Silent Partner

“What did he tell you?”

“That we’d been put up for adoption at birth and wrenched apart at three because Sherry kept trying to hurt me. He said it wasn’t the right way to handle it, but that our adoptive mother had problems of her own, couldn’t handle both of us. She liked Sherry more, so I was given away.”

She’d taken pains to speak in an offhand voice, but something raw and frigid had come into her eyes.

“What is it?” I said.

“Nothing. Just the irony. She lived like a princess all her life, but her soul was impoverished. I ended up being the lucky one.”

“Did you ever meet Mrs. Blalock?”

“No. Not even at the party. Why should I? She was a name to me- not even a face. Someone else’s mother.”

I gazed at the plastic walls of the dome and said nothing. Let my eyes rest on the husk in the next bed.

“When did Paul tell you about partner number two?”

“Third session, but there wasn’t much to tell. All he knew was that she’d been born disabled, was institutionalized somewhere.”

“Someone filled you in. Uncle Billy?”

“Yes.”

“The handsome paternal lawyer?”

“After all these years, you remember? Amazing.” Trying to sound pleased, but edgy. “As a matter of fact, Uncle Billy always wanted to be a lawyer. He even applied to law school, but he got caught up with other things and never went.”

“When did he come into the picture?”

“The second time Paul sent me home. Maybe a week after we… parted. I was doing much better, putting things in perspective. The doorbell rang. An older man with a beautiful smile was standing there. With candy and flowers and a bottle of wine. He said he was the brother of the woman who’d given me away- he apologized for that, said I shouldn’t hate her, though he understood if I did. That she was an inadequate person but he’d always looked after me. Both as an uncle and an emissary of my father.”

She looked over at the empty bed. “Then he told me who my father was.”

I said, “How’d it feel learning you were Leland Belding’s heir?”

“Not as strange as you’d think. Of course I’d heard of him, knew he was a genius and rich, and it was strange finding out we were related. But he was dead, gone, no chance for any co

She hadn’t answered the question. I let it pass. “How did Uncle Billy chance to find you?”

“Paul had traced my roots and found him. He said he’d wanted to meet me for years, had been unsure of what to say or do and stayed away out of fear of doing the wrong thing. Now that the cat was out of the bag, he wanted me to hear everything from the source.

“I told him I knew about Sherry and we talked a little about her- I could tell he wasn’t fond of her, but he didn’t push it and I didn’t challenge him. I wanted to know about my other sister, about my roots. We sat there and drank wine and he told me everything- how the three of us were the love children of Mr. Belding and an actress whom he’d loved very much but couldn’t marry for social reasons. Her name was Linda. She died of childbirth complications. He showed me a picture. She was very beautiful.”

“An actress,” I said. When she didn’t react, I said, “You look like her.”

“That’s quite a compliment,” she said. “We were also miracle children- premature, tiny at birth, and not expected to live. Linda became sick, with septicemia, but she never stopped thinking about us, praying for us. She named us just minutes before she died. Jana, Joan, and Jewel Rae- that’s me. And though we all made it, Joan had multiple deformities. Despite being rich and powerful, Mr. Belding was in no position to raise her- or any of us. He was painfully shy- actually phobic about people, especially children. From what Uncle Billy described, a bit agoraphobic as well. So Uncle Billy had us adopted by his sister. He’d thought she’d turn out to be a better mother than she did. All these years both he and Mr. Belding felt tremendously guilty about letting us go.

“I told him Paul was going to arrange a meeting with Sherry and he said he knew. Then I asked if he could arrange one with Joan.”

“So he and Paul were working together.”

“They were cooperating. He was evasive about Joan, but I kept pressing him and finally he told me she was somewhere in Co

At home. The only real home she’d known had been shared with two retarded people. A textbook insight, but she wasn’t getting it.

I said, “And you changed her name.”

“Yes. A new name symbolizes a new life. Both Jana and I had been given S names; I thought Joan should have one too. To fit in.”

She got up, sat by her sister’s side, and touched the sunken cheeks.

“She goes on forever,” she said. “She’s been a constant in my life. A real comfort.”

“Unlike your other partner.”

That cold look again. “Yes, unlike her.” Then a smile. “Well, Alex, I’m pooped. We’ve covered a lot of ground.”

“There are a few other things, if you don’t mind?”

Pause. For the first time since I’d known her, she looked drawn. “No, of course not. What else would you like to know?”

There was plenty, but I was looking at her smile: stuck to her without being part of her- like a clown’s makeup. Too wide, too bright. A prodrome- early warning of something. I ordered my thoughts, said, “The story you told me about being orphaned- the accident in Majorca. Where did that come from?”

“A fantasy,” she said. “Wishful thinking, I guess.”

“Wishing for what?”

“Romance.”

“But the way you tell it, the true story of your parents is pretty romantic. Why embellish?”

She lost color. “I… I don’t know what to tell you, Alex. When you asked me about the house, that story came out- just poured out of me. Does it matter after all these years?”

“You really have no idea where it came from?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s identical to the way Leland Belding’s parents died.”

She turned ghostly. “No, that couldn’t…” Then, again, the glazed smile. “How strange. Yes, I can see why that would intrigue you.”

She thought, tugged her ear. “Maybe Jung was right. The collective unconscious- genetic material transmitting images as well as physical traits. Memories. Perhaps when you asked me, my unconscious kicked in. I was remembering him. Eulogizing him.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but something else comes to mind.”

“What’s that?”

“It was something Paul told you under hypnosis, then suggested you forget. Something that surfaced anyway.”

“No. I… there were no suggestions for amnesia.”

“Would you remember if there were?”

She stood, clenched her hands, held them stiff at her sides.

“No, Alex. He wouldn’t have done that.” Pause. “And what if he did? It would only have been to protect me.”