“Tricked how?”
Angel shifts in her seat. “Well . . . I told her about how Casey always used to drink Jack Daniel’s, it was in her diary. And then Mom went out and bought some. She must have, because she went to the store after that. And she brought it out after me and Jewel went to bed. So I think she got Casey drunk.”
I put my head in my hand. Of course she did. “But she didn’t force it down her throat, Angel. And you can’t accidentally drink whiskey and not know it. You and I have talked about peer pressure. It’s still your call in the end. She still made the decision.”
“I guess.”
“Well, didn’t she?”
Angel shrugs. “Sure. But I mean, she was up all night with you, wasn’t she? And all day? Trapped in the house, in a blizzard, with your ex-wife. She was exhausted. And you know how charming Mom can be when she really turns it on.”
“How is it you’re Casey’s advocate all of a sudden?”
Angel sinks lower in the chair, her head almost disappearing within the deep arms. She stretches out her legs, crossed at the ankles. “I feel a little bad, is all. About the diary. And she did save Jewel’s life.”
And the first thing I did was accuse her of letting it happen in the first place.
Angel sits up again, leaning forward now, toward the fire. She’s threading her fingers together and apart, toying with her rings. “It’s just hard. In a year my mom moved out, and she moved in. How could I not feel like she was replacing Mom? And she can’t be my mom, she’s too young. And then when I read her diary I thought . . . wow, she hates me. Just like the bitchy girls at school.”
“She doesn’t hate you. And she can’t replace your mom. Your mom is one of a kind.”
I mean this as a weak joke, but Angel ignores it.
“I’m sorry,” I say, meaning for the joke, but also for everything. “I don’t think I handled that well, moving her in. I thought you’d welcome her, the normalcy, the help around the house.”
“You welcomed that.”
Her tone is sharp, but she’s right. I did. My dad says I always put my kids first, but in this case he was wrong. I just assumed they wanted the same things I did.
Angel softens her voice. “But you like having her around, don’t you?”
I smile sadly. “Yeah. I do. I did.”
“Did?”
“I don’t think she’s coming back.”
“You sound sad.”
“I am.”
“You could call her?”
“She doesn’t have her phone. The cops found it in your mom’s pocket.”
“Well, you’re a reporter. You can track her down.”
“I’m a former reporter at the end of the year. Anyway, you’re thinking of a bloodhound. My specialty is City Commission meetings. Got an ordinance vote you want covered?”
“You know, Dad? Sometimes when I storm up the stairs to my room and slam the door and I yell to leave me alone? And you charge up there anyway?” She whispers now. “Secretly, I’m kind of glad. I know you’ll always be there, even when I sort of don’t want you to be.”
She gets up and heads toward the kitchen, where I hear my mother singing out that cookies are almost ready.
I’m not hungry, though. Instead I go looking for my coat, pulling my car keys out of my pocket as I head for the car.
Chapter 46
Casey
The car quickly becomes too warm, so I reach over and flick off the heat. Michael takes the hint and shuts off the engine.
He pulled in at the Sixth Street Park, facing a bright metal modernist sculpture as tall as a house, and beyond it, the Grand River in its smooth shiny blackness.
I tip my head back on the seat, the aftershock of my hangover and the fresh beer making me want to sleep.
Michael told me right away about Mallory’s freak-out, and Dylan’s defense of me. That bit about Dylan would have made me smile if anything could right now. Michael had been driving, and watching the road, so I guess that’s why he wasn’t looking at me, but now that we’ve stopped, he still hasn’t.
“You picked me up,” I finally say. “So, what?”
“An apology doesn’t really cover it.”
“Cover what, exactly?” I stare out ahead at the dark so that I almost see shapes and faces. Maybe it’s fog, or mist. Maybe my mind is playing tricks. Or I’m going crazy. Is it contagious?
“I didn’t thank you for . . . saving Jewel. Not that I ever could, adequately. I mean . . . God.” He smacks his steering wheel. “I’m pathetic.”
