The Girl of Sand & Fog

by Ward, Susan

  * * *

  My body is limp, drained of strength and tears, but the bat keeps going. It’s like it’s running on its own and I can’t stop it. Not even now when there is nothing left to destroy in Alan’s bedroom.

  How long have we been here?

  Why hasn’t anyone come to stop it?

  I check the security monitor—there are people out front starting to gather on the street.

  Someone knows I’m doing this.

  The tweets are working if there are sightseers here.

  I look at the clock.

  An hour.

  Is that all this has been? It seems longer.

  Zoe is sitting just out of view of the cameras against the wall by the open bedroom door, sobbing hysterically. But she didn’t bail. She stayed with me. I shut down the rising emotions and crash the aluminum into a wall mirror.

  “Kaley, put down the bat.”

  I whirl.

  Bobby.

  He starts reaching over to shut off the camera.

  I rush across the room. “No, don’t turn it off.”

  He freezes, those green eyes holding me in an anxious stare. “OK, I won’t shut it off. I’ll just pause it. OK, baby? Watch. I’m only pausing it.”

  He halts the feed and then steps around the equipment, his eyes wide and dismayed as he stares at the walls, the room, and then me.

  “How did you get into the house?” I wail. “I didn’t want you here. I didn’t want you involved in this, Bobby.”

  He pulls me up against him. “Shush, Kaley. I got in the same way you did. The panel. Your mom’s birthday. We came here the last time together. Remember?”

  I stare up at him. “You need to go. Quickly.”

  “No point. There are people on the street. Press. I’m in this whether you want me to be or not. What’s happening here? Why did you do this, Kaley?”

  I rummage in my pocket and shove the test results at him. He reads them, then starts raking a hand over and over again through his hair.

  “Oh fuck,” he groans as shock registers on his face. “Why didn’t you talk to me first instead of doing this?”

  I snatch the paper back from him. “Because you would have stopped me, Bobby. And I couldn’t back down from this.”

  His palms close on my cheeks, forcing me to meet his gaze. “Baby, you should have come to me first. You’ve hurt you. You’ve hurt me. You’ve hurt us. You’ve hurt Zoe. You’ve hurt your family. There’s a crowd and the media outside. There’s going to be cops soon. You’ve committed a crime. And you’ve put it on the Internet for everyone to see. They will arrest you. The cops won’t back down from this either, baby. Please, stop. Put down the bat. You have to be calm when the police get here. You’ve pushed it too far. Now you have to calm and we wait.”

  Police?

  I shake my head and step quickly back from him. “I’m not going anywhere. Not with anyone. Not until my dad gets here.”

  Bobby studies me, his face ragged with alarm. “OK, baby,” he says soothingly. “Then we’ll stay until your dad gets here. But it’s time for you to pull it together. Don’t do anything else.”

  I set down the bat, sink to the floor on my knees, and wait for Alan, turning the kinship analysis constantly in my trembling hands.

  * * *

  I hear a sound. I look up. Alan.

  “Shut everything off. Cut the feed. Turn off the cameras. And get out of here. Both of you.”

  I shut down my reaction to my dad being here, jump to my feet and rush across the room, dropping to where Bobby has done nothing but sit with his head in his hands waiting with me for this.

  “Bobby, no. Don’t leave. Don’t leave me here alone with him.”

  He pulls me against him, kisses my forehead and then holds my face in his hands. The look in his eyes rends my heart.

  “It will be all right, Kaley. This is what you wanted. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right outside the door. But you need to do this with him alone.”

  He springs to his feet and leaves with Zoe following close behind him.

  Alan starts reading the walls.

  My pulse is so fast I can’t think.

  The silence between us is torturous.

  The wait for the next part of this agony.

  “You’ve got my attention, Kaley,” Alan says, his voice stripped of emotion. “Talk to me. Why would you do something like this?”

  He’s staring at the walls.

  How can he still not know what this is?

  “You can’t even look at me,” I hiss. “Maybe if you could look at me, really see me, you’d already know and I wouldn’t have to tell you. Goddamn it, look at me.”

  He slowly turns to face me, black eyes locking on black.

  “I’m looking at you. This is not the way you deal with things, Kaley. You didn’t need to do this to talk to me. I will always listen. I’m always there for you. You didn’t need to do any of this. Say whatever it is that you got me here to tell me.”

  Oh God, what’s that I see on his face?

  Confusion?

  Fear?

  Inability to admit truth when it’s shoved in his face?

  “How would you know if I needed to deal with it this way or not?” I scream. “You don’t know what it is like to be me. I’ve tried to talk to you. You can’t hear me. Not ever. But I’m not letting you wall me out any longer. I can’t. It was almost survivable when I thought it was only me. But to find out—”

  I break off, shaking and unable to look at him.

  “Survivable? What was almost survivable?” he probes gently.

  I jump to my feet. “You don’t get to pick the kids you want. Kids are not disposable items. Why Khloe but deny me? You make me hate her and I don’t want to because I love her. But, fuck, you are my father. What kind of man are you? What kind of man can do this?”

  I throw the results into his face and watch through tears as he picks them up and studies them.

