Chapter 19
One almost-perfect week came and went. If Dr. Capello had been well it might have been perfect. It took almost no time for Allison to settle back into the old family patterns, the old groove. In the morning she had breakfast with Thora and Deacon while Roland helped his father shower and dress. Thora and Deacon went to work, and Dr. Capello sat at his desk in his office and played at working while Roland slept. During Dr. Capello’s nap time, Roland would take her to her room. As kids they’d blissfully wasted summer afternoons watching movies or drowsing on the beach. As adults they found better ways to spend their lazy afternoons together. She was woven so easily and so quickly back into the fabric of life at The Dragon that she hadn’t noticed it happening. No one remarked on it. No one treated her like a houseguest. Perhaps the cord had never been broken between her and them. Perhaps all it took was one quick tug, one little stitch to weave her back into the fold. Allison even took up her old chores. Washing the breakfast dishes had been her job, which she did without complaint or even second thought. Her other chore had been straightening the toy room. As there was no toy room anymore, she replaced it with doing laundry.
She was halfway through folding a basket of towels on her eighth morning at The Dragon when her phone rang. The vibration rattled the whole couch and woke up Brien, who’d worn himself out battling with a pair of her underwear she’d let him play with and had fallen asleep against her hip. Allison, too, was startled by the call. She’d forgotten she was expecting one until she saw who was calling.
“McQueen,” she said. “Did you forget about me?”
“No,” he said. “Just took a little longer than I expected.”
No jokes. No flirting. No drunken rambling. Something wasn’t right.
“But you found Oliver’s number, didn’t you?” she asked, suddenly concerned by his serious tone.
“I found some contact information. I’ll email it over to you.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s for his parents,” he said. “His mother is Kathy Collins. The guy she’s married to now is her second husband, not Oliver’s father. She kept her last name.”
“No number for Oliver? He’s around my age. I’d think he’d be on his own by now.”
“Allison...” McQueen said, and from the tone of his voice Allison knew immediately the news was bad, very bad. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but...honey, Oliver’s dead.”
Allison nearly dropped the phone.
“What? How?”
“Just after his fourteenth birthday,” McQueen said, “he shot himself in the head.”
“Fourteen? No way. That would have been right after he left here.”
“I am so sorry.” McQueen sounded like a father now, not her irritating ex-lover. “When Sue told me what she’d found, I made her double-and triple-check before I called you with the news. But it’s all true. I can give you his mother’s phone number like I said and her address if you want to visit and pay your respects.”
“Sure,” she said. “That’s... Yeah, send me that.” She paused. “You don’t know if there was a note or anything? Or a reason he gave?”
“That’s not really Sue’s area,” McQueen said. “We didn’t want to bother his parents by calling. Looks like the father cut out when Oliver was eight or nine, so I don’t know if he could tell you anything. Mother’s the best bet.”
“Yeah, makes sense,” she said, still dazed.
A dozen memories of Oliver flitted through her mind in that instant. Instead of playing tag on the beach with the rest of them, he’d sit for hours in the sun digging for shells. And she remembered the funny way he’d stick his tongue out in concentration while coloring. The way he’d randomly stand on his hands because he was a kid and he could.
“I wish I had better news,” he said.
“I asked you to help.”
“Is there anything else I can do?”
She shook her head, although McQueen wouldn’t have seen it. She was too dazed to think straight. Except, maybe there was something.
“McQueen? Can I ask for another favor?”
“What is it?”
“Two more names,” she said. “Can you get me their information?”
“What are the names?”
“Kendra Tate,” she said. “And Antonio Russo.”
“Other siblings?”
“Kendra came to the house a couple months before I left. Antonio... I never met him. He came and left right before I did, but I still want to talk to him, anyway. Deacon said Antonio was one of the kids Dr. Capello couldn’t help.”
“I’ll see what I can find for you.”
“Thank you. Really, thank you.”
“Of course. But, Allison?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t like this.”
“You don’t have to help me if you don’t want to,” she said.
“No, I mean, I don’t like hearing that a teenage boy killed himself a few months after leaving that house you’re in.”
“Do you think I like hearing it?” she asked.
