The House at 758

by Kathryn Berla

  “Let’s go,” he says. “Before I decide to stop being so nice.”

  I take my time getting out of the Hornet and locking up. If the brown Toyota wasn’t parked in the driveway, I’d think nobody was home. The man who lives next door has come out of his house. He makes a production of going to his mailbox and standing beside it while he opens and reads each letter, but he’s really just watching us. I follow the policeman to his patrol car and get in through the passenger side door.

  “Where are we going? I’m not in the mood for a high-speed chase or a shoot-out.”

  “By the way my name is Officer Jensen and you can call me Officer Jensen.”

  I guess he thinks he’s funny. “I’m Krista Matzke.”

  “I know who you are. Remember, I saw your driver’s license last week.”

  He flips the blinker signal and turns right onto El Dorado, a busy six-lane street that’s lined on both sides with bowling alleys, fast-food restaurants, warehouse stores and dingy stucco apartment buildings that might have been pink at one time but now look kind of gray.

  “Do you know I went to the same high school as you?” he asks.

  “You went to Del Oro?” For some reason, this surprises me. I guess he just looks out of context in his uniform in this place. “That must have been a long time ago.”

  He smiles and shakes his head. “I graduated ten years ago. My ten-year reunion is next month.”

  We’ve stopped at a red light. Outside my window is a do-it-yourself car wash—the kind where you feed quarters into a coin box and you spritz soapy water on your car until your time runs out, so you have to move fast. My father took me to one of those when I was younger. He let me hold the wand and spray the car, only he forgot to close the window all the way. I thought I would get in trouble, but he just laughed about it and we dried the inside with a blanket we got from the trunk of the car.

  Now I take my car to a car wash where they serve Italian sodas, espressos, and biscotti. They play movies on flat screen monitors and keep all the current celebrity magazines and newspapers in the waiting room. When your car is ready, they announce it on the loudspeaker. But it was fun that time Dad took me to the do-it-yourself car wash.

  “How do you know where I go to high school? Does it say that in your computer?”

  “Krista, I know who you are and I know what you’re doing.” He pauses and takes a deep breath. “I was working that day. We all heard about what happened. A friend of mine from police academy was one of the first responders.”

  “What am I doing?”

  “What?” We’ve turned into a rundown strip mall and he drives slowly through the parking lot. Four or five boys about my age are gathered near the front of a liquor store. When they see the patrol car approaching they stare blankly until we pass. One of them catches my eye and smiles right at me. He’s handsome and has shiny black hair that’s combed straight off his face. He kisses his fingertips and blows across them in my direction.

  “You said you know what I’m doing. I’m just asking you to explain.”

  “Let me clarify. I’m not a hundred percent sure what your motives are, but if I had to guess I’d say you’re trying to make life just a little bit uncomfortable for Omar Aziz.”

  “And is that a bad thing?”

  “It’s borderline breaking the law. And depending on how far you plan on going, the answer is yes, that could be a bad thing.” He pulls out of the parking lot back onto busy El Dorado. “So how far were you planning on going?”

  “I just wanted to see him. I didn’t plan anything beyond that.” I don’t want to use his name even though Officer Jensen has introduced it into the car—kind of like letting a bobcat out of a trap, it feels like it’s loose now, and dangerous.

  “Krista, I’m going to tell you some things about Omar that you might already know. Just hear me out, okay?”

  I don’t want to know anything about him. I know enough.

  “I’m taking your silence as an ‘okay.’” Officer Jensen is very by-the-book, and yet, not by-the-book. I try to envision him walking through the hallways of Del Oro, stopping at the water fountain for a quick drink before the bell rings. I imagine him in the boys’ locker room where Jake took me that night. Officer Jensen was one of the ghosts whose presence I felt, joking around with his friends in the physical way boys have of communicating with each other.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Yes, you do. So stop me anytime.” As we drive, all the cars around us slow down to match our pace. “Omar was just shy of eighteen at the time of the accident, but he’d only had his driver’s license for six months.”

