What’s in a Face? Brooklyn
What’s in a Face?
Brooklyn
Under the watchful eye of Margot and Eden, plus the FBI team, who’ve been stationed at my door for my protection, my recovery starts to accelerate.
I do everything the hospital staff asks.
Memories of my life before the accident continue to emerge, return, and help me fill in the missing pieces, but there are still deep gaps.
Flashes of our lives come and go like leaves falling from the trees, twisting and dancing.
Margot reminds me of little things, and big, patiently, sometimes laughing with me at our childhood antics, sometimes with reverence, or tears.
It is fascinating seeing my life through her eyes.
I’m still having trouble with the days leading up to the accident. The doctor says that’s not atypical, and I might not ever regain those particular memories. Although I witnessed the accident firsthand, in person and on video, I still don’t recall the details. That’s probably for the best.
I’ve become a minor celebrity on the ward.
They don’t have many people in their care who are constantly discussed on the twenty-four-hour news networks and have bodyguards lurking in the corridors.
To their credit, they do a good job isolating me from the inevitable journalists and curiosity seekers who try to visit.
They treat me like I’m just a normal person, but I can see and hear the whispers and looks.
I can’t watch TV—the movement on the screen gives me extreme vertigo—but Margot fills in the blanks of the real world for me.
She is my lifeline to reality, a ghost in duplicate moving us through our lives.
Sheehan comes by again to see if I’ve remembered anything more. He looks horrible, and I suspect he’s not sleeping or eating properly. He says Detective Lee is working her side of the case, investigating the murders of Trey’s parents.
I grieve for these strangers and for the fact that they will never meet their grandchildren. But I have nothing more to share, and Sheehan leaves, defeated.
My room is full of balloons and flowers, and visiting hours bring friends who stay and chat, assiduously and politely avoiding asking me what I know they’re dying to hear about.
The children climb all over me when they come in the afternoons after school, regularly asking questions about where their father is and when I will be coming home. I have no answers for them.
No answers at all.
It isn’t until Pat and Bob come to visit that I start to truly comprehend the magnitude of the cops’ assertions that Trey has committed several rather serious crimes. I’ve been pulling together memories, but nothing yet that will help their case. Seeing my aunt and uncle jogs even more.
I’m out of bed now and able to move around much better.
I’m sore and bruised, and my head hurts constantly, but walking helps.
I wander the halls, up and down, getting my strength back.
There’s a serenity garden in the inner courtyard, and I spend as much time there as they’ll let me.
It’s chilly, but sheltered—there is no breeze, and with the sun shining down and a blanket over my legs, quite pleasant.
I am over being a patient. I want to go home.
I want to sleep in my own bed. I want to search for things my husband may have left behind.
Clues to his whereabouts. To the money trail.
Answers. I want answers.
The serenity garden is where Bob and Pat find me, sitting with my face tilted up to the sun, desperately trying to figure out where Trey might have run to.
“Brooklyn!” Pat hurries to my side and envelops me in a hug. Bob follows suit. They fret and pat and murmur at my bruises and the bandages on my head.
I know these people. I know their clothes, their haircuts, their posture, but their faces are different from what I recall.
They seem significantly older than I remember, as well.
There are grooves across Pat’s forehead, and Bob’s shoulders are hunched as if the pain of carrying such bad news is too much.
They have balloons and flowers, cheerful things that don’t match their countenances.
Something is wrong. I am still having trouble reading emotions, but the seeds of guilt that cling to them put me on alert.
They’re both wearing forest green North Face puffers—they always have been matchy matchy, whether by accident or on purpose, or simply out of practicality, I don’t know. I feel their fear, and it is terrifying.
Bob takes the chair opposite me; Pat perches on the arm.
“How are you feeling?” Bob asks. “Going home soon?”
“You don’t have to make polite conversation with me. I can tell you have something important to say. Tell me. Tell me the truth. The FBI and police are saying such horrible things. I don’t believe them.”
Bob sighs so deeply I can smell last night’s liquor on his breath, stale and fetid. My uncle isn’t a big drinker. This is alarming. And when they speak, it’s like they’re talking about the plot of a book or a television show.
