You Only Die Twice (23 page)

“Well,” he said, “you should know.”

 

Her convertible sat in its reserved slot outside her building. I parked next to it and waved to the doorman, who buzzed me in. When she didn't answer her bell, I rapped loudly with the metal knocker. No answer. Nothing. I dialed her number on my cell phone and heard it ring inside. Still no answer. Dread gnawed at my stomach. I fumbled for the key she gave me in case of emergency.

Before I found it, I heard a sound on the other side, a movement at the peephole.

“Mom? It's me, Britt.”

“Can you come back later?” she said. She sounded groggy, as though she'd been sleeping.

“No,” I said. “Open the door.”

“I'm not dressed.”

“I don't care. Open it.”

I thanked God she was all right as I heard the chain lock clatter.

Pale without makeup, her hair tousled, she was barefoot and wearing a rumpled full-length cotton nightgown in midafternoon. The nightgown looked like she'd slept in it, normal for the rest of us, unusual for my fastidious mother. Her pastel apartment, always so full of light, looked gloomy, drapes drawn. The odor of stale cigarette smoke hung on the air.

“Do you have a fever?” Instinctively, I reached for her forehead. “Are you sick? Why didn't you call me?” Her skin felt cool.

“I just don't feel well,” she said weakly. “I need some rest and time alone.”

“When did you eat last? Why is it so dark in here?” I opened the drapes. Slumped on the couch, she looked more fragile than I had ever seen her, one hand shielding her puffy, red-rimmed eyes as though the light hurt them.

“Is it the flu?” I asked.

“No,” she said softly.

“When did you eat last?”

She shook her head.

I checked her kitchen, opened the refrigerator. The only even remotely edible item was a long-wilted corsage in the vegetable bin. A bottle of vodka sat on the counter, half empty.

“What is going on here?”

“The third degree
again
?” Her back straightened as she reached for her cigarettes.

“Is all
this
about
that
?” I asked in disbelief.

She looked up, and I saw it was true.

I sat in an easy chair across from her, still shocked by her appearance.

She stared back. “You don't look so spiffy yourself,” she said. “Where'd you get those circles under your eyes? When did
you
sleep last? And that lipstick.” She grimaced. “It's all wrong. Glossy is out.”

“You're never depressed,” I said. “At least you haven't been for years.”

“So maybe it's time. One occasionally has to take stock of one's actions.” She reached for an ornate lighter and, after several frustrating tries, managed to light her cigarette.

“They're not good for you,” I said disapprovingly.

“I'll fix you something to eat, or order out if I have to. But I need to ask you something first.”

She rolled her eyes and exhaled.

“Do you know any way I can find out the exact date that Kaithlin's baby was born?”

“April seventeenth, nineteen eighty-two.” She flicked her eyes at me. “At four forty-five
A.M
.”

I dropped my notebook. My jaw nearly went with it. “How did you do that?” I said, stunned. “You're sure?”

She gazed at me through the smoke.

“Some things,” she said, “you don't forget.”

“So you were closer to Kaithlin than you ever said.”

She nodded sadly. “From the moment I met that girl it was obvious she would go far.” She give a brittle little laugh at her own joke. “Little did I know how far. But she always had something special.”

“I know,” I said. “You wished I was more like her.”

She looked startled. “Surely you're joking, Britt.”

“No.”

She laughed in utter astonishment. “You think that for a moment I'd prefer a daughter like Kaithlin? Someone who got pregnant as a teenager? Who made her mother's life hell? Who wasted her own life? Her talent? And broke the hearts of everyone who loved her?” She stubbed out her cigarette fiercely in a shell-shaped ashtray, then leaned forward, expression intent.

“You're serious,” she said, in disbelief. “How could you ever entertain such a thought? Perhaps I wasn't as affectionate as I should have been, but I was always trying so hard to be a mother, a father, and a provider that I…

“Britt, do you have any idea how incredibly proud you make me? Even when you involve yourself in events that stand my hair on end, I am so thrilled that you are my daughter! I admit I nag sometimes, but that's only because I want so much for you. And I do worry, but that's because you're so brave, like your father. It makes me afraid of losing
you
as well. I couldn't love you more.”

