Breaking Glass

by Amowitz, Lisa

  It was weird, but I kind of liked it. Patrick was gorgeous. And if I thought for a minute he actually wanted me, I’d have ditched Paul in a second. But everyone knew he was crazy about Celia.

  I always ended up doing whatever Trudy wanted. She was wild, willful, beautiful, and fun. And I was afraid she’d drop me for a more interesting and lively friend. Then I’d have no one.

  So I went.

  Since that day, I’ve spent every waking moment wishing I hadn’t.

  It was a bitter and clear night, the full moon beaming down on the ice-bound reservoir. Patrick had stolen some of his dad’s good brandy and we chugged it straight from the bottle. By the time we staggered out on the ice, we were a pack of stumbling fools, laughing madly and howling at the moon.

  I let Patrick kiss me. His lips tasted like brandy and oddly, mint, like he’d brushed his teeth extra hard that night. In the cold moonlight, his breath misting, Patrick Morgan looked like a Norse god.

  I really liked the feel of the brandy sliding hot down my throat, but not as much as Patrick’s warm mouth on mine.

  Out on the frozen reservoir, we skated and slid in our boots, hooting, yelling, and singing Christmas carols at the tops of our lungs. We made up our own zany words to the songs. I felt free. Happy. I wanted to stay out until the gray light of dawn crept over the ice.

  We got so drunk that, at one point, Trudy and Doug lay down as if they were in bed together. Patrick thought it was hysterically funny and twirled me around until I plopped onto my bottom.

  Then, laughing crazily, he pulled Doug’s knit Yankee hat right off his head.

  Some hint that they’d had a falling out. That they were bitter rivals, now.

  “Give it back, Morgan.”

  But Doug was not laughing. He stood up, glaring at Patrick.

  “Give it back, Morgan. You know that hat is special to me.”

  Instead, Patrick tossed the hat to me; giggling, I caught it and threw it back to Patrick.

  “Give him the hat!” Trudy said, her speech slurred.

  “Shit, asshole. It was my fucking dad’s. Give it back before I knock out your teeth.”

  Patrick circled Doug, pretend jabbing at him like a boxer. “C’mon, big shot. Let’s see what you got.”

  Doug swiped at him, reaching for and missing the hat. “Look, Morgan. I thought we talked this through. I was just kidding. I swear I wasn’t going to tell anyone.”

  “Take it. Go ahead,” Patrick said, no longer laughing, his eyes the cold blue of a mountain lake.

  “Tell anyone what?” I shivered. Somehow, all the fun had gone out of the night, along with my buzz. Doug’s gaze flashed to mine. There was desperation in his eyes. Fear.

  Then, linebacker that he was, Doug sprang at Patrick in a tackle. But lithe and sleek Patrick leaped out of the way. Doug crash-landed in a belly flop. The ice, thick as concrete where we stood, supported his bulk. Laughing, Patrick flung the hat far into the center of the reservoir.

  “Fuck! What’d you do that for?”

  “Leave it, Dougie!” Trudy shrieked. “Let it go!”

  Patrick stood up and shrugged. “No reason. I know we’re cool, asshole. We’ve been friends forever. Now get your hat. Let’s go home. I have a headache.”

  “The ice could be thinner over there,” I said softly.

  “Oh, for crying out loud.” Trudy stumbled to her feet. “I’ll get the damn hat.”

  “No,” Patrick snarled. “Let Lewis get his own goddamned hat. I was going to give it to you, asshole. You didn’t have to tackle me for it.”

  Doug chewed his bottom lip and stared at Patrick, as if he was considering breaking his jaw, and then Doug stalked across the ice. I’d always thought Patrick and Doug were the best of friends, but what passed between them in that moment looked a lot like pure hate.

  It had been a viciously cold winter, so none of us thought the ice was actually thin. Just the week before, our dads had all gone ice fishing together.

  Still, as I watched Doug walk further and further out onto the reservoir, to the place where his hat had landed, I felt uneasy. The brandy no longer had the power to warm me. I was cold to the bone.

  “C’mon,” Patrick said. “I’ll take you home.”

  “What about Doug?”