  “I know.”

  “He was working three jobs at the time, Krista. Three jobs. And he had dropped out of school six months earlier so he could hold down those three jobs.”

  “Boo-hoo.”

  “His family was granted political asylum to come here from Afghanistan because his father had been a translator for U.S. troops. He was murdered by the Taliban, leaving behind a pregnant wife and two kids. Sort of a message to the people of that village not to cooperate with the Americans—Omar saw his father hanging in the village square.”

  I sigh loudly. I pretty much know all about this. “When he got his driver’s license, he didn’t learn that it’s illegal to text while you’re driving?”

  “He was delivering a pizza, and his boss texted him to find out what was taking him so long. He knew he was breaking the law but his mind was on his job—so he made the very bad decision to text him back.” We were driving down smaller streets now, heading back toward 758.

  “The very bad decision,” I repeat. “How about the decision that pretty much destroyed the rest of my life?”

  “You’re young, Krista. Trust me when I tell you that you’re going to have a life. You’ll never get back what you lost but you can go on with what you have now—and build on it.”

  “Two years. Two years is enough to pay for what he did?”

  “That was the judge’s decision. To try him as a minor. To take into account his history and circumstances.”

  “Circumstances?”

  “That his family is dependent on him for financial support. That he’s helping his mother raise his younger brother and sister.”

  We pull up behind the Hornet and Officer Jensen leaves his engine running.

  “I’m going to watch you until you get into your car and drive away,” he says. “And I don’t want to see you back here, okay? If I do, I will advise the Aziz family that they have the right to file for a restraining order against you. And if they do, and you violate the restraining order, you will be arrested.”

  “It’s not fair.” My eyes are burning with unshed tears.

  “Nothing in life is fair. I see evidence of that every day.”

  I step out of the patrol car and start to close the door.

  “Krista.” Officer Jensen lifts his sunglasses and looks straight into my eyes. “Don’t ever believe his punishment ends after two years. He’ll punish himself for the rest of his life.”

  As I pull away from the curb I look one last time at 758. The brown Toyota is gone.

  Chapter | 15

  When I get home, I suspect I’m in a shit-load of trouble. My dad’s car is in the driveway and it’s not even three o’clock. I have a feeling he’s heard from Officer Jensen and I’m tempted to sneak up to my tent, but I know that’s putting off the inevitable, so I go inside.

  When I see Dad, I really do feel sorry for him, which surprises me because that’s never happened before. No matter what I’ve felt about him in the past, he’s always seemed strong to me. Now he looks frail, kind of beat down. He almost looks . . . old.

  “Krista.” He’s sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee he’s made for himself. “What are we going to do about you?”

  “About . . .
me?” I stand until he motions for me to sit down. We face each other across the table.

  “I asked you to stay away from that house.” Apparently, my father can’t bring himself to use the name either. “I’ve asked you to go back to counseling. What am I supposed to do with you?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m kind of inconvenient, aren’t I?”

  “Stop it! You know I love you. Marie loves you too. She tries so hard with you.”

  “Tries what? To love me? She doesn’t love me—she only wants to get you to marry her.”

  “That’s enough!” His voice rises and then softens immediately. “I’m trying, I really am . . . but I can’t be both father and mother to you. You need a mother, honey, and Marie wants to be your mother if you’ll just give her a chance.”

  “Why doesn’t she try being a mother to Emma and Chad for a start?” My father slams his coffee cup on the table and glares at me. At the sound of that cup crashing down, something inside me snaps and I feel anger rising from deep inside, almost like a volcano that’s about to erupt. My cheeks are hot and there’s a roaring sound in my ears. I can’t stop what I know is going to happen next—I’m losing it. “I don’t need a mother!” My voice is so loud now the neighbors can probably hear. “I need my mother!” The words tear at my throat like pieces of shrapnel.

