My Dark Places - James Ellroy [162]
Janet sent me a copy of the Hilliker family tree. It surprised me. I thought my grandparents were German immigrants. I don’t know where I got the idea. My ancestors had English names. My grandmother’s name was Jessie Woodard Hilliker. She had a twin sister named Geneva. The tree listed Hillikers, Woodards, Smiths, Pierces and Linscotts. They went back 150 years in America.
Ed and Leoda were dead. They couldn’t dispute my claim. I would have fought Leoda’s claim tactfully. My cousins barely knew my mother. I could let them in. I could share my mother superficially. I could hoard her dark heart for myself.
Cross Plains was a Madison suburb. Bill and I flew in to the Madison Airport.
Janet met us. She brought her husband, her youngest son and her daughter. I didn’t recognize her. She was 12 years old in ’66.1 didn’t see any Hilliker resemblance.
Brian Klock was 47. We shared the same birthday. Janet said Leoda prayed for me on Brian’s birthday. It was my birthday. She never forgot it. Brian was short and stocky. All the Klocks were short and stocky. Mindy Klock was 16. She played classical piano. She said she’d play some Beethoven for me. Casey Klock was 12. He looked like a rambunctious kid. The male Klocks had great hair. I expressed envy. Brian and Casey laughed. Bill eased right into the flow. He was the most deft social creature I’d ever known.
The Klocks drove us to a Holiday Inn. We took them to dinner downstairs. Talk flowed evenly. Bill described our investigation. Mindy asked me if I knew any movie stars. She mentioned her current flames. I said they were homosexual. She didn’t believe me. I ran down some Hollywood gossip. Janet and Brian laughed. Bill laughed and said I was full of shit. Casey picked his nose and played with his food.
We had a good time. Janet laid out the plan for tomorrow. We’d drive to Tunnel City and Tomah. We’d pick up Jeannie en route. I mentioned the pictures. She said she had them at home. We could see them first thing tomorrow.
We lingered over dinner. The food was strange. Every dish came with an order of melted cheese and sausage. I figured it was a regional aberration. The Klocks had regional accents. All their words were upwardly inflected. Ed and Leoda talked that way. Their voices came out of thin air. I couldn’t recall my mother’s voice.
We talked about her. Janet and Brian were reverent. I told them to loosen up a little.
The pictures were old. They were pasted into scrapbooks and pulled out of envelopes. I examined them at Janet’s kitchen table. The kitchen window overlooked the Wagner gravesite.
Most of the pictures were black & white and sepia-tinted. A few were late-’4os color. I looked at my ancestors first. I got a glimpse of Tunnel City, Wisconsin. I saw railroad tracks in every outdoor shot.
My great-grandparents. A stern Victorian couple. They posed sternly. Candid snapshots didn’t exist then. I saw the Hilliker-Woodard wedding portrait. Earle looked like a gritty young man. Jessie was frail and lovely. She had a version of my face and my mother’s face and some features we didn’t inherit. She wore glasses. She had our small eyes. She gave my mother delicate shoulders and soft white skin.
I saw my mother. I followed her from infanthood to ten years old. I saw her with Leoda. Leoda stared at her big sister. Every picture framed her adulation. Geneva wore glasses. She had light red hair. She smiled. She looked happy. Her interior backdrops were spare. She was raised in a no-frills house. Her exterior backdrops were