The Happiness Thief

by Nicole Bokat

  “I will. I’ll ask her about the envelope, if it just disappeared. You stay out of our lives.”

  Lucy couldn’t sit still. She bent down, played with the purple plaid flap on one of her combat boots. “Don’t worry. I’m going back to Michigan, working for a while, then to school. Even agreed to see a new shrink. I would have transferred around here. But forget that. I want to be as far from this craziness as possible.”

  “Sounds like a good plan.”

  “As soon as Aunt Ellen gets home, I’ll let her know you left messages about never getting the FedEx.”

  “I won’t bring you up on one condition. No contact, ever again.”

  “No problem.”

  Lucy slouched as she walked away, whether out of a hipster posture or a real sense of defeat, Natalie couldn’t say. But, she raised her phone from where it lay on the table and snapped a couple of shots of Lucy and, in her mind, titled the photos: Lost Girl(s).

  I’m one of those.

  She waited until Lucy was out of sight. Then Natalie rushed out of the café as if being chased by demons.

  She clutched the wheel and drove slowly. She switched on the radio for noise.

  It was fantastical, this teenager and her convoluted story. The claims might be the tales of a troubled kid, an addict, another of her stepsister’s obsessive fans who felt spurned by her hero.

  The niggling problem: Lucy might be just a girl adrift, but that didn’t make her wrong.

  What if … I didn’t kill my mother?

  twenty-two

  —

  WHAT IF I DIDN’T KILL MY MOTHER?

  All the way home, the echo was like words in a whispering gallery.

  If it had been Garrick’s car—no matter who was driving—why had Natalie believed herself responsible all these years? Just be careful. Your stepsister is dangerous. She tried to squeeze out more memories, like water from cloth, but not a drop came.

  Natalie had an hour before Hadley’s school pickup. She microwaved canned vegetable soup for a late lunch while she uploaded the images of Lucy. She’d examine the pictures of the girl for clues to her character: truly disturbed, just reacting to Isabel’s withdrawal of affection, or a teenager with a dramatic flair whose intentions were good.

  In her office, she fiddled with exposure to address the dim coffee shop lighting. She was most taken by one shot, a side view of Lucy in motion seen through the glass door of the café, reminding her of the women in the series Incarceration. Zooming in on the girl’s blotchy face, eyes bleary and lipstick smeared, Natalie imagined how, in another time and place, she would convert it to black and white and use the Hue/Saturation adjustment to change the brightness, even add back a slight color tint.

  She’d jiggered the window open to counteract the heat pumping through the old radiator in her office. The fresh air hit, and suddenly she missed being in the darkroom with her mother. Not just her mom’s laughter and instruction, the lilt of her voice, her quick, agile movements, but the workmanship involved, the technical precision of adding the developer to the water, preparing the chemicals for the stop bath and fixer, and the anticipation that arose as they washed the film. Those slow, methodical tasks demanded concentration that would help Natalie ignore the siren wail in her head.

  But of course, if her mother were here, there would be no siren wail.

  When she heard her phone, she reached for it to press “decline.” Viewing the name on the screen, she accepted instead.

  “Hey,” Jeremy said. “Had a minute and wanted to check up.”

  She burst out with, “I found Godfrey.”

  “Really? That’s great! Was it the guy in the Caribbean?”

  “No. Actually, I got it all wrong.”

  Wait. Wait! Jeremy craved confirmation that Isabel’s program was a sham, that she was conning people.

  “I’m not ready to talk about it.”

  “Take your time. Glad you found the guy,” he said. “Will I see you in group?”

  “I’m skipping this week.”

  “Ah. Then, I will too. Can we get together this weekend?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  TWO DAYS LATER, Natalie was making color corrections on the Easter cookies when her cell rang. Her jaw tightened. Isabel had texted her several times, the last one: Why are you ghosting me? to which Natalie, strangled by cowardice, answered: Just busy. She’d spent nights teetering on the edge of sleep, aching for the Isabel she knew, her North Star. A woman who might not exist.