  “Well you can’t have her!” The volume of my father’s voice now matches my own, in fact, it exceeds it. His face turns almost purple, and veins pop out on both temples. “Your mother is dead, Krista. She’s dead! You think you’re the only one who suffered, Krista? I lost half my family too!”

  The terrible words have been spoken. My father and I have always been careful to use our safe words like ‘gone’ or ‘lost to us’ or ‘not with us anymore.’ But now that he’s broken our unspoken agreement, I suddenly feel I can’t breathe. My father buries his head in his hands and sobs.

  I run from the kitchen only wanting to get away from him and that terrible word that came out of his mouth. When I pass by his bedroom, a horrible thought comes to me and I walk into his bathroom. I know where the sleeping pills are, and I shuffle through the various medicines until I find them. Then I empty the entire contents of the bottle into the palm of my hand and stare at them—imagining them in my mouth, imagining gulping down the water that would force them down my throat, into my stomach, through my veins, to my heart, to my brain. Peace at last. Peace . . . at . . . last. I fling them into the sink and turn the tap water on full blast. I throw the empty medicine bottle on the marble floor with such ferocity, the plastic splinters into shards.

  “Aahhh!” I scream. “I hate . . . I hate . . .” I’m so scared and so confused. My breathing comes fast and shallow. The room is spinning. My arms and legs are numb and tingling. My mouth is bone dry and my heart is racing so fast it seems impossible it won’t burst.

  And then I feel my father’s arms encircle me from behind. He hugs me tightly against his body.

  “It’s okay, honey,” he says. “Just breathe. Breathe slowly. It’s okay.” He strokes my hair and I begin to relax. I turn around and fall into his arms, sobbing against his chest. He’s crying too and we stand like that—crying in each other’s arms.

  “We’ve lost so much, Krista . . . so much. I thought I could be strong enough for both of us . . . pull us both through. I’m so sorry I’ve let you down.”

  It makes me feel sad that Dad thinks he can unfeel my feelings for me. But it doesn’t surprise me.

  Afterward, he leads me to the divan in his bedroom. We lean back and he just holds me tight and says nothing. My breathing is so ragged that an involuntary sob comes every few breaths. I think I actually fall asleep for a few minutes. When I open my eyes, Dad looks down at me.

  “Let’s go see if Rachel is home,” he says quietly. “I’d like to meet the baby.”

  __________

  When I was a freshman in high school and on the cusp of popularity, I was chosen to be a guide for a visiting Australian student. A group of twenty high school students from Australia was attending our school for a week and each one was assigned a guide to shadow from class to class. This was an opportunity for them to see what life was like for their American counterparts. I was flattered to be chosen because the teachers recommended student guides based on their grades and citizenship—a fancy way of saying you never caused any problems in class. But maybe they also saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself.

  The student assigned to me was a fifteen-year-old girl named Annie. She was fun, down-to-earth, pretty in a natural way—we could have been friends. She was so interested in everything she saw. Gym class, lunch in the cafeteria, math, English . . . it all seemed to fascinate her. And the two of us attracted a lot of attention from the other students that week.

  The first three days I was on a high and Lyla kidded me about how talkative I was because I normally tend to be on the quiet side. Annie came to watch my swim practice and she worked out with us on that first day. By Thursday, I was withdrawing a little—I could even see it in myself. Annie asked me why I was so quiet that day. She just assumed the Krista she saw the first three days was the normal Krista and, I must admit, I enjoyed playing that role.

  I tried to analyze it later, after Annie was gone, back to the continent where water supposedly goes down the drain in the opposite direction and animals hop and carry babies in their pouches. At first, I thought it was because I knew her visit was coming to an end and I’d never see her again, so why bother putting effort into a friendship that could never go anywhere. And there may have been a little of that.

