Gemini

by Carol Cassella

  He tried to bolt to his room, but she blocked his way. He stood hunched inside the hoodie as if he wanted to hide, wanted her to see. She pulled the sweatshirt off his head and felt her gut go hollow—a suffocating vacuum of breath. The left side of Jake’s face was so swollen his eye was buried in a puffy red slit. Blood leaked from his nose. “Oh, my God! Jake . . . Baby . . .”

  —

  “He won’t tell me who hit him,” Raney repeated to David when he finally came home, long after she’d put Jake to bed with Tylenol and an ice pack. David was pacing the kitchen, his hands jammed into his pockets like he might tear into something if he let them loose. Raney was glad Jake wasn’t awake to witness it, even if his stepfather’s temper was roused for Jake’s own defense. “I went to the Wellses’ house to talk to Amelia or Caroline. Trina said they were asleep and she didn’t want to wake them.”

  “Do you have to pull the whole neighborhood into it?”

  “Well, the girls obviously know something. Their dad used to be a policeman—I thought he could help. If Jake’s in some kind of trouble . . .” She stopped, reluctant to make David even madder by repeating what Trina Wells had said. But he halted in his pacing and faced her, hearing the unfinished warning in her voice. How to put it? “Trina said . . . It made no sense. She called us a ‘bunch of drug pushers’ and said she didn’t want Jake near the girls anymore.”

  David’s face went white. He started down the hallway, but Raney pulled him back. “It doesn’t mean anything. If Jake won’t tell me the truth, then he won’t tell you. Let him sleep. Maybe he’ll say more in the morning.”

  “It’s an insult to this whole family. All of us.”

  “It’s kids. Mean kids picking on someone who’s different.” Raney knew David had had his own turn with bullying as a child, the humiliation made worse by the fact that his brother was the bully and his parents did nothing more than tell the boys to work it out between themselves.

  He held his fists clenched together as if they might strike out blindly. “You know who hit him. We both know.”

  “You can’t be sure, David. There are other kids who . . .”

  “I don’t give a shit about Tom Fielding right now—who he is or who he knows or if he fires me.”

  David left the house and drove away angrier than Raney had ever seen him. When he had not come home by midnight, Raney called Sandy and told her about Jake. “Why would Jerrod Fielding hit him?” Sandy asked, still groggy from sleep. “He’s looking at a football scholarship. Why would he risk it by hitting a kid two years younger than himself?”

  “I don’t know. Because Jake is . . . different? Dark, for one thing. Or maybe just because Jerrod is his father’s son. David ran out of the house so mad I almost called Tom Fielding to warn him.”

  Sandy didn’t say anything for a minute; then, sounding more awake, “David came by my house around eleven, Raney. I could see he was upset but I thought maybe you two . . . He picked up your paycheck.” She hesitated, then asked, “Is he on the run?”

  Raney sat down with the phone held tight to her ear, her pulse roaring. The house felt empty and unsound, the walls expanding and contracting. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Well, to hear that from you is to wonder what this marriage has damaged. You and Jake can come here, you know. You can have my house.”

  Raney rocked back and forth, wanting any place of calm. “Thanks. It’s okay. I know you don’t like David, but he has a lot of good in him. He wouldn’t hurt us.” Even saying it she wasn’t sure she believed it anymore. She finished with the one thing she knew was true: “David’s either left us or he’s got a plan that includes us.”

  “I should tell you this now, just in case. I’m selling the gallery. I talked to the buyer and you can have a job—for a while at least.” A sad laugh escaped her and Raney could hear the years of cigarettes and wine. “Until he goes broke too.”

  “What will you do?” Raney asked.

  “Go away. South. Another country, maybe. I need a change—before my money runs out. I’m keeping the house, though. It’s yours if you need it.”

  —

  Around 3:00 a.m. Raney saw headlights sweep the wall and heard the Tahoe, the ping-ping of the alarm before he finally shut the door. He took a long time to walk up to the porch and come inside. Slow, heavy steps. He went straight to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She heard the cap pop off a bottle of beer. He might not have seen her on the sofa, waiting. But after a while he came into the dark living room and sat down next to her. Too quiet. Too controlled. “You went to see Tom, didn’t you?” she said.