“First you, and now this boy? I’m tempted to bring the police in.”
“That’s insane, McQueen.”
“Insane? Someone tried to kill you, and this kid kills himself a couple months after leaving that house,” McQueen said.
“I’m trying to find out what happened. And whatever did happen, children were involved. Young children, who probably didn’t understand what they were doing. I’m not trying to put anybody in jail,” she said. “I just want to know the truth so I can stop wondering what happened. That’s all. And I really don’t want anyone bothering Dr. Capello. He doesn’t have much time left, anyway.”
“I’m going to lose sleep at night over you,” McQueen said. “And not for the reasons I used to.”
Allison sighed heavily.
“Look,” McQueen said with a sigh, “I’m not telling you to leave. I wouldn’t dare tell you what to do. But where there’s smoke there’s fire, and if I were you, I’d keep my mouth and nose covered.”
Allison wanted to argue with him, but she was afraid he might have a point.
“I’ll be safe,” she said.
“Better be.”
She got off the phone with him and a minute later had the email. She found Roland in the side yard chopping wood again. It was warm that day, surprisingly so for October on the coast, and Roland was just in jeans and a T-shirt. For a couple minutes, she stood far back and watched him work. It amazed her how he made it look so easy as he raised the ax, brought it down, split the wood in two. His grip was strong and his swing fluid and fearless. This was not a man who worried about chopping off a toe. She took great comfort in Roland’s strength and size. He was the sort of man one instinctively ran to when scared or in trouble. A human umbrella, a living breathing shelter from the storm. McQueen had never done anything more physically taxing than lift weights at the gym three times a week with his trainer. If he could see Roland right now, he wouldn’t worry one bit about her. With Roland with her, she would be safe.
Roland finally noticed her presence. He took his safety glasses off and set his ax aside.
“You looking for me?” he asked.
“More firewood? Still not cold out,” she said.
Roland sighed. “What can I say? It’s good stress relief. I was the wood chopper at the abbey, too. Wonder who they suckered into doing it now that I’m gone.”
“You had to chop wood at the abbey?”
“We ran a working farm,” Roland said. “Grew most of our own food. And we had sheep and a few cows. We also brewed our own beer. It helps pay the bills.”
“Your own beer? Hipster monks. You even have the man bun.”
“It’s just a ponytail.”
“You’re so Oregon,” she said, smiling. “I was wondering how a monk got your bulk.”
“Throwing hay and chopping wood every day for eight straight years is a good workout. Now, what’s wrong? You look upset.”
“McQueen called me back. Finally.”
“He found Oliver?”
“Yes and no.”
“What does that mean?”
Allison told him everything while Roland listened in silence.
“Roland?” she asked when he hadn’t responded at all.
He ran a hand roughly through his hair.
“Shit,” he said, followed by a few more choice words. “He’s sure about all this?”
“He had his assistant triple-check it. He didn’t want to freak us out without reason. That’s why it took so long to get back to us.” Allison took a step toward him but didn’t touch him. He didn’t seem ready for that yet. “What do you think we should do?”
He exhaled heavily.
“You said his mom’s in Vancouver?” Roland asked.
“Vancouver, Washington,” she said. “Not Canada.”
“That’s two hours away,” Roland said. “Right across the bridge from Portland.”
“You really think we should go knocking on her door?”
“We’ll call first, but we should go, too. You can hang up on a call but it’s a lot harder to slam a door in someone’s face. Especially your face.”
“Do you want to come with me?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “But I will. I want to know why I never knew my brother killed himself. That’s something we should have known. And it wasn’t like with you. He seemed fine when they took him home.”
“Do you think they told your dad when he died?” Allison asked.
“If Dad had known, he would have told me.”
“You sure?” she asked. “He didn’t tell you the whole truth about why I left.”
Roland shrugged. “I thought I was sure.”
“You want to ask him?”
“If he weren’t so sick I might,” Roland said. “He barely slept last night. He’s in a bad mood this morning already. I don’t want to risk upsetting him.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to tell a dying man one of his foster kids killed himself, either,” Allison said. “You think he’ll be suspicious if we went away for a day?”
“Let me handle that,” he said.
She went to him and kissed him.
