The Night Bird

51

She pushed him.

The truth made sense to Frankie now. She knew what she’d seen on the cliffs and why she’d been desperate to forget it.

Pam was there. Pam killed their father. It was no accident; it was no suicide. It was murder.

Frankie waited at a remote table at Zingari. She checked the time over and over, but she knew they would both be here sooner or later. She watched the windows and the street. Her stomach twisted with nervous foreboding, because she wasn’t sure how she would react when she saw the two of them.

Her husband. Her sister.

The restaurant throbbed with the mellow sounds of jazz. Piano. Saxophone. Bass. A soloist in a black dress sang a siren song about love in the streets of Paris. People talked, and knives clattered. The smell of mussels and garlic wafted like a cloud as Virgil carried steaming plates through the restaurant. He looked like Adonis, with his mane of blond hair and his pressed black uniform.

Then the door opened, and there they were.

Pam glided through the crowd, her shoulders squared, her long legs on display. She owned the room, the way she always did, and her cornflower dress popped, like a glint of sky on a gray day. Jason trailed behind her. The angles of his face in the shadows made him look like a skeleton.

They slid into the two chairs across from Frankie. Virgil was right there to serve them, and Pam blew him a kiss. She looked utterly unconcerned, without a care in the world. Jason, by contrast, was a man in a cage.

“Champagne, V,” Pam said lightly. “A bottle.”

“Expensive?”

“Is there another kind?” she asked.

Virgil grinned and disappeared. Pam noted sparkling water in Frankie’s glass with a frown. “No wine?”

“No.”

“Well, if you’re good, you can share my champagne.”

“I don’t want anything from you,” Frankie snapped.

Pam leaned across the table with an exaggerated sigh. “Oh, for God’s sake. I’m sure all of this was horrible for you. I’m not saying it wasn’t. But you’re here, and you’re alive. That’s worth celebrating. Or are you just disappointed that the police didn’t arrest me?”

“Frost texted me. He said they let you go.”

Her sister rolled her eyes. “Of course they let me go! Jason and I spent hours telling them the story over and over. Nothing this sadist told you was true. I mean, come on, you don’t really believe it, do you? He wanted to torture you. He wanted to play with your head. But there’s no mystery, Frankie. Dad fell. Or he jumped, I don’t know, we were too far away to be sure. That’s what we told the park rangers back then because that’s exactly what happened. End of story.”

“I’m remembering things, Pam. It’s all coming back to me.”

“I don’t know what you think you’re remembering, but it didn’t happen that way. You of all people should know you can’t trust your memory. Especially not after you choose to wipe it clean.”

“Why would I want to forget any of this in the first place, Pam?” Frankie asked her. “Why would I want to forget that you were there, too?”

Pam shook her head. “Because you couldn’t deal with it! I can’t blame you for that. It was awful. We watched our father die. I’d forget it, too, if I could, but I decided one of us had to live with it. I figured one day you might change your mind and want to remember what really happened.”

She was very, very good. She was as smooth as Darren Newman. And as immoral.

Virgil brought a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Brut, popped it, and poured one bubbling glass for Pam. He tipped the bottle at Frankie, who shook her head. Jason did the same. Pam drank one glass before Virgil left, and he poured another one for her. The crystal reflected the pale blue of her nail polish.

“Damn, that’s good,” Pam said.

Frankie stared at Jason, who was silent, with his jaw as hard as stone. His dark face was haunted; he knew that she’d figured it out. All of it. The truth, not the cover story. She wanted to see guilt in his face, but his arrogance told her that he didn’t really care. Things had already gone too far, and he was immune to her cold eyes. She was angry at him, but she didn’t feel blameless herself. She’d always let her patients come first. She’d shut him out time after time. And there had been something, real or not, between her and Darren Newman.

“Do you have anything to say?” she asked him.

This time, just for a moment, he looked at her. An understanding passed between them. Welcome to the end of days.

“I never wanted this to happen.”

He was deliberately vague. Maybe he was apologizing, and maybe he was just blaming her. It didn’t matter. They both knew it was coming, and they both knew it was over. Seven years together had left them strangers. She couldn’t even feel sad about what she was losing. The only thing she felt was emptiness at what had been done to her.

“Leave us alone,” Frankie told him.

He reached out toward her hand, but he drew it back without touching her. He didn’t need to say that once he left, he was gone for good. He got up and walked away from the table without a word, and then it was just the two of them. Two sisters. Connected by blood. Pam sipped her champagne, displaying no more than idle curiosity about what came next.

“You must think I’m stupid,” Frankie told her. “I suppose I have been stupid. I missed all the signs. Or maybe I just didn’t want to see them.”