  He set his beer on the coffee table with a paper towel folded neatly around the bottom of the bottle. “How could I not, Renee? How could I sit in that man’s office for the last year, tallying up his money and listening to his jokes about blondes and Jews, bragging about Jerrod making first string and how much the Fielding family donated to his church’s capital campaign? How could I know that about him and know what his son did to Jake—to our son—and not make him own up?”

  Raney tried to see his face, but the light from the hall only cast him in more shadow. “What happened?”

  “He’s insulted us. Our family.”

  “Was it Jerrod? Tom told you?”

  David took a long drink from the beer. “Tom accused Jake.” He paused. “He said Jake has been selling those pills at school. The Adderall. That he badgered Jerrod to join in—that Jake started the fight.”

  “That’s crazy! Jake is too shy to even dream that up.” But she tried to remember the last time she’d actually witnessed Jake taking a pill, how many times she’d refilled them. “You don’t believe him, do you?”

  “No. I don’t know. I don’t know what I believe.”

  “Did you quit?”

  “Raney, if you think about that question after what I’ve just told you, you will understand that staying was not a choice.” His anger sounded closer to belittling sarcasm now, attacking her along with everyone else. He picked up the beer and walked into the kitchen, where she heard him dump it down the sink and rinse the bottle. He came to the doorway, took a folded envelope out of his pocket, smoothed it out, and put it on the hall table. “Here’s your pay. You should get Jake up and pack some clothes. We’re leaving here in the morning, as soon as it’s light.”

  “Today? This will blow over. You’ll find work in Port Townsend. Or Sequim. At least we have this house. We can’t just run away—you know it’s a lie. We’ll fight it. Legally, if we have to.”

  “Like you and Cleet fought his lawsuit? Look at Jake’s face and tell me you want to stay in this town.” He looked around the living room, at the water-stained ceiling and rotting window frames. “We can’t keep the house anyway. We can’t afford it anymore.”

  “What did you do, David?”

  “This town is toxic, Raney. I want a new start.”

  “Tell me. What did you do?” Her jaw clenched so that it was hard to say the words. The entire night seemed separate from her life, a cartoon bubble misplaced in time—an event she was remembering or foretelling but couldn’t possibly be living through. “Are you in trouble with the law?”

  His face was a stone. “I know too much about Tom Fielding’s business to be in trouble with the law. He would never risk it. But he’ll be hot for a while.”

  How could she tell Jake? Walk in there at four in the morning, take the ice pack off his bruised face, and say, Pack a bag! Pack your clothes, your pictures, your childhood! We’re leaving everything you’ve ever known. The house your father, your real father, raised you in for seven years before he decided in a moment of madness that you were better off without him? “Shouldn’t we know where we’re going before we leave? Have some plan?” she asked David.

  “I’ll land on my feet. I always do. If I don’t find good work we’ll come back after this blows over.”

  • 18 •

  charlotte

  It was after five by the time Charlotte and
Eric reached Port Angeles. The house, a one-story wood frame painted blue with white-trimmed windows, was on a small street near the end of town; there was a Cyclone fence around the perimeter. The yard was cluttered with plastic trucks and push-toys, a seesaw with smiling frogs for seats, all originally bright yellow and orange, now faded from the sun. The toys looked tired and dirty, but at least more kid-friendly than anything Charlotte had seen at the trailer.

  An older woman answered the door. Not the face Charlotte had anticipated, but only then did she realize that she had, ludicrously, been expecting some facsimile of Jake’s own mother, Raney. The woman introduced herself, “Louise, the mom around here,” and showed Eric and Charlotte through a cramped entry hall to a paneled room that combined dining, TV, and games and stretched the full width of the house. One entire wall was a bulletin board covered with crayoned and finger-painted pictures of houses and cats and bubble-shaped trees; stick-figure families held hands on stripes of green lawn, but few of them showed the classic arrangement of two parents and three children in graduated height. The shelves were filled with puzzles and DVDs and books—World Book and Harry Potter, Goosebumps and Judy Blume. A dozen children from ages two to fifteen could live here, but the rooms above and around them were silent.

