The record keeper, p.14
The Record Keeper, page 14
The boy didn’t move.
I placed Lego Luke in Karen’s hand and she offered it to the boy. Slowly, his hand accordioned out of his chest, grasped the action figure, and retreated once again to the safety of the space between himself and Karen. She combed his blond hair with her fingers and spoke. “Murph . . . I’d like you to meet my son.” Karen looked up at me, then back at the boy. “His name is Shep.”
The name was not lost on me. I extended my hand. “Hi, Shep.”
He didn’t respond.
“You like Star Wars?” The boy’s eyes darted to me, then back to the pile of Legos on the floor.
I picked up Obi Wan Kenobi and Chewbacca and pieced them back together as the boy watched my hands. The girl next to me, midtwenties, whispered, “I’m Nat.” She pointed to Karen. “Her assistant and”—she smiled—“new nanny.” Her body language told me she was equally pleased with both job descriptions, and maybe the latter slightly more than the former. Karen’s office was a memorial to the work she and I had done. Awards. Number of copies sold. Foreign editions. Language translations. My own private museum. Interestingly, I gathered Nat had no idea that I’d authored all of the books displayed in glass cases on Karen’s wall. Which meant Karen had kept our secret. Even from those closest to her. Which brought me back to the boy.
His eyes were laser-glued to my hands as I set Obi Wan and Chewy inside the Millennium Falcon, seating them next to Han Solo. Finally, I set it down on the floor next to his feet. “Good enough for another Kessel Run in twelve parsecs.”
His eyes flickered to me, then back to the spaceship.
Having thoroughly mopped up Nat’s face, Gunner moved on to Shep, who tucked his face in Karen’s arms. Karen stood, handed Shep to Nat, and said, “Give us a few minutes?”
Nat and Shep disappeared into Karen’s executive lounge, along with Gunner, where I heard a cartoon playing.
I waited.
Karen walked to the glass and stared down. Her back to me. “You remember the girl you rescued out of Nicaragua?”
“Ines Cecilia.”
Karen nodded. “Remember the ‘orphanage’?”
“I remember the smell.”
Karen glanced at Shep then turned to me. “How long have we been working together?”
I smiled. “All my life.”
She turned but this time didn’t look down. She studied the skyline. “Two years ago, I started the process. Orphanage in Russia. Paperwork, interviews, money, attorneys. Then a week after they found you alive in that cave, I got the call. Flew over.” She paused. “He grew up in a cage. Didn’t walk until he was four.
“I’m not married.” She said it with honest self-deprecation. “Have no prospects. What man could put up with me? I don’t sleep. Work way too much. And yet”—she turned so she could see Shep—“I love that little guy with . . .” She turned to me. “I should have asked. I hope you don’t mind. I mean, about the name.”
“It’s a good name. He wears it well.”
“I just wanted you two to meet.” Another pause. I couldn’t tell if it was purposeful on her part or inflicted upon her by the emotions. Or something else. “I’ve been thinking of taking . . .” A laugh. “Did you know that in the last twenty years, I’ve not taken a single day of vacation? I’ve been thinking of doing that. Thought maybe we’d come to Freetown. Let you show him around. He—” She paused. Looked at me. “Will need good men. Since I know so few.”
Something in her tone struck me as off, but I also knew her experience with men had been difficult and she’d not always chosen wisely. “I’ll send the plane.”
She brushed away a tear, patted my hand, and said nothing.
I’d never seen her so frail. “Anything you need, you know that.”
She whispered, “Thank you.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Midfifties and a first-time mom. Maybe a little overwhelmed.” She shot a glance at him. “Don’t want to mess it up.”
I watched him fly the Falcon through the space. “I know of nothing more resilient than a child.”
She shook her head once. “Even broke up with my one love affair.”
Karen loved few things more than a good cigarette. “Say it ain’t so.”
“Four months, three days, seventeen hours.”
