Zenn Diagram

by Wendy Brant

  I don’t even know what to say to that.

  “I mean, not with Mike. We’re not together anymore.” Her voice is tinged with a subtle regret.

  She seems vulnerable this morning, all her bravado and teasing gone. I relax a bit and glance around the kitchen, my eyes coming to rest on that ceramic turtle by the window and the row of smooth, round stones.

  She says, almost to herself, “Apparently we were not meant to be.”

  I stand up.

  “What’s wrong, hon? You need milk?”

  I shake my head and take the two steps to the window. I study the stones, like I did yesterday. Yesterday there were eight. Today there are nine.

  “Oh, those. Yeah, Zenn is always picking them up.”

  There were definitely eight yesterday. Part of my weird math thing is that I count everything. I don’t even realize I do it, but I know how many fluorescent lights are in my lit class (twelve) and how many diapers I change most days (lately it’s only six), and I know that yesterday there were eight rocks and today there are nine. I glance at each one, from light to dark, and the very last rock is the deepest gray, almost black, with a white streak down the middle.

  The refrigerator buzzes, a dog barks outside. Cinde spins her mug slowly and it makes a quiet scraping sound against the table.

  Is that my rock? The last one I left on the gravestone? There are thousands of rocks on the beach and I’m sure at least some of the others look like that.

  “Did he tell you Mike just got outta jail?” Huh? I turn back and shake my head, trying to participate in the conversation. My stomach feels churny and tight. Zenn’s dad was in jail?

  “Yeah. I suppose that’s not something Zenn blabs to everyone.”

  I shake my head and think of the fractal from Zenn’s jacket — the darkness, the violence, the fear. The sensation of falling, or crashing, or … colliding. Panic. Regret.

  She opens her mouth to talk again and I realize I’ve got to leave. I shouldn’t be here, and definitely shouldn’t be hearing any of this from her. If Zenn wanted me to know about his dad, he would tell me. I’m confident that he will tell me, maybe some night in the not-so-distant future when we are curled around each other, catching our breath from kissing, and he feels so close to me that he tells the whole story. I shouldn’t be hearing this from anyone but Zenn, when he’s ready.

  I look up at the wall clock in fake surprise. “Oh, wow. I didn’t notice the time. I’ve got to go.”

  Cinde hangs her head. “Shit,” she says quietly. “I shouldn’t’ve told you about that. Zenn’s gonna kill me.”

  “No, it’s fine.” I try to reassure her. “I just really have to go.”

  “Don’t think bad of him, okay? It didn’t have anything to do with him.”

  “Oh, I know. Of course it didn’t.” Now I sound falsely cheerful and patronizing.

  “I’ll tell him you stopped by.”

  “No!” I say. “You don’t have to. I’ll see him later. No big deal.” For some reason it seems very important that Zenn not know that I stopped by and chatted with his mom. “Thanks for the coffee.” Her smile back is sad and forced.

  All morning I jump between thinking about what Cinde said about Mike, about kissing Zenn and about that gray rock on his windowsill. It’s a weird stew of thoughts that leaves me feeling a bit horny and really confused.

  Mike was in jail, possibly for years. Long enough, anyway, that Zenn never got to know him. What the hell did he do? Murder a few people? Run a drug ring? Sexually abuse some kid? Is that why Zenn never said anything about his dad?

  My mind runs in circles. Zenn still doesn’t text; he’s probably working. Restless, I end up at the cemetery. I’m not exactly surprised to find that my rock is gone and a new one, orange and flat, sits in its place. I don’t have one to leave today, but I take the orange one anyway. Could the rock in Zenn’s kitchen be mine? Seems unlikely … and yet …

  My curiosity gets the best of me. A part of me wants to wait for Zenn to tell me, and a part of me has to know now. I’m a problem solver, a puzzle puzzler, it’s what I do. And I definitely need something to distract me from the fact that I can’t stop thinking about his mouth.