“I know,” I tell him, still staring out over the river but not seeing it. I can picture my brother leaning on a couch, the last time I saw him before the big fight to defend my honor.
“You know I’m pathetic? Thanks.”
“I know you’re grateful, and you have no words. I further know that Mallory did something to you, made you weird and distrustful of everyone. That if you don’t supervise every thing every minute, it will all fly apart. And you think you’re right, because you walked around the block and look what almost happened.”
“But didn’t.”
“Right. Didn’t.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” I reply automatically.
“Anything. The drinking. Your real name even.”
“I hate my real name.”
“Edna’s not so bad.”
This causes me to jerk around in my seat. “What?”
“I peeked at your driver’s license.”
I slouch in the seat and cross my arms. “Should have known a reporter couldn’t stay out of my wallet.”
“Well, you’re gonna love the next part then. I ran a background check on you.”
“Fuck.”
“You were going to move in with me. I couldn’t have someone around my kids I didn’t know anything about. And you didn’t tell me.”
“You didn’t ask, either.”
“Would you have told me, then?”
“Touché.”
“Okay. But you still haven’t answered me. Why wouldn’t you tell me yourself?”
The car still feels too warm, too close. I jump up and shove open the door, slamming it behind me. Michael jumps out of the car, too. Maybe he thinks I’m going to walk away again, maybe he wants to tackle me, and it’s true, part of me wants to run run run as fast as I can. Can’t catch me . . .
But I’m so tired. I trudge only to the metal railing next to the river, brushing off the day’s blizzard snow into the dark water, which hasn’t had time to freeze. In the reflected city light I can see an oily sheen over the river. He joins me at the railing, hands in his pockets, also looking at the water.
I turn to face him. The tall lampposts in the park behind us give everything a soft glow, like candlelight. Brighter than I would like. “You wouldn’t have loved a girl like me.”
“You didn’t give me a chance.”
“Come on! You remember that big speech about how you’ll never again date someone who drinks? And you were so relieved I didn’t? Every chance you got after that you told me how great it was that I was so unlike your ex, and all the time I wasn’t. And the bitch of it is, it didn’t work, anyway. You want to know why I left you that letter, why I almost walked out Thursday morning? Because you stopped talking to me about a baby, about a wedding, about anything at all that didn’t have to do with field trips and new school shoes and homework. And you let Angel talk to me any way she wanted, and you never stood up for me.”
“Angel’s been through a lot . . . ,” he says, trailing off.
“So have I! I can’t absorb every blow like a sandbag and feel nothing. Yet that’s what you expect. I get that you’re tired of caretaking. And I thought I could handle it, that knowing you loved me would be enough, that I wouldn’t need you to show it because I’m not needy! I’m anti-Mallory!” I jab my finger in the air, mocking victory. “But I am needy. And so I’m saving you the trouble of leaving me. You’re welcome.�
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His voice, when it comes, is gravelly, wet-sounding. “You should have told me. Given me a chance.”
“Yeah.” My own voice breaks now. “Yeah, probably.”
A wind kicks up and blows my hair into my face. I turn away from him, leaning my hip on the railing. I pull out my cigarettes and cup the flame of my lighter as I let the wind blow my hair back. My eyes water from the sting of it.
“Who’s Tony?” he asks.
“What difference does it make?” I call over my shoulder, still facing away.
“Is he really a boyfriend?”
“Do you think he is?”
There’s a long pause. “No.”
“So—” I interrupt myself with a deep drag. “Drop me off at the Holiday Inn, okay?”
He appears in front of me. His face looks wet. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t go.”
I can’t think of anything to say.
“I need you, Casey. Edna. Whoever you are, whatever you once did.”
“I’m just another problem.”
“No, you’re a person.” He stomps once in the snow, looking down for a moment. His hands had been jammed into his pants pockets. He takes them out, turns them palm up, toward me. His white breath curls around his face, which looks lined and shadowed. “Mallory’s gonna try to take the kids. Please, Casey. Don’t leave me now.”
