By David Pugh
Amy opened her mail box and saw something she hadn’t seen since she was a child: Mixed in with the bills, furniture store ads, and credit card offers was a letter. An actual letter, addressed by hand. The sender was listed as Dan Gilbert, from an address in Cleveland, Ohio.
She didn’t know anyone named Gilbert, and didn’t think she knew anyone in Cleveland. Who the hell was this?
She opened the letter.
Dear Ms. Railey,
I tried calling and left a message at what I think is your number, and I also sent you a message on Messenger, but you haven’t posted anything on your account in a few years, so I expect you didn’t see it. Regardless, I’m a member of the Railey family, working on a genealogy project, and I think you can help me out.
The basic situation is, I’m adopted, and over the years I’ve learned the name of my birth mother and where she stayed in Cleveland when she gave birth to me. I also learned that she was from Maryland, and that I had an older sister, about 1-2 years older than me, from the same father.
Through searching on Ancestry and through public records I’ve found a couple of birth cousins, but neither of them know of anyone named May Gilbert, or of any relatives in Maryland. However, it’s a big Catholic family with relatives who haven’t stayed in touch well and a lot of the older ones have died. And while there are a lot of Gilberts in the country, there aren’t a ton of May Gilberts, and only one I’ve found born in the right year, with a daughter your age, and that’s your mother who unfortunately died last year. Plus, I noticed that you were born in Ohio.
If you know of any family connections in Ohio, or know where your mother stayed or with whom, or if you know of an aunt or uncle who would know, please let me know. I would appreciate any help you could give. I can provide any verification you need to show that I’m a real person, not a scammer.
Sincerely,
Daniel Gilbert
Amy read the letter again as she walked inside. She opened the door, tossed the mail down on the coffee table, and flopped down on her couch.
“What the fuck?”
She stared at the letter on the table and lit a cigarette. To no one, she repeated:
“What the FUCK?”
She picked up the letter. Dan Gilbert had provided an email address and phone number. She picked up her phone and dialed. After three rings a male voice answered. Midwestern accent, not a kid, teen, or senior citizen.
“Hello?”
“Dan Gilbert?”
“Yeah.”
“This is Amy Railey. You wrote me?”
“Oh hi! Yeah. Thanks for calling back. I recognized the area code.”
“Here’s what I know. My mother had an aunt in Cleveland. Friend of the family kind, not really an aunt. She went there for a summer after high school, met a guy, got pregnant with me. Stayed there for a while and came home. When were you born?”
“70.”
“I was born in 69.”
“I know. Woodstock baby.”
Amy laughed. “Mama didn’t go to no Woodstock. She said she met some guy at a picnic, got drunk, and got pregnant. They didn’t get married. I thought she went home pretty quick after having me. Maybe she gave him another shot, stayed another year, and had you.”
“Could be. I saw that she didn’t get married until ’75. Some other guy.”
“Yeah, he was the keeper. They had my little half-brother. He got out and moved to the West Coast soon as he could. Got married and had kids. I don’t hear from him much.”
“Hm,” Dan said. After a minute he said, “Do you know where your mother stayed here, the address? My original birth certificate has that on it. If it matches where your mother stayed then that’s probably it.”
Amy puffed on her cigarette. “Nothing that I’d remember. Mama had pictures, I think. That aunt was a nurse, or her mother was there and she was a nurse or some shit. It was a good place to have a baby, but I don’t remember nothing about it, I was too little and I ain’t been back there since then. I was born in Cleveland though, and Mama told me about that part.”
“Did you ever meet your father?”
Amy laughed and exhaled smoke. “Fuck no. When I got married I put on my marriage license ‘Unknown’ for who my father was. Mama was mortified. Ain’t my fucking problem. She fucked him, couldn’t keep him. Now it’s even funnier. She had me, fucked him again, got knocked up again, still couldn’t keep him. Motherfucker left me a teddy bear. There’s one picture of him holding me and he ain’t even smiling. Useless prick.”
“Maybe he was killed in Nam or something.”
Amy laughed again. “Could be. If he was, you’d think Mama would be broken up about it or something. She just never talked about him. She finished school, came back here, got a job, got married, had my brother, and that was that. I guess in between she had you, gave you up, and I’m all that’s left of her life before marriage. Big, dumb old me.”
There was another pause. Finally, Dan said, “Well, my question has always been, why the hell did she keep you and get rid of me? What did I do wrong?”
“How did your life go? Did you have decent people, a home and all that?”
“Pretty much. That’s the point of course. But when I was little I was told my birth parents were too young to get married, too poor to keep a kid. I figured they were teenagers, and that made sense. Then I found out my mother was 21, father was 28, and I had a sister. That’s not exactly the same. I did okay, but I still wonder what if, you know? I already wondered who I looked like what the story was, all of that, but I also wondered what it would have been like if they had kept me. I’ve never felt like I totally belonged anywhere.”