  But this call was from Ellen. “Hello, dear.”

  “You’re back,” Natalie said.

  About her aunt’s timeline, the girl had been credible.

  “Flew in last night. My niece told me what happened, that you never got the package. I’m so sorry for this fiasco.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I wish Lucy had contacted me. I could have helped you sooner.”

  “There’s not much you could have done. FedEx insists they delivered it.”

  “I know, dear. I spoke to a fellow there just now. I gave him the tracking number right away; he said the same thing.”

  “Thanks for trying,” Natalie said, staring at the pink and yellow fondant.

  “Normally, I would have required your signature. But it was such a stressful time. I wasn’t myself.”

  “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

  “That’s not so.” The older woman made a wheezing sound when she inhaled. “I copied the documents. I have them here safe and sound.”

  A jab under her ribcage. “What?”

  “Garrick wanted me to make a copy, said that I’d understand when I saw what’s in there.”

  “Wait! You knew what was in them all this time?”

  “You’ll want to see them immediately. I assumed that he expected me to at least skim them, see what I was dealing with.”

  “I’m coming right now.”

  “PLEASE EXCUSE MALCOLM,” Ellen said, at the door. Her face was tanned and dappled, like a starling’s feathers. She had on a gray alpaca sweater and her oxblood scarf, the one she’d worn to Garrick’s funeral. From somewhere in the back of her house, a dog ruffed, three barks in succession. “He should settle down. He’s just excited by company. Can I get you something other than water to drink? I can heat up some tea.”

  “No. I’m here for the papers,” Natalie said, firmly. “I can’t stay.” She accompanied Ellen into the dimly lit living room, peeking around to see if Lucy was there. If so, she’d locked herself away with the anguished dog, and wisely so.

  From what Natalie could see, the place was narrow with beige walls and wood wainscoting. A spinster’s home, small and dark and sad. Ellen led her to the living room and gestured for her to sit on the jacquard sofa with the white beech frame. The hostess settled in an armchair upholstered in the same bluish-gray fabric.

  “Please, indulge me a moment.” Ellen pointed to the platter of brownies and the pitcher of water with the two crystal glasses on the coffee table between them. She had a tremor that Natalie hadn’t noticed at the funeral.

  The dog quieted. There was only the noise from the street, the crackling of car tires over pebbles.

  Natalie said, “I’d appreciate it if you’d get me Garrick’s documents.”

  “There’s something I’d like to get off my chest first.”

  Another storyteller in the family?

  “I don’t have long.”

  Ellen nodded. “We were at the conference in Washington DC together overnight, the day before your mother died. He’d never asked me along before, you see. I was there to be useful, that’s all. I wasn’t the kind of woman who would get involved with a married man. I want you to know nothing happened.”

  “What does this have to do with anything?”

  Ellen touched her beaded necklace with nervous fingers. “It’s because of the Valium, dear. Garrick blamed himself, felt horribly guilty.”

  “That was to help my mother sleep.”r />
  “Maybe it was the intended use.”

  “That’s not your concern,” Natalie snapped.

  “I wish it weren’t.” One of Ellen’s eyelids was pink and slightly scaly, Natalie noticed. It aged her further. Good. “Laura believed that Garrick and I were having an affair. Later, Garrick let slip it was the reason she took the medication in the first place. Marital stress.”

  Natalie imagined a stack of purple-covered paperbacks, with titles like The Duke’s Debutante and The Earl’s Virgin Bride, on the end table next to Ellen’s bed. She’d noticed these romance novels in a girl’s dorm room years ago and had never forgotten their names. Ellen probably kept a journal, too, of her unrequited feelings and had taken solace in the jealousy she evoked in Laura.

  “We worked together for over thirty years.” Ellen’s eyes moistened. “I had enormous admiration and respect for him. He was a truly great man. But there was nothing more between us, no feelings on either side.”

  Natalie nodded, not believing a word.

  “He spoke so highly of you.”

  “You’re mixing me up with Isabel.”

