Backwoods

by sara12356

  Daddy always chooses binary numbers, using only zeroes or ones. He says they’re easier to remember. That means there are only eight possible combinations within the four-digit limit. I guessed the right one my first day here.

  Wunno-wunno had in fact been one-oh-one-oh, or in this case, one-zero, one-zero, which happened to be Dr. Moore’s pass code for all of the laboratory and compound key pads.

  Her hair had fallen into her face and he brushed it back behind her ear. “You mad at me?” he asked, because she still wouldn’t look at him.

  It was wrong and he knew it, but he’d taken Moore’s scrapbook with him when he’d left the lab building the night before. He’d sat up for awhile once he’d slipped back into his room at the barracks, too full of adrenaline to relax or sleep, and had flipped through the book, reading all of the articles tucked inside. Time and again, he’d found himself drawn to the photograph of Moore carrying Alice down the stairs of Gallatin State Hospital.

  Daddy says it’s a place for crazy people, Alice had told him. He says I didn’t belong there. My mother put me in it. He had to go to court to get me out. It took a long time because she had a court order that said I had to stay.

  Andrew had studied that photo, the haunting image of Alice’s large eyes, her vacant stare spearing out of the print and up at him. What had happened to her in that place? he’d wondered. Three years, he’d thought, stricken and sad. Jesus Christ, the poor kid.

  Her cheek was cold to his touch. Though she’d worn socks and shoes that morning, unlike before, she still wore only a thin flannel nightgown. “Where’s your coat?” he asked, because she still wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t acknowledge him. “Here.”

  He wore an insulated flannel shirt, the one he’d been wearing on the day he’d wrecked his Jeep. Suzette had laundered it for him since then. It was quilted inside, thick and warm, and he shrugged his way out of it now, wearing a long-sleeved thermal shirt beneath. “Put this on. You’re going to get sick.”

  As he drew the shirt around her narrow shoulders, tugging the collar together beneath her chin, Suzette drew near. “Watch it now. I’ll get jealous,” she chided with a smile.

  Andrew thought of the magazine clipping he’d seen last night, the image of Dr. Moore and Suzette together in the laboratory.

  Noted geneticist Edward Moore, M.D., Ph.D., and research associate Suzette Montgomery, M.D., at work at the Genomics and Bioinformatics Division at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York.

  She carried a lit cigarette in her hand and lifted it to her mouth now for a quick drag. “We need to stop meeting like this, you know. People are going to think you’re in love with me.”

  He forced a laugh. “Just a coincidence, I promise,” he said, standing. After an uncertain glance around, he added, “I was on my way to the garage to see how my Jeep’s doing.”

  She took another pull from the cigarette. “Oh.”

  “Well, I, uh…” Fumbling now, he raked his fingers through his hair, then managed a clumsy wave. “I’ll see you around then.”

  Suzette smirked, bemused. “Sure.”

  He started to turn, to walk away, but Alice caught him by the hand, her grip tight and urgent. “Is it fun?” she asked.

  Surprised, he looked down at her. “What?”

  “Your job. Is it fun?”

  Even yesterday, the question, and the whole line of disjointed thinking that had prompted it, might have caught him off guard or puzzled him, but he found himself growing used to Alice’s way of phasing in and out of conversations with no apparent concept of time.

  “I’ve never thought about it like that before,” he admitted. “I guess it can be, if you’re into being out by yourself a lot in the woods.”

  She looked up at him, patient. “Are you?”

  “Sometimes, I guess. Sure.”

  “Do you get lonely?”

  Andrew knelt again, bringing himself to her eye level. “Not really. Sometimes I like being by myself.”

  She studied him for a moment. “Me, too.”

  Whatever inner bulb had illuminated in her mind abruptly snuffed again. He watched, fascinated and somewhat sad, as her gaze grew abruptly distant, her attention unfocused, her expression slackening into stoic impassivity once more.

  “Good bye, Alice,” he murmured, stroking her cheek once, gently. “See you later.”

