by Ginger Scott
“And you have someone who can verify this?”
I can tell by the way my father’s breathing halts and the way his shoulders lift, his muscles tensing, that he doesn’t.
“I work alone. They gave me a key, and I just come and go,” my dad says in a rushed voice, his eyes darting from me to the officers now circling him. “I’m sure there’s a security camera or something, though. The stuff there is all pretty expensive, and I know there’s a security pad. I punch in the numbers, so that’s recorded probably, right? And I have the name and number for the guy with the trailer…I didn’t want to make a report. You know, screw the guy over on his insurance?”
“We’ll follow up on that,” Polk says.
My father exhales with relief, but only briefly.
“Mind if we take a look in your car?” Officer Polk is already circling my dad’s vehicle and reaching for the handle before my dad can get out a “go ahead.”
My father’s forehead wrinkles and his mouth slopes down heavily, like he’s going to be sick, as our cop friend makes his way to the back seat. When he pulls out a half-empty bottle of whiskey, I understand why.
Weaknesses.
“Sir, we’re going to need to administer a breathalyzer…”
“Oh no, no…I haven’t been drinking,” my dad interjects quickly.
“He hasn’t. He’s in recovery, and he’s been sober for months now,” I defend, struggling to not believe that bottle of whiskey means anything.
Our words are meaningless, though, as Officer Polk looks up with pursed lips, his pen paused in his hand a few inches above his paper. His eyes zero in on me, and time slows down enough that I can see his pupils dilate with his stare.
“So you’re refusing?” He says the words to my father, but his gaze lingers on me for a second as he speaks.
“No…no, if…if you need me to, I will,” my dad says.
He looks sick, his skin pale and tiny beads of sweat kernelling above his brow.
I feel helpless, standing only feet away from him, my head turning to check behind me for Wes, then back to my dad as Officer Polk forces him to take a test he’s failed so many times before. In a blink, my mind flashes through them all—from the night he spent in the county jail drying out after he threw a stool through a window at Jim’s to the last time he tried driving himself home after a late-night binge. I’m expecting the words that never come, for them to inform him that he’s beyond a legal limit, but my father’s kept his promise. He’s sober, just like I said he was.
I hear the screen door at the front of my house open behind me, so I twist to see the officer who led Wes inside standing with one foot outside. He nods to Officer Polk, and there’s a noticeable pause for everyone.
“Mr. Winters, we’re going to need to take you in to ask a few more questions,” the other officer says, moving to the squad car. He opens the back door, where they put criminals…murderers.
“Is he under arrest?” I take a forceful step closer to Officer Polk as I ask.
“We just need to talk to him, Josselyn,” he says. He’s hiding things, and his tone is condescending.
“Then maybe you should call our lawyer,” I say, folding my arms over my chest.
My father’s eyes rush to mine and his head falls to one side a tick as he breathes out.
“Joss, it’ll be fine. They just want to talk to me. You stay here with Wes, and I’ll be home soon,” my dad says, trying to reassure me even though I see his hands trembling.
“My father was at work. He bought me this car. It was a gift. He bought me a gift!” My voice grows louder as I follow them to their cars, but I may as well be in another dimension where nobody hears me. “Dad, tell them! Daddy!”
My father isn’t handcuffed in front of me, but I know that was out of respect. I can tell by the way he walked, the way his posture fell under the weight of shame. The officer who was talking to Wes put his hand on my dad’s shoulder, lowering his head to keep him from bumping it as he slides into the back seat. It’s only because he’s cooperating, but something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong, and we need a lawyer. I lied when I said we had one, but I’ll find us one.
“What am I supposed to do?” I shout, my hands finding my forehead as I walk aimlessly between my family’s two wrecked cars.
“Here,” Officer Polk says, handing me a card after writing something on the back. He tears away a pink copy of the report he’d taken for my car. “If you think of anything else, or if you see anything new…if someone bothers you…makes you feel…threatened—call 911, then call me.”
