Gemini: A Novel

by Cassella, Carol

  —

  Summer break began in early June. Jake started spending all day outside, in the woods, roaming the cliffs and inlets of the bay. Raney didn’t know where he was half the time. David said it was a good sign—Jake was doing what a twelve-year-old boy should be doing. “Probably climbing trees, chasing frogs . . .” He waved his arm around like that might help him recall more of his own boyhood activities. Try as she might, Raney could not picture David doing any of that as a boy. In fact, it was hard to imagine David as a boy—she kept seeing a slightly balding kid wearing a starched white shirt and wing tips, hoping to skewer a slippery minnow onto a hook without getting his clothes dirty. She knew Jake was outside only because David was inside—and she was the one who’d let him in. David was home half the time now, restless and looking for squabbles, it seemed.

  Every night Raney sat on the edge of Jake’s bed and talked to him about her day, who’d bought something in the gallery, what she’d paint once she had some free time—things he used to like hearing. But when she asked him where he’d been and what he’d done and who he’d played with, his answers cut her off: Around. Stuff. Some guys . . . Getting even with her, it felt like. She consoled herself that Jake was finally playing with other kids. She’d seen Tom Fielding’s son Jerrod walking with him on the road—not her first choice of friends but a friend nonetheless. So she let him be. She went off to work with his lunch ready in the fridge, a kiss on his forehead, and a promise to make good choices. Good choices. Good God, she thought—was there a better way to be sure your son didn’t tell you what was really going on? And then she left. She drove to the gallery in Port Townsend and left Jake alone the whole day. With David.

  Then Sandy closed the gallery for two weeks, supposedly to take a vacation, but Raney suspected the bills for keeping the gallery open had tipped the scales against even Sandy’s impractical love of the art. When Raney told David, he walked to the window and stared out toward the muddy yard and tangled woods. After a long minute he let the blind fall closed with a metallic clap. “We can’t make our mortgage payment this month,” he said, like that was a simple asterisk at the bottom of their spreadsheet, and left the house.

  Half an hour later she heard a knock at the door and Raney hoped David might have come home with either an apology or a plan. But instead it was the neighbor girls, Amelia and Caroline Wells. They looked so startled to see Raney answer her own door, she half expected them to shriek and run off.

  “Are you looking for Jake?” Raney asked. They nodded their identical heads in unison. “I think he’s asleep. Do you want to come inside?”

  One of them started to giggle, less like nervous laughter than a mean inside joke. They were three years older than Jake, already blossomed into curves Raney had never had—did Jake have a crush?

  Amelia and Caroline looked at each other; one of them shrugged and started walking away. The other said, “Nah. Just tell him . . .” She looked back at her sister, who was waiting halfway down the gravel drive. “Tell him Jerrod Fielding is waiting.”

  “Waiting where?”

  The girl was off the porch by then, sassier with every step. “He’ll know.”

  Jake was at the table when Raney came back into the kitchen, his thumbs flying over a cheap handheld game machine. “The Wells twins were here. I’m supposed to tell you Jerrod is looking for you.” She took a box of Cheerios out of the cabinet and sat down before she noticed Jake’s expression. “Jake? What’s up?”

  He shrugged and scootched out from behind the table. “Nothing’s up.” A few minutes later he came out of his room dressed in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, heading for the front door.

  Raney called out, “Did you eat?” He came back long enough to stuff two cereal bars into his back pocket, and then he was gone.

  She didn’t see him again until well after dinner had been served and gone cold, been wrapped up and put away. David hadn’t come home either, and Raney was angry she’d bothered to cook for either of them. When Jake tried to sneak in the front door with his hoodie up over his head, she lit into him. “It’s after ten—I was about to call the police.” He was hunched in his sweatshirt with his hands stuffed in the front pocket like some street thug. She remembered the snide laugh Caroline or Amelia had tossed off . . . Jerrod Fielding is waiting. “Jake, what’s going on?”

