Chapter Twenty-Two
I wake in the early morning hours with Roy draped around my body. His stomach to my back, his arm and leg draped protectively over me. He’s beautiful when the muscles of his face are relaxed, almost boyish if not for the stubble.
I extricate myself from his hold and, amazingly, don’t wake him. The cramping is uncomfortable, and I welcome it, thinking it’s my period, finally. After I pee and see no sign I decide it has to be from our lovemaking. I take two Advil and drink a tall glass of water while standing in the doorway, watching him sleep.
I tell myself there is nothing wrong with looking at the file. I know where it will be because he wasn’t away long enough to take it to his office. It will be in the library on the long table. I slip into leggings and a sweater and slide on my favorite running shoes. No, I most definitely won’t go running at night, even though that’s what I want to do most.
I like Roy’s home at night, quiet and still, like it’s resting, too. The full moon sits in the sky, watching my progress down the wide stairs through the Palladian window. I turn right and slip into the library. Yes, it’s there—the leather-bound folder sitting on the long table like it’s been waiting for me.
I don’t know why I take it to the kitchen instead of reading it in the library. I guess the library is more Roy’s space and the kitchen more communal, less intimidating. I click on the lights and blink a few times to acclimate. Suddenly ravenous, I peruse the Tupperware containers in the fridge and settle on one marked chicken salad. I never thought I’d have a cook, but now that I do, I can’t imagine life without Evelyn.
Grabbing a spoon, I take my snack and sit at the table. One, two, three bites of chicken salad and I’m still staring at the closed leather folder. I’m afraid. I’m excited. Should I shred it in the garbage disposal and forget all the madness? What good can come from dredging up the past? I set aside my food. I have to turn the folder over to unbuckle the black band. I’ve never seen a folder like this. The leather is smooth as silk and dark like it’s been oiled decade upon decade.
With a large inhale of breath, I open the cover. There is a pocket and binder-clipped pages with neatly handwritten tabs in between. It’s far more than I expected. Tucked inside the front cover is a photo of Elizabetta wearing a cotton dress. The sun hits her from behind, outlining the lean lines of her legs. We have the same washed-out blue eyes. She’s smiling at the photographer like she’s won the lottery. How did she go from this carefree young woman to being found dead in a gas station bathroom? Her name and the date 1994 are written on the white border at the bottom. I scan Domethe photo for clues of where it was taken. It looks like Middleburg, with her standing in front of a four-plank fence with rolling hills behind her. Judging by her dress and the green grass and leafed-out trees, it's summer. Another photo is tucked behind hers. This woman is older. There’s snow on the ground. She’s wearing a fur coat, not a nice one—maybe rabbit. On the back is written Annabelle Fitzgerald, Christmas 1978.
I sit back and place the photos side by side. Is Annabelle my grandmother?
A sheet on top, not clipped to any others, is a lease agreement. It’s for the house on Stoke Mountain. Elizabetta Fitzgerald is the lessee. The rent payment is fifty dollars a month. Even back then, that would have been ridiculously cheap. At the bottom of the sheet, there is a reference listed, an Annabelle Fitzgerald, with the notation stating she is Elizabetta’s mother.
So there’s the connection, and I set the sheet aside to review the first set of clipped pages marked with Annabelle’s name.
Name: Annabella T. Fitzgerald
Born: 1952 in Washington, D.C.
Education: Coolidge High School 1970
Work:
1970-1976 – Domestic - Graham family in Washington, D.C.
1976-1977 - Domestic - Stanwyck family in Middleburg, VA
Marital Status: Single
Children:
Elizabetta S. Fitzgerald, born 1977 - died 1996
Sebastian R. Fitzgeral, born 1977 - whereabouts unknown
Last Known Address: Takoma Park, D.C.
Died: Suicide. Self-inflicted gunshot wound to head. Found in the home.
Annabella worked for the Stanwyck family, too. Why does everything always come back around to them? Elizabetta was a twin…I might have an uncle. There’s no death listed for Sabastian, so I assume he’s alive. And I see the cause of death for Annabelle. She killed herself, like my mother. Like it’s contagious, I flip the sheet over and place it to the side. The next sheet is a copy of the death certificate, and there’s no way I’m looking at that now because I can’t deal with knowing two generations of Fitzgerald women committed suicide.