I don’t speak, instead swallowing what feels like razorblades down my throat. It’s only air, and it isn’t cold, but it hurts. It takes me several seconds to snap out of my stupor after the car pulls away, but the last thought I had still sticks with me.
“Grace,” I whisper to myself, rushing to the door. Grace can help.
Wes is standing at the edge of our kitchen counter, one hand flat on the surface. He’s waiting for me. I freeze where I stand, our eyes meeting.
“My phone…I think I left it…” My words trail off, because I start to get that feeling in my chest again, like a spoon digging into the softness between my ribs. I haven’t felt that pain in months, and it knocks my breath away.
“It’s here,” Wes says, sliding his hand to the right and grabbing my phone. He pulls it into his palm, but doesn’t move his feet, so I close the distance between us myself.
“I didn’t tell them anything, Joss,” he says, and my eyes flit from where my hands touch his to his face. “They asked if I knew you, and I told them how we met…in January, when my family moved here. But, I could tell.”
“They took my dad in,” I say, and Wes breathes in and his cheek twitches in a painful wince. “They didn’t arrest him, but they have questions.”
I look down to the wrinkled report and business card in my hand, now noticing the writing on the back. What I’d assumed was an email or another phone number, is actually a message from Officer Polk, and it confirms everything Wes and I were worried about:
ARE YOU SAFE?
“He thinks my dad did this,” I say, handing the card to Wes.
I begin to dial my phone while Wes turns the card over in his fingers a few times. I let it ring several times, eventually holding for the voicemail on my grandmother’s line. When I hear the beeping tone, I fumble through my words.
“Grace…I need your help. I’m…I’m okay, but my dad’s in trouble, and…no, he’s not drinking. He’s actually doing really well, but there’s a misunderstanding I think, and someone vandalized my car tonight, so they took Dad in to ask him some questions. I just…I think we need a lawyer, but I don’t know how to get one. Dad’s working a night job, so I’m pretty sure we can’t afford it. This is really hard for me…”
I swallow in the pause, my eyes moving to Wes’s again.
“I think I need some help. Please call me back.”
I hang up with the feeling in my gut stronger than ever, and I expect nothing from my plea.
“I’m not sure what to do,” I say, pressing my back teeth together hard while my eyes zone out on the speckled countertop beside us. I lay my phone on it, then run my fingers along the pattern, feeling the imperfections left behind from knives used here to cut apples and cheese over the years.
“The first time I slid for softball, I cut the shit out of my knee…I didn’t do it right,” I say, halting my hand and splaying my fingers out over the counter’s surface. I pat my palm on it twice, softly. “My dad lifted me up and set me right here. He poured that stuff on my leg that hurts like hell…what is that stuff?”
“Bactine?” Wes’s voice croaks out.
“Yeah…that’s it,” I say.
I let the quiet take over again as I fall back into my vivid memory of that day. “My dad was so proud of me because I didn’t cry. I screamed when the Bactine stung, as my dad wiped away tiny bits of sand and gravel, but I didn’t cry. I gritted my teet
h, and I squeezed the edge of the counter…right…here.”
I feel along the bottom to the place where the vinyl is coming apart from the board underneath, and I dig my fingernails in and snap it.
“I ripped this part off,” I smile, flicking the torn counter piece again. “But I didn’t cry,” I say, my smile falling as I look up to meet Wes’s gaze. “Not once.”
Wes tucks my hair behind my ear, his movement slow. When he leaves his fingertips along the side of my head, I reach up and hold his wrist, moving his hand forward until his palm is flat on my cheek. I slide my fingers up to cover the back of his hand, and I press his warm touch into me.
“I need to tell my family everything, and we need to tell your dad,” he says.
My lips pull in tight, and I nod slowly.
“I know,” I blink.
I hold his hand against me for minutes, and we stand silently in my kitchen, avoiding the weight of the things that lay ahead. The truths give me hope, though. My dad wasn’t drinking, and the police know he wasn’t…at least not tonight. My dad didn’t do this to my car, either; someone else did.