“I always think I'm a disappointment to you,” I said, scarcely believing her words.

She shook her head. “You're a better person than I
am. I've let so many people down.” Tears filled her eyes.

“You've never let me down,” I said, and opened my arms for a long warm hug. Our tears weren't only because we were both overtired.

It appeared to be my day for kitchen duty. I rechecked my mother's pantry, then called a nearby Chinese restaurant. I used her antique-style white phone, like one I saw Lana Turner use in an old black-and-white film on late-night TV, and then I sat next to her on the couch and we talked.

She was depressed, she said, because of the guilt she'd carried all these years.

“Poor Reva,” she said. “God rest her soul.”

“I can't picture you two as friends,” I said. “You were so unalike.”

“She was older, of course, but we shared more in common than you might think,” my mother said. “We'd both been abandoned, or at least at that time I still thought I'd been, by men who left us with little girls to raise alone. We were both working mothers struggling to survive.

“She showed up unannounced one day after Kaithlin first came to work at Jordan's and asked me to watch out for her daughter. She was a cautious and protective mother, and it was Kaithlin's first job. I could relate to that. I promised her there'd be no problem; that, in fact, I'd take a special interest in Kaithlin and mentor her. And I did.

“It was obvious to everyone when she caught R. J.'s eye. He was never subtle. Right then, while it was still a brush fire, I could have, should have, done something to
extinguish it. But R. J….” She closed her eyes tight, hugging her arms as though cold. “He was my boss's son, the heir apparent, the man I fully expected to be working for someday. I swear, Britt,” she said, opening her eyes wide, locking them on mine, “it wasn't ambition on my part, trying to further a career. Hell, in those days I just needed a job. We needed the security. I told myself that R. J. flirted with everyone, that this little episode would be short-lived, like all the others—and I looked the other way.

“I hoped it would burn itself out. I was wrong, of course. Reva trusted me, and I never even warned her. By the time she found out, it was an out-of-control three-alarm fire. I was ashamed to admit to her that I knew all along. Kaithlin had become defiant, refusing to quit her job. Reva was frantic. She begged me to do something.”

“What did you do?” I said.

“Very little.” Her voice was empty. She reached for her cigarettes, jiggled the box, and slid one out. “As Kaithlin's supervisor I revamped her hours, juggling them about so she'd be less likely to see R. J. or be able to meet him afterward, but it was like trying to stop a force of nature. I told myself it was the best I could do. Reva pleaded with me to fire her, but I had no legitimate reason. Kaithlin was professional on the job, and the man Reva wanted kept away from her was my employer's son.”

“What more could you have done?”

“Lots.” She shrugged hopelessly, struggling with the lighter. “I could have talked to R. J. I could have gone to his father. The girl was underage. He wouldn't have
wanted a scandal. I could have warned Kaithlin about R. J. She wouldn't listen to her mother, but she might have listened to me.”

“Chances are none of that would have worked,” I said.

“Well, now,” she said, finally coaxing a flame from the lighter, “we'll never know, will we? Because I never tried. When Kaithlin was pregnant, Reva went to R. J. herself. He was horrid; he behaved terribly. She was crushed. But Con, he would have listened. We were close. He wasn't that happy at home. He relied on me—for many things.”

“Mom!” I said, dismayed.

“We were friends,” she said firmly, exhaling bluish smoke in the slanted light, “kindred spirits. He needed a woman to talk to, to confide in, to brainstorm with. His life wasn't easy. But he was good, a man of character. He would have tried to do something.

“But,” she said, eyes stricken, “I was a total coward. I did nothing.”

“You can't blame yourself.”

