9

Cynthia’s lawyer friend, Scott Crossland, turned out to be a dud.

In the first place, he answered the phone himself, which took me aback. Successful lawyers generally pay somebody to screen their calls so they can concentrate on the activities that bring in the bucks.

In the second place, he was completely uninterested in a consultation. In fact, he refused.

“Cynthia Weatherford referred me to you,” I told him.

He hesitated. I was thrilled that it seemed to take him a minute to remember who she was. “Oh, yes. From City of Angels.” His voice was low and a little distracted-sounding. I didn’t seem to have his full attention.

“That’s right. I was wondering if I might make an appointment for a consultation.”

“To be perfectly frank, I’m rather overscheduled at the moment,” he said, not particularly regretfully. “Could you tell me what this is about? If I can’t see you myself, I might be able to refer you to someone.”

I took a breath. Lawyers made me nervous. Nobody who has sat through an entire criminal trial can be perfectly confident of their sincerity. Despite a fervent belief in the Constitution, I still think there must be something wrong with somebody who could spend his whole life trying to keep people who he knows are guilty from getting what they deserve.

“I was on a jury. We convicted the man,” I told him, trying to be as brief and straightforward as possible. “Since then, I’ve learned some things that didn’t come out in the trial.”

He chuckled. “I’m sorry to say it, but that’s not as uncommon an experience as it ought to be, Ms…uh—”

“Laws.”

“Ms. Laws. The jury is often kept in the dark about a lot of things, and it’s not surprising if you feel a little betrayed afterward. But that doesn’t mean—”

“I know it doesn’t necessarily mean that the verdict was unfair,” I said hurriedly, before he could launch into the same lecture I’d already gotten from Mark. “But I’ve done a little investigating since then, and it’s raised some questions. I’m wondering what I ought to do.”

“What is it you would like from me?” he asked pleasantly enough, but with little enthusiasm.

Now I knew how the Jehovah’s Witnesses felt when they knocked on the door. I resolved to be nicer next time. Maybe even accept the magazine. “I thought if I could go over the facts of the case as I wrote them down during the trial, and then told you what I’ve learned since then, you might be able to advise me,” I said.

“You aren’t saying that you were coerced into a verdict, or that anyone tampered with the jury?” He sounded somewhat more interested.

“No,” I said, almost regretfully.

“Do you have any hard evidence that the person who was convicted didn’t do the crime? Or that somebody else did?”

“No, but—”

“Do you have any evidence that any of the witnesses were lying, anything like that?”

“Not evidence, but some doubts about a couple of the facts as they were presented by the police,” I said.

“You think the police set up the defendant? Or that they’re trying to cover something up?”

He’d lost interest. He made it sound as if I’d been watching too much TV. “I don’t know that,” I told him. “I don’t really know anything. I just know that I feel there’s a small chance I’ve made a mistake. At the very least, I want to find out what the facts are, so my conscience won’t bother me any more. Besides, I’m curious.”

“Ms…umm,” he said, in the overly gentle voice you might use with someone who had just announced that the Martians were attacking Pittsburgh, “my advice to you would be to think very carefully before you pursue this. I’m sorry to say that what you’ve told me is so—well, I have to say ‘flimsy’ for lack of a better word—that further action is almost certainly not warranted. I have to tell you that no court ever wants to reopen a case without an extremely compelling reason.”

“But—”

“Look,” he said, “I know how hard it is to serve on a jury, particularly when you have to send someone to jail. It’s very upsetting. I have the utmost respect for your scruples, believe me. It’s only natural to wonder if you did the right thing. But let me give you some advice: take a vacation, get involved with something else for a while. See if that doesn’t make you feel more comfortable about it.”

I recognized the tone. It was the same one I had used when my fellow juror, Hazel, had invited me to a private viewing of her thimble collection before some perspicacious museum snapped it up.

So add another voice to the Greek Chorus. He had me pegged as some bleeding-heart softy with too much time on her hands.

“And if it doesn’t? I’m sorry, I know how this must sound,” I said apologetically, “but I honestly think it’s worth investigating further. There’s too much at stake to ignore what I’ve been hearing.”

“Then you could go to the police. Or hire a private investigator, and if you find out anything substantial, then go to the police and the attorney who represented the person you convicted.”

“I can’t afford a private investigator.”

“Then let’s be frank, Ms. Laws; you couldn’t afford me either.”

