by Jodi Compton
Aidan had never thrown it in her face before, her special status with their father. Tears welled in Marlinchen’s eyes.
“Linch,” Aidan said, relenting, but she fled, into the hallway, into her own room.
***
On the day of Aidan’s early-morning flight, Marlinchen got up at 5 A.M. to make him pancakes. Her reflection in the blackness outside the kitchen window looked like the pinched face of an old woman whose hair had failed to go gray. Aidan ate only a third of what she’d made him.
She got up again at seven to make a second breakfast for the boys. Dad wasn’t home yet. Liam cried at the breakfast table, and Donal followed suit. Colm’s face was set and hard.
Marlinchen called Aidan a few times on the phone, until one day her father left the phone bill on her bed, with the Illinois calls outlined in yellow. She knew he didn’t want money for the calls, and a cold feeling coalesced in her stomach. She started making the calls from pay phones, when she could, but opportunities were few and far between. Aidan told her he was all right, and that Aunt Brigitte was nice. After that there was little to say.
***
When school started, Hugh didn’t bring Aidan home. Marlinchen started several times to ask her father why not, but the words froze in her throat. When Aunt Brigitte died in a car accident, and Aidan was sent farther south to live with an old friend of their father’s, Marlinchen heard nothing about it until it was over and done with. When she finally found out, she understood that Aidan was never coming home. Their father was never going to change his mind.
I have to do something. I have to talk to him. I can’t let Aidan live down there with someone we’ve never even met.
But she didn’t say anything, not right away. If Marlinchen was afraid for Aidan, she was just as worried about her father. He’d been under pressure for so long, financial and otherwise. His back had flared up, and he was moodier than ever. Once, he’d said he’d had something important to tell her, and led her down to the magnolia tree to say it.
All the way down there, her heart had raced. What was he going to say? I have cancer, I’m dying? When they’d arrived, he’d been at a loss for words. He’d looked down at the ground and out at the lake, and finally told her about how much he’d loved her mother, how much he missed her, how important the kids were to him.
Still frightened, Marlinchen had hurried to say, I understand, Daddy, we love you. She hadn’t understood what he meant by it. Was he still depressed over Mother’s death? Could he be trying to tell her he was having suicidal thoughts? For nearly a month afterward, Marlinchen hadn’t been able to sleep through the night. She’d gotten up at least once to creep down the hall and look into his bedroom, making sure he was all right, his chest rising and falling under the bedspread.
Not long afterward, something happened that changed everything.
At school one afternoon, during PE, she saw Aidan on the other side of the chain-link fence. He raised a single finger to his lips. When she left the campus that day, he fell into step beside her. The school-bus driver didn’t notice as Aidan climbed aboard with everyone else.
For two days, Marlinchen hid him in the detached garage. She sneaked him food and brought him a blanket so he could sleep stretched out on the backseat of Dad’s old, defunct BMW.
The second day, she told Liam. After dinner, they brought Aidan his food, and afterward, the three siblings sat and talked. Mostly Aidan spoke, telling them about Aunt Brigitte, who had been nice, but almost too sweet and clingy. He said Pete Benjamin was okay, but he was a total stranger, and after two weeks, Aidan had been too homesick and lonely for his siblings to stay any longer. He told them the story of his late-night escape, funding a bus ticket with money he’d saved from an allowance Aunt Brigitte had given him, of the night highway unfurling under the bus’s headlights, of walking all day to Marlinchen’s school. In the twilit world of the garage, the miseries of Aidan’s life took on the character of adventures.
Then the door had opened, Colm in the breach. “What’s going on?” he’d said.
Three faces turned to him, and Colm’s gaze came to rest on his oldest brother. For a moment he was startled, then his face hardened, and he said, “I’m telling Dad.”
“Colm, no!” Marlinchen had jumped to her feet, but her younger brother was running for the house.
Their father was almost frighteningly still and quiet when he came to stand in the doorway, looking down at his estranged son, nodding as though he weren’t surprised.
