The Voice inside My Head

by S. J. Laidlaw

  “Is this him?” asks the boy, gawking at us as we strip off.

  “This is my brother, Donny,” says Jamie, squeezed into the corner between his bed and the chest.

  “Are you Reesie’s boyfriend?” Donny asks.

  I catch Jamie making some kind of a slashing motion out of the corner of my eye, but he fakes a stretch when I turn to look at him directly.

  I turn back to Donny and blink.

  “She’s available, if you’re interested,” continues Donny.

  “We best be getting out there,” Jamie says, though Zach is still in his undershorts and I don’t have a shirt on yet.

  “She talks about you all the time,” says Donny.

  “He exaggerates,” says Jamie, making big eyes at his brother.

  I yank on the shirt and head for the door.

  “Do not,” insists Donny indignantly. “She said Trish’s brother was a nice boy!”

  “Do you need help getting that shirt on, Zach?” I ask, my hand on the knob. I’ll leave him behind if I have to.

  “I could put in a good word for you,” offers Donny, as I open the door. Zach and Jamie follow me out, Zach still pulling on his shirt.

  Reesie’s mom leads the way into a tidy, compact kitchen with polished pine counters that match built-in cabinets and possibly the most beautiful dining set I’ve ever seen. The table and each chair are all different, their edges following the natural contours of the tree they were hewn from, rather than being straight-cut and angular. Reesie’s mom directs us to sit, while Reesie puts steaming cups of tea in front of us and Nanny lays out buns and jam.

  “That be my homemade coconut bread,” she says proudly, “and my mango preserves.”

  “Best bread on the island,” says Reesie.

  “Best bread in all the Bay Islands,” her grandmother corrects.

  “All of Honduras,” her mother adds. “The entire planet,” Reesie says, grinning.

  “The universe,” Jamie chimes in and they all laugh. It’s obviously a familiar routine.

  I suddenly get a pang of something like nostalgia, which is stupid because I’ve never eaten homemade bread with homemade jam at a handmade kitchen table. And I’ve definitely never experienced a family with little education and even less money who don’t think they need a bottle to ease the shame of that.

  I look over at Zach, thinking how much worse it must be for him. At least I have a family. What does he have?

  But I discover, to my surprise, that what he has is a big dopey grin on his face as he polishes off two buns in the time it’s taken me to butter my first. His undiluted happiness to be part of this family, if only for a short time, takes the edge off my own gloomy thoughts. I chow down on the food, and when I tell Nanny it really is the best bread I’ve ever tasted, I’m not exaggerating.

  After serving us, Reesie and her mom set out tea and plates for everyone, and the whole gang of them sit down with Zach and me. I also didn’t grow up in a family who sat down to meals together, so this feels weird, yet natural at the same time. I wonder how different my life would be if my parents had taken the time to sit across the dinner table from me once a day. It’s not that it never happened, but it was an event usually reserved for holidays and birthdays.

  “So what be your business here at this time of night?” asks Nanny.

  I shift uncomfortably. I hadn’t expected to interview Jamie in front of his entire clan.

  “We’re investigating Tricia’s disappearance,” Zach pipes up.

  I slather jam on my coconut bread bun with the undivided focus of a military operation. I don’t have to look up to feel everyone’s eyes on me.

  “Jamie, where were you on the night she disappeared?” Zach continues.

  I take a giant bite and a clump of fruit-filled jam slides off and hits the front of my shirt. I hunch forward, hoping no one noticed, and a large chunk of mango dislodges itself and lands on the beautifully polished table. Pretending to pull my plate closer, I cover the mess and look up to find the entire group of them, even Zach, staring at me.

  “You be thinkin’ that’s a magic plate?” asks Nanny. “Isn’t no magic plate gonna make that mess disappear. It’s still right there under your plate. Go on and look.”

  “Sorry,” I mumble, sweat beading on my forehead.

  “Isn’t no nevermind,” says Nanny, chortling. “You’re a nervous sort, aren’t ya? Not at all like your sister.”

