by Nick Lake
So…, he says. So, I wanted to let you know about something.
Okay, I say.
He doesn’t know how to begin. He sits down, and I don’t, and that just makes him more uncomfortable. He takes a deep breath, as if he’s going to have to dive deep down inside himself to bring up his next words; like pearls. See, here’s the thing, he says. The media want the story on you. My two days in the desert with—well, you know. But I don’t want to tell. I … I want you to have a life again, and I don’t see how you could, after all this, if people knew who you were. I mean … He looks over at Carla. You’re her lawyer, right?
Yes, says Carla, or at least I guess she does, I’m not looking at her.
So you’ll want to get some kind of anonymity for her? I mean, there’s been no photos of … Shelby, in the news.
We want to protect her, yes, says Carla slowly. I am looking at her now.
She might get a new name, a new identity? I mean, if and when she’s not living with her birth parents.
Ye-e-e-e-es, says Carla. She might. Her tone is like: Where are you going with this?
So, says Luke, and I see for the first time that he is very far from stupid. That’s what I wanted to tell you. That I wouldn’t blow it. I won’t, you know, say that you’re deaf or anything. I mean, that could really screw your cover.
Uh … thank you, I say.
You should see what they’ve offered me, he says. We’re talking hundreds of thousands. But you’re just a girl. You deserve a new life.
My mind is like this now, not blank, but like static, a de-tuned TV:
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I don’t know what to think about any of this. I hadn’t even considered the idea of a new identity, I mean I knew I’d be living with my real mom and dad for a month, but wouldn’t their names be public knowledge? Or maybe Luke is thinking of when I leave their house, when I’m eighteen … Shit, I think, he really is smart. I didn’t consider ANY of this.
Carla, it seems, has though.
I see, she says. You have been offered a lot. So how much do you want from Shelby to keep her story to yourself? To not reveal details, like her deafness? Here’s one thing I like about my lawyer: she doesn’t put ellipses of hesitation before my name, like she’s not sure if she should say it, because it’s not my real name anymore.
Luke looks appalled. He smacks the table with his bandaged hand, then curses. His face goes a little purple. NO, he says. NO. He turns to me. I just wanted to tell you, in person, that I would not speak of you. For any money. And that I’m sorry for what has happened to you.
Suddenly, without warning, I am crying; the tears are hot in my eyes, burning.
Thank you, I say. Thank you. And then I think of how I kept thinking he was a douche, how I laughed at him inside my own head, at his awful stories, his weight, his lazy half-blind eye, which even now is looking at me milkily, sadly. Guilt is a twisting kitten inside me. I’m so sorry, I say, and this time I say it with my mouth. I’m so so sorry.
It’s not your fault, says Luke, totally missing my point. You didn’t know who she was.
No, I think. No, I didn’t.
Luke levers himself up from the table. Well, that was all I wanted to say, he says. Thank you for your time.
Thank you, Luke, I say, again with my mouth. He’s been so kind, it is making me cry all over again, and he seems to sense it’s too much for me, because he opens the door and leaves.
Well, says Carla. That was an interesting first.
What?
Someone who doesn’t want money. I don’t think I’ve met one before.
I smile through my tears. You’re a lawyer. You wouldn’t.
She smiles back. Okay, she says. I think that’s it for this morning. I’ve asked for the meeting with your parents to be put back by a couple of hours. Give you a chance to rest.
Thanks, I say.
Anything you want in the meantime? she asks.
I shake my head and she starts toward the door.
No, wait, I say, out loud, which is becoming a habit.
Yes? she says.
There is something I want, I say. Something of mine.
Right, says my lawyer. That should be doable.
My cell phone, I say.
Where is it?
It was in the cabin, I say. Plugged into the wall.
The FBI took some things into evidence that they’re still analyzing, she says. Luke’s car, stuff like that. But it’s your cell, and you haven’t committed a crime. I’ll have it returned to you. Anything else?
No, I say. I mean, my baseball bat is there too, but that doesn’t seem important now.
Wait, I say. There is something.
Yes?
I want a pack of cigarettes. And a lighter.
What brand?
It doesn’t matter.
She looks at me, a little surprised; maybe I look really clean cut or something. Straight edge. You smoke?
No, I say. But I’m thinking of starting.
Chapter 52
I’m ready, I say.
Carla opens the door and I walk in.
The mother, Jennifer, takes a step toward me, her hand going to the cross at her neck at the same time, and seems about to throw her arms around me, but the father, Michael, must have some kind of empathy, some kind of sense of the state of mind of others, because he puts a hand on her shoulder and stops her.
Still—he can’t look at me. His gaze lands on mine and then ricochets off, hits a lamp; a computer on a desk.
The mother is at least not crying this time, though her eyes are red, like she just stopped. She touches her cross.
She looks at me. She touches her cross.
She sort of half smiles. She touches her cross.
And do you see how I am subliminally telling you how she KEEPS TOUCHING THAT CROSS? She seems like a person carved out of worry, like the cross is the only thing stopping her from breaking into a thousand pieces; an anchor.
