I sat in the tree house for a long time after she left wondering what had just happened.
Twenty
I was torn between wanting to see Norah the next day at school and not wanting to see her. I could still feel the intriguing softness of her lips on my mouth. Throughout the day I involuntarily relived the kiss, and each time, I felt my face grow warm. It wasn’t that I particularly wanted to recall the kiss, it just kept returning to the forefront of my mind and I had no idea how to send it away. When I saw Norah at lunch, I could tell that her eyes sought me across the tables, but when she found me, she stayed where she was with a group of other sophomores. She didn’t come over to me or wave to me. When our eyes met from across the cafeteria, it almost felt like I had kissed her again. It so distracted me that I had to look away.
That afternoon in study hall, I tried to study for my final exam in physics but I found myself staring out the window more than once, my thoughts far from the relationship of matter to antimatter. I was glad when the bell signaled the end of the school day and I would not have to pretend around my friends that I was not preoccupied with a myriad of confusing thoughts.
I had asked for the afternoon off at the paper to prepare not only for the physics final, but one in English literature and another in civics. I couldn’t wait to have my last finals behind me.
Next Friday I would graduate, and in August I would finally be out on my own. With the gift money I knew I would be getting for graduation, I would be buying my own car. I already had two thousand dollars of my own money saved. Another thousand would buy a fairly decent used vehicle. Between the finals, the upcoming graduation ceremony, car-shopping, and preparing for my move to Iowa City, it was no wonder I had succumbed to what I now realized was a longstanding desire to kiss Norah. It didn’t mean anything had changed for me. I was still moving to Iowa City in three months. And she was staying here. Nothing had really changed. That kiss had been just a spontaneous reaction to an emotionally charged moment. It wouldn’t happen again. Norah fascinated me, she always had. But I was not in love with Norah. And I was leaving.
I rode my bike home, waving casually to Norah and Kieran as they walked home together to further convince myself that the kiss had been nothing more than a little experiment. Ethan wasn’t too far behind me on his own bicycle. I parked my bike in the garage and went into the kitchen, dropping my book bag on one of the kitchen table chairs as I grabbed a box of Cheez-Its. I opened the fridge and reached in for a can of Pepsi. As I ate my snack, I could see through the adjoining dining room window that Norah and Kieran were walking past my house. I saw Norah glance up at my bedroom window as she passed.
I took my book bag into the living room where Ethan was watching TV and I sat on the couch relaxing for nearly half an hour before pulling out my books to study. Then my mom walked into the house with a box in her arms.
“Ethan, Luke, can you guys get those other two boxes out of my car? I’m starting to clear out my classroom now instead of waiting ’til the last minute,” she said.
We left the living room and wordlessly went outside to the Buick. As we walked over to the open trunk, a compact car slowed down in front of Nell’s house and then pulled up alongside the curb. Nell was just coming out her front door to go to work. She stopped and looked at the car, too. She looked surprised, like she wasn’t expecting anybody to stop by.
I lifted one of the boxes out of the trunk and handed it to my brother. As I did, the driver opened the car door and got out. It was a woman with shoulder length dark hair. She had on sunglasses. The woman closed her car door and started to walk up Nell’s driveway.
“Who’s that?” Ethan whispered to me.
“Beats me,” I said, starting to grab the other box. I wasn’t watching what I was doing, though. I tipped it over, and a mass of books, papers, and magazines tumbled out onto the bottom of the trunk. Ethan turned to go into the house with the box he held. I had started to retrieve the spilled items when I saw that the woman was removing her sunglasses. It was Belinda.
Nell recognized her, too.
“What are you doing here?” Nell said to her, and her voice was laced with something other than the usual annoyance. Belinda stopped.
“Nice to see you again, too, Nell,” Belinda said but then she took two more steps toward Nell. “Why do you think I’m here? I came for my kids.”