“I needed that,” he said.
“Me, too. I was doing laundry when McQueen called. I was folding your underwear.”
He laughed. “You don’t have to do my laundry.”
“I threw yours in with mine. I kind of like folding your underwear,” she said. “Is this what a real adult relationship feels like?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been in one.”
“Me, neither. I’m enjoying it,” she said. Shared work, shared sorrows, shared joys...she could get used to living like this.
He kissed her again. “Don’t tell my abbot but...so am I.”
Roland offered to make the phone call to Oliver’s mother. He’d met her once and had been closer to Oliver during his time at The Dragon than anyone else. Meanwhile Allison returned to the house and changed out of her yoga pants and sweatshirt into her jeans, brown leather boots and her favorite burgundy wraparound cashmere sweater. She hoped it was appropriate for paying condolences to a total stranger. As she’d finished putting her hair up in a twist, Roland came into the bathroom.
“Well?” Allison asked.
“I got his mom on the phone. She said we can come by this evening for a few minutes. She remembered Oliver telling her I was his best friend.”
Allison smiled weakly. “That’s sweet. How did she sound?”
“Not very happy to hear from me, but it sounds like she’s never very happy to hear from anyone. I think she’s depressed. Can’t blame her for that.”
“She say anything else?”
“She said Dad did know. She called him right after it happened.”
“He knew?” Allison wasn’t as surprised as she wanted to be.
Roland nodded. “I couldn’t get much more out of her. She said we could talk about it this evening.”
“Did you tell Dad we were leaving?” she asked.
“I told him I wanted to get you out of the house and take you to Portland on a real date.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘There’s five hundred dollars in cash in the top drawer and don’t you dare show your face until morning.’”
“I take it he approves?”
“You could say that.”
Thora agreed to come home and watch Dr. Capello while they were out. She said she’d watch their dad day and night as long as they brought her Little Big Burger from Portland. An easy promise to make and keep. Allison and Roland got into her rental car and headed east down the tree-shrouded highway that linked the city to the coast.
“I’ll never get over how green it is here,” she said as they drove in and out of shadows.
“It’s not going to stay green much longer if it doesn’t start raining. We’re overdue.”
Roland wasn’t looking at her but staring out the car window. She saw the reflection of his face in the glass and his expression was grim.
“You’re worried about your dad,” she said.
“He tells me everything,” Roland said. “I’m the oldest. I’ve always been the one in charge when he was away. I’ve always been the one he told the bad stuff to, even when he didn’t tell Deac or Thor. It doesn’t make sense he’d keep this from me.”
“He is very protective of his kids.”
“I get not telling me when I’m sixteen or seventeen or even eighteen. But I’m an adult,” Roland said. “I can handle bad news now.”
“I’m sure he has his reasons. Medical confidentiality, maybe?”
“He did operate on Oliver. Maybe that’s it.”
“I wish I remembered Oliver better,” she said.
“He was with us about six months,” Roland said. “Came after Christmas, left in June.”
“Killed himself in October,” she said. “I can’t imagine why... And at fourteen?”
“Teenagers do risky things,” Roland said. “Maybe he didn’t even kill himself on purpose? Maybe he was just playing with a gun.”
“Maybe,” Allison said. “Although McQueen called it a suicide, not an accident.”
“We’ll see what his mom says. She’ll know.”
“Do you really think it was an accident? Or are you just hoping that because you’re Catholic?”
“Catholics aren’t fans of suicide,” Roland said. “But I don’t believe in a God who would send a troubled child to hell for one bad decision. I believe in a God who says, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me.’ Santa Claus is the guy with the nice and naughty list for children. Not God. Not my God, anyway.”
Allison thought that was possibly the loveliest thing she’d ever heard him say, and she put her hand on his knee and squeezed it. Roland smiled, lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it, and though she wasn’t much of a believer, she said a little prayer that maybe there was an abbey out there that would be short one monk come Christmas.
Afterward, they drove across the bridge into Washington. They found the house without too much trouble—a small blue bungalow that had seen better days. It seemed Kathy, too, had seen better days. It was a shell of a woman who answered the door—thin and pale with sunken cheeks and sunken eyes surrounded by dark circles. Though Kathy didn’t smile once when they introduced themselves on the porch, Allison didn’t find her unfriendly—simply too worn out to contort her face into an expression she wasn’t used to wearing.