  A few months ago, I thought about it again. I realized that when Annie came, I saw everything through her eyes. My world that was so familiar to me—the kids I grew up with, the way we talk and dress, the food we like, the TV shows we watch—all of those were new and exciting to Annie. I got to see my life through her eyes and it was like being on the outside looking in. All the things I took for granted became new and interesting again. But after a few days, as Annie got used to my life, I went back to being used to it as well. And, even though I loved my life, that feeling . . . that rush was gone.

  Sitting here in the living room of the Sullivans’ house, watching my father and Rachel drift back toward each other after a year of separation, I have a smile on my face, if not quite fully in my heart. It amazes me to realize how comfortably my opposing emotions co-exist inside of me, so that fear can easily make way for courage when the time is right—and hatred will do the same for love.

  I’m holding baby Henry against my shoulder and patting him lightly on his tiny back. Picking him up was easy this time—I wanted to do it. I pull my head back to look into his wise, steely-blue eyes, and I remember again what it feels like when every day is new and life isn’t taken for granted.

  Chapter | 16

  Today I’ll pick up my grandpa from the airport, but right now it’s just my dad and I sitting down together for breakfast. We don’t talk about what happened yesterday, but I think we both feel like some of the pressure that was building has been released. I know my father was disappointed whe n I went up to my tent after dinner last night. I’m sure he hoped we’d made enough progress to bring me back into the house. But to his credit, he doesn’t say anything about it and I know he’s trying hard to understand me.

  My father gives me a piece of paper that lists the doctor’s appointments he’s scheduled for my grandfather, beginning with a visit to his own office tomorrow. After breakfast, he excuses himself and clears his dishes. I wash the morning dishes and tidy up the kitchen. Then I go to the guest room and put clean sheets on the bed that Chad uses when he’s here, and I set out clean towels and a few water bottles in the guest bathroom. Emma and Chad will have to sleep in my room while my grandpa is here. They only come every other weekend so one of them can use the air mattress. While I’m working, my father comes in to say goodbye. He gives me a big hu
g and a kiss on top of my head. Yesterday was traumatic for both of us, so much so that it almost feels like a physical injury. We’re both being careful with each other, as though our bruises are visible.

  My grandpa’s plane arrives at three-thirty so I have an empty morning. Empty mornings haven’t been great for me lately but this one will be different. My new goal is not really to make good things happen. It’s just to make bad things not happen. It doesn’t seem like a big deal but it is. I have a plan to achieve this goal that was partly inspired by Chad. The morning we spent kicking the soccer ball felt great—that is, until the football team arrived. Running, sweating, focusing on the physical side of me changed me for a few hours and I remember that sensation. Maybe it’s true that endorphins released during exercise provide a temporary feeling of well-being. I plan to test that theory this morning.

  It’s still early enough the day isn’t too hot. I step out into the street wearing my running shoes, shorts, and t-shirt. My hair is pulled away from my face and neck into a pony-tail high on my head. Rachel is at the end of her driveway, bent over picking up her newspaper from the ground. She sees me when she straightens up and I make a small circular wave with my open hand. She points to her chest, makes a heart sign with both index fingers and thumbs and then points to me. For some reason, sign language feels better than spoken words today.

  I take off jogging down the street, planning to only run our neighborhood loop today. But when the two-mile loop is done, I still feel toxic energy that needs to be burned away, so I jog down the steep hill that leads toward town. After about twenty minutes, I’m on the main street and I’m feeling muscles come to life that haven’t been called on to perform for a long time. The sun is almost overhead, sweat is dripping into my eyebrows, and my back is drenched. I feel warm and loose—like nothing can stop me—but I haven’t brought any water and I still have that hill to climb on the way back. I pick out a tree as my turn-around point and just as I round it, a Jeep drives by the same color as Jake’s. It goes by so fast I don’t have time to be sure it’s his. There must be a lot of Jeeps the same color as Jake’s in this town but I never had a reason to notice them before.