  ****

  Because he’d made up the pretense of checking up on his Jeep for Suzette’s benefit, and she remained within view as she followed Alice across the yard, Andrew ducked into the garage. There was no way in hell Santoro would have the truck up and running again and he knew it, not that day or any other. She might have been joking when she’d told him the Jeep needed a salvage yard, not a mechanic, but she’d been right nonetheless.

  Even before reaching the garage building, he’d heard music, and once inside, with its vaulted ceilings, smooth concrete floors and cinderblock walls, the garage amplified the guitar strains of Santana from a CD boom box to nearly deafening levels.

  “Hello?” he called, trying in vain to pitch his voice above the music. His poor Jeep listed in the corner, a dilapidated, waterlogged paperweight. Three other vehicles, these all of the olive drab camouflage paint job variety, sat parked in different service bays, one with its hood up, another with tires removed and the third still raised on lifts and left to dangle in the air.

  “Santoro?”

  Because other than the music, there seemed no sign of life inside, he walked inside, crossing the expansive open floor, looking curiously around. “Hey, Santoro,” he called again. “Anybody home?”

  In the far corner, he spied a desk, an antiquated behemoth made of gray-green painted steel. Circa 1960-something, it took up nearly the entire corner with its squat, square bulk. Framed photos of children littered the top, a dark haired boy and girl, both grinning broadly in a variety of poses—the boy on his bicycle with a helmet cock-eyed on his head, in his swim trunks in a green plastic wading pool, the girl in pink plastic sunglasses or dressed up in oversized shoes and carrying an adult-sized purse.

  In another photograph, the only one not of the children, Santoro stood in a wedding gown. Curious, he picked it up to study it more closely. Younger, with make up on, her hair pin-curled and coiffed, she beamed at the camera. Her dress hugged the indention of her waist, the generous outward swells of her hips before pooling in a wide train around her feet. She’d made a breath-taking bride as she’d posed on the arm of a handsome Hispanic man in a tuxedo.

  Lucky guy, he thought. He’d only ever been in love enough to want to marry someone once—with Lila. There had been no one since he’d ever even thought about spending the rest of his life with, but he hoped that if he ever did, she’d look that happy on their wedding day.

  Not to mention that beautiful.

  The music cut off, startling him, and he turned to find Santoro walking toward him, wiping her hands on a towel. “Well, hey, partner,” she said with a puzzled but pleased sort of grin. “Wasn’t expecting to see you so early today.”

  “Hey, hi.” Feeling intrusive, like he’d been caught snooping through her underwear drawer, he set the wedding picture back on her desk. It promptly fell face-down with a clatter against the blotter and abashed, he propped it upright again. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” she said, then the picture toppled again. “The little thing on the back is kind of broken. You have to…” He tried to set it up as she spoke, and when it fell again, she laughed. “Here. I’ll do it.”

  She leaned past him, reaching for the picture.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “It’s alright. It’s an old frame.” Because she couldn’t get it to stand again, either, she finally settled for slapping it face-down on the desk. “There.” Laughing, she swatted her hands together. “That’ll work.”

  He laughed with her. She had dark smutches of grease on her cheeks, embedded beneath the crescents of her fingernails, the creases in her k
nuckles. Loose strands of hair had worked loose from her ordinarily meticulous ponytail and drooped over her brow to dangle lankly against her cheeks. When she smiled, he could see beneath that to the radiant bride in the wedding photo.

  She’s married, for Christ’s sake, he told himself sharply, and appropriately rebuked, he glanced back at her desk. “So, uh, are these your kids?”

  “No,” she replied. “Those pictures came with the frames. I figure I’ll find something to stick in their places someday.”

  When he blinked at her in surprised bewilderment, she laughed. “I’m kidding. Of course those are my kids. This is Max.” Santoro lifted one of the photos of the boy and handed it to him. “He’ll be eight in December.”

  “He’s cute.”

  “And this is mi cariño, my daughter, Emerita. We call her Eme for short.” Her smile grew soft, nearly wistful as she showed him the girl. “She’s four.” Slipping the photo from his hand, she laughed. “Well, hey, I’m sure you didn’t come out here just so to see pictures of my kids. What can I do for you?”

