“Well, I think it’s a mistake,” my father told me when I’d finished.
“I’m sorry?” I said. “I think it’s just what I need, actually.”
“No. You’ve been trying to escape from the world ever since Betsy died. What you should be doing now is trying to reenter life—not retreating from it further.”
“I think I know what I need to do a whole lot better than you do.”
“You’re allowing yourself to drown in your own self-pity, Jennifer,” my father said. He took off his glasses, pulled a tissue from a box on his desk, and started to clean them, saying, “You’ve managed to convince yourself that your pain and suffering are unique. That you deserve special consideration because of Betsy’s death. It’s time you started to understand that you don’t. God gives us all challenges—each according to his or her ability to meet them.”
He put his glasses back on, but then, as if to emphasize his point, he pushed them up onto his forehead and continued in great earnestness: “You have to begin to accept that, for whatever reason, what happened is part of his plan for you. You have to try your best to learn from it. To grow from it.”
“My daughter’s death was a total, horrible aberration against nature. How dare you try to tell me it’s some kind of life lesson?”
“Everything that happens under heaven is for a purpose, Jennifer. Even those things that seem the most reprehensible, that seem the most cruel.”
“Okay, sure. Whatever you say.” We’d hit a brick wall. I knew there was no point in continuing the conversation. We’d just go over and over the same ground, our positions hardening with each round. “Anyway—I thought you might want to know that I’ll be away for a while.”
“What you and Cal need to start thinking about,” my father said, as though he hadn’t heard me, “is having another child. That’s what I would advise. Have another child.”
Several people had told me the same thing. As if Betsy could be replaced. As if children were interchangeable. As if all I needed was a shiny new baby—like a toy or a pet—something to play with, something to hold. I shrank inside each time I heard this. How thoughtless people could be. Well-meaning, but clueless. That my own father would make such an insensitive suggestion seemed unconscionable to me. I could stand his holier-than-thou lectures. I had learned to tolerate his moralizing. But this went beyond that. This time he’d blundered into the darkest and most painful recesses of my sorrow. What I wanted was Betsy back. All I wanted was my happy, beautiful, perfect child restored to me.
“You know nothing about what I need!” I said, my voice shaking with anger. We’d had our fights before this, but I think my vehemence stunned him a little. His eyes widened and he sat up in his chair.
“That’s not true,” he began. “I like to think—”
“That’s just it. You think, but you don’t feel. You have absolutely no empathy. Aren’t you supposed to understand how to counsel and comfort people? Isn’t that supposed to be your job? All you know how to do is drive them away. No wonder Lilly walked out on you.”
There. I’d said it. I’d mentioned my mother’s name. For the first time in my life I’d said the one word that was absolutely forbidden in our household. Though Jude and I had always been rebellious and difficult, neither one of us had dared cross this particular line before. What had actually happened between my parents—why she left, why she never tried to get in touch with us again—we were never told. Yes, there’d been another man—but who he really was and where they might have gone . . . we’d been too afraid to ask. It was a subject covered over with such shame and hurt and misery that Jude and I were careful never to talk about it with anyone but each other. The few times I had the courage to broach it with my father, his face would go blank, and he’d say, almost invariably:
“She’s gone. That’s all you need to know.”
But her name was Lilly. And Jude and I carried her genes within us. And lately I’d felt what I believed to be her blood—her restless and perhaps unstable nature—rising up within me for the first time.
“Your mother,” my father said now, blinking rapidly. “Your mother—and I. What happened is between us.” I waited for him to say something more. To explain. But he just sat there, his hands folded in front of him on the desk. He’d always seemed so powerful to me. He’d seemed to loom above Jude and me, all knowing. The ultimate authority—and, therefore, for unruly girls like Jude and myself, the clear enemy. I was expecting a tirade from him now. One of his damning, definitive attacks. After all, I’d thrown down the gauntlet; I’d brought the battle right into his camp. But he seemed not to notice. Or to care. He looked shrunken. Diminished. I stood there, waiting for him to continue, but he was obviously lost in his own thoughts. I began to think he’d forgotten that I was there.
