by Shawn Inmon
“Of course,” Violet said, although she had never experienced a mother like that herself.
“So that night, as I stumbled out the front doors of the hospital, I lit up a cigarette—“
“—I didn’t know you used to smoke!”
“—Oh, it was so much worse than just smoking. So. There I was, totally stunned and helpless, crying my eyes out, but doing my best to hide it, when this old pickup truck pulled right in front of me. It was this boy from town named Joey. He was a scumbag, but he was kind of cute. You know the type?”
“Only from movies. I had a pretty restrictive upbringing. But yes, I know the cute, bad boy type. Go ahead.”
“Joey was more than just a bad boy. He was the worst kind of boy. And especially the worst kind of boy for a broken-hearted girl to run into right after her mom has died. I tried to brush him off, but Joey didn’t brush off easily. He was a complete asshole, but he did have his charming side, too, and it was on full display that night. Long story short, I ended up getting in the pickup with him and going for a ride. You know how one thing leads to another? You are looking at Exhibit 1-A for that concept.”
Andi was quiet for a moment, lost in the memory. Violet stayed quiet, let her stay lost for a time.
“I told him what had happened, that Mom had just died, and he acted concerned. Then, he said he had something that would make me forget all about the pain for a little while. We’re all responsible for our decisions, and I know it. So it was my own choice. If it hadn’t been Joey Fitzsimmons right then, it would have likely been some other bad boy the next day or the one after. I was primed and ready to lose myself. Which I did. I knew what the right thing to do was, and I did exactly the opposite. I knew I needed to get out of that truck and go find my Daddy and grieve with him. And that was just too damn sad.”
A silent tear slid down Andi’s cheek.
“Joey had this little tin of Altoids that he kept in his glove box. He said that was where he kept his big guns, and I needed something big that night. I told him he was absolutely correct, and I took whatever he gave me and washed it down with a hit from his beer bottle. It was warm. The beer, I mean. Gross.”
Violet, who had been tearing up herself, laughed a little. “The things you remember.”
“Joey told me that by the time we got to the party he was going to, I wouldn’t feel a thing, that it would all just fade away. Truer words were never spoken. I don’t remember much of anything after that, for a few years. It was like one big blackout.”
Violet cocked her head. She was doing the math, and things weren’t adding up, but stayed silent, to let the story play out as it would.
“Everything I remember from those years is just like little flashes, and none of them were good. Let’s just say that my standards for what acceptable behavior was, fell to an all-time low.” She shook her head to clear the cobwebs of those flashes from her mind. “About two years after Mom died, I knew where I was headed, and I finally decided to do something about it. I went to Daddy and asked him for help. He didn’t have a lot, but he paid for me to go to a rehab center over in Texarkana. It was good. Thirty days there, thirty days clean, because I made sure I loaded up on the drive there.”
Finally, Violet couldn’t hold her tongue any longer. “I don’t understand, Andi. By this time, you would have been watching Nathaniel for me. None of this fits together.”
Andi raised her hand. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, please wait until all facts are presented before coming to a verdict.”
Chastened, Violet sat back in the lawn chair and waited.
“I came out of the rehab center and moved back in with Dad. I was fired up, and determined to do things right. I got a job at Dairy Queen, stayed away from all my old friends. Went to my outpatient sessions. I did it all. And you know what? Addiction is so powerful. A month after I got out of rehab, I went to my old dealer and loaded up again. But, I made the mistake a lot of junkies make. I used the same amount I was using before I got clean. My body couldn’t handle it.”
She looked straight into Violet’s eyes.
“I overdosed. I died. I was alone in my childhood bedroom, so there was no heroic rescue, no Narcan, no anything, except for oblivion.”
Violet rubbed her arms vigorously. There was a sudden chill in the air. She didn’t dare ask what happened next.
“And then,” Andi continued, “I opened my eyes, and there I was, back on that bench in front of the hospital, smoking a cigarette. Joey Fitzsimmons pulled up in his old truck, just like before. It was like I had started over. Because I had.”
She peeked over at Violet to see how she was receiving this confession, but Violet seemed lost in memories of her own.
“At first, I figured that I had just killed myself the night before, and now this was my reward, that I was going to have to relive all the biggest screw-ups of my life, over and over. This time, no matter how persistent he was, I told Joey to go screw himself, then waited for whatever was next. But, what was next was nothing. I sat there a long time. Eventually, Dad left Mom and came out and found me. We went home together. The weirdest thing was, that all-consuming addiction—that terrible need I had felt—was just gone.”
Andi drained the last of the peach cooler and set it down with a little more of a thump than she meant to and jumped a little.
“I was still sad that Mom was dead, of course, but to me, it had been three years since she had passed. I focused on trying to help my dad, but he was too distant to reach. About a year later, he took a job in Texas. I think he just wanted to get away from the memories. To make ends meet, I got that same job back at the Dairy Queen. They were impressed that I already knew how to run the ice cream machine.”
Andi laughed again, and this time, it was a more authentic laugh—no bitterness.