“It’s all true, dear. Trey has been systematically stealing from the company.
Years’ worth of money. He’s undermined every recent deal we’ve made.
He built a system that funneled a percentage of each contract into offshore accounts.
It’s elegant, brilliant even. Disconcerting, because I taught him how to do it. ”
“You taught him . . . how?”
Bob shakes his head. “He’s a natural, but I taught him everything he knows about how the money moves, how the accounts work, how the client investments function.
He has the same level of access we do. Part of what we do is maximize profits and minimize debts for our clients by any means necessary.
We protect their money as if it were our own.
That means building proprietary systems, with formulas only we know.
That we’ve developed, together. He built one right under my nose, and I didn’t see it.
It flowed offshore just like all the rest.”
“Are you saying you help your clients avoid paying taxes by putting money in offshore accounts?” This is something Margot mentioned to me, and it makes sense. Seems a little sketchy, though.
“Not exactly. Not illegally. Everything we do is aboveboard, legal, reported, and accounted for. I wouldn’t stay in business if it weren’t.
Trey circumvented the controls I had in place so our system wasn’t openly abused.
The minute we entered the crypto world, the lines became murkier.
That was Trey’s domain. Over the summer, I started seeing holes where there shouldn’t have been, discrepancies that were, at first glance, easy to explain away.
But then they started to add up. He was moving money to fictional vendors who were supposedly investing with us.
The scheme worked for a long time, until I started sensing something was awry. ”
“But why didn’t you confront him directly? Why go to the FBI? Why not talk to me first? My God, what were you thinking?”
The hurt in my voice makes him flinch. Good. They should have come to me before blowing up our world.
Aunt Pat is twisting her hands together. “Honey, we didn’t want to worry you. We did confront him. He had answers for everything. Showed us every trail, every dollar moved. Everything looked legitimate.”
“I . . . I didn’t believe him,” Bob says.
“He was too cool, too smooth. My instincts were right. Now I know it was all just smoke and mirrors. He forged the accounts, and some of the clients, too. The money wasn’t ever there.
It was a sophisticated, smart—genius even—plan.
Until he took funds from an account I had flagged as a control, so I could watch over him.
I saw the money disappear right before my eyes.
Like drops from a leaky faucet. I confronted him, but once I realized he was lying, I had no choice. ”
“I still don’t understand why you’d turn him in without warning me. That’s cold.”
Pat smiles sadly. “We didn’t know if you were involved, Brook. It wasn’t until he tried to kill you that we were certain you were innocent in all of this.”
“He didn’t try to kill me,” I say, teeth gritted.
They share a forlorn look. Everyone thinks I’m delusional.
They’ve all seen the video. It’s been playing nightly on the news.
I can’t deny that whoever is driving the SUV does look a little bit like Trey.
And yes, he was definitely in the hospital the night I almost died.
But I cannot, will not, believe that the man I love, the father of my children, wants me dead.
“Still no idea where he might be hiding out?” Bob asks lightly. “Things would go a lot easier for him if you could convince him to turn himself in.”
“I don’t know anything. This all feels like a bad dream.”
Pat looks at Bob. “Tell her. It doesn’t matter now.”
“Tell me what?”
“It’s going to come to light in the news soon enough.
I was adopted as a young baby and was brought up as a Thomas.
I didn’t find out until I was much older.
It’s not important. I have always considered you and Margot my nieces and Trey my nephew.
We don’t share blood, but that doesn’t mean we’re not family. ”
My fragile brain is having trouble reconciling this, but a few things click into place. Why Bob and my dad don’t look at all alike, for starters.
“Wow. So you’ve both been lying to me this whole time? You and Trey, both? Or does he know?”
“He might know, but like I said, it’s never been an issue.”
“Does this have to do with Dad? Is this why the two of you are estranged?”
Bob doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
I can tell he wants to touch me, to reassure me, just as he has so many times in the past. That would be unwelcome now, and he senses it.
Finally, he folds them together awkwardly.
“We need to stay focused on the situation we find ourselves in, Brooklyn. Trey was stealing money from the company. I need to know what he’s told you. Where he’s hiding it.”