  I sit up straighter.

  “You knew my sister?”

  “Course,” says Reesie’s mom, in surprise. “She was around here most every day.”

  “What?” say Reesie and I in unison.

  “Trish was always happy when we spent time here,” says Jamie, his eyes misting over. “Sometimes I felt like she loved my family as much as she loved me.”

  “You never told me she was around all the time,” snaps Reesie. “I still don’t understand why you all thought you had to keep that from me?”

  “We told her to come when you were at work,” says Nanny. “That be my idea.”

  Nanny leans over to me and confides, “Since her dad died, Reesie throws cold water on every relationship the poor boy tries to have. She doesn’t want to lose him too, ya see.”

  “That’s not true.” Reesie scowls.

  “Is so,” says Nanny, “and it’s nothin’ to be ashamed of. Natural you look out for ya brother. But Trish was a good girl. You would have took to her in time.”

  “I liked her already,” Reesie grouses. “If anyone had cared to ask me, I would have told you that!”

  “I wanted to tell you about her,” says Jamie. “But Trish said not to hurry. She didn’t want you to feel like she was crowding you out. She wanted to make friends with you first. She was so excited when I told her how much you appreciated that book she gave you. She was always talking about how smart you were and how we needed to convince you to go back to school.”

  “We were all sorry to lose her,” Reesie’s mom says, reaching across the table to squeeze Jamie’s arm as she looks at me.

  I meet her eyes. They’re so full of sympathy, I find myself fighting back tears. I remind myself that just because they believe Pat’s gone doesn’t make it true. When I shift my focus away from Reesie’s mom so I don’t start bawling, I notice an embroidered wall hanging behind her entreating God to bless this home. The neat cross-stitching reminds me of something, but it takes a minute before I put it together. It’s the same stitching as on the voodoo dolls. I’m sure of it.

  “I be teachin’ her my secret recipe for coconut bread,” says Nanny, breaking into my thoughts.

  “You did not!” gasps Reesie.

  I turn back to three generations of women looking at each other, and I can almost hear the words flying between them.

  Reesie sighs. “An island woman doesn’t give up her recipe for coconut bread to anyone except her own daughters,” she explains.

  “Sometimes not even to them, if they don’t deserve it,” says Nanny, scowling at Reesie’s mom.

  “I never had much patience in the kitchen,” Reesie’s mom explains. “Reesie used to help Nanny with the bread till she got work cleanin’ the dive hotels. Then Nanny did it alone till your sister came along.”

  “She had the gift,” Nanny says. “All it takes is a gentle hand and a patient spirit.”

  Gentle and patient — two adjectives I would never use to describe my sister. No question she was good at everything she set her mind to, and she certainly made her share of meals for us when Mom was too depressed or drunk to bother. But we were lucky if she took time to cut a few vegetables; more often, it was canned soup and crackers.

  I rest my head on my hand and close my eyes, calling up memories of Pat, trying to picture her in this kitchen, her long black hair in a loose knot at the nape of her neck, her green eyes, usually so sharp, softened by the soothing repetition of kneading dough.

  Suddenly this gentle image morphs into another, and the nightmare floods my consciousness:
shredded clothing, tangled hair, one eye blankly staring, the other a cavernous hole. My sister’s body, battered. If this image has any truth, someone did this to her.

  CHAPTER 13

  “What were you and Pat fighting about the night she disappeared?” I demand, pinning Jamie with suspicious eyes.

  The temperature in the room drops several degrees as he returns my gaze, his brow creased. I feel Reesie staring at me. No telling what Nanny and Reesie’s mom are thinking as we wait for Jamie’s answer.

  “She wanted to stay on here permanently,” he says finally, as if he’s carried the words inside him for a long time and laying down the burden of them is both a release and a betrayal. “But I told her to go home.”

  “Why’d you go and do that for?” asks Nanny, while I’m still processing the idea that Pat never intended to come home.

  “I wanted her to finish her education. An education isn’t something to be passed up lightly.” He’s looking at Reesie when he says this. She looks right back at him, her chin jutting out.

