Once, Annie had been recounting this feeling to her therapist, and the woman had shrugged in a way that communicated impatience.
“What do you think your baby is about?” The therapist had undereye creases as deep as canyons and a rough accent from somewhere on the East Coast.
Annie didn’t understand the question. Were people ever about anything? Weren’t they just people?
“The pregnancy wasn’t planned,” the therapist said. “You were young and unmarried. You had other choices, but you didn’t even deliberate. Why?”
Annie looked down at her still bulging lap. “Love?” she said.
The therapist snorted.
“What?” Annie had wiped her wet cheeks with the back of her wrist.
“It’s okay to want to be the parent you wished you had, Annie. There are worse child-rearing techniques.”
Sometimes when Annie took stock of what Hank and Laurel had—big family, loyal neighborhood friends, packed schedules—she understood that the secret of life was seeing your children take for granted what you had once ached for.
Laurel was surrounded by security and love, and Annie was certain that this would be enough to keep her anchored. It had to be.
“Oh,” Mike said. He reached into his pants pocket. “My mom gave me the necklace for Laurel. I promised my parents that we wouldn’t put it under the tree, though. They haven’t told my sisters yet and there will be drama when they find out they’re not getting it.”
His jeans were flung over the desk chair, and he reached into their pocket and pulled out a jewelry box in worn navy velvet. The hinges opened with a creak.
Annie touched a finger to the small gold circle on a delicate chain. Saint Nicholas’s face, etched into the pendant, looked slightly creepy, bare as a skeleton.
“It’s beautiful,” Annie said. “She’ll love it.”
“I know.” Mike snapped shut the box and tucked it back into the pants leg. “So. We’ll save it for eighth grade graduation?”
Annie nodded.
There were light footsteps in the hallway. The bathroom door creaked open. Over the sound of the running faucet, Annie heard the toilet flush once, then again.
Mike hiked his eyebrow.
After a third flush, Annie went out into the hall, knocked lightly on the door. “Everything okay in there?”
“Fine.”
“Laurel?”
The door opened a crack.
“I thought you were asleep,” Laurel said. Her eyes were puffy and her breath smelled like toothpaste.
Annie pushed open the door. Laurel had on sneakers and a vest.
“Where are you going?”
“I need some fresh air.”
“It’s eleven o’clock.”
“These people are just a little much,” Laurel said. She scratched at her sleeve jerkily. “And I’m not grounded anymore.”
“These people?” Mike said. “It’s your family, Laurel. They came all this way to see you.”
“I’ll come with you,” Annie said.
“No. I need space.” Laurel shook her head stubbornly. “And it’s not that late.” She dragged her fingers down her face. “Please. You have to start trusting me again.”
“Take a breath,” Mike said. He put a hand on her back, traced a circle, and she leaned away.
“I’m going to go crazy,” Laurel said. “You two are going to drive me crazy.”
Mike frowned, looked at Annie for a long moment. “Bring your phone,” he said. “If you see the vandal, run straight home.”
“Thank you,” Laurel said. There was a horrible crack of desperation in her voice. “Oh god, thank you.”
After she slipped out the front door, Annie and Mike stood at the bay window and watched Laurel be enveloped by the darkness.
“It’s weird,” Mike said. “But running is better than going out there to get wasted.”
When they looked at each other, it was clear that both Annie and Mike were imagining that exact scenario.
“I’m going to follow her in the car,” she said.
“Don’t. She already feels suffocated.”
“Then I’ll call Lena,” Annie said. “I’m pretty sure she’s home.”
* * *
“I see her,” Lena said. She was on the upstairs balcony peering through a pair of opera glasses to the street below.
“Where?” Annie said.
“The hill on Coyote Lane. She’s keeping to the shoulder, don’t worry, and running up the hill and walking down. I’ll pretend I’m out for a walk and just happened to bump into her.
