I didn't lose interest in the idea of snaking them out. I just didn't say squat. I ended up at Phil's, something about his parents were at the VFW. Scott turned a hair dryer on my head while my wet clothes went through their clothes dryer. I couldn't tell whether he was being extra nice because he was scared shitless I would snake to the cops, or because it was some strange part of the fish-frat honor code to put your victims back together after you destroy them.
Vince had showed up, agreeing to drive Scott back to the wharf and help out. He said he couldn't find Tony. He lit cigarette after cigarette off the butt of the one before. He kept commanding me to swear I would not talk. I found my middle ground this time—something between a lie of agreement and a blunt "fuck off." He seemed to take my many "Calm down, Vince" requests as a commitment to this cover-up. But every once in a while he would lose faith and threaten me with something else if I told. We went through rape, torture, fifteen ways of dying, including being dragged behind Tony's truck.
It was hard to feel like any of it was real. For one thing, it got more and more hard to hear. My eardrums felt like they'd been sliced with icy razors, all the way down to my spine. No matter how much Scott blew that hot hair dryer into them, they would not stop stinging. Just about all I could hear was my own breathing, which rattled worse and worse, as if all the salt I had swallowed was turning to glue in my windpipes. All their talking seemed like a play on some stage, and I was watching from my seat in the balcony.
As I walked back into my house, there was no thought yet of telling, just curling up in a ball and forgetting that life or death or my ears or throat existed. My mom was passed out in her TV chair. A glass filled only with melting ice sat beside her. A section of Tina's homecoming dress was in her lap, covering her like a blanket. It felt good to see something normal.
32
I realized my mother was calling my name for about the fourth time. She had stuck the phone right under my eyeballs.
"Claire! It's your father. I want you to talk to your father!"
I reached my arm out from under my bedsheet. Wanted me to talk to my father? Okay. This is a dream. But it hurt so bad to bring sounds out of my burning throat, I knew I was awake.
"Hello?"
"Your mom says you can't swallow and you wouldn't get out of bed to go to school. She says you haven't gotten out of bed all day."
"Day's it?" I asked, eyes rolling toward my radio alarm. Three-seventeen.
"It's Monday. Afternoon. Your mom says you've got a black eye, and she noticed a bunch of stitches in your forehead, and you won't say where they came from. I could only tell her that this weekend you had a little bandage on your forehead, and I assumed you were covering a zit. She called Macy, who said she hadn't seen you since yesterday afternoon, but that you're losing your mind and you need help."
In my fog I could only reason that Macy's words were accurate. I said, "Yeah."
"What happened?"
Something horrible ... and if I stay awake I'll think of it. I started to say I was going back to sleep, but I started coughing up more salt and seaweed. Somehow the seaweed had been coming up white all day. I hocked another salt blob into a tissue my mother handed me. She was cursing and whining under her breath.
She had taken the phone again. "And if it is pneumonia, what the hell am I supposed to do? ... I don't drive off the island, Chad. I don't do bridges ... I mean exactly what I said! I don't do bridges! ... Because! They make me feel like I'm going to faint! ... Of course I love my child. But the bridge is icy ... I just can't do it, Chad ... Do you want me to kill her by driving off the bridge?"
"Gimme the goddamn phone." I stuck my razor-blade ear back to the receiver. I was on autopilot, didn't know what I was saying. "Dad, I need to leave here."
Silence. He and Suhar wouldn't want me back so soon....
He said, "Claire, you sound really sick. I think, all things considered, you should come up to Children's. I'll drive down and get you and take you to their emergency room. We'll call Dr. Haverford, just to let him know you're on your way. It's probably just a bad cold. But ... we'll do the safe thing."
Thinks I'm relapsing. Maybe I am now. Maybe I don't care. From the corner of my eye, I could see Mom taking little shaky breaths. She betrayed me last night. And now she wouldn't split the driving with my father, even after watching me cough up a lung. Last straw.
