by Meg Haston
She’s wrong. There are only three people in the universe who are carrying the weight of what happened that night: Wil, Henney, and the man who killed Wilson. If Wil would just tell me, his load would be lighter. I would do that for him. I want to.
“Wil’s told me some of the details already.” I sound defensive. “Not about the night of the murder. About the kind of guy his dad was.”
“An asshole, if I remember correctly.”
“Which”—I rub my temples—“still doesn’t make sense, entirely. I guess I always thought Wil’s family was kind of perfect.”
Minna says, “No family is perfect, and it’s dangerous to think so. Do they still teach Tolstoy in school? ‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’ It’s the first line of Anna Karenina.”
“Depressing.”
“Not depressing. Realistic. No family is happy all the time. Families are living, breathing, flawed organisms.”
“You never talk about yours, you know. Your daughter?” I press my lips together as soon as the words slip out. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.
“You want to know about my Virgina,” she says, and her voice tells me it’s okay. She pulls the covers up to her chin, cocooning herself. I have the sudden urge to slide under the covers next to her.
“When I was young, I married a very charming, very intelligent, very handsome man who happened to love money and hate women. He was very smart. He didn’t show me who he was until after we’d married. And then it started, small things at first. He’d take the money I made in my receptionist job. For safekeeping, he said. So that I didn’t have to worry my pretty, little head about it. Finances were the man’s job.”
I can’t imagine anyone speaking to Minna that way. Not now, not then.
“Remember, it was a long time ago, and I’d been raised to believe that he was right.”
I picture Young Minna with smooth skin and jewel eyes.
“And then, as time went on, something else started to happen. My family, my friends, everyone I held close, started to drift away. I didn’t notice it at first. When I wanted to have my mother for dinner, he’d say he wanted me all to himself. When I wanted to see friends, he’d say I wasn’t being a caring wife. I needed to devote more time to him. And one day, I woke up and I realized: I was completely alone.”
“Scary.” I swallow.
“Terrifying. And so I did the stupidest, most wonderful thing I could have done.”
I bite my lip. “You had a kid.”
“I had a kid.” Her voice thins with the words, and they come faster now. “I felt sure that things would change once I had the baby, but they only got worse. He started calling me names. Stupid. Useless. Whore. He said no one could love me, not even my own child.” She is trembling.
“Minna,” I whisper.
But she doesn’t stop. “After a while, I became so depressed that I considered ending it all. The only thing keeping me on earth was Virginia. So I went to a psychiatrist, who prescribed me medication for depression. And I was in therapy for years.” She sits up suddenly, laughs. “It was my favorite hour out of the week. Other than bedtime for V, of course.”
I am wordless. Minna has had thousands of other lifetimes before this one. There is so much I don’t know.
“And things got better, but only because I built up a sanctuary in my head. When things got bad, when he got angry, I would disappear into myself and I would think about escaping to the mountains with my girl. I saved money on the sly. And when Virginia was three, I was ready to file for divorce.” She reaches for her coffee and takes a sip. Then she sets the mug on the bedside table. “Horseshit,” she announces.
“Divorce,” I remind her.
She nods. “When I filed, Virginia’s father told the judge I was an unfit mother.”
I bolt upright. “That is horseshit.”
“He said I was unstable, and told the judge I’d been on medication. He went through my things and found a journal I’d written in just after Virginia was born. I’d been sleep deprived and depressed, but we didn’t have a name for it then. I’d written some things that made it seem . . .”
“But that’s not fair!” I lunge forward and squeeze her arm. “Minna!”
“He got full custody. I had visitation, but it wasn’t enough. He told her that I was unwell. That I didn’t . . .” Her voice wavers. “That I didn’t . . . want . . . her. And she believed him.” Her lips freeze. She can’t even form the words. “By the time she was old enough to choose . . .”
“Minna! She can’t believe him, still!”