Someone who is going to do something bad again.
And that’s the place we are now. Me and this boy…this superhuman boy, who can hold his hand to the fire and fend off drowning, who can catch rocks flying through the air at the speed of bullets and stop cars from killing little girls. This boy who is the only thing I have loved other than the man the cops just drove away.
My phone rings, and I fumble as I scramble to pick it up from the counter, finally finding the CALL button as I bring it to my ear.
“Hi…hello…” I had calmed my heart finally, but it pounds now.
“Josselyn, it’s your grandma. Tell me what you need,” she says, and I bring my fist to my mouth, squeezing my eyes tight. I won’t cry, but I will feel relief. I have family.
“Grandma, thank you. Thank you so much for calling me back,” I say, feeling Wes’s hand slide to the middle of my back. “I need your help, and it’s going to cost money. And maybe…maybe you could come, too. For just a little while.”
“I’ll leave first thing in the morning. Now tell me about the rest,” she says, and I breathe deep and start at the very beginning, telling her the side of my story that she doesn’t know—the parts even my parents never truly saw.
“The day of the accident, when I was nine…there was this boy…”
Fourteen
Wes spent the night, sleeping on our sofa with the front blinds open enough for him to keep watch. I doubt he slept for real, because every time I was awake and walked from my room to check on him, his eyes were fixed on that window, standing guard.
School starts in three hours. It feels ridiculous to just jump right back into normal life as if none of the crazy shit that is happening is real. But it is real, and sitting around trying to untangle it isn’t going to make it go away. I’m also not going to understand it. And routine, it turns out, is my friend.
The sun isn’t up for another hour yet, but I can’t wring any more sleep out of the dark. My clean clothes clutched against my chest, in my arms, I walk from my room to where Wes is sitting on the sofa, his feet on the floor, his hands on his knees, his hair messy and his eyes wide—still looking out the window. The blanket I gave him is folded next to him along with the pillow.
“Tell the truth. Did you sleep at all?”
I lean into the wall as I look at him. He doesn’t answer with words, instead smirking on one side and shrugging his shoulder.
“Bionic or not, you need sleep Stokes,” I say.
“Bi…onic?” His brow quirks up.
I laugh lightly and shrug my shoulders.
“It’s a line from one of my favorite songs. I’ve been listening to it a lot lately,” I say, kicking my prosthetic forward. “I guess you’re not really bionic, though.”
Wes is wearing that stupid smile…the one that made me fall in the first place. It’s this barely there curve that I can only read when he’s staring at me, like it’s a secret code just for me. We spend a few seconds just like this—staring.
“I love you, you know,” he says. Simple words with the weight of concrete on my chest. I don’t know how to respond to them, because I’m not sure I understand what love like this is. I’m not sure anyone could. What are we? Why are things happening to us? Why does the idea of us have to be filled with so many impossibilities and hurdles?
I part my lips to say it back, but I’m stopped by my phone ringing. I step toward Wes, setting my clothes down on the coffee table and pulling my phone from the pocket of my shorts I slept in. The number comes up UNKNOWN.
“Hello?”
I keep my eyes on the boy who says he loves me.
“Joss, it’s Dad.”
The sigh comes hard and fast. I didn’t realize how little I’d been breathing since my father left. Hearing his voice lifts this immediate weight from my shoulders.
“Dad, oh my god. Are you okay? Are you coming home?”
I have a million more questions, as I’m sure he does. My mind is racing through everything I need to tell him—Grace is coming, Wes is Christopher, Shawn is his dad, and Bruce doesn’t know. None of those things come out though, because my dad—he talks first.
“I’m going to be here for most of the day. I need you to go to the window…right now,” he says, and my heart spikes its rhythm.
“Okay.” My words come out breathy, and I shake my head at Wes when he looks at me with concern.
I walk to the front window and look out at the street. There’s a dark car parked out front, and my stomach drops instantly.
“There’s a car!” My words rush out in a panic, and Wes is standing behind me in a blink.
“It’s fine. It should be a black ford, slightly tinted windows,” my dad says.
I study it, and after a few seconds, I’m certain it matches his description.
“It is,” I say.
“We’re going to have an officer watching us for a while. It’s okay…” he speaks quickly, not wanting to give me room to worry. I’m worried despite that, though. “Listen, I’m going to be fine. I’ll be home tonight. We’ll be fine.”
“What’s going on, Dad?” My eyes are fixed on the officer’s profile, sitting in the front seat. I can see his movements; his arm raise and bring a cup to his lips. He’s drinking coffee.
“We’re going to be fine, Josselyn.” He’s using his stern voice, the one I get on the field, and the one I used to get all of the time until he started working on being sober. I don’t like that voice. It brings out a side of me that I am trying to tame.
“There’s a cop out front watching our house, Dad. Someone smashed in my car, and you’ve been at the police station all night because your car is trashed, and then there was the whiskey. And there were people snooping around our front yard last week…”
“Who was in our yard?” My dad cuts in fast.
“No one, or I don’t know…maybe someone. It didn’t seem important then,” I lie. It was important then. It made me nervous, until I lied to myself that it was nothing.
“Josselyn, you need to be aware of things. I don’t want you staying at the house alone, either. When I’m not home…I’d like you to go to Taryn’s,” he says, and my nerves ratchet up a little more. If this were nothing, if we were going to be just fine, then code-red orders would not be coming out of his mouth right now.
“Dad, let’s get over this concept that you need to protect me from information. I think I’ve proven I can handle shit.”
His sigh is audible, and it isn’t because I swore. It’s because I’m right.
“I owe some money to a couple of guys,” he says, spilling the words out quickly, as if he’s asking if I want him to pick up juice at the store.
“How much?”
I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. My dad doesn’t answer right away, and the longer he’s quiet, the more money I know it is.
“Eighty thousand.
”
A sour taste takes over my mouth, and my bottom lip falls as my eyes flutter. I was expecting a big number. I was not expecting it to be that big.
“Jesus, Dad!”
Wes nudges my shoulder so I turn to face him. I shake my head, but he doesn’t back away. He knows this is something big.
“How did this happen? Why so much? Were you…gambling? Was this from before? When you were drinking? Did you slip? Is that why you had the whiskey? Or was it…Dad…was this…drugs?”
My father is quiet again, and I can no longer stand. I move back toward the couch, sitting down and holding my head in my hand, the phone pressed to my ear. I wait for my dad to tell me, to give me a response that is better than any of the ones I laid out as possibilities, but as his silence registers with me, I realize that the truth is actually much worse. That money…it was for me.
“I would have been okay.”
I’m not sure when the tear formed, but it slices along the side of my face until I catch it at my chin, wiping away it’s evidence with the long sleeve of my favorite sweatshirt. I hear my father swallow hard on the other end, I know he’s trying to be strong, too.
“Okay wasn’t good enough,” he says, and I smile even though my face wants to cry.
“Rebecca?” I ask, wondering if the woman who has inspired me so much knows what my dad went through to pay her.
“Some of it,” he says. I turn my head and look at Wes, now sitting on the coffee table across from me, his legs on either side of mine. He leans forward as his hands come up to hold my elbows, and our foreheads rest against one another as I talk to my dad.
“You should have told me,” I say.
My father chuckles.
“You would have scrapped the plan,” he says. “You needed this. You’ve always been meant to defy odds and prove people wrong. Hell…you put me in my place.”
“I didn’t need to compete again, though,” I say, knowing it’s a lie the moment the words leave my lips. My dad’s right—I would have withered away, at least inside. My soul needed the fire to be relit, and it was more than losing my leg. It was like being reborn as a stronger version of me. I had hit bottom, and I climbed out. Without this, without having something to fight for, I may never have found the light.