Woke Up Lonely

by Fiona Maazel

  “Oh, stop it,” Larissa said. “We were worried sick.”

  “Silver-spooned,” Ned said, and he looked about his plane with disgust. He hadn’t been silver-spooned so much as bribed. What sort of parents let their child do anything so long as it was expensive? Guilty parents.

  “It’s just turbulence,” Max said as the plane capered through the sky. “Even the Red Baron had turbulence.” He laughed but clutched the yoke hard.

  Ned had wanted to see his sister right away, only he had wanted to impress her, too. So he revised the plan. Study the weather in Cincinnati. Maybe seed the clouds overhead and flood the city. Hone his skills, then head out West. Some bullshit excuse, bereavement leave, whatever. Until then: briefings whose details he had missed.

  When the time came, he had no idea who or what he was scouting.

  If that little troll who’d vetted him at speed dating was chief of a camarilla deputized to bust the Helix, and if this troll had drafted him into the mix—he found this out only after being kidnapped.

  ETA: twenty minutes. He closed his eyes and went over what to expect. The PI had not been forthcoming with data on his sister, mostly because he didn’t have any. Her name was Tracy. She lived way out in the Valley. Someplace rural—farmland, mountains—with a husband, Phil, and a toddler son, Willard. Anything else? Hang on. Ned had waited thirty-five minutes while the PI took another call, only to get shut down when he returned.

  “No, that’s all I got.”

  “But what does she look like?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t take photos.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t paid to make out with her.”

  “Hey, that’s my sister.”

  “Are we done here?”

  “No, wait, isn’t there anything else you can tell me? Is she tall?”

  “She’s your height.”

  “Really? What about her hair?”

  “She’s got your hair.”

  “Yeah? Wow. But wait, you never even met me.”

  “Bingo, genius.” Click.

  How many ways could he tell his mother the same thing? He plugged his ears, but she would not drop it. “How about if I call the police for you? I don’t mind. It’s the right thing; people need to know you got out.”

  They’d been having this conversation all day. If he notified the police, they’d take him in. There’d be debriefings. Press conferences or, more likely, a quarantining by the feds, lest he broadcast their incompetence. Not that he could do much to tank the impression people already had of them, but he could spotlight the impression, at least until some other disaster laid claim to the country’s umbrage.

  “Mom, I’ll call after Tracy.” He said her name and smiled.

  “Don’t be so hard,” she said. “You make bad choices in life. You try your best.”

  “Oh please.”

  “Neddy, while you were at the Helix House, I prayed and swore if you got out, I’d make the best amends to you I could. So here we are. Flying you right to her door.”

  He felt the anger coalesce in words that thronged his lips and teeth, so he was surprised to hear a different feeling assert itself out loud. “Mom, what if she doesn’t like me?”

  This seemed to recoup for Larissa her equilibrium, because nothing better vanquishes your problems than your kid’s. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “What’s not to like? Now, buckle up, because who knows if your father can actually land this plane.” She laughed and frowned and laughed again.

  ETA: now. The landing gear engaged. And down they went.

  California was rilled with faults and counterpoised tectonic fronts likely to rip the state from the mainland. Where Tracy lived was notorious for fire and debris flows, and in that order. It had been the rainiest winter in 115 years. Nine inches in the last week. Almost nine feet at Opids Camp, up in the mountains, where Ned had always begged his parents to send him, which they never did. Probably because they knew his twin lived just a few miles away. They claimed not to know, but who was believing them now? It had rained more at Opids this year than in Bangkok. It was about to rain again; the clouds gathered in a scrum overhead.

  They taxied to a hangar that was five sheets of aluminum and loud as bombs when the rain came. There was no one there, as though what few people who attended the strip had run home to open their doors and let the mud pass through. A nice idea. At the foot of the mountains, for fifty miles, were debris basins meant to catch whatever came down, but these overflowed, so that it was possible, at any moment, to drown in a gruel of mud twelve feet high, come slopping through your room.

  “Well, this takes it,” Max said. The rain was coming off the roof in a wall and pooling by the hangar door. His shoes were wet through—suede loafers—not to mention his socks. He sat on a bench and struggled to meet his feet halfway.

  “Let me help,” Larissa said, and before he could protest, she’d crammed her fingers down his heels like a shoehorn.

  Ned made for the door and looked out. A road meandered from the hangar; there was a single car parked outside. “How are we going to get out of here?” he said. Because he had not exactly thought ahead. Well, no, he had thought ahead—that they’d land in Tracy’s yard and she’d come running to him with apple pie and lollipops.

  “I rented a car,” Max said. “It’s the ugly one outside.”

  “And go where?” Larissa said. “Because one place I’m not going is that woman’s. Not that anyone asked, but I am not going.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Ned said. “I’m glad you’re open to this.”

  “Your father and I talked about it. We’re at a point in our lives where we just want some peace and quiet. We’ve earned it. So, while we’re happy to get you to her, we’re not going.”

  Ned looked at his father to see whether there was actual agreement there or whether she’d just bullied him down. But no, there was no bullying. If Tracy’s life was garbage, they simply did not want the guilt of knowing they could have done better for her.