“Daddy?” I said. I realized that I blamed him for everything that had gone wrong in my life. “I’m leaving now.”
He looked up at that. He nodded.
“Right,” he said. “Now, remember what I told you.” But whether he was referring to Cal and me having another baby—or to my mother’s departure not being any of my business—I couldn’t say. I stood there a little longer, watching as he began to search around the top of his desk for something. Lifting up a book here. A sheaf of papers there. I turned and walked away. But, though I knew nothing about the contents of his heart, I knew his habits perfectly. I knew that eventually his right hand would graze the top of his head where he’d left his glasses. He’d finger them briefly. And he’d pull them back down onto the bridge of his nose. But by then I’d be gone.
19
Cal
I don’t remember when it started exactly. At some point, I guess a few days after Jenny left for her retreat, I woke up hungover one morning and decided to have a beer for breakfast. It was late February. The ground was still frozen rock solid under an inch or two of snow. Nothing doing work-wise. I’d sort of decided to stop going into the office until the weather warmed up a little; the place was costing a fortune to keep even halfway warm. I don’t know what the hell Kurt and I were thinking when we opted for electric heat. Except that we’d put the place up in the summer—when I guess a whole big oil-burner installation seemed like overkill. Our entire crew helped out with the foundation and framing. We had a big party when it was done. We’re having an office warming, I remember telling Jenny.
“So what kind of gift am I supposed to get for that? A box of paper clips? Or a stapler, maybe?”
It’s weird how much I miss talking to her. How much I miss all of her, considering how little we’ve actually seen of each other over the last couple of months. But there was something about knowing she was here. Even if we didn’t communicate all that much. For some reason, Jenny not being here makes Betsy not being here—and Betsy not ever coming back—seem all that much more real and horrible to me. It still feels so crazy and wrong. Every once in a while the whole thing just hits me all over again—like a blow to the heart.
So there I was at ten o’clock in the morning, literally crying into my beer, though the old hair of the dog was already taking a little edge off things. I gazed out the French doors where the snow-covered shrubs in Daniel’s garden looked like a bunch of kids playing under the blankets. Kurt and I used to do that when we were boys. Make this whole underground world out of my mom’s sheets and pillows. The two of us never needed much in the way of toys to have fun. Thinking about Kurt reminded me of what had happened the night before.
I’d been at the Cove. Lori had hooked up with me there after she was done at work. Denny and I had started a game of pool, and a group of us were hanging out in the back alcove. Someone ordered one of the Cove’s pizzas—those god-awful microwaved jobs that are edible only if you’re really hammered—and another round of beer. Denny and I won two games each, but I beat him double or nothing on the fifth. I pulled Lori to me, grabbing her backside, and planted a big kiss on her mouth.
I don’t know how long Kurt had been watching
us from the bar, but he obviously caught that much. He just looked over at me and shook his head. When I saw him pay up and leave a few minutes later, I told Lori to wait there and I followed him outside.
“What’s with you anyway?” I called after him as he walked toward his car. He turned around. “I’m not even allowed to have a good time anymore?”
“Is that what that was?”
“Jesus, Kurt. What are you now? Like, my babysitter?”
“I’ve been hearing things. I know Jenny’s away. And I’m thinking that maybe you should consider being a little more selective about who you’re seen with right now.”
“Oh, wait, no, I get it—you’re, like, my chaperone.”
“I’m, like, your brother. And I know what this Gannon thing means to you. I’m betting it means a little something to the Gannon folks, too. You think they’re not looking pretty carefully into what kind of guy you are—how you live? Maybe who you’re hanging out with? Don’t be an asshole, okay? I don’t want to see you any more fucked up than you are already.”
“Whatever you say, coach,” I told him, giving that last word a nasty little spin. It used to be Eddie who pushed my buttons. But just seeing Kurt, just hearing that slow and steady voice of fucking reason—burned the hell out of me.
