best we have.”
He stared at it, set it aside. “I actually wanted to meet her. I tried to. Rode my bike up to their house. Shit,” he said, raking his scalp, bewildered. “That was a weird goddamn day.”
“Weird how?”
“I rang the bell and some chick answers, real hot. I figured Gene went and ditched Bev, found himself an even younger piece. I had to hand it to him. It’d only been a couple of years since he’d walked out on my mom.”
“When was this?”
“Well, lemme see. Jupiter was in Capricorn, and it was a balmy eighty-three degrees…I have no clue.” He glared at me. “You’re making me lose my train of thought.”
“Sorry. Go on.”
“This chick, I go to her, Who’re you? Where’s Beverly? She goes, Beverly’s not home. She’s the babysitter. I tell her I’m Gene’s son, and she gets real huffy. ‘Gene never said anything about a son.’ Well, that pissed me off.”
“I bet.”
“Right? I’m putting out a damn olive branch, and you’re treating me like a leper? What I shoulda told her is Gene never said anything to me about a babysitter.”
“I went up to the house the other day,” I said. “I ran into the next-door neighbor, Diane Olsen. Back then she lived with her parents. You think it could’ve been her?”
“Maybe. Is she smoking hot? Cause if not, then no. I tell you, man. This chick.”
A dreaminess took hold of him.
“Blond, down to here, and…How girls used to dress, with the mini-skirts, the tight shirts? It’s summertime, I just rode uphill five hundred miles, I’m standing there sweating like a pig. She’s got almost—I mean, she’s not holding much back…”
His description didn’t match my mental image of a younger Diane Olsen. People change, of course. But she was fifteen at the time of the fire.
“You didn’t happen to get her name,” I said.
“I was just trying not to come in my pants. I go, ‘Long as I’m here, can I see the baby,’ and she slammed the door in my face.”
“Then what?”
“Then nothing. What am I gonna do, break in? They want to shut me out, that’s on them. I have to live my life.”
“So you knew about the birth, you tried to make contact, but nothing after that.”
“That’s right.”
“What about the fire?” I asked. “How’d you hear about that?”
The downshift in his mood was sudden. “What’s that got to do with the baby?”
“Nothing, necessarily. What made you decide to write about it?”
“It’s a newspaper. You put in news.”
“Nobody else picked it up.”
“Yeah. I’m Clark Kent, okay? Look, pal, I don’t know what you think I’m going to say. I was stoned ninety-eight percent of the time. I had an idea, I wrote it down.”
His attempt at nonchalance didn’t quite get there.
I said, “I could be wrong, but it seems like you stopped publishing right after this article came out.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably, yeah. They were hounding the shit out of me.”
“The cops?”
He pried his hands open and raised them to the sky. The sole graceful component of a graceless man. “Love of God, how many times do I have to say it? It wasn’t me.”
“They questioned you about the fire.”
“They couldn’t do anything to me,” he said. “Based on what? My ‘tone’?”
“Angry article.”
“Course I was angry. I had a reason to be. So I wrote about it. That’s all I did. Write. That was enough to summon the jackboots.”
“I heard about a fight with your father.”
“What fight?”
“At the lab.”
He appeared startled that I would know such a thing. “Who told you that?”
“One of your father’s former colleagues. It was pretty much public knowledge.”
“That happened way before. It was completely overblown. And, and, and,” he said, tapping the counter, “I tried to make it up with him. That’s why I went to the house. He wanted nothing to do with me. With us. I don’t know where you get off. You come in here all friendly, telling me I have a brother, then you start accusing me.”
“No accusation.”
“You know what I think, I don’t think there is any brother. I think it’s some bullshit you made up so I’d talk to you.”
“Not at all. I’ve been straight with you.”
“Says you. I know what this is.”
“What is it?”
“You’re a cop. Huh? That’s what.”
“I’m working for Peter.”
“Yeah. Sure. Okay, then, what’s he like?”
“He’s about fifty. He works in tech. Five-nine, reddish-brown hair—”
“I’m not looking to date him,” Norman said. “I mean what’s he like.”
“As a person.”
“No, as a raccoon. Yeah, as a person.”
“Analytical. Smart. He seems a tiny bit uncomfortable with personal interaction.”
“Oh well, in that case, he’s definitely my brother. Where’s he live?”
“His office isn’t too far from here.”
“Nicer than mine, I bet.”
“It doesn’t have nearly the same amount of character.”
He fought smiling but gave up. “This isn’t the half of it. Sole proprietor of the truth.”
“I was at the Berkeley library. They have a bunch of your stuff.”
“They can have it all when I die. Historical value.”
His ire had dissipated, flushed out by ego.
He pointed to the Jefferson Airplane poster. “That was my masterwork. They paid me a hundred bucks, plus an eighth.”
“Not bad.”
“Oh yeah. I thought I was Gustav goddamn Klimt.”
I asked if he was still politically active.
