Broken (2 page)

Geoff tossed his rugby jacket on the futon. “You’ll
be surprised when I tell you.”

“Oh god, tell me it’s not some name like Drake or
Lance?” From what I understood, Geoff’s life was
something of a soap opera.

He made his way to the kitchen, chuckling. “Better,”
he said. He paused at the doorway and turned. “It’s
Layne.” He slipped out of sight with a flare that was as gay
as his coif.

It was interesting he was sharing this with me. Maybe with
Mother gone, he felt like he needed family again.

“Not Layne, like Troy’s brother?” I asked,
chasing after him. Troy was a previous fling of mine, if he could
be called that. He was one of the pool hall regulars. I think
he’d been through every woman in the bar before he finally
decided to try me. He’s one of those men that wears shitkickers,
has a sock stuffed in the front of his jeans, and boasts silver
testicles on the back of his truck. It was what I call compensation
for what’s lacking between his legs. That relationship lasted
all of one date. Okay, maybe two if I count the time I had sex with him in the
washroom while under the influence of way too many beers.

When I got around the corner, Geoff was fingering the opened
pill bottle on the counter.

His eyes held a hint of concern. “You still taking these?”

I offered an irritated smirk and then took the bottle from his
hands, stuffing it back into the cupboard.

I pondered telling him about the plant in the corner. That
thought lasted for about a second. Geoff had heard me talk of little
people as a child and watched as I went through countless doctors
to rid myself of the hallucinations. It hadn’t been easy on
any of us. In the end, to my mother’s credit, she’d finally
found someone that had been able to find the right med. It had now
been seven years since I’d seen the little green man and his
friends.

“I got a letter from Mother today,” I said. The
change in subject was deliberate, and it seemed to work. Geoff
cocked his head just enough to indicate he was intrigued.

I grabbed the note from the coffee table and handed it to
him.

His eyes saddened a little. He had wonderful memories of our
mother.

I wish I could say the same.

My mother had never been cruel to me. On the contrary, she had
been very civil and polite, but her love was never mine to receive.
It was a bitter childhood and I’ve often wondered if the
hallucinations had stemmed from that lack of affection growing
up.

My psychiatrist said I had mother issues.

My psychiatrist also had a way with the obvious.

Geoff read it quickly. “This is my branch.”

“I thought it might be,” I said. He worked as a
manager there.

“What could she have left for you so long after her
passing?”

I shrugged. I really had no clue.

“Look at the postmark,” he said. “This was
sent out yesterday from the lawyer’s office. And the letter
is dated for today. She wanted you to get this now.”

I hadn’t really paid attention to those details, but Geoff
was right.

“Get your things,” he said. “I’ll take
you. It’s still open.”

“Sure,” I said. It was a good reason to get some
fresh air and clear my head. “Give me a sec.”

Geoff grabbed his jacket as I slipped into the bedroom. I nudged
the door closed behind me. He didn’t need to see the single
mattress on the floor I used as a bed or the milk crates I used as
a nightstand. I had my pride.

I threw on a ball cap and pulled a team sweater from the clean
pile of laundry. I tried to slip my ID into my pocket and realized
the earring was still in there.

It was from Aunt Marigold. She had given it to me as a birthday
gift long ago — a single, emerald earring. It seemed odd at
the time to only receive a single earring, but my aunt was quirky
that way. I never really heard much from her after that, with the
exception of the customary Yule card and a few letters imploring me
to come visit. With no money to make such a trip, I just ignored
the latter.

I opened the little wooden box where I kept the trinkets which
had some meaning to me and nearly gasped.

Sitting next to a wooden figurine of a fox was the earring
I’d had since I was sixteen.

What I held in my hand was its match.

Chapter 2

I didn’t want to react too strongly with Geoff around, but
I was inclined to mutter a few obscenities.

What the hell was going on?

Between Mother’s quaint mystery and the reappearance of
the little man I hadn’t seen since I was seventeen, I had
enough to deal with. Seeing a match for a single earring I’d
had for years was starting to push me towards a rather narrow
ledge. And it’s not like it was a common earring that could
have coincidentally shown up. It was an upside down silver leaf and
stem with the emerald as the flower.

I started to wonder if I’d always had two and just
didn’t remember.

That was the worst part of this, feeling like I was losing
my mind. I’d been questioning my own sanity for far too long,
and it was getting old.

Closing my eyes, I exhaled to try to get some kind of grip on
myself. Then I put the earring with the first and left the
room.

Geoff was waiting for me at the door, reading the note over
again.

I felt for him. He really missed Mother. I’m sure it must
have been difficult for him to have her leave something for me
after all this time.

I clapped him on the shoulder, smiling as I took the note and
key. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s see what we
have waiting for us.”

He nodded, but said nothing.

As we walked towards the elevator, I remained quiet with him. It
wasn’t an awkward silence — we were just both caught up
in our own individual thoughts.

Of the couple of things that were going on, the earring was the
most troubling. I could understand the hallucinations returning. I
hadn’t renewed my meds and I was due for a tune-up with Dr.
White. But the earring was physical. I couldn’t argue its
existence.

When the elevator arrived, I decided I didn’t want to
think about it anymore, so I broke the silence.

“So how long has this been going on with Layne?” I
asked. I pushed for the parking garage.