“That can’t be easy.”
“It’s nothing compared to being responsible for that little guy.” As we studied him, another tear formed in her eyes. This was not my publisher speaking but the mom my publisher had become, which was beautiful to watch. “He’s so small. I’m afraid people will make fun of him. And they say he might never talk.” The words were difficult to speak. “Six years old and never held. What kind of world is this . . .” She trailed off. “Even when they fed him, they did so through the bars of his cage.” She fought for the words. “What if . . . I can’t reach him? What if . . . he won’t ever hug me back?”
“Hey . . . give it time.” I put my arm around her. “I’ve seen love do amazing things.”
She leaned into me and cried. Allowing me to hold her. Something she’d never done. She looked up at me. “Can it reach through bars?”
I smiled. “Yes. It’s actually really good at that.”
She palmed her face. “I should’ve asked you about the name thing.”
“I’m honored. He even looks like a Shep.”
The noise down the hall returned her thoughts to Casey. “We’d better get back.”
Even blown up, burnt half to death, and walking with a cane, Clay was enjoying the spotlight and, along with a little help from Bones, had the security situation covered. When I returned to the room, the line had shrunk to the last few people, and Casey was standing next to the table rather than behind it. A guy dressed in all black but wearing press credentials and carrying a camera bag stood tapping his foot. His face told me he wasn’t a fan. Which made me wonder why he’d stood in line for more than an hour. Summer got my attention, nodded at the guy, and then shrugged when she pointed at Clay. As if to say, “I’m not sure he can handle it and Bones is on the wrong side of the table.” I stepped closer, watching the guy’s hands. When his turn arrived, he stepped onto the platform and just a little too close to Casey. I mirrored him from behind while not interfering. At least, not yet.
His tone was acidic and his smirk concealed something. “I didn’t like the way you talked to us.” He waved his hand across the men around him. “And unlike these perverts, I don’t have a porn addiction.”
Casey stood unfazed. “Can I see your phone?”
He shook his head arrogantly. “Not a chance.”
Casey dismissed him. “You’re hiding.”
He didn’t like being called out.
Bones eased closer.
Casey was locked on the man and she was unflinching. “Your eyes betray you.”
Without warning, the guy reached into his backpack and pulled out what looked like a can of spray paint. Turned out to be pepper spray that backpackers use on grizzly bears. As he extended his arm, he said, “How much for thirty minutes?”
I launched and was about to dislocate his arm from his shoulder when something moving very fast flashed in front of me. I never saw it coming. It whiffed in front of my face like an airplane propeller. I felt a swish of air and then heard the distinct sound of bone snapping. At which point the punk fell to his knees and began writhing and cussing. No sooner had he fallen than the blurry fast thing again made a circle in front of me, followed by the unnatural sound of smashing teeth. The guy coughed, spat out pieces of teeth, and was in the process of uttering something unkind when the blurry thing whiffed again and turned out his lights.
The guy crumpled in a pile as all the media around him stood in silent shock. All quiet on the western front.
Bones and I stood over the man. His arm had a new elbow, his face was swollen, and one eye was shut. Not to mention his toothless grin. When I looked at Casey, I saw that Clay had stepped in front of her. A shield. No longer leaning on his cane. He now held it like a baseball bat.
I asked him, “You all right, Clay?”
He spoke calmly but never took his eyes off the idiot on the floor. “Yes, sir, Mister Murphy. Just fine.”
I examined the unconscious man. “Clay, what’s in that cane?”
Clay showed me the end, exposing the iron rod that ran the length of the cane.
“How much that thing weigh?”
Clay shrugged. “Nine pound.”
That explained it.
Bones shook his head. “You can take the man out of prison, but it’s a little tougher to take prison out of the man.”
Clay sucked through his teeth and nodded, saying nothing while saying everything. As I studied him, I realized he wasn’t even sweating. Clay was getting healthy and his strength was returning.