“I see,” I said coldly.

“I’m sorry; I’m not trying to be offensive. I always think it’s better to be candid about these things up front. Besides, I honestly don’t think it will be worth your while to pursue this. Most defendants really are guilty, unfortunately. I should know.”

“Never mind, then,” I told him. “I can see that I’m wasting your time—”

“Excuse me just a moment. Ermmm?” His hand was over the receiver while he was talking to someone else in the room.

“I hope you’ll forgive me,” he said, suddenly curt. “I’m afraid I really must hang up now. Sorry I haven’t been any help, but I wish you luck.”

He was going to hang up before I could get a referral to someone else. Besides, I hadn’t even told him who the victim was. “But—”

“Hafta go, sorry.” He paused. “I won’t charge you for this consultation.”

“Send me the bill,” I insisted. But I was talking into a dead receiver.

“Go to the police,” Scott Crossland had said. I’d gotten the same advice, if you wanted to call it that, from Valentin. But I had no evidence, other than my doubts about the police report, and what I needed was more information about the “eyewitness” to the burglary. I wanted to find out more about Ramon Garcia and what happened to him after he left Ivanova Associates. I had no sources of information and no knowledge about how to even get started. How was I ever going to find someone to help me?

Well, there was someone I could ask—a policeman and an honest man, presumably. A Latino. He might be perfect, a person who could help me find out what I needed to know, someone with street smarts and a road map for conducting investigations.

He might be perfect, that is, except that I was the last person in the world, but one, he wanted anything to do with.

I couldn’t really blame him.

He was my brother.

Here is my mother’s guilty secret: She gave away her child.

Since that made for a certain awkwardness if anyone trotted out the family snapshots—“Who is that adorable baby with the curly black hair?”—she ripped them out of the albums and pasted over the bare spots with baby pictures of me, a little girl with straight brown hair and pink bows. Maybe she’d saved them, and I’d find a secret cache when she died. I hoped so, but I had my doubts.

My brother, Tommy, the reason for my parents’ ill-fated union, was eighteen months old when my father talked my mother into a month-long trip to Mexico to visit his family. She was already convinced she had made a Dreadful Mistake in marrying someone who, unlike the soulful romantic Latin who had courted her, displayed only a passing interest in her after the wedding. By that time, however, she was pregnant with me. The Feminine Mystique was decades away; there was no such thing as no-fault divorce. Having thrown in her lot with my father for better or for worse, she was, to all intents and purposes, stuck.

Since the Packard was deemed unsuitable for a lengthy trip through a country full of rutted roads and maniacal drivers, my parents elected to take the train. My father at first suggested and then insisted that they leave Tomás in the care of his younger sister and her husband, who lived in East L.A. My aunt had been married two years without offspring, and my father thought Tommy would be a comfort, or maybe just a lucky talisman. Whatever the truth of it, he wore down my mother’s objections by pointing out, perfectly truthfully, that a toddler would be miserable on a train.

In the end, it was my mother who was the most miserable. She contracted amoebic dysentery from drinking water out of the tap in one of the train’s unspeakable bathrooms, washing out her mouth after a bout of morning sickness drove her, in extremis, to use the facilities. Her lifelong revulsion with everything Mexican, brought to fruition when my father abandoned us, probably had its seeds in that toilet.

Her recovery was slow and painful, and Tomás stayed at my aunt’s.

Two months later, on the mend but still wan and exhausted from endless bouts of diarrhea and the aftereffects of antibiotics, she called her sister-in-law and asked for her son to come home. My aunt told her he had chills—a mild touch of the flu, the doctor said, but he should stay in bed. Why didn’t they leave him there a few more days? My mother agreed.

A few days later, my mother called back. My aunt grew hysterical and hung up on her. My father, summoned into service, phoned his sister and had a lengthy chat in Spanish with her husband. He returned to my mother, grave but calm. She’s just upset, he told her. She’s grown so fond of the child. She’s planning a little “good-bye” party for the weekend. I said he could stay.

When they called back again, the phone was disconnected.

My mother wanted to call the police, but my father jumped into the car and took off. “Don’t do anything till you hear from me,” he warned my mother, yelling out the window as he drove away. “I’ll take care of everything.”

