The Black Book

Jeff opened the door to find Miranda standing there. Her face was blotchy and wet with tears and snot. She looked like a child again; his little girl who had fallen and scraped her knee. She did not move or look at his face. He did not need to see her eyes. He knew them too well. Emerald green with a gold ring at their center. Even when she cried, they were still beautiful, an exact replica of her mother’s eyes. Just a quick glance at them and he would be hooked again. He was relieved that she was looking down, it made closing the door easier.

The lock made a soft click as he slid it into place. Jeff stood with his ear to the door listening for the sound of Miranda’s footsteps retreating. Although the door was heavy and thick, Jeff swore he could still hear her breathing. It was below zero with the wind. He had just seen her, but he could not recall what she was wearing. Had she had on a coat, a hat, gloves? Why was she here? What could she possibly want from him now? They had not spoken in five years. Not since Casey, Miranda’s mother, died and Jeff remarried. Miranda had come to the wedding, caused a scene, and stormed out. In retrospect, he knew it had been too soon. But Miranda had been off at college in California, he was lonely, and Samantha was persistent. Was that what this was about – a grown-up child still angry that her dad had moved on?

Miranda shook violently from the cold, from nerves, from everything that had happened in the last five years to get her to this point – an icy front porch in the middle of Milwaukee. The tops of her feet burned from the frigid wind scattering across them. Her flats without socks were appropriate for the warm breeze and bright sun in San Diego where she had been when she last woke up and dressed, not for Wisconsin in January. Even her tight jeans did little to protect her from the gusts hurtling past every few seconds. She thrust one hand out from her jacket sleeve and wiped it across her nose before checking her jacket pocket, just to make sure it was there. It was, solid and cool to the touch. She inhaled and yelled at the thick, walnut door, “I know you can hear me, and I need to talk to you.” She waited.

Nothing. No response, no sound of movement from the other side of the door. She tried again, the magic words this time, “Jeff, I know about Brian.”

She waited. Silence. Then a click as Jeff unlocked the door and it slowly eased open.

The cold rushed in ahead of her and slapped Jeff’s cheeks, still stinging from Miranda’s words seconds before. He had taken two big steps back to allow her space to enter. She slid in so quickly it was as though she had been carried by the frigid air. He shut the door and spun around, surprised that she had already sat on the first step and was staring up at him, green eyes wide, sparkling, and clear. There was no sign that she had been sobbing her heart out just a moment earlier. Her cheeks were bright red from the cold. Jeff looked down at his watch. This had better be quick. He only had an hour before Samantha arrived home. He could not let her catch Miranda there.

They stared at each other for a long time. Miranda unflinching and Jeff fighting to match her. She wore the placid look of someone who knew they had the power in an interaction and could afford to hold out until they got what they came for.

Miranda took great pains to maintain a calm, in-control exterior, even though she was shaking on the inside. There had been no guarantee that Jeff would be home, that he would let her in, even if she mentioned Brian. But now she was here, she was in, and Jeff was standing in front of her. Miranda inhaled and pulled in the memories of Jeff and Casey, Mom and Dad at the time, tucking her in at night. She could feel the soft cotton of the sheets cool against her skin, surrounding her with a sense of security; a certainty that nothing bad would happen so long as they were all together. “Family is everything, right sweetie?” The question had been asked by both Casey and Jeff thousands of times, so many that it had become the mantra they lived by. Family. Always.

After she learned the truth, the stupid motto made Miranda cringe. Casey and Jeff’s clinging to the idea of family after what they had done reminded Miranda of the politicians blustering on about how much they cared about their constituents, only to vote the next day to take away some vital social program because it cost too much money. Her entire childhood, every brightly colored memory, every story she had been told, they all were a sham. If someone had pushed a button and erased the memory of her first twenty-five years, she might be better off. At least then she would not have to live with the fact that they were nothing but lies.

“Who told you?” Jeff could no longer take the pressure of waiting for her to speak. The hallway was shrinking around him. His chest felt tight and, when he tried to inhale, his breath caught in his throat. They had been so careful. No one knew what he and Casey had done, at least no one who could have told Miranda. They had made sure of that.

“It doesn’t matter who told me. The real question is why? Why did you do it? Why did you lie to me?”

“We wanted the best for you. You can’t say we didn’t love you, didn’t give you everything!” Jeff’s voice climbed to a yell. How dare she come here and act like she was the victim.