"Dad, I told Mom I was in trouble last night. She wouldn't believe me. I almost died—"
"Oh, that's bullshit, Claire! Almost died!" She swung for the phone, but it was a weak swing. I held it to the side, then put it back to my ear again, coughing Elmer's glue.
"Yeah, I almost died. So guess what? I'm going to call those DYFS people on Mom. I'm going to tell them to tote her off to rehab. She can quit drinking, or I'm not staying here."
I hazily recalled DYFS from school, because some kids threatened to call DYFS when their parents hit them. It was the Division of Youth and Family Services, the Gestapo around here for parents who suck. Most kids were just blowing off steam. But it felt so good to say it, I decided I would actually do it. A rush of tiredness blew off me as I listened to my dad stammer.
"Well, you know, you're always welcome with us, if, uhm," he stammered. "We'd have to look for a bigger place. That could take a month or two."
I could hear in his tone that Dad didn't have the money to move, didn't want to move.
"I don't need you and Suhar! I'll live on the street." I held the phone away from my mom for a second time, then brought it back as her hand retreated. "And I'll turn you in along with her, just because you suck, too. Why in the hell did you and Mom get married? What were you thinking?"
He was silent, Mom was a gasping lunatic, all crying and shit. She wanted to go to rehab about as much as I wanted to be out of my all-day dreamland.
He finally said, "The marriage was a mistake. But you weren't. I will come down for you, take you to Children's. Can you pack a few clothes? It'll take me about two hours to get there, what with the ice. After they look you over, if they let you go home, Suhar and I will consider..." Blah-blah.
I could hardly hear him over my mom's blasphemies. I muttered some thanks, hung up, and turned to her. "If you don't shut up this second, I will call DYFS, and you will go to rehab."
She didn't lunge for the phone this time but put her hand over her mouth to stifle herself. I was surprised she quit fighting that easily. Remorse ... Yeah, she feels it.
"Get out of my room. Please."
"Well! I still love you!" she announced.
A guilt fest. That's a real thoughtful contribution, Mom. I only found enough voice for middle ground. "I love you, too. Stop guilting me, because I am so sick of it that I would scream if I could. Leave me alone."
She actually went out, slamming the door. I hauled myself off the bed. My chest weighed a thousand pounds. I coughed up another hill of salt into three tissues. Claire, you probably do have pneumonia. Just take it easy.
But my body felt lighter, just from standing up to my mom's crap for once. Next on my list—straightening out Mrs. Garver. I grew more awake, focusing on how I might screw up her life next. My mom belonged in rehab. Mrs. Garver belonged in jail.
Despite my gut instincts screaming not to think about him yet, I imagined Lani's face, with that pillow he held up in front of him yesterday. I spoke to the imaginary Mrs. Garver while I threw clothes on.
"You thought raising a kid was like having a merry Christmas. Well, guess what? You get what you get. You should have moved to the city. You don't let your kid run off and call it a solution, you trash heap."
I pulled a sweatshirt over my head. My chest felt lighter, though my black eye blinked thick and awkward. I would go tell off Mrs. Garver, because that thought gave me more strength than lying around pretending the world didn't exist. I shoved my feet into my heaviest sneakers, being that ice and snow were starting to paint a very white picture in the windy outdoors. Indian summers, they end with a curse. This tim
e it's an ice storm—and me. Look out, I'm a witch. My cheerleading jacket was somewhere at the bottom of the harbor. I felt strangely glad, pulling my winter parka out of the back of the closet.
I came silently down the stairs, dizzily gripping the rail but holding my arms out from my sides so as not to make any swishing noises with the parka. But my mom was in the kitchen, anyway, cracking ice. I guessed being threatened with rehab was upsetting enough to make some people get drunk. I thought that was funny, but there was nothing to laugh about. I cracked the door in the living room and slithered outside.
Fortunately, the icy wind was at my back. It half pushed me to Lani's house. I shivered with only slight fever chills, breathing okay by stopping to hack up white seaweed every block. While I didn't feel like running a marathon, the cold air seemed to clear my head a little more, make me sharper. Thoughts started to strike me.
