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I
t’s Helen’s day off and
one of those rare opportunities to take control of the kitchen. I remove a carton of eggs from the fridge along with some cream, butter, and grated cheddar cheese. David searches for a whisk.

“You know, we could go grab a couple of breakfast burritos from Bergie’s,” I suggest, though the thought of warmed-over powdered eggs and stale tortillas makes me cringe.

“Nope. I’m making you breakfast here.” One corner of David’s mouth creeps up a little. “And don’t say ‘no’, or you’ll hurt
my
feelings.”

I can’t resist his crooked smile, so I reluctantly agree.

“Ta da!” he says, brandishing a metal whisk in the air. “Perfect. Do you have any onions, tomatoes, mushrooms?”

“Onions in the pantry,” I tell him. “Tomatoes there on the counter. You might find some mushrooms in the fridge.”

“Great. Let me handle this then.”

“What about your leg?”

“I’m fine, Mira. I’m not crippled. I can handle breakfast.”

“But then what’ll I do?”

“Shower.” David makes a funny face at me, pretending to pinch his nose.

“All right. I do have sand in my hair. But when I’m done, there had better be a feast ready.”

“I solemnly swear.” He holds up three fingers, the Boy Scout sign.

I reach into the bag of cheese and withdraw a pinch of orange strands, tossing them at him, and then head to my room. After gathering some clean clothes, I lock myself in my bathroom. The mirror fragments still lay in the sink. I make a mental note to clean it up later. As I start to undress, my cell phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s a text from Frank Felton, the doctor from the Casey Institute.

I have some more info. Call me. Please.

Snapping the phone shut, I toss it onto the vanity. After I undress, I step into the shower and let the hot water cascade down my skin as my thoughts turn to last night with David. The physical sensations were the same as all the other times, the electrical surge, the explosion of images and feelings. But even though he made it clear how he feels about being seen that way, for the first time in a long time I didn’t hate being touched. To be wanted, to be loved that much—and to know it with absolute certainty—was the most wonderful experience I have ever known. The only touch that ever came close was Mama’s.

I lean my face into the spray of water and pull the steam into my lungs. I will miss Mama’s touch; I will miss the intensity of her love for me. Her memories begin to surface, mingling with my own. An overwhelming emptiness swells inside me. Standing here, alone, I allow myself to cry again.

If only Papa loved me like she did.

After a while, I dry off and change into a clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt. The shallow cuts on my hands have already begun to heal, but I dab some ointment on them just to be safe.

When I come out of the bathroom, I can smell the sautéed onions and eggs coming from the kitchen. My stomach aching from hunger, I hurry back to the dining room and take a seat. David comes in carrying identical plates.

“Here you go,” he says, setting them on the table. I sit down in front of the biggest omelet I’ve ever seen with a dollop of sour cream on top. He spears a clump of egg and tomato with his fork and holds it out to me. “Try it.”

I take a bite. The blend of onions and mushrooms is unbelievable. “It’s got a bit of a zing to it.”

“Do you like it?”

“I do,” I answer, helping myself to more—with my own fork this time. “What is it?”

“Pepper sauce. Just a little, though. Bet you didn’t know I could cook?”

Actually, after last night, I did.

“It’s delicious,” I tell him.

“Good.” He pulls out a chair and sits down beside me, resting his arms on the table. “So,” he says, his voice taking on a more serious tone, “how are you feeling?”

I swallow before answering. I’m not sure if he’s asking because of my mother or because of what happened between us at the park. I don’t really feel like talking about either one. “Good, but I am starting to get a headache. Too much stress and not enough sleep, I guess.”

Before I can say anything more, David hobbles out of the dining room back into the kitchen. He returns with a glass of pineapple juice and two little white tablets.

“There’s a first aid kit in there,” he informs me, dropping the pills into my palm. “They’re just aspirin. Wish they were something stronger.”

I cradle the pills in my hand and think about how a few months back I tried to kill myself with pills like these. I failed miserably, of course. I should have snuck a handful of Mama’s sleeping pills instead. Now I’m glad I didn’t. The second time I tried, I thought for sure I’d succeed. I was so determined to die. But after last night I feel differently.

I down the aspirin with the juice and dig into my omelet. I start chewing, but then something hits me—a thought, an image, I don’t really know what—but it’s like a light bulb has turned on. It must show on my face because David shoots me a puzzled look.

“What is it, Mira?”

“Pills!”

The words start spilling out of me faster than I can string them together in my head. “I don’t know why I couldn’t see it before. I guess there were just so many pieces floating around in my head I couldn’t put them all together, but it makes sense. It’s horrible, but it makes sense.”

“Whoa, whoa!” David holds his hands out in front of him. “Slow down. You’re
not
making any sense. And maybe you should put down your trident before you stab someone.”

I hadn’t realized I was waving my fork around. I set it down and try again.

“The night of the fundraiser, you remember?”

“Yeah?”