  So I do end up at the library after all, sitting at a computer. I type in Bennett sentencing with the eraser of my pencil (because, you know … my hands). I get a couple of hits about a Milwaukee drug dealer named Julias Bennett being sentenced for cocaine possession, but after a quick glance, I know it’s not him.

  I try simply Michael Bennett and get results about a Michael Bennett who serves on the board of education in someplace called Evansville.

  I know Zenn grew up in Spellman, so I try Michael Bennett Spellman WI and as I scroll down I find one article that makes my hands go numb, my temples throb, my throat tighten.

  It’s a headline I’ve seen before:

  BABY SURVIVES CEDARBURG CRASH THAT KILLED PARENTS

  Chapter 25

  How the hell did this article come up in a search for Michael Bennett?

  My eraser hesitates above the computer mouse. Something heavy — a large, gray stone — settles in my stomach as I click on the link and continue reading the article.

  A young Port Dalton couple died in a two-car crash Sunday evening when their car was struck by a pickup truck that had crossed the centerline. Miraculously their infant in the backseat survived, with only minor injuries.

  I press my hand to my forehead, feeling like I might be sick. I skim down, past the picture of my parents. And then I find it.

  Police say the driver of the pickup truck, 25-year-old Michael Franklin of Spellman, was traveling home from a Super Bowl party southbound on Cedarburg Road when he crossed the centerline, clipping the back of the Toyota Corolla occupied by Thomas Scheurich, 26, Lynn Scheurich, 25, and their 4-month-old daughter. The Toyota was hit broadside by a third vehicle and then spun into a utility pole. Both husband and wife died at the scene. Their baby is now with family members. Franklin was unharmed, but the pregnant passenger in his car, Cinde Bennett, 23, was taken to Columbia St. Mary’s for observation.

  Police believe that alcohol was a factor in the crash and Michael Franklin faces two charges of DUI manslaughter.

  I hold my breath for a moment as I try to process this information.

  Cinde Bennett is Zenn’s mom. She was in the car that hit my parents. She was pregnant with Zenn at the time.

  And the driver … Oh, my God.

  The driver was Zenn’s dad.

  Michael Franklin.

  I’ve known the name of the guy who killed my parents for ages — how could I not? I learned it as soon as I was old enough to ask, since the first time I Googled my parents’ accident. If Zenn’s last name had been Franklin, that would have set off all kinds of alarm bells for me. But his last name is not Franklin. It’s Bennett, from his mom. I had no way of knowing.

  And I realize that, just like I know the name of the guy who killed my parents, Zenn must know the names of the people his father killed. He’s likely quite familiar with the whole story, knows they were from Port Dalton, suspects they are buried here. And I know, now, that the ninth stone on his windowsill is mine and the rocks I’ve been picking up are his. Not my mom’s.

  I don’t know who he thinks he’s exchanging rocks with, but I bet he doesn’t suspect it is me. My name was kept out of the papers after the accident and unless he really looked, I don’t think he’d be able to connect me to Thomas and Lynn Scheurich. I don’t know why he’d think to try.

  I feel something smoldering in my chest, hot and tight. I can’t breathe right and I wonder if I could be having a panic attack. I take a few deep breaths to calm down, to try to figure out what I’m feeling. After a moment I realize it’s not anger. It’s not even sadness. It’s … fear, I think. Fear of what this discovery means and how it will change things.

  No, he doesn’t know. He couldn’t know. He couldn’t know and act like everything is normal. He couldn’t look me in the eyes, kis
s me like he kissed me, and have that big a secret.

  He visits my parents’ grave because he’s a good guy. A kind, sweet guy who has no idea he’s getting involved with that dead couple’s daughter.

  Oh, my God. This is nuts.

  I stare at the computer screen, at a fuzzy mug shot of Zenn’s father from 1997. I study the grainy photo and see once again the resemblance to Zenn. Michael Franklin’s hair is longer and he has a thin, scruffy beard, but he looks enough like the Mike I met the other day for me to be sure that it is him.