Minna hushes me and nods at the clock. “It’s early, Bridget. There are cranky old people around here for miles, you know.”
“Sorry.”
“It is truly amazing, the damage one human being can do to another human being without ever raising a hand,” she tells me.
I think about my dad, whoever and wherever he is, and I wonder if he understands the damage he inflicted just by walking away. I wonder if he knows what it feels like to walk around knowing that you are unwanted.
“But she hasn’t responded to any of your letters? Even as an adult, she hasn’t—”
Minna holds up a hand. “Enough, Bridget. I’m tired.”
“Right. Sorry.” I crawl into bed next to her. I don’t think she minds, because she closes her eyes without saying anything. The light from the bedside table settles in the valleys around her eyes and mouth.
When Minna’s breaths are slow and even, I slip out from under the covers. I swallow a yelp when my toe slams into a clear plastic container beneath the bed, the kind Mom stores her sweaters in. I’m nudging it back into place when I see the name on an envelope in uneven script, pressed against the plastic from the inside: Virginia.
Instinctively, I know what this is, and I know I should leave it. Instead, I slide the container from beneath the bed and I pop open the top. The container is filled with envelopes. Letters, all of them addressed to Virginia. Stamped but not dated. Some of the envelopes are yellowed and old. There are hundreds, thousands, maybe, years and years worth, and there are three identical containers jammed behind this one. The letters show addresses in California, in Colorado, in Florida, a few hours south of here. Minna has followed her daughter through childhood into adulthood, across the country. But she’s never mailed a word.
The room tilts a little. All of Minna’s years are here, faded and tucked away. Unwitnessed. Maybe the letters are apologies, explanations. Or maybe they are crammed full of the small details that make up a day: rude comments from an ignorant boss, a whole paragraph on the best doughnut in the world. There is a whole life here. Shoved under the bed like a secret.
I take one of the newer envelopes. Its edges are still sharp. I stuff it into my back pocket and shove the bin under the bed again. I move quickly down the hallway and out the front door. I twist the lock in the knob before I pull it closed behind me. In the sunlight, I look at the envelope again. Minna’s handwriting is tired. Minna is tired. Life has wrung her out. How much more time does she have to find her way back to Virginia?
I jump in the truck and balance the envelope on my thigh. It wasn’t mine to take. But this is my chance to do something for her, before a life storm swoops in and wrecks the possibility of Minna connecting with her only child.
And Virginia, I think as I back out of the parking lot. I couldn’t stand wandering the world without the mother who made me. In this world, there are men hitting their wives and sons. There are mothers deserting their babies. Parents who don’t deserve to watch their children grow. But Minna is not that parent. She deserves to find her way back to Virginia.
I roll down the window and slow to a near stop as I approach the guard gate. There’s a mailbox there. I could do it. It would only take a second. There are so many broken families in this world, and maybe Minna is right. Maybe every family is broken in its own way. But not every family is beyond repair.
I pull open the slot, c
lose my eyes, and slip the letter inside.
BRIDGE
Summer, Senior Year
ALL day, I think about Minna and Virginia and Wil and me and what it means to be a real family. In the evening, after Mom heads to work and Micah ditches me for his friends, I drag our bedsheets and towels to the Laundromat downtown and camp out in the orange plastic chairs by the window while I wait. I stare at the bricks that carry the names of people who love one another now, or did once. The more I think about the bones of what it means to love another human being, the more I know: There can be no secrets. You have to know everything: the darks and the lights, the befores and the afters. To love Wil, all of Wil, I have to understand what happened that night.
When the buzzer goes off, I pull the hot sheets from the dryer. I don’t bother folding them, just stuff them in Mom’s wicker laundry basket and heave the basket into the passenger seat of the truck. I drive to Wil’s house, my skin damp with early evening heat and adrenaline. My hands slip against the steering wheel. I’m going to ask him.