He looks broken. That’s what this look is. I saw it in my dad, after Billy died. That essential part inside a person that keeps him upright and strong against the world, crumbled into dust, and Dad curled up on his recliner chair and that’s where he’s been all these years, getting heavier, his breathing more labored, his heart straining to keep him going, against his will.
I grind my cigarette on the rail and walk into his arms. I place my head on his chest, where it fits right over his beating heart.
“I can’t move back in,” I tell him.
“Okay,” he whispers. His face is turned sideways, he’s resting his cheek on the top of my head. He rocks me a little, back and forth, and I let him.
In a minute I’ll ask him again to drop me off at the Holiday Inn, where I’ll crawl into scratchy, sterile hotel sheets that belong to no one and decide how much I can stand.
Chapter 47
Michael
I wouldn’t have made Dylan come clean up this mess, but he asked to. And as it turns out, I’m grateful for his presence, because it keeps me focused on the task at hand by forcing me to keep up a front.
Alone, it would be hard not to react to the chore of sweeping up broken glass, removing photos from their splintered frames. Picking up the pieces of a ceramic ashtray Jewel made in art class. Her own daughter’s lopsided ashtray. She probably didn’t even see it.
We did take pictures of this first. My dad’s lawyer recommended it.
“Dad? What do we do with the TV?”
I shrug. “Guess we’ll haul it to the curb before we go pick up the girls.”
Dylan seems to have matured three years in the last three days. If anything good will come of this, maybe my boy will learn to think things through. To not be so easily led.
Except by me. I’d like it if he still did what I told him to.
After I came back sans Casey last night, they all gave me a wide berth. I ate warmed-up lasagna, and my dad and I zoned out in front of football. Everyone went to bed early. Though I enjoyed the peace and stability, and I sighed with gratitude that all my children were under my roof and my ex-wife was nowhere near us, sleep didn’t come.
I lay awake, my mind flipping like a switch between Casey and Mallory.
Casey: Is she thinking about me? Will she come back to me, ever? Is she lying awake, too? Is she drinking right now?
Mallory: Do I have to send the kids to her next week? Will that police report hurt her plans to take the children back, or will it indict me, too? What did she mean about her “situation changing”?
Will I have to hand over my kids to a mentally unstable woman who doesn’t have enough sense to stop Jewel from jumping with a jawbreaker in her mouth, who doesn’t have the presence of mind to save her own daughter from choking to death? Who could pass out in a daze if she takes too many pills and die right there in front of them?
I bathed in acidic regret for hours, but I kept coming back to my marriage to her and coming out with the same answer: I couldn’t have left her to care for Angel by herself, she wasn’t up to it.
But then we had Dylan, during a time of relative peace, which now seems like a bad idea, but how can I regret my kids? I could have gotten myself a vasectomy, but I never did. Maybe part of me wanted another shot at fatherhood. With someone normal.
I don’t believe Jewel isn’t mine. We look too much alike. She looks, in fact, very much like photographs of my mother at this age. This is what I’ll keep telling myself.
I look at my son carefully sweeping the hardwood floor, the echo of my sharp chin in his face, and in my mind I hear his sax, soulful and melodic, and of course, I can’t regret him.
“Hey, Dylan.”
“Yeah?”
He pauses in his sweeping, leaning on the broom.
“Why did you take off?”
He looks at his feet. At the wall, at the broken computer. I continue, “It wasn’t just a girl, was it?”
“I hate my school.” He tosses his head a little. His bangs are getting long, hanging in his eyes.
His grades at the new school are phenomenal. So I say that.
He scoffs. “That school is ridiculous. Everyone has awesome grades there. I hate that there’s no band. It’s not enough to play by myself. I want to be part of something.”
“But your grades at the old school . . . And that gun.”