“A few weeks after I started working at DQ, I took a break and walked across the street to the park to watch the kids play. That was when I met you and Nathaniel. You know the rest of the story.”
Andi leaned her head back against the webbing of the lawn chair. “I have never told anyone any of this, because I knew they would think I was deluded, but it’s the truth, and I wanted you to know it. So, you gonna send me on the next bus home?
“No,” Violet said. She thought back to the night Dennis Dillon had strangled her, and how she had woken up the next morning as though it had never happened. She rarely thought of it anymore, because what was there to gain by thinking about it? “Of course not. You know what, Andi-girl? I believe you.”
This sincere expression of belief made Andi break down and cry an ugly cry, but it swept so much out of her, that she was glad to have it gone. She wiped her tears away with the back of her sleeve, and said, “You wanna know something? After I met you and Nathaniel, I started to believe that maybe I was given a second chance just so I could help him. I still believe that.”
Violet laid her hand on Andi’s and said, “Me too.”
Chapter Twelve
Nathaniel slept late the next day, which was a blessing to Violet and Andi, who had stayed up late into the night. By the time they got packed, breakfasted, and on the road, it was after 10:00.
All of which conspired to mean that they didn’t make it to Crater Lake that day. Instead, they found a cute lodge-like motel at Klamath Falls, and stopped there. They spent the evening hiking along a fast-rushing stream that cut through the pines behind the lodge, inhaling the clean, cool air.
Nathaniel led them on the hike, saying over and over, “I like this place, Mama,” as he bent to pick up a crawling bug or interesting rock.
Andi said, “You know, I like this place, too. Everything here feels so different—like something out of a movie.” She waved her arm in an arc, taking in the entirety of the forest. “Living in Tubal, I couldn’t even imagine something like this was even out here.”
On the walk back to the room, Vivian picked Nathaniel up, kissed his cheek, and said, “I need to talk to you about something, honey, and
it’s really important. Get your good listening ears on, okay?”
Always, even when you think I’m not listening.
“Okay, Mama.”
“Do you remember when you fixed the man that had been hurt at Mama’s work?”
Nathaniel let his mind wander back. That felt good. Right. He nodded.
“And the little boy you fixed at the hospital?”
I wasn’t sure I could do it with the first man, but when I fixed the boy, I knew. He was harder, but it felt right, too.
Another nod.
Violet paused, still looking for the right words. “I want you to talk to me before you fix someone like that. Understand?”
Why?
“It’s not bad, Mama. They felt wrong, and I made them right.”
“I know you did. It’s not bad at all. Never think that. I don’t think you could do something bad if you tried. It’s just that other people can’t do that. They can’t fix people like you can.”
Why not?
Nathaniel furrowed his brow. “They can’t?”
“No, honey. I can’t. Andi can’t. You’re the only person I know who can, because you are so special. So, it’s not bad at all, but before you do it, I just want you to talk to me first.”
“Okay, Mama.” Nathaniel lifted his arms, slid down, and ran ahead of them on the trail, looking for more weeds and flowers he could pick to make a bouquet.
Violet looked at Andi and shrugged. “No idea what sinks into him, and what doesn’t.”
The next day, they were back on their early-rising schedule and pulled into Crater Lake National Park by 8:30 am. The visitor center wasn’t open yet, so they drove on up a steep gravel drive until they found a place to pull over.
They hiked up a small rise and when they reached the top, the entirety of Crater Lake spread out before them. Violet and Andi were chatting about possibly changing their hairstyles when they saw the lake. The vast perfection of it mesmerized them and cut their words off in mid-sentence. Even the easily distracted Nathaniel stopped and stared. The three of them stood stock-still, staring with their jaws slightly unhinged for quite some time.
Violet turned to Nathaniel to see if he wanted to be picked up so he could see better, but saw that tears were running down his cheeks. Alarmed, she kneeled in front of him. “Honey? What’s wrong?”
Nathaniel just shook his head, causing more tears to run. He pointed out at the pristine water in the caldera. “Look,” was all he said. Violet swooped him up in her arms and held him tight. She whispered, “I love you, Nathaniel,” into his ear.
They spent the next few hours circling the lake on the thirty mile loop road, stopping every few hundred yards to get a new perspective on the lake. They ate a picnic lunch of bananas and string cheese at a table warmed by the late-summer sun.
“I don’t know how I’ve never heard of this place,” Violet said. “Everyone should come here. Thank you for thinking of it, Andi.”
“My one good idea for the trip. Everything else is on you now. Speaking of which ... “
“Do I know where we’re going next? Not a clue. We’ll drive until we see a nice little town somewhere, and that will be it. I don’t want to live in a city. I want Nathaniel to grow up where it’s safe for him to play outside, and where he can have friends to ride bikes with.”
“And, where we don’t have to worry about some religious zealot wanting to turn him into the poster boy for God.”
“Yes, that too.”
They packed the remains of their lunch away, stopped at the visitor’s center and watched a film about how Crater Lake had been formed thousands of years earlier, although it happened very recently in geologic terms, then hit the road.
