“Lia, honey?” her grandmother says, covering the mouthpiece of the phone. “It’s your mom.”
“That’s nice,”Lia replies, without glancing up from the book she’s reading.
“Don’t you want to talk to her?”
“No.”
Murmuring now in the living room as Lia ‘s grandmother discusses the situation with Lia ‘s mother “Your mother insists that you get on the phone.”
“Tell her to go fuck herself “Lia pushes away from the dining-room table and flees into the kitchen and then out the back door to the screened porch. It’s freezing out here, pitch black. She hugs her arms against herself and struggles not to cry.
“Lia, you’ll catch your death of cold out there, “ her grandmother says from the doorway.
“Are you off the phone?” she asks.
“Yes.
She goes back inside the house, her perplexed grandmother eyeing her as though she is some kind of mutant. Or part of an alien species.
“You shouldn’t say the F word, Lia. I should ground you for that.”
“Ground me?”Lia explodes with laughter “Ground me from doing what? I don’t do anything, Grandma, except go to school. I don’t watch TV, I have exactly one friend. I don’t go out. About the only thing you can do is ground me from school. That would be wonderful. Please do that, please.”
Her grandmother regards her with an expression that falls somewhere between shock and regret. “I. . . I didn’t know you were so unhappy, Lia.”
“Unhappy? I’m miserable. I hate it here. I just want to go home.”
“But you were... uh, that is, your mother told me you’ve had sex with someone. You can’t go home. She’s trying to prevent problems.”
“She’s the problem. She’s the drunk. She’s the kid beater. Oh, forget it. Just forget it. “Lia grabs her schoolbooks and runs upstairs and slams her door.
Wednesday evening. Her grandfather drives her to Wal-Mart. He lets her out at the front of the store, and while he’s parking she drops a letter into the mailbox. She has a purse filled with change and knows exactly how she will get the time she needs to call Dean. She doesn’t care if one of his parents answers. She can at least leave him a phone number and a day to call her
“So what do you need, kiddo?” her grandfather asks.
“School supplies, jeans, a sweatshirt. I’ll need to try on the clothes. Why don’t you go shop and I’ll meet you back here in about twenty minutes?”
“You don’t mind? I need some things in the automotive section.”
“It’s fine, Grandpa. Really.”
And off he goes. Lia watches him until he vanishes around the corner. Then she rushes back outside, the change jingling in her pocket, her heart pounding so hard she is breathless. She fumbles with the coins, her fingers are like wood. Ringing now on the other end. A man answers. She asks for Dean. The man—Dean’s father she guesses—gives her another number, a different area code. Minutes tick by. She glances nervously at th efront door of the Wal-Mart. Ringing ringing. She squeezes her eyes shut, praying that he answers.
“Hello?”
And she bursts into tears, sobbing barely able to say his name. Then he is speaking softly to her, begging her to calm down. My God, my God, he’s been so worried, he says.
“My phone number, “she manages to say, and spits it out. “Call Friday night. At nine. They’ll be out. Let it ring twice, hang up, then call back. I sent you a letter to Mr Barker’s—”
“Lia, I’ve got my own place in DeLand. You’re coming here. I don’t know how, but well work it out. Believe that, okay?”
“I— I do. I have to go. My grandfather is inside the store. I’ll be sitting by the phone Friday night.”
“I love you, just—”
And the operator’s voice breaks in. “Please deposit another fifty cents.”
Just then, a hand reaches over her shoulder, disconnects the call. Lia whips around and her grandfather stands there, glaring. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demands.
“Calling my friend. What’s the big deal?”
“What friend?”
“Molly. My friend Molly.”
“You’re not supposed to call anyone on Tybee. Those were your mother’s directions, Lia.”
“My mother’s a drunk.”
He looks stricken, her grandfather does. “Honey, I know your mother has got some problems.” He gently takes her arm and leads her back inside the store. “But she means well.”