  “But she’s my sister,” he said, though it sounded pathetic even to him. He tried again. “If you’re interested in me, you’re supposed to be interested in her.”

  “Let’s just get to the car,” Max said.

  They drove around Sunland. A main drag with all the amenities, and to the north, the mountains, scalloped into the afternoon sky, which was a baby’s face swelled with the tantrum gathering force in her lungs.

  “We need a map,” Ned said. “I just have the address.”

  “We’re not going,” Larissa said. “I understand no one in this family listens to me, but all the same, we’re not going.”

  “Fine, whatever, you can just wait in the car.”

  “Oh, that’ll go over well.”

  “We can drop you off,” Max said. “We’ll make sure she’s home and then come back for you later.”

  Ned pummeled his knee with his fist. “You’re making this ridiculous,” he said. “It’s not like dropping me off for kindergarten. Why do you have to make this ridiculous? This means something to me.”

  They pulled into a gas station. Larissa fussed with her purse, looking for her wallet. Ned shoved her a five. “A local map, okay?”

  She turned around. He was lying down in the backseat. “Neddy, I’ve been thinking. Maybe you should call first? Because what if she really isn’t home? Or what if she doesn’t believe you? What if she doesn’t know she was adopted, either? Have you thought about any of that?”

  He was blinking slowly, because on the lee side of his eyelids was the way this afternoon was supposed to go, and it gave him courage to check in with the footage every three seconds.

  “I don’t think there’s another family in the universe that wouldn’t tell their adopted child she’s adopted,” he said. “Just FYI.”

  “But is this really the best way?” Max said. “I’m not saying don’t find your sister, but what is the hurry? A little planning, a little foresight�
�these could save you some trouble down the road.”

  He was getting a headache. “Just get the map,” he said. “Please.”

  It was almost five. It was getting dark.

  “It’s a ways up the canyon,” Larissa said when she got back into the car. “The man inside showed me.”

  “Good, that settles it,” Max said. “We’ll do this tomorrow. If we hustle, we can still get to the lodge for a steak dinner. I’ve got friends that way.”

  Ned reached for the map. “What do you mean? It’s just up the road!”

  Larissa sneezed. “Your father will catch pneumonia out in this weather. You already saw his shoes.”

  “Then I’ll walk,” he said, and he made to get out of the car, unsure whether he was bluffing or not.

  “Neddy,” she said. “You haven’t lived out here for a while. Things are different. This area’s not safe.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Tell him,” Larissa said, looking at Max.

  “Your mother’s right. There’s methamphetamine labs all over the place. Have you noticed how half the people running around have no teeth?” He put the car in gear.

  “It’s true,” Larissa said. “Even the man behind the counter was missing a front tooth.”

  “And that means he’s a meth head?” Ned said. “I need something from the store”—and he ran out. He needed air. Space. These people were unbearable, and thank God he was not biologically mandated to turn into them when he reached that age when you stop resisting your worst self. Course, it was possible his biological parents had been unbearable, too, but there was no point going down that road.

  A bell rang as he walked into the convenience store. He kept his eyes on the floor and matted his hair against his forehead. The guy behind the desk was not a guy but a kid, and he was missing teeth because he was ten.

  “Need something?” the kid said.

  “Just looking.”

  “Lemme get my dad for you.”

  “No, no, I’m just leaving.”

  But it was too late; the kid was hollering for his dad, who came lumbering in from a back room. “Didn’t I say not to bother me?” But then, seeing a customer, he said, “Well, well! Out in this weather? Brave man. What can I do you for?”

  But Ned was backing out of the store, mumbling thanks and trying not to hear the radio, which was live from a Cincinnati hospital treating some of the people from around the Helix House. The place had gone up in flames, but the fallout was minor. Smoke inhalation. First-degree burns.

  The guy whistled. “Sorriest thing I ever heard. You been following this mess? House blows up and all four of those hostages are gone. Even the Grand Poobah. Something’s not right.”

  Ned looked up for the first time. “All four of them gone?”

  “Maybe taken to a new place. What do I know. Radio’s telling me nothing.”

  “Is anyone looking for them?”

  “You just come out of a coma? Everyone is looking for them.”

  Ned felt the blood recede from his skin, roll back through his veins, and log his heart, so that it grew tenfold. Everyone? He fled the store and, back in the car, told his dad to gun it.

  What is tolerable in a person you love? Or want to love so much you will tolerate most anything? If his sister was a meth head running a lab, and if her husband, Phil, and son, Willard, partook of the results—one enjoying them and the other sustaining brain damage no one would notice for months—if they sold meth to local teenagers who marked it up and sold it to kids in Westwood, and if their franchise rivaled for quality what was coming in from Mexico, so that if they weren’t meth heads they might have been rich and put their son in a day care that served arrowroot animal crackers, if his sister’s face was all bone, and the skin was loose and pocked with gore, would he still see in her proof that his life had meaning? Would she still outfit his unconscious with the fabric of their bond so that he could go out and find someone to love romantically? And if she could do this for him, would he be able to prove he was worth it? The car splashed down the road, but the rain was on break.

  “Do you at least have a plan for now?” Max said. “Do you know what you’re going to say?”

