The Forgotten Hours

by Katrin Schumann

  “Um, okay,” she answered, realizing instantly that this call was a terrible mistake. To ask How have you been? when the last time they spoke was before her father was sent to prison was like asking a man who was about to be strung up on a tree what he’d miss in life. It was mortifying, utterly inadequate. “And you? How are you?”

  “I’m fine. I’m good. Busy, you know.” A pause. “Damn, Katie. Wow. This is hard.”

  “I . . . well, yeah. I’m at the cabin again, at Eagle Lake.”

  “Oh shit,” he said.

  “My dad’s getting, um, released soon. I’m cleaning up, going through things. And I . . . I was . . .” She stopped, uncertain how to phrase her question about the letter, about his testimony. The beginnings of a headache crept along the bone above her eyes, pressing down on the delicate nerves.

  “Katie, look, I never felt great about how we said goodbye. And I never got to tell you how bad I felt, you know? About the whole fucking shitshow.”

  There was something comforting about his cursing, as though he were still a teenager and not a man. It took her back to when she too had been careless and unconstrained, when words would pop out of her mouth instead of stewing inside her. She got up and walked to the window. Now that she was actually talking to Jack, her obsession with what had happened between the three of them that night seemed misplaced. How had they influenced what had happened? But she couldn’t shake the feeling that Lulu had done something, said something, decided to take back control by wreaking havoc.

  “So where’re you, Katie?” Jack asked.

  “I said—I’m at the cabin,” Katie answered. “At Eagle Lake.”

  There was a noise on the other end of the line, like a door slamming. “No, I meant where do you live?”

  “Manhattan.”

  “No kidding . . .” There was static, a brief lapse in the phone connection. “So do I.”

  “Look. I found all this stuff,” she tried again, but they were cut off by more static.

  There was a distant honking sound and the screech of brakes. He was in his car, driving. “Katie, I—can I call you right back? I’m headed to a showing. The traffic’s insane. Is that okay? This is your cell, right? I’ll be like ten minutes.”

  “Sure, yeah,” she said. “Call me.”

  But her phone did not ring again that night. She waited an hour before trying him again. Voice mail clicked on instantly. Furious, she checked his number and punched each digit in again, more carefully this time. No answer.

  16

  She was in bed the next morning when her phone buzzed on the covers beside her; the movement woke her, but only slightly, like the touch of a mosquito on a warm shoulder—only enough for her to emerge momentarily and then be dragged under again.

  The sheets were saturated with the smell of what some chemist in a lab somewhere considered to be the essence of wildflowers. Deep, deep in the static-filled gray of sleep, she opened her eyes every now and then to question where she was, to breathe in and register the strange competing smells, before being pulled again into an uneasy yet irresistible sleep. It took her a long time to open her eyes and realize that she was in the bunk room at Eagle Lake again. The residue of the late-night sleeping pill she had taken after trying Jack again and again coursed through her body, and she struggled to understand that the day had begun without her. Making an immense effort, she uncovered her bare legs, and the cold air hit her like the slap of a rattled parent. The next time the phone buzzed, her eyes opened wide, and she stared at the slats on the bottom of the top bunk. The mattress above her was stained with years of children’s accidents.

  She’d missed a call from Zev, but when she tried to call him back a few minutes later, it went straight to voice mail, as though his phone had run out of juice. Briefly, she thought about calling her old friend Radha, who knew a few bits and pieces of what had happened. It was strange that no one, not even her father, knew what she was up to. Katie badly wanted to escape her own mind, put into words what she had set in motion by coming here. But she also knew that she wouldn’t be able to explain this to Radha or anyone else without risking their pity—or even worse, much worse, the greed of their prurient curiosity. She did not think she could tolerate that, so she waited to see if Jack would call her back.