Three days later he returned, disheveled and exhausted, without the baby. He’d been drinking, too. “I found them,” he reported to my mother. “They took Tomás and went to stay with friends.” He looked at my mother with red-rimmed eyes. “Teresa says she will kill herself if we take him back,” he announced. He lowered his gaze. “She is barren,” he told her, stricken by the horror of such a terrible fate. “She wants to raise Tomás. She says…” His eyes traveled to my mother’s belly. “She says we will have other sons.”

I don’t know how long the campaign against my mother’s resistance went on. I know my aunt called her daily, hysterical, pleading. She would cut her wrists; she would jump into the ocean. My mother could not have been accustomed to such theatricality; her own emotional temperature was a definite lukewarm, her upbringing inhibited and restrained. My uncle added his entreaties, promising to let her see the child as often as she wanted.

At some point, because he was a man, the head of the family, and, possibly, because he was already planning to skip town, my father announced that he had given his sister permission to keep Tomás.

My mother, for whatever reason, agreed.

Or at least that’s what might have happened. It’s not as if my mother was forthcoming about the details. For a while she went to visit on the bus—my father having absconded with the car—but after he left she seemed to lose the power to deal with his family, and eventually even those visits stopped.

When I was about eight, my abuela, my father’s mother, moved up from Mexico. She asked to see me, but my mother refused to take me to that house. In hindsight, I can’t blame her. My grandmother came to our apartment instead, a tiny woman with a large-sized determination. She brought my brother, Tommy, with her.

The most sadistic of torturers could not have devised a more excruciating scene. My mother stood white-faced and rigid, while my grandmother embraced me, calling me “Elena” and pushing “Tomasito” forward with the announcement, complete news to me, that this was my brother. He was dark-haired and sturdy, with black eyes. My mother fanned herself and collapsed into the armchair, picking at the slit where the stuffing was coming through while my grandmother went into the kitchen and made her some tea. Tommy and I spent most of the time glaring at each other with suspicion.

I am standing next to the kitchen door, uncertainly. I am so polite. I am on my best behavior, but I am afraid, too. I’ve shaken hands with my grandmother and the boy, but I don’t know what to say. We don’t have a lot of visitors.

I can’t help staring at him. How can he be my brother? What terrible thing has he done, that he doesn’t live here?

My mother is sitting in her chair like one of those body-snatchees whose brain has been taken over by alien invaders. She is never much fun at the best of times, but now she has me worried. I’d like to go to her, but an invisible barrier of misery encloses her. She doesn’t want to be touched.

Tommy sidles up to me. “You stink,” he says conversationally.

“I do not,” I protest. I know he’s lying. My mother is very strict about bath times.

“Would you like to see my room?” I inquire, mostly because I can’t think of anything else to say. If he is my brother, maybe he has a right to see it. Maybe he wants to come live with us. My stomach clenches in panic.

He doesn’t say anything. I wonder if I should offer again, but I decide against it. Besides, I know he would hate it, even though it isn’t pink or frilly like some of my friends’ rooms. Boys don’t like rooms that are neat; I know that much already. They don’t like stuffed animals, either, and that was all I had to show him, my row of bears and assorted companions, arranged along my bed according to seniority. I can’t stand it if one is out of place.

Tommy whispers something I don’t catch. I incline forward cautiously, without moving my feet. “What?” I ask.

“I hate you,” he says distinctly. He looks at my mother. “I hate her, too.”

So I know that he resents us, but I’m not sure why. It should have made me feel superior, but it doesn’t.

Before I can say anything, my grandmother comes into the room and hands my mother the tea. She holds it but doesn’t say anything. My grandmother comes up to me and puts her arm around my shoulders. I look at my mother; I’m not supposed to let strangers touch me. My mother isn’t looking, so I let the arm stay there. It feels nice. My brother makes a rude noise and turns his back.

“Cállate, Tomasito,” my grandmother admonishes him. “Now tell me, what do you like to do in school?” Her accent is heavy, but I understand her. Adults always ask you that.

“I like to draw,” I tell her.

“That’s nice,” she says with a smile. “Do you have a picture I could see?”

I give her one I’ve been keeping in my drawer, a vase with flowers. At my friends’ houses, the artwork is displayed on the refrigerator, but not here. My mother has never asked, and I have never suggested it.

“That’s pretty. Bonito. Your papa liked to draw when he was a boy.”

My mother has started to rise from the chair, and I look at her. She is glaring angrily at my grandmother. My grandmother drops the topic of my father, fast.