  He tried to bolt to his room, but she blocked his way. He stood hunched inside the hoodie as if he wanted to hide, wanted her to see. She pulled the sweatshirt off his head and felt her gut go hollow—a suffocating vacuum of breath. The left side of Jake’s face was so swollen his eye was buried in a puffy red slit. Blood leaked from his nose. “Oh, my God! Jake . . . Baby . . .”

  —

  “He won’t tell me who hit him,” Raney repeated to David when he finally came home, long after she’d put Jake to bed with Tylenol and an ice pack. David was pacing the kitchen, his hands jammed into his pockets like he might tear into something if he let them loose. Raney was glad Jake wasn’t awake to witness it, even if his stepfather’s temper was roused for Jake’s own defense. “I went to the Wellses’ house to talk to Amelia or Caroline. Trina said they were asleep and she didn’t want to wake them.”

  “Do you have to pull the whole neighborhood into it?”

  “Well, the girls obviously know something. Their dad used to be a policeman—I thought he could help. If Jake’s in some kind of trouble . . .” She stopped, reluctant to make David even madder by repeating what Trina Wells had said. But he halted in his pacing and faced her, hearing the unfinished warning in her voice. How to put it? “Trina said . . . It made no sense. She called us a ‘bunch of drug pushers’ and said she didn’t want Jake near the girls anymore.”

  David’s face went white. He started down the hallway, but Raney pulled him back. “It doesn’t mean anything. If Jake won’t tell me the truth, then he won’t tell you. Let him sleep. Maybe he’ll say more in the morning.”

  “It’s an insult to this whole family. All of us.”

  “It’s kids. Mean kids picking on someone who’s different.” Raney knew David had had his own turn with bullying as a child, the humiliation made worse by the fact that his brother was the bully and his parents did nothing more than tell the boys to work it out between themselves.

  He held his fists clenched together as if they might strike out blindly. “You know who hit him. We both know.”

  “You can’t be sure, David. There are other kids who . . .”

  “I don’t give a shit about Tom Fielding right now—who he is or who he knows or if he fires me.”

  David left the house and drove away angrier than Raney had ever seen him. When he had not come home by midnight, Raney called Sandy and told her about Jake. “Why would Jerrod Fielding hit him?” Sandy asked, still groggy from sleep. “He’s looking at a football scholarship. Why would he risk it by hitting a kid two years younger than himself?”

  “I don’t know. Because Jake is . . . different? Dark, for one thing. Or maybe just because Jerrod is his father’s son. David ran out of the house so mad I almost called Tom Fielding to warn him.”

  Sandy didn’t say anything for a minute; then, sounding more awake, “David came by my house around eleven, Raney. I could see he was upset but I thought maybe you two . . . He picked up your paycheck.” She hesitated, then asked, “Is he on the run?”

  Raney sat down with the phone held tight to her ear, her pulse roaring. The house felt empty and unsound, the walls expanding and contracting. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Well, to hear that from you is to wonder what this marriage has damaged. You and Jake can come here, you know. You can have my house.”

  Raney rocked back and forth, wanting any place of calm. “Thanks. It’s okay. I know you don’t like David, but he has a lot of good in him. He wouldn’t hurt us.” Even saying it she wasn’t sure she believed it anymore. She finished with the one
thing she knew was true: “David’s either left us or he’s got a plan that includes us.”

  “I should tell you this now, just in case. I’m selling the gallery. I talked to the buyer and you can have a job—for a while at least.” A sad laugh escaped her and Raney could hear the years of cigarettes and wine. “Until he goes broke too.”

  “What will you do?” Raney asked.

  “Go away. South. Another country, maybe. I need a change—before my money runs out. I’m keeping the house, though. It’s yours if you need it.”

  —

  Around 3:00 a.m. Raney saw headlights sweep the wall and heard the Tahoe, the ping-ping of the alarm before he finally shut the door. He took a long time to walk up to the porch and come inside. Slow, heavy steps. He went straight to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She heard the cap pop off a bottle of beer. He might not have seen her on the sofa, waiting. But after a while he came into the dark living room and sat down next to her. Too quiet. Too controlled. “You went to see Tom, didn’t you?” she said.

