S. Bodeen - The Fallout

Eddy grabbed my arm and tried to twist the sprayer around at my face. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t hold on to it, and he turned it on, soaking my shirt. I yelled, “Mom! Help!”

“Eddy!” she said. “Give me the stupid thing.”

Eddy handed it to her.

“This is ridiculous.” Then, laughing, she took aim and let both of us have it full blast, as we yelled and tried to block the spray with our hands.

“Clea!” Gram stepped in the kitchen.

Mom stopped spraying and let her arm drop to her side.

“The floor is soaked.” Gram crossed her arms and glared at all of us.

Mom pointed at us. “They started it.”

Eddy and I looked at each other and grinned. “Right, Mom,” he said. “Gram? Did you see either of us with the sprayer?”

Gram didn’t look like she was going to believe anything that any of us had to say. “All I know is you’d better get this place dried before Els sees it.”

Mom laughed as she put the sprayer back in the sink. She told us, “Get some towels. I’ll help you clean up.”

I said, “That’s the least you can do since you started it.”

She rolled her eyes at me.

Eddy came back with a stack of towels and the three of us got down on our hands and knees and started wiping up the water. Eddy stopped and looked at me. “That was fun. Like old times.”

“Yeah.” I grinned, glad that he noticed I could still be fun.

When we’d finished, Eddy took the towels to the laundry room. Mom was making some tea, so I asked her, “Who was on the phone?”

She said, “I want to sell the Colorado house.”

Eddy had just returned. “Why?”

She didn’t look at either of us. “I don’t think we need all our properties. It’s too hard for all of us to go anywhere. I think we should sell and think about getting new ones that no one knows about.”

I guess I understood that logic. Fresh start and all. But still. “I’d like to see the Colorado house before you sell it. I mean, it’s been so long.”

Eddy said, “Me too.”

Mom said, “It’s so hard to travel with all the kids right now. I don’t think I could deal with it.”

Eddy looked at me. “What if just Eli and I went?”

Mom started to shake her head, but I said, “Yeah, why not? There’s staff there, right?” Staff paid nearly as well to be discreet as they were to be efficient caretakers.

Mom nodded.

“And we can take the jet,” added Eddy. “It’s not like we’re unsupervised at any point.”

Mom stopped wiping and sat back on her heels, looking at the two of us.

“Please, Mom? Since we’re not doing school yet?”

She scratched her head. “I don’t know. What if—”

“What if what?” asked Eddy. “No one can get into the place when we’re there.” He looked at me. “We’ll just go for a couple days, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Just to see the place again.”

Mom sighed. “I suppose.”

Eddy grinned.

I went upstairs to get out of my wet clothes and shower. As I headed toward my room, I walked past Lexie’s. And I heard her crying.

I knocked. “Lex?”

“Go away.” Her voice was muffled.

I twisted the knob and it turned, so I pushed open the door.

“I said go away!” Lexie was on her bed, clutching a pillow, her face and eyes red. “I don’t want to talk.”

I shut the door and stepped inside. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head and dropped her face into her pillow, sobbing.

I went and sat beside her, then set my hand on her back. She knew it was a long shot, which might not work. Softly, I said, “Hey. We’ll find your birth parents some other way.”

She croaked out a no, then pointed at her desk.

I went and sat in her swivel chair. Her computer was on, and a balled-up piece of paper lay near the keyboard. I opened it and smoothed it out until I could read the letter from the state adoption offices. I scanned it until I found what I needed. Lexie’s birth mother’s first name and occupation.

The first name was Laudine. “That’s unique,” I said. “We should be able to find her. What does she—” My gaze went to the next line. The one where the occupation was listed. The line held one word:

Inmate.

My intake of breath was so quick it almost sounded like a whistle. I whispered, “Seriously? She’s in jail?”

Lexie was still crying into her pillow, so I turned to the computer and jiggled the mouse enough to wake up the screen. The Washington State Department of Corrections website popped up, along with the heading Find an Offender. The search results consisted of a listing of prisoners with the last name of Cobb. There were a few men with that last name, but no women. And no one named Laudine.

Had she been released? Is that why Lexie was upset?

I clicked on the next window. It was a death notice. Three years before, Laudine Cobb had developed an infection and died in prison. I leaned back in the chair. But then I noticed several other windows open, so I clicked on one of them. Yahoo search engine, with the search results from the words Washington + inmate+ Laudine.

Hundreds of entries came up. One that Lexie had clicked on was from the local NBC affiliate with the headline CROWD ATTENDS LAUDINE COBB SENTENCING. I scanned the news article from over eighteen years before.

“Convicted murderer Laudine Cobb, 29, was sentenced to life in prison plus 65 years for the murder of her two children.”

I gasped and looked over at Lexie. That was why she was upset. Not that Laudine Cobb was dead, but that she’d been… a murderer.

I kept reading.

One rainy night, Laudine Cobb called 911, said someone had broken into their house, shot her in the leg and shot her two children, both of whom died on the way to the hospital. Her tearful pleas from her hospital bed, to find whoever was responsible, made the national news. Prosecutors spent months checking her story and finally found enough evidence to convict her of the crime. She had shot herself in the leg to solidify her story. I checked the dates.

I said to Lexie, “Are you sure this is her? She was in prison when you were born.”

Lexie rolled off the bed, and came over to me. Her eyes and face were red, glistening with tears. There were other windows open and she clicked on one of them. The article, dated several months after the first, was short. The first line read: “Under heavy security, convicted murderer Laudine Cobb gave birth at St. John’s Hospital in Gig Harbor.”

I stopped reading and glanced back at the date. Lexie’s birthday.

Lexie said, “She was pregnant with me when she went in. Father unknown.”

I grasped her arm. “You don’t know this is her. You don’t know this is your birth mother.”

Lexie asked, “Did you see the photo yet?”

I shook my head.

She reached down and moved the mouse, clicking on another window. There was a posed photograph of a woman and two children. It was small, so I leaned in to look more closely.

The woman had bleached blond hair. She was pretty. Not as pretty as Lexie, but she looked a lot like her. Enough to be her mother?

Most definitely.

Lexie sighed. “Still think it’s a coincidence?” She sunk down onto the carpet beside the chair.

“This doesn’t mean anything.” I said.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Doesn’t mean anything? My birth mother was a murderer! How does that not mean anything?”

“No one has to know,” I said. “No one does know.”

Her face crumpled and she started to cry again. “Did Mom and Dad know? Did they know they had a murderer’s baby?”

I slid off the chair and sat next to her on the floor, putting my arm around her shoulders. She leaned into me. “Did they know?”