  The sight of the yogurt and bread she had bought yesterday repelled her, but she downed two cups of black coffee—she’d forgotten to buy milk. Thankfully, David would be there soon. Goose bumps spread over her legs and arms as she opened the front door and stood on the lintel, looking out and yawning widely. Across the gravel driveway and beyond the stand of pines was an undulating meadow, unkempt and woodsy, and then the Big House, grand in size but modest in design. Three stories, shingled, with dark-green window frames and a red roof. From here she could see the back porch—the new owners had done something with the stone patio—and into the kitchen. That was where her grandmother had slaved over her apple crumbles and shepherd’s pie. Grumpy had complained about all the maintenance on the house even though they had all known he loved it. John used to spend hours perched on ladders helping his father-in-law clear out a gutter or crouched down by some worn tread, paintbrush in hand. There had always been something that needed fixing.

  David arrived an hour late—no surprise there. All his life he’d run behind, always late for the school bus, eyes crusty with sleep, teeth unbrushed. Today he looked again like he’d just rolled out of bed, hair flattened, one blue sock and one argyle. Katie jumped right into his car with him (a tiny Jeep, borrowed from a friend, with a cloth roof and no sides), and they drove over to the other side of the lake, to the Nicholses’ house.

  “How do you feel?” Katie asked as they drove along the dip by the club, where the road descended toward a small bridge over the dam. Through the trees, the clubhouse with its green siding was just visible.

  “A bit tired, but otherwise pretty decent,” he said.

  She sighed. “No, Davey, I mean about being here.”

  “Pretty weird. Yeah. But I did come back once with Mum. You’d gone off to college already. She brought me up here one day, kind of like to say goodbye. But I hated it—I mean, it was so bad. It’s always been the two of them here together, you know? And he was gone. I cried all the way back home.”

  “Ugh, sounds awful,” she said. “I never came back even once.”

  “And Mum cried too. I think that was the worst part. She kept talking about how people should live with ‘integrity.’ Like we hadn’t already known that. I think that might be the first time I ever saw her cry. It was totally fucking unnerving.”

  When Katie was little, she’d been fascinated by the way her mother grimaced, pulling her lips down over her teeth so she could get the eyelash curler in the right place on her eyelids. How she’d put on John’s worn-out shirts from the office, tying them at the waist, making them look sexy with a pair of jeans and some sandals. Katie had imitated her voice, how her mouth cupped her tongue, her lips narrow and often pursed. But her mother had so often seemed impatient with her. She’d sigh as she squirted out some extra face lotion when her daughter asked, or she’d snap at her to go play when Katie stared too hard at how she was filling in her eyebrows or sticking Gram’s diamond studs in her ears. Katie always had the sense that her mother expected something more from her, that Katie had failed a test without even knowing she was taking one. But she never figured out what it was her mother really wanted from her, and eventually she gave up trying to find out.

  Constance Nichols was sitting on the front porch of her house, wearing an oversize straw hat and a red kimono and reading a book. Her skin was very pale, almost bluish, her neck long and elegant. She seemed out of place in the woods. Katie remembered her from before: she always sat in the shade, and even when she swam, her arms and legs were covered. She looked up warily and walked across the porch as they rolled in.

  “David? Is that David Gregory?” Constance asked as David and Katie climbed out of the Jeep.

 
“Mrs. Nichols,” said David, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “Good to see you again. You remember Katie, my sister? How are you? Is Joshua around?”

  “Joshua?” Katie asked.

  “Our younger son,” Constance said. “Brad’s brother. He works at the gardening supply store now, down in Blackbrooke. You know the place?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” David said. He ran his hands over his hair, but it sprang up between his fingers. “Nice.”

  Constance folded her bony hands in front of her. “We’re very happy about it.”

  “So Katie says you have the Falcon. That’s crazy—I had no idea.”

  “Oh. Well, yes. Your mother decided she would rather just, you know. Keep it, for when . . . for later.” Her eyelids fluttered. She looked stricken, as though to even mention John Gregory’s name would break some unspoken rule.

  “That’s so kind of you,” Katie said. “Thank you. Uh, my father, he asked us to see if we could try to get the car going.”

