At Yellow Lake

by Jane Mcloughlin

  Mom was Mom again. I was her girl, at least for a while.

  So it was back to the trailer park for her and me. The night we got home she told me she never believed any of the crap Kyle told her about me. ‘Not one word of it,’ she bragged. ‘Not for one second.’ Like that was some big achievement. She said she would’ve called the cops, too – ‘straight away, no waiting’ – except that lying s.o.b. had told her that Grandpa had come by and picked me up.

  ‘I ain’t making excuses,’ she said.

  But she was. I knew it. She did, too.

  Lucky for her, those excuses were good enough for the FBI. They searched the trailer and found some amphetamine traces, so they hauled her to St Paul for questioning. How much did she know about what Kyle was doing? Moving up from Minnesota – what was that all about? ‘That’s some track record with criminals, lady – don’t you think?’

  The lawyers told her she was lucky not to have gone to jail, lucky not to have had me put into foster care. They said she was lucky the cops believed what I told them – Mom was at work that night, there was no way she could’ve known that Kyle wasn’t making auto parts or toilet paper or whatever he said he did.

  But the worst thing about being back at the trailer didn’t have anything to do with Kyle or Mom or the FBI. Missing Peter and Jonah – that was the toughest part. They were the only people I wanted to be with, the ones I knew I could trust. I texted Jonah and sent messages to Peter, but that made me feel even lonelier, somehow. It was like being in prison, talking that way. All those words without faces, those feelings without touch.

  Sometimes I felt bad about being so miserable. I should have been grateful – we were all alive, weren’t we? We were in our homes, safe with our families. Everything was back to normal, the way it was before.

  That’s what I told myself, but I knew it wasn’t true.

  It wasn’t back to normal, at least not for me.

  PETER

  Everything was too noisy when he got back to England.

  Heathrow was a nightmare, the screeching crowds of people and the shrill tannoy announcements. He had to run to the toilet again, shivering and sick, and wait with the door locked until his heart stopped pounding.

  You’re not dying, he told himself, you’re not dying, you’re not dying, you’re not dying – not fucking now.

  Delayed shock, the doctor told him, like a post-traumatic stress reaction. ‘You’ve had a tough time, I hear,’ he said, his hand on Peter’s shoulder, squeezing it with each syllable.

  A tough time. Yeah, just a little.

  His father had gone all caring and sharing, too. ‘Are you too cold, son? Should I put on the heating?’ The constant referral to what had happened at the cabin – ‘You can talk to me, you know, whenever you want. Or a counsellor? Would that be better?’ – made him almost miss the days when Dad had seemed like an arrogant git.

  Almost, but not quite. This new-model Dad was all right, actually. He brought Peter cups of tea, made him bacon butties. He took care of him – a proper father.

  What really hurt was missing Etta. And Jonah, too, funnily enough. The messages from America helped, but the effect only lasted for a few minutes. They were too chatty and insubstantial, so flimsy and transparent, that there was no point reading them more than once. The real Etta and the real Jonah were somewhere else, not online – in an actual place, far, far away.

  When summer came, he could go back to Yellow Lake – Dad had promised. Until then, he’d have to go through the motions – get ready for his GCSEs, watch football on the TV, take the train to London on weekends, do the usual things, Camden market with some mates, maybe a gig at the Forum or the Brixton Academy.

  Walking around the streets of London, pushing his way onto buses and storming down the escalators for the Tube, he remembered how terrified he used to be in the city – what if he got attacked by a gang of youths? What if he lost his railcard or got off at the wrong stop?

  He’d catch a glimpse of himself in the Tube train window now, and he’d think how odd it was that he looked the same. Dyed blond, sticky-out hair, blue eyes, tatty jeans, polo shirt, high-tops. Like any other white kid, up from Sussex for the day, anxious about knife crime and bombings and missing the last train home.

  The train would shudder to a sudden stop and the other passengers would gasp and struggle to stay on their feet. He’d see their anxious looks – what was that? But he’d just tighten his grip on the handrail, plant his feet more firmly on the floor. He wasn’t scared.