My heart had begun to beat a little faster. Norah and Kieran! Their mother was here! She had come for them. Just like Norah had said she would. Norah would be leaving, too, then. Before me. I didn’t know what to make of what I was feeling inside. Was I jealous Norah was getting away first? Was I upset that she was leaving? And what must Nell be feeling? Nell, who had made it clear she hadn’t asked to raise the kids that had been handed to her?
I stole a glance at Nell, trying to gauge her reaction.
“You break outta jail?” Nell said coolly.
“I was released. Early. For good behavior,” Belinda said evenly, taking two more steps closer to Nell, Nell’s house, and the two kids who were inside it.
“You got a lot of nerve just showing up like this,” Nell said, narrowing her eyes. “What makes you think you can just waltz back into their lives like you were out shopping or something?”
“You got a lot of nerve asking, Nell. They’re my kids, remember?”
“Too bad you didn’t think about your kids when you were running around Mexico with drug dealers and murderers.” Nell spat out the words.
“You don’t know what you are talking about, so I suggest you quit showing off your ignorance and go tell my kids I’ve come for them.”
“I know exactly what I’m talking about! You are an addict and a tramp. And you abandoned those children!”
Belinda closed the distance, clearly angry. I knew it wouldn’t be long before Norah and Kieran heard the shouting. I was already afraid for them, though I pretended to be merely repacking a box in his mother’s trunk, wondering if I had even been noticed by the two women.
“Well, I can see who you got your information from! I suppose your loser of a son told you all that!” Belinda yelled.
“You shut your mouth!” Nell shouted, cursing.
A second later Nell’s screen door opened. Norah, wide-eyed and hopeful, appeared in the doorframe. Kieran was right behind her. “Mom?” Norah said, and her voice sounded very young.
Belinda’s face relaxed. “Yeah, baby doll, it’s me!” She held out her arms and Norah ran into them, with Kieran at her heels. For a few seconds there was only the sound of joyful tears. Nell stood as still as a statue as Belinda, Norah, and Kieran embraced each other.
“Look how big you’ve grown!” Belinda said, as she broke away. “You’re both so tall. And Norah, how beautiful you are! Such a lady!”
“I knew you’d come back! I knew you’d come back!” Kieran said, holding Belinda tight around the waist.
“Of course I came back,” she replied, holding his head against her. “That’s what kept me from going crazy in prison. Knowing I had you two to come back for.”
“Mom,” Norah said, and it seemed to me she said it just for the pleasure of saying the word aloud, because she said nothing else.
It seemed for a fraction of a moment that for once everything was as it should be at the house next door, but then Nell found her voice and the moment crumbled.
“I have a court order that says I am responsible for these kids,” Nell said, and Norah whipped her head around to look at Nell. I stared at Nell, too.
“What?” Belinda said.
“I said, I have a court order that says I am responsible for these kids,” Nell repeated, focusing her eyes on Belinda only.
“Well, I don’t care if you have a piece of paper signed by the Pope himself,” Belinda said. “They’re my kids, and I’m taking them.”
“No, you’re not.”
Belinda moved forward a step, seeming to almost put Kieran protectively behind her as she did so.
“Yes
. I am.”
“You try it and I’ll call the police,” Nell said.
“But Grandma—” Norah began, but Belinda cut her off.
“Fine. You go call the police,” Belinda yelled. “You think the police are going to side with you? You, of all people?”
“Get off my property!”
“I am taking my kids. Norah, Kieran, go get your things.”
“You kids do no such thing.”
I could see that Norah and Kieran were torn as to what to do.
Then Norah seemed to notice for the first time that I was there, watching all of it. She only looked at me for a second.
“Norah, Kieran, go get your things,” Belinda commanded.
But Nell moved to block their way to the front door. “They will not!” Nell yelled.
“What is the matter with you?” Belinda screamed. “I know you never wanted these kids with you! You think I don’t know what has gone on here? You think Norah didn’t tell me how you’ve treated them? Sending them away! Twice! You’ve made it clear to them they’ve never been welcome here!”