“Oh, but I do,” she said earnestly. “How can anyone not blame me, after the way it ended, with all of them dead: Kaithlin, her mother, Con? He was a broken man after R. J.'s conviction. And here I sit, the one person who might have prevented it all, and I never lifted a finger. My chief concern, instead, was my job and being the sole support of my daughter.

“Is it any wonder,” she said ruefully, “that I was so hard on you when you began to date? That I've always been so crazed about your safety?”

“That does explain some things,” I agreed. “But you're far too hard on yourself.”

She shook her head. “When I saw that terrible photo you had and you began to ask questions…Then it was all over the news again, everyone talking about it. It brought back all the old memories, the guilt. I've been wondering why I'm alive when they're all dead. For the past few days I haven't even been able to get out of bed and function. I've been horrible, to you and to Nelson. I haven't been to the office all week. I'm a mess,” she moaned.

“You had all you could handle back then,” I protested. “Other people were responsible for their own bad choices. What if?” I said. “What if Kaithlin and R. J. had lived happily ever after? They might have, you know. You had no crystal ball. No one did.”

She wiped her eyes. “Thanks, Britt. I'm so lucky to have you.” She took my hand. “You know, I never saw Reva or even thought of her without thinking, There but for the grace of God….”

The food arrived and we ate it off her good china, at her dining room table. She'd put on lipstick and a flowered silk wrap and combed her hair.

“Why,” she asked, as I served up the Kung Po chicken, “is the baby's birth date important?”

“I'm not certain,” I said, “but I think he's the key somehow.”

“I saw him once,” she said, with the whisper of a smile, “the day he was born. I went over to Jackson Hospital to see Kaithlin, poor thing. The delivery was difficult; she was so young. I took Reva to the cafeteria
for coffee and a bite to eat. Then we saw the baby, cute as a button. His new parents were coming for him later in the day.”

“How did you still remember the actual date and his time of birth?”

“I had asked Reva to call when it happened, to let me know everything went well. She woke me at five
A.M
. to say the baby had been born about fifteen minutes earlier.

“The date wasn't difficult to remember. It was the twelfth anniversary, almost to the hour, of when I last saw your father, before he went off on his ill-fated mission to liberate Cuba. It's always a bad day for me. I try to stay busy. Now, whenever I think of Tony Montero on that date, I remember that poor little tyke having a birthday out there somewhere.”

“You and all your secrets,” I said. “You never mentioned that anniversary.”

“Well, it isn't the sort of day one celebrates. Why burden you with it?”

“Hey, Ma,” I mugged. “It's you and me. Your burden is my burden.”

“You are the world's wackiest daughter,” she said, and giggled.

 

Back at the office I surfed the Net, seeking the right website. I never knew so many were devoted to adoption. I finally tapped into the registry where children adopted from Florida and the parents who gave them up can each check to see if the other is searching for them.

I scrolled through all the hopeful people seeking others lost long ago. Those hoping to be found leave only a
first name, the date and place of birth, and the location of the adoption, with a few exceptions.

Kaithlin's son was among them. April 17, 1982, time of birth: 4:46
A.M
., Jackson Memorial Hospital, Miami–Dade County. Oh, my God, I thought, it has to be him.

A tag directed me to a site for a special message. His information request was not routine.

More than a message, brief and to the point, it was a plea.

“I am nineteen now,” it said, “and have wonderful parents, but unless I locate my birth parents I will never be twenty.”

He was a college sophomore, he said, with excellent grades—and leukemia. He had relapsed recently, he said, after a two-year remission. His only hope, all that could save him now, was a bone-marrow transplant from a parent or a sibling with the correct and rare AB blood type.

I gasped aloud. He might already be dead.

I reached for the trial transcript, thumbing frantically through the testimony on forensic evidence. Kaithlin's blood, identified on her torn clothing and in the motel room, was A-positive.

R. J. had to be the only one who could save him.

I e-mailed the site administrator.

The response:
DO YOU THINK YOU MAY BE A RELATIVE? NO,
I messaged back.
I'M A JOURNALIST. IT'S A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH.