  The stillness in the room is shocking.

  Then it’s as if Alan’s legs give way. He stares at the paper and collapses to the floor “What is this?”

  I fight back my tears.

  How could he ask that?

  It’s there in his hands.

  “You wouldn’t do the test for me so I bought a kinship DNA test. It’s designed to test siblings. I figured I’d match me to Khloe and have the truth since she’s the only kid you haven’t denied.”

  He looks at me, stunned.

  His expression.

  My stomach starts to convulse.

  Oh God, I didn’t expect this.

  I thought he was lying—but no, he doesn’t know.

  “Who is sample one?” he asks in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “Khloe. Sample two is me. Sample three is Krystal. And sample four and five are Ethan and Eric. 99.97 percent confirmed we are not half siblings. We’re all full siblings. We all know who our mother is, but you being all our dads is a bit much to take in a single day, don’t you think, Daddy? Now tell me I’ve overreacted here today.”

  His eyes never lift from the report. Why doesn’t he say something?

  “Just explain to me why,” I beg. “It’s driving me crazy. Why did you lie to all of us? Or was it Mom? Did she lie to you? Is that it? I can’t take not knowing which one of you to hate another minute more.”

  “I didn’t know,” he says raggedly, and somewhere deep inside me I know, I can hear it in his voice, the same way I saw it a moment ago on his face.

  My thoughts twirl.

  My emotions unleash.

  Reality starts to nip at me.

  I’m drowning in everything inside me.

  It was Mom.

  But still—

  “How could you not know?” I harshly accuse. “Explain it to me.”

  The energy leaves my limbs in a single gush and I sit on the floor, back against the wall, facing him.

  Minutes tick by, wordless between us. I’m not sure Alan even remembers
I’m still here. He’s just staring at the kinship test, his face blank. Then I hear footsteps from the hallway and Alan snaps to, alarmed, and shoves the paper into his pocket.

  He crosses the room to me, crouching down until we’re at eye level. “Kaley, we’ll talk as long as you want to, I’ll answer anything that you ask me, sweetheart, but the cops are coming in. Don’t say anything. My attorney is with them. We need to finish with the police and then we will work on you and me. I promise. Do you understand?”

  The room is quickly filled with police officers. They’re all around me, talking at once, and Alan is just out of view, pacing frantically, but he doesn’t stop them. I’m led from the room.

  I’m escorted to the living room.

  A kind, older officer is saying words to me. I can’t catch them—he’s talking too fast—and I can’t look at him, but I nod. More officers across room are talking back and forth. Oh fuck, Bobby is right. They’re going to arrest me.

  Alan is waiting in the hallway.

  It’s his house.

  I’m his daughter.

  Why the fuck isn’t he stopping this?

  “Miss Stanton, try to focus on what I’m telling you,” the officer says more commandingly and I look at him. He’s trying to get me to read some sort of document on a clipboard. “We are releasing you to your father. This is a six-month probation. You do what he tells you to do. If you don’t, he’s agreed to call the district attorney. You’ll be arrested and charged.”

  Releasing me to my father?

  I start to quickly read. They’re not going to arrest me. The officer is holding out a pen to me. Will this all end with me only signing something? It hits me; a painful realization. Everything done reduced to a scrap of paper.

  Is that all I’m going to have at the end of this?

  I’m not sure what I expected, but not this.

  The officer points. “Sign here that I’ve explained this to you and that you understand and agree to comply.”

  I shake my head. I don’t want to sign it. Nothing has changed yet. Strange, I still haven’t heard Alan admit he’s my father. The officer said it but, shit, Alan hasn’t spoken the words. Not once.

  “Please, Miss Stanton, it doesn’t get any better than this,” the officer whispers frantically. “Someone with a lot of pull managed this for you. You don’t want me to have to arrest you. I don’t want to take you to jail. Don’t blow it now, kid.”

  The officer’s voice snaps me from my stupor. I take the pen, sign, and then everything starts going in fast motion. The cops leaving the house. Len Rowan dragging Bobby and Zoe away.

  The front door closes.

  Silence.

  We’re alone.

  Father and daughter.

  Alan still hasn’t said it.

  And in this moment, I shatter yet again.

  CHAPTER 24

  It’s like I’m buried in thick fog. I can’t see anything. Feel anything. Hear anything…but then again there hasn’t been any talking in the car since we left Malibu. Not by Alan and not by me.

  Alan pulls into the driveway and parks.

  I stare through the windshield. The house looks like it always does. Stupid, Kaley, to think it might look different.

  He takes the keys from the ignition and leans into me. “Go inside. Go to your room. Stay there.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “It’s going to be OK,” Alan says slowly, inflectionless. “The rest of this needs to be sorted out privately between your mother and me. It’s not your fault. I don’t blame you. I love you. But you need to stay out of this. OK, sweetheart?”

  Oh fuck.

  Mom.

  Somehow I’ve managed not to think of Chrissie before this. I jump from the car and run into the house. It’s quiet in a way it never is. You could hear a pin drop. A heavy, still kind of silence that’s unnerving.