I looked to Norah and saw she had closed her eyes in fear and shame. She had not expected her mother to use her letters to wound Nell.
Nell said nothing as she looked at Norah, wondering no doubt what exactly Norah had written in those letters to her mother.
“You’ve never wanted these kids!” Belinda continued, enraged. “You’re only doing this now because you hate me! Well, you know what? The feeling’s mutual, Nell.”
“You’re not taking my grandchildren,” was all Nell could say in response. It almost seemed to me that she was on the verge of tears. I felt a twinge of compassion for her.
“Oh, yes I am!” Belinda countered. “And don’t go pretending they’re both yours. I know you know about Norah! There is no way I’m letting you spend another moment making her life miserable. She’s mine, and you know it! There’s not a drop of your stinking Janvik blood in her, thank God!”
My mouth dropped open, and the box I had been unsuccessfully trying to fill fell over in the trunk. Norah wasn’t a Janvik. Darrel had not been her father. It explained everything. It explained why Nell and Darrel had always been so hard on her. Why Nell seemed to favor Kieran over her. Why Norah had honey-blonde hair and those mesmerizing gray eyes while Darrel, Belinda, and Kieran were all brown-eyed brunettes. And yet no one had ever told her.
I looked at Norah, and it seemed she was about to faint. Her face was drained of color. Nell was not really her grandmother. Darrel was not her father. Her beloved Kieran was her half-brother. I wanted to run over to her, but I felt like my feet were nailed to the cement.
Then it got worse.
“Then take her!” Nell screamed. “But you leave that boy! I swear to God, I’ll call the police if you even try to take him!”
At that moment, I heard my front door open. I turned and saw that my mother had come out to see what all the commotion was about.
“Get inside,” she mouthed to me, but I just turned back to the horrible drama taking place just a few feet away.
“Kids, just get in the car. There’s nothing inside that house that you need!” Belinda said.
Norah was stricken dumb, unable to respond. Kieran was crying, clearly torn.
Nell, chest heaving, stood for a second longer. Then she turned and stomped into the house.
“Is she really going to call the police?” Kieran whimpered.
“Who cares?” Belinda said. “I don’t care what she does. Come on. We’re leaving.”
Kieran took a few tentative steps with Belinda toward the car. Belinda turned around. “Norah—come on, baby doll. Let’s go.”
But Norah seemed powerless to make her feet move. She looked up at me. Her gray eyes were wide and void of strength.
“Norah, come on, honey, let’s go!” Belinda said again and she turned and continued to walk toward her car with Kieran at her side.
Then Nell’s front door opened and she stepped out. She carried something long and brown in her hands.
Darrel’s hunting rifle.
I felt my blood run cold.
“You’re not taking that boy,” Nell said, raising the rifle.
The next second was wrapped in chaos. From behind me, I heard my mother yell at me to get in the house, I heard Belinda yell something, too. Norah also yelled something. And another voice yelled. “No!” It was my own.
“I said you’re not taking that boy!” Nell said, and this time she shouted it.
“Watch me!” Belinda yelled.
I turned to my mother. “Call the police!” I said, and then I turned around and took a step toward Norah.
“Luke!” my mother screamed.
Nell raised the barrel higher, cocking it with her trembling hands. Kieran yelled, “Grandma!”
“You’re not taking him,” Nell said, her voice shaking, tears falling in a crazy pattern down her cheeks. The rifle was quivering in her hands. She looked like a cornered animal. Like she had reached the end of all reason. She tried to steady the gun in her hands. “You’re not taking him.” She leveled the barrel at Belinda.
For a second, I pictured Darrel in a parking lot on that icy night when he died. I pictured him waving the same rifle but making different threats. Different, yet the same.
Then the memory evaporated.