“Signs?” Pam asked with mock innocence.

“Don’t pretend. We’re way past that, Pam. I knew you resented me, but I never knew how deep it went. Or how far you would go.”

“Is that all you have? Paranoia? Insults? You’re boring me, Sis.”

Frankie didn’t stop. She simply went on. “I’ve been wondering all day what this was really about. Why you did it. I mean, I know you hated Dad, but even for you — to kill him? To push him off a cliff? The sister I know would laugh, or swear at him, but she’d never lose control. No, there had to be something else. Something that drove you over the edge.”

“I’m not going to sit here and listen to this nonsense,” Pam said, but she made no attempt to leave.

“Don’t worry. I’m not wearing a wire. This is just us. You and me.”

“Well, how sweet.”

“I really couldn’t figure it out,” Frankie said, “but then I remembered something you said. You reminded me that all of those New Year’s weekend discussions were just an excuse for Dad to tell you what you were doing wrong with your life. And you’re right. He did that all the time. Why would this year be any different? The thing is, I’ve been remembering his infuriating questions for days. They were about risk this year. About my doing something terrible that put someone else in jeopardy. I didn’t understand, because I kept thinking I was the only one there. What did I do that he disapproved of? Who was I putting at risk? But it wasn’t me. He wasn’t asking me any of those questions. It was you.”

Virgil came to the table again and poured more champagne. Frankie waited. Bitterness brewed in Pam’s eyes, but she smiled as if nothing were wrong.

“Question,” Frankie said when they were alone again. “Is it acceptable to pursue your own selfish satisfaction when it causes risk to someone else?”

“Go screw yourself, Sister.”

“Question,” Frankie said. “So it’s okay to risk another’s life or happiness simply because you really want something?”

Pam’s pretty face was a mask of hatred. She lifted her champagne glass. “Is that all? Are you done?”

“No, there was another question,” Frankie went on. “Back then, I couldn’t be sure I heard it right. I figured I was wrong. He couldn’t have said something like that, not to you. But I wasn’t wrong, was I? I heard exactly what he asked you.”

“Oh? And what was that?”

“Question,” Frankie interrogated her, leaning across the table and grabbing Pam’s wrist. “Are you and Jason still sleeping together?”

Pam hesitated only a moment, then freed herself and took another drink of champagne. She spoke without a hint of shame in her voice. She was nonchalant. Casual. As if they were talking about the weather.

“Yes.”

Frankie closed her eyes. She’d known what the answer would be, but she still had to wait for the breath to come back into her chest. “How long?”

Pam shrugged. “Since last fall. And don’t climb on your moral high horse with me. I know about you and Darren Newman.”

“Nothing happened between us. I never touched him.”

“No? You just fantasized about him. A murderer. A rapist. Do you feel good about yourself?”

“Shut up,” Frankie snapped.

“Face it, you wanted Darren more than your own husband.”

“Do you think that gives you the right to sleep with him?”

“I don’t ask you for permission for anything I do,” Pam retorted.

“My God, what a heartless bitch you are. Are you in love with him?”

“Oh, please.”

“Is he in love with you?”

“Grow up, Frankie. Why are you so concerned about love? Did you have a different father than I did? Neither one of us knows what love is.”

“So why did you do it? Spite? Revenge?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Pam said. “Yes, I’ll admit, I loved the idea of humiliating you. Every time I heard another of your success stories, I wanted to say, ‘Oh, really? Well, I’m sleeping with your husband.’ But I don’t overanalyze everything, Frankie, not like you. I wanted it. He wanted it. So it happened.”

“Dad found out?”

Pam sighed. “Yes, our interfering father. He saw me and Jason outside the building when he came to visit. We were kissing. This was right before Christmas. Of course, he was full of righteous indignation. He swore to me that he would tell you about the affair if I didn’t stop. When we were hiking that morning by the ocean, he wouldn’t let it go. He kept lecturing me about ruining my sister’s life. I didn’t care about that, to be honest, but he said he would cut me out of his will, too, and I knew he was serious. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

Frankie could see them on the cliff’s edge. Arguing.

She could see Pam’s hands on his chest.

She could see him fall.

“You saw us,” Pam went on. “You’d gotten ahead of us, but you turned back while we were arguing, and you saw us. I begged you to forget it. I said it was an accident, that I got angry over all those years of emotional abuse, that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. You believed me. You may be a psychiatrist, but you fell for my poor, poor pitiful me act. So you asked Jason to wipe it all away.”

Frankie stood up from the table. Her legs barely supported her, but she didn’t want her sister to see her trembling.