  My heart turns over. Oh crap. Everything is different. I can feel it trapped in the walls with me. I hurry down the hall, pausing at the family room. Linda Rowan is sitting on a couch with a twin tucked into each of her sides and Krystal hovering at her feet.

  All eyes fix on me.

  Worried. Anxious. Afraid.

  Overwhelmed eyes staring at me from little faces.

  I lower my gaze, continue to my room, and lock the door. I lean back against the wood and slide down to the floor, wanting something to form inside me to help me through this and finding nothing willing to answer.

  * * *

  The minutes tick by slowly as I lie on my bed staring at my door. The slowest moving night ever. I heard Linda’s car leave a long time ago. I heard the back patio doors open and close. Someone is in the house with me.

  Still nothing from my parents.

  No one has come to talk to me.

  They’ve just left me here, forgotten.

  This suspended state in between where we were as a family and where I brought us is excruciating.

  I need to text Bobby.

  Make sure he’s all right.

  You’ve hurt us—I brush at my tears. I don’t want to know what that means, not yet.

  My door opens and Chrissie appears, her fragile face swollen with tears. “Are you all right?”

  I drop my gaze.

  I can’t look at her.

  She’s completely devastated.

  “Please, Kaley, talk to me!”

  I can feel her waiting, pleading with her eyes, even though I won’t look at her.

  Then the door closes.

  I’m alone again.

  More minutes tick by.

  Something crashes outside against the stone of the patio. I startle.

  “Goddamn you, Chrissie. Is that really your first concern here? What the fuck happened to your kids coming first always? Or does that not count today?” Alan yells.

  I flinch and debate whether to close my window. But I can’t move. My legs won’t carry me.

  “I’ve talked to the kids,” Chrissie says frantically. “I’ve explained. Or at least tried to. I’m not sure how much they understand. Kaley won’t talk to me. What did you say to her? How is she?”

  “Fuck, is that all you care about?” Alan returns in a way so acidic it burns me. “That I might have said something that made you look bad to your daughter?”

  He’s so angry. I have never heard Alan angry. He’s never spoken to Mom that way.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Chrissie counters quickly. “She won’t talk to me. I’m worried. She’s our daughter. You must be worried, too.”

  “Oh, sorry, our daughter. Pardon me for the momentary mental breakdown I’m having in the middle of this fucking insane day you’ve created.”

  I cover my ears, like a child, but I can still hear them.

  “I never intended any of this to happen,” Chrissie says.

  “How the fuck do you have five kids that are mine and not intend it, Chrissie?” Alan snaps and I jump again.

  “I’ve tried to tell you so many times. I don’t know why I couldn’t. That’s not an excuse. I know there is no excuse. I’m not going to try to make one, and I think it’s better if we wait until you’re less angry for me to try to explain.”

  Oh no, Mom’s rambling.

  She’s so afraid.

  How could I have done this to my mother?

  “There is only one explanation I’d like to hear,” Alan says, his tone rough and cutting. “Then I think we’re through. I know that birth control is beyond basic management for you, Chrissie but, fuck, we both know you know how to get an abortion, so why the fuck didn’t you?”

  The color drains from my face.

  That was the last reaction I’m prepared to cope with from Alan finding out we’re his kids.

  He doesn’t want any of us now.

  Not even Khloe.

  Oh God, he’s going to leave Mom.

  And I’m responsible for this.

  “That was mean, Alan,” Chrissie says calmly, but I hear her fighting back tears
and worry. “I know you didn’t mean that. It hurts anyway. And I’m sorry that I made you angry enough to say something that isn’t even close to who you are.”

  “How could you do this, Chrissie? You stole my family from me.”

  “I didn’t steal them, Alan. I kept them for you. I loved them. I waited. There’s a difference.”

  She waited?

  What does that mean?

  Chrissie-speak.

  The front door slams loudly.

  Alan didn’t understand it either.

  He’s left her.

  I’m sorry, Mom.

  I’m sorry, Mom.

  I curl in a ball, hugging myself, choking on fresh tears.

  * * *

  My bedroom door opens a few minutes later. My mom doesn’t look at me. She moves through my room like a tornado, grabbing my car keys, my phone, every piece of technology I own.

  Cutting me off from the world.

  I deserve it.

  But I wish I’d texted Bobby first.

  Chrissie says nothing.

  I’m too ashamed to speak to her.

  She closes the door between us again.

  * * *

  Three days pass like only screenshots, disconnected frames not cut into a continuous movie yet. Yep, that’s what my life is. Zoom in. Too clear some moments. Camera fade back. Nothing.

  Lourdes brings me my meals. I haven’t left my room for days. Only Mom checks in on me. I still can’t talk to her. Face her. There is so much in my head I need to say, and she’s so worried and sad. I don’t want to dump on her the burden of me, she’s carrying so much right now, and the knot in my stomach warns that what I started in Malibu is far from over.

  I don’t know how Mom keeps going.

  I want to lie in a ball and never move again.

  I don’t know where Alan is.

  I wish I was brave enough to face my siblings. I’m so worried about them. I love them. I never wanted to hurt them.

  I don’t know where this goes next.

  Another limbo state, only this one is because of me.