I see him the second I turn down his street. He doesn’t notice me right away. He’s standing in the bed of Wilson’s old truck, sweeping dead leaves into precise piles and then spilling them into the drive. He’s neat like Wilson was. Watching him, my inside seams might burst. My throat gets tight and my eyes get full. He is good to his depths. There should be more of him. It strikes me as the saddest thing in the world that there are people on this earth who don’t know Wil Hines.
I pull up to the curb and he spins around to face me. He shields his eyes with one hand and gives me a wave. I roll down the window.
“Getting your Sunday chores done?” I tease. “Good boy.”
“Actually . . .” He draws out the word in a way that makes me shivery and warm at the same time. “I was on my way to see you.”
“Me?” I flutter my lashes like a coy girl in an old movie.
He nods. “I want to take you out tonight. On a real date. Not a bonfire, and not your old lady friend’s house. You and me and a beach, and nobody else.”
“That sounds really good,” I say.
“Only one condition.” He jumps down from the truck bed, and doesn’t even wince when his bare feet hit the cement. He leans through my open window, and the truck is filled with the warm, earthy smell of him.
“What?” Anything. Everything. Always.
“No talk about any of the big stuff. Off-limit topics include graduation, next year, and my dad,” he says. “Deal?”
I nod. Instantly, everything outside of us can wait.
“Deal,” I say, and we kiss on it.
I park my truck on the street and wait for Wil in the yard while he tells his mom we’re going out. Summer is ripening quickly. I close my eyes and listen to the reedy thrum of the cicadas. The sound reminds me of summer nights when I was a kid. Mom would prop my bedroom window open with an old dictionary, and the cicadas’ mating calls mixed with the sound of the waves would lull me to sleep.
I hear the crunch of Wil’s feet on the grass.
“Making a wish?”
I open my eyes. “I guess you could say that. I was just thinking that I like it here. With you.”
He smiles. “I like it here with you.”
“I’ve been thinking that I want to get out of here, start a new life someplace else, but I don’t mind this place, as long as you’re here.”
He brushes my hair from my eyes and rests his hand against my neck. I know that he can feel my heartbeat through my skin. “I like everywhere you are,” he says, and kisses my neck. I could sink into the grass with him and never come up for air.
He opens the passenger door of the truck and pulls a black backpack from the seat.
“Hold this,” he says. “But don’t open it.”
“Or what?” I get in, and he kisses me roughly. My heart leaps through my chest.
“Better not, Hawking.”
He starts the truck and takes us in the direction of the highway. It’s not long before we’re driving too fast on an empty two-lane road. Someone has wrung out the sun, and it drips pink into the mirrored river.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Little Talbot.”
Little Talbot Island is one of the small barrier islands not far from home. It’s wild, still—nothing but untouched beaches and salt marshes and dunes. I raise an eyebrow. “Scheming to get me all alone, mister?”
“Definitely. Just you and me and the stars and the ocean. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, actually. Since the first day of fourth grade.” He looks at me with a face that has broken wide open. Finally, I see all of him: his colors and shades, his pain and the way he loves me.
I don’t say anything back. Some words deserve to stand alone.
We drive the rest of the way in the kind of silence that feels like a warm bath. When we get to the park, Wil takes a back entrance. He’s sailing buddies with the guy who works the gate during the day, the guy who conveniently left the entrance unlocked tonight. Sand spins under the tires, and he maneuvers the truck onto the beach.
“Pass me that bag?” he asks.
I heave it in his direction.
“Okay. Now stay here until I tell you to come out.”
“Got it.” I slide back in the seat and close my eyes, listening to Wil’s sounds behind the truck: his bare feet against the wet sand and the way he clears his throat every few seconds because he’s nervous, which makes me nervous. Soon he opens my door, and extends a hand.
“Come on,” he says quietly, and leads me around the truck bed. He’s blanketed the sand with colorful quilts his mother made with his old Little League and sailing camp T-shirts. Around the perimeter of the quilts are glowing pillar candles, like the beach is on fire. We are the only ones here, and the only sounds are the lapping ocean and the pop of the candles.