  Ned was looking out the window for street signs. The closer to the mountains they got, the more sporadic the housing and signage, so that even though they were within a mile of her place, it took forty-five minutes to get there. Every time he thought they were close, it was as though a giant hand snaked down his throat, grabbed his lungs, and squeezed. Then when they were lost again, he tried to breathe double-quick. Get it in there, fill the sacs. He was not hyperventilating, but still he felt sick. One more U-turn and he’d lose every meal he’d ever had.

  “Neddy, are you all right?” Larissa said. Amazing how well she could dial into his anxiety. A good mom. “How about we go up the road and park above the house so we can just see what’s what?” Giving him a face-saving way out. He said, “If you insist,” though he was relieved and grateful for this woman above all.

  The road did not have a shoulder, so Max pulled onto the dirt. Fog was rolling in, dusk too, but they could still see Tracy’s house, which was actually a barn, and the yard, more like nature in a fence. There were tufts of buckwheat and sage and bitter brush laid out across the ground. Cockleburs up to your neck. Ned squinted but could make out nothing of relevance from this distance except a tricycle on its side and two cars in the driveway—a pickup and a town car much like the one whose engine Max was now gunning with impatience.

  Larissa reached into her bag. “Here,” she said, and she thrust binoculars in Ned’s hand. “I got them at that philharmonic fund-raiser. They’re opera glasses, really.”

  “You always carry around opera glasses?”

  She blushed. Ned said, “Oh,” and then started to laugh and then to tear up.

  “I was just going to watch for a second,” she said. “Just to see if she looks like you.” She cupped his face. “My sweet boy.”

  He swiped at the tears. He was afraid to look through the binoculars, but he looked all the same and instantly regretted it. He hurled them down the slope.

  “What?” Larissa said. “What is it?”

  He threw his hands in the air and again his mom said, “What?” She looked at the binoculars, some twenty feet below, and calculated the wisdom in retrieving them. She was wearing clogs and had probably not exerted herself in this regard in years.

  He sat on the ground. It was wet and shrill with needle grass. “Goddamn it,” he said. “If you hadn’t taken so long at the gas station we could have beat them.”

  “Beat who?”

  “The cops. The feds. I don’t know. I saw a woman in the door, maybe it’s her, but I couldn’t get a good look because she was half-inside the house, talking to some jackass.”

  Larissa stared down at the car in the driveway but could make nothing of it. “What makes you think it’s the police?”

  “Mom, he was in a suit and tie. Look where we are. Everyone’s after me—of course they were going to check in on Tracy.”

  “But—”

  “Mom, they’re the government. They know everything. And now so does she. I can’t believe it.”

  He felt so cheated, he almost could not move. Thanks to the feds, now he’d never know how she had felt in the instant she learned she wasn’t alone in this world, either. Not without blood family. Did the news come as a relief? Would it moor her to the universe and save her life? In receipt of major news for the first time, a face cannot lie.

  “Maybe it’s for the best,” Larissa said, and she began to finesse her way down the hill.

  Ned had his back to her. “Goddamn it,” he said. “This was idiotic. She’s probably a meth head. Maybe they were coming to arrest her. Let’s get out of here. I’ll call in to work tomorrow and that will be that.” He waited for his mom to hallelujah the plan but heard, instead, a small cry followed by the circus of a body tumbling downhill.

  “Ah, Christ,
” he said, and he plunged headlong after her, grabbing for balance what he could.

  “I’m here,” she said, and she jutted her arm from a bed of sage that, in its congestion, had hidden her whole. “I think I twisted my ankle. Go get your father? He’s waiting.”

  “Clearly,” Ned said. The car horn had been blaring through the night for three minutes. If the feds had any sense, they’d hear in the urgency of this horn a sennet for their catch.

  “Mom, can you get up?” He took her by the forearms and was shocked at their girth. They were bamboo; she was so frail. She tried to put pressure on her foot but buckled at the knee. “I can’t walk,” she said. “How stupid.”

  Ned looked up the hill. The night was livid now, but he could still see in the angle of the hill’s incline no way to get back up together. Unclear, even, if they could get down. He told her to stay put while he went for Max.

  “Neddy,” she said, and she grabbed for the hem of his pants. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

  He waved her off and began uphill. The sky crackled, and you could hear the dry ravel and a sound like horse hoofs on cobblestone, which was actually rocks and pebbles and earth caroming down the mountainside.

  The only light for miles was a halogen nested in the gable of Tracy’s barn. It guided their way as they picked through the brush.

  “We can act like we’re someone else,” Larissa said. She was pendant between the men in her life, and, though the throbbing in her ankle was getting worse, the pendant thing was nice.

  “You could help us here,” Max said. “You do have one foot that still works.”

  “Or maybe we could just be hikers who lost track of time,” she said.

  “Some hikers,” Max said. “The one thing we had to make that story work, and sonny boy throws them down the hill.”

  “I got them back,” Larissa said. And it was true; the binoculars were slung around her neck.

  Ned kept his eyes on the halogen. What might his sister not like in all this? How about a creepy brother come to her door with the horrible parents who rejected her.