“Okay. If I have to, I guess I can accept that. I needed to know directly from you that you’re okay, and be sure that it wasn’t because of that asshole.”
I make it onto the ferry. The Canadian boats have a different look and feel than Washington state ferries. They feel like real ships. When they leave the dock, you get the sense that you’re embarking on a voyage, that you’re about to cross a vast ocean, heading for another country or somewhere far away, instead of just crossing some lake or canal on a more fun version of a floating bridge. As the foghorn blast announces our departure and the hull shudders beneath me, I decide I am glad Leigh followed me and that I had to change my route home. The world I am heading into will not be the same one I left, and I need time to adjust.
On the boat you can buy a bus ticket to Vancouver. I found the counter, paid and got instructions for boarding. This is the long, complicated route, but it will work and I’m starting early in the day. At the bus station in Vancouver, I’ll buy a ticket to Mount Vernon, and take a SKAT bus from there that will drop me off near Natalie’s house. I could be home before dark.
Kristen
The distances on the highway signs are in kilometers. When you think about it, borders between countries are pretty strange. Mount Vernon and the Valley are about the same distance from Vancouver as they are from Seattle, but Vancouver is in another country, with different laws and a different way of looking at things. In my mind, as we near the Customs stop, I make rough translations to miles, then estimate minutes left. I’m projecting ahead, imagining what could go wrong. I have a Canadian birth certificate and a fake Washington driver’s license. What if they don’t let me in?
Am I Canadian or American? Am I Amy Mackenzie or Kristen Nichols? The moment of truth could come at the border. The guy could pull me aside and say, “This license is fake. You’re not American. You can’t come in.” I decided I would make them call Bonnie. This morning I was worried about getting through Customs, but now I’m not. Fate will decide. If they stop me, Bonnie will have to explain it to them and that might be the easiest way for it to play out. If they let me through, I’ll have to try to get her to come out from behind Sterling and tell me who I really am. I think that’s the part I’m most afraid of.
Well, all my worry about the border crossing was for nothing. I handed the guy my papers and he barely looked at them. After that, the ride down I-5 to Mount Vernon was eerie. It was so familiar; it felt like I had never left. The stretch from the mall at Bellis Fair through Bellingham is where it really hit me. I’d crossed over. I’m back, and it’s going to be a long night. I’m wearing sunglasses and a baseball hat, which I wouldn’t have worn before. I look different, but someone from school or town might recognize me. I’m glad I sent the note to Natalie. At least it won’t be like in Huckleberry Finn where after Huck disappears, Tom thinks Huck is a ghost when he sees him again.
When we arrive in Mount Vernon, I have to wait around for the SKAT bus. I find myself touching the bench to feel the heat of the sun, listening to traffic sounds, scraping my shoe on the pavement to prove to myself that what I’m doing is real. It’s late afternoon. It will be dinnertime when I get there, but I’m not hungry. I’m tired from lack of sleep and all the anticipation, but I think that’s helping because it makes me kind of numb.
When I left, there were fields of tulips and daffodils. They’re gone. Now the picking machines are working the raspberry fields. As the bus crosses the Rainbow Bridge, I look down the channel at the town. It’s a pretty town and you can understand why tourists have taken it over. Then I’ve arrived. The bus stops near the entrance to Shelter Bay, just off the main street that runs through the reservation village.
On the main drag, there are fireworks stands beside the road and kids lighting firecrackers on the sidewalk. The Fourth of July is tomorrow. Independence Day. Natalie’s house is on the second street up the hill, parallel to the main street. I will have to walk only a little way, about the distance of a city block. I step off the bus and look straight ahead, hoping no one recognizes me as I walk toward the corner.
On Natalie’s street, the old truck is parked in front of his house, between the corner and her house, and he’s walking toward it from the front door. It’s the old guy who gave me a ride to Anacortes that first morning. He’s coming around the tailgate, heading toward the driver’s door, and I look down to avoid eye contact, hoping he’ll just get in and go away. But he doesn’t. He looks right at me with his hand on the door handle and waits until I’m close, then says, “So you decided to come back.”