  Not any more.

  JONAH

  The operation to remove the bullet had been so simple. The surgeons had made a tiny cut in his shoulder and picked the bullet out with something that looked like giant tweezers. It was as if the whole experience of being shot, of feeling – no, knowing – that he was going to die wasn’t any worse than getting a splinter. He was home in a couple of days, his arm in a sling, his tiny wound covered with an overgrown Band-Aid that had to be changed every so often.

  For the first few days, his mother had just cried.

  Later, during the second week, she started to talk, and, for Jonah, that was worse. When she was just crying, he didn’t have to do anything, just pat her on the shoulder occasionally, or give her a hug, let her cling onto him for a few minutes like he was some kind of life raft. But once she started talking again, he was expected to answer.

  ‘Why did you run away?’ she’d bawl.

  When he tried to tell her that he didn’t run away, but towards something else, towards a part of himself that he still needed to find, it was as if she couldn’t hear him.

  ‘Was I such a bad mom?’

  He’d sigh and try again. ‘I just needed to be by myself for a while. Find a place of my own, live the way I was meant to.’

  ‘But why?’ Her face would crumple and turn red. ‘Was being shot by drug dealers better than being stuck here with me?’

  Sometimes, when he couldn’t take any more, he’d stomp out of the apartment, and slip down the back stairs to the alley that cut through to Lake Street.

  Lake Street was like a battle zone – torn-up sidewalks, jackhammers blasting like heavy artillery, everybody on foot being shunted past barricades, like refugees. Most of them were Latinos who’d traded poverty in Mexico for hard work and long hours up north. Some were Somalis, driven out of their home country by war and starvation. All of them – Jonah and his mom, too, most likely – would soon be on the move again. Once the roads were rebuilt, once the derelict buildings were turned into expensive condos for rich hipsters, the whole community would be scattered again, forced to scramble around looking for cheaper places to live.

  On one of these walks, Jonah passed a trendy coffee place that had just opened up on the corner where there used to be a dry-cleaners and a shoe repairer. There weren’t any Latinos or Somalis inside, drinking skinny decaf lattes, though. And the people at the serving counters were all whiter than he was.

  How funny was that? All the time he’d wanted to escape the white man’s world. He’d never realised that the Lake Street he grew up in – with the little grocery stores, the Mexican cafés, the cheap hardware stores selling bags of nails for fifty cents – wasn’t part of the white world either. Pretty soon, though, it would be, and now it was too late to change it.

  It got cold after a few minutes. The air felt sharp and tingly in his nostrils – it would snow pretty soon. On his way back home he bought a $1.59 box of Hot Tamales candy for his mother. Then he stopped at the cheap hardware store and bought a red self-stick gift bow for a quarter.

  It was nearly dark when he climbed back up the stairs. The smell of spaghetti sauce in the kitchen – tomatoes and garlic, basil and onions – made him realise that he was starving, and reminded him of how hungry he’d been, living on his own in the wigwam. He put his arms around his mom’s slender shoulders. She took his present, laughed for a second before crying again.

  Later, when they’d finished eating, she talked about he
r father. The anniversary of his death had occurred while Jonah was at Yellow Lake. She’d gone to the veterans’ cemetery at Fort Snelling and laid a wreath on his grave for the first time in years. Something about Jonah being gone made her feel lonesome – even the dead could be company, she guessed. And at the cemetery, something weird came over her. Maybe it was all the waving flags, all the patriotic slogans, but when she read her dad’s name – PFC Norman Grove, US Army, 1969-70, 4th Battalion, Light Infantry – she felt proud. Her dad had fought for his country. Whatever he did later, however he messed up the rest of his life, he was a hero, he was buried in a hero’s grave.

  And while she was driving back home over the Mendota bridge, a really freaky thing had happened – a bald eagle flew across the river. It soared upstream then swooped down under the bridge. She’d never seen an eagle before, not in the Cities. She got so excited she nearly crashed the car.

  ‘S’pose you think that’s some kind of sign,’ she said, smiling. ‘Some kind of big Indian deal.’