“Wil.” I let his name rest on my tongue as we settle onto the blanket. I can’t pull away from us. Wil’s face is shadowed and blazing in the most beautiful way.
“I love you, Bridge,” he tells me. “I’ve loved you for a long time.”
“I’ve loved you forever.”
His fingers are trembling when he touches my collarbone. When he curls them around my tank top and pulls me into him. A breeze swoops down the beach, extinguishing some of the candles. But we are ignited by shared sunburns and workshop afternoons. Handstand contests and hours spent bouncing around in a truck bed. All these things make us who we are. The things I don’t know about him don’t define him. I was silly to think I had to know them all. I don’t need them to see the real Wil Hines. He is right here, in front of me. He slides over me, pressing me into the sand, anchoring me to this life, to us.
BRIDGE
Summer, Senior Year
THE next morning, I stand at the foot of the stairs in the filtered morning light. I blink furiously, just to be sure. But every time I open my eyes, Wil is there, lounging in the living room with Mom and Micah, an open box of bagels on the coffee table. He looks good, sprawled in the middle of my family portrait. I press my lips together. They are still swollen with him.
“Hey there, Sleeping Beauty,” he says.
Micah makes a gagging sound.
“Hey!” I lock eyes with Wil. “How long have you been here?”
“This boy was sweet enough to show up at the door with bagels and coffee this morning.” Mom tightens the sash on her waffled robe. “Just a little celebration, since the two of you are out of school this week.”
Micah scowls. “I hate my life.”
I drop between Wil and Mom on the couch and give him a kiss on the cheek.
“That was really sweet.” I brush Wil’s hair away from his eyes.
“That was really sweet, Wil,” Micah says in a girly voice.
“Dude. Not cool,” Wil jokes, handing me a latté in a paper cup.
“You guys have big plans for today?” Mom asks. “Graduation rehearsal?”
“Not until tomorrow,” I tell her.
“Yeah, so . . . kind of a free day today,” Wil says, sliding a glance in my direction. His cell rings, and he checks the screen. “Sorry. It’s my mom.” He ducks outside.
“Sooo . . .” Mom leans back. “How was Little Talbot last night?”
“How did you know?”
“Wil told me. Unlike some people, he tells me things,” Mom chides me.
I ignore her tone and sip my coffee. “It’s really romantic out there.”
“Age-appropriately romantic, I hope.” She looks straight through me.
“Oh, age-appropriately, for sure.” I switch to a chug.
Wil pushes through the door, silent. He is blank-faced and gray.
“They got him.” His voice is thin, like water. “They got him.”
“Got who?”
“Honey? Wil?” Mom tenses.
“The guy who killed my dad. He broke into another place last night, and they got him.” His face twists, and he lets out a half sob.
“Oh my God.” I’m frozen. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry or scream. I jump up and hug him hard. “Wil. Oh my God.”
“Yancey and Porter want to talk to Mom and me. At the station.” He blinks. “I have to go to the station.” His eyes are unfocused. He is too quiet for a moment like this.
“When?”
“Now. I don’t know. Now.” Finally, he finds my eyes. His are begging. Help.
“Give me the keys. I’m driving.” On the way out the door, I jam my feet into an old pair of Micah’s flip-flops.
Wil pitches the keys my way. I follow him outside, where he stops in the middle of the sidewalk and bends over.
“Wil? You okay? What’s—”
He dry heaves, then pukes in the grass. The air smells like rancid coffee.
“Fine,” he rasps, without looking at me. “I’m fine.”
I rest my hand on his back, rub it in slow circles. When I pull back, my palm is laced in his sweat. “Just take a few deep breaths, okay? It’s gonna be okay.” Already, the air is hot enough to split my skin. I steer him to his truck and help him into the passenger seat.