The response:
WE ARE AWARE OF THAT PARTICULAR CASE. WE CAN HOLD YOUR MESSAGE FOR HIM BUT IT'S NOT OUR POLICY TO PUT YOU IN DIRECT CONTACT.

IT'S A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH. I CAN HELP.

I'M ONLY A VOLUNTEER. THERE'S NO ONE ELSE HERE RIGHT NOW.

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH.

HE HASN'T BEEN IN TOUCH RECENTLY. WE'VE BEEN CONCERNED.

My heart sank. The message continued.

BOCA RATON, FL. NAME: DANIEL SINCLAIR.

I tapped into recent obits for the Boca newspaper, in Palm Beach County. I didn't find his name. There might still be time.

The white pages on-line showed only one D. Sin
clair, with an address. I called R. J., who wasn't in. I left him an urgent message.

I told the desk I'd be out of touch for a few hours on a personal errand and drove to Boca, fearing what I might find.

The drive, north on I-95, took forty-five minutes, then another fifteen to locate the address. The one-story stucco duplex with single-car garages on each side was modest for Boca, or anywhere.

An aging Buick, the hood up, stood in one driveway. A long lean young man in a T-shirt and blue jeans appeared to be changing the battery. I parked on the street and approached, notebook in hand.

“Daniel Sinclair?” I knew the answer before I asked. Though slightly taller, he was the image of his father. Close up, I saw Kaithlin in his lighter hair and full mouth.

“That's me,” he said cheerfully. He lifted out the old battery and placed it on the ground. He looked robust, his color good. Perhaps he was back in remission.

I introduced myself as he installed the new battery and reattached the cables. I offered my card.

He slammed the hood and wiped his hands on a clean rag before taking it. “You're a reporter?” he said.

“Right,” I said, relieved. “And I'm so glad to see you looking well.”

He slowly raised his eyes to mine, puzzled.

“I'm working on a story about adopted children who seek out their birth parents,” I lied, “and saw your message on the website.”

“Oh, jeez.” He flushed, embarrassed.

“Have you had any luck?”

“Yeah.” He shifted his weight as though uncomfortable. “My mother contacted me.”

“You saw her?”

“Yeah, so to speak.” His eyes flashed, bright with tears. He leaned back against his car, arms folded across his chest. “It was a disaster.” He shook his head.

“I screwed up. I screwed up bad.”

“What went wrong?” I flipped my notebook open.

He glanced up and down the street, as though fearful that a camera crew might suddenly materialize. “Want to come in for a minute?”

“Sure. Where are your folks?” I asked, as he opened the screen door.

“My mom's dead. A drunk driver hit her car when I was nine. It was his fourth drunk-driving arrest. My dad's in a nursing home. He was older, in his fifties, when they adopted me. That's why they did the private adoption. The agencies wouldn't even put them on a waiting list because of his age. Want a Coke?” he said.

A small wooden crucifix hung on the wall near the front door. I followed him into the kitchen, where he peered into the refrigerator, dug out a couple of cans of cola, and handed me one. The curtains were sunshine yellow. An angel plaque mounted on the wall over the sink said
GOD BLESS OUR HOME
.

“Dad's had a couple of strokes,” he said, as he popped the top on his drink. “Last one put him in the nursing home. He's gonna have to have a lot of therapy before he can come home.”

“How terrible,” I said, shocked by the sadness in his young life in this “good home.”

“For him, yeah, but for me, naw. I'm okay.” He
showed me out onto a shady screened-in back porch, where we sat in wicker chairs. “I'm making it,” he said, head tilted in a posture that reminded me somehow of R. J. “I'm going to school, work nights in a restaurant. Even sell a picture once in a while. You know”—he grinned—“amateur artist.”

“But what about your health?”

His smile disappeared. “You can't write about this,” he pleaded. “I never should have done it. I'm fine. I've never been sick. Never had leukemia.”

“You lied?”