What’s the point of arguing? She has no rights, no say in the course of her own life. And right then, beneath the horrid glare of the Wal-Mart lights, she decides to run away from this place. She doesn’t know how she will do it, but one way or another she will find a way.
She wakes to a heavy, leaden sky outside her bedroom window and her stomach in turmoil. She barely makes it to the bathroom before she throws up. Every morning it’s the same thing—anxiety, sadness, and nausea. She can’t eat the oatmeal her grandmother puts in front of her, and before she leaves for school, she has to gobble down saltine crackers and ginger ale.
“Lia, I forgot to tell you. Your parents called last night, “her grandmother says. “They’re coming up for a visit on February twenty-third.”
This is supposed to make her happy? “Is she sober yet?”
“Your father says she successfully completed the AA program.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
Her grandmother stands at the stove, hands on her hips. “You should give her more credit than that, honey. She’s trying.”
Lies, all lies. Everyone believes her mother’s lies, even her father But then, he lied to her, too. He swore she would be here only for a few months and she is certain it’s going to be through the end of high school.
She locks herself in the bathroom and follows the directions on the pregnancy kit. A few drops of urine, mix it up with the stuff in the kit, then wait. She puts the container under the sink while she waits, then gets into the shower
Naked, the water pouring over her, she looks down at herself. Her stomach and her boobs are larger. Definitely larger. And she hasn’t had a period in three months. She doesn’t have to be a doctor to know what this means. She knows what will happen, too, if her grandparents or her parents find out. They will send her somewhere for the duration of the pregnancy and make her give the baby up for adoption.
Lia begins to cry, to sob, and hates herself for surrendering to such despair
When she finally gets out of the shower, she brings the container out from under the sink. The color is blue. It’s official. She’s pretty sure it happened that night in the tent outside of Cassadaga, when she and Dean didn’t use protection. That means she’s about three months pregnant and the baby is due in late July or August.
Dear God, dear God. She has to get out of here long before then.
2
Dean watches the clock and, promptly at nine, calls Lia ‘s grandmother’s house. He lets the phone ring twice, hangs up, calls again. Their signal. She answers on the first ring.
“They’re gone?” he asks.
“Gone. It’s safe to talk. It’s a mile to the train station from school.”
“How long will it take you to walk it?” he asks.
“Maybe twenty minutes. There’s a train that leaves from the Utica station at one. It gets into Albany an hour later. I’ll take a larger pack to school that day. I think February twenty-first is the best day. It’s a Wednesday and on Wednesdays I usually go over to a friend’s to study, so they won’t even knew I’m gone until around six or so, when they usually pick me up at her house.”
“Perfect. I can meet you in Albany. Then we’ll drive back here.”
Dean, surrounded by maps and train schedules, explains the two options he has in mind. He can leave on February 19 and drive to Albany and be there on February 21 to meet her train. He would call her grandmother’s house on the previous two nights, at eight on the nose, just so she would knew things are
on course. “You can just tell them it’s someone from school, right? Isn’t that legitimate?”
“Yeah, that’ll be okay. I’ll just be close to the phone on those two nights.”
“The only problem is that we’d have to turn around and drive straight back to Florida. I could use my fake ID to gets us a motel room somewhere along the way, but that could be risky if your grandparents report your disappearance, which they undoubtedly will.”
“I don’t mind driving straight through, “she says.
His other plan is to fly to Albany on February 20, so he could be there on Wednesday to meet her at the train station. But again, there’s an age problem—no motel room, no rental car, unless he uses his fake ID. “I could ask Ian to drive up with me. He and I could get a motel room on the twentieth, meet you, then you and I can drive straight through and he can fly back to Florida. I’m okay with any of these. I just want to get you back here so we can get married, Lia.”
She starts crying—not surprising. She cries a lot when they talk. He waits for her to calm down, then reassures her that everything will work out. Ian has offered them the use of the Colby house, he tells her, and his wife, Heather, has offered to tutor her for her GED.
“But. . . but there’s a complication, “she says.