  “I promised to wait for her but she wouldn’t believe me. She thought I’d get fed up waiting and find another girl.”

  “I knew she was a smart one,” says Reesie. It’s not clear if she’s referring to Pat’s decision to give up school or her distrust of Jamie, but he rounds on her angrily.

  “You never should have quit. I could have supported all of us. I darn well wasn’t going to let her make the same mistake.” His voice shakes with emotion. “I would have waited a lifetime for her. But she went ahead and got Dr. Jake to keep her on. Told me she’d decided, like I didn’t have any say in the matter.”

  Every word is a piercing dart. I feel weak as the implication of what he’s saying seeps in like poison. She was leaving me to my drugs and my apathy. She was leaving me with a mother too hungover to show up for breakfast most mornings and a dad consumed by the guilt of that. This wasn’t just a summer job. She never intended to come back.

  “She said she didn’t want any other life but what she had here,” continues Jamie, unable to shut his damn mouth now that he’s opened it. “She said this was her home now.”

  “Shut up!” I scream, not realizing I’m on my feet till Zach pushes back his chair and stands up too. “You’re a goddamn liar! She wouldn’t desert me for you. Is that what you expect me to believe? Did you kill her? Is that it? You tried to scare her with your voodoo, and then you murdered her because she still wanted to leave you.”

  Zach comes round the table to stand next to me. I think he’s going to help me punch Jamie out, but instead he puts an arm around me and pulls me into a tight hug.

  “Let go.” I struggle against his chest, but he’s surprisingly strong for such a wiry guy and he’s holding on like his life depends on it, or maybe mine does.

  The first sob tears at my insides like shards of glass. I bury my head in Zach’s shoulder to hide the humiliation, but he takes it as some sort of sign and just hugs harder. I feel another arm on my back and then another, and I’m monkey in the middle of some insane group hug, which, like family dinners, is yet another thing we don’t do at home.

  “Let it out, child,” says Reesie’s mom. “There be no shame in grief.”

  “I need air,” I gasp.

  “Of course we care,” croons Reesie’s mom, her voice muffled in the crush of bodies.

  “I think he said ‘air’,” says Reesie, who sounds farther away.

  “You need to get your hearin’ checked,” chides Nanny. “Why would he say ‘air’?”

  “Because it’s a hundred degrees in here and you all are suffocating him.”

  “Oh, dear,” says Reesie’s mom, and the tangle of bodies abruptly parts.

  Light-headed, I lean over, putting my hands on my knees.

  “You okay?” asks Zach.

  I nod but don’t rise until the dizziness subsides. Zach takes my arm and nudges me back to my chair.

  “Reesie, warm up his tea,” Nanny commands.

  Reesie leans over and pours some fresh tea into my cup. For a split second, our eyes meet. She’s biting her lip, but I can see the smile tugging at the corner. Suddenly I feel light-headed again, and it has nothing to do with oxygen deprivation. I can’t help but wish that someday I might get a chance to explore this because I’ve never had this feeling about a girl before.

  “Now what’s this about voodoo?” she asks, taking her seat.

  I flush, remembering my tirade. It suddenly seems highly unlikely that Jamie had anything to do with Pat’s disappearance. I know I have to ask about the dolls, though. Their wall hanging is the first evidence I’ve found of someone knowing how to do a cross-stitch, though I suspect it’s not a rare skill around here.

  I pull out the voodoo doll I took from under Tracy’s step. My own is still drying out in my room.

  “I found this voodoo doll back at the Shark Center. There was a similar one under my step two days ago, and Tracy said there was one under Pat’s porch the day before she disappeared.”

  “And you think I put it there?” asks Jamie incredulously.

  “Well,” I say slowly, realizing how stupid it sounds. “Tracy thought you, or maybe Reesie, might be practicing voodoo.”

  “Voodoo?” says Reesie, the warmth of moments before gone from her eyes. “Why would she be thinking we’re doing voodoo? Has she ever seen me slicing off chicken heads or dancing around in a trance?”