Following the signing, Karen had rented a private room at the restaurant on the top floor. It was a special moment. Summer holding my hand. Gunner at our feet. Bones and Clay telling competing stories while Casey, Angel, and Ellie laughed. Life was good. Summer leaned in and wrapped her ankle around mine like a vine, which had become her custom. She placed her hand on my chest and whispered, “You good?”
“Honestly?”
She nodded.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been this good in my whole life.”
She kissed me. “Me too.”
Bones looked at me and then nodded at Karen’s empty chair. “Want to call her?”
“She said she just had to do one thing.”
We waited a few more minutes and Bones again looked at the empty chair. I dialed Karen but no answer. Which was not unusual. A few minutes later, I told Summer, “Be right back.”
I rode the elevator down to the fifty-fifth floor and wound my way to her office, where I found the door cracked open but no sound of a nanny and no sound of Shep. Gunner walked around me to a far corner of the room and stood whining.
Over Karen’s body.
Chapter 17
The waiting room was empty save us. The sounds of monitors and alarms and a ticking clock above me were little comfort. None of us talked but rather sat staring at the doors leading to the trauma center. Willing the surgeon to exit with good news.
An hour after we arrived, the doctor walked out and took off his mask. “You Murphy Shepherd?”
His green scrubs were covered in red puree. “I am.”
“Karen’s final directive says I’m to speak with you. And only you. You comfortable with all these people hearing what I have to say?”
I nodded.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
Summer wrapped her arm around mine as I tried to digest this. “What . . . ?”
“She didn’t make it.”
How could this be possible? We were just talking. She was a new mom. Just adopted Shep. A whole new life in front of her.
He continued, “Cerebral aneurysm.” A pause. “I know it doesn’t help, but she did not suffer. Never knew it was happening.”
I could not process this. It made no sense.
“Would you like to see her?”
The lights were bright and the room cold. All the monitors had been turned off and medical personnel were working to clean the room, which was not clean.
Karen lay on the table, her body covered by a sheet. Someone had wiped the blood from her nose but not her cheek. I stood next to the table, and Summer stood next to me.
Karen’s hand was still warm.
I didn’t know what to say.
Summer leaned in and whispered, “Just talk to her.”
I swallowed. The memories flooding. How did we get from that bar twenty years ago to this room? I held her hand in both of mine. “You were a friend . . . when I didn’t have any. You believed in me when I didn’t. You kept me alive . . . when I didn’t want to live.” I shook my head. “You made me . . . me.”
I could see her sitting at the bar. Sunglasses. Martini. Cigarette in hand. I didn’t know it at the time, but she would change my life forever following that moment. She alone was the reason I published. That I made more money than I could spend in several lifetimes.
Summer kissed my cheek and locked her arm inside mine.
I tried to speak again but could not.
Summer held my hand while I held Karen’s. I tried again. “Without you, there is no Freetown. No Murphy Shepherd. No . . . David . . .” I whispered, “Bishop.”
Bones appeared across from me. Ashen.
The pain in my chest was growing and I couldn’t shut it down. Couldn’t escape it. I leaned over and kissed Karen on her now-cold forehead.
The waiting room had filled with distraught people. Including Karen’s assistant, Nat, who stood hugging Clay. She, too, was a mess. A tired Shep crouched in a corner clinging to a worn tiger–teddy bear thing and a dirty blanket. Something I guessed had made the trip from Russia to here. Something normal. He sat expressionless.
Nat stood leaning further into Clay, her shoulders shaking.
How do you make sense of the nonsensical? Explain the inexplicable? I don’t know. I can’t. She was here. Now she wasn’t. And how in the world could we help a six-year-old boy understand this?
Nat composed herself, wiped her face, and approached Summer and me. She was clutching an envelope but hesitant to give it to me. When she did, she said, “We should probably go somewhere quiet.”
Summer, Nat, and I retreated to the chapel where she extended the letter. “At Karen’s request.”