“I want you out,” Frankie told Pam. “You have twenty-four hours to get everything out of my place. Take Jason with you. I never want to see either of you again.”

Pam raised her glass in a toast and picked up a menu. “Whatever you say.”

Frankie wanted to do something. Slap her. Hit her. Throw the champagne in her face. But she didn’t. She stalked from the restaurant onto the street, and when she was on her own, beyond the view of the windows, she finally broke down. Tears welled up and poured from her eyes. She fell against the wall and beat her fists against the stone. People stopped and offered help, and she waved them away. She wailed, even though she didn’t even know what she was crying for. In the end, she felt nothing. She was dead inside.

A text tone sounded on her phone. She wondered if it was Jason. Or Pam. What could they say to her now?

Instead, it was from Frost Easton.

Frankie composed herself. She wiped her face as best she could and hugged herself against the chill as she headed toward Union Square. It was dark. The lights of the city didn’t lift her heart. The shadows felt ominous, and the mounds of the homeless under blankets in the doorways depressed her. Right now, she wanted to be anywhere but here. She wanted to leave the city and never look back.

She found Frost waiting for her on a bench in the park. It was their prearranged meeting place. He could read her face, and he seemed to understand that her world was falling to the ground brick by brick. She liked his empathy. She liked the worry that she saw in his eyes.

“That didn’t take long,” Frost said.

“No, it didn’t.”

They were silent for a while. He knew she needed time. Frankie felt another tear slip from her eye, and she quickly wiped it away.

“Did she say anything?” Frost asked finally. “Did she admit it?”

Frankie took a breath, deciding what to tell him. She had to choose whether to acknowledge to the world what her sister had said. What she’d done. And why.

“No, she didn’t,” Frankie said.

“She stuck to her story? Even with you?”

“I’m sorry, Frost. She didn’t say a word.”

He pursed his lips and studied her face as if she were wearing a mask. She didn’t think he believed her, but he seemed to understand there were places she couldn’t go. She owed Pam nothing, but still she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t turn her in.

“I think she’s guilty, but I can’t prove anything without a confession,” Frost told her. “Your father is dead, and your memory—”

“Is gone,” Frankie said. “I understand. She’s going to get away with it. There’s nothing I can do about that.”

It was the end. The journey stopped here.

“So how are you?” Frost asked.

Frankie stared at the park. She’d spent so many days here. Day after day that melded into years. “Free,” she said. “And alone. I’ve cut the cord with both of them. Permanently.”

“I can’t blame you for that, but maybe with time, you’ll feel differently.”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. There are some things that you can never forget. And yes, I hear the irony of that, coming from me.”

Frost stood up from the bench. “Well, I have to go see Lucy.”

“I know she won’t want to see me, but if I can help—”

“I’ll make the offer.”

He began to walk away, but she called after him. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you alone before now, Frost. I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For saving my life on the cliff,” she said.

He came back and sat down next to her. “I’m glad I was there.”

“A small part of me wishes you’d been too late.”

“I don’t believe that,” he said.

“I said it was a small part. I’m just feeling sorry for myself. And I’m a little scared, too. I’m used to having my future planned out, and now I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Frost smiled. “Planning is overrated.”

“Not for me. I’m my father’s daughter. Tell me something, have you ever been to Copenhagen?”

His face furrowed with confusion. “No. Why?”

“I’ve had a standing offer for a couple years at a university in Copenhagen. To teach.”

“And now you’re thinking about it?” he asked.

“I don’t know what I’m thinking about,” she admitted. “I only know that I can’t continue my life the way it was. I won’t put any more lies in people’s heads. Never again.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to run away. You can help people live with their past instead of changing it. Is that so bad?”

“No. You’re right, it’s not so bad.”

He stood up again, but he put a hand on her shoulder. “I guess you’ve earned a change if you want one. Teaching in Copenhagen would be a change, but for what it’s worth, I hope you stay.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“Because San Francisco deserves the best,” Frost said. “We already have the best views, the best food, the best anything. We need the best people, too.”

She smiled. “That’s very sweet of you.”

“It’s the truth, Frankie.”

He headed across the park, and she watched him go. She realized that he had something that she didn’t. Frost Easton was grounded. He knew who he was and where he was, and she couldn’t say the same about herself anymore.

Frankie didn’t move from the bench. For the first time in a long time, she had nowhere to go and nothing to do. Her life was a white room. She felt like one of her patients who came out of her treatments and suddenly had an emptiness in their brain where something horrible had been. They’d faced their fears, but they always asked her what to do next.

She told them: the hardest part is to start over by building something new.