Invisible

by Carla Buckley

  “Need any help?” I asked, and she answered, “I got it.”

  Logan kneeled by his father. Clad in pajamas, his cheeks bright red, he smacked at his older brother’s hand reaching toward the top of the plastic chutes they were constructing. “Mine.”

  “Stop it, Logan,” Mike said. “It’s Mikey’s turn.”

  “How’s Peyton doing?” Joe asked me. “Is she still planning on going to school tomorrow?”

  “So far as I know.” I hadn’t followed her into the bathroom. I hadn’t reached out and taken her in my arms. Instead, I’d leaned against the thin wall separating my room from the room where she stood at the sink, and ached for all the things I’d lost, and all the things I’d never have again.

  “She was back at work, too,” Sheri said, walking in from the kitchen and depositing beer cans. She handed her boys sippy cups. “Logan, last one before bed.”

  It couldn’t be easy, regulating the fluid intake of a four-yearold. But Logan showed no signs of irritation as he took the cup and put it to his mouth.

  “Ronni said she did all right.” Sheri sat beside me.

  “Ronni Stahlberg?” I asked.

  “Ronni Williams, now. She and Peyton work together.”

  “Not for long.” Mike held a toy piece out to his older boy. “Peyton just got moved to Manufacturing.”

  Joe paused in mid-sip and lowered his beer. “She’s still a minor.”

  “It’s that big government contract they just got,” Sheri said. “Brian’s got to get the new line up and running quick. You better be careful, Dana, or he’ll talk you into coming to work for him, too.”

  Mike snapped a piece onto the plastic tower, his two boys bracketing him, absorbed in his every move. “Remember when he persuaded Viola Viersteck to run for mayor?”

  “Not his fault she took him seriously.” Sheri was watching the three of them. What did it feel like, to have built a family like this? Then I realized she was focused on the cup in Logan’s hand, her own drink held poised before her lips as though willing her child to do the same.

  “How did it go with the nurse today?” I asked.

  Sheri tore her gaze from Logan, turning to me with a smile. “Okay, I guess. Mike’s going to get trained, too, so we can help each other out. It’ll be good, won’t it, Logan, to have dialysis at home?”

  Logan had his head bent, his cap of blond hair falling forward and covering his features. He swiped a hand beneath his nose.

  “Don’t let him touch the marbles,” Mikey warned, but Joe was already leaning forward with a tissue from the box on the table.

  The box had been closer to me. I hadn’t even thought of it.

  “Do you think he’ll be okay to go in with you tomorrow?” Mike was saying.

  The small space was filled with worry and concern, all converging on one small child. “I think so,” Sheri said. “What do you think, Logan? Do you want to go play with the other boys and girls after dialysis tomorrow?”

  “Tell Mikey to give me that one,” Logan said.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” Sheri smiled at me. “I’ve got lasagna in the oven. It should be ready soon.”

  “Sure. So you work in a preschool?”

  She shook her head. “I’m in the daycare at Gerkey’s. It’s a sweet deal. Logan comes to work with me, and I can bring Mikey anytime I want, like when he has a break or school lets out early.”

  I started to take a sip of beer, then stopped. “When did Brian add on the daycare?”

  “Three years ago.”

  “The clinic and gift shop, too?”

  Joe hitched forward in his seat. “He remodeled the building all at the same time.”

  He knew what I was thinking. “I don’t know,” I said, more to myself than to him. “That can’t be the reason.”

  “What?” Sheri asked, bewildered.

  Joe had his gaze trained on me. “Dana’s been thinking Julie was right.”

  Martin, Julie, Lainie, and now Logan. Every one of them spent time in the plant. They lined up like tin soldiers, tap tap tap. “What if it’s Gerkey’s?” I said. I’d been too hasty dismissing it.

  “Sure.” Mike laughed. “Everyone knows how dangerous hand lotion is.”

  “No, no. It makes sense. Joe, we saw it from the air. The crops all around the plant are stunted.”

  “Julie already looked at Gerkey’s,” Sheri protested.

