Page 17 of Black Waters

I smiled even bigger. “Yeah, no words. Whit is Whit.”

“Just is.”

“She makes me feel… righteous?”

“I feel like she’s all I have, Link.”

I feel like she’s all I want.

Later that night, I had caught a couple of hours of sleep before it was Crash’s turn to rest. He already had his eyes closed when I asked, “I’ve been thinking. How is it that you remember so much about your brother when you were so damn young?”

His eyes struggled to open as he yawned. “I had a nanny who talked to me all the time—held me all the time. Reenah—at least I think that was her name.” Crash sounded wounded. “My mom wouldn’t let me talk about her once she was gone. Reenah was one of my most favorite people in the whole world. After feeling love like that… I don’t know, it was like my life was full of light and easy to remember. I’m told she had me talking by fourteen months, that I was way ahead of other kids. She had the biggest brown eyes and was always telling me that my brother loved me, that when she wasn’t around to stay by him. So I did. Until… well, you know.”

“What happened to her?”

“I wish I knew. I wish she’d stayed with me. We came back from Russia with a tiny baby girl. The baby and our nanny were soon sent away.”

“Wait, what little girl?”

“Don’t have the answer to that either. I just remember my dad giving my mom something that made her seem out of it, so I had to hold this little crying baby in the airplane while my dad took care of my half-inebriated mom. Now, I know it was drugs that got my mom to stop crying over my brother’s death long enough to get us back to the States.” Crash’s face twisted in anguish. “She’s been hooked on heroin ever since.” He inhaled as if trying to shed the sad thought. “I also now know bottles aren’t made of something special like I thought at three. Every time I stuck that damn bottle in that baby’s mouth, she stopped crying.”

Whitney’s voice echoed in my mind. “Do you ever feel like you don’t belong?”

It was like puzzle pieces fitting perfectly together.

I sat up. “Crash, you told me last night that you went to Russia in April?”

“Uh, yeah. Why?”

I couldn’t believe it. “Whit has always claimed to be on the outside of her family looking in. Except for with Tim.”

“Link, clarify your chatter please. I’m exhausted.”

I couldn’t believe I had never thought of it before. “Whit’s birthday is April ninth, Crash.”

“So?”

I waited for Crash to catch up with my insane thoughts.

“What? You think that Franky—” Crash sat up in a hurry and was having a hard time keeping his voice to a whisper. “Link! That’s it!”

“Shh!”

“Tim! He kept saying—when he was dying, he kept saying I had to watch over his little T, his little treasure, because they won’t.”

I nodded. “Because of his age, Tim would have known his mother wasn’t pregnant. Whitney’s mom acts as if Whit is a piece of shit.”

“If Franky is adopted and has something to do with this, Tim knew his parents would hate her for it, for his death.”

It made perfect sense.

We both slowly looked up and stared into the dark room blanketing the girl from another country. Whit’s home was huge, and no one but Whit occupied it. Timothy had been right all along. Someone had to look after his little treasure because he knew his parents never had and—because of his death—never would.

“But why adopt her to just treat her like dirt?” I asked her parents, who couldn’t hear me because they were putting themselves and career ambitions first.

It was like Crash was remembering the plane ride, cradling a little screaming infant in his arms as he now rocked back and forth. “I lost my brother—then I got Franky? Are you telling me I held her—she—I held Franky when she was a baby?”

“I guess you have one over me, Crash. You held our girl first.”