The next set of clipped pages is in the same format with a cover sheet.
Name: Elizabetta S. Fitzgerald
Born: 1977 in Washington, D.C.
Education: Coolidge High School 1995
Work:
1995-1996 – Domestic - Stanwyck family Middleburg, VA
Marital Status: Single
Siblings: Sebastian R. Fitzgerald*
Children:
Jacqueline S. Fitzgerald**, born 1996
Address: Takoma Park, D.C.
Died: 1996. Suicide. Self-inflicted knife wounds to the wrist. McLean, VA.
Criminal record: Arrested for theft in 1996, Middleburg, VA; charges dropped
* Fraternal twin unaccounted for. Last seen 1996. Assumed alive. Assumed changed identity.
** Suicide note indicated she gave newborn to a family in McLean she met at the gas station who were traveling back to their home in California. Infant not found. Assumed dead.
Am I Jacqueline? “Jacqueline,” I say, like it should sound familiar to me. I quickly scan through the pages; another death certificate that I’m not going to read. Please, please, please let there be a birth certificate and…there it is.
Jacqueline Stanwyck Fitzgerald, born August 7, 1996, Winchester Medical Center.
Holy fuck! It has to be me. I was found on the doorstep of Mangler on August 9, 1996. And the most obvious thing I should have noticed right away sinks in…My middle name is Stanwyck. I scan the document. There is only a sad, blank space where the father was to be listed.
And how did—Merlin, I think that was his name—find out all this information when the police couldn’t? My aunts hired a private detective, and there was nothing because I now realize there was no trail to follow. The search for me probably never reached Middleburg. The police were focused on D.C. and McLean and points east. The Stanwyck family ring is the key opening the lock to my past, my birthright.
There’s one more set of clipped pages. On the top is a professional family photo with the husband on a throne style chair with back straight, eyes forward, and hands wrapped around the arms. Sitting at his feet is an equally stern-faced woman with high cheekbones and dark hair expertly pulled back from her face. On either side of the man are two men, probably in their late teens or early twenties. I don’t need to read the description to know who they are. The one on the left is a young Mr. Stanwyck. The man on the right is Bobby or Robert as he was called then, whole and handsome with the world on a string, as they say.
The last page in the folder confuses me as to why it’s included.
Name: Alistair R. Stanwyck III
Born: 1936
Marital Status: Married. Jacqueline B. Dahlgren
Children* (legitimate):
Robert A. Stanwyck, born 1962
Whitcomb A. Stanwyck, born 1964
Address: Willoughby Estate, Middleburg, VA
Criminal record: None
Died: 1998
Cause of death: Heart attack
* Known illegitimate children: Jonathan B. Langley, Boyce W. Patrick, Tobias M. Napier, Trent W. O’Neill, Stephen A. Miles, Elizabetta S. Fitzgerald, Sebastian R. Fitzgerald
I reread the last line, again and again. “No, no, NO!” I bolt up and swipe my hand across the table, sending papers flying, and fall back into the chair, toppling it over. I want to burn them, disintegrate them, even from my mind. Instead, I watch the photos and pages flutter and settle on the kitchen floor. The one with the Stanwyck family lands at my feet. I hold back a scream. RUN! And I do. Yanking the French door open, I sprint out in the crisp morning air with the sun rising up and painting everything in its glow. I sprint up the stone path and past the gym, my legs like pistons, driving me on until I’m at the gazebo.
Proctor knew. He tried to warn me off. “Bastard,” I scream and careen down the hill and into the woods.
“Sister,” Charlie’s voice begs. “Don’t.”
I skitter to a stop, bracing my hands on an oak tree to keep from falling. You know you’re terminally fucked when the voice egging you on to harm yourself is now the voice of caution. I slam the vault door inside my head and proceed.
Proctor’s cottage comes into view. It’s like something out of a fairy tale, with its high-peaked, thatched roof and windows balancing out an arched door. I’m bellowing air with my hands on my knees, staring at what could be a prop at Disneyland. Proctor lives here?
Running’s not enough; I need to spew out the rancid information I’ve digested to the one person who tried to warn me away. I pummel and kick the absurd front door. “Proctor!”
It opens immediately. My balance is off, and I stumble and almost fall into the room and am saved from a face-plant by the overstuffed—of course—chair sitting in front of the cozy fire.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says in his flat, monotone voice.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t be…here…at all. I’m surprised nature hasn’t spit me out as something foul that needs destroying.” I whirl around, full of rage, with a gnawing in my stomach like rats feasting. He’s standing by the door, perfectly still, utterly lethal, wearing low-slung pajama bottoms.
“You read the file.” He taps his nose. “Merlin’s a cagey one for hunting out secrets.”
I hear him, but I’m not listening. I mean it registers, but what’s in front of me is taking all my bandwidth to comprehend. His skin is like spilled milk except for the areas of ruin where there are tattoos and cuts, ragged along the edges like someone tore his flesh off in strips. I stumble back.
“He’s coming.” He tilts his head to the side like he’s listening.
At one time, the tattoos must have been impressive, but now they are bifurcated and obscured by the scarred flesh. Focus, I tell myself. “You’ve known all along, haven’t you?”
He shrugs like we’re talking about last night’s baseball game. “The information has not been verified.”
I close my eyes to keep from launching myself at him. And now I do hear something. The sound of heavy footfalls and breathing and, suddenly, Roy is looming in the doorway with Gavin close behind.
He stops and takes in the room. In the way parents would take stock of a situation if their child was suddenly cornered by a lion. “Come with me,” he orders.
“No!” I throw my shoulders back. “I’m a freak.” God help me, I look straight at Proctor. “I can’t process this. Can’t deal with this.” I lunge for the door, and Roy grabs me by the shoulders.
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Other than my mother and her half-brother decided it was a good idea to make a baby.” I relax like I’m going to sag against him long enough for his grip to loosen and I free myself. Gavin immediately blocks the doorway. Proctor is still in the same position, studying me.
“We don’t know if the information is correct. I wasn’t trying to hide it from you. We agreed we’d look at it in the morning.”
“What are you gonna do? Trap me in here like a wild animal? I need to run, to do something, to bash my head into a tree trunk or…” I toss my arms up. “Get out of my way.”
Roy widens his stance and looks as big as a Mack truck as he blocks my path to the door. “Not going to happen. We’ll go back to the house and wait for the therapist.”
The more spun up I get, the calmer he is, and it’s driving me insane. “No! I need pain,” I scream. “And splitting me open with your cock is not going to do it.”
Gavin coughs and turns his back to us. Proctor’s eyes are too bright, like he’s found his new favorite toy.
I did accomplish something, because Roy is fuming and his neck muscles bulge as his green eyes cut into me. “In. The. House.” He points toward the door. “Now.”
“Oh, no you don’t. You aren’t my father.” My laugh is hysterical. I twist the engagement ring from my finger and throw it at him. My aim is true. It bounces off his chest and lands somewhere behind the sofa. “We aren’t together anymore. We aren’t anything anymore. You’ve been hiding things from me since I met you. I’m done.”
“Daisy, please, I’m not letting you go running off.”
I can’t take being trapped in here with him. I make a run for the door, only to be picked up by Roy. I’m not Daisy anymore. I’m an animal fighting for release. I’m struggling to keep the awful truth from replaying inside my head.
“Give it to me,” Roy orders.
My eyes whip around, and Gavin has something in his hand. “No.” My legs pinwheel, desperate to keep whatever Gavin has away from me. “What is that?”
“A sedative. Something to calm you.”
“Boy,” Gavin barks. “Not a good idea.”
“This is wrong. Please, Roy, don’t do this to me.”
He takes me to the floor with his body pinning me in place, his knee on my thigh. I’m fighting him with everything I have, but it’s impossible, and my head rolls to the side. Proctor has knelt to watch. The sharp jab of the needle into my upper thigh stills me. Roy’s knee lifts.
I look up at his tortured eyes as I drift off. “I’ll never forgive you.”
I can pick out voices, the meaning of words as unknown to me as a foreign language. The tone behind them, I can decipher. Roy is arguing with Gavin. I’m lifted, and there’s the movement of walking. A car…I’m in a car. The seatbelt crossed over my chest. The snap as it’s engaged. Again lifted, and now there are female voices. Oh, it’s my aunts. Warmth blooms in my chest. Roy’s talking. The soft murmur of my aunts’ voices. They’re crying. And still more talking.
“Sister.”
Charlie is here. I’m sad, and I don’t know why.
“You don’t need me anymore.”
What? “Charlie,” I murmur.
“She’s coming around,” Roy says.
There’s emptiness where Charlie used to be. “Don’t go.”
“I won’t, baby.”
It’s Roy, but I meant Charlie. Why is he leaving?
“Stay alive,” Charlie whispers. “Be happy. For me.”
“No!”
“Daisy, it’s alright. We’re with you,” Aunt Stella reassures.
I don’t want to open my eyes and wake up and remember the awful truth nipping around the edges of my memory.
“Give her some space,” says a female’s voice I don’t know. “She’s at the edge of consciousness now.”
My tongue sits like a lead weight inside my mouth. I blink my eyes open.
“Daisy, dear.” Aunt Mae comes into focus. “Thank God, you’re awake.”
And there’s Aunt Stella with her arm draped around her twin like she’s holding her up. A rough, warm hand takes mine.
“Relax into it. You’ll be fully awake soon.”
I’ve had this sensation before, when I’ve awakened from a dream and can’t move. I read somewhere the name is sleep paralysis. Right now, it’s a bit frightening, and I dart my eyes around the room. I’m at my aunts’ home. Roy is sitting beside my prone body on the well-worn sofa. Fire is burning, and the wood smoke mixes with the smell of coffee and something sugary and freshly baked. An attractive woman with dark hair, dark skin and large eyes is smiling at me. I don’t know her.
“I’m Doctor Angela Wilkins.”
It’s coming back to me now. She must be the therapist. Why is a therapist here? Why am I on the couch? Why am I in my aunts’ home and not at Roy’s?
“You drugged me.” The words are bitter in my mouth.
“I did.” He rakes his hands through his hair. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
I manage to sit up and bat his hand away. “You could have let me go.”
He clears his throat and stands up. “I’ve told them everything. Shown them the file.”
With their eyes on me, I can’t look up; I twist the band around my wrist.
Aunt Mae is the first to speak, “We’re so sorry, dear.”
Aunt Stella continues, “We had no idea you were hurting yourself. Or what happened with Charlie. We knew something was off—”
“I know,” I whisper. “I know.” And I do. I’ll never blame them because they’re faultless in all this.
“And the Stanwycks…” Aunt Stella’s voice drifts, and she has to regain her composure. “We’d heard about old man Stanwyck. He was a mean man to his family and others.”
“His boys,” Mae sighs. “They were a bit wild, but never like their father.”
“They probably had no idea they were related.” Stella lets out a sob.
It’s not that I don’t care in general. It’s that I don’t care right now. I’m numb, frozen, and unable to mentally climb out of the drug-induced fog. I need time and quiet. I need my home.
“Am I free to go?” I cut my eyes to Roy. “You aren’t going to drag me off to an asylum or sedate me again, are you?”
“Daisy,” my aunts exclaim in unison.
Roy’s still and lethal and handsome. “What would you have done if I hadn’t?”
I didn’t think he was going to apologize. “We’ll never know.” I stand, tentatively. “I’m going home,” I state.
Everyone talks at once.
I walk past my aunts and Roy and the doctor and stand in the foyer. “Follow me if you need to, but don’t try and stop me. I can’t think in here.”
“She’s right,” the doctor says.
I don’t even pretend to care what she has to say.
“When you’re ready.” She hands me her card. “To talk or whatever.”
I know she’s doing her job, and she’s probably great at it, but I want nothing to do with her. Without taking the card, I walk out the front door. With each stride, my legs grow stronger and the burden of secrets I’ve carried for so many years is sloughing away. But instead of a lightened load on my shoulders, I have another equally onerous burden settling on my back. My whole life I’ve wanted to know who I am. Didn’t turn out quite like I expected, did it? In fact, it’s fucking hideous.
Behind me, a twig snaps and footsteps crunch on the forest undergrowth. It’s Roy being conspicuous so as not to startle me. I love him. I hate him.
My gait isn’t its usual steady self and what should take a half hour drags on and on until finally, the chimney of my little house is in sight.
“You won’t tell Mr. Stanwyck, will you?” I ask without turning around.
“No.”
What would Mr. Stanwyck do if he knew? Right, who am I fooling? He probably does know, and maybe that’s why he’s always looked at me like he does. I’m something to be ashamed of, something that should be hidden away in an attic, or a nuthouse. I’m the Antoinette Rochester in this story, not the Jane.
Proctor is standing beside the ubiquitous black Suburban in his usual attire of dark suit and white shirt and hair brushed back from his face. Are his scars self-inflicted? Or was he captured and tortured? So many different scenarios run through my mind. Like he knows what I’m thinking, he watches me with too-bright eyes, opens the back door of the SUV, extracts a generic cardboard box, and drops it on the ground.
“All the information I have, including what Mr. Barnes gave you.” Roy walks around and beside me, so we resemble a triangle with the box sitting between us. “It’s yours.”
It makes sense now, in a twisted my-family-has-an-incest-problem kind of way. “Charlie didn’t know whether to continue the family tradition and fuck me, or embrace me as a sister. Either way, he was aware we were irrevocably screwed.”
“Yes.” Roy’s back to his usual posture of feet wide apart and hands fisted at his sides.
I meet Proctor’s eyes. “Burn it.”
His lip lifts at the corners, enough to make a priest cross himself as if it would keep the demons at bay.
“The documents, they could be useful to you.” Roy, as always, is practical.
In this moment, Proctor and I are kindred spirits, though I know my maladjustments will never challenge whatever is going on in his cranium. I nod, and he pulls a lighter from his pocket.
“Daisy.” Roy steps into my personal space. “Don’t do this.”
“Why?” I tilt my head a la Proctor. “Is there anything I don’t know in there?”
I’m pleased when Roy steps back and shakes his head. “Photos, some original…can’t be found again, and documents to back up your claim.”
Ah, yes, my claim to the Stanwyck money. With old families, it’s always about the money. “I don’t want anything from him.” I bend and turn the box over and lift it up to reveal a mountain of paper and photos. My mother’s face is on top, staring at me, accusing me.
The small, metallic sound of Proctor’s lighter has me stand and step back. He bends and sets the pages ablaze. We stand there in silence while everything burns, the photos the brightest in colors of purple and red and green until my mother’s face is dark ash.
“My razor,” I demand. “I want Reggie’s razor.”
Roy’s tortured look cuts through my numbness. “I can’t.”
Hasn’t he learned by now he can’t save me?
“I’ll give it to your aunts.”
“Fine.” I turn my back on them and run my fingers along the fender of the old Buick, the one Reggie gave me. I walk up my front porch steps and stand at the door like a marionette waiting for the puppeteer’s manipulations. “I don’t have a key.”
Of course, Roy does and opens my door for me. “Nothing has changed between us.”
I don’t want his touch and skirt past him, closing the screen door between us. “Everything has changed.” It’s hard to meet his eyes. “Stay away from me, Roy.”
“You’re free. No more secrets. Should I have kept it from you?”
“Like you weren’t going to?”
He tilts his chin up. “You’re right. I would have destroyed the information about Alistair and your grandmother.” He holds his hand up when I try to speak. “Because there is not one shred of verification and…why put you through this? What is the fucking point of it?”
“Goodbye, Roy.” I shut the door, lock it, and grab a Coke from the fridge. This pain is unnecessary and cruel, and I asked for it, begged for it, and in the end, Roy has freed me from my secrets. It’s…I’m not the Daisy I used to know anymore. I want her back. Unbelievably, I want Charlie back. All I can do now is breathe and eat and sleep and pretend like I’m living until, one day, this doesn’t hurt anymore.