  “She did?” Julie had made no mention of it in her notebook. But it made sense that she would have considered Gerkey’s. After all, both Frank and Peyton worked there. She would have been frantic to cross it off the list.

  “She talked to Brian and she showed the numbers to the Department of Health.”

  “No one did any testing, though, right?”

  “Of course not.” Mike got to his feet. “Come on, boys. Let’s try this out.”

  “What would they have tested for?” Sheri asked.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t figured that out yet. It might be something buried in the ground. Did anything get dug up when Brian remodeled the plant?”

  “Come on, Dana. This isn’t like that movie Silkwood.” Mike handed a marble to Mikey, and the boy stood on his tiptoes to drop the marble into the topmost chute.

  It was true. That was the mental picture I had: the truck crunching onto the deserted gravel parking lot late at night, the men acting suspiciously about the big barrels of industrial waste loaded into the back of the pickup.

  Logan crouched by the toy, clapping his hands and waiting for the marble to finish its circuit.

  “Brian had regular contractors do the job,” Sheri said.

  “Maybe it’s the new building materials. They can make a person sick. If the place isn’t properly vented . . .”

  “Of course it is,” Mike said. “Your turn, Logan.”

  “How can you know if it’s vented?” I turned to Joe. “What if he used some of that drywall from overseas that contains formaldehyde?”

  Joe rubbed the back of his neck. “I never heard of drywall giving people renal failure.”

  “Could it be something in the lotion?” I pressed.

  “Check it out.” Mike snatched a bottle of lotion from the coffee table and tossed it at me. I caught it in midair. “See for yourself. There’s nothing toxic in there.”

  I scanned the label. Water, glycerin, stearates, parabens. “The first ingredient is water. Is it from Black Lake? If that’s contaminated . . .”

  “We use purified water.” He patted Logan on the shoulder. “Try again.”

  “No, not again.” Sheri got up. “He’s got to go to bed.”

  “Has Brian changed the formulations, gone with a new vendor?”

  Sheri wouldn’t even look at me. She bent and scooped Logan into her arms. “Mike, do you have Mikey?”

  “That’s got to be it,” I said with growing conviction. “It’s got to be the lotion. Everyone who’s gotten sick—”

  “That’s enough,” Sheri hissed.

  I looked at her, stunned by her tone.

  Sheri held Logan on her hip, her hand to his face, pressing his ear against her shoulder. “They can understand what you’re saying, you know. They’re not dolls.”

  I looked from her face to Mike’s angry eyes and put down my can.

  “Hey,” Joe interposed. “I think that little guy’s planning to take a marble to bed with him.”

  “No way,” Mike said. “Logan, you wouldn’t do that, would you?”

  Sheri was stiff as Logan lifted his head from her shoulder. “Maybe,” he said slyly.

  “He’s a magician,” Joe said. “He’s hiding it somewhere. I might just have to tickle it out of him.”

  Logan squealed, and Mikey jumped up and down. “Let me do it! Let me do it!”

  “All tickle monsters upstairs!” Mike commanded.

  Mikey pounded up the stairs, Mike and Sheri following, Logan giggling and trying to twist out of her grasp. Joe stopped on the stairs and looked down at me. “Hey,�
�� he said.

  “Joe! Joe!” Logan called.

  I shrugged, letting him go. This was his life now, not mine. Not ours.

  Joe turned and followed the laughter up the stairs.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  [PEYTON]

  EVEN THOUGH THEY LIVE IN THE WATER , FISH STILL get dirty. Algae get trapped between their scales and teeth; parasites burrow into their flesh. It really bugs them, but what can they do? It’s not like they have hands or fingers to clean themselves up. So they rely on other fish, called cleaner fish, to help them.

  Cleaner fish are tiny shrimps and fish that specialize in eating debris from bigger fish. They’re in high demand. They pick a rock or piece of coral and wait. Other fish spot them and form lines, patiently waiting their turn. Even the most vicious, pointytoothed shark will open wide and let these tiny fish drift inside to nibble away all the gross stuff.

