My biological mother, Rachel Forrester, has a similarly tragic story. She was raised in rural Wisconsin. Her parents, a postman and a teacher’s aide, worked hard, lived modestly, and passed away in their early sixties. She loved them but had higher aspirations; her dream was to move to New York and work on Wall Street. After graduating from a small Chicago college, Rachel got an MBA at NYU. Her first job was with Forrester Holdings, where the chairman, CW, happened to notice the tall, slender redhead with freckles and light eyes, thirty-four years his junior. While their relationship seemed unlikely, what began as a passing attraction evolved into a genuine love affair. But after their wedding, instead of enjoying her newfound riches, Rachel drank herself into oblivion, and ended up dead at thirty-two.
My memories of CW are hazy—a gruff man with grasshopper legs, the earthy smell of cigar smoke, a mitt-sized hand cupping my head, the soft brush of a camel hair coat. Rachel, I remember more clearly. Like me, she loved word searches, card games, and puns. We played Hangman and Scrabble. We watched Wheel of Fortune. Though I rarely think about CW, I do wonder about Rachel. Admittedly, my feelings are complex, but I miss her in ways I can’t quite articulate. Even when she was alive, I wanted more of her than she could give. It seemed like she was always on the move, always far away, always someplace I wasn’t.
Now, I’m almost the age she was when she met CW, and I can better appreciate her situation. Rachel hitched her wagon to a man three decades older who thrust her, with no preparation or support, into his high-society life. I’m sure it felt alien and lonely. She was an outsider, watching a party through the window. My birth likely triggered post-partum depression that caused her to crumble, and then CW’s death sent her over the edge. But Rachel’s unraveling, unlike the cat woman’s, was shorter, swifter, and less visible to the naked eye.
Earlier, I said that Rachel accompanied CW when he traveled. But that isn’t the full story. CW insisted she come along with him, partly for his pleasure, but mostly to monitor her drinking. From his point of view, his wife was a danger to herself and only he could save her. But then she got pregnant, and CW realized she could save herself—with my help. “Rachel, my dear, this baby is your saving grace,” he told her. “She will give your life purpose.” And thus, at seven weeks old and still in the womb, I became the solution to my mother’s relentless addiction.
Unfortunately, for all CW’s genius, I was a lousy bet. One great lie of modern life is that parenthood is vital and transformative. For Rachel, it was a disaster. Upon my arrival, her drinking ramped up. Overwhelmed, overwrought, and overly indulged, she outsourced my care to day-nurses, night-nurses, live-in nannies, live-out babysitters, and finally, when she ran out of options, her upstairs acquaintance, Eleanor Quinn.
I believe Rachel tried. I have scrawled notes indicating as much.
You’re mine forver
Sorry, sorry, sorry, I love you, love you, love you
You’re my sweet princess and my heart
Cassie, you and me together 4-ever
The notes are maudlin and little-girlish, rife with misspellings, and likely written while drunk. Still, I cherish each one. They’re evidence that she existed, that she loved me. In photographs, we’re two happy kids, showing off matching red nails, licking ice cream, napping side by side on the beach. Not much, but not nothing.
I recently asked Lawrence about the car crash that killed her, whether it might not have been an accident. He equivocated, saying we’ll never know for sure. Not that knowing would’ve changed anything. When it happened, I was barely five, and already ensconced with the Quinns, my forever family.
Lawrence’s offer to raise me was magnanimous. Selfless. Kind. However, knowing him as well as I do, I’m sure he was equally relieved to be in a position to give back to CW, a man he revered like a god and loved like a brother. So, you see, the world of the wealthy isn’t just small and incestuous; we also have our own economy with our own currency. Lawrence, a rosy-eyed dreamer, saw value in me where others saw junk. She’s ours now, he said. She’s mine and Eleanor’s, to raise as we please. In this way, then, Lawrence’s unspoken debt to CW was repaid in full, the circle was closed, and my fate set in motion.
*
It’s June, nine weeks after Billy’s arraignment. The weather has shifted again. Summer is here, and humidity has descended like wet fog in New Haven, where I’m living full-time. Here, far from the chaos, I spend entire days not speaking to a soul. I’m free of parents, of brothers. Of men. I’m not oblivious to men, just uninterested. Most important, I’m anonymous. No one knows I’m the “adopted sister” of “accused rapist” or “rapist runner” Billy Quinn. The truth may eventually come out, but for now, I carry my brother the way I carry my other secrets: one self facing the world, the other shrouded in darkness.
I will tell you one sacred secret: I look like an ordinary woman. But inside I have a well of shame that’s as deep as I am tall. I’m an orphan. My father is dead. My mother, also dead, was a drunk. But my shame isn’t that Rachel drank. It was that she gave me away, quickly, easily, no looking back.
Why? I ask Lawrence. Why did she do it?
Rachel was ill, he tells me. Rachel was weak.
But to me, only one answer makes sense. I’m damaged goods. Too damaged to want, too damaged to keep. The truth, of course, is nuanced, but to a small child, distinctions are meaningless. One day she was my mom, the next day she was gone.
The half-life of a daughter’s grief is equal to the length of time she spent with her mother multiplied by the rest of her life. I always feel Rachel’s absence. Which is why I try to be a good girl, a good daughter for the Quinns; a better girl than my brothers are boys, a better daughter than they are sons. Nate and Billy are Quinns by birth. They can never be rejected. But my place is tenuous. So I’ll do whatever I can to make sure Eleanor and Lawrence love me, if not the most, then at least as much. I do anything they ask, anything my brothers ask. Just, please, please, please I beg you: don’t leave me behind.
That sounds so mawkish, doesn’t it? Pathetic, too. Like I’m someone who wallows in self-pity.
I lean forward. Let me stipulate, for the record, that I don’t feel sorry for myself. My family has been nothing but good—to me and for me. They would never leave me.
“They would never leave me,” I repeat, but this time I stammer. “They’d never . . . no one is leaving anyone . . . we love each other . . .”
Christ, it’s hot in my apartment. I feel like I’m suffocating. My skin sticks to my chair and makes a sucking sound when I move. I need liquids, moisturizer, a towel, something.
The cop, Haggerty, turns off the tape recorder, looks into my eyes. “Do you need to take a break, Ms. Quinn? We’ve been talking for”—he glances at his watch—“two hours already.”
“Call me Cassie. And no break. We had a deal: one interview.” Scrambling, I gulp water. “I’m just a little flustered; talking to you seems to get me all hot and bothered.”
My joke falls flat. Haggerty’s eyes are blank.
“We should stop for a few minutes,” he says. “Don’t underestimate what we’re doing. Telling a stranger about your most intimate relationships is—”