  Jonah shrugged. ‘Dunno.’

  She smiled again, tears filling her eyes. ‘It was, wasn’t it? Some Ojibwe deal.’

  After he had cleared their plates away, she talked about how much she’d missed him while he was gone, how she’d almost gone crazy with worry. He was the only family she had left – that was the important thing – and she never wanted to lose him.

  ‘This other stuff,’ she said, waving her hands, ‘the running away, the getting hurt, that little girl – pretty soon you won’t even remember. You’ll forget all about what happened one of these days.’

  His mother leaned over the table and held his face in her trembling hands.

  He closed his eyes. ‘You’re probably right, Mom.’

  But under his sweater and T-shirt, the star-shaped scar on his shoulder itched – a sign, Jonah knew it. He wasn’t going to forget about what happened at Yellow Lake. Not today. Not tomorrow.

  His mother kissed his forehead and sat back down.

  Jonah opened his eyes and smiled at her.

  Never.

  ETTA

  They said on the weather that there’d be a snowstorm over the weekend, the first big fall of the winter, so everybody driving over the Thanksgiving holiday should be extra careful.

  We weren’t driving anywhere. Mom refused to budge, even though we’d been invited down to Grandpa and Grandma’s. (The Duchess had been so nice after what happened – phone calls and presents, thoughtful little cards – I decided it was time to call her by her rightful title.) People could come to her if they wanted, Mom said. Sure, she lived in a pokey trailer, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t cook for a big crowd.

  So, Thanksgiving morning, I told her I was going back to Yellow Lake before the snow covered it all up.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ Mom squawked, in her usual my-way-or-the-highway voice. ‘It’s Thanksgiving. Company’s coming.’

  I told her maybe I was crazy and that I’d go anyway, no matter what she said. I didn’t care, I told her. I’d walk, I’d hitchhike. I’d steal a car if I had to.

  After that, she didn’t put up a fight. She turned the oven down on the turkey, put her coat on, grabbed her purse.

  ‘OK, then, honey, I’ll take you. Now. Tomorrow. Whenever you want.’ She said it seriously, like she meant it, like she understood how important it was.

  We took the exact route Kyle had taken the night I jumped out of the car – past the IGA store, turning at the stop sign by the boarded up drive-in, then down the highway that had the blacktop ripped off and was still only gravel.

  I was getting sweaty. It was freezing cold outside, but I had to roll down the window, let in some air. I looked outside, watched the trees go by, grey and bare now – the same trees that had flashed by me that night in the dark.

  The cabin wasn’t the same, though, with Mom along. It was just a place, one I hardly recognised. When we pulled into the driveway I could still see the tracks made by all the cars and the ambulances that tore up the lawn. Mom turned the engine off and I looked out my window. There were cigarette butts on the ground, a few burnt matches and a drop of something that looked like blood – a dark red stain on the brittle leaves.

  We got out of the car. The cabin was boarded up, so I couldn’t see inside. Mom followed me across the lawn, around the side of the house, like she was scared to let me out of her sight. She kept asking me things, like how far in the woods did Kyle take those Mexican guys and where was that window you climbed out of and why didn’t you just call home so we could come and get you?

  She was like a yappy terrier with a bone – she wouldn’t let up. Or maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she had to know about these things to reassure herself that nothing really bad happened and that I would be OK in the end – that we’d be OK.

  Finally, I asked her to wait in the car. She looked hurt at first, her eyes big and watery. Then her hurt gave way to a flicker of anger. I could tell she wanted to snap something back at me, like, ‘Don’t tell me what to do, little girl,’ but she didn’t. It was like the fight was drained out of her now. She looked pale and fragile. A strong wind could have just blown her away.

  She started toward the car, shoulders hunched, but then she stopped and turned around again. ‘Etta?’

  ‘Now what?’ I said.

  Her face was scrunched up and she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her coat.

  ‘I wish I’d never stopped looking for you,’ she said. ‘I wish I’d found you. I wish I’d. . .’