  “I would never confuse the two of you,” Ellen said. “It was painful for him after your poor mother’s accident. You reminded him so much of her, you see.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “My dear, you’re her spitting image.” The old woman reached over and patted her arm the way one would a yelping pet: there, there.

  “Did you know my mother?”

  “We’d met, of course, a few times,” Ellen said briskly. “But Garrick was always very private, appropriately so. Later, he did share with me his remorse.”

  “About what?”

  Natalie couldn’t resist the ocean tide pull of Ellen’s tale.

  “Neglect, dear. Poor man blamed himself so. For years, he was haunted by his part in both his wives’ deaths. He wasn’t there for Sigrid and your mother; his work consumed him. He felt he’d missed the signs leading to their deaths. He told me that … afterwards.”

  “None of this has anything to do with why I’m here, for Garrick’s letter.”

  “Oh, but it has everything. There was Valium in Laura’s system at the time.”

  The air around Natalie buzzed, suddenly on high alert. “No. That’s wrong.”

  “You must read it, dear.”

  “I’m sure he was mixed up.”

  “I’m afraid not. But you can see for yourself.” Ellen gazed at her hands, curled around each other. “I’ll never let myself off the hook for my part in your mother’s death. I needed you to know that.”

  Natalie didn’t respond. There was only the sound of the breathing between them. Whose breath was more labored, she couldn’t distinguish. Then the animal barked in triplicate again.

  Ellen slid open a drawer on her side of the table. She lifted out a manila envelope that had been edged into the slender compartment and handed it to Natalie. “Garrick cared for you, dear. He tried his best to garner the courage to talk to you. I believe he was finally ready. It was simply too late.”

  IN THE CAR, Natalie squeezed the metallic clasp and opened the unglued flap. She slid out a page that read “Police Report” at the top and a smaller envelope that was taped shut. She felt that surge, the clang of alarm: Mayday, Mayday. But she wouldn’t repeat her mother’s mistake, wouldn’t pop a pill while behind the wheel. She put the documents back in their sheath. She turned on the radio’s classical music station, the moaning cellos and mournful horns. Switching to the news, a report on the president’s refusal to accept climate science, was worse. She drove faster than usual, in silence, staring ahead at the yellow lawns and barren trees.

  In her living room, she tossed her coat on a chair, hopped on one foot as she wrestled her boot off the other, sat on the couch and tugged.

  Her hand trembled as she pulled out the report—White-Out correcting the Local Case Number—along with a Crash Diagram and the letter from Garrick. She flipped through the report quickly. The second page consisted of boxes for Vehicle Number and Passenger (only if injured or killed). There were two columns and just one filled in.

  On the next page was a complicated grid with ovals that resembled a standardized test form with categories such as, “Type of Driver Distraction, “Vehicle Damage,” and “Condition of Driver Contributing to the Crash.” That last one determined that there were “No Defects.” Her mother had no eyesight, hearing, or “other” defect, no known illness.

  Natalie’s airway tightened. Her mother appeared perfectly healthy seconds before she was irrevocably dead. The Driver’s Action column presented forty-three possibilities to account for the accident, including “Blinded by Headlights,” which was not the blackened oval. The blackened oval was “Other.”

  In the paragraph under Crash Description, police officer Burke wrote, “Tire marks indicate recent activity, though no traces of a collision on the deceased driver’s vehicle. Blood found on the road approximately 30 feet away.”

  Had the blood from her mother’s head wound flowed, a warm, rusty-red stream, down the road?

  She unfolded Garrick’s pages, handwritten on his department stationary.

  Natalie, I kept this from you out of loyalty to Isabel. You have a child, so I hope you’ll understand. Before Laura’s death, she and Isabel were fighting constantly. I don’t know what you remember, if anything. But Isabel was drinking, smoking marijuana, and stealing Laura’s prescription medication. We caught her in our home in bed with an older boy, Thomas James. She was seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Martin Strout, for months, but Isabel’s behavior didn’t improve.