  I Google the correct name this time — Michael Franklin — and find other articles about the accident. One confirms that Michael was — or is — a Gulf War veteran, honorably discharged in 1994. I don’t remember that from when I looked him up before. I might not have even known what the Gulf War was when I read about him for the first time. I think of Zenn’s jacket, the spot where the name patch would be. I can guess the reasons why Zenn or his mom may have removed it. Our story was big local news back in 1997. I guess it’s the same reason Zenn has her last name and not his dad’s.

  He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to twenty years. I wonder if he would’ve gotten such a strict sentence if I hadn’t been in the car. I mean, he was a veteran with a clean record until that point. But you drive drunk and orphan a baby, they’re going to throw the book at you. He didn’t fight the charges. He didn’t plea bargain. I check my Google search but there is no article about him getting out of jail. I guess that’s how it goes these days. Unless you’re famous, people lose interest. Plenty of new tragedies to focus on.

  I’m grateful for people’s short attention spans now. I’m grateful that my mom isn’t reading that he’s out of jail, then studying that eighteen-year-old photo and thinking how much the guy looks like Zenn.

  I have to be grateful for the small things at the moment. Because the big things suck big-time.

  Chapter 26

  Eventually I leave the library. I have to go home at some point. I’m sure I look normal on the outside. No one knows that a bomb just dropped on me and my fledgling love life. I certainly don’t know what to do with the knowledge that Zenn’s father killed my parents. It was an accident, an accident that he’s paid for as best he can. Zenn had nothing to do with it.

  But still. His father killed my parents.

  It doesn’t make me weepy or emotional. Stunned, yes. A little freaked-out, sure. But not weepy. I was only four months old when they died and I couldn’t tell you one single thing about them that I haven’t learned secondhand. But the idea of it? The idea that Zenn and I have had this connection since day one and had no clue? Yeah … it’s messed up.

  I spend the day in a daze, going through the motions of making the kids hexagon-shaped peanut butter sandwiches and doing some homework, pretending everything is just peachy. I talk to my mom, though later I can’t remember one thing we talked about. The whole time I’m with her, I’m just trying to figure out ways for her not to know what I know, yet I’m also shoving food in my mouth to keep myself from telling her. It’s that weird battle between self-preservation and self-destruction: tempted to jump off a cliff while simultaneously clinging to the railing.

  When Zenn texts me late Saturday afternoon — a text that I wanted so badly just this morning — my stomach lurches and my mouth dries up. I toss out a quick reply that I have a headache, heading off a get-together. Not because I don’t want to see him because, God help me, there is a shamefully big part of me that really wants to see him. But there is another part of me that knows I need to think this through. I need to come up with some kind of plan because I’m convinced that Zenn does not know our connection. And I have a pretty good idea how he will take it. How anyone would take it.

  Not well.

  I spend Saturday night playing with the kids, and then struggling once again with the biographical section on my college applications. If my family history seemed complicated before, now it seems like an episode of One Life to Live. I go to bed late, hoping that exhaustion will help me sleep.

  It doesn’t.

  Charlotte stops by on Sunday, anxious to hear details of my date with Zenn. I find that my giddiness is diminished by the discovery of our shared past. How do I gush about the soft lips of the son of the guy who killed my parents? But I do my best acting because I’m not ready to tell anyone the whole story just yet.

  “So …” she says, folding her long legs under her like a graceful insect.

  “So …” I say back.

  “First of all, who is this Zenn guy? Do I know him?”

  I shake my head. “Probably not. He’s new.” I find it strange that Charlotte and Zenn haven’t crossed paths, but that’s how the social structure of our high school is. Everyone travels in their own lane.

  “What’s he look like?”

  “He’s pretty tall. Taller than you. Short, dark hair. Eyelashes that make you want to bear his children.”

  She thinks about my description but appears to be coming up blank.

  “He usually wears an old green army jacket? His hands are always kind of beat-up?”

  She snaps her fingers and her eyes light up. “Ah! That guy?! He is so good-looking!”

  “You think so?” I say this because even though I think he is gorgeous it’s fun to hear her say it, too.