“Dad-” Marlinchen began, trying to speak although her throat was turning to stone.
“It’s okay, Marlinchen,” Hugh had said. “I figured he’d turn up here.”
Then he’d addressed Aidan. “You’re going back in the morning,” their father had said. “Until then, come up to the house. You can sleep on the couch downstairs tonight.”
Relief had filled Marlinchen; she’d expected much worse. That night, she’d made up a bed on the couch for her brother, and fell asleep instantly upon returning to bed. The tension of the last few days, of hiding Aidan, had taken its toll on her. Now it was over, and exhaustion claimed her.
But only an hour later, she’d awakened to muffled, familiar sounds of anger, from downstairs. Chest tight with apprehension, she crept downstairs.
It had never been this bad. Aidan sat on the kitchen floor, back against the refrigerator, his face bloody from the nose down. He was trying to stem the tide of a bleeding, broken nose, and his eyebrow was split. Her father was on his heels next to him, a handful of bloody hair in his fist, his face alien with anger.
He spoke close to Aidan’s ear. Then he let go and stood.
With painful difficulty, Aidan got to his feet as well, and spit blood and saliva into his father’s face.
Marlinchen felt a surge of raw fear at what would happen next, but her father only wiped his face and walked away.
Marlinchen stumbled back into the darkness when her father passed by, and he never saw her. For a moment, she sat with her arms wrapped around her knees in the darkness and fought back tears. From her low vantage point, she saw something she hadn’t before. She looked into the forest of chair legs under the small breakfast table and saw shining eyes staring back at her. Donal. He was five years old. His face was blank with shock.
Immediately, she knew what had happened. Donal had sneaked downstairs for something he wasn’t supposed to have, probably a piece of the lemon cake Marlinchen had made earlier. He’d hidden under the table when he’d thought he was going to be caught. He’d been under there the whole time. She didn’t know what had sparked her father’s rage at Aidan, but she knew Donal had seen everything.
It was at that moment that Marlinchen made her decision.
It was for the best that Aidan was leaving in the morning, that he lived a thousand miles away. Otherwise, things would only deteriorate. The younger boys would witness things like this, and worse, and God knew Aidan wouldn’t be safe here, either. In Georgia he would. No matter what Pete Benjamin was like, he was better than this.
She came out from her hiding place, walked past Aidan, who had slipped back down into a sitting position, trying to stem the bleeding from his nose, and went to Donal.
“It’s all right, baby,” she said, “come on out.” Even though he was too big to be lifted up by someone her size, she managed it. Donal was limp and acquiescent in her arms. Marlinchen had expected tears, but he didn’t cry.
The young are resilient, she decided as she tucked him into bed.
She did not go back downstairs to Aidan.
***
A Rainbow at Night was published later that year to reasonably good reviews, and Hugh did lectures and signings. When he was on the road, he sent back postcards from every city, even if he’d only spent one night in a hotel room there. The following year, a movie studio optioned The Channel. From the proceeds, Hugh bought a cabin near Tait Lake, a place where he could get away and write, but first he took the whole family up there for a
vacation. His ulcer and even his back pain seemed to improve. He seemed more at ease, talking and sometimes laughing at the dinner table. Following his lead, the boys were a little more relaxed as well. It was as if a corner had been turned.
Marlinchen never mentioned Aidan to her father again.
22
“You were a child,” I whispered, “it wasn’t your fault.”
After telling her story, Marlinchen had dissolved into quiet sobs and recriminations. “If anything’s happened to him,” she said, “it’s my fault. I stood by and let it happen. I didn’t do anything.”
“There was nothing you could do,” I told her, patting her shaking shoulders awkwardly.
In time, she dried her tears and gathered her composure. “I wanted to tell you,” she said, her voice steadier. “But with something like this, the beatings… the first time it happens you look away and pray it’s just a onetime thing. After that, it’s like… if you didn’t mention it yesterday, it’s harder to think of mentioning it today, and even harder the next day, and finally you reach a point where everybody knows that everybody else knows, but to say it out loud would be like…”
“Like breaking all the windows,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “Like breaking all the windows.”