“You lied to me! Gave me everything? You stole my real family from me.” Miranda yelled.

“We stole nothing from you. You have no idea what your life would have been like with them, how you would have suffered.”

“That wasn’t your choice to make. I was Abbie and Brian’s child and you and Casey took me away from them.”

“Abbie died, she overdosed when you were a month old. And Brian was in no state to take care of an infant,” Jeff hissed. It had been easy to excuse what they had done as Miranda blossomed in their care, even if what he had just told her was not the whole truth.

Miranda already knew, “That’s not the real story, Jeff. We both know that.”

“What do you mean that’s not the real story? Are you calling me a liar?”

“I just call ‘em like I see ‘em. How about you stop wasting both our time and tell the truth?”

Jeff sighed, suddenly exhausted he sank to the floor in front of the door. The damp from the melting snow Miranda had tracked in soaked through his sweatpants. “Fine, you want the real story? Here it is. Abbie and I dated in college. She was my first real love. Then, during our senior year, she met Brian. He was a dealer who hung around campus parties. She fell for him and he got her hooked on the heavier stuff. By the time she got pregnant with you, they were both full blown addicts. To her credit, she cleaned up during the pregnancy. But as soon as you were born, she started up again. By that time, Casey and I had married, tried to have a baby, and failed. Casey was distraught. She always wanted to be a mom and nature was not cooperating. And here were Abbie and Brian, two people who didn’t deserve a baby with healthy, perfect you.

“Abbie and I had stayed in touch, and she called me one freezing day in February. I could tell by her voice that she was high. I didn’t tell Casey where I was going, instead I drove over there and walked in to find her choking on her own vomit on the couch and you screaming on the floor. I could have helped her, could have turned her on her side, but I didn’t. The two of them deserved what they brought upon themselves. I took you and left.”

Miranda shook her head. “You bastard, you left her to die.”

“She was going to die sooner rather than later the way she was going.”

“Oh, so that makes it fine? And stop leaving details out. I wasn’t the only thing you stole, was I?”

“What are you talking about?” Jeff’s voice was almost a whisper now.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, Jeff.” Miranda put an extra emphasis on his name.

Jeff put his head in his hands. Questions flew through his brain, making it impossible to think straight. How could she know about the money too?

“You were on your way out, you saw the shoe box full of money, and you grabbed it too. You knew Brian would have no case. He was a drug dealer, had no living family who could back him up. What was he going to do, call the police and say, ‘someone stole my profits?’ Of course not. And Abbie’s mother had just died so she had no one who was going to make a claim for me. In a lot of ways, it was the perfect situation for you and Casey, wasn’t it?”

Jeff remained silent, his tongue heavy with anger, doubt, and something sharper. Fear.

Miranda continued, “and when Brian did contact you, you told him you had me and he could come pick me up. He asked about the money and you insisted you would return that too – you had just taken it for safe keeping.”

Jeff’s voice returned, hoarse and raspy, “Stop. Please just stop.”

But Miranda did not stop, “When he came to your house, you let him in, gave him a beer that you had laced with a sedative, and, when he passed out, you suffocated him with a pillow. The you and Casey drove him to the woods and buried him. You waited a few months, put your house on the market, and moved here.”

Jeff closed his eyes, “Yes, we did.”

“What I don’t understand is why. You didn’t need me or the money. You and Casey could have adopted another baby.” Miranda stood and strode to the door. “Don’t say you didn’t have a choice, Jeff. You always did, but me, I never have.” She gripped the doorknob and pulled the door open. A rush of icy air slapped her face. She stepped onto the porch and, without looking back, slammed the door and walked briskly down the street to where she had parked her rental car.

Miranda sat for a minute in the silence of the cold car before pulling her cellphone out of her pocket. She turned off the recording button and saved the file. Then she pushed play to make sure the audio was nice and clear. It was. Jeff’s voice boomed through the car. It was all there, the entire confession. Miranda shivered as excitement coursed through her veins. She had everything she needed to blackmail Jeff and she knew he would pay to keep her quiet. She would start with twenty-thousand – the amount Jeff had stolen from Brian on that February day twenty-five years ago. As she started the engine, Miranda glanced over at the passenger seat. Just visible over the top of her bag was the little black notebook Casey had sent her before she died. The notebook, filled with Casey’s neat, tiny handwriting, had told Miranda the whole story.