  “Fuck him.”

  I couldn’t help myself. The brandy had loosened my tongue. “What did Doug promise not to talk about?”

  Patrick had me by the arm, almost pulling me along. “Shut the fuck up, Teresa!” he screamed, and smacked me across the cheek. The look in his eyes was colder than the ice below our feet.

  That’s when I knew that, under the beautiful surface, Patrick Morgan had no heart.

  That’s also when I heard the crack, as loud as rifle fire. Half of Doug’s body was submerged in the freezing water. He called out for us to help him, pawing vainly at the slippery sides of the hole he’d fallen in.

  Trudy started to run to him, but she didn’t get far.

  Patrick grabbed her by the feet and sent her sprawling onto her stomach, and then dragged her by her ankles toward the shore.

  “Let me go!” She wailed and kicked, but Patrick wouldn’t let her go free.

  I stood paralyzed as Doug screamed and pleaded for us to help him.

  If only I’d run when I had the chance. I could have saved him.

  I’ve relived that moment, again and again. Me, watching as Doug struggled to climb out of the hole. But the ice kept cracking under his weight, the hole getting wider and wider.

  Trudy stood up again and skidded wildly across the ice toward Doug.

  Patrick grabbed her by the arm, spun her around, and punched her in the face. Hard. She fell unconscious.

  He turned to face me, a weird half-smile on his face. “You’re not going to try to help, are you Teresa? We both know the ice is too thin there. You’ll fall in with him.”

  The smile didn’t match with the warning. It looked, I know this sounds weird—but Patrick Morgan’s smile looked triumphant.

  Doug had stopped struggling, bobbing in the water at the center of the hole like a buoy. Moments later, he slipped quietly under the surface and didn’t come back up.

  “If either of you ever say a word about tonight,” Patrick whispered, the triumphant smile still curling his lips “you’ll join him.”

  I never did find out what secret Dougie Lewis was keeping for Patrick Morgan.

  It died with him under the ice of the reservoir.

  But the memory of that night has festered inside of me, ever since.

  They didn’t find his body until after all the ice had melted two months later. He washed ashore down near the dam, three miles away.

  Now

  The neatly written account is signed by Teresa Winston and Trudy Durban, dated March, 1979. Below the signatures are two fingerprints, apparently stamped in their blood. Articles about the accident clutter another double-page spread. At the bottom, scrawled hastily in red marker in the same sloppy printing are the words:

  PATRICK MORGAN IS A MURDERER.

  PATRICK MORGAN IS A RAPIST.

  “What the hell do we do with this?” Marisa asks, breaking the silence.

  I stare at the open book in my hands, at the only words written by my mother that I have ever read. “Nothing. It doesn’t change anything.”

  “Jeremy. Do you think, maybe, Susannah saw this and acted on it? Tried to threaten Patrick Morgan? Covering up one murder would certainly be a motive for another.”

  I’m still blank, numb, staring at my mother’s girlish handwriting. My voice, when I finally find it, comes out strained and hollow. “I’m not sure. And if she did, there’s no evidence she did anything about it. And Patrick wouldn’t care. He was beyond that. There’s nothing I can really do with this information. Let’s just get the fuck out of here.”

  I return Trudy’s book to its hiding place under the floorboards.

  Outside, rain slashes down in blinding sheets, the melted snow rushing down t
he road in torrents. Spears of lightning slice through the bare trees. Thunder shakes the ground. There’s no way we’re going to make it home on foot in this mess. Water will short out my high-tech leg.

  Reluctantly, I phone Dad and ask him to come get us. I tell him we’d had to find shelter under Susannah’s porch when the clouds broke open. I say nothing about the keys I stole or what I’d found under the floorboards. Someday, I will. But not now.

  In the car, Dad eyes me skeptically, but seems too exhausted to interrogate me further. Once we get home, I slip the keys back in the envelope under the pile of papers where I found them.

  I lie on my bed, puzzled, my mind skimming through the information at hand. Nothing adds up. Nothing in Trudy’s book really gets me any closer to solving the mystery behind Susannah’s disappearance and death. There’s no mention of the secret Patrick Morgan and Dougie Lewis shared that got one of them killed. It’s all just a guessing game. Maybe she really doesn’t want me to know, after all. But why? Why come back from the dead only to confuse the only person who gives a shit?

