I didn’t understand his impulse to investigate his biological mother, because I wanted nothing to do with my own biological mother, the stupid whore! The whore fucked and made a baby, I thought, and then the whore gave the baby away. If you’re going to fuck, keep the baby, I thought, keep it or abort it. It was that simple. I was not pro-life, I was ambivalent about life; I did not believe that its sanctity was a given, I did not believe life was itself a special privilege. Perhaps my world became too small to contain his complaints and disgust. I had my own complaints and disgust. He wasn’t that isolated, I told myself. If he got desperate, he had our adoptive parents to talk to. Now, since I’ve been at the house and around my adoptive parents, I can see all the gaping flaws of that logic. It’s like a piece of Swiss cheese. Fuck. Was there blood on my hands? I wondered. No, I had wiped my hands clean. I had even sanitized them.
If I did nothing for him, at least that’s neutral, at least a zero doesn’t cause anyone any harm. I had been so lost in my thoughts, I failed to notice a middle-aged man on his front doorstep, glaring at me.
What business do you have here? he shouted. Young man! Answer me now!
He must have been shouting because he was deaf.
I took off my hood. I’m not a man, I said loudly.
What’s your name, then?
Helen.
This is a private neighborhood.
I’m sorry to disrupt the peace.
The man didn’t say anything and returned to his estate. I’m sorry to disrupt the peace was my stock apology; I used it all the time at my workplace, it was a good apology because it could mean so many different things to people. It could mean, I’m sorry, I made a mistake. It could mean, I’m sorry, I’ll ruin you, bitch. On the way home, I stopped at the ice cream parlor. The parlor inside was empty and the cloying smell of sugar and milk overwhelmed me. A woman in a red apron came out from a door behind the counter. I ordered a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a cup. Because my adoptive brother was an occasional customer, I asked the woman if she knew him. I described him, what he looked like, etc. She told me she didn’t serve many Asians.
You’re the first one in a while, she said.
When I got home, I was so exhausted I drifted past my adoptive parents in the second living room. They were listening to a Beach Boys record, holding each other on the wicker-basket couch. Why wouldn’t anyone admit that a life is not a life but a deathward existence?7 I went up to my childhood bedroom, where I took three tablets of sleeping pills plus one of my roommate Julie’s Xanax, and fell into a deep, untroubled sleep.
20
The second day of my investigation I woke up to the sound of the garage door opening and closing. I woke up in an extreme state of anxiety over the things I had to do. Already so much had happened, I learned things, I received information from Thomas, a bounteous source of clues. Put the knowledge to use, I said. Organize yourself! I dressed myself in plain, gray clothes like a warden’s, and went downstairs where there were two notes on the kitchen table.
The first one was in my adoptive mother’s handwriting: Helen, we both are in meetings this morning. What happened to Pam’s cake? It was meant for the lunch reception after the funeral. It looks like you ate all of it. It’s 65 degrees out and unseasonably warm.
The second was from my adoptive father:
PAM USED HER SPECIAL RECIPE.
THAT CAKE WAS FOR AFTER THE
FUNERAL, NOT FOR YOU.
I crumpled up the notes; of course that cake had a special purpose! It would be a good time to bake the pie as a response, but I was not a pie baker. I never was. I did not please people, I did not please myself. I noticed a box of pizza had been left out on the counter. Because it was so large and awkward, I took it out to the garbage cans in the driveway. Despite their obsession with organization and tidiness, my adoptive parents never properly stored their garbage cans and recycling bins. They always left them outside and sometimes at night the animals from the woods got into them and they tore apart the food packaging and left it strewn across the driveway. This morning I noticed there were two egg containers, a can of whipped cream, and an empty box of Trojan condoms, which I was sure did not belong to anyone in my adoptive family.