“Are you sure?” Annie said. “I feel like we’re ruining your Christmas Eve.”
“I’m putting my jacket on,” Lena said.
“But—”
“I’ve had years to consider this, Annie,” Lena said, her voice tight and neat. “Better to intervene than have regrets.”
I think it started a few months before the party.
I was up late one night with my nose in a book and heard muffled voices from outside. When I peered through the blinds, I saw movement: shadows darting through the blackness.
It must have been them.
Although I didn’t hear anything that sounded like violence, I sensed danger, or at least its potential. I’ve always been one to trust my hunches, but that night, I chalked the feeling up to the thriller I was reading.
If only I’d turned on the patio lights, used their illumination to drive away the dark, it might have changed everything.
JANUARY
To: “The Best Book Club in the World”
From: [email protected]
Happy New Year Ladies!!!!
The book: PIONEER PARENTING, or as Deb Gallegos calls it, our annual Mommy Guilt Book:
Did you know that suicide rates of 12-to-15-year-olds have increased by two hundred percent?
Did you know that one in five kiddos has mental health issues?
Did you know that there’s a forty percent increase in depression in teens?
Are you as terrified as I am by all of this? Ladies, we need to become part of the SOLUTION!
PIONEER PARENTING by Dr. E. Leona Flimsba examines how implementing a few golden rules from the pre-industrial times WILL translate into a happier, healthier, well-rounded child. We’re talking less screen time and Red 40 and more stories around a campfire!
The place: MY HOUSE!!! 5423 Coyote Trail Road
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Abe might be doing the vandalism,” Dr. Shapiro said. “It’s possible.”
“He says he’s not”—Jen leaned against Dr. Shapiro’s black leather couch—“and he’s never lied to me.”
Jen had asked Dr. Shapiro if they could chat after Abe’s regular individual therapy session. Even if Jen still wasn’t fully committed to the conduct disorder diagnosis, Dr. Shapiro was an excellent listener. The beige walls of her office, the bonsai garden on the coffee table, the gently burbling water feature—Jen found it all very relaxing. When Dr. Shapiro pressed Jen on an issue, it didn’t feel like a slap so much as the welcoming stretch of a tight muscle.
“You sound certain.” Dr. Shapiro’s shiny bob stayed in place even as she cocked her head. “Why do you really need my opinion?”
“Paul and I had a huge fight before the holidays about it,” Jen admitted. “I need a reality check.”
Jen still felt guilty for the fight, and for the silent treatment she’d given Paul the entire next day. She’d tried to apologize, but Paul had assumed all the blame, and sent Jen two dozen roses and a gift card for a spa day at a luxurious resort in the mountains. She was pretty sure she didn’t deserve him.
“Everything’s fine with us now, but am I in denial?”
“You strike me as a good citizen. If you really thought Abe was hurting other people, you’d do something about it.”
Jen shifted in her seat. The assessment seemed too generous.
“If Abe were the vandal, is that even the end of the world? It’
s just a little property destruction.”
Dr. Shapiro eyed Jen gravely. “Is that what you really think?”
“No,” Jen admitted.
The property destruction in and of itself wasn’t the problem, even if there was something creepy about how holiday-focused it was. If the vandal was another kid, it would probably be a blip in his development. Through work/music/church/sports, he would find a path back to mainstream functionality.
The problem was if Abe was lying to Jen.
The only time she had felt smug during book club gossip was listening to some of the women talk about their teenagers, who apparently lied all the time, about everything. Abe did not lie to Jen. What was between them, she knew on a cellular level, was pure and true.
But if he was getting thrills from sneaking out alone, if the innocent expression on his face was a mask, well then, Jen had lost touch with something intrinsic to her.
“How’s the rest of your life?” Dr. Shapiro’s voice was as richly resonant as a Tibetan gong. “The non-Abe part, like your ethology research?”
“Work’s a bit of a slog right now.”
An understatement.