  “Ah,” Constance said. “He’s being released, is he?”

  Katie’s cheeks went hot. “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Well, dear, it hasn’t been driven in forever, but who knows. I’ll wrestle up that key.” When she returned and handed it over, she held Katie’s eye. “What good kids you are. How loyal. Your father is a lucky man.”

  The garage was little more than a lean-to behind the main house, a gray clapboard structure with broken doors.

  “Did you know he was my first kiss, that kid Joshua?” David hissed at his sister. He helped her heave open one of the doors and then dusted his hands off on his jeans. “Perfectly nice guy, just a little wacko.”

  “How old were you, like, five?”

  “Yeah, I know.” David laughed. “We all have to start sometime, don’t we?”

  In front of them, a blue tarp stretched out over the car, lumpy and covered in debris from the rafters. There was a fluttering in the corners, a frantic flapping, and something darted above their heads before escaping through the open doors. David yanked the tarp off the back end of the car, sending particles of dust flying into the air. With two hands he hauled the cover up over his head and folded it back on itself, releasing the powerful smell of damp corners, cracked leather. Nesting animals with their hard-won scraps. Rotting pine needles and something chemical.

  Both of them stood still for a while, surveying the scene. The car was still as bright as nail polish. The chrome bumper was rusted but intact, both tailpipes shooting out like exclamation points above the packed-dirt floor. The candy-red taillights like jewels set into a silver mount, the dash of the Falcon insignia connecting them, the word “FALCON” spaced out, rusty with the passing of years.

  John had polished this car every weekend during the warm-weather months. During the winter he had parked it in the heated garage at West Mills. In the summers, the roof had always been down, kids clambering with wet feet over the back seat. Now the roof was up, but the windows had been left lowered. Katie looked toward the Nicholses’ house, dappled in the shade like a hen’s egg. Constance was standing on the listing front porch, sun hat in hand, watching them. “She’s sorta creepy,” she said under her breath. “Staring at us like that.”

  “She’s okay,” David said. “She was really good to Mum after the trial. They were kind of friends.”

  Katie sidled into the darkness of the garage and tried the passenger door, but it wouldn’t budge. The roof’s sagging fabric was clogged with pine needles and mouse droppings. Together they hauled it back like a huge black tongue, something diseased or contaminated. For what seemed like a long time, they both stood looking at the leather seats, graying from years of disuse. Coldness emanated from the interior, combined with the faint smell of mold.

  Cautiously, Katie leaned forward and slid into the passenger seat. David clambered into the back and began rooting around under the seats. He held up a sneaker and a T-shirt. “There’s tons of shit back here. There’s even some empties. Schlitz, for Christ’s sake. We’ve got to clean this out.”

  “First we gotta get it rolling,” Katie said. “Dad’ll be so happy.”

  “And that’s the most important thing, right? That he’s happy.”

  She stopped in midmotion. “You being sarcastic?”

  “No, no. I get it. It’s just . . .” He shook his head, frustrated. “I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like everything revolves around him. If he’s here, if he’s not, whatever, it’s always about him.”

  “Davey . . .”

  “I know. Sorry. I’m just saying what I think.”

  The ignition wouldn’t turn at all. David went into the house and came back with some olive oil, a handheld brush, and a few plastic bags. They tried again; now the key turned, but there was no sound from the engine. He peered under the hood and swept away some debris.

  “This thing’s a mess,” he said. “We probably need to get it towed.”

  Katie looked up a garage in Blackbrooke that she remembered her father using when the car kept stalling one summer. They would tow it into town and see if they could get it running. “This is going to cost us a fortune,” she said when she hung up.

  “Let’s at least get the junk out,” he said.

  Katie noticed something David was holding. “What’s that?”

  “It was stuffed under the front seat.”