  “No.”

  “Then maybe she’s seen me hiding those dolls. Is that it?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, she must have seen something. Maybe she saw me chanting or hexing people.”

  “No, I think she would have mentioned that.”

  “So she didn’t see me or my brother doing anything voodoo-like, but she thinks we’re the ones planting the dolls. Is that it?”

  “Yeah,” I admit, knowing I’m not going to like what’s coming next.

  “And you believed her?” Her voice is shaking. I can’t tell if she’s hurt or angry. I have a feeling it’s a bit of both, and that makes me feel worse than anything.

  “No, not really.”

  “But you asked Jamie if he was doing voodoo on your sister.”

  “It was just an idea.” I can feel the sweat popping out on my forehead again.

  “Tell me, Luke, do you think everyone on Utila is practicing voodoo?”

  I knew this was coming.

  “Leave the boy alone, Clarice Doreen,” says her mom. “Can’t you see you be embarrassin’ him?”

  “Well, I sure hope so.” Reesie crosses her arms over her chest, but a look from her mom ends the interrogation.

  I want to apologize but that seems like admitting guilt, and I never even believed in the voodoo crap, at least not much. I get to my feet.

  “I think we’ve taken enough of your time tonight,” I say politely. “Thanks for the tea and dry clothes.”

  “You be welcome here anytime,” says Reesie’s mom firmly. “My name’s Miss Hettie. You get yourself into any trouble, you tell someone to call Miss Hettie. I mean that. And don’t let Reesie be scarin’ you. She be all bark.”

  “Ya come back for some more of my coconut bread,” adds Nanny.

  Jamie walks us to the door. I’m surprised to see Reesie trailing behind. The two of them follow Zach and me out to the porch.

  As we reach the steps, Jamie puts a light hand on my arm. “Luke,” he begins, his voice hoarse with emotion. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about what Trish might have been feeling the night she went missing.” He meets my eyes with a bleak look. “The fact is, her death is on me. She thought I was rejecting her. I know that. I went back later that night to tell her how sorry I was. It was such a stupid fight. Of course I wanted her to stay on, every bit as much as she wanted to stay. I just didn’t want her giving up everything to be with me. I know there’s nothing I can ever do to make it up to you and your family, but you have to know how sorry I am.” Jamie offers his hand and I take i
t, again noticing the firm, rough feel of it and the warmth.

  “I do,” I say, and I mean it. I don’t think their fight caused my sister to drown herself, though. What Jamie doesn’t understand is that Pat and I grew up in a family where screaming matches were a daily occurrence. There’s no way a simple disagreement would push Pat over the edge. In fact, hearing about her plans and meeting this family only makes me more certain she would have fought hard to hang on to the life she was building here, which means someone else is responsible for her disappearance.

  “Hey, do you know if my sister was mixed up in the drug runners that have been refueling at the airport at night?”

  Jamie drops my hand and steps back.

  “Drug runners?” He and Reesie exchange glances.

  “Where’d you get a notion like that?” Reesie asks carefully.

  “I ran into a guy who said Tricia might have been trying to make trouble for the drug runners.”

  A faraway look crosses Jamie’s face. He seems so sad, I regret bringing it up.

  “I told your sister to stay away from those people, but when she’s got a bee in her bonnet, not hell or high water could dislodge it.”

  I nod sympathetically. “So do you think she could have done something to make them come after her?”

  “You know, it never occurred to me. The plane that went down had Red Cross insignia on it, but that was just a cover-up. They found a Venezuelan flag underneath. The landings had been going on for months before the crash. Trish was already riled up, but when they dropped those drugs in the water, I’d never seen her so mad. She said she was going to go up there one night and confront them. I made her promise me she wouldn’t, but the night she disappeared … I was so sure she was upset about our fight. But now that you mention it —”

  “Jamie,” interrupts Reesie. “It’s late. We should all be getting to bed. I’m sure we’ll all be thinking more clearly in the morning.”