Last week, Jen was supposed to read a new study about leatherback turtles, who, in their lifetimes, navigated eight thousand miles from Indonesia to California and back. How they managed it without getting lost, how scientists went about trying to locate the turtles’ biocompass to understand the connection between animals and environment, was the kind of thing that fascinated Jen.
That used to fascinate Jen. Her brain, usually reliable, had been incapable of latching on to any of the concepts. The words on her computer screen slipped eel-like out of Jen’s mind as she thought about Abe, groceries, the need to get the sidewalk shoveled, anything other than those amazing turtles.
She’d been in front of that computer screen for seven hours, and she didn’t have a single note.
Colleagues of hers who had claimed writer’s block or requested deadline extensions for reasons of vague personal strife had never elicited any sympathy from Jen. There were excuses, she had believed, and then there was just putting your butt in the chair and doing the work.
She wasn’t herself anymore. She was a leatherback turtle with a broken biocompass, swimming thousands of miles in the wrong direction.
Dr. Shapiro’s smile was kind. “May I suggest a New Year’s resolution?”
“Not if it’s going to therapy.”
One side of Dr. Shapiro’s mouth lifted.
She’d tried therapy, Jen had explained to Dr. Shapiro, more than a few times since Abe’s problems became apparent. Dr. Shapiro might not be aware of this, but there were a lot of hacks out there.
One had asked, with a disturbing enthusiasm, for details of Jen and Paul’s sex life, another had insisted on mining the pain from Jen’s parents’ divorce thirty years ago (and there was pain, but triage, folks, triage). A few were probably excellent, thoughtful practitioners, but they all advised the same thing: You’re too closely identified to Abe’s problems.
They weren’t wrong.
Jen knew all the clichés: put on your own oxygen mask first; help yourself before helping others; happy mom, happy baby. From a psychological standpoint, she was too wrapped up in concern for Abe, to the detriment of her own well-being.
But what was the alternative?
Abe’s well-being was Jen’s well-being. They were unhealthily tethered, which was exactly how biology wanted it. So, Jen would ask the therapists, I’m supposed to understand Abe, and read his hieroglyphics—I’m blamed if I can’t—and then skip off to work and meet friends at one of those canvas-and-cocktail nights?
It’s about balance, they would counter, try and take a holistic approach to your life. Frequently, they’d offer medication, which as far as Jen could tell would force a state of numbness.
Jen was all for people doing whatever they had to to get through the day—medication included—but if the world kept insisting her son might be a sociopath, didn’t everyone want Jen’s edges sharp and vigilant?
“I’ll gladly see,” Jen had told Dr. Shapiro, “any therapist whose own child has been diagnosed with conduct disorder.”
Who else would understand?
Dr. Shapiro now watched Jen with a delicately wrinkled forehead.
“What about hobbies?” Dr. Shapiro said. “Something fun?”
Talking to you is fun, Dr. Shapiro. Does that not count?
“Book club,” Jen said confidently. “I’m going there straight after this.”
Dr. Shapiro’s frown lines deepened. Jen couldn’t stand her pity, which disrupted the pretense that she and Dr. Shapiro were just two girlfriends talking.
“How often does your club meet?” Dr. Shapiro asked.
“Every month.”
Wrong answer. Dr. Shapiro pursed her lips in a way that told Jen she was a pathetic and isolated creature.
Paul would say: Why on earth do you care what Abe’s therapist thinks of your social life?
Because, Paul, even if we disagree with her diagnosis, we still need to show her that it’s not all our fault!
“I see people,” Jen said, “don’t worry. My grad school friend Maxine is coming from out of town to give a talk.”
Maxine Das deserved every ounce of success she’d achieved. She’d spent eighteen months living among the elephants in Mali and was very successfully milking it for as long as she could: two books, the newspaper column, and now the second documentary, for which she was currently touring.
Jen had planned to decline Maxine’s invitation, which wasn’t until next month, and not because she resented Maxine’s success—okay, maybe she did a little—but because what was the point?
“What’s the talk about?” Dr. Shapiro asked.
“Elephants.”
Dr. Shapiro straightened up. “It’s not Maxine Das? I just read an article about her new documentary.”
“It is.”
“If I gave you a book, d’you think she’d sign it for me?” Dr. Shapiro suddenly looked girlish. Her frown lines had erased and she reached a hand up to fluff the back of her perfect bob.
Apparently, Jen would be attending Maxine’s talk after all.
“She’d love to,” Jen said.
Dr. Shapiro’s fangirl smile made Jen feel a little more on equal footing, enough so that she circled back around to the real issue.
“So, you don’t think I need to worry?” Jen asked. “About Abe’s being the vandal?”
“You have good instincts,” Dr. Shapiro said. “Trust them.”
It was settled, then.
Jen knew her son.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Janine? This list that you typed out summarizing the Pioneer Parenting laws leaves out never mention body/food/weight, especially to girls.”
“That wasn’t in this book, Priya, but the one from last year, does anyone remember the name, it’s going to bug me—”
“The Unconditional Parent.”
“Yes! Thank you. I never figured out how not to mention food. What would you like for dinner, Taylor—oh, I’m sorry, I meant let me just present you wordlessly with this plate of … matter you can put in your mouth and chew.”
“These books are a conspiracy. They want to muddle our minds.”
“Yes, it’s like that quote about giving our children roots and wings. It sounds so great and poetic, but as a practical matter, it’s a recipe for evisceration?”
“Who picked this book?”
“I did and don’t look at me like that. We’re not supposed to take this literally.”
“Roots and wings? I mean, that’s physically impossible. Are the roots retractable? But then they’re not really roots, are they?”
“Deb, what’s in the Pioneer Parent Punch?”
“It’s based on a mulled hard cider. Cloves, cinnamon, and I mixed in a fresh apple puree.”
“Harriet, did you just write down what’s in the punch?”
“Katie,
love, can you bring in the other pitcher?”
“Didn’t last year’s mommy guilt book tell us unconditional love was the most important thing? And now it’s ‘make them plow the fields’?”
“I’m telling you, it’s a conspiracy, making us think there’s one right way to do things. Guess what, ladies? There are no rules in life.”
“Well, technically there are. They’re called laws.”
“Who’s conspiring?”
“They are. Them. Society. People.”
“You’re all being too literal. No one is supposed to actually plow a field.”
“Thanks, Katie. Congratulations on the big mock-trial win, by the way.”
“Katie, dear, some more napkins, please.”
“Lena, have you opened the cupcakes yet?”
“Ooooh, they’re so cute. Look at that tiny little pioneer.”
“With his tiny raccoon cap!”
“You know who needs Pioneer Parenting? Our vandal.”
“We should have Laurel look out for him.”
“Laurel? Why Laurel?”
“Sierra told me she’s been running the loop after dinner? We should fasten a GoPro to her head to catch any night activity.”
“She’s not out there at two in the morning.”
“The vandal doesn’t need Pioneer Parenting, ladies, he needs incarceration.”
“The stockades! Jeez, Harriet, don’t write that down. I was joking.”
“Or, and this is a radical thought, maybe we should just ignore him.”
“Seriously, Jen? I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”
“He hasn’t done anything major, you guys. It’s been a little aggression toward holidays. If this is the best he’s got, I’m not really impressed.”
FEBRUARY
To: “The Best Book Club in the World”
From: [email protected]
Happy Month of Love, Ladies!!
The book: ROSA OF KRAKOW, which reviewers have called “moving, lyrical, powerful.” The story of Rosa, a Polish seamstress coming of age in 1939 and torn between three men: her Jewish childhood friend Abel, Gunther, a Cadet in Hitler’s SS Youth—and Gary, an idealistic American Soldier.
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