  The room was lopsided and ungrounded, the furniture tipping. Natalie stood to get a glass of water but didn’t make it. She buckled, knees, and then waist, like one of those collapsible thumb puppets her mom once gave her.

  Isabel was the patient, the fucked-up daughter, the liar. Not me.

  On the floor, Natalie saw the familiar nooks and crannies, the frayed rug and smudged marks on the walls, the dust motes gathered under the lamp like tiny sparklers. Holding onto the coffee table for balance, she rose and, on the couch, drew her knees into her chest. She remembered being awakened during the night by the sound of howling. When she tiptoed toward Isabel’s room, she realized the noise was coming from the TV, one of those horror movies her stepsister loved. She edged open the door to see shadows, blankets and sheets wrapped around Isabel and what looked like pillows lined up next to her. Isabel pulled down her bedding. Underneath, she was naked, her body an elegant ivory, with blond pubic hair and faint peach nipples. A boy’s head rested on one breast, his eyes closed, mouth slightly open. He was asleep, his penis hanging languidly on her thigh.

  She resumed reading; the words scurried like ants she had to rush to catch.

  Laura believed it best for all of us if Isabel received professional help away from the family; Dr. Strout agreed. She’d scheduled a meeting with the clinical director of a boarding school for struggling teens.

  They argued the afternoon of the crash, and Isabel threw a dish at your mother’s face. That’s when Laura decided to take you with her to Dr. Strout’s. I was away, at a conference, and couldn’t accompany her. But on the phone, I told your mother to let you stay home with Isabel. You two girls adored each other. Laura insisted it wasn’t safe.

  When I saw the coroner’s report, they noted the amount of Valium Laura had in her system. It was three times the dose prescribed for sleep. I can’t reconcile the fact she’d drive in that condition. She was distraught but not self-destructive, and certainly she’d never intentionally put you in harm’s way. The only explanation I could come up with is that the stress just got to be too much that day, and Laura got forgetful, took more than she’d meant to. Along with the situation with Isabel, I was away on a trip with my assistant. The last part was meaningless but upsetting to your mother.

  Soon after I arrived home that day, the police showed up at the house with the terrible news. Afterwards, I was in shock and
not thinking about Isabel, where she was. A while later, she came out of our garage, claiming she’d left her book bag in my car (even though Laura always picked up you girls from school in her car, not mine) and that she never heard or saw the police. When I drove to the hospital that night, I noticed a red blotch that looked like blood on the carpeting under my feet. That didn’t register as anything suspicious at the time.

  Natalie stared at the scrapes on her coffee table leg. It was so hard to get enough oxygen.

  But, at some point, I confronted Isabel about her odd behavior and about the stains in the upholstery. She admitted she’d taken out my Mercedes with Thomas, who wanted to drive it. They’d gone for pizza and eaten in the car. She said the boy must have dropped some on the floor carpet. This also explained why she was getting her book bag when I saw her. But the story always seemed too convenient to me. I didn’t smell pizza in the car, and that stain looked more like blood than sauce.

  All this time, I’ve suspected my own daughter of some involvement with what happened that day. I told myself it was her boyfriend’s doing, a sick prank to scare Laura, run her off the road, for threatening to send his girlfriend away. But I’ve wondered why they went through with it once Isabel knew you were in the car and why in the world they didn’t help you. Even if they’d panicked, they could have called an ambulance when they got home and not given their names. Maybe they were too afraid of being caught.

  I’m sorry to foist this on you in such a cowardly manner. It’s haunted me that my daughter and Thomas killed my wife and left you injured. But I couldn’t expose my child, to confess that I believed she’d abandoned you after the crash. By trying to protect both Isabel and you, I was paralyzed. I hope you can forgive me for my weakness. Love, Garrick.

  HER MOTHER HAD worn her wool coat with the fake fur collar and the rubbery boots that squeaked when she walked. “Bring your homework to do in the waiting room.” Her voice was gentle. She was steady on her feet. “I’ll be out in forty-five minutes.”