“Thank you for seeing us, Mrs. Collins,” Allison said. “We’re really sorry to bother you.”
“Kathy, please,” she said. She pointed to a faded floral print sofa in a cluttered living room. Allison and Roland sat and Kathy took her seat on the matching ottoman. “You were with Oliver when he lived at that house?”
“We were,” Allison said. “Oliver left about a week before I did actually. He did leave in June of 2002, right?”
“Right, that’s right.” Kathy nodded. “My husband, Oliver’s father, left me when Oliver was eight. He couldn’t be in the same house with him anymore. I lost my job after that, and nobody in the family would help me with Ollie. He was too much. I couldn’t do it anymore. Had to let the state have him.”
“Too much?” Allison asked. “You mean he had behavior problems?”
“That’s a way of putting it.”
“Most of us did,” Roland said. “Until Dad helped.”
“Well, your dad certainly tried,” she said, and Allison saw Kathy try to smile. She didn’t do it, but she got closer than she had before.
“Can I ask what sort of behavior problems he had?” Allison said. She’d never pried into people’s private lives like this before and it felt as strange to her as smiling probably did to Kathy.
“You don’t know?” Kathy asked Roland.
“We had a rule at the house,” Roland said. “Dad’s rule. Don’t talk about the old life. He wanted us kids to get past our pasts.”
“There are some things in your past you can’t ignore,” Kathy said. “That was Ollie’s trouble even after your father helped him. I guess you don’t know that he...he killed my baby.”
Allison couldn’t manage a response to that. She looked at Roland, whose eyes were wide but who also remained silent in the face of this news.
Kathy dragged a ragged hand down her face. She seemed more exhausted than sad at this point. “He threw his baby brother, Jacob...he threw him against the wall. Killed him.”
Allison gasped, covering her mouth with her hand in shock. Kathy had spoken the words in monotone, without flinching, barely blinking. In her hands she clutched a rolled recipe magazine. As she spoke she twisted the magazine until the pages ripped, then folded it over and twisted it again.
“Jacob cried a lot,” she said. “So, I had to be with him all the time. Ollie was very jealous. But that wasn’t Ollie’s fault. Your father—” she nodded at Roland “—he explained that Ollie had a problem here...” She tapped the side of her head. “A tumor. Made him act out.”
“Dr. Capello operated on Oliver, yes?” Allison said, composing herself.
“I called his office because some lady at child services said Dr. Capello was a miracle worker with kids like Ollie. And we needed a miracle. He agreed to see Ollie and he fixed that tumor. Didn’t even charge me a dime. And it was...” Kathy paused, waved her hand like she was waving a magic wand. “Night and day after.”
“What do you mean?” Allison asked.
“Oh, before Ollie was a hard kid to live with. He lied all the time. He stole all the time. You couldn’t punish him. He’d laugh it right off. And he’d mess with your head, too. He’d...play games. Ugly games. One second he’d kiss me and say, ‘Mommy, I love you, I love you, I love you...’ and soon as I said I loved him back, he’d stab me in the arm with a fork.”
Allison felt her stomach roil. Kathy held out her arm to show an old scar, an inch long, pink and white and ugly.
“He’d never been a normal boy,” Kathy said. “Not since he was born. Never cried much. Your father, he said that was a bad sign. Crying meant a baby was feeling what he was supposed to feel. And he was always like that, even as a boy. Too quiet. Intense. Like a time bomb, you know. But after the surgery, he wasn’t like that anymore. The first week when he was in the hospital, he barely talked at all. Just ate and slept. One afternoon he asked for a Sprite and I got him a Sprite and he said, ‘Thank you, Mommy.’ And I waited for him to turn on me, but he didn’t. He just drank his Sprite. Then a couple days later he said he was sorry for what he did to Jacob. He’d never...” She pursed her thin lips. “He’d never apologized before for anything in his life. Not even stabbing his own mother in the arm. I wanted to take him home, but your dad said Ollie needed time away to really heal. The house, me, everything would remind him of what he did. He needed a new start. So he went to live with you all at that house. Maybe I should have left him there. Bringing him home sure didn’t help, but I wanted my son back. I wanted...I wanted both my boys back. But I’d take what I could get.”