“He told me nothing. You don’t think this has something to do with Dad’s past, do you? That someone is out to get him and taking it out on us? That Trey has been set up?”
Pat shakes her head. “Your father’s sins are his own, Brooklyn. As are Trey’s. He’s broken our hearts. Stealing from us? Putting you in such extreme danger? There must be something he’s told you, anything that you can think of might help.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“Think!” Pat says, her voice harsher than I’ve ever heard. The stress of this is getting to her.
“Is the company in trouble?”
Pat scoffs. I’ve never seen her so annoyed. “Of course it is. We have no money left. Trey’s taken every bit of cash. We need to find him and retrieve the funds. You have to tell us where he is, Brooklyn. Our lives depend on it.”
“Now all our lives are at stake? Yours too?”
“He’s tried to murder you twice, you silly girl. Why can’t you see that he’s turned against us all?”
I close my eyes and say nothing more. I have so many questions, but these people—these lovely people—have become my enemies.
They are the reason this is happening. They went to the FBI and claimed my husband was embezzling, and set the wheels in motion for our world to implode.
Which means anything I say to them will be reported back to the cops, analyzed, parsed.
It feels like everyone is waiting for me to trip up, to remember something that will implicate Trey.
They’re pushing me, hard. To recall, to report, to admit. To embellish. To fabricate, even.
And that feels wrong.
I will not betray him. And his secrets are safe with me, because I don’t know them. I’ve been searching every corner of my mind for anything that might give me a clue to any of this, and there’s nothing.
And to top it all off, we’re not even blood relations with Bob? No. Not going along with this anymore. It’s as bad as all the crap with our dad, and I do not want to revisit those horrors.
“I need to go back to my room.”
“We’ll walk with you,” Bob says. “I’m sorry, I know that got heated. We’re just frightened for you, dear.”
“I can do it myself.”
I march off, as much as I can march, and they trail behind me anyway.
Back in the room, I get settled in the chair. I’m tired, but I’m feeling so much stronger. I bet I get to go home tomorrow.
Bob deposits the balloons and flowers on the air-conditioning vent. I can tell he is about to start grilling me again when Eden happens to sail in.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had company. I’ll go get some coffee and come back.”
“No, please stay. Pat and Bob were just leaving.”
They exchange a glance at my abrupt dismissal but take the hint.
Margot knocks on the door. “Yoo-hoo! Oh, hey, Aunt Pat, Uncle Bob.” She sees my face, and her brows furrow. “Everything okay?”
“It’s all good. All good.” Pat gives my sister a stiff hug, then addresses me again. “If you remember anything, call anytime. We’d like to see the kids, too. We can take them for a few days when you’re discharged, let you get back on your feet.”
I watch her for a moment, this woman who has been like a mother to me and to Trey. A woman who has betrayed my husband—betrayed us—in the most egregious way. Rage builds in my body, hot and thick.
“Stay away from my children. And stay away from me. This is all your fault. I’m here because of you.”
Margot gasps, and Bob and Pat look like I’ve slapped them. I wish I could. I wish I could wipe the smug smiles off their faces. How dare they come here and pump me for information?
Margot starts babbling apologies, as if she can replace my harsh words with assurances of love, but they seem not to hear her.
Pat helps Bob to his feet. He touches the petals of the roses they’ve brought.
His voice is cracked and soft. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Brook.
Just know you can come to us anytime. Our door will always be open. ”
I fight back the tears as they leave. Margot is staring at me like she doesn’t know me anymore.
I feel the same way. Something is wrong with me.
I am broken inside. I know there’s something I’m missing, something major that will answer all of the lingering questions I have about my husband, about our life.
“That was . . . Are you okay, Brook? They’re the only family we have left who’s not bonkers.”
“You missed the fun part. They’re not our family. Bob and Dad aren’t related.”
Her mouth falls open. “I leave for five minutes . . . What the hell?”
I relay the conversation from the serenity garden, getting more and more angry by the second. I can’t help the tears. I am just so frustrated.
“This is just a lot. I want to get out of here. I want to go home. I need to go home, Margot. The answers are there. I know it.”
Eden brings me some water. “You will, soon enough.”