  Curious, she took the rag from him. Shaking it out, she held it up in front of her. The material was thin, and even in the stippled light of the woods, it was almost transparent, a faint rosy pink from years of being wet and drying and then getting wet and dry again. Holes by the neck and short capped sleeves. This T-shirt was familiar to her: It had been left countless times, soaking wet, on the floor in the laundry room. It had been hung on the line to dry. It had been worn by Katie, and once even by David, who had only taken it off when John had remarked on pink being a strange color for a boy to wear. It was crinkled and dirty. The blue print on the front was so faded as to be almost illegible, but she knew what it said.

  It said Hawaii in bubble letters. Lulu had been wearing it that night, the last night of summer.

  17

  Holding that flimsy material in her hands, Katie could almost smell Lulu, feel the texture of her skin, see her impish frown. How had her father gotten hold of that T-shirt? Maybe he had gone swimming with Lulu while Jack and Katie were at the Dolans’ house, but what—if anything—did that mean? Maybe her father had played a trick on Lulu—snatched her clothes away while she was in the water. It could have been entirely harmless. But Lulu had been upset when Katie found her at the dock. None of this was adding up.

  “This is Lulu’s,” she said to her brother.

  “Oh,” David said. “We should just throw it away, right?”

  “I mean, Lulu was wearing it that night. You know? During the square dance?”

  He cocked his head to one side. “Shit, that’s weird, right? Why would it be in the car?”

  “That’s what I’m wondering.”

  “Look, all this rooting around? It’s not going to end well.”

  “What do you mean? Why not—do you know something?”

  “Nothing more than you do. I promise,” he said. “Really. But . . . but I don’t know. I have a bad feeling. I just do.”

  “Well,” she said, cramming the T-shirt into the trash bag, “I guess at this point what we feel isn’t really all that relevant, is it? He’s our father, and we love him, and he needs our help.” Even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t really that simple. Yes, she loved him. Yes, he needed help. But she also knew that to move forward, she was going to have to keep going backward. Stars specked the black beneath her lids as she rubbed at her eyes. It felt as though she hadn’t slept in days. She couldn’t explain it to David, or she didn’t want to—at least not yet, not until she knew more. He had his own path to take, and she didn’t feel like justifying herself to him.

  Armed with the case number, which she found among the papers in the pirate box, Kat
ie went back to the clerk’s office at the courthouse later that day, after David left for his concert. The woman with the glasses told her to come back in an hour, and when Katie returned, they had located the folders relating to her father’s case, which did in fact seem to include the transcript and some of the ensuing legal paperwork regarding the appeal. They pointed her toward a dingy room next to the office in which two metal desks sat back-to-back, covered in papers. There was a broken chair leaning against the wall, and the blinds over the windows were slanted at an angle. An enormous copier lurked in the corner. Periodically, harried clerks rushed by and glanced in, but otherwise she was left undisturbed.

  The transcript was like a screenplay for a movie, except there were no italics saying, “The defendant leans back and rubs his eyes, his shoulders stooped.” Or “The accuser begins to sob uncontrollably, her hair falling in her face.” Instead, there were breaks in continuity. Questions stopped, and there was a blank half page, and when it resumed, it seemed something had happened—something wordless that the court stenographer did not put down on paper. And those details were what crowded Katie’s imagination. She saw her mother in her ugly blue suit, a blank expression on her face; she saw how she must have turned toward Katie’s father every now and then, making an effort to appear firm, unflustered. John sitting there, believing that this would all work itself out, that it had to work out because this girl Lulu Henderson was clearly troubled and jealous, and most important of all, she was lying.

  Pages and pages of testimony; Katie flipped ahead. She would read everything her father had said and every word of Lulu’s testimony, but first she had to see if Grumpy had remembered things correctly or not.

  Then she found it.

  Q. Good afternoon. Could you please state your name for the court?

  A. Yeah. It’s, my name is Jack.

  Q. Jack . . . ?

  A. Jack Benson.

  Q. Can you tell us how you came to be at Eagle Lake Park that summer? Just some background so we understand.