  It’s nice to think of fish behaving in such a civilized manner. It’s like they’ve been to church and heard the sermon. But among the cleaner fish lurk imposters, other fish that look just like the good guys. The bigger fish can’t tell them apart. They let these bad dudes snuggle right up close, and zap! The fake cleaner fish nips off a chunk of flesh and zips away, a sneaky little thief.

  The world is full of deception and misunderstanding, even where you’d least expect it.

  Peyton lay in bed and stared at her darkened aquarium. Well before dawn, but there was enough ambient light to reveal the shadows of her fish hanging motionless, waiting for their day to begin. The water bubbled through the filter in the corner, their whole world perfect, warm and clean.

  If her mom were still around, she’d make Peyton a cup of tea, and they’d sit at the kitchen table and talk a little as the sun glided over the horizon and filled the kitchen with pink light. Peyton got up and put on her bathrobe, then padded quietly down the hall to the kitchen.

  She was surprised to find Dana there, her face glowing in the light from her laptop. Peyton whirled around, then thought, Wait. This is my house.

  “Want some tea?” Dana moved a finger and the laptop went dark, hiding her in shadow. “The water’s still hot.”

  Mind reading. Peyton paused in mid-reach for the metal tin filled with teabags. Pouring the water, she sat across from Dana and spooned sugar into her cup. Her ugly words from the day before crowded between them, hustling about looking for a place to settle themselves, and then just . . . vanished.

  Peyton held her cup between both hands, one thumb hooked through the handle, and breathed in warm citrus vapor.

  Two more weeks of school, her mother would say. And then I’ll have you all to myself.

  Outside the kitchen window, the bushes along the sides of the yard emerged from the blackness. A tree took shape. A bird cooed. Dana cranked open the window beside her and the sound clarified, rolled around the room in little swirls. “She’s telling her kids not to miss the bus.”

  It did sound like that, gentle scolding like she’d told them a million times to brush their beaks and shake out their feathers. The tea was delicious. The warmth of the cup felt good between her fingers. Her mother pushed her gently. Tell her it’s okay.

  “My mom was trying to get her to eat out of her hand.” The words just flowed right out of Peyton into the sleepy early hours. She shifted in her seat and stared out at her old playhouse taking shape on the other side of the glass, the roof bashed in where she’d jumped on it from the tree branch above.

  “She used to play with leeches when she was little. She’d catch them in buckets and pretend they were families.” Dana mockshuddered. “Maybe that’s where you get it from.”

  Peyton had never once played with a stupid leech. Those squishy brown things, as big and fat as her hand, and just as dumb.

  “Your grandma used to call your mom Snow White.”

  That was interesting. Her mom had never told her that. Snow White had black hair and was kind of dorky, not like her mom, but still Peyton could see it.

  “You would have loved your grandma,” Dana said. “She would have spoiled you rotten.”

  Peyton knew all about what had happened to her grandma, how her car had slid into the half-frozen lake and sunk, trapping her inside. The first time Peyton heard the story, she couldn’t sleep for months, certain that her grandma, all wet and covered with reeds, would come banging on her bedroom window, and demand to be let in. Peyton’s mom had talked about her mom all the time: how she always put out a placemat and napkin even for just a glass of milk, how she pressed all her clothes, even T-shirts, how she woke the girls up for the first snowfall. That wasn’t what Peyton wanted to know about. “What about my grandpa?”

  Dana set down her cup. “My father, you mean?”

  “Where is he, do you know? Is he still alive?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “I Googled him but there was nothing. Do you think he changed his name?”

  “I think he’d do whatever he had to, to keep us from finding him.”

  Which sounded like she had tried to find him, too. Dana had her face turned toward the dawn, the pulse beating softly in her throat. “Why did he leave?” Peyton wanted to know.

  Dana shrugged. “You’d have to ask him.”

  “Did they fight or something? Did he drink?”

  Dana looked at her. Peyton flushed, wondering what she was seeing. “I don’t remember them fighting, or drinking being an issue. Frankly, I don’t really remember him at all.”