  Because he had no real reason to be there, he looked around. “Uh,” he said. “Actually I just thought I’d swing by, say hello. See if you needed any help with anything.”

  She raised her brow. “Not unless you know anything about running a STE/ICE engine diagnostic on an M-923 five-ton cargo truck.”

  “Uh,” Andrew said again and she laughed.

  “Come on.” Slapping the back her hand against his stomach, she turned and walked away. “You can keep me company.”

  He stood to the side, watching with undisguised fascination as Santoro shoved back the tilt hood on a huge, six-wheeled transport vehicle, stepped up onto the ledge of the front bumper and leaned purposefully into the maw of the engine compartment.

  “So how did you wind up working on engines?” he asked, taking the tanker trailer into account because he was hard-pressed not to check out her ass, given her position.

  “My dad taught me,” she said, connecting cables from a hand-held testing unit to engine components beneath the hood. “And I used to work with the New York City Transit Department as a track equipment maintainer, a heavy duty mechanic. That was how I met Antonio.”

  “He’s your husband.” Now Andrew had no trouble tearing his eyes guiltily away from her ass.

  Santoro nodded. “He’s a firefighter. Ladder fifty-eight, South Bronx. I met him my first week on the job. He asked me out a week after that. A month later, we were married.”

  “Wow,” Andrew said. “That was…fast.”

  “Yeah.” She studied her hand-held console for a moment, frowned, then fiddled with some of the gauges and knobs. Turning, she set the console and cables on a nearby workbench then wiped her hands on a towel again. “So are you ever going to really tell me where you learned to play pool?”

  “I did tell you. Last night in the rec room.”

  “Yeah, yeah, the North Pole. I mean it. Where’d you learn?”

  “Not the North Pole,” he corrected. “North Pole. It’s this little town just outside of Fairbanks. That’s where I grew up. My dad taught me. He’s an airline pilot and was gone a lot while I was growing up. Shooting pool was one of the few things we ever really did together. Beth called it our male bonding time.”

  “Beth,” Santoro said quietly. “She’s the one in the picture, right? Your sister.”

  He nodded. “Again, I’m really sorry about the way I acted yesterday.”

  “It’s alright.”

  “I was an asshole.”

  “Yeah, you were,” she said, smiling. “But I told you, it’s okay.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “And thank you, too, for saving my life the other night. I’ve been meaning to say that.”

  “My pleasure,” she replied, offering her fist to him, that little knuckle tap she’d apparently offer only to her friends.

  He returned the gesture, noticing for the first time that although she’d extended her left hand, her ring finger—where her wedding band should have been—was bare. Must not want to catch it on anything while she’s working.

  “I ought to get back to the compound,” he said. “Out of your way.”

  “You’re not in my way. I kind of like having you here, talking to you.”

  He smiled. Me, too, he wanted to say, this little voice in his mind immediately shot down by a sharper, sterner one: She’s married. Get your head out of your ass.

  So instead, he said, “Thanks, Santoro.”

  “Dani,” she said and he blinked at her, curious. “My name. It’s Dani. You don’t have to call me Santoro. Makes you sound like one of the guys or something.”

  He raised his brow. “I am a guy.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, but you’re not one of the guys. You know.” She nodded to indicate the barracks.

  He smiled again. “Fair enough. Thanks, Dani.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, then motioned with her hand. “Come on. I’ve got two more trucks just like this waiting over there.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  She’s married.

  Andrew kept telling himself this, over and over, even as he took the stairs up to his room in the barracks two at a stride, whistling all the while.

  “My squad’s got KP, kitchen duty tonight,” Dani had told him as they’d left the garage together earlier. “Why don’t you help us? We’re making enchilada casserole and I’m heading it up. I could use another pair of hands.”

  “Sounds good,” he’d replied.

  Dani Santoro is married, he told himself in his room. Didn’t you learn your lesson with Lila about messing around with a married woman?