His directness startles me into meeting his eyes. I answer, “It was time.”
“I figured you’d come when you was ready.” There was warmth in his dark eyes. “They was all pretty worried about you, but I didn’t say nothing. I knew you’d be back when you got your job done. They get pretty worked up around here.”
Natalie
0kay. This will be hard to describe, but here goes. It was hot and I was glad to be home. It was a busy day at the marina. The job is good and most of the time it’s pretty laid back, but not on holidays. It’s helping me to understand Brad because people who own yachts have to have at least some money. Like everyone else, some of them are nice and some are complete jerks. Anyway, even though the banks and the post office were open, it was the Fourth of July weekend, although the actual holiday is Tuesday. At work I collected moorage fees from the boats on the transient floats, made my usual Monday run to the bank and picked up the mail at the post office. The town was plugged with tourists, so it was hard to park. Oh yeah, I forgot to say that I got my driver’s license because I need it to drive the little pickup on errands for the port.
As usual around the Fourth of July, even though there are only a few stands in the village, the rez sounds like a war zone, with fireworks going off everywhere. Most of the stands are at Boom City out on the highway, and nearly every Native family has some connection to a stand. Everyone has fireworks and none of it is safe and sane. I had skipped lunch and was eating soda crackers with this tuna mix on them (lemon juice, mayo and chopped olives) that Trish had left in the fridge, and was planning to take a shower. Everything felt normal. I mean, I didn’t have any unsettled feeling or weird premonition like you might expect just before your reality gets flipped on its head.
There was a knock at the door. This house had a doorbell once, but it hasn’t worked for years. I thought it was a neighbor kid or something. I really wasn’t thinking much. Trish wasn’t home, and I was a little annoyed at the interruption. I wanted to take my shower and call Brad. He had to work that day too, but had the Fourth off. I didn’t because it’s so busy at the marina, but I would get double time for working the holiday. My mouth was still full of cracker and tuna when I opened the door.
It all happened in an instant. The shock was far worse than the night she left. There was no time to speculate and adjust, to imagine and let it settle. I mean there she was, looking at me. M-80’s and rockets exploded in the background, adding noise to our confusion because I don’t look like myself and she looked more like me than I do. It took me a moment, and I could easily have choked on the cracker. Instead, I reached up and touched her face with the back of my hand and felt that it was real and warm. I don’t remember chewing and swallowing what was in my mouth, but I must have done it because I didn’t spit it out, and I was able to say, “You’re not dead?”
I really wasn’t sure that what I was seeing was real.
“Natalie?”
“Oh Jesus. Kristen. It really is you.”
And it was. That’s when I learned what people mean when they say they were so surprised they nearly peed their pants. I didn’t do it, but now I understand how you can get thrown so off balance, you can lose control. What I did was hug her. And while I was doing it, I cried, really hard, and so did she. We were in the doorway with the door open, crying away. I pulled her into the living room and pushed the door closed.
Finally I blubbered out, “W
e thought you were dead, but you’re really here.”
“The letter. Didn’t you get the letter?” she said
“What letter?”
“Oh shit. Oh Jesus. Everyone thinks I’m dead? This is really bad.”
“They think Corey killed you.”
“You were supposed to think I was in Hawaii. I gave this lady a letter to send from there, so that’s where they’d look. Oh Jesus, Natalie, I’m sorry. What happened to Corey?”
So I told her everything, about Corey being held in Juvie and how he was out now. Kristen was really upset and wanted to call him right away. I thought she was going to fall apart, like clinically, where we would need to call for real help, but there is definitely something different about her now. She surprised me by pulling herself together so fast. She was strong. I was able to talk her into waiting. As much as I hate Corey, what happened to him is really bad and can’t be fixed in an instant with a phone call.