  “God, yes! I know exactly who it is. He has gym the same hour as me. I think Coach Foster was trying to get him to play basketball. Did he try out?”

  “I … I don’t know …” We’ve never talked about basketball. Could that be why I’ve been tutoring him?

  “Okay, so. You and tall, dark, mysterious army-jacket guy are … hooking up?”

  I bite my lip.

  “You are! You totally are!”

  “Well … just the one time.”

  “And … nothing happened? You didn’t get any …”

  Like my parents, she doesn’t like to name my visions out loud. As if not calling them what they are makes any difference.

  I shake my head. “I didn’t. Isn’t that weird?”

  “I mean, you did touch him, right? Like, with your hands?”

  “Yeah. I mean, not his bare skin or anything.” I feel myself blush. “But that usually doesn’t matter.”

  “But you touched his clothes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, my God. This is huge! Like, where did you touch him?”

  “At the park. On the play set.”

  “No. Like where on his body.”

  “Oh!” I feel myself blushing even more. What am I, twelve? “I don’t know. His chest. Maybe his shoulders ...”

  “Jeez, you were all over each other! And nothing? None of your … fractals?”

  I shake my head. I’ll admit it: after we kissed the other night I had the romantic idea that maybe he didn’t give me fractals because, well ... our feelings for each other are special. That he’s “the one” or something equally corny, like some Disney fairy tale. But now I wonder if there’s another explanation. Something to do with that night that changed both of our lives eighteen years ago.

  “Oh, my God!” she exclaims again. “We should totally go on a double date!”

  How her mind goes from my huge news that Zenn doesn’t give me fractals to double dating, I have no idea. I guess she’s been waiting for this moment since Josh first asked her out. But I try to imagine Zenn and Josh hanging out and it doesn’t compute. I can’t imagine anything moving forward after what I’ve learned.

  “Maybe.” I try to change the subject. “How’s it going with you guys?”

  It may be my imagination, but I think Charlotte’s excitement dies down a tiny bit. “Good!”

  I study her face and her eyes dart away.

  “Is this a Katie Holmes–Tom Cruise kind of thing?”

  Charlotte just looks at me blankly.

  “You know. Like where she fantasized about marrying him when she was a kid but then did and found out he’s a crazy Scientologist?”

  “No!”
Charlotte swats me and rolls her eyes.

  “The shine hasn’t worn off? Even a little?”

  “No. Not like that.”

  “Then what?”

  She picks at the skin around her fingernails. “I don’t know. I guess it’s just his friends. He acts different around them than he does around me.”

  I nod. I don’t tell her that I already know this.

  “I wish he would just …” Her words drift off and she looks at me hopefully.

  “Hey, don’t look at me. I have absolutely zero relationship advice to give.”

  “What do you think, though? Do you think he’s a good guy? Do you think I’m going to get my heart broken?”

  I smile at her. “I think he’s a very good guy.”

  And I realize I do. But I have no idea about the safety of her heart.

  Sunday night Zenn texts me again.

  Zenn: Hey!

  The exclamation point tells me he is still oblivious. Of course he is. He didn’t try to stop by my house with a note on the back of a Jesus coloring sheet. He didn’t have a heart-to-heart with my mom. He had no reason to Google my name and unravel our story. He’s the smart one, the lucky one. Meanwhile, I have the unfortunate task of figuring out what to do next.

  Me: Hey

  Zenn: I want to see u. Can I see u?

  My heart flutters and I cover my smile with my hand, though no one is around to see it. But I can’t do this. Can I? Can I do this? I think for a second and text back.

  Me: I have a lot of homework. Maybe another time?

  There is a pause. I stare at my phone, waiting.

  Zenn: Are you avoiding me?

  Me: No! No. Just … AP Lit is kicking. My. Ass.

  Zenn: OK.

  Zenn: That’s what you get for being an overachiever.

  Me: haha

  Zenn: Tomorrow?

  Nothing is going to have changed by tomorrow. His dad will still have killed my parents. My heart will still be in my throat when I hear his voice. And I still won’t know what to do about any of it. But I text back: