One Two Three

by Laurie Frankel

  “So what happened?” he asks, like we are indeed at the end of the story, like dead dogs is as bad as it gets, and all that’s left from here on out is the epilogue where everyone learns a lesson and cleans up the mess and moves on. But this is not that story. And this is not the end.

  “The animals got sick and died. The pets and also whatever was living in the river—dead fish washing up all along the shore, dead frogs.” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “And then the people started getting sick. People who never had asthma before suddenly had it a lot. Rashes and burning. Seizures. Stomach problems. Headaches and coughs that didn’t go away.”

  “Jesus.”

  “And then people started getting cancer, and that didn’t go away either.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “No, I mean … shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  I let him just sit with it for a while. It’s a lot to take in. It’d be a lot to take in anyway, but it’s probably more if it’s your fault. His eyebrows have pulled into one in the middle, and he’s rubbing the spot between them as if easing them apart will also erase what’s drawing them together.

  “Everyone?”

  “Everyone what?”

  “Did everyone … get sick or whatever?”

  “No. Not everyone. ‘Increased incidence.’ ‘Statistically higher than average occurrence.’ ‘Greater than expected number of cases.’ Those are the words they use. But lots of people. Especially the people who worked in the plant. My dad.”

  “Got sick?”

  “Died.”

  “He died?” Like he never met anyone who died before. Maybe he hasn’t. “When?”

  “Six weeks before we were born.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  I nod. It is. “And then when we were born, well, there were some … unexpected challenges.”

  “I mean three is a lot of babies.” He looks relieved to be back on solid ground conversation-wise. “My mom said she didn’t sleep through the night for three months after I was born. And she had my dad to help out. Whereas your mother…” He trails back off his solid ground.

  “Not just for my mother.” I make sure to keep the irritation out of my voice. “Challenges for lots of families because another thing there was an increased incidence of was congenital anomalies.”

  “Congenital anomalies?”

  “Birth defects.”

  His eyes are wide now. Wild. “And it was because of the plant?”

  “Well, not the plant itself. The chemical. Or the runoff from the chemical. Or the runoff from the process of making the chemical. I’m not sure exactly. I don’t know if anyone is. Point is you dumped a ton of shit in the river. And it turned out, among other things, it also caused congenital anomalies.”

  I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I think he probably doesn’t want to talk about it anymore either. But I also don’t see how we’re going to talk about anything else. He’s looking at the patterns my sneakers are making in the mud in front of us, hands laced behind his head, chin pressed into his chest, forearms clamped against his ears like it will block out what I’m saying. After a minute he says, “You and Monday are fine.”

  As if this were consolation enough. Two out of three ain’t bad. As if Monday and I are fine.

  “Monday doesn’t seem a little … high-strung to you?” I’m genuinely curious. He’s like a visitor from outer space or one of those naked kids they find who’s been raised by wolves.

  “Why? Because she got kind of upset at my house?” At first I think he’s being snarky with that “kind of,” but when I meet his eyes, I realize he’s genuinely confused. I nod, also confused. “Oh no, I totally get that.” He waves his hand in front of him like my concerns are cobwebs, that slight (Petra would say “attenuate”), that easily wiped away. “It’s got to be a shock when you’ve been going to your hometown library your whole life, and then one day it’s some dude’s bedroom.”

  I think of her shrieking on his floor, fists clamped over her ears. “And how she wouldn’t eat the muffins?”

  I don’t add the reason—they were the wrong color—so maybe that’s why he says, “We had tons of kids like that in my school in Boston.”

  “You did?”

  “Totally. My best friend growing up was like that. Super weird about his clothes and his headphones and this one cartoon he was obsessed with. But crazy smart and really fun as long as you didn’t let any of the foods on his plate touch.” He pauses to think about it. “We mostly ate at his house, and it was fine.”

  Which makes it my turn to be stunned. There are Mondays in Boston?

  So it takes me a minute to remember what we were talking about when he asks, “When did they figure it out?”

  “Figure what out?”

  “When did they figure out it was the GL606? It was the plant? Belsum.”

  “You knew all along.”

  “Would you stop saying ‘you’?” Annoyed. More than annoyed. Angry almost. “It wasn’t me. I wasn’t there. Here. Anywhere.” Something changed in him while we were talking about Monday, opened maybe or relaxed. He was just a kid for a second there. Now he’s closing back up again, guarding himself, defensive as if I’m the one who’s dangerous.

  “They knew all along,” I amend.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They claim they didn’t, but—”

  “What are you talking about? You think Belsum knew all along GL606 was getting into the water and making people sick?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes?” He’s watching me so hard.

  “Yes.”

  He can’t believe it. He so thoroughly can’t believe it he’s sure he’s misunderstanding what I’m saying.

  “They—we—wouldn’t do that,” he insists. “No one would do that.”

  I hate to break it to him. I’m desperate to break it to him. But also there’s this small but loud (Petra would say “niggling”) part of my brain realizing for the first time this is how I’m supposed to be. A teenager. A kid. Not jaded and scarred and wise about all the shit. For the first time in my life what strikes me as tragic is not what happened to my family or my town. What breaks my heart is that I regard another sixteen-year-old’s faith that a company wouldn’t sacrifice human life to make a profit as hopeless youth and pitiable naivete. I almost never feel sorry for myself—I live with everything I need to ward off that particular vice—but that’s what I feel now.

  “That’s why they put the plant here,” I say. “We’re just a small nowhere town. No industry, no tourism, no money, no prospects. No one to object or really even notice if things go bad. Maybe they—you—weren’t sure it would kill us, but you weren’t sure it wouldn’t.”

  My mother would hate to hear me admit even this much, even as a possibility. Negligence means failure to take reasonable care like a normal person would. Lawyers have fancier language than that, but that’s their point. It’s easier to prove, but you can only claim compensatory damages—here’s how much my medical expenses were; here’s how much income I lost.

  Whereas if you want to hurt them as much as they hurt you, if you want to make sure they can never do it again, if you want to punish them into oblivion, if you want to send a warning to others, if you want to make sure they don’t decide that your measly compensatory damage award costs them so little compared to what they make damaging you that they’re thrilled with the trade-off never mind that an award that was actually compensatory would bankrupt them forever because your suffering is high as the moon, and your town and your family and your whole entire life will never be the same ever again, if that is the case, you don’t settle for negligence. You go for recklessness, maybe even intent. That’s how you get punitive damages. That’s how you shut a company down. That’s how you see justice served.

  If they knew what could happen before they started doing it, if they knew how bad it would be and did it anyway, then they can be made to pay. My mother, t
herefore, has spent the last two almost-decades searching for incontrovertible proof they knew all along, something no one can deny.

  River’s not buying it. He’s not even understanding it. “So by the time they figured it out”—he so wants this to be a tragic trick of timing—“it was too late?”

  “The early signs—the off water, the smell, dead plants, sick pets—those went on for months while you said we were imagining things. Then you said there was no proof. Then you said you had the water tested and it was perfectly safe. And then people started getting sick, and you still wouldn’t listen.”

  “So what happened?”

  “We went to the town council. We went to the press. We went up to the capital and talked to our representatives. We wrote letters to the governor. You know. The things you do.”

  “And it worked? They closed the plant?”

  “No. The river turned green.”

  “Like algae?”

  “Not that kind of green. Not a green found in nature. Green like green neon, like green Easter egg dye, like St. Patrick’s Day souvenirs. It glowed.”

  “Wow. That’s…” He considers it and settles finally on “terrible.”

  “No, actually, that was a good thing, the one good thing, because finally, finally, everyone saw. People came and saw and listened. People paid attention to what Belsum was doing and how it was killing us. Reporters came and government officials and scientists and activists and experts, and since people were finally watching, they closed the plant.”

  “And then what?” He can’t wait to hear what happened next, like I’m telling him the plot of a movie he’s not allowed to see.

  “Belsum moved on and the government moved on. The scientists and activists and environmentalists moved on. The journalists moved on. But Bourne did not move on. Bourne stayed right where it was.”

  His eyes look like they’re shivering. Can eyes shiver? It’s too much all at once. What would I have him say to all this? He can’t think of anything. Neither can I.

  “Let’s walk some more.” I stand up.

  “What?” He startles, looks up at me like he’s forgotten who I am, where he is, what we’re doing here.

  “It’s okay.” I make myself smile at him, at least a little. “It’s not your fault.” I remind myself that this is true.

  He nods. A beat. Another. “Wait.”

  I do.

  “What do you mean it’s not my fault? Of course it’s not my fault. It’s not true. Mab! Tell me you know it’s not true.” He’s not quite yelling, but he’s close.

  “It is true.” Sad. Petra would say “atrabilious.”

  But he’s neither. He’s mad. “Bullshit. You’re crazy.” He peeks at me. “Are you crazy?” He’s genuinely asking now.

  I laugh. “Nope, afraid not.”

  He laughs too but not because he thinks it’s funny. In fairness, that’s not why I laughed either. “Everyone in this town is crazy. Your mother obviously is. Your sister. I get it now. There’s something wrong with everyone here.”

  “Well, that’s what happens when you’re poisoned,” I agree.

  “Stop saying that!”

  “Your family. Poisoned. Us.”

  “Look, my grandfather’s kind of … I don’t know … but he’s not, you know, the devil. He doesn’t go around poisoning towns and giving dogs cancer just so he can buy a sailboat. Or whatever.”

  “Your grandfather owns a boat?”

  “Three.”

  “Wow.” Dry as week-old breadcrumbs.

  “But that’s not the point.”

  I disagree. “I’m pretty sure it is.”

  “I mean yeah, he’s rich. There’s no law against being rich, you know. But he didn’t kill anyone or hurt anyone or poison anyone. Jesus, this isn’t Shakespeare. Where are you going?”

  I am not going to stand here in the sodden woods being scolded by River Templeton, so I set off for home. He should follow me because there’s no cell reception out here, and I know my way only after sixteen years of practice. He could starve to death before he found his way out. He’d have to resort to drinking the groundwater, which I really wouldn’t recommend. He could rely on my goodwill to come back and fetch him before nightfall, but I wouldn’t recommend that either. He seems to intuit this and comes loping after me on his long boy legs.