“Okay,” Kurt said, sighing. “I think maybe I better tell you. I think maybe you should know what’s going on: they’ve been asking around.”
“They? Who they? What are you talking about?”
“Gannon. They’ve been asking questions. They hired an investigator who talked to Denny and Mark on the EMS. He’s called me a couple of times, too. I’ve been putting him off. But listen—the truth is? I’m not sure what I want to say anymore.”
“What do you mean? You say just what you said to Stephens, Stokes when they talked to you. Just what you’ve been saying since the Jeep turned over, for chrissakes! What’s all this pussyfooting? You need to be strong. You need to be clear. Stay on message. Mark and Denny will do the same.”
“Stay on message?” Kurt kicked at the ground, scattering gravel. “You realize, don’t you, that’s just another way of telling me to lie, right? And under oath? That means breaking the law.”
“Whoa! Who the fuck told me that what happened wasn’t my fault? Who told me that I passed the Breathalyzer with flying colors? You start wavering again, Kurt, and I say let’s just get all the liars lined up in little row here.”
“I thought I was doing the right thing then,” he said, shaking his head.
“You still are doing the right thing.”
“Oh yeah?” He turned his back to me as he walked to his car. “I’m glad you think so.”
After he left I went back into the Cove, but I blew Lori off. Not because of what Kurt had told me; I just wasn’t in the mood at that point. I came home angry and went to bed pissed—in more ways than one.
But now, as I sat at the kitchen counter, thinking back over what Kurt had said, I felt uneasy. The truth is, I haven’t been giving any real thought to Gannon’s side of things. The last time I met with Lester, he told me that everything’s on track with what’s called the “discovery” phase of the lawsuit. The firm’s been interviewing consultants, researching similar accidents, and preparing for our first big face-to-face with Gannon.
“I like to front-load my EBTs,” Lester said, referring to the Examination Before Trial meeting that was scheduled with the Gannon team in another week or so. “We’re sending them a list of expert witnesses that should, at the very least, make their blood run cold. That list, the sled-test material, public sentiment—well, put all that together and I just can’t imagine they aren’t quietly running some numbers for us already. My only concern at this point is Jenny, honestly. But at least we can tell them she’s under doctor’s supervision now.”
“Well, she’s not actually seeing a real doctor, remember,” I told him. “She’s at this spiritual retreat place. She’s doing meditation and—well, therapy like that.” It occurred to me that I really didn’t know a damned thing about where Jenny was or what she was doing, and that was just fine by me. Let Jenny be the one to stare at her navel and reflect on our loss. Whatever helped. But the last thing I feel like doing these days is examining my conscience. Shit happens—that’s my motto. The point is to move on, get off the dime, take back your life. Or, if you happen to have the opportunity, take on a bunch of bastards like Gannon and stick it to them.
“She’s in a facility,” Lester replied. “She’s getting help. That should satisfy their curiosity for now, at least. But I have a feeling we’re going to need to reassure them that she’ll be ready to sit down and give them her statement sometime very soon. You both understand that, right?”
I’d told him yes. I told him sure. But more and more I’m just parroting back whatever Lester, Janet, and Carl seem to want me to say. The line between fact and fantasy is as blurry now as the rest of my thinking. Once again, I tried to focus on what Kurt had told me about the Gannon investigator. About him interviewing Denny and Mark. They’re both friends of mine. Drinking buddies. But I felt another wave of anxiety when it occurred to me that I’d been with Denny just the night before and he hadn’t told me anything about being questioned by a Gannon investigator. Did that indicate it didn’t mean anything to him? Or that maybe it meant too much?
I’m not a suspicious person by nature. In fact, I’ve always prided myself on being open and straightforward. But lately, as Lester talks about getting ready for this run of white water with Gannon, I’ve been feeling kind of wired. And paranoid. I’m having a hard time knowing whom to trust. A few days after talking with Kurt, I overhead Lori telling a friend on the phone that I was spending the night with her at the trailer. Before she’d even hung the receiver up, I was yelling at her:
“What the fuck are you trying to do? Sink this whole deal for me? Nobody’s supposed to know we’re seeing each other.”