  Louise offered them lemonade. They declined. She took a chair opposite the sofa where Charlotte and Eric sat side by side, settling herself calmly as if no words were necessary and they might all spontaneously begin a hand of cards, or were awaiting other guests. The sofa smelled faintly of fermented juice and baby lotion. Louise was a heavy woman. It was difficult to read her expression; her eyes were embedded deep in her full face, lines erased by full flesh. The great bulk of her thighs pushed her knees apart, and her skirt planed into a wide, shallow bowl. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence Charlotte began to wonder if Louise understood why they were there.

  Finally Louise readjusted herself in the chair and said, “This young man, Jake, is a curious soul to me.”

  “How do you mean?” Charlotte asked.

  Louise cocked her head a bit and Charlotte knew she was being assessed, the untested boundaries of trust established. “He says very little, but what he says is well worth paying attention to. More than I usually encounter in a child this age, and I have known a lot of children.” She leaned forward and opened a glass candy jar on the coffee table, held it up for Eric and Charlotte to accept or refuse, then took out a strawberry-wrapped piece. She put the jar down and dropped the wrapped candy into a deep pocket on the side of her skirt. “Deputy Simpson tells me that you are Jake’s mother’s doctor, over in Seattle. I called him after I heard from you, of course.” She waited for Charlotte to acknowledge this with a weak smile before she went on. “He tells me Jake’s mother is not doing well, and I find myself thinking that perhaps you’ve driven all the way here from Seattle to tell him difficult news.”

  It began to make sense to Charlotte now. Louise was the wall of defense here. Drawing her line in the sand before she would allow Jake to be damaged one more time. “Ms. . . .” Charlotte realized Louise had never given her last name. “No. That isn’t why we’re here.” And then Charlotte looked at Eric, lost for words that might explain why they had come all the way from Seattle to see a boy they barely knew. “When we saw Jake in Queets he told me that Raney, his mother, wanted him to see a doctor—about his back pain. If I can help out . . . Well . . . with all that’s happened I was concerned about him. We just want him to know someone else cares.”

  Louise gave this a long moment of consideration, then heaved to her feet and lumbered to the bottom of the staircase, where she called for Jake. When he came into the room he had the same cautious, observant expression Charlotte had been struck by when she met him in Queets. He wore a faded Mariners T-shirt that looked way too big—likely from Louise’s shelves.

  “Hi, Jake. Remember us? Charlotte and Eric?” Charlotte was unsure whether she should offer Jake a handshake or whether that might be enough to send him running back upstairs.

  He looked solemnly from Charlotte to Eric and back to Charlotte, as if he were trying to recall their faces, or perhaps deciding if he should tell them anything he did or did not recall. Louise stood between Jake and the sofa, far enough away to let Jake be in charge, close enough to intervene. After a while Jake nodded and Louise met his eye, then gestured for him to sit in the chair she had occupied. She leaned over him, her great bosom a deep black crevice. “Jake? I’m right here in the kitchen, son. Makin’ your dinner. Pigs in a blanket.”

  The silence became awkward again after she left the room; Charlotte could feel Louise watching them through the open kitchen door. Charlotte smiled and asked if Jake liked Port Angeles all right; if he’d met any other kids here. He studied her quietly with his arresting eyes. Now that he was directly across from her, now that she’d allowed herself to consider the impossible, Eric’s features were blatant in Jake’s face. She felt foolishly exposed, as if Louise, Boughton—anyone who saw both Eric and Jake—must know the truth immediately—only she had missed it. She glanced at Eric, and even in the poorly lit room he looked too pale, too solemn. After a while she stopped trying to draw Jake out with her pointless questions, and as if he had been waiting for that sign of respect, he asked her, “Is my mother still alive?”

  “Yes. She’s still very sick, Jake. She would come herself if she could.” Still, he looked so cautious, so skeptical. Was it anger? Doubt? A mistrust of all adults after what he’d been through? She leaned closer. “She wants to be here with you, Jake. You believe that, don’t you?”