So she settled down, and I was able to tell her about meeting Brad the night she left, and how they searched the drainage ditch beside the lane down by Arlington where he told me about his day. And I told her about me and Brad’s mom. Then she told me about changing her look and dressing up like me and getting from the mall to the ferry and working as a waitress, and about meeting that creep and him stalking her and her being brave.
When Brad called, I had to tell him that Kristen was back, but I said her parents didn’t even know yet so he couldn’t tell a soul, and he was cool about it. Then Trish came home, and when she got over being stunned, we told her a short version of Kristen’s story, and she said it was like we were trying to trade lives, which made us laugh. We needed a reason to laugh, because getting Kristen (or Amy. She showed me the birth certificate) through the next part of coming back to life in the Valley was going to be stressful at best.
Trish told her she should think each step through and not do anything that would cause more damage. She knew how much of a shock Kristen’s not being dead was to me, and how much adjustment it took even with her sitting in the same room with us where we could actually touch her. We thought it might be better to wait and go see Corey when she could talk to him face to face, or maybe she should just write him. Sometimes emotions can be worked out better on paper. Writing it out can give both people a chance to think more clearly.
I didn’t envy Kristen a bit when it came to facing her mom and Sterling. She met it head on. I saw it in her eyes. I watched her find that calm you get when you know you’re against the wall and there’s nowhere to go. I’ve been there a few times, and I had to feel some pride for her, going from having all that stuff, the car, the nice house, a free ride to college, to knowing enough about running on empty to keep her head.
“I can’t undo it,” she said. “So now I have to try and make the best of it. Fix as much as I can. I’ll tell Bonnie tonight, and then I’ll have to tell the cops. This isn’t going to be fun, but all I can do is tell the truth and find a way to make the best of it.”
She was right. She was sounding like me, and I didn’t envy her situation. I was used to being the strong one. Maybe I was a little hurt, too, to learn that there was a part of her buried so deep inside her that even her best friend, me, didn’t know it was there, and that she could do something so huge without trusting me enough to say a word.
When someone you thought was dead comes back to life, at first you’re glad they’re alive, and then you have to forgive them. But the forgiveness might not last when you find out that all of that pain and grief you suffered, thinking they were dead, was because they simply decided to run away. I believed Kristen about the letter from Hawaii. She believed she had let us know she wasn’t dead, and she sent the letter to me and not to her parents, but since it never came, the pain for all of us was as real as it would have been if she had actually been murdered or killed, even if she hadn’t intended to make us suffer.
Believing she was dead had really hurt me, and it must have hurt her mom even more. When I remember the pain of imagining her being raped and murdered, helpless and suffering, and acknowledge how ashamed I feel now for blaming Corey, I won’t pretend I’m not angry. But the combination of that pain and the happiness I feel that she is alive will sort itself out. I will forgive her, even though I don’t completely understand why she did it. I know she learned something important, and when she came back, she came here first. I know it will eventually make sense.
I told her that I have my license now and I offered her a ride home in Trish’s Granada. She thanked me, but asked if she could have a little time alone in my room to collect herself first. I watched a Seinfeld rerun on TV with Trish until she was ready. It’s weird how life can seem totally normal, and in an instant everything is different. Then, before you know it, you’re back watching TV and it seems like nothing has changed, even though it has.
When she’s ready, we go out to the Granada. I drop her off up the street from her house. She thinks it will be easier if they don’t know right away that she went to my house first.
Kristen
The letter is probably stuck in the crease of a mailbag in the corner of a post office somewhere. It made me feel awful, learning that everyone believes I’m dead. I think Trudy’s friend would have mailed it. It’s like that part in Romeo and Juliet when that priest guy is supposed to deliver a letter to Romeo telling him about Juliet faking her death. At least none of us are dead yet.