  Patrick Morgan was a murderer, no doubt, and possibly even worse, something that doesn’t surprise me in the least. And it’s just as likely my mother drove herself into the Gorge because of guilt over what she’d witnessed and kept secret all those years. As far as my mother’s death, it doesn’t look like I’ll ever know the whole truth.

  But there’s nothing to link any of this to Susannah. No evidence that she found her mother’s book and tried to use it. She’d certainly found out about Ryan and Spake, and threatened to expose them. Which still makes Ryan the prime suspect, since he was there at the scene. But that still doesn’t sit right with me. How would he have had time to dispose of her body?

  The reservoir will eventually give up its dead. When winter ends, we’ll know.

  The answer drifts between the shadows, eluding me. Susannah’s ghost has quieted and retreated. I wonder if this is a sign that I’m close to a breakthrough.

  How many historians have been confronted with bits of information that baffled them? Did they solve age-old historic mysteries in their sleep, or in bursts of intuition?

  All I can hope for is another dream to guide me to the truth.

  I do dream. About the night Susannah took Ryan and me on the candlelit boat ride to Pirate Island to seal our pact.

  I wake up crying.

  For my lost illusions. My lost leg.

  And for my mother, whose own guilt may have destroyed her.

  But mostly for the Susannah I lost. The one that never really was.

  Because, finally, I know.

  I know where she is.

  It’s the middle of the night, but I drive to the place on Reservoir Road where Susannah disappeared. The temperature has dropped again and it’s snowing lightly, a thin powder of white dusting the asphalt. Striding smoothly across the road, Veronica and my natural leg working together in a passable stroll, I pause at the guardrail that marks the craggy decline to the water’s edge. A sliver of moon peeks through the cloud cover to light a path. I climb over the rail and proceed to pick my way gingerly down the jagged rocks.

  I’m much steadier, now, I assure myself.

  Veronica protests and whirs as she tries to adjust for the uneven terrain. Still, I make good progress and reach the edge. I stare into the fathomless deep, thin sheets of ice coating parts of its dark surface, and think of those who met their end in the cold waters of Riverton. Mom. Douglas Lewis.

  My dream of a line of daisies drifting on summer water superimposes itself over the water’s surface.

  The line points to our tiny island on the far side of the reservoir. Pirate Island.

  Dreams don’t lie.

  There’s a pile of old rowboats turned upside down a few yards away. I climb over the rocks to the jumble of boats. One boat has a set of oars. With the recent thaw, most of the ice has melted. If I’m lucky, I’ll have a clear path to the island.

  I unstrap Veronica. Just in case I don’t make it back, I stand her in a place where someone will notice. Where someone will find her and maybe hook her up with a nice stump that will love her as much as mine does. There’s no reason to waste a perfectly good leg.

  I push the boat into the water.

  I pause to stare at the moon. It looks back at me, a white eye, and I wonder if I should be baying at it like all madmen do, because what I am about to do can only be classified as insane.

  In the frigid air, I think I hear Susannah urging to me to join her and Mom in the depths. Already, I can taste the rank water gushing into my lungs.

  Drowning is still my deepest dread.

  But there’s no other way. I have to do this.

  C H A P T E R

  t h i r t y - e i g h t

  Now

  I suppress my terror and suck in quick breaths. The motion of rowing hurts my sprained arm, but I press on, navigating the ice sheets like a cheap re-enactment of the Titanic. But the moon dips behind a thick tuft of clouds and I’m plunged into near darkness. Lights wink on the distant shore and I question the wisdom of this slow cruise to hell.

  I hit a snag fifty feet from the banks of Pirate Island. A crust of ice still surrounds the island and the boat can’t get through. I have no choice but to climb out onto the melting sheets and pray the water won’t swallow me like it did Doug Lewis.

  I lie on my stomach and propel myself across the frozen surface, since hopping on one leg won’t do. I’d laugh at myself gliding across the ice like a seal, if the fear of falling through the perilously thin crust and into the black water below wasn’t chewing through my intestinal wall.