“Look,” she says, taking something out of a big bag she has brought, made of cloth and with lots of pretty colors woven in. I’d like to touch it, but I don’t. “I’ve brought you a picture to keep.” She hands it to me.

It’s a picture of Jesus, in a little frame. I’ve never seen anything like it. The figure is wearing the crown of thorns—I’ve seen that before—but the thorns have made big gouges in his skin. Blood—a lurid crimson—is dripping down his face onto his white robe. His eyes are rolled up, and he must be in pain, but he looks happy, too. I am too young to understand the emotion, but I am intrigued. In the corner is a satiny purple heart, out of the body, pierced by daggers.

I am transfixed. It is horrible, yet fascinating. My first piece of Latin American art.

“Thank you,” I say uncertainly. I am not sure why my grandmother has given me this token of suffering, but I am pleased by the attention.

“Burn it,” my mother says, after they have gone. That is all she will say. “I can’t talk about it,” she says, in response to my questions. “Don’t ask me.”

But I don’t burn it. In fact, I still have it.

Eventually, she told me the story. When I was about fifteen, I asked her again for a more complete version, but I never had the nerve to bring it up after that. When I grew up, I called my brother from time to time, but he wasn’t thrilled. He was polite enough, but if he wanted any kind of a relationship, he certainly never let on. My grandmother called me a couple of times a year until she died, and she gave me bits of the story I’ve related here. But she’d learned most of the story secondhand, so who can tell?

Tommy went to the police academy, married, and had three children. I wasn’t invited to any of the ceremonies, but I sent gifts anyway. I mailed him a wedding invitation and a birth announcement. He sent me a card both times.

Psychologists could have a field day with this one. Tommy resented me because he was given away and I wasn’t. He unequivocally rejected our mother and refused even to see her. I had the burden of being the one who stayed, who had to fill the empty place. I lived with constant anxiety that I might be abandoned, too; after all, it had already happened once. My mother’s act had turned me into a neurotic child, fearful of disorder. Trips to the shopping center were a nightmare; I refused to get out of the car at gas stations. At least my aunt and uncle had loved my brother enough to fight for him, while I was left with someone who scarcely could bring herself to touch me. Maybe she was afraid to love me, in case she lost me, too. Maybe her grief was so terrible that it didn’t leave room for any other emotion. But I wondered: which one of us—Tommy or me—was luckier?

After I had Andrea, I couldn’t help judging my mother. How could you do it? I wanted to ask her. How could you give up your child? I replayed the scene in my mind, as if revisiting it could rewrite the ending. Do something, I wanted to shout at her as she sat paralyzed in her chair, picking at the rip in the fabric. Don’t just sit there.

And worse: Why didn’t you stand up for yourself? How could you let it happen in the first place?

Now it was too late to get the answers, even if she’d been willing—or able—to supply them.

A less-than-promising family history, on the whole. Still, I was tempted to call my brother. Michael had urged me to mend fences years ago, and it seemed so futile, with my mother scarcely cognizant and my father long dead, not to at least try again. There was a lot of unfinished family business, and Tommy was the only family I had left, outside of my mother and Andrea. While my mother was lucid, it seemed cruel to reopen old wounds, but I thought she was safely beyond being hurt now. The Ivanova case had made me antsy about the status quo in some way that I didn’t completely understand but was willing to act on. Besides, it provided the perfect pretext, and if he wanted to, my brother might even turn out to be helpful in getting more information.

A day or so later, I worked up the nerve to dial their number. I got an answering machine and a garbled version of “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star.” I couldn’t tell whose number it was, but even my incomplete knowledge of my nieces and nephews couldn’t be that far off. They had to be older than two. Why do people try to get cute with their messages? It’s worse than vanity license plates, of which L.A. is the undisputed capital. Everyone’s too chicken to talk to each other, so their possessions do it for them. While the brave mood was on me, I jumped into the car (no vanity plates, not even a bumper sticker) and headed across town on the freeway.

My brother and sister-in-law lived in a little white house with a nice square of lawn and a big pot of geraniums on either side of the door. There were lots of kids playing ball in the street, re-forming their games as soon as the car had driven through. I hoped nobody put a baseball through the windshield.

Tommy answered the door, holding a baby. I hadn’t seen him since Michael’s funeral, so I’m not sure he recognized me. He was forty-six years old, with a middle-age paunch and thinning curly hair streaked with gray. The baby was drooling, and he dabbed at its chin with a cloth. “Yes?” he inquired, with a touch of annoyance. It was Sunday, his day off, and he probably thought I was collecting for Greenpeace.