  He let himself into his room, fished his wallet from his back pocket and tossed it onto the dresser. After a moment’s reconsideration, he picked it up again, flipped idly through the billfold and pulled out the letter from his father.

  The paper felt old and crisp in his hands as he unfolded it, smoothing the wrinkles out of the sheet from where he’d crumpled it the day before. He didn’t read, just held it, looking at it, the interlocking whorls and loops of Eric’s slanted handwriting. It was enough to quell that simmering eagerness he’d felt since leaving the garaging, the anticipation of seeing Dani again, the excited enjoyment at the time they’d shared that morning.

  She’s married, he told himself, firmly this time.

  In the letter, Eric had invited Andrew out for dinner, pleading for the chance to explain himself, his reasons for the divorce, in person.

  I’ve found someone else, someone I want to spend the rest of my life with.

  He’d asked Andrew to meet him for dinner at the Pagoda Chinese Restaurant in North Pole. Besides the finished portion of their basement, in which Eric and Andrew had played pool, the restaurant was one of the few places Andrew associated with his father from his childhood. It had been a sort of tradition for Eric to take Andrew and Beth to Pagoda for dim sum dinners whenever he’d been in between the flights that had kept him away from home for weeks and sometimes months at a time. Because of this, even though Andrew had been angry with his father about the divorce, he’d reluctantly agreed to meet there, a sort of emotionally neutral ground, if nothing else.

  It had been three years since Andrew had last seen Lila Meyer at that point, so he’d been stunned, surprised and more than a little bewildered to find her standing in the restaurant foyer upon his arrival.

  “Hello, Andrew,” she’d said, smiling as if she’d been expecting him, as if stumbling upon her young former lover, whose heart she’d pretty much ripped out, stomped on, pissed on, then handed back, was something pleasant and anticipated.

  “Lila?” He’d blinked in confusion, then realized she’d been sitting next to someone—his father, Eric, who stood now, clasping Lila lightly by the hand.

  “It’s good to see you again,” Lila had said.

  “We’re so glad you came,” Eric agreed.

  And Andrew had understood.

  I’ve found someone else, someo
ne I want to spend the rest of my life with.

  “It’s not what you think,” Eric had said, recognizing that the confusion in his son’s face had yielded to anger and pain. “Lila and I ran into each other at our lawyer’s office right after Beth died.”

  “I left Gordon,” Lila had said with a smile, as if this should be something Andrew applauded, for which he’d be proud of her.

  “And I was there taking care of some paperwork about Beth,” Eric had said, as if Beth had been nothing more than an incident, something secondary and insignificant, a matter he’d dealt with in between golf outings or commuter flights. “We recognized each other from that time you brought her out for dinner.”

  “It took us both a moment to figure out where we’d seen each other before,” Lila had cut in, her voice overlapping, the two of them looking at each other and laughing like it was all some big joke.

  “Then we got to talking and went out for drinks, talked some more,” Eric said. “One thing led to another after that.”

  “And here we are,” Lila finished with a giddy laugh, draping her hand on Eric’s chest—just like she’d once touched Andrew.

  “We’d both been unhappy for a long, long time,” Eric had said. “We didn’t mean for it to be more than friendship, but it grew from there.” Smiling at Lila, he’d drawn her hand to his lips, kissed her knuckles. “We’re getting married next week in Anchorage.”

  Something in Andrew had snapped and at this, he’d balled his hand into a fist and punched Eric in the face, knocking him flat on his ass.

  “Eric!” Lila had cried, falling to her knees, clutching at him.

  “You son of a bitch,” Andrew had told him as Eric had looked up, wide-eyed with shock, a thin, crooked line of blood trickling down from his left nostril.

  Careful to preserve the existing creases, Andrew folded the letter into quarters again. He’d gone to his mother’s house upon leaving the restaurant that fateful day, and had sat at the kitchen table while she’d placed a bag of frozen peas on his swollen, aching knuckles. She hadn’t asked what had happened and he hadn’t volunteered to tell. Instead, she’d pulled out a Scrabble game and they’d played together until long into the night, the way they always had when he’d been a kid, when Beth had still been alive and had joined him.