“My headache went away,” I said simply. “I woke up.…It was just a driver’s license, I decided. Not my name. So it didn’t matter. I could…It would be okay.”
My aunt smiled at me, but the expression was sad. She reached out, touching the back of my hand, where the thin white scars threaded through fresh purple bruises.
“You’re a strong girl, Charlene. If you need to forget the past in order to find your future, I haven’t felt it was my place to mess with that. In fact, the doctor told me that forcing you to face things before you were ready would most likely do more harm than good. So I’ve held my council. I’ve kept my vigil. And I’d do it all over again, Charlene. Because I was not there when you needed me, and I’ll never forgive myself for that. But that’s my burden to bear, not yours.”
“My legal name isn’t Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant,” I heard myself say.
“That isn’t the name on your birth certificate.”
“That’s why, at the DMV…It had nothing to do with middle names. It was the birth certificate. You showed it to me, and I became angry. Because there was no Rosalind, no Carter. And my head began to hurt. And my stomach…”
My aunt didn’t say anything.
“But I am Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant,” I tried again, weakly this time, lacking genuine conviction. “I…I feel it.”
“It’s the name you chose for yourself. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Then it came to me, the list I’d made for Detective Warren. The two names I’d felt compelled to record: Rosalind Grant, Carter Grant. Because it had felt right to write them down. To see them listed on a sheet of paper in a detective’s office.
To finally get out what I had failed to tell the nurse.
I looked at my aunt. And I felt the trapdoor suddenly yawn open in the deepest corner of my mind. There was darkness behind it. Ghosts and monsters and things that would make anyone scream in the middle of the night.
Yet I took a step closer. Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant. Rosalind Grant. Carter Grant.
“Baby crying,” I whispered.
“I’m sorry, Charlene.”
“I wanted to tell the nurse. I didn’t tell the nurse.”
Another step. The floorboards of my mind, creaking in warning.
“I was too young. I swear it. I was too young.”
“Shhh.” My aunt was standing, her arms reaching toward my shoulders. At her feet, Tulip whined, rose to sitting. “It’s okay, Charlene. It wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault.”
“I was just a kid myself!”
“I know, honey, I know.”
“Baby crying!” Except she wasn’t anymore. She was pale and still as marble. Blue-lipped as I stroked her cold cheek, tried to get her eyes to open, tried to make her flash that wide, beaming grin.
Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant. Rosalind Grant. Carter Grant.
My aunt’s arms were around my shoulders. Maybe her hands were even upon my throat. It didn’t matter anymore. I sagged into my aunt’s embrace. Dying wasn’t my greatest fear anymore. Remembering was.
Baby crying, down the hall.
First a little girl. Rosalind Grant.
Then, later, a little boy. Carter Grant.
Then…
Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant.
“Shhh,” my aunt murmured. “If I’d known, I would’ve come. Please believe me, Charlene. If I’d known, I would’ve come and taken all of you away.”
Chapter 28
“WE SHOULD ARREST HER. Immediately. Girl’s already squirrelly. If she figures out how close we are to identifying her as the shooter, she’ll bolt in a second.”
D.D. sighed. She rubbed a throbbing spot on the back of her neck that had less to do with Detective O’s investigative zeal and more to do with the hours of sleep she didn’t get, followed by a breakfast with her parents she never should’ve scheduled. But other than that…