Alafair Burke: Never Tell

“What are we going to do?”

“I can tell the police. Maybe they can protect us.”

“That’s not what I meant. What are we going to do with you?”

“Mom” I’m not sure what punctuation to include after that single word but I can still hear my own voice in my head. Part observation. Part scream. Part question. Period, exclamation point, question mark?

And then she’d picked up the platter and dumped the remaining sandwiches in the trash. “I had no idea you hated me so much. Making up these kinds of lies. I forgive you, but don’t ever tell these stories again.”

She forgave me.

You might think I hate my mother. I don’t. I never did. I simply lost her along with everything else I lost because of that man. And without making excuses for her failures as a mother, I choose now to blame him, not her. I choose to believe that, just as he broke me, he broke her. We were both his victims.

I also choose to believe that, even though it is too late to tell her, my mother knows I have forgiven her.

Forgiveness. Such a simple word.

The reader looked around to make sure no one was watching. After the last time, more caution was necessary now. Today’s screen was the public computer at a crowded luxury gym on Broadway. The distracted employees at the front desk hadn’t stopped the few people who had breezed by on cell phones with a quick wave of acknowledgment, a gesture that was easy enough to mimic. In a worst-case scenario, a cover story about forgotten running shoes would provide a nonmemorable escape.

Time to type a comment to reward the most recent posting.

“Did it ever dawn on you that your mom hated you for driving away your father and making her a single mother? Did it ever dawn on you that your desperation to have a father figure is what drew that man to your bed? He should have choked you harder. He should have made you bleed more. Keep writing. I’m reading. And I’m coming for you.”

Five minutes after the comment appeared online, a phone call would be made to Buffalo, New York. “I’m calling about a prisoner named Jimmy Grisco. James Martin Grisco.”

That phone call would change everything.

Katherine Whitmire bolted the door after the last of the strangers finally left.

The house was quiet. It felt strange to be surrounded by silence in this house.

The Whitmires were a family that liked living with noise. Bill-on those rare occasions when he was there-was always listening to newly recorded tracks or blasting through demos in search of undiscovered talent. The kids had inherited his constant need for sound.

With Julia, it was usually music, but lately she’d developed a penchant for old-fashioned suspense movies. Billy, on the other hand, was a 24/7 news junkie, flipping incessantly between CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, the latter bringing him to frequent bouts of shouting at the television. Then, of course, there was the yelling between the townhouse floors. Despite Katherine’s efforts to persuade her family members to use the room-to-room intercom system, the rest of the Whitmires insisted on communicating with one another through screams: Did you erase my shows off the TiVo again?… Is anyone else hungry? I’m calling in for sushi!.. Julia, get down here. Tell me what you think of this tape… How many times do I have to tell you not to call it “tape” anymore, Dad?

Now the house was silent in a way she could not remember since those first months, back when she was overseeing the renovation. It was quiet like this during that short period when the construction was finally done and the painters had removed their ladders and tarps but the movers had not yet arrived.

Julia was just a baby then, not even babbling yet. Billy had just celebrated his third birthday at a party only his father could have planned-twenty toddlers and their parents for a private afternoon concert at Joe’s Tavern featuring a live performance from Hootie and the Blowfish. She remembered standing in this same foyer, admiring the feel of the clean, smooth marble against her bare feet, foreseeing the life her happy family would enjoy in this spectacular home.

She’d felt so lucky back then. Bill Whitmire had lived an amazing life filled with talent, celebrity, travel, music, and beautiful women. Katherine was not his usual fare. Neither a model nor a singer ingenue, she was already in her early thirties when she met Bill. An architect with a modest career, she’d landed her biggest contract yet with the remodel of a Tribeca loft for the lead singer of the Smashing Pumpkins.

She’d been on her way out, blueprints in hand, when Bill showed up for a coffee. Coffee turned into cocktails. Cocktails evolved into dinner. And, much to her surprise, she’d woken up in his bed the next morning.

She expected it to be a one-night stand, her first-and probably only-in a lifetime. But Bill called her three days later, and three days after that. Within two months, she started to wonder if they were actually in a relationship.

And then one day, to put her mind at ease because she was nearly two weeks late for her period, she peed on a stick. And then another, and another. With the trilogy of pink plus signs lined up on the top of her toilet tank, she saw the quick end of her exciting new romance. Bill was fifty years old and had never been married. This story could not have a happy ending.

She gave him the news, fully expecting him to ask when she’d be getting it taken care of. But then, once again, Bill Whitmire surprised her. He smiled and hugged her, and then he cried and said, “Thank you for this.” He held her hair when the morning sickness started. He rubbed vitamin E lotion on her belly every night, promising to love her even if her entire abdomen ended up striped with stretch marks.

Six months into the pregnancy, he asked her to marry him, so they “could be a real family.” They exchanged vows on the beach at Montauk. Elvis Costello officiated with a minister’s certificate from the Internet. Their wedding announcement was placed prominently in the New York Times Sunday Styles section. She changed her name.

When she became pregnant a second time, with Julia, it was Bill who proposed buying a townhouse with ample space for the children to play. The top floor could be an apartment for a live-in nanny to help Katherine juggle the additional chaos that would accompany another child.

Bill Whitmire had settled down. He was a good father. And he’d chosen her to do it with. She remembered actually spinning around with glee on this marble floor that quiet day, staring up at the bright white molded ceiling so far above her, feeling like she’d won the love-and-marriage lottery. She was living a fairy tale, and Bill was her Prince Charming.

Two months later, the house was no longer empty. Billy with his Toy Story bedspread. Julia with her moss-green, elephant-themed nursery. Katherine’s custom closet was bigger than the apartment she’d last rented as a single woman.

Mira, the full-time nanny, had her own living space upstairs.

To this day, Katherine still wondered how long it had been going on-right beneath, or above, her nose-before she realized. She’d come home one afternoon to find the familiar sound of Bill’s music emanating from his study, but no Bill. The elevator parked on the top floor. No sign of Mira, either.

She’d taken the stairs so they wouldn’t hear the elevator. If she was wrong, she could always tell Mira she was just slipping in some extra exercise.

But her suspicions had been right. Bill was the one slipping something in.

Now, more than sixteen years later, she had watched her daughter’s body being wheeled out of that same top-floor apartment. The detectives she had insisted upon were gone. Everyone was gone.