  She was crying now, big fat tears rolling down her face.

  ‘It was all my fault.’ She choked and sobbed. ‘I know that now.’

  I should have gone to her and put my arms around her. I should have said, ‘No, Mom, of course it wasn’t. It was just one of those things. An accident, Mom.’

  But I didn’t want to lie any more, not about anything.

  Especially not here.

  She slunk back to the car. I went to the side of the cabin where the wigwam had been. There was no sign of it now, no flattened grass or brush, no leftover traces of Jonah’s painted bark strips. In only a few months it had all sprung back to the wild. There was no sign of Peter’s path to the Nussbaums’s either. Nothing of us had been left behind. So what if the snow covered it up like a blanket?

  The lake would be better. I stumbled down the hill, almost tumbling into the water when my legs hit the soft sand. The wind cut right through me. Waves rose up in the steel-grey water like shards of white-tipped metal. Jonah’s fire was still there on the beach, though. The fragrant ashes had blown away, some of the stones were covered up by shifting sand, but it didn’t matter. Like his patch of blood on the lawn, Jonah’s fire had left behind a dark, lasting scar.

  I sat next to the stone circle, cross-legged, and let the cold seep through the seat of my jeans. The wind rifled its icy fingers through the gaps in my jacket where the buttons were gone, but I didn’t care – the cold and the wind were like company here. I picked up a fallen twig and drew random, thoughtless circles on the sand. If only I could stay here till summer, like this, a frozen statue, hibernating until Jonah and Peter came back.

  The twig hit a rock and started to shake. Was it something to do with the fire, some leftover crazy stuff that Jonah had put on it to make it smell strong? No. The fire had been out for months, there wasn’t any smell – the only thing making the twig shake were my frozen, soon-to-be-frostbitten fingers.

  In a few weeks the lake would start to freeze over. In a month or two there’d be snowmobiles instead of waterskiers, ice-fishing huts instead of motorboats. Nothing could survive out here in the winter, not even Jonah’s magic.

  Up on the hilltop, Mom honked the horn.

  It was time to do what I had to do.

  I reached into the pocket of my jeans and took out the tiny velvet bag that contained Peter’s precious treasure. I pulled open the little drawstring cord to check and make sure it was still inside.

  The hair looked frizzy and mat
ted, but it was still a shiny auburn, like he said it would be. I pulled the string as tight as I could, to keep out the cold. And where the twig was, I dug a hole with my bare fingers – under the dry sand, into the wet and harder dirt underneath.

  I placed the velvet bag in the hole and covered it up again. I pushed in the twig, forked side up, and built a little mound around it with rocks and stones.

  It didn’t seem like much of a memorial. There was nothing for me to write on, nothing for me to write with. By spring it wouldn’t even be here, but maybe that was the point.

  I said a prayer, or the closest thing I could come up with.

  Take care of this lady, wherever she is.

  Take care of her son, his friends – Jonah and me.

  The horn went again.

  Take care of Mom, too. Especially her.

  On my way back up the hill the snow started, tiny flecks that glowed against the grey sky like electrified dust. I turned around when I got to the top, took one last look. Even now, with only the tiniest specks of snow in the air, it looked different. It reminded me of what Peter had written after he got back to England, about his last look.

  It was so different from the plane, he’d said. There were so many lakes on the ground, hundreds of them, not just one. He’d squinted out the window, tried to see things, recognise landmarks – the path through the woods, the line on the beach where the woods joined it, the circle of stones on the beach where Jonah had burned the wigwam.

  There was nothing – just dozens of dark, formless spots. But he had felt something, even from high in the ice-cold air – a pull, like the tide.

  When I got home that Thanksgiving I pulled out the copy I had made of his letter. He always could say things better than me:

  Perhaps a place can draw you to it, Etta, the way people can. Yellow Lake must have had a global magnetic pull, don’t you think? When worlds collide and all that? But was what happened to you and me and Jonah just a collision, Etta? Did we bounce off each other and then get flung back out into the orbit of empty space, like tiny chunks of broken planet?