“Mama was drunk when we left for home. I’d never seen her drunk before in my life. I mean, I know she was drinking, but she’s never had so much that she lost control. And she didn’t have any more to drink that night than usual, but she was totally out of it. Then she went into the coma. Dr. Zimmerman said he found traces of Trazodone in her bloodstream, her sleeping medication—which she rarely used anyway. And she had taken extra insulin to cover the alcohol, but she was so deeply asleep she couldn’t wake up when her blood sugar dropped.”

David stops chewing. “Where are you going with all this?”

“Mama was practically unconscious by the time we got her home. She wouldn’t have taken any sleeping pills—couldn’t have.”

“You think someone else gave her the pills?”

“I think someone slipped them to her during the fundraiser. Maybe in her drink.”

“And the insulin?”

“Papa could have given Mama the injection. He’s done it lots of times. So have I.”

David and I stare across the table at each other. My appetite’s gone, and from the fact that David’s put down his fork, I think his has, too.

“But there’s more.”

I tell David about the Authorization to Terminate Life Support, how Papa had brought it home and wanted to talk about
options
.

“He promised me he wouldn’t do it,” I add. “Not until I agreed to it. But last night…”

Until now, telling David all this had seemed easy. But when it comes to describing how I found out about Mama, how she’d been taken off life support, I can hardly get the words out. By the time I’m finished, I’m crying.

David hands me a napkin. I wipe my nose and crumple it into a tight ball. I wait until I’m more composed before I continue.

“He wasn’t there, David,” I tell him finally. “I saw it, Mama’s last moments, through Jessie. Papa just signed her life away. He didn’t even have the decency to watch her die.”

I pick up the photo of Papa and Jackie Beitner, which I’d set on the table last night when I got home. It’s creased in several places now.

“Mira,” says David, his voice a little shaky and quiet. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Am I? Do I dare put into words what all the evidence so blatantly suggests? This man, my father, a revered member of the medical community, public leader—is it possible? Could this all be real?

I pick up the picture and look into my Papa’s eyes.

“Yes,” I pronounce “I think Alberto Ortiz murdered my mother.”

“T
hat’s crazy!” David pushes away
from the dining table and stands up. He starts collecting our plates even though we’ve hardly touched the food on them. I don’t think either of us feels much like eating now.

“What about Bakersfield?” I ask. “Whoever was driving that car wanted us dead.”

“But you said no one knew we were there.”

“My dad has a GPS locator on my phone. He keeps tabs on me.”

“You didn’t have your phone that night, remember?”

“True,” I reply.  “But someone did try to kill us that night. He said he went to Sacramento, but what if that was a lie?”

“Your dad’s not a murderer, Mira,” David says, swiping some stray eggs from the table to his plate. “He couldn’t be.”

I lean back in my chair, my shoulders slumping.

“I mean, think about it,” he continues, “you’re talking about your
father
.”

“But you’re the one who suggested I consider the possibility.”

“Yeah, the possibility that he was involved in the Rawley scandal, the medical trials. You’re talking about killing people—on purpose.”

With his hands full of dirty plates, David pushes through the kitchen door. While he’s gone I’m left alone with my thoughts. He’s right of course. So Papa had an affair—so my parents didn’t have a perfect marriage. Papa wouldn’t
kill
Mama. And he wouldn’t try to kill me.

Would he?

David returns, drying his hands on a dish towel. He cringes a little as he walks. His leg is hurting, and I realize I should have been the one to clear the table, though I doubt he would have let me.

“I admit it does sound kind of crazy,” I tell him, “but that doesn’t change the fact that he terminated Mama’s life support when he promised me he’d wait.”

David flips the towel over his shoulder. “You have every right to be pissed at him for that.”

“I’m more than pissed, David.”

“All right,” he replies. “Why not tell him so?”

“Because if I do I’ll probably say some things I’ll regret.”

“Like what? What would you say to him if you had the chance?”

David’s question catches me off guard. What would I say to Papa? “I don’t know,” I answer, burying my face in my hands. “I don’t
want
to talk to him. I don’t ever want to see him again.”

“That’s impractical,” says David. “You happen to live in the same house. Eventually you’ll bump into each other.”

Right again. I was beginning to get irritated. I let out a defeated sigh as I run my thumb over the photo’s one torn edge, stiff and irregular.

“I can’t confront him,” I tell David. “Not now.”

“So what are you going to do?”

I get up from the table and walk toward the kitchen. I pause at the door a second, glancing back. “I’m going to put this picture back where I found it and forget the whole thing. I’m sure Papa had his reasons for letting Mama go. Maybe it’s time I do the same.”

I leave David in the dining room and head for Papa’s office. It’s just as I left it, the record player sitting open on his desk, Les Misérables on the turntable, Papa’s leather chair still beside the file cabinet. I push the chair out of the way and kneel down in front of the drawer. Then I pull it open as far as it will go. The photo was stuck into the metal seam at the back. I’ll have to tuck it back in. I remove the stack of file folders, setting them on the floor beside me, and then reach my hand in to feel for the seam.

