Lisa Unger - Sliver Of Truth

“I know all this,” I told him, sitting on one of Jake’s work chairs.

He nodded. “Those were hard days for me, Ridley.”

“I know,” I said softly, remembering. I thought maybe I hadn’t been there for him like I could have been, but the truth was that I didn’t have a whole lot to give on the subject; I wasn’t exactly standing on solid ground myself.

“I just couldn’t get past it,” he said. “I just couldn’t accept that there were things about my past that I’d never know. That the people responsible for fucking with so many lives would never face any consequences. It ate at me.”

This was the point where Jake disappeared from the relationship, mentally and emotionally. It was like being in love with an addict. He could never be present because he was always jonesing, always fidgeting and preoccupied with his next fix.

“So I went to see Esme Gray.”

I felt a lump in my throat. I used to love Esme like a mother; now the thought of her made my stomach clench.

“What? When?”

Esme had been briefly taken into custody around the same time Zack-her son, my ex-boyfriend-had been. The conditions of her release were still unknown to me. She never stood trial for anything involving Project Rescue, I knew that much. I also knew that she’d retired from nursing. (Zack, though he was never prosecuted for his role in Project Rescue, stood trial, was found guilty, and is serving ten years in a state penitentiary for attempted murder-the attempted murder of me and Jake, by the way. But that’s another story. Even after all that he has done to us, it’s still hard to think of him in prison, of what has become of his young and promising life. He blames me, of course, and has told me so in numerous disturbing letters that I can’t keep myself from opening.)

“I looked in your address book and found out where she lived. I followed her around for a couple of days. I broke into her house and was waiting for her when she came home. I wanted her afraid and off guard when I approached her,” he said. “But she wasn’t. It was like she’d been expecting me.”

A year ago we’d talked about Esme as being the last remaining person who might know what had happened to Jake when he was a child, other than my father (who denied all knowledge). I knew someday he’d pursue that.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I know you’ve been trying to forget. I can’t blame you for that.”

I nodded, waited for him to go on.

“I was rough with her-not violent, but loud. I wanted her to think I’d come unhinged. But she stayed calm, sat down on the sofa and said, ‘After the kind of men I’ve been associated with, you think I’m afraid of a punk like you? You might as well cut the shit and sit down if you want to talk.’”

I had to smile to myself. On the outside, Esme looked like everybody’s mom: pretty and roundish with a honey-colored bob and glittering blue eyes. She was pink like a peach. But at her core, she was metal. When we were all kids-Ace, Zack, and me-she, along with my mother, never had to yell or threaten; just a look and all bad behavior ceased.

“She told me if I cared about you, I’d give up on finding out what happened to me. She told me I should start my own family and move forward. She said, ‘If you continue to insist on dredging up the past, you might find things you can’t put back to rest.’”

It was an echo of something she’d said to me once and it made me go cold inside. I didn’t say anything, just listened as he recounted his conversation with Esme.

“She said to me, ‘Nobody knows what happened to you, Jake. Nobody knows who took you after you were abducted by Project Rescue and why you wound up abandoned by the system. Why do you need to know so badly? Do you want to cast someone as the villain in your life? Do you want to prove to someone that you were a good boy who didn’t deserve the awful things that happened to you? Do you want revenge?’”

He paused here a second and looked above my head. She’d gotten to him, I could see that-hit him dead center. She’d always been an uncanny diviner of motives.

He went on: “She sounded tough, sure of herself. But I started to realize something while she was talking to me. Her hands were shaking and there was sweat on her forehead. She was afraid. She was afraid of something or someone, and it definitely wasn’t me. She knew I wasn’t capable of hurting her.”

I leaned forward on my seat. “Did you ask her what was frightening her?”

“Of course. She said, ‘I’ve made a deal with the devil, Mr. Jacobsen. And he’ll be waiting for me when I die. I’m afraid all the time. Afraid I’ll get hit by a car, have a heart attack and have to face him before I’ve atoned for my sins. The things I’ve done…you couldn’t have convinced me they were wrong at the time. But now I see the damage we caused.’”

Jake shook his head here, stood up. “But that wasn’t it,” he told me. “It wasn’t a spiritual fear. She was afraid of some clear and present danger. I told her I thought as much. I told her she could start atoning for her sins right now by telling me what I wanted to know.

“I kept at her, asked her, ‘What still scares you? What are you still hiding? Everyone associated with Project Rescue is dead and buried, Esme.’”

When she didn’t answer him, Jake explained, that’s when an idea struck him.

“‘He’s alive, isn’t he?’ I asked her, not even believing it as I said it. ‘Max Smiley. He’s still alive.’

“She looked at me like I’d slapped her. Her face went paper white. She screamed at me to get out, told me I was crazy, that she’d call the police. She wasn’t just scared; she was terrified. I tried to calm her down but she was freaking. ‘You idiot,’ she screamed at me. ‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll take Ridley and get as far away from here as you can. Change your names and disappear. And don’t come near me again.’”

“Jesus,” I said.

“That’s when I started to suspect that Max was still alive.”

“Jake,” I said with a light laugh. “Esme’s obviously come unglued. She’s sick with guilt.”

“No. Well, maybe. But not only that. You didn’t see her. She was panicked when I talked about Max.”

“Okay. But telling you to take me away, to change our names and disappear? Those don’t sound like the words of a well woman.”

“They’re the words of a frightened woman. And with the things I’ve learned since then, Ridley, I think she had good reason for saying what she did.”

He sat next to me and I leaned away from him. There was something bright in his eyes, a tension to his bearing. I felt my heart start to thump. I didn’t know if I was afraid of what he was saying, or afraid of him. It sounded to me as if Esme had lost it. And if he believed her, did that mean he’d lost it, too?

“Max is dead,” I said again.

“Then how are you explaining those pictures to yourself?” He said this in a tone of smug condescension. In the past, he’d accused me of being more comfortable in a state of denial than I was in reality (which never failed to throw me off the deep end, since it was my favorite criticism of my mother). I heard the echo of that judgment in his voice.

“There’s nothing to explain,” I said, raising my voice a little. “Those pictures were out of focus. That man-he could have been anyone.”

He looked at me hard but I couldn’t read his expression. It could have been disappointment, disbelief.

“Come. On,” I said to him, yelling now. I stood up and started moving toward the door. “I thought you had something real to tell me, Jake. This is just more insane speculation on your part. More craziness. What are you trying to do to me?”