Amy shrugged and stubbed out her cigarette. “Well, me either. I was the baggage. Mama acted like it was some big damned deal that her husband married her despite her having me. He was nice to me and all that, but Bobby was the Golden Child and when he came around her life was set man. Job, house, husband, new baby. No more apartment living and working crap jobs to feed me while my grandma and aunts watched me. No sir! Just had to wait for my ass to get out and she’d be all set like I never happened!”
“That sucks. Was she mean to you?”
“Oh no, Mama was a good person. Nice to everybody, but I knew the writing on the wall. Our family was pretty fucked up, it just skipped a generation. Mama and her sisters were all fine, all had nice jobs, married nice men. It was all great after they hit their teens. That’s ‘cause their big brother did them a favor and whacked their daddy. Shot that drunk motherfucker right in the chest and killed him dead one day when he come home mad, looking to beat their brother or their mother again. The brother wasn’t having any of it. Killed him dead. After that, they had a nice life. Of course the brother went off to Viet Nam, got PTSD and sick from Agent Orange and shit and blew his brains out at age 43, but the rest of them had a nice time. Out of all of ‘em he was the nicest to me. Always nice. We used to get ice cream and he’d take me to Orioles games. I liked him.”
“Wow. I don’t know what to say. Things weren’t all great on my end. My father was sometimes abusive. I didn’t kill him. Thought about it. I mostly just wanted to die. Held on until after college, then I got out.”
“So you went to college?”
“Yeah. Kent State. I went for journalism. I’m a writer.”
She lit another cigarette. “Hm. I manage the Days Inn over here. Didn’t go to school.”
“I know.”
“What do you mean you know? What the fuck are you, some kind of creeper?”
“No. I’ve been looking for my mother for over 40 years. Two of the cousins I’ve found have been helping, and a college friend of mine who’s a P.I. She’s been running down addresses and phone numbers and shit to confirm facts before I try to contact people. There’s a lot of bad data out there. Google AI fed me a whole false family tree. Twice.”
“It’s still creepy.” She paused. “So, what do you write?”
“All kinds of stuff. Day job vs. fun stuff, I write manuals, articles, trade pubs, whatever. On the side I do poetry and fiction. A lot of horror, but other genres, too. You can find me on Amazon.”
“I’ll look you up.”
“I can send you copies of a couple things if you want. Some of the stuff is autobiographical.”
“You don’t have to give me anything. I can buy things on my own.”
Dan chuckled. “If you want to buy my books, feel free. I don’t sell that many, my sales rankings could use the boost. But I’ll be happy to send them to you. You called me back, and you might be my sister. Looks like you are.”
“Could be. Looks like. I gotta go.”
“Okay. Good talking to you. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Amy hung up the phone, drew on her cigarette, exhaled, and stubbed it out. She looked at the ceiling and decided she needed a drink.
The books arrived in less than a week. All poetry books, each with art or photography from different artists. The art was cool. The poems were the first she had read since high school. They didn’t rhyme, which always bothered her. Why write poems if they’re not going to rhyme? Are they even still poems then? However, it somehow made them easier to read and more tolerable than what she was used to. The sing-songy rhyming of poems she read in school always made her feel a bit sick, like she was swaying back and forth while eating something that was too sweet. These poems were more like little stories, and they gave her a good idea of who her brother was, if Dan was her brother.
A little boy riding a swing for the first time and falling off. A little boy in a suit, sitting alone at a family event, too scared to move because he didn’t want his suit to get dirty. A boy losing his dog. A young man falling in love the first time, dancing with his girlfriend in her parent’s living room while the family sleeps. A young man moving away from his home town, scared of the big world. A man in his 30s getting married and having his first child, struggling to make ends meet for them. A man of 40 tempted by a coworker.
They were interesting little poem-stories. And the more of them she read, the more she hated and resented him. He was given up to some middle-class couple in Cleveland who, imperfect as they were, were still a couple who put a roof over his head and food on the table, then put him through college while she stayed in this hick town, an outcast even among her own family, looking forward to the next day out with the uncle who killed Grandpa. It wasn’t right.
Sometimes she thought about Roe v. Wade. If it had passed a few years earlier, or if she had been conceived a few years later, she likely never would have been born. She would have been aborted, and her mother could have gone on to marry the man she married and had the kid she really wanted, and everyone’s lives would be better, except hers, because she would be dead, which most of the time would suit her just fine. If that were true, then Dan would be dead, too.
She finished the first book, read part of the second, glanced at the third. Pictures were the best part. Unable to stomach any more, she left them on the coffee table and obscured them with an ash tray and junk mail.
A few days later, at work, she started researching her “brother” Dan. Looked up his social media, his author page, mentions of him here and there on the internet, including where he had lived, who his neighbors were. If she wanted to spend a few bucks she could get more details, but she saw plenty for free. Between what he gave her in his letter, what he said on their phone, what was in his books, and what she found, she knew a lot. Plenty.
Two weeks to the day after the letter arrived and she talked to Dan the first time, she called him a second time. He answered after the second ring and sounded excited this time.
“Hi Amy!”
