Archie was from California?
My mind spun in so many directions. What did this mean?
I picked up the photos again. Family pictures. A mother, father, and three children, two boys and a girl, at the beach, standing by a Christmas tree, at a summer picnic. I studied the boys’ faces and it was easy to see that Archie was the middle child, with an older brother and a younger sister.
He’d told me his father died from cancer when he was a child, and his sister and mother were killed in a car accident. Who was the other boy? I looked at him again. I didn’t know the boy. Why would Archie hide these from me?
My gaze went to the sister, obviously a few years younger than Archie. I flipped through a few more pictures as the children got older.
One photo stunned me.
I could barely breathe.
It couldn’t be her.
I stared at the girl, probably around ten years old, standing with Archie, maybe fourteen, and the other boy, probably seventeen or eighteen. They were posing in a yard, wearing shorts and T-shirts. The girl had long dark hair and warm brown eyes. She smiled shyly into the camera.
I knew her.
Venus.
I sat on the floor staring at the photos. I’d been sitting there for what seemed like an eternity, yet likely only ten minutes had passed. Dream was not alive. Venus was not alive. Archie was Venus’s brother and was trying to… I didn’t know, make me go insane? Why the hell would he marry me? What was his plan?
I went back to the secret compartment. There was a burner phone lying by the journals. I picked it up and swiped. No passcode needed, thank goodness. Recent calls were all to a number in Hillsboro, Oregon. I looked at the texts. All to the same Oregon number.
His friend Nick lived in Oregon.
I had never seen Nick. Maybe he was the boy in the pictures.
Nick was Archie and Venus’s brother?
I was getting a headache.
I read through the texts. Mostly about bank deposits and transfers. Some references about “her,” obviously me, stating how I had no clue and how I deserved to be broke after what I did. Other derogatory statements that I ignored. I was mad enough already. I focused on the bank transfers. Archie had been sending Nick, if that was his real name, a lot of money. My money.
That’s the reason he married me.
But why seek me out after so many years? How would he know what I did to Venus? How did he have Dream’s journals?
I picked up another photo and flipped it around. In neat handwriting, Nick, 17, Archie, 14, Caroline, 11. So Venus’s real name was Caroline. And Nick was definitely their brother. I looked at one other item in the secret hiding space, a Wi-Fi enabled light with a remote control. I groaned. That must be the light I saw in the attic over the summer when I was home alone. Archie could control it from school. What a sneaky jerk. I put everything back exactly as I found it and closed the secret compartment. Archie would be home soon.
My feelings swirled in so many directions inside me. I’d have thought I would feel hurt that my husband betrayed me and tricked me into falling for him and believing his feelings were real, but my overriding emotion was anger, mixed with hurt yes, but anger seeped through every part of my body.
One plus: I didn’t have anything to fear. Now it was the others, Archie and Nick, who should be very afraid. They assumed they knew things about me, but now they would know first-hand.
FIFTY-FIVE2018
Archie
I hadn’t heard from Caroline in almost a year. After not answering my repeated calls and texts for months, and going to the apartment she rented in LA with another girl who taught yoga in the same studio, I was at a dead end. The roommate, Grace, wasn’t much help. Caroline had only lived with her for two months. She said some older guy with long hair had picked Caroline up when she’d told Grace she was moving out. Grace was mad because Caroline still owed rent—which I gave her—and Caroline said she was going somewhere she could live rent free and that she lived in the here and now. The roommate remembered that exact phrase because it sounded so weird to her.
None of the story sat well with me, or our older brother, Nick. Caroline was in trouble and the sooner we found her, the better. I wrote down the phrase the roommate mentioned and did an internet search on it, but nothing popped up that led anywhere. I had to find my sister.
The search was at a dead end until a strange thing happened one day. I was visiting a friend in Santa Monica, and we went to a farmers’ market. As we were looking at fresh peaches at a stand, I overheard someone say that phrase, “we live in the here and now.”
I turned to see a stand behind me filled with fresh fruits and vegetables, bottles of wine, and beautiful turquoise jewelry. A man with long blond hair, up in a bun, stood in the center, giving change to an elderly woman purchasing a necklace. A beautiful woman with long raven hair, dressed in a flowing white gown with gold embroidery, spoke to a young man, probably in his late teens. She was the one speaking.
“Excuse me,” I interrupted her. “What did you just say about the here and now?”
She smiled and repeated the phrase.
I was so excited, and my story spilled out of me about my sister. The woman, Moonbeam, was very kind and directed me to the man with the man bun, Branch. I showed him a picture of Caroline on my phone, and he told me she was now called Venus. He also told me the story about Dream, Venus, and Sunny.
Dream and Venus never returned from a picnic Sunny planned, and soon after, Sunny disappeared.
Branch told me to stop by Listening Lark. All of Dream’s and Venus’s personal items were boxed in the basement. I was welcome to look through it if I wished.
Today I stood in the damp, tiny basement of the commune called Listening Lark. I appreciated Branch and Moonbeam’s cooperation, but what the hell did Caroline get herself into? She joined a commune and, according to Branch, was involved in a relationship with a couple?
I sorted through the plastic container holding her clothes, makeup, jewelry. Not that much, really. She had a journal, so that may turn out to be helpful. I looked through Dream’s plastic bin. How was a grown-ass man called Dream? All these new names were insane. Caroline being called Venus? I wondered if she was drugged the whole time she was here. Everything about this was crazy to me.
Emotions filled me as I looked through the meager items left of my baby sister’s life. I knew she would be in contact with me if she could. I knew she must be gone, but she deserved so much more than this. She was bright, smart, and funny. I loved her, and I missed her so much. This group and these people just used her and threw her away like trash. Tears welled in my eyes.
And I hadn’t protected her.
Dream’s container held mostly clothes, some books, and six journals. I took all his journals. It looked like he wrote in them every day for three years. Hopefully, the entries would give some insight to what happened to them. I opened one and a couple photos fell out.
I picked them off the floor. A tall guy with long, dark hair with his arm around a pretty petite blonde girl. They stood by a pool wearing bathing suits. The girl was very tan and gorgeous. Was this Sunny? I flipped the photo over: Dream and Sunny, 2016.
