CHAPTER 13

It turned out that finding Sandy was very easy. He was on social media and worked at a bank in San Diego. He was younger than my uncle – in his 50s and had remained single.

I knew he looked familiar, but I could not tell where from. I stared at the gray-haired man on the computer screen for a long time. 

“Hi. My name is Jo de Gaulle. I am looking for a Sandy Jones…?”

“This is he,” he replied curtly. He was not the type to screen his calls but he also hated talking to people he did not know.

“I am a friend of a friend’s.”

“Ok…” the two syllables came out very slowly.

“Let me just say it – I am Jo Boero and my uncle is Ray.”

“You just said your name was de Gaulle,” he said and did not even seem to have digested what I had said.

“I was adopted after…”

“Yeah.” He said letting me know I did not need to go on. Not much of a conversationalist.

“Can we talk for a few minutes, sir? I am trying to piece the story together – the story of that night.”

“No.”
 

And just like that, he hung up. Not a single question about Ray or his whereabouts or how he was. Nothing.

That night, I sat awake in my bed, thinking about the image I had seen on social media. I imagined the white hair contrasting with the brown skin and the sparkly eyes that he had. So handsome and refined looking. It was hard to imagine him with my uncle. But, they say opposites attract. 

For some reason, I couldn’t get his face out of my head. I couldn’t stop wondering why he had been short with me. I could not stop thinking about the way that he had hung up on me.

Something just felt wrong. It felt so wrong, in fact, that I double-checked everything that I could to make sure I had found the right guy... and I had.

I dreamt of him that night. I kept seeing him everywhere I went. I was at the mall looking for a new sweater, and he was one rack over. I was at the gas station and he was the cashier. His face was on every human I saw in the dream. I awoke the next morning with a sense of overwhelming sadness that I could not quite explain. 

Upon arrival at the prison that day, the young guard with the man-bun was standing at the desk for visitors. I smiled and he smiled with recognition as I stepped up to the front of the line and told him my name and who I would be visiting. An older couple behind me in line gasped and whispered.

When the fire, and everything that went along with it, happened my uncle was on every news station in the country. It was BIG news. He had killed his entire family, after all, and we Americans eat that shit up. His name had become synonymous with evil. Maybe not to the degree of Charles Manson, but it was a similar phenomenon. My uncle knew this but being locked up made it easy for him to pretend that the whole world didn’t think he was a sick and demented murderer.

After checking in, I was led in. Purposefully, I made eye contact with no one around me. It would not be preferable to be recognized today. It was never preferable but specifically not today.

When I saw him walk through the door, I was shocked that I felt a small sensation of happiness. He smiled and winked. Winking made his face look even more crooked and screwy. I smiled back.