What now? he wonders. There have been so many complications that neither of them foresaw. ‘What?”
“I’m pregnant.”
Dean and Ian stroll across the campus, through the cool afternoon light. Dean unloads on him, and as usual, Ian listens without interruption, his expression unreadable. ‘Do you remember what I told you back in November?” Ian asks.
“That I’d become a father. “ The idea terrifies him.
He nods. ‘So now we know that a particular path is opening up—and other options are closing. It means there’ll be other landmarks along this particular path that you should be alert for In the meantime, though, I’d be glad to drive up there with you and fly back after we meet Lia. She or both of you can stay at the Colby place.”
“Officially, she’ll be considered a runaway, Ian. That could get you into legal hot water.”
He laughs. “The only law that matters is that of the heart.”
They are headed to Dean’s apartment, and as they’re crossing through the parking lot, Dean hears someone calling to him. He glances around and sees his sister, getting out of her BMW, waving.
“Shit, “he murmurs. “The wicked witch is here.”
Allie looks as though she’s on her way to a meeting—business suit, heels, her hair pulled back with tortoiseshell combs. She’s carrying a bag over her shoulder Her eyes harden when she sees Ian—not because she knows him, they have never met, but because he is here at all.
“What brings you up this way, Al?”Dean asks.
“I’m on my way to a conference in Jacksonville. “Her eyes dart to Ian and she extends her hand. “Hi, I’m Allie. Dean’s sister.”
“Ian West.”
“You’re a student here?”
Ian laughs. “Hardly. Just a friend.”
“Ian’s a medium, “Dean says, a part of him hoping to shock her.
“A medium?” Her brows lift, her mouth twitches into a cocky smile. “Fascinating. Mediums talk to the dead, right?”
Ian, who knows how to handle people like Allie, seems amused. “We actually spend more time talking to the living than to the dead. I’d better shove off, Dean. Keep me posted.
He heads back toward the campus, where he left his car, and Allie gazes after him for a moment, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What the hell are you doing hanging out with a medium?” she asks.
“He’s a friend.”
“You believe all that shit?”
Dean isn’t in the mood for Allie and her opinions. “Look, if you came here to critique my life, Al, I don’t have time for it. I’ve got two tests tomorrow and I need to go study.”
She looks hurt now and gestures toward her car “I just stopped to bring you a care package from home. It’s in the car. Casseroles, chocolate chip cookies.. . “She shrugged. “You know Mom.”
They walk over to her car and unload three bags of food. He’s surprised his mother can stay off pills long enough to cook anything. “How’s Mom doing?”
“Not so good. Very depressed. I put her on something new for the depression.”
A new drug, another quick fix that fixes nothing, Dean thinks. “I spoke to Ray, “Dean says.
Allie’s eyes snap to his face. “What do you mean, you spoke to Ray?”
“Through Ian.”
“Oh. “She laughs. “Right. And what did Ray say, Dean? The weather’s great over here?”
Her glibness infuriates him. “Actually, he said that Mom could be joining him shortly and someone needs to watch over her very closely.”
Allie’s face seems to be on the verge of collapsing. “That’s not funny, “she snaps.
“It isn’t meant to be. Thanks for delivering the food, Al.” Dean hurries away from her, feeling dirty and soiled just by her presence.
Tomorrow Dean and Ian leave for upstate New York. Dean is staying in Cassadaga tonight so he and Ian can get an early start in the morning. He feelt anxious, scared, and worried that something will go wrong on Lia ‘s end.
But he spoke to her last night and she’s ready, her plan is in place. It will work, he thinks. It has to work.
At dinner there’s another guest, a woman named Jean, a medium here in the village. She is soft-spoken, pretty, unassuming. She doesn’t seem to know anything about Dean except that he’s a ‘family friend,”as Ian puts it. But suddenly, over dinner, she looks at him and blurts, “You have an older sister. Stay away from her. She’s a lunatic. With many, many secrets. There’s another woman, younger. Her name starts with. . . hmm, an L, yes, I think it’s an L.A short name. She’s. . . “And her eyes dart to Ian. “You didn’t tell me Ian. You should have mentioned this.”