Her voice was hollow and wispy as a reed.
“I know this isn’t any of our business,” Allison said. “And I’m sorry for asking, but can you tell us about how Ollie died? Why he died? He was our brother for a little while. We just... We were so shocked to find out.”
“I think it’s my fault,” Kathy said.
“I’m sure it’s not,” Allison said.
“I don’t know about that,” Kathy said. “Before the surgery, Ollie couldn’t care less about what I was feeling. When I brought him home from your house, he was like a...” She snapped her fingers, searching for a word. “Like a sponge. Whatever I was feeling, he’d soak it all up. And I was pretty low then. Depressed. Cried a lot. Ollie would cry with me, and even after I stopped, he kept right on crying. Every day he’d tell me he was sorry about Jacob. One day, he just got too sorry to go on. A neighbor kept a shotgun in his garage. Ollie found it.” Kathy looked at Roland. “I shoulda listened to your dad.”
“What did he say?” Roland asked.
“He said I ought to leave Ollie with him,” Kathy said. “But he was my son. And I wanted my boy back.”
Kathy dropped her chin to her chest. She hadn’t cried the whole time they’d been talking. Allison had a feeling she was cried out and then some. Slowly she raised her head.
“That’s all I have to tell you,” Kathy said. “Hope that’s what you wanted to hear.”
“I never want to hear about kids suffering,” Allison said. “We weren’t trying to be nosy. The thing is, someone tried to hurt me when I was living there at Dr. Capello’s house. I fell down a flight of steps and hit my head. Dr. Capello said he thought it might be Oliver who’d done it. I guess he did have a history of hurting his siblings.”
“Not after that surgery,” Kathy said. “No, ma’am. He wasn’t that same boy at all. Not even close.”
“Are you sure?” Allison asked. “I’m not here to point fingers, but with Oliver’s past—”
“It wasn’t Oliver, I’m telling you. After he came home, he stepped on my foot by accident and burst into tears. Cried for so long he made himself sick. Whatever your father did to him, he wasn’t able to hurt a fly afterward.”
“Do you remember when you brought him home with you?” Allison asked.
“Yes, it was, ah, a Friday. It was June 28. I remember because that’s my wedding anniversary. I didn’t want to be alone on that day.”
“I’m asking because...before my accident, someone called my aunt. They told her someone in the house wanted me dead. Oliver went home with you before I fell, so I know he didn’t push me,” she said. “I didn’t really think it was him who hurt me, anyway, but I thought...maybe he made the call from here?”
“Back then we only had one phone,” she said. “And it was in my bedroom. I can’t swear he didn’t make any calls, but I...I just don’t think Ollie had anything to do with this. Believe me, I have no illusions about who and what my son was. Before that surgery, he would have pushed his own grandma down the stairs and laughed if she broke her leg. I tell you that without batting an eyelash. But after... Whatever your father did to Ollie, it fixed him.”
“I know one of Dr. Capello’s patients had a tumor removed but it came back. Was that Oliver?” Allison asked.
Kathy shook her head. “It never came back, no. In fact, not only did the operation fix him, it, well, I think it fixed him too good. Poor boy went from feeling nothing to feeling everything. But what choice did I have? If your father hadn’t found that tumor, he would have been in juvenile detention for sure. Hell, he probably would have been on death row by eighteen, anyway.”
“You did the right thing,” Allison said, and she meant it. She wanted to reach out to touch Kathy’s hand, but held back. “I can’t think of any other parent doing any different. We...” She glanced at Roland. “We wish we’d known what happened when it happened. We could have paid our respects to him.”
“Well,” Kathy said, putting the magazine she’d been shredding down at last. “It’s all right. I didn’t have a funeral. I couldn’t bear to watch them bury another one of my babies.”
“We are sorry,” Allison said. “Oliver was always sweet.”
“That’s nice of you to say,” Kathy said.
She still didn’t smile.