First, the guys' lucky streak was holding. They were too lucky. I realized a body could not have washed up to implicate them. It's not like the wharf is crawling with fishermen at first light, but enough people are around that even trained assassins would not try to hide or dispose of a body. Just cleaning the deck and fixing the net without being seen was risky enough for those guys. A body found by them or anybody else would have gotten around the island faster than lightning. My mom would have been in my room blathering loudly about it by eight o'clock in the morning.
So at this point, if I decided to not let Vince's threats terrify me and I went to the cops, it would be my word against a bunch of guys who would stick together until death did them part. What if the cops saw through "smoke and mirrors"? They might see what they wanted to see. Could our cops ever work toward bringing justice for Lani, who supposedly wore nightgowns, against a group of their own swarthy fishermen's kids?
I had no answers. I was only clear on how I'd spent my life being mad at no one, and all of a sudden, I didn't know who to kill first.
I would take Mrs. Garver by the throat and scream at her, for starters. I realized that I couldn't exactly tell her off and get the effect I wanted without spitting out the whole truth about last night. She probably noticed that Lani had not been around. But being that he'd spent two years on the streets, she probably wouldn't be thinking the worst. She might have even thought he ran away again and felt relieved!
But after I told her, I would have to tell the police. I'd have to tell them fast, because if she got to them first and got them to believe her son might be dead, I could look like an accessory to murder. The situation was growing very complicated. At this point it just made me angrier. My gut told me I was doing the right thing to go to her. I hoped my gut was right for once.
I pulled my finger off the doorbell, resisting the temptation to make it buzz endlessly. I could hear footsteps, and some middle-ground message blared loudly through my head.
Mrs. Garver opened the door slowly. Her eyes were very red and swollen. Her fingers shook as she wiped the bottom of her nose with a tissue. She had been crying. A lot. It shocked me, and I stood rooted, groping for the meaning. My body loosened as relief struck me. Maybe Phil or Scott had gotten too guilty a conscience and had gone to the cops. Obviously, she knew. A visit from the cops was the only explanation I could think of. While I surely wasn't up for sobbing out my grief yet, and especially not with her, I did feel a great weight lift off me. This meant I wouldn't have to worry about Vince's threats. His own friends had turned on him.
"Claire. His best friend. I'm so glad you came." She ushered me into the house, dropping her tissue without even noticing. "I guess you heard what happened."
Heard what happened? I tried to conjure up a version of last night that she might have heard that hadn't included me. Phil or Scott must have been good enough to keep me out of whatever they told the police. I still hoped they'd go to jail. But being that Mrs. Garver knew the awful truth, I lost the urge to yell at her.
"I just wanted to, uhm, make sure you were okay," I heard myself blurt out.
Her swollen eyes flashed of something like gratitude and relief. "You thought of me? Claire, you really are a nice, sweet girl." She sniffed with a trembly smile. "You are the first person on the island to show me any thoughtfulness. I've been alone here all day! My sister's coming. But with the ice and all, she won't get here until five o'clock."
She shut the door and looked at my face like she was seeing it for the first time. "Your eye ... what happened?"
I muttered some obvious bull, like that it looked worse than it felt. But I could have said anything and it wouldn't have mattered. She realized her tissue was gone and focused on bringing another from her packet with shaky fingers, like it took all of her concentration. Then she pointed at a seat in the living room as if she had already forgotten her own question.
I plopped down on the couch, and fought to get my parka off because I was sweating Elmer's glue from head to toe. The house felt like a fiery hell. Artificial winter heat had been turned too high, too suddenly, and all the windows were closed now.
She watched me toss the coat beside me, swaying a little in her chair. It wasn't until that point—when I was seated with my coat off, and basically trapped—that I realized what I had gotten myself into.
"Claire, last time, he left a beautiful note! He must be so mad at me this time! He didn't even bother leaving a note." She twisted the tissue around as a chill shot through my sweats. "He's always written to me on holidays and birthdays. But he's never given an address where I could write back to him. There is so much I want to say! I thought this time I had more time, now that his father isn't here chronically stressing about him. I thought things would be more peaceful around the house, even if Lani got in trouble with kids at school like he used to. I thought it would ... still work. Claire, if he contacts you? There's something I want you to tell him for me. Okay?"