  “Hey, wait up. Hey!” He reaches out and grabs my sleeve, spinning me to a stop. “What the hell?”

  “Get off me.”

  “I’m not on you. I’m touching your sleeve.”

  “Don’t touch my sleeve.”

  “Why are you mad at me? I’m the one being accused of all sorts of insane shit no one would believe, no one obviously does believe.”

  “Everyone I know believes it,” I say.

  “Yeah, but no one outside this town, right?” One minute he’s appalled and offended. The next you can tell this is fun for him, sparring, arguing, twisting logic all around then ramming home his point. “That must be true. No one must believe you.”

  “Not no one.” I sound pathetic.

  “Because you said seventeen years ago.” He talks right over me. “If you had proof, everyone would know it by now.”

  “The wheels of justice turn slowly,” Russell always says, my mother always repeats, and I echo now.

  “Plus, now the plant’s reopening,” he reminds me.

  “So?”

  “So they wouldn’t risk doing it again. If they’re reopening the plant, they must know everything’s fine. They must know everything’s been fine all along.”

  “Oh, I see now,” I say. “I get it too.”

  “Get what?”

  “Why you’re saying all this.”

  “Because it’s obviously true? Because you besmirched my honor?”

  “Because you’re just like your grandfather.” Besmirched his honor? Who is this kid? “Evil must run in your family.”

  “And crazy must run in yours.”

  “We might be crazy,” I admit, “but it’s not hereditary if you’ve been poisoned.”

  His mouth is open, silent. His hands are open, disbelieving. But the rest of him is closed as a walnut, his face shut against all I’ve told him, all I am, all of us.

  He doesn’t want to walk next to me. He doesn’t want to follow behind me. But he doesn’t know where he’s going. So he walks ten feet or so to my left through the trees, off the path that’s half natural, half worn by me over the years, his foot twice sinking up to his ankle in wet mud, his clothes snagging every other step on climbing thorns he’s walked through instead of around, rainwater spilling down the back of his hoodie every time his head brushes the overgrowth, snapping twigs and branches like what you can’t see in a horror movie, the monster that’s coming, invisibly but (Petra would say) inexorably through the trees to get you.

  Two

  Often when Mama says she wants me to help her, it is more accurate to say she wishes I would change my personality. She will say, “Monday, I need you to help me by being a little bit more flexible about food today,” or “Monday, I need you to help me by not fighting with your sister about whether it’s necessary for her to wash her hands before washing the dishes,” or “Monday, I need you to help me by not eating twelve bowls of Corn Pops just because you want to cut the box into postcards,” and if you reply, “It is more accurate to say you need me to help you by not eating twelve bowls of Corn Pops mostly because I want to cut the box into postcards but also because they are yellow,” she will point out that this also is not helping her.

  But today, after River leaves with Mab, Mama says, “Monday, I need you to help me by working your librarian magic.”

  And that means she really does need my help.

  “Maybe River Templeton is wrong. Maybe River Templeton doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Most teenagers aren’t as smart as the three of you, you know.” Mama is making her voice sound jolly, but I look at her face and even I can see it is pretend. “But just in case, let’s see wha
t we can find out.”

  “Just in case what?” I ask.

  “Just in case River’s on to something.”

  “Find out about what?”

  “Belsum’s plans.”

  “How will you do that?” I wonder.

  “By asking the librarian.” Mama kisses the top of my head, even though I do not like germs or touching. “Even if it’s bad news, better to know. Knowledge is power. See what you can find, love. Mirabel and I have to go to work.”

  Mama always says that—“Knowledge is power”—but she also says knowledge is depressing, demoralizing, soul crushing, mad making, and despair inducing, so I do not know if it is worth it. She says knowledge is power, but she also says there is such a thing as knowing too much as well as such a thing as too much power, depending on whose. Mama says knowledge is power but only if what you know is actually true.

  She used to have an alert on her computer to tell her when Belsum was in the news so she could have all the knowledge about them for her lawsuit, but too many of the alerts alerted her to things that were not true. She was alerted to news articles by scientists who said GL606 was harmless, but Russell discovered those scientists were being paid by Belsum. She was alerted to news articles by chemists who said the level of toxicity in our river was so low it was undetectable, but Russell discovered those chemists were being paid by Belsum too. She was alerted to news articles by researchers who said there would be no short- or long-term damage to the people of Bourne, but she looked around at the people of Bourne and didn’t need Russell to discover who those researchers were being paid by as well. So she took the news alert off her computer.

  This is one reason we did not have any warning about the Templetons coming to town or the plant reopening. Another is because we were facing the wrong way. Mama was looking backward, toward the past, at what happened before, but the important part was getting ready to come. And now it is here.

  I like to research in books because they smell nice, tell stories, and are in my house. But I also like to research online because you can set your screen to show yellow text on a black background or black text on a yellow background. You cannot do this with books. I have a lot of books, and none of them have yellow words or yellow backgrounds. And if what you read online is upsetting, you can turn both the words and the background yellow. You cannot read yellow words on a yellow background. Even for me, that is too much yellow.