A few hours down the road, dark clouds rolled in and heavy raindrops spattered against their windshield. Violet turned the wipers on, and they drove west through the pouring rain. Each night, they had pulled off the road by dinner time, since they had been in no hurry to get anywhere in particular. On this night, though, they grabbed hamburgers at a roadside drive-in and continued on.
They drove alongside a lazy river that twisted through bucolic farm country, then up and across a mountain pass. Eventually, they connected with Interstate 5. Nathaniel gave up on the idea of a comfortable bed and laid down across the backseat, using one coat for a pillow and another for a blanket.
As the clock approached the witching hour, Violet saw an off ramp ahead.
“I think that’s enough of a trek for one day. Not sure what this place is, but it’s got one thing going for it—we’re here.”
They took the exit, curled around and saw lights twinkling in a valley below them. They dropped down toward the warmth of the lights. As they drew near, they saw a green and white sign: Middle Falls, Oregon. Population, 41,261.
“Middle Falls,” Violet said, rolling the name around on her tongue, trying it on for size. “I didn’t see the beginning falls, or the ending falls, but apparently we’ve found the middle falls.” She glanced at Andi, still alert in the passenger seat. “How’s he doing back there?”
Andi glanced into the back seat. “Out like a light.”
“Let’s drive around and see what Middle Falls has to offer.”
They drove toward the brightest lights until they found downtown Middle Falls, such as it was, after midnight on a weekday. The normal businesses were present and accounted for—Rexall drugstore, liquor store, law office, accounting firm, veterinarian’s office, movie theater, and bookstore. All were closed and dark at this time of night. There was no sign of movement anywhere.
“Quiet,” Violet said, then added, “That’s a good thing.”
At the end of the block was a Safeway grocery store, also dark.
“I guess if you live here and run out of milk at night, you’re just out until the next day.”
They turned away from the business district and drove through several neighborhoods. Mostly single-level houses with small yards. Most of the driveways had five or ten-year-old cars or trucks sitting in them.
Violet drove toward the edge of town, past a bar called The Do Si Do, and spotted a motel with a Vacancy sign lit out front. Violet turned into the parking lot, turned off the engine and looked at Andi. “Kind of an anonymous looking little town, which ain’t all bad for someone looking to stay anonymous.”
“I like it. It’s cute. And, it’s a lot bigger than Tubal.”
Violet nearly said, “Everyplace is bigger than Tubal,” but instead, she smiled and said, “I think maybe we’re home.”
THE PHONE RANG ON THE desk in the home office of Cyrus Creech. He picked it up on the second ring. “Creech.”
“Creech, J.R.”
“I thought it was about time I’d hear from you.”
“Yes, sir. Unfortunately, I don’t have much. I bribed the girl who worked at the local branch of her bank to look up her account. She closed it up in Fort Smith, the same day she left Tubal. She had a balance of,” the sound of papers rustling as J.R. looked for the number, “a balance of $3,822.48. After that, she disappeared. No sign of her. We put out a nationwide trace on her vehicle. No sign of it anywhere, yet. If she sells it, or so much as gets a traffic ticket, I’ll know about it within twenty-four hours.”
“What else?”
“Not much, unless you want me to randomly hire people to go to different parts of the country showing her picture. That’s a needle in the haystack, and gets expensive very fast.”
“Do this. Put one more man on the team, looking for her. It’s important, and I’m willing to pay the freight.”
“Yes, sir, will do. I’ll call you next week.”
Creech hung up the phone and looked across at his wife.
“Why go to all this trouble?” Alice said. “Especially after what she and her little boy did for us? They obviously want to be left alone. Why not let them live their life, and we’ll live ours?”
“That would feel selfish. He saved our son, but we let them allow other children to die, whe
n they could possibly be saved?”
“It’s obvious that they don’t want to live that life.”
“Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay. Mathew, Chapter 10, Verse 8,” Cyrus said.
“Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Second Corinthians, Chapter 9, Verse 7,” Alice retorted with a grim smile. “Let’s not have a biblical argument. You know I always win those.”
Cyrus grinned ruefully. “You’re right about that, my dear, but not about this. When I think of the gifts that child possesses, the idea that God gave him so much, and that he would squander it, it’s impossible for me to allow.” He reached out for Alice. “You have a good heart, and I know you only want the best. That’s what I want, too. Even if a little persuasion is needed.”
Chapter Thirteen
1989
Miss Haywood finished writing The Oregon Trail on the blackboard, then turned to the class.
Miss Haywood was in her forties, with brown hair that was showing the first signs of gray, which was pulled back into a severe bun. She never wore makeup, and had worn the same style cat’s-eye glasses since college. She believed they would eventually come back into style.
“We’ll finish our History studies for the year with the Oregon Trail. Who can tell me where the Oregon Trail began?”
Mary Billings raised her hand, but Miss Haywood patiently waited. Mary always raised her hand, and most times, Miss Haywood ended up calling on her. Still, she always hoped one of the other students would perhaps look the answer up and give her another choice to call on.
The fifth grade class of Middle Falls Elementary only had another month of classes, and the hearts and minds of many of the children were already directed outside, where the sunny weather made them all feel it could be summer now and they should be outside.