The envelope read “David.” And had been written in Karen’s handwriting, which, after her having edited so many of my books, I knew quite well.
I unfolded the letter.
Dearest David—
After so many years of calling you Murph, David seems strange, but you are both to me—which is good. You’ve always been twice the man of any man I ever knew.
If you’re reading this, then the “thing” in my head must have broken loose and I am gone. They will probably call it some sort of aneurysm and I am sure my doctors will tell you more about it, but it was inoperable, making me a walking time bomb. Writing you this letter, I have but one regret—that I didn’t learn about it sooner.
I remember our first meeting. You were tending bar. A shell. A broken man. Wishing the earth would open up, swallow you whole, and bury you alongside Marie, and yet somehow you managed to do something with your pen that I, in all my years of publishing, had never seen. From the first page, I knew you were the one. Maybe the only one. I would have given anything to publish you, and yet you were so easy on me. In all my professional life, I have loved nothing more than giving your beautiful, innocent, powerful words to the world. To this day I don’t know how you do it. How you string them together and suck us all in.
I used to get so excited when I’d open my email and find your manuscript sitting unread in my inbox. I’d sit down and relish every word. The first of your fans to read the new work before anyone else. A delectable luxury. I’d usually read it two or three times before I came up for air. I am and always will be your biggest fan. Self-nominated president of the club. For years I’d scratch my head and wonder, Where do these words come from? What power drives them? I’m a tough New York City girl with an acrid experience with men, but I am not so jaded that I cannot conclude there can be only one answer. Love. And not the kind we see sold around us. The kind played out on the screen and through the airwaves. I’m talking about the real kind. The kind that, in your words, leaves the ninety-nine to find the one. Oh, how I needed that. How many times did your words rescue me and return me from the brink? I cannot count.
Like the boys and girls you rescue, I did not have a good experience with men. Hated them, actually. Always taking. Never giving. I closed off my heart years ago. Let it become covered and callous. Prided myself on being so impregnable. “You can’t touch me.” But then I “discovered” you tending bar. I must admit I read your words that night with a bit of skepticism. You can’t be this true. This beautiful. Magnificent. Unassuming.
And yet you are. And your words . . . oh my. Your words reached down into a place in me that I’d closed off long ago. Unlike my history, you gave and took nothing. You defied my every experience.
And for that I’m forever grateful. For that I love you. For that I will always love you.
Which is why I’m writing this letter. This is going to catch you off guard, but I’m asking you to dig down into that love of yours one more time and do something for me. It’s a big ask. I know. But one thing I’ve noticed about you—as the number of people you carry has grown, your shoulders have only broadened, and your heart . . . well, it’s bottomless.
I am giving Shep to you. To be his father. I know of no better. I am asking you and Summer to make him your own and raise him with the same love with which you love one another—and have loved a crusty cynic like me. Had I known about my possible aneurysm, I would not have adopted him. But I didn’t start having seizures and blurry vision until my return. Incidentally, my doctor said the long flight over and back probably brought about its early onset. Ironic, don’t you think?
Shep is now alone. Again. He’s been abandoned by everyone he’s ever known. Including me. I realize what I’m asking you will be an uphill battle. I know this. He has night terrors, wets his bed constantly, eats little, and communicates almost not at all. Attached to this letter is my Last Will and Testament. You will find in there that I have given him everything that is mine and given you control over all that. To help you in whatever way you need. Not that you need the money. But it’s there if you ever do.
I may not have given birth to him, but a strange thing has happened in the few months that we’ve had each other. He stole my heart and made me feel like a mom. Something I thought could never happen.
Because he was afraid, I have let him sleep with me at night. Every night. And every morning, I’ve had to change the sheets. But often at night when he shook and kicked and screamed, his tiny little hand would reach through the covers and find mine. Completely asleep and yet reaching out. I think that’s what broken hearts do.