As I run my fingers along the shallow depression, they stop at the touch of something I didn’t expect to find there, something not metal. Paper. The uneven torn edge of stiff paper. In my other hand I hold up the photo. When I’d removed it, I hadn’t thought much about the torn edge, nor had it occurred to me that the missing piece might still be stuck in the drawer. But that is exactly what this must be.

The scrap of photo is wedged in tight. Careful not to tear it further, I gingerly work it loose a little at a time. It takes several minutes, but finally it slips free from the metal, and I pull it out of the drawer.

It’s not much, maybe an inch wide. Holding it beside the photo of Papa, it’s a perfect fit. I can see now that whoever snapped the photo had centered it on Papa and Jackie Beitner, but there’s a third face to their left, the grinning face of a red-haired man in a
yellow polo shirt. It looks like he leaned into the shot at the last second, just as it was snapped.

I close the cabinet drawer and pull the chair back to the desk. Opening the top drawer, I retrieve a roll of scotch tape and carefully secure the two pieces of the photo together.

David’s not in the dining room anymore. He’s sitting in the living room watching a commercial for laundry detergent on Papa’s 56-inch flat screen. I sit beside him, and he glances down at the photo in my hand.

“Changed your mind?” he asks.

I hand him the photo. He flips it over, studies it for a moment, and hands it back to me. “Who’s the other guy?”

The commercial’s over, and a female anchor appears in a newsroom. On the corner of the screen is the Rawley Pharmaceutical logo. David and I both take notice.

“Turn up the volume, please?” I lean forward, intent on the screen. David wraps his arm around me, careful not to touch my skin. On the TV the Rawley logo is replaced with footage of Papa coming out of the courthouse. Jordan’s beside him, fending off a horde of reporters.

The news anchor delivers her spiel with a statuesque pose:

“The inquiry regarding Alberto Ortiz’s alleged sanctioning of illegal medical testing finally came to an end yesterday. The District Attorney’s office announced that all charges against Rawley Pharmaceutical’s former CEO have been dropped. The man deemed responsible for the testing that led to several deaths has himself been dead for sixteen years. In response to the announcement, Ortiz will address the public this morning in a location befitting the event, the new Rawley Wing of the Memorial Hospital. The speech is scheduled to begin at 9:00am Pacific Standard time, and we’ll be broadcasting it live right here.”

“I guess it’s over then,” David says, settling back into the sofa. “That must mean he had nothing to do with those experiments after all.”

I send him a glare. “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

David shrugs. “Not for your father, obviously. I just feel bad for the other people who were involved. You heard what the news said before, some of those people died as a result. It was all swept under the carpet for a lot of years. I feel sorry for them—for their families. That’s all.”

On the TV screen a full size image of my mother suddenly appears. She’s dressed in blue, and she’s smiling. It’s a photo from one of Papa’s political rallies. Seeing her stops me short. I stare at her, and my guts clench up like they’re being squeezed in a vise. I miss her so much it feels like dying. I stare at her, recalling every horrible detail of last night. Am I really so vulnerable? Could it really have been so easy for Papa to let go?

All the emotion, the heartache from before threatens to overwhelm me again. I struggle against it, but I already know it’s a struggle I will lose. I can’t let go. I just can’t. Not yet.

The newscaster is talking about how Mama took ill after a fundraiser a few weeks ago and remains in a stable, yet comatose, condition.

David casts me a bewildered look. “That’s odd, don’t you think?”

I have to agree with him. Though I’m relieved at not having to hear a public announcement about her death, it is strange that the media wouldn’t at least mention it.

“Maybe your dad is keeping quiet about it until after the press conference,” David suggests, “or he’ll make a statement there.”

The photo of Mama fades and another image takes her place, the image of a young man with unruly red hair and a birthmark under his eye.

“Hey, that’s the guy in the photo with your dad,” David announces. And he’s right. The man in the photo is Gregory Stark, the researcher responsible for Rawley’s illegal experiments. Below the TV image is a set of dates, the first is his date of birth and the second his date of death. The image is only on for a couple of seconds, and then it’s gone.

I’ve seen the guy a dozen times before on the news, but I purposely didn’t pay attention. Mama didn’t like hearing all the things the media said about Papa, so when the reports came on, we usually turned them off.

“Did you see that?” I ask. “Red hair. Birthmark. The Beitners’ said Jackie introduced him to them a while back. Papa said he never met Stark, but he’s in this picture with Jackie and Papa. And did you see those dates?”

“No, I didn’t catch them.”

“Do you have your phone?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“Would you mind Googling Gregory Stark?”

“Sure.”

David types Stark’s name into his phone’s search engine. “Okay,” he says, “what do you want to know about him?”

“Those dates. Or, more specifically, when he died. I have to make sure.”

He scrolls down a little then turns the screen so I can see it. When I do, I feel both triumphant and sick at the same time. Gregory Stark died sixteen years ago, two days after Jackie Beitner’s death—and just a week after I was born.