Geoff’s face lit up. “Three weeks,” he said.
He didn’t expand on it like I thought he might, and I chose
not to pry. I smiled inside, though, at the thought that hopefully
Layne was better endowed than his brother.

We took Geoff’s Jetta since my old Tempo was on its last
legs. It was an amicable ride. Geoff filled me in on neighborhood
gossip and things he’d done around the house since
Mother’s passing. I didn’t push to see it, and he
didn’t invite me.

At the branch he took me past the line and the tellers, and
brought me back to where the safety deposit boxes were kept. No one
stopped him, but considering his position at the branch it
wasn’t really a surprise.

Trust my mother to pick the bank where Geoff worked, unless, of
course, she wanted this moment to unfold like this.

After retrieving the bank’s key for the box, he ensured we
had a small room for us to review the contents privately.

I took a deep breath before inserting the key and opening it.
Despite the fact I valued my independence, there was a small hope
that there might be some money. I hated myself for the thought. I
really didn’t want her money, but the sensible part of me
thought that it could come in handy. I did have student debts to
pay after all.

Geoff leaned over, but refrained from touching anything. His
fingers twitched though, like he was as anxious as I was.

I exhaled as we saw the contents. A manila envelope
sat upon a leather-bound collection of old documents. I
hacked open the seal.

Geoff stood over my shoulder as I pulled out a sheaf of
papers.

On the top was a letter from Mother. I wasn’t sure if I
wanted to read it, but my eyes seemed to make the decision for
me.

Dear Katherine,

I am writing this knowing I have little time left. The cancer in
my body has spread to the point I have only two months to live and
I could not bring myself to tell you this in person. I have lived
with a large burden upon my shoulders and have not had the courage
to tell you this in person. I suspect Geoffrey will want to know
this as well, but it is your choice if you wish to share it with
him.

I apologize that you’re receiving this information now,
but at the very least I wanted you to have some knowledge of what
is coming. There are things you need to know.

First, I suppose you may have wondered why I left nothing for
you in my will. To be blunt, you are not my child. I never gave
birth to you. You were adopted at infancy in the second year of our
marriage. I told James, the man you think of as your father, a lie.
I told him I could not bear children, and we made arrangements to
adopt a child.

On the day James passed away, I learned I was pregnant with
Geoffrey.

If you are wondering why I deceived James deliberately, it was
because of a problem in his family.

Within the pages I have left in this box are the writings of
various family members, detailing a history to which you are the
heir. The death certificates, dates, and relevant information are
all there.

I will leave you to read them, but here is the essence of what
you will find. The eldest child in James’s family will die in
their twenty-fifth year. Before you decide that it is some absurd
notion, know that this has come to pass for five generations now.
You are the sixth.

I know this may seem harsh that I chose to adopt a child before
having one of my own, but there it is. If you have the strength of
will, I implore you to not have a child in the coming months.
First, you will be unlikely to see it to term since your
twenty-fourth birthday is now three days away. It is unknown at
what point your death will come, but it will surely happen in your
twenty-fifth year. And second, this anomaly could die with you if
you choose to end this.

This may be a prudent time to settle whatever legal affairs you
may need to.

If you inform Geoffrey of this, please let him know all of this
was done for his sake, so that my own child by James would
live.

Sincerely,

Joan Gregory

I handed the letter to Geoff as I grabbed the closest chair. My
stomach felt like it was up around my throat. I sat down, bracing
my head in my hands.

Geoff plunked down beside me. He was just as speechless.

The woman had never loved me, I had figured that. I suppose it
made sense she wasn’t my birth mother — we didn’t
look anything alike. I just always assumed I had inherited more of
my father’s traits. But I had lived a life unloved by a woman
who had some bizarre notion I would die at the age of
twenty-four?

What sort of sick joke was this? Had she been mentally
unstable?

I could barely make my fingers flip through the remaining pages
attached to her letter — adoption papers, a British passport,
citizenship papers. I couldn’t even look at the rest, never
mind the leather-bound collection that still waited at the bottom
of the metal box.

Geoff said nothing. At this point, I didn’t want
words.

How was this possible?
And my father, or the man I thought was
my father, went along with this? It had to be some kind of joke.
Who would do this to a child?

I was trying to make some sense of it when I noticed a name on
one of the documents — a witness signature. There was
scrawled a name I knew. It was on every Christmas card I had
received since I was a teenager.

Marigold Gregory.

The harsh reality of this settled on me as I looked upon the
scrawling signature. This was no joke.

My aunt was going to be getting a phone call, if I could find
her number. I had questions. A lot of them.

Geoff rummaged through the papers as I got up to pace. I
didn’t really know what to do with myself, but my legs itched
to move.

“What are you going to do?” Geoff finally asked.

Anger seeped out of my eyes in tears that slipped down my
cheeks.

“I don’t know,” I said.

My brother and I had never discussed my mother’s
relationship with me. We both knew it wasn’t what it should
be. He likely knew it was not my fault, but I think he never truly
wanted to know because it would ruin his own image of her.

At this point, I had had enough of dancing around the big, white
elephant in the room.

“She never loved me,” I muttered. “I knew
that. But this is stupid. They adopted me because… because
of some ridiculous idea that their first child was going to die?
What the hell is that?”