Angelica, she says, and for a second, a stupid second, I don’t know who she’s talking to. OH YES, I realize. THAT WOULD BE ME.
She starts talking again and Melany signs beside me.
It’s all right, I sign back to Melany. I can lip-read. My mom taught—
Oh. I keep doing that. Keep calling her mom.
Melany catches my look of horror and gives me a sympathetic, like, grimace-smile. You’re sure?
Yes, I say.
What is she saying? says Michael.
She’s saying she can lip-read, says Melany. Her eyes meet mine, and we both know she left out the part about MY MOM, who is not my mom at all. I’m grateful for that little thing.
Oh, good, says Michael. Can she talk? I mean … Sorry. Can you talk?
I can talk, I say slowly. But I don’t like to.
Oh … ah…right, says Michael. He looks like he doesn’t know where to put his hands; or even whether to stand or sit; and I know how he feels. We’re in a much more comfortable room than before, with a low coffee table, and magazines, and armchairs—kind of like a doctor’s waiting room.
We missed you so much, Jennifer Watson says. We never stopped hoping. Never. Never, honey. We kept looking for you always. We—
She turns to her husband, my dad, as she talks, and so I don’t see what she’s saying.
Immediately she realizes her mistake. She turns back to me. I’m sorry, she says. This is going to take some getting used to.
You didn’t know I was deaf? I sign this, and Melany translates.
We suspected, says Michael. You weren’t speaking; we thought … I don’t know, we hoped you were just a slow starter.
Your other kids?
Melany looks at me. You mean, are any of their other kids deaf? she signs.
Yes.
Melany translates for my parents.
Sure, sure, honey, says Michael, and I think, what am I walking into here? The important thing is you’re back, he says. He has a red nose, veins bursting like fireworks. Alcoholic, I think. For sure. His hands are shaking too.
Jennifer Watson reaches into her purse and takes something out. It’s a moment before I realize what it is—a milk carton. I’m confused, but then I see the picture of the toddler on it.
That’s you, she says. That’s you, and this has been on my bedside table every day for fifteen years.
Poor Michael, I think.
And now you’re here, she says. In front of me.
She stares at the milk carton like she doesn’t know how it got into her hands.
I look at the picture—it could be any toddler. I mean, I could kid myself there was a resemblance, sure, but who looks like they did when they were two, anyway?
Then she throws the carton in the trash—there’s something about the way she does it, that makes me think it’s something she’s pictured many times. Fantasized about. A symbolic gesture. A ritual for her—long awaited.
Can I … can I hold you? she asks.
I nod slowly—sign language for dummies.
Jennifer inches forward and puts her arms around me, and I stand there with my hands at my sides, not sure what to do with them. Oh my little princess Angelica, she says. Oh I love you I love you I love you.
Then she cries and cries and cries, and she’s shaking like there’s an engine inside her that’s come loose.
Me, I don’t feel anything.
Chapter 53
We don’t just walk out of there, of course. I think at first that’s what’s going to happen, but Carla takes me and Melany over to the tall windows on one side of the building and points down. The windows are grayish, and I realize that people outside can’t see in. We’re, like, three floors up and I see what she means immediately: there’s a street, trees on the other side of it, and on our side of it there’s a crowd of people outside the door, some with cameras. TV vans with satellite dishes on top of them. Not just local either: NBC. CBS.
We’ve kept your image out of the press, says Carla. For now at least. But we’re hoping to get a privacy order. A closed trial, ah, I mean, when they get your, uh, when they catch Shaylene. It’s a long road.
And now? I say.
Now we take you down to the basement and put you in an unmarked car with your parents, and we move you to their apartment without telling anyone down there.
You’re kidding?
No.
Oh. Okay. I look at her. Are you coming?
She smiles. She looks quite pretty when she smiles. I can come if you want me to. But it might be weird.
And Melany?
Again, if you want.
I think about this. Actually they might get in the way of what I am planning, or maybe planning, whatever. No, it’s cool, I say. I’ll go with them. But we’ll see each other, right?
Yes. And CPS will be visiting. Every day to begin with.
I put my hand in my pocket, wanting to feel the knife that Mark gave me, Coyote gave me, feel its hard smooth bone handle. Then I remember that:
1. The knife only exists in the Dreaming, I mean my (mom) couldn’t see it anyway and
2. Even if it did exist in this world, I threw it into the undergrowth by the cabin, when the SWAT guys came along.
Still, even just thinking about the Dreaming, about Coyote and the knife, has made me feel stronger, somehow. Like there is something that belongs to me and not to anyone else. Not my identity, not my name, since it seems like anyone can just come along and take those things away, change them right under me, but a whole world. A dream.
Right, I say. Let’s do this.
Chapter 54
In the car, Jennifer sits in back with me.
First thing she does is to grip my hand in this really intense way, like she wants to convert me or something, save my soul, and then with her other hand she takes up this tote bag with WHOLE FOODS on it and starts to take stuff out to show me.