  Peyton couldn’t imagine not remembering her dad. Her life was bursting with memories of him. “My mom said he was tall, and that he had binoculars that he let her use sometimes when they went looking for birds. She said he loved birds.”

  “Yep. He sure did. More than he loved us.”

  Peyton’s mom hadn’t thought that. She would have told Peyton if her dad was hateful. Or maybe she’d been waiting for Peyton to figure it out for herself. “You really think my mom called you because she thought you could help figure out what made her sick?”

  “I do.”

  “And that’s what you’re staying to figure out?”

  Dana nodded, watching her. “Okay,” Peyton said, and stood to wash her cup.

  Brenna was sitting at the back of the classroom, holding her black Sharpie poised over her hand splayed across the lab desk. She didn’t look up as Peyton slid onto the stool beside her. “You missed the DNA lab last week,” she said.

  Peyton had been looking forward to that lab. It would have been like playing, stringing together colored paper clips into order and then unknitting and reknitting them to make a whole new helix. She would have asked to do lionfish DNA, or maybe a sea urchin. It would have let her look at a fish in a brand-new way, from the inside out. “I was a little busy.”

  Brenna scrunched her nose, like Sorry. “You didn’t miss anything. It was totally the worst lab of the year.”

  Only because she had to actually do something instead of texting in her pocket while Peyton did the work. “How come?”

  Brenna lowered the nib of her Sharpie and inked little pointy teeth along the side of her thumb. “Connolly flunked me. Which sucks.”

  Connolly didn’t just flunk people. “What did you do?”

  “I thought it would be easier to unzip the helix and make both matching DNA strands at the same time. Way faster, you know.” She flipped her hand over and began on her wrist. “Because you weren’t there.”

  Peyton had gotten the part about her not being there. “Mr. Connolly told us not to take any shortcuts.”

  “He didn’t say that doing something like that would be a shortcut.”

  Yes, he had. He’d specifically cited that as the example. Nice as he was, Mr. Connolly was uptight about procedure. But Brenna hadn’t been paying attention. She didn’t think she’d needed to. She thought she could sit there and draw ink tattoos on her hands because Peyton was paying attention and taking notes.

  “Buh-bye, brand-new Mini Cooper with the sweet leather seats.
Hello, Grandpa’s ancient piece of crap.”

  “Don’t worry. Your dad’ll change his mind.”

  Brenna glanced at her with eyes heavily outlined in black. “You think?”

  Mr. Connolly came in and shut the door. “Good afternoon, folks.”

  “Good afternoon,” Hannah warbled from the front row.

  “What a suck-up,” Brenna muttered.

  The guy on the other side of Peyton sniggered.

  Mr. Connolly set his briefcase on the floor by his desk. “For those one or two among you who aren’t counting the days, I want to remind you that we’ve only got two weeks left until finals.”

  A groan went up.

  “Aha. So I take it you haven’t started studying yet, Robbie.” Mr. Connolly slid his hands into his pockets and tipped back on his heels, looking around the room. His gaze rested on Peyton and he gave her a little nod. “Anyone?”

  Sure enough, Hannah raised her hand and waved.

  Brenna leaned across Peyton and said to the guy beside her, “You want to drop her, or you want me to?”

  He flashed her a grin. Peyton frowned and nudged him, and he sat back.

  “All right, listen up. From now on, we’re going to spend the first fifteen minutes of each class period reviewing. By finals, you’ll know this material backward and forward. You’ll be dreaming about it.”

  “I know what I’m going to be dreaming about, and it isn’t going to be DNA replication.” Brenna picked up her red Sharpie and drew drops of blood from the tips of the dragon’s pointy teeth into her palm.

  “You sure?” muttered the guy next to Peyton, and now it was Brenna’s turn to grin.

  Adam watched from across the classroom. Peyton almost felt sorry for him, but he should have seen it coming. After all, he’d already been dating Brenna for two months, a full month past the expiration date on most of Brenna’s relationships.

  “Why don’t we start with an easy one?” Mr. Connolly suggested. “Graves’ disease. Adrian, why don’t you tell the class the physical characteristics of this particular disease?”