I thought I might piss my heart into my pants as it fell. She thought he had run off again. She had no suspicion of foul play. And yet, she was this grief stricken. She had cared, even if she was incredibly stupid in ways. I realized I would have to be the one to tell a heartbroken parent that the news was a hundred times worse. I couldn't think of even how to begin. But she prattled on and on like she was relieving herself of some huge burden she just couldn't carry anymore.
"I know he is private, and streetwise, and very stubborn, and determined to live his life his own way. Last time, I had probably thirty people looking for him, not including the police. If he has not contacted you, I'm sure he probably will. I want you to promise me that you'll give him a message."
Shock clamped my throat shut. The pressure must have formed the tears that squirted out of my eyes. It felt like a jet stream, blinding me, but she was too blinded herself to notice, I guessed, because I heard her sob.
"Tell him I love him. Tell him I was never, ever sorry we adopted him. Tell him that when I said mean things to him ... it wasn't because I hated him. It was that ... I was scared. I liked him just the way he was, but other people were always hurting him, and I just wanted to prevent some of it. I was scared if he didn't change, that he would get in some very serious trouble."
I jerked my tears away as my jaw hung. Lady, you have no idea. You have no idea, and I have pneumonia. And if I tell you, I will drop dead right here. It was not my job to do this, I reasoned. I had walked into such a different scenario than what I had expected. I couldn't even remember what I had expected, or what had inspired me to come here. Who knew what crazy ideas sick people could come up with?
I decided to pick at my stitches, twisting them, the little pinches keeping me alert.
"If you know where he is, and he doesn't want you to tell me, I understand that, too. Tell him I won't go looking for him again. I'm the big-time loser in that battle. Now he's even older and smarter. Maybe he was right last time. Maybe in running away he was fulfilling some destiny! But Claire? I want him to visit me! I can't stand the thought of not seeing him for another two years. Or even a few months."
&nbs
p; I felt one stitch unravel, and I pulled ... pulled again. Weird, feeling it run out your flesh ... tickles. I stared at the suture in my palm, enough sanity left to look up at Mrs. Garver, wide-eyed. She was staring blankly over my shoulder. I could have taken off all my clothes and danced naked and she wouldn't have noticed. Interesting scenario. Two crazies in one room. Talking like they're both sane.
On she blathered as I forced myself not to tug on any more sutures. "... agency near my husband's military base in Texas ... plans adoptions of older children—children who had been orphaned or had escaped from the black market in Mexico. It was easier to get one of those children than a baby. We wanted a child so badly ... I had been a schoolteacher. We figured we could handle an abused child—we would do whatever it took. And we would be doing some child a favor, who didn't have much other hope."
"That's ... nice." I half listened, trying to tell myself I would have to come clean. But my gut wanted to bide for time. To get it, I thought of a question I'd really been wanting the answer to.
"So ... how old was Lani?"
My heart clattered as I heard was instead of is filling the air. Fortunately she didn't notice, and just laughed a little, like some memories were managing to improve her mood temporarily. "Instead of a birth certificate, we only got a certificate of citizenship. The doctor judged by his teeth and bones he was about seven. We always celebrated his birthday on the Fourth of July! He wanted a summer birthday, so that's what we had. He loved the beach, the ocean. We would have all our relatives down for the entire day."
"You've had an unusual life." "Yeah, it's an epic saga." "I want to hear about it." "Some other time..."
There was a lot about Lani's life I would never know, I realized, and I fought to keep the overwhelming sadness from hitting me like a sledgehammer. I couldn't deal with too many thoughts on what-it-means-to-be-dead—not on top of everything else right now. I tried to focus on my gratitude for knowing a few things. I knew now that he celebrated his birthday on Independence Day. He'd been such a free spirit. Damn, if that wasn't appropriate.
What Happened to Lani Garver Page 26