  She heard Louise clear her throat. Jake glanced over his shoulder at her in the kitchen and Charlotte saw her stop in her work, wait for a sign from him that all was okay. He looked straight at Charlotte again and said, “Tell my mother I was on my way to Seattle when they caught me. I’m not going back. I won’t live with David.”

  “Okay, I will.” She hesitated a moment, then asked, “Jake? Did you leave because David hurt you?” Charlotte knew she was stepping near a line, and for a moment she wondered if Louise might suddenly loom up and snatch Jake into her great arms, carry him out of the room, tall as he was.

  But Jake had an answer ready. “He’s too smart to hit me. If he had, the police wouldn’t make me go back.” Charlotte’s throat tightened, but Jake’s face didn’t change—still composed and preternaturally wise. Indeed, he looked so undisturbed it seemed peculiar, given where he was, until she realized that here, for the first time since his mother disappeared, Jake had some hope that his life might change.

  The smell of broiling sausage drifted into the room. Somewhere a faucet dripped, or perhaps it had begun to rain. After sitting silently through it all, Eric leaned forward on the sofa so his face was closer to Jake’s. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you something the other day, but I’d like to tell you now.” Charlotte could see Eric trying to smile, to keep this easy despite Jake’s wariness. “I knew your mom when she was a girl. Not much older than you. We used to play together down in the ravine near where your great-grandpa lived. I knew him too. One time—when I first met your mom—she tricked me into looking for seal pups in a cave under the bluffs. When the tide came in I was stuck. I spent half the night in that cave!” He looked down at his hands for a moment. “She’s a special person. She was a wonderful friend to me. You look a little like she did, back then.”

  Jake was fixed on Eric’s face, more engaged than Charlotte had seen him all evening, the color and light in his eyes brightening and darkening. She could see him turning Eric’s story over, calculating the likelihood of such an event. If Jake decided it was a ruse to gain his trust, would he walk out? She wished Eric had waited until Jake seemed more comfortable with them—if they had to leave now, there would be no second chance. She was about to change the subject, hunting for something light to say, when Jake tilted his head and asked Eric, “Did my mom used to call you Bo?”

  —

  Louise walked in with a stack of
plastic plates and set the table for four, including Eric and Charlotte without any apparent invitation or question. She brought out an enormous platter of sausages wrapped in biscuit dough, baked to gold, followed by potato salad, pickles, and snap peas. Jake got more talkative as dinner progressed, asking Eric to tell him more stories about his mother when she lived on the farm—he, too, it turned out, had snuck cigarettes from the bunker, at the shy age of eight, and been required to eat one when his great-grandfather caught him, which appalled Charlotte but made both Eric and Jake howl in commiseration. Every time he laughed he seemed younger, less precociously guarded.

  It was nine fifteen by the time they finished eating. Jake yawned a few times. Louise got up to make some tea and Eric started clearing the dishes. Only Jake and Charlotte were left at the table. She could hear Eric and Louise talking in low voices through the open kitchen door. Charlotte leaned closer and whispered conspiratorially, “I brought a treat for you, Jake. Something small.” She rummaged through her purse and pulled out the white envelope and packages of gum. “I didn’t know what flavor you like, so I bought two kinds. Grape and bubble gum. You can try them both and tell me which one is the best—I’ll bring more the next trip.” She unzipped the plastic tape from the grape pack and shook one piece up for Jake to take. He slid it out, unwrapped its white paper sheath, and crumpled the entire piece into his mouth. “Chew it some before you decide. They lose their flavor pretty quick.” After he’d given it a good go she opened the second pack. “Now try the bubble gum—my favorite.” She took a stick for herself and Jake unwrapped his own, rolling it into a tight curl before he started to put it into his mouth. “Wait,” Charlotte said, taking a clean napkin from the wire rack on the table. “Spit the grape out first or you can’t tell.” He spit the gum neatly into the napkin Charlotte held open across her palm, a silver trail of saliva included. Then he put the second piece in his mouth and chewed with concentration worthy of a sommelier. Charlotte emptied the contents of the napkin into the clean white envelope and folded it closed before slipping it into her purse. “You can keep both packs if you want.”