  He set his beer on the coffee table with a paper towel folded neatly around the bottom of the bottle. “How could I not, Renee? How could I sit in that man’s office for the last year, tallying up his money and listening to his jokes about blondes and Jews, bragging about Jerrod making first string and how much the Fielding family donated to his church’s capital campaign? How could I know that about him and know what his son did to Jake—to our son—and not make him own up?”

  Raney tried to see his face, but the light from the hall only cast him in more shadow. “What happened?”

  “He’s insulted us. Our family.”

  “Was it Jerrod? Tom told you?”

  David took a long drink from the beer. “Tom accused Jake.” He paused. “He said Jake has been selling those pills at school. The Adderall. That he badgered Jerrod to join in—that Jake started the fight.”

  “That’s crazy! Jake is too shy to even dream that up.” But she tried to remember the last time she’d actually witnessed Jake taking a pill, how many times she’d refilled them. “You don’t believe him, do you?”

  “No. I don’t know. I don’t know what I believe.”

  “Did you quit?”

  “Raney, if you think about that question after what I’ve just told you, you will understand that staying was not a choice.” His anger sounded closer to belittling sarcasm now, attacking her along with everyone else. He picked up the beer and walked into the kitchen, where she heard him dump it down the sink and rinse the bottle. He came to the doorway, took a folded envelope out of his pocket, smoothed it out, and put it on the hall table. “Here’s your pay. You should get Jake up and pack some clothes. We’re leaving here in the morning, as soon as it’s light.”

  “Today? This will blow over. You’ll find work in Port Townsend. Or Sequim. At least we have this house. We can’t just run away—you know it’s a lie. We’ll fight it. Legally, if we have to.”

  “Like you and Cleet fought his lawsuit? Look at Jake’s face and tell me you want to stay in this town.” He looked around the living room, at the water-stained ceiling and rotting window frames. “We can’t keep the house anyway. We can’t afford it anymore.”

  “What did you do, David?”

  “This town is toxic, Raney. I want a new start.”

  “Tell me. What did you do?” Her jaw clenched so that it was hard to say the words. The entire night seemed separate from her life, a cartoon bubble misplaced in time—an event she was remembering or foretelling but couldn’t possibly be living through. “Are you in trouble with the law?”

  His face was a stone. “I know too much about Tom Fielding’s business to be in trouble with the law. He would never risk it. But he’ll be hot for a while.”

  How could she tell Jake? Walk in there at four in the morning, take the ice pack off his bruised face, and say, Pack a bag! Pack your clothes, your pictures, your childhood! We’re leaving everything you’ve ever known. The house your father, your real father, raised you in for seven years before he decided in a moment of madness that you were better off without him? “Shouldn’t we know where we’re going before we leave? Have some plan?” she asked David.

  “I’ll land on my feet. I always do. If I don’t find good work we’ll come back after this blows over.”

  • 18 •

  charlotte

  It was after five by the time Charlotte and Eric reached Port Angeles. The house, a one-story wood frame painted blue with white-trimmed windows, was on a small street near the end of town; there was a Cyclone fence around the perimeter. The yard was cluttered with plastic trucks and push-toys, a seesaw with smiling frogs for seats, all originally bright yellow and orange, now faded from the sun. The toys looked tired and dirty, but at least more kid-friendly than anything Charlotte had seen at the trailer.

  An older woman answered the door. Not the face Charlotte had anticipated, but only then did she realize that she had, ludicrously, been expecting some facsimile of Jake’s own mother, Raney. The woman introduced herself, “Louise, the mom around here,” and showed Eric and Charlotte through a cramped entry hall to a paneled room that combined dining, TV, and games and stretched the full width of the house. One entire wall was a bulletin board covered with crayoned and finger-painted pictures of houses and cats and bubble-shaped trees; stick-figure families held hands on stripes of green lawn, but few of them showed the classic arrangement of two parents and three children in graduated height. The shelves were filled with puzzles and DVDs and books—World Book and Harry Potter, Goosebumps and Judy Blume. A dozen children from ages two to fifteen could live here, but the rooms above and around them were silent.