Natalie looks so different; for a moment I thought I was in the wrong house. I scared her too. Her hand on my cheek... It was one of those moments I’ll never forget. By itself, the emotion of seeing her would have been enough, even too much. But what if Corey had killed himself? What if he’s thinking about it right now? Everyone thinks he’s a murderer and it’s my fault, and I need to tell him what happened and how sorry I am. And, I still have to do the one thing I’ve been dreading most. Maybe it’s good that I’m in that zone people talk about, like I’m so numb I’m sort of disconnected from what’s happening around me, though not completely.
After I was cried out and took control of my panic and the feeling of helplessness, and accepted that I can’t escape what I have to do, I decided that Natalie’s right. This is already such a mess, I need to try not to make it worse. I need to do this one step at a time, and do each step as well as I can. I need to see Corey, to be able to touch him, to let him touch me if he needs to.
It’s still light, probably about eight-thirty, but feels earlier because of its being close to the summer solstice. So, up Bonnie’s driveway I go, one foot in front of the other. I don’t feel like I’m going home, and that’s kind of a relief because if I did, I would also have to feel wrong for leaving. The Mercedes isn’t here. What if they’re not home? I wonder if the key is still hidden under the potted plant on the deck. What if I have to wait? Should I go in, or go back to Natalie’s? If I go inside and fall asleep, and they come home and find me, it will be worse than facing them at the door. What if they’re gone for the holiday and don’t come home until tomorrow night?
I’m on the porch now. The house is dark. The porch light is off, a sign that they’re not away for the weekend. They leave it on when they’re gone. I push the button and hear the bell chime its annoying little tune. It’s quiet. I wait. Then I hear the creaking sounds of movement behind the door. It opens.
Bonnie looks like she’s been sleeping. She does that, falls asleep in her recliner downstairs in front of the TV. Our eyes meet. I feel the shock as she registers that it’s me. Her eyes break from mine and she turns aside. She lets out a wail, an animal sound that would have cut straight through me even if I didn’t know I was the one who caused it.
It brings up the image of the cement bathtub/coffin from Emily’s poem. The sound that comes from Bonnie is the way you’d feel if the ice water was gushing from everywhere and you were too helpless and burning-cold-frozen to cry out, except you’d have to because you couldn’t bear it any other way. It’s the wail you would let out because th
e pain is overwhelming and you know there’s no fixing it or getting away from it, and the only relief from it is in releasing the anguish. It’s a horrible sound and I hope I never hear it again.
She bends over like her stomach has cramped, or her heart, and she needs to catch her breath or is going to throw up. My eyes well up immediately. I feel helpless and responsible and I’m crying hard again. All I can think to do is put my arm over her shoulder and say, “I’m sorry,” because I’m sorry for both of us, separately and together.
I hold on tight with my arm and don’t let go until she pulls herself together enough to face me, and I hug her until she finally hugs me back and I realize that the valves go both ways, whether you’re paying attention or not, and that from this moment on I can’t be a kid anymore about the cold water I let my valves release.
“They had divers looking for your body in the river. Where have you been? Why?”
So here it is. My big chance to explain. Sterling, if he’s here, isn’t showing himself. For this moment, she’s all mine and I don’t know where to start, so I dig into my pack that has somehow gotten from my back to the floor of the porch, and come up with the birth certificate. I hand it to her. “Who am I? Kristen or Amy? I’ll tell you where I’ve been when I know who I am.” I say it matter-of-factly, trying not to be challenging or insolent. She looks at it only long enough to recognize it, then says, “Oh my God! How did you get this?”
“I was borrowing some earrings. It was under the jewelry box. I didn’t go looking for it.”
She’s crying. She takes my hand and leads me to the kitchen where she takes down two wine glasses and pours the expensive red wine she drinks, a full glass for herself and half a glass for me. We sit silently at the table for a long time.
She finally says, “I’m not very good at this so it will be hard for me. I’m glad Sterling isn’t here. He had work in Seattle today that’s keeping him late. He’ll be home in the morning. Amy was your sister.”
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