The sounds of Norah yelling, “No!” while she lunged for the rifle in Nell’s hands, and of Kieran screaming, “Mommy!” as he dashed in front of his mother, and the deafening crack of the rifle shooting a bullet all seemed to meld into one sound. And then there was no sound at all except for the reverberation of a gunshot.
Kieran made no sound as he fell to the ground at his mother’s feet. The bullet wound in his back quickly turned the grass red around Belinda’s sandals.
Twenty-one
I was given a waiver for my final exams, and it was a full week before I felt mentally able to take them. By then there were only a few days left before graduation, and the diplomas had already been made out. It was assumed I would pass them all. And I did. But just barely.
The last week of school was a blur. Later I would only remember bits and pieces of the last four days I spent as a student at Halcyon High School. But in the end I didn’t really care. I didn’t really care he would never be able to adequately remember my high-school graduation or my eighteenth birthday.
What I wanted to forget and simply couldn’t was the image of Kieran falling at his mother’s feet. Nor could I forget the pitch and tone of Norah’s sobs, nor the timbre of Nell’s horrific wails. I couldn’t forget how the flashing lights of the ambulance and the squad cars merrily mocked the desperation of that awful afternoon. I couldn’t forget how the handle of the policeman’s gun poked out of its holster while he questioned me, and how the squad car’s radio kept squawking as I answered questions.
And what I wanted to forget most of all was that strange obligation I had felt since I was twelve that I was somehow destined to watch out for Norah and Kieran, that I was their strong protector, that I was meant to be a shield to them from the trouble that seemed to haunt them. I wanted to forget it because it had all been for nothing. There was no getting by the Janvik curse. It didn’t really matter that Norah didn’t have Janvik blood in her veins, that Belinda was already pregnant with her when she moved in with Darrel Janvik. Norah was a Janvik nonetheless and the curse had welcomed her.
It was this desire to forget that kept me from expending any energy trying to find out where Norah was, how she was coping, or even thinking about her. Concerned about my apparent numbness, my parents made several counseling appointments for my with my youth pastor. But I only went to one of the appointments. I didn’t want to talk about what I saw. I wanted to forget it.
My father’s headlines kept me semi-informed of Kieran’s survival, and that he had been airlifted to a children’s hospital in Des Moines but that the bullet had severed his spinal cord and he was now paralyzed from the waist down.
Nell’s agonizing defense at her arraignment was that she had never meant to fire the rifle; she’d only wanted to scare Belinda away with it. She’d never intended to shoot anyone, she had moaned. “It’s that girl! If she hadn’t tried to get the gun away from me, this never would have happened!”
That girl. Norah.
Several days later, Nell had a mental breakdown in jail and was put on a suicide watch.
My mother sent a bouquet of balloons to Kieran at the hospital in Des Moines the week after the shooting, signing the card with all of our names. She did not offer to drive me down to Des Moines to see Norah and Kieran. My dad did, but I declined.
Three weeks after the shooting, I came home from buying a used car to the message that Norah had called and asked for me. She left a phone number but I did not recognize it. After pacing in my room for half an hour, I tried to call her back, though I was amazed by how much I didn’t want to talk to her. But there was no answer and I decided not to try again. I didn’t know what to say to her. I unwillingly kept replaying the shooting in my mind, over and over. Norah had grabbed for the gun to wrest it away from Nell and it was within the struggle between Norah and Nell that the gun went off, sending a bullet into Kieran’s spine. What could I say to her? What could anyone say? It was a horrible accident. But I knew that Norah would feel somewhat responsible for what had happened to Kieran and I didn’t want to share her anguish. Not any more. I was through with it. Through with the Janviks and their alliance with suffering. I waited to see if Norah would try to call me again. She didn’t.
As I prepared to leave for Iowa City the third week in August, the Halcyon Herald bore the news that Nell, who had been charged with attempted murder among other things, had been found incompetent to stand trial. She had been remanded to a psychiatric hospital in Davenport to be held until able, if ever, to participate in her own defense.
In All Deep Places Page 22