“What about Colm and Liam? Did the three of you discuss what you’d say when I asked why Aidan was sent away?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t have to tell them not to say anything. We never talk about it, even with each other.” Her pupils were wide in the darkness. “Where do you think he is, Sarah? Really.”
“I just don’t know,” I admitted. “And it won’t help to sit up at night theorizing about it. Go back to bed.”
But she said, “When we were 11, and I was out walking on the ice of the lake… I forget why I was even doing that, but I fell through. I would have drowned if Aidan hadn’t seen and come out after me.” Her voice quivered as if tears threatened again. “We never told Dad what he’d done, so I wouldn’t get in trouble for being out on the lake. But when Aidan needed my help… if Aidan has-”
“Don’t think about it any more tonight,” I said. “Let’s both get some sleep.”
***
I doubt she slept. I know I didn’t.
Marlinchen’s story wasn’t much of a surprise; I’d already started to suspect it. The problem was that there was a part of Aidan’s story that I still didn’t know, because Marlinchen herself didn’t know it: Why was Aidan, alone, the lightning rod for his father’s rage and resentment?
I supposed there was always the soap-opera answer. Aidan and Marlinchen were both blond, and in looks took after their lovely German mother. The other three boys looked like Hugh. The twins were the firstborn. Hugh and Elisabeth were two vertices of a literary love triangle. The third point, Campion, had been frozen out of his friend Hugh’s life several years after the twins were born. Conclusion: Campion was the twins’ father. Somehow Hugh found out a few years later and had a falling-out with his old friend. Then Hugh had taken his feelings out on Aidan, Campion’s bastard son. Now for a word from our sponsor, Oxydol.
Unfortunately, the paternity theory didn’t really answer the question, it just rephrased it. “Marli” had been a favorite of her father’s, particularly after the death of her mother. If the Campion theory were true, the taint of his parentage hadn’t stained her, just her twin. Marlinchen have I loved, Aidan have I hated. What was the rationale there?
It was these thoughts that kept me awake for a while, long enough to notice a sound outside Hugh’s window: the wind shaking the grapevines on the trellis. Which was strange, because I was sleeping with the curtains open, and the treetops that were visible outside weren’t moving at all.
I crept over to the window. The trellis shook again. Harder.
With nothing to change into, I’d been sleeping in my T-shirt and leggings. I yanked my hooded sweat jacket on, wishing for the shoes that were drying out in the Hennessy garage below, took my gun from my shoulder bag, and ran down the stairs.
The lean, shadowed figure was nearly up the vine-covered frame when I came around the side of the house. “Stop right there!” I shouted up at him. “I want you to climb back down, slowly, and when you get to the base of the trellis, stand facing it with your hands up on the frame and your feet about two feet back and spread apart.”
The figure- male and lean, that was all I could see on this moonless night- did as I instructed. In silhouette, I could just make out that long, loose hair was swaying as he descended. When he got to the bottom and laid his hands on the trellis frame at about the height of his head, I felt a little ripple of recognition go through me. Then the side of the house was flooded with electric light, removing all doubt.
Marlinchen stood in the doorway. It was she who’d tripped the floodlight. She was staring at the boy leaning against the side of the house. Staring at his left hand, the one missing its smallest finger.
“Aidan!”
“Stay where you are, Marlinchen,” I called to her.
She looked from me to her brother with growing incomprehension. “Sarah, don’t you understand? This is Aidan!”
If only it were that simple, I thought.
Maybe I should have handled it differently, but it was in my training: never cede control of a situation, not until you’ve satisfied yourself that things are all right. This situation surely wasn’t, and although Aidan had obeyed my commands so far, he was taller and probably stronger than I was, and I wasn’t easy about that.
By now the older boys were also outside. “Aidan?” Liam said, disbelieving.
“The rest of you kids,” I said, nudging Aidan back over to the wall, “go back inside. I’ll handle this.”