“It’s me,” I explained, poise deserting me. “Ellen. Elena.”

The planes of his face altered a little. “I know who you are,” he lied. “I recognized you.”

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said, trying to think of how to get over this unpromising beginning, “but I’d like to talk to you about something. Could I come in?”

The baby made little cooing noises at me, and I smiled back. “Yours?” I inquired.

He shook his head. “Is this about your mother?” I noticed the stress, as I was meant to, on the your. He hesitated. “Did something happen?”

“No. She’s pretty much the same, I guess.” I’d felt honor-bound to let him know about her condition when she started to lose her memory. “It’s not about that.”

He swung open the door with his free hand, lifting the baby up with the other. “My grandson,” he announced. “I’m baby-sitting. Come in.”

The living room was full of knickknacks. Little framed pictures of the children at various ages. Flowered wall plates at the light switches. Afghans covering the couch. I could smell something homey and wonderful, like fresh-baked bread, in the kitchen. I couldn’t help comparing it favorably to the Jensens’ costlier but more sterile habitation. This was a home, at least.

A large-scale portrait of Jesus hung in the entryway, a restrained one with folded hands and a benevolent expression. Still, I detected the family influence at work.

My brother gestured at the couch. “Why did you come here?” he asked me, when I had sat down.

“I need your advice, Tommy,” I told him, prepared to launch into the entire story. “You’re the only policeman I know, so—”

He put up his hand. “Well, you don’t know me, so let’s not pretend you do. For one thing, I haven’t been Tommy for years. Just Tom.” He took a breath. “What I meant was, why did you come here? Why didn’t you phone first?”

I didn’t want to tell him I wasn’t sure if I even had the right number. Besides—did I really have to say it?—“I was afraid you’d tell me not to come,” I told him.

“Good guess,” he said grimly. He was going to be difficult.

“Fine. Now that we’ve gotten through the niceties, do you mind if I tell you what I want? Just so I don’t take up too much of your time, that is.” I knew I sounded snide, but it was either that or tears, and I wouldn’t do that. Not if I could help it.

He rolled his eyes, “Don’t get huffy, Ellen. And don’t get me wrong, either. I don’t have anything against you. We’re just from different worlds, that’s all. We don’t have anything in common. So what’s the point in having a relationship?”

My entire family history was based on never saying what was really the matter, or ever being direct about what it might take to make things better. It was now or never to lay those traditions to rest. “Bullshit,” I said. I felt like a dangerous rebel.

“What?”

“That’s bullshit,” I said. “We have the same genetic identity, and it’s nothing to be proud of.”

“Just because my father—” he began.

“Actually, I was thinking about our mother,” I told him. “But neither one was much of a prize. Anyway, that’s not the point. The truth is, you’re still mad about what happened. I don’t blame you, but I didn’t even know you existed till I was eight years old. It’s not my fault.”

“I agree with that,” he said calmly, “but I still don’t want you for my best friend.”

“Well, that’s not what I’m looking for, either. But I’m forty-four years old, and I think this stupid feud has gone on long enough.”

He looked amused. “It’s not a feud. You can’t have a feud if there’s nothing to fight about. What’s done is done. And why are you bringing all this up now?”

“I’m not sure,” I told him. “Maybe because my mother never talked about anything, and now she can’t. Maybe because my daughter’s going to be leaving home soon. Maybe because our grandmother would have wanted it.”

He winced. That was a low blow, and I knew it.

“Lots of reasons you’d probably need a psychologist to unravel,” I told him. “But actually, I do have something more immediate in mind.”

“So what do you want?” he asked warily.

“I want a relationship where I can come to my brother for information about a police matter if I need it.”

“And then what? Sunday night family suppers? Free tickets to the Policeman’s Ball?” Snideness ran in the family, obviously.

I shook my head. “I’d like to bring Andrea here to meet her cousins.”

He looked out the window. “I don’t know.” He looked back at me. “I’ll think about it.” He looked at me. “I know she’s a fine girl. It isn’t that.”

“I’d like something else, too.”

“What?” He sounded alarmed.

“I want to hold your grandson. He’s adorable.”

He reached into the crib and picked up the baby, pressing him close. He looked at me uncertainly.