“Hell no. What’s the point? Nothing gets better. These trust-fund pricks buying up the neighborhood got Bernie bumper stickers. They’re Gordon Gekko in skinny jeans. So what’re you gonna tell this guy? You found his long-lost brother, who’s not really long lost?”
“He doesn’t know about you yet. I wanted to sound you out first before I told him.”
“Yeah, well. Gimme his phone number and I’ll think about it.”
I gave him my email address instead.
“My advice,” he said, “don’t waste your time with Claudia. She’ll never talk to you, she was always a tight-ass.”
I assumed he was making a macabre joke. Likewise when I’d talked about finding his sister, and he’d said Good luck with that.
But his expression was serious.
He wasn’t listed in her obituary.
He didn’t even know she was dead.
The fragments of this family lay strewn far and wide.
“Look,” he said, “I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m hungry and I got to take a shit. Figure that one out. Godspeed.”
He started to turn away, pausing to regard the snapshot of Beverly and the child. “Can I keep this?”
I nodded.
He folded it up, tucked it into his breast pocket, and began again to pick through the 33s.
As I hit the sidewalk, I heard music. The Airplane’s “Somebody to Love.”
—
AT HOME, I found Amy in pjs, kneeling beside the play mat, grinning ear to ear.
“Check out your amazing daughter.”
Charlotte was sitting up on her own.
“Wow.” I dropped my bag and got down on my stomach to be close to them. “When did this happen?”
“Literally two minutes before you walked in. I’m keeping my hands here in case she takes a header but so far we’re going strong.”
“Wow. Look at you, lady.”
“Hnnnng,” Charlotte said.
“She’s trying so hard to talk,” Amy said. “She’s been doing that all day.”
“Hnnnng.”
“Is that so?” I said. “Tell me more, Grunty the Clown.”
“Hnnnngg.”
“Can you imagine how frustrating it must be?” I asked. “All these thoughts and no way to get them across.”
“Oh my God. It’s so, so sad.”
Charlotte’s lip began to quiver.
“Oh no, honey. We’re not laughing at you.”
“Gzzzhh,” Charlotte said dolefully.
I said, “You’re the shrink. What’s she thinking?”
“ ‘These people are idiots.’ ”
“ ‘I like her more than him.’ ”
“ ‘Mommy, why don’t your socks match?’ ”
“Gimme some dat titty.”
“No way. I fed her like thirty minutes ago.”
“I was speaking for myself.”
Amy smiled. “How was your day?”
“Good. Thanks for being flexible.”
“Of course.”
“What about you guys? What did you do?”
“The usual. Eating. Barfing. Crushing milestones. Liz brought Jonas for a playdate.”
“Oh yeah? Did he and Charlotte get along?”
“They lay next to each other and drooled. I will say, she’s clearly more advanced. He can’t even grasp a rattle.”
“Sometimes I forget how competitive you are.”
“She brings it out in me.” She touched Charlotte’s cheek. “You kicked his little ass, didn’t you, honey pie? Yes, you did. Kicked it right off the growth chart.”
Charlotte squealed with delight, and the three of us just sat there. I felt a fierce urge to grab hold of the moment, to enshrine that exact configuration of our bodies in the amber light; the moist tickle on my knuckles from my daughter’s breathing; the totality of her, tiny and unstoppable as a bullet; the frenzied thrum of growth in real time, cells sprinting off in new directions; my wife’s contented hm when she shifted on her hip and her ankle brushed the back of my calf.
Only then, in silence and peace, days after the fact, did I remember facing down a shotgun.
I stared at the play mat, pressure mounting behind my eyes. I wondered if I’d always have to lie to the two most important people in my life. Where I’d hide these shards of sadness and fear.
“Whoa there,” Amy said.
Charlotte’s head had begun to gyrate.
“She’s getting tired.”
I cleared my throat of its dull ache. “Hard work, sitting up.”
“I have this theory: The way a baby acts when she’s tired, that’s how she’s going to be as an adult when she’s drunk. Like, are you the angry drunk, throwing chairs through windows? Or are you a fun drunk who gets loopy and starts kissing everyone.”
“What kind of baby do we have?”
“Fun for sure.”
I said, “You’re totally right. It’s like having a roommate who never sobers up.”
“Laugh a little. Cry a little. Poop yourself.”
Charlotte pitched toward the floor, bursting into tears as Amy caught her.
“Aaaand we’re done.”
“You want me to put her down?” I asked.
“I was hoping to stretch her for another half hour.”
I hauled myself to my feet and grabbed the baby carrier. “I’ll take her for a walk.”
“Is it cold out?”
“I’ll put a blanket on her. Don’t worry. I got it.”
“I know.”
Wrestling with the straps, hunching and contorting. “I hate these things. Why don’t they make them bigger?”
“Clay. Did you hear what I said?”
I stopped and looked at her. “Sorry. What?”
“You’re a great dad,” she said. “I want you to know that.”
—
AT THE MOUTH of the driveway, I paused to adjust the blanket over Charlotte’s head. My fingers grazed the soft spot in her skull, parchment skin drawn drum-tight, pulsing like the vulnerable heart of a bird.