Like:
Some kind of card with scribbles on it, that she says I made for Michael for Father’s Day.
A little baby hat.
Books. Books with “moon” in the title, seems to be the theme. Goodnight Moon; Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me.
I look at them blankly.
You loved the moon, she says. You always wanted those stories, you would point to them, over and over. There are photos too that I want to show you, so many photos, but we—I—didn’t want to overwhelm you.
I put my hand to my lips, palm toward me, then move it down and out, the sign for thank you. Then I mouth the words.
That means thank you? Jennifer says. Melany of course has gone back to wherever she waits between super fun jobs like this.
I nod.
Look at me! I’m learning already, she says. Michael, I know how to sign ‘thank you’!
I don’t know what Michael says to this, if anything at all.
Then Jennifer reaches into her tote bag and takes something out that stops my heart in my chest for a moment, stops it dead. It’s gray and floppy in her hand and its ears hang over her fingers and its eyes are scratched and dull and—
Are you okay? says Jennifer. Honey? You’re very pale. Are you—
With great effort, I nod. Everything is kind of crackling and sparkling and my vision is gray as fur at the edges because this is the rabbit from my dream, from the cage in the Dreaming, the exact same one.
This is Flopsy Bunny, says Jennifer. You carried it everywhere. In the hospital … In the hospital, they found it on the floor. In the corridor. I kept it for you.
She holds it out to me and I recoil, violently. Something in Jennifer’s eyes flares, and they fill with tears.
Sorry, I say, with my clumsy mouth. But I stay leaning away, and Jennifer reads something in my body language, and puts the bunny away in the bag.
But I feel it there, glowing like radiation. Emitting. Pulsing.
A piece of the Dreaming here in the real world.
A piece of my dream.
Jennifer holds up her little cross and kisses it. Thank you Lord Jesus for returning my angel to me, she says. Then she turns to me and her eyes are bright like jewels with tears. I’m so sorry, she says. I’m so sorry about your legs … the burns …
Michael must say something in front, from the driver’s seat, because she says, No, Michael, I have to say this. If it wasn’t for me … If I hadn’t let you burn yourself, she never would have taken you.
I look at her blankly. She speaks slowly, so I can read her mouth. Even then, I have to kind of assume some of the words she says.
That woman, who kidnapped you … she pretended to be a nurse. She took you away. It was all so confusing; I was so scared for you, I didn’t know what was going on, and Tyler was running around, getting under my feet, Anna was crying about something, I can’t remember what … I didn’t think. And then she never came back.
Oh, I think.
The police didn’t believe me for the longest time, they thought we’d done something, but I mean, the CCTV, and everything, it was obvious I brought you in, and the doctors had seen you, you know. So it wasn’t like anyone could seriously believe we killed you.
It gets worse, I think. All the pity I have to feel; all the sadness. That they were suspected of killing me—it’s awful. It’s too much.
Anyway, it was … it was my fault, that’s what I want to tell you. You shouldn’t have been in the kitchen with that oil; it was just because, well, James was screaming from the living room and I thought Tyler must have pulled his hair, I don’t
know, and I was gone for a SECOND, and … I’m just so, so sorry.
I think of my scars, the years that I’ve worn pants, even on burning hot days, the way that I’ve never swum, not ever, and there’s a part of me that wants to say you stupid bitch, but that wouldn’t help anything, would it?
I make a sequence of gestures.
What does that mean? she asks.
I say it with my mouth, even though I can see the way she winces when I do that; I can see in her eyes how wrong my voice sounds, and it’s like knives in my belly.
I forgive you, I say. It’s something easy I can say, and it might make what is going to happen easier. What I’m going to do to her.
Chapter 55
The car—I guess it’s a rental, because it’s very clean and new-smelling—turns onto the main downtown street and I see, down a side street, the diner where Luke got his hand skewered. I wonder how Luke is doing now.
Then we pass Gene’s Western Supplies and the climbing store, and a couple of hundred yards down the road, Michael pulls over, close to a newspaper box that will sell you the Arizona Daily Sun for twenty-five cents.
He turns around in the seat. This is us, he says. For now.
I look up: it’s a new building, big high windows, balconies on each floor. A black metal fire escape that runs down the side, accessible from each balcony.
I follow them up. It’s a top-floor condo, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, they wanted me to have my own bathroom, says Jennifer, kind of babbling. Victoria and Richie are with their grandparents—MY grandparents—back in Alaska; the younger kids know about me, evidently, have been told about me all their lives.
I wonder how they think of me. What I am, in their minds. More like a symbol than a person, I guess. Like the Easter Bunny, or Santa. When I walk into their lives, when before I’ve just been a toddler on a milk carton, it’s going to be INTENSE for them.
Luckily, there’s an elevator—I don’t think I’d have gotten up any stairs with my CAM Walker. We stand in silence as we ride up. I am used to silence, but the parents look uncomfortable in it, like it’s a heat, pressing on them.
There’s a bike in the hall, a full suspension mountain bike. That’s Michael’s, says Jennifer, in her slow stage voice, mouth moving like molasses.