“I’m a mother,” I assured him. “I know what to do. I won’t drop him.” Or run away with him, either.

“I’ll regret this; I know it.” He handed me the child. “His name is Alex.”

Alex drooled on my slacks while I told Tom about the Garcia trial and my tentative forays into investigation. My brother stiffened when I told him about the problem with the eyewitness phone call.

“Do you think the police report is wrong?” he asked woodenly.

“I don’t know,” I said, without thinking. “But something’s fishy. Either the report is wrong or the eyewitness lied or…or I don’t know what. But nobody checked it out.”

“People always think the police are lying,” he said heavily. “It comes with the territory. After the fucking OJ trial, half of Los Angeles believes the police force is incompetent.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t somewhat tactless, so I remained silent.

He seemed to read my expression. “Sometimes, they’d be right,” he said, “but not usually.”

“Can you help me get a copy of the report?” I asked him.

“You could get it yourself. Most of this stuff is public.” He sighed. “Okay, I’ll see what I can find out.”

“And maybe see what there is on Natasha Ivanova, too?”

“If I do, will you wait for me to call you next time?” I laughed.

“I’m serious, Ellen. I’m not sure I’m ready for this.”

“It’s a deal,” I told him brightly, to cover the chagrin I felt at having been, against my entire history and training, so aggressive as to make him ill at ease.

I handed Alex back to him and prepared to leave before I exhausted his store of benevolence for me and mine. “I’m sorry I missed Dorie,” I told him. I’d only met my sister-in-law once or twice, but I sensed she’d be an ally. When Michael died, she’d marched straight up to me after the funeral and given me a hug. I hadn’t even thought they would come. Tommy—Tom—had spent the entire fifteen minutes he remained at the reception trying to stay as far away from my mother as possible.

I had a thought. “How are…Aunt Teresa and Uncle Joe?” I inquired. They were, in effect, his real parents.

“Did you know them?”

I shook my head.

He folded his arms. “They live with my little sister in Arizona.”

“Your sister?” I was his sister. As far as I’d known, there hadn’t been any others.

He shrugged. “I think of her that way.” He took a breath. “Carrie’s my cousin.” I must have looked confused, because he added; “Teresa and Joe’s biological daughter.” He waited for this to sink in.

When it did, it was as if somebody had hit me in the stomach. “But I thought…”

“So did they. But obviously, they were wrong.” He looked embarrassed. “They never wanted you to know.” He peered at me. I must have been a little pale. “Are you okay?”

I could hardly answer him. It was so unfair, it made me gasp for air. My mother’s whole life blighted, and mine, and his, and for nothing. They’d had a child anyway. A surge of anger so strong it almost knocked me over raised my pulse rate through the roof. At that moment, I hated them for what they had done.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think. I shouldn’t have told you, I guess. At least not like that.”

I shook my head, still hyperventilating. “No more secrets. There’s been enough of that. But it’s so…so…”

“Let me get you some water,” he said.

“They might have said something,” I said angrily, when he had come back from the kitchen.

“Like what?” he asked. “What could they say?”

“Like ‘I’m sorry,’ for starters.”

“And then what? Should they have offered to give me back?” He sat down beside me on the couch. “I wouldn’t have gone,” he said, very kindly but firmly. “I loved them, and they loved me.”

“My mother could have loved you,” I said. And I could have. “It would all have been different.” My eyes filled, but I brushed the tears away angrily. I would not cry about this, not in front of him. Not now.

He shook his head sadly. “But not necessarily better, at least not for me.” He patted my shoulder. “I don’t think we should talk about this anymore. It’s upsetting to both of us. Do you see why I didn’t want to start it up?”

I nodded and stood up. I didn’t know how to respond.

He moved me along toward the exit. He hesitated. “Have you been okay since…”

“Since Michael died?”

He nodded.

“I’ve managed,” I told him. Just not always exceptionally well.

“I’m sorry,” he said. I could see he was referring to more than Michael’s death.

“Thank you,” I said simply.

“I’ll be in touch, if I find out anything for you,” he said, in a more normal voice.

I sensed that my brother’s revelation had put our relationship on a new footing. I wasn’t sure what direction it would take. I thought there was better than an even chance that I’d never hear from him again. But at least I’d tried, and that made me feel good.

For better or for worse, I was going to have to deal with my past. I’d get around to it as soon as I’d dealt with the present.