Amy smiled and laid back on her couch. She idly traced the fingers of her free hand across her belly and opened and closed her knees as she talked.
“Hey there. How’re you?”
“I’m good. How are you doing?”
She cocked an eyebrow. “I’m good. Could be better. That’s where you can help me. I helped you solve your lifetime mystery. Maybe you can help your big sister out.”
Dan paused a second, then said, quietly, “Oh?”
“Yeah. Since you checked up on me, I checked up on you. I read those books you sent me, looked at your Facebook and things. You’ve had a nice life, but you got some secrets. You ain’t named names, but I know who they are. Did some detective work myself. That girl you liked that you worked with? That was Melody. And she ain’t the only one. You got an eye for porn. And trannies. I bet your wife would like to know that. And you’re kid. And your mom. The one who raised you, since your real one is dead, of course.”
Dan was silent. Amy could hear him breathing.
“I saw your daddy is on the board of some golf course in Alabama. People there would have fun knowing what I know. And those religious people you wrote articles for. You did a book for them, didn’t you? Spoke at a conference for them, did one of them webinar things. I watched it. It sucked. Boring as hell and you sounded like an ass. I zoomed in when you went on stage with the presenter chick. You had a boner, or the start of one. She was pretty. I thought so. You thought so. You were making eyes at each other. I think people should know these things. What do you think? It’s my duty as a citizen for people to know the truth about who my ‘brother’ is.”
Dan was breathing harder, but still silent.
Amy smiled widened. “Or, you could help me. Put a deposit on 50 years of missed birthday presents, Christmas presents, two wedding presents, a baby shower. There’s a lot. Better get started and make up for things.” Her smile tightened into a grin. She hadn’t felt this good in years. Her hand continued idly rubbing her stomach and chest. Her knees wiggled. She reached for a cigarette.
After a few moments of silence, Amy continued. “Cat got your tongue? Maybe you need convincing. I wrote out some ideas of what I’d say to a few people. Found their reg’lar addresses and emails, Facebook accounts. I can start this afternoon with what I got. Here’s the one to your wife…”
Dan voice started low. “Listen, you backwater cunt. I already told you one of my friends is a detective. Another is a State Prosecutor. Her husband is a retired cop. My cousin is chief policy officer for a senator. My wife’s best friend works for another senator. Her ex-husband, who was at my wedding, is a chief Democratic strategist and fund-raiser. If I talk to any one of those people, your life gets seriously fucked in a hurry. Something you should consider, given the run-ins you had with the law as recently as 4 years ago. Yeah, I looked at that too. I didn’t mind. People make mistakes, and you just made another one.”
This time Amy was silent. She stopped wiggling, and her palms were sweating.
Dan continued. “But let’s be real. I don’t need to involve them. I’m a fucking horror writer. I imagine more shit on any given day, more disturbing shit, than most people ever consider. All the times people say, ‘more horrible than you can imagine,’ that doesn’t work for me. I can imagine far worse. And do it. That grandbaby you posted pictures of on your account? The only child of your only child. Fuck with me and you’ll be eating that baby. I’ll nail your ass to a chair, cut that baby up in front of you and force feed you with a dirty plunger. I’ll cut pieces off that baby’s face with a potato peeler and fry them up crisp. You’ll be eating that baby. Or, maybe that baby will eat you. What does he call you? Is it Mee-maw? Gam-gam? Granny? Whatever it is, he’ll be looking for you come the holidays, not knowing he had some Granny sandwiches a while back and loved them. And your son? Fuck him. I’ll stick a funnel in his ass, pour in a box of thumb tacks, then give him a nice dose of castor oil mixed with cayenne pepper. Imagine the screams as he starts to go.” He paused. “Fuck with me and you won’t have to imagine. You’ll see it right in your living room. I’ll wreck your life in ways you never thought possible and sleep at night just fine.”
Amy felt cold. Her pulse thudded in her throat. She listened so intently she was forgetting to breathe.
Dan paused. “I want you to remember this – I was thinking of coming to see you. Give you a hug, spend the day together. There are nice things in your town and I thought we could see them together. Get lunch. I checked. You’re 7 hours away. I wouldn’t mind driving that. I can drive 12 nonstop. 7 is a breeze. Remember that number, bitch. Whatever you do, if you do anything, it means your life changes or ends 7 hours later.”
He paused again. “Never call me again.”
With a click, the call ended.
Without thinking, Amy hung up the call and put down her phone. She sat up, pulled a cigarette out of the pack and lit it, hands shaking.
She stood, walked over to her desk, opened a drawer, reached in the back, and pulled out a small baggie of methamphetamine and a piece of a plastic straw. She sat back down on the couch, dumped the meth on the coffee table, and snorted it. She thought of the faces of her son and grandson, whom she told she was clean. She focused on their faces and promised herself to call them later, visit on the weekend. But never tell them of the uncle they never met and would never know.
About the author
David Pugh is a professional writer and editor who has been writing poetry and fiction for more than 30 years. He was the founding editor of KSquare and founding and managing editor of the “So Good It’s Scary” blog.