“I’ll study harder. Every night. Get me a tutor. But don’t make me go back to that stupid charter school. I don’t care if my old school has problems. It’s not like I feared for my life. I know how to stay away from trouble. I was happy there, Dad.”
I should say no. I should refuse to reward his running away by doing what he wants. Make him tough it out. The new place is supposed to be terrific. Innovative, that’s what the experts say.
I start to ask why he didn’t just come out and ask me to transfer him, but I’ve answered my own question before I open my mouth. Same reason Casey didn’t tell me who she really was.
“Okay,” I say. “First thing Monday I’ll call your old school.”
Now it’s his turn to be startled. “In the middle of the semester?”
“You shouldn’t have to wait to be content.”
Now he looks younger again, his face glowing with that kind of childish joy little kids have when they go to the park, or, when I last saw it on Dylan’s face, when we bought him his first saxophone.
We both turn toward a knocking on the door, and my stomach knots with dread. Knocking, ringing phones, one disaster after another, for days.
I pull open the heavy door, holding my breath.
It’s Casey, hands in her pockets, eyes down on the faded welcome mat, inscrutable.
Chapter 48
Edna Leigh Casey
My phone rings as I’m swiping on lip gloss in my bathroom. I’m almost late for work, but I should grab it just in case.
“Hello?”
I’m greeted by an energetic, chirpy rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, sweetheart. I know I’ll see you this weekend, but I couldn’t wait.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Did you like the flowers?”
“Very much. I gotta go, though, okay? Call you later.”
“Okay, honey. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I put my phone back in my pocket and smell my flowers on my way to get my purse off the kitchen table. Tulips, perfect for spring. I stroke a silky petal and smile.
I glance around my apartment, which the landlord let me paint a bright salmon pink as long a
s I promised to return it to beige if I move out. It actually makes my room resemble a child’s eraser, but I love even that because it’s my own mistake on my own walls.
I still don’t have a car, but it’s warm enough to bike instead of taking the bus. I snap on my helmet and pedal to my new job doing information tech at the bank. It’s not thrilling work, but it’s close to home and it’s stable, and I felt I needed people again.
Because, as it turned out, isolation wasn’t such a great plan.
Forsythia trumpets the arrival of spring, manifesting as flashes of bright yellow in my peripheral vision as I zip down the road.
There’s no bike rack at the office, but they let me wheel my bike in and park it in an empty cubicle next to mine, like my very own garage. My boss, Carla, thinks it’s precious that I ride a bike and wear a Hello Kitty helmet.
But the helmet was a present from Jewel, so of course I wear it. She’s got one, too.
I’m a few minutes early—traffic was so light today—so I call Michael’s cell.
“Hi,” he answers. “Happy Birthday.”
“You ready for today?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“You sure I can’t come?”
“No, it’s fine. I don’t want you to have to deal with this anymore.”
“You know I don’t mind.”
“I know. See you tonight?”
“I’ll be there with bells on.” I pause, waiting for an “I love you” to spring to my lips, but it doesn’t. He doesn’t say it either. We say our good-byes warmly, and hang up.
We said it too fast last time, both out of relief to have found someone new, someone with whom we could erase history. This time we can wait.
After all, I’m twenty-seven today. I’m not exactly doddering.
I turn on my computer and mentally send Michael good-luck wishes in court.
Mallory took off with some new guy shortly after the disaster weekend, disappearing for three weeks and then calling the house, talking about coming back to town, seeking physical custody again, as soon as she “got things sorted out.” She has been absent ever since, except for the occasional rambling e-mail to one of the kids. Today, at Friend of the Court, Michael will petition to have her visitations suspended in light of her vanishing act and erratic behavior. If he prevails, we won’t have to worry she’ll swoop back to town and pick up the kids like old times, without us knowing anything about her mental state, drug use, or romantic entanglements. It means if she wants time with her kids again, she’ll have to petition for it, “as both parties agree.”
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