“But, Cal,” she said, tears already thickening her voice, “everybody already does. What am I supposed to say?”
“That it’s over,” I said, pulling my shirt back on. “That it never really was.” The truth is, this thing with Lori has played itself out. And I’ve known it for a while. I’m only seeing the down side of who she is these days, and it’s really just the flip side of what attracted me to her in the first place: her fleshiness, that little-girl voice, her willingness to do anything to please me. But mostly it’s that she doesn’t even come close to being Jenny. And that she doesn’t have a prayer of catching up.
“Oh no, Cal.” She began crying in earnest. “Please, please, please don’t say that! I’m sorry. I’ll call Amy right back and tell her—”
“No, Lori, don’t,” I said, pulling her to me. “I’m sorry. You’ve been great. You’ve been wonderful. But it’s not going to work long-term. And I think it’s really best we end this when it’s all still good. I’ve just got too much on my plate right now.”
“It’s that detective, isn’t it?” she said through her tears. “But I didn’t tell him anything except that we’re really close friends. I promise. And that you don’t have a drinking problem. No way.”
I remembered being upside down in the Jeep after it rolled. But that it seemed to me I was actually right-side up—and that it was the world that had upended. That’s how I felt driving away from Lori’s. Everything was wrong, though I was still right. I took Route 206 straight back through Covington, right past the Cove, up into the mountains. Jenny and I used to park up here when we first got together. I remember the musty smell of the Reverend Honegger’s old Camry, the reckless way that Jenny used to drive back then—windows down and her hair blowing all over the place, even on chilly nights. In those days, before Betsy was born, she was more daring and impulsive, hungry to start her own life.
“Let’s make a baby,” she told me one night when we’d been making out for almost an hour on a secluded little dirt road off the main highway. I could kiss Jenny forever and never grow tired of i
t.
“Oh, we will,” I’d assured her, pulling away. “But that’s it for now, or we’ll be sorry.” She seemed so much younger than me and precious in a way that no one else in the world had ever been before. And, except for Betsy, would ever be. As I drove east toward Northridge, those early days came rushing back at me—as though the windows were still down—as though Jenny was still sitting right there beside me. Being with Lori these past few months has helped me realize how special Jenny is. How lucky I was to find her—and win her. And it makes me more determined than ever to work things out with her. I still can’t understand—I probably never will—why Jenny’s been so dead set against the lawsuit, but I’m the first one to admit that grief can totally fuck you up. It can make you do some crazy stuff.
Lately, I’ve taken to fantasizing about what I’m going to do with the payout, how I’m going to divide things up. Eddie deserves a small cut, of course, and he’ll get it. But I intend to give Kurt even more. In fact, my secret plan is to pay off the balance of his mortgage—then walk up to him with a copy of the deed in my hand and say: “Thanks, Kurt, for standing by me the way you did.”
I’m taking Jenny on a trip around the world. And then, when we’re back home, I’m going to pay for her to go after her certificate in landscape gardening—something she used to talk about doing a lot before Betsy came along. She has a natural instinct for gardening, I think. Who’s to say that, with the right training, she couldn’t become a professional? Start her own business like Daniel? In many ways that little sun garden she put in on the side of the house is just as pretty as the pricier, elaborate hillside beds Daniel designed for us.
Daniel. He’d been in the back of my mind ever since I left Lori’s. And, as I hit the outskirts of Northridge, I realized that it was Daniel I was actually hoping to see there. I desperately needed a shot of his go-for-it attitude. But I didn’t know how late it was—past midnight—until I walked into Ernie’s. The bar was empty, though a couple of tables in the dining area were still occupied. That good-looking waitress I remembered from my last few times there, the one Daniel seemed to have something going with, was sorting receipts at the cash register. I walked over to her.
So Near Page 20