  I’m a few feet from the shore when there’s a creaking groan and a sickening crack. The ice gives way, and I crash into the water, sputtering. It’s so cold it burns. But instead of slipping into panic mode, I fight wildly for my life. I flail and paddle until the ice that blocks my path breaks into pieces and my single foot finds a ledge. Miraculously, I flop onto to the rocks, my heart firing like an adrenaline-fueled machine gun.

  The wind tears at me. In my soaked clothes, with the temperature well below freezing, it won’t be long until I’m flash-frozen. My phone is waterlogged, so there’ll be no eleventh hour rescue if I can’t get myself out of here.

  I shimmy on my butt across the craggy snow-covered terrain. Blanketed in dirt and leaves, as if someone had tried to conceal it, is a rowboat beached on the shore. I shiver, and not just from the cold.

  Because I know, somewhere on this island, our island, she’s here.

  The ground evens out and I slither on my side, not sure what I’m looking for other than a place to get warm.

  But something does catch my eye. In the center of the tiny island, surrounded by a stand of trees, is a snow-covered canopy. On closer inspection, I realize it is a half-collapsed old army tent and wonder if it’s a neglected campground from long ago.

  And then I see it. Her shrine to us, the papier-mâché statue made of three twining tree trunks. Faded and nearly unrecognizable, it’s bedecked with garlands of shriveled flowers.

  Cold penetrates my wet clothes, the chill squeezing deep into bone. By now, I’m quaking so violently, it’s hard to think. I’m not really sure why I’m here and why, suddenly, all I want to do is curl up and sleep.

  I’ve had enough bouts with hypothermia to know the signs. If I go to sleep, I may never wake again.

  I haul myself into the tent and root around for anything to warm me up, but it’s too dark, impossible to see much of anything. And it smells indescribably bad. There’s a jumble of clothes in the center of the tent. I feel around. It’s a sleeping bag, but it’s stiff and frozen as if it had been wet. I stumble on something colder and harder.

  A hand.

  My insides twist wildly. I’m going to retch.

  I throw back the tent flap and a strip of moonlight falls across the body inside the sleeping bag.

  I scream.

  Susannah’s open eyes are sunken and filmy like dr
ied-out eggs. Leathery gray skin has begun to draw back over her skull, her teeth bared in a ghoulish smile. Both hands are palm up, the ragged slashes where the tender flesh of her wrists has been slit black with dried blood. In one hand is a cell phone, in the other a small notebook sealed inside a plastic bag.

  Shaking, I zip open the sleeping bag.

  Susannah died in a black dress painted with skeletal white lines. But they’re not meant to represent bones. They’re roots.

  For a moment, I’m lost in the strange beauty of the scene. In the dim moonlight, her hair splayed around her, Susannah in her death shroud looks almost like she’s asleep.

  Susannah: Then

  Ryan had his secrets, too. I wonder what he would have done if he knew mine.

  The moment I saw the way Derek Spake and Ryan looked at each other at the meet last spring, I knew that something had changed between them. I guess I just didn’t want to admit it to myself. I’d known about Derek’s orientation from our weekend art class together. I shared stuff with him, too. Mostly hinted about my things with older men.

  How being with older men made me feel protected. Safe.

  I just never happened to mention one of those men was Ryan’s father.

  Yeah. I know. How low can you go? But Patrick was indescribably kind to me. I know he was old. But he was so hot. He was fascinated by me. Enchanted, he used to say. At the same time, he took care of me like the father I never had. Bought me things.

  Try and understand what it feels like to grow up a stunted tree in a barren wasteland, always straining your face to the sun for a warm ray. Sucking on stones for water. I took sustenance wherever I could get it.

  Patrick hated his wife, he’d tell me. He’d married the wrong woman. Someone who loved someone else. He was lonely. We clung to each other as a matter of survival.

  And Ryan. Odd as it sounds. I loved him, too. Switching between the father and the son was like drinking two similar yet different wines, one rich and aged, the other light, sweet and new. Their love warmed the killing frost in my soul. I would have shriveled up and died without it.