“Mentioned what? “Ian asks.
“These two, Dean and the L woman. They’re connected to the Voices.”
Ian doesn’t say anything. Dean glances from him to Jean, waiting, his stomach tied in knots. He hears the grandfather clock in the den chiming seven. Jean leans forward and touches her soft, warm palm to Dean’s arm. “Listen very carefully, Dean. In the spring your car will be stolen. This is a point where you rfuture diverges, where several paths open up. If you don’t report the theft to the police, the consequences for you are dire. If you do report it, the situation is improved—not greatly, there will still be challenges—but not nearly as severe as what will happen if you don’t report it.”
“Now just a goddamn minute, Jean, “Ian bursts out. “You’re frightening him. You don’t have—”
And Jean of the soft voice, the gentle demeanor, slams her fist down so hard on the table that everything shakes—silverware, glasses, plants. Even the napkins tremble. “He needs to remember this warning. He needs to be frightened.”
Ian starts to say something, but Dean stops him. “I want to hear this.”
“You won’t want to report the theft. You’ll be trying to do the right thing, to protect this woman. But I’m telling, she’s protected regardless. It’s you whose future diverges.”
“But what does a stolen car have to do with my future diverging? “Dean asks.
Jean shakes her head. “I don’t know. I just see it as a decisive event.”
“What do you see, Ian?”Dean asks.
“That the car will be stolen and that whoever steals it probably won’t be caught. Beyond that, everything is subject to interpretation and free will. The choices that are made must be your choices, Dean, no one else’s.”
3
6:30A.M. Snow is predicted for later today. Lia worries about that, about whether it will screw up her plans.
6:47A.M. Lia’s backpack is jammed with clothes.
7:07A.M. She’s scared shitless. So much can go wrong.
7:49A.M. On the bus now. Speaking
to no one. Scribbling. Nana Honey’s money is buried down deep inside her pack, in her wallet, her purse, sewn into the pockets of her jacket.
9:01 A.M. She vomits in the girls’ bathroom.
10:17A.M. Math.
10:38A.M. Bathroom, water fountain. Her anxiety is now so extreme that her stomach is churning again.
10:47A.M. She is called into the guidance counselor’s office. There, standing in front of the window, are her parents. They’re here two days early. Of course. This is exactly the sort of stunt they would pull.
Her father looks as if he has swallowed several golf balls; he’s incapable of speech, perhaps because he recognizes the shock on Lia’s face. Her mother, decked out in her Southern tan, fingers the garish cross around her neck. She wears it like an emblem of her true intent—to punish the sinner. But she rushes toward Lia, her arms open, and embraces her daughter, a big show for the guidance counselor.
As her mother’s arms close around Lia, she nearly suffocates in the stink of her mother’s heavy perfume, her excessive makeup, in the horrors of her religious prejudices. Lia knows that her mother feels her belly, her weight, that at some level she’s aware of the new life inside her. She acts overjoyed at seeing Lia, and gushes to the guidance counselor about how she and her husband arrived early and just had to see their little girl. She should get an Oscar, Lia thinks.
The moment the three of them are in the hall, where not another soul is around, Lia ‘s mother sinks her nails into her arm and hisses, “My God, my God, what the hell has happened to you? You’re fat, you’re—”
“Knock it off, Susan, “Lia ‘s father says.
“Knock it off,” her mother shrills.”Just look at her—”
Lia whips around. “You’re a mean, spiteful woman who detests getting old and has never had a single genuine emotion except anger and bitterness.” She spits the words at her mother and takes a perverse pleasure in the expression that seizes her face, pinches her mouth, shuts down whatever iota of humanity is in her eyes.
Her father who is right beside her mother, just stares at Lia, his mouth falling open so far his chin nearly hits his chest. “Do something Dad. For once in your goddamn life, stand up to her!”
Total Silence Page 23