He sighed, nodding. “Cindy, a girl I date, warned me. She kept saying, ‘Danny, don't do it.' But I was stupid. See, I'd been trying to find my birth parents since I was sixteen. That's when I first registered. My dad didn't object; in fact, he gave permission. But I never got a response. After he had his bad stroke last year, I saw a story on TV about a woman who was adopted and needed a kidney. She had to find her natural parents; she did and there was a big happy reunion. She found out she had brothers and sisters, a whole family. That gave me the idea.

“Everybody's on-line now, and I figured if my birth mom saw it and believed it was a matter of life and death, she might respond.

“Worked like a charm. She never would've contacted me otherwise. She was real reticent, out of state, wouldn't give me her real name. Said she wasn't the right blood type, but she knew where my father was. I thought, Great, I get to meet both of them. Who knows? I thought. Maybe they'd even get together again. I know it all sounds stupid now.”

“No,” I said, mind still reeling. “Every kid wants a mom and a dad and wants them to be together.”

“I guess I just really wanted something, somebody. Cindy's premed. She helped me learn all about the disease, so I could keep up the story. I figured—and I know it was stupid—but I figured once she saw me, everything would be all right. I mean”—he opened his arms, appealingly—“what's not to love?” His grin was self-deprecating. “What a mistake.”

“Where did you see her?”

“She didn't want to meet in public, guess she didn't wanna be seen with me. I thought here would be good. Then she'd get to see my trophies, my artwork, you know, stuff she might like. I wanted to impress her.

“So the big reunion I'd waited for since I was a kid finally happens. She shows up in a cab, wearing a scarf and shades like she's incognito. It started out okay. Then I told her I had a surprise. ‘Good news,' I say. ‘I'm not dying.'”

He shook his head, expression pained. “I thought she'd be happy, relieved to find a healthy son—instead of some needy guy who wanted something from her. It was a disaster. She was furious.”

“What did she say?”

“‘You don't know how much you've cost me,' or words to that effect.”

“What do you think she meant?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Must have lost time from work, her family. Airfare's expensive; she's from out of state.

“I said, ‘You're my mom. How can you say that?' But she just took off. Her parting shot was that I'm just
like my father. The way she said it made it obvious that they aren't getting together.

“I botched it. Totally. She didn't want to see or hear anything once she knew I lied. Shot me down and took off, really pissed. Haven't heard from her again. She's not even on-line anymore. Her e-mail address is shut down. I don't blame her. I never should have done it. Maybe she'll cool off someday and make contact again. If not, I sure learned a lesson. The reunion fantasy is always better than the real thing.

“You should put that in your story,” he suggested thoughtfully, leaning back in his creaky chair, long legs stretched out. “When you're adopted you tend to daydream, to fantasize that your birth parents are fabulous strangers out there somewhere. But if they were really fabulous…I mean, there's a reason people give a child away. It means you were a mistake.

“I've done a lot of thinking since then,” he said, “and I'm grateful for what I do have. I've got my feet back on the ground. No matter what my problems are, I'm a damn sight better off than ninety-nine percent of the people on the planet—and if I want something of my own, if I want a family, I have to create it myself. And I can do that—in time. But”—he turned to me, eyes pleading—“I'd hate to be any more embarrassed about this than I am already, so please don't write about it. Or at least not until I get out of town.”

“Where are you going?”

“Got a full scholarship to Boston College. Dad has a sister up there. Once he's well enough, I'm gonna move him north too. I just got back, spent a couple of weeks
there getting to know her and her family, checking out the facilities. I'm really up for the change. Sometimes you just have to move forward and be your own person,” he said. “Travel down your own road and make your own life.”

“True,” I said, closing my notebook. “Who cares about ancient history?”

“Right.” He grinned. “Hey, look at the time. I've got to get ready for my shift tonight.”

He spent a few more moments showing me his artwork, charcoal sketches and watercolors, sunlight and shadow on bridges, picturesque buildings, and old cars. They filled the wall space in his room and were stacked against the furniture, competing for space with his baseball and debate team trophies and his computer, its screen dark, on a small corner desk. A recent painting was still on the easel. A sandy-haired girl and a medium-size shaggy dog posed on what looked like the same back porch where we had just talked. “That's Cindy,” he said, “and Boscoe.”

“Lovely.” I admired the softness of her face, the graceful flow of her scarf and the dog's whiskery grin.

Danny Sinclair walked me out to my car, smiling and clear-eyed. “Good luck with your story,” he said, and waved as I drove away.

“Good luck to you too,” I told him.

 

I played the radio, turned up the volume, and sang along loudly to keep awake during the long drive back. It's true, I thought, babies do change people. They change lives forever. I went directly to Kagan's office.

“Is he in?”

“Do you have an appointment, Miss…?” Frances asked, eyes wary.

“No,” I said, “but I hope he can spare a moment.”

“I see,” she said crisply. “Your name again?”

Too tired for her paranoia, even when no one was watching, I stared her straight in the eye. She gazed back like a total stranger.

“Montero,” I said wearily, wondering what frightened her so. “Britt Montero from the
Miami News
. He'll remember.”

She rapped on his office door, stepped inside, then emerged after a brief exchange.

“He's with a client,” she said. “He can see you in a few minutes.”

She averted her eyes, tapping her computer keys primly, as I leafed through a dog-eared office copy of
The American Trial Lawyer
magazine.

As I skimmed a piece on libel law, an older black woman stepped out of Kagan's office, a sullen teenager in tow. I assumed she was grandma and he was trouble. He slouched out the door after her, at that awkward age, somewhere between juvenile hall and state prison.

“What did he do?” I asked Kagan, when Frances showed me inside. “Steal cars or snatch purses?”

“My clients are innocent until proven guilty,” he said. In shirtsleeves, documents strewn across his desk, he looked almost like a real lawyer.

“Or until he pleads.”

“What now?” His look said, Cut the small talk.

“You forgot to mention Kaithlin's son.”

He rapped his expensive fountain pen on his desk
blotter, his small smile ironic. “Rothman spilled his guts, right? That son-of-a-bitch.”

“It wasn't R. J. she wanted to save,” I said, “it was their son. Right?”

Kagan pushed a button, told Frances to hold his calls, then clasped his hands before him in a failed attempt to appear sincere. “She was a teenager when she had the kid. All these years later, she'd pulled it off, she's sitting pretty in Seattle. But, like most broads”—he leveled a meaningful gaze at me—“she can't let well enough alone. The Internet, God bless it. That started it. Playing around on her computer, she can't resist surfing the sites for adopted kids looking to find their natural parents.” He spread his hands apart in a gesture of wonderment. “Lo and behold, her kid is registered.”

“So?” I prodded.

He hesitated, then fished his keys out of his pocket and unlocked a desk drawer. Shuffling through a thick file, he withdrew a single sheet of paper and handed me a printout of Danny's message, his phony plea for help.

I merely glanced at it. “I've seen it,” I said. “She thought R. J.'s execution would kill their son as well. The mother-child bond was the only tie strong enough to bring her back to Miami. I should have known. How did she plan to reunite father and son without exposing herself?”

“Who knows?” Kagan shrugged. “It never got that far.” He licked his lips. “When she showed up here to blow her top, I whipped out my file on her. In fact, I gave her a copy. The photos, Rothman's reports, old news clippings he dug up on her and R. J. It was a real
blow, a shock to her that we knew her story and who she was.

“Evidently she goes off next to meet the kid, check out his condition, see how much time she's got to work things out for him. Next day she calls and wants to meet with me and Rothman. Seems the reunion was another shock.”

“She learned the kid wasn't sick, never was,” I said.

“Right. She comes in; you shoulda seen her. First time she'd ever mentioned the kid to us. Apparently he's a dead ringer for his ol' man. She says he lied and tried to manipulate her just like R. J. did. Actually, the kid was pretty smart,” Kagan said, admiring the boy's ingenuity.