Only Colm obeyed me. Liam stayed where he was, as did Marlinchen.
I was patting Aidan down, feeling for suspicious objects. He didn’t move, accepting my touch like a horse being shod. He was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt, faded jeans, and a dirty hooded sweatshirt. In the side pocket I felt a narrow, hard object, about a finger’s length, and carefully drew it out.
“What are you doing?” Marlinchen demanded again, close by my side. “Stop it! That’s Aidan.”
“One, please step back,” I told Marlinchen. “Two, I know it’s Aidan. He was breaking into your house carrying a switchblade knife.” I showed her.
Colm reappeared at my side. “Do you need these?” he said, and my handcuffs gleamed in his hand. He looked pleased with himself for anticipating me.
I cleared my throat awkwardly. “That won’t be necessary,” I said. “I’m not arresting your brother, I’m just taking him downtown for some questioning.”
Marlinchen was about to speak again, when Colm put his hand on her arm and tried to pull her away. “Come on, Marlinchen,” he said. “Let Sarah do her job.”
Marlinchen yanked her arm away and shot him a glare. Colm’s attempt at authority melted away like a thin spring snow; he didn’t try again. Liam hadn’t obeyed my order to go back in the house, but at least he’d backed up to the open doorway. He was watching with a pained expression on his narrow face, as if he wanted to protest but didn’t know what to say.
I’d been in this situation before. A good number of arrests you make as a patrol officer are in front of appalled family members, standing around in harsh porch lights or in messy living rooms, half-dressed, looking at you as if to say, You can’t do this, that’s my husband. My daddy. My son. My brother. It was never easy.
“Sarah-” Marlinchen began, trying again.
“It’s okay, Linch,” Aidan said, speaking for the first time. His voice was rusty, as if with disuse.
“Sarah, can’t you just-”
“No,” I said, “I can’t. My first priority is keeping you and your family safe. I need to talk to your brother and find out what’s what, and I can’t do that here. I’m sorry.”
***
It’s a hard lesson to learn: good and evil aren’t like a game of car
ds. In cards, if you know that one player has three spades in their hand, then you can be assured that no one else at the table has more than one.
The mathematics of the human psyche are never that easy. Just because Hugh had proved himself a bad man, that didn’t make Aidan a good one. I had only Aidan’s word that his motives in climbing the trellis were innocent, and I wasn’t sure I could believe him. Victims of violence were at a higher risk of becoming perpetrators of violence themselves, and Aidan, by Marlinchen’s account, had been physically hurt and emotionally demoralized by his father.
Even if Hugh were safe in his rehab-center bed, the Hennessy kids weren’t. By Marlinchen’s account, they had enjoyed their father’s favor, and after Aidan was unjustly sent away, they’d gone on with their lives. Couldn’t he be more than a little angry about that?
I felt sorry for Aidan, but compassion was a luxury I could only afford in the abstract. Cops weren’t taught to discriminate among predators who were wounded by life and those who were merely vicious. That was a distinction made somewhere down the line from us, by judges and juries.
“So,” I said, taking a chair opposite Aidan, in an interview room at Juvenile Justice. “You’re climbing up the trellis to your father’s window, with a knife, at one in the morning after everyone’s in bed asleep. It looks pretty bad on paper.” I leaned back, inviting him to speak. “You don’t have to answer any of my questions, but it might help your situation if you could ease my mind about your actions tonight.”
He hadn’t said a word on the ride to the Juvenile Justice Center, not even to comment on the smell of superglue, as Kelvin had. I’d noticed his own scent, grass and dew, as if he’d been sleeping outdoors, and old sweat.
Now I had a chance to appraise him in good overhead light for the first time. The first thing my eyes went to was his maimed left hand; Aidan had laid it on the table as if daring me to ignore it. Either the little finger had come off pretty cleanly at the joint, or perhaps a surgeon’s instrument had evened out the damage. Still, there was something ugly about the dark pink skin of the stump, no matter how old the wound.