  Louise offered them lemonade. They declined. She took a chair opposite the sofa where Charlotte and Eric sat side by side, settling herself calmly as if no words were necessary and they might all spontaneously begin a hand of cards, or were awaiting other guests. The sofa smelled faintly of fermented juice and baby lotion. Louise was a heavy woman. It was difficult to read her expression; her eyes were embedded deep in her full face, lines erased by full flesh. The great bulk of her thighs pushed her knees apart, and her skirt planed into a wide, shallow bowl. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence Charlotte began to wonder if Louise understood why they were there.

  Finally Louise readjusted herself in the chair and said, “This young man, Jake, is a curious soul to me.”

  “How do you mean?” Charlotte asked.

  Louise cocked her head a bit and Charlotte knew she was being assessed, the untested boundaries of trust established. “He says very little, but what he says is well worth paying attention to. More than I usually encounter in a child this age, and I have known a lot of children.” She leaned forward and opened a glass candy jar on the coffee table, held it up for Eric and Charlotte to accept or refuse, then took out a strawberry-wrapped piece. She put the jar down and dropped the wrapped candy into a deep pocket on the side of her skirt. “Deputy Simpson tells me that you are Jake’s mother’s doctor, over in Seattle. I called him after I heard from you, of course.” She waited for Charlotte to acknowledge this with a weak smile before she went on. “He tells me Jake’s mother is not doing well, and I find myself thinking that perhaps you’ve driven all the way here from Seattle to tell him difficult news.”

  It began to make sense to Charlotte now. Louise was the wall of defense here. Drawing her line in the sand before she would allow Jake to be damaged one more time. “Ms. . . .” Charlotte realized Louise had never given her last name. “No. That isn’t why we’re here.” And then Charlotte looked at Eric, lost for words that might explain why they had come all the way from Seattle to see a boy they barely knew. “When we saw Jake in Queets he told me that Raney, his mother, wanted him to see a doctor—about his back pain. If I can help out . . . Well . . . with all that’s happened I was concerned about him. We just want him to know someone els
e cares.”

  Louise gave this a long moment of consideration, then heaved to her feet and lumbered to the bottom of the staircase, where she called for Jake. When he came into the room he had the same cautious, observant expression Charlotte had been struck by when she met him in Queets. He wore a faded Mariners T-shirt that looked way too big—likely from Louise’s shelves.

  “Hi, Jake. Remember us? Charlotte and Eric?” Charlotte was unsure whether she should offer Jake a handshake or whether that might be enough to send him running back upstairs.

  He looked solemnly from Charlotte to Eric and back to Charlotte, as if he were trying to recall their faces, or perhaps deciding if he should tell them anything he did or did not recall. Louise stood between Jake and the sofa, far enough away to let Jake be in charge, close enough to intervene. After a while Jake nodded and Louise met his eye, then gestured for him to sit in the chair she had occupied. She leaned over him, her great bosom a deep black crevice. “Jake? I’m right here in the kitchen, son. Makin’ your dinner. Pigs in a blanket.”

  The silence became awkward again after she left the room; Charlotte could feel Louise watching them through the open kitchen door. Charlotte smiled and asked if Jake liked Port Angeles all right; if he’d met any other kids here. He studied her quietly with his arresting eyes. Now that he was directly across from her, now that she’d allowed herself to consider the impossible, Eric’s features were blatant in Jake’s face. She felt foolishly exposed, as if Louise, Boughton—anyone who saw both Eric and Jake—must know the truth immediately—only she had missed it. She glanced at Eric, and even in the poorly lit room he looked too pale, too solemn. After a while she stopped trying to draw Jake out with her pointless questions, and as if he had been waiting for that sign of respect, he asked her, “Is my mother still alive?”