Cornerstone

by Misty Provencher

  My ears feel like they are working on bat sonar. I twist, searching for sound or movement, but the only snapping or rustling I hear is what I am doing myself.

  I scuttle out of the woods, trying to will Garrett to come darting through the trees. I run to get my jacket, still heaped on the track, and my backpack from the bleachers. I don’t know what I should do next. I pace in front of the bleachers, wringing my hands in front of me while I keep my eyes on the trees. I don’t want to leave in case Garrett returns or in case I hear him calling to me, and I don’t want to stay because Garrett might need help and I keep hearing things behind me and beside me and in front of me that aren’t there.

  I finally turn and sprint home.

  ~ * * * ~

  “You need to slow down.” my mom tells me after I burst in the door, shrieking that we need to call the police.

  “Garrett’s gone!” I howl. My mom grabs my good arm and her voice stands on tiptoes.

  “Gone where?” she asks. “Where did he go?”

  “The woods. The man...the man with the shovel was in the woods. Garrett went in after him...”

  My mom lets go of my arm and whispers into her palm, “Oh God.” Then her face morphs from worry to determination. “Where, Nalena? At the school? Were you at the track?”

  I nod, gulping air.

  “Come on.” She grabs my good arm again and tows me roughly to the door. She heaves her purse off the floor and stuffs her feet into shoes.

  “Where are we going?” My own voice is stringy and high. “We have to call the police.”

  “We’re going to Garrett’s house.” my mom says and I stumble out the door behind her.

  ~ * * * ~

  I am g-forced to the passenger’s seat as my mother navigates down side streets. She weaves us out of our neighborhood as though she knows exactly where she is going. She does rolling yields and blows through stop signs like there is no one else on the road. When a car intersects us, she honks and flashes her lights and screams at them to get out of our way.

  “I don’t even know where Garrett lives!” I tell her. “We need to get the police!”

  “Shh!” The angry hiss rushes through my mom’s teeth as she takes another turn. She steers us past the old, historic sub and past the trailer park, into one of the better parts of town. It’s not the best, but it is way better than ours. The subdivisions are clustered together with signs that distinguish them from one another at the entrances. We pass Ash Brook, Oak Meadows, Pine Haven, Maple Rivers. Just when I think we’re running out of trees, my mom turns into Woodfield.

  It’s an old sub, with wide shady streets created by the old trees that interlock their branches overhead. The houses are a mixture of huge colonials and enormous split levels with chalk drawings in almost every driveway and bikes and skateboards scattered like lawn ornaments.

  My mom parks at the curb of a beige quad that has cream, criss-cross designs decorating every window. The house is on the corner of a street that twists away from the main one, so the lot is a pie wedge and the front yard, a trapezoid.

  “How do you know this is Garrett’s house?” I ask.

  She throws open her door. “Just trust me, okay?”

  She’s on her way up the front walk before I can ask anything else. I jump out and follow her, sure she has this all wrong. There is no way my mom would have a clue where the most popular boy in school lives. She can’t even find the post office, and she’s been there a dozen times.

  “Why do you think he lives here?” I ask when we reach the front door. She ignores me and rings the bell.

  I would keep on her, except that the sound coming from inside the house wells up as though it could come smashing through the front door and crush us into the lawn. Even though the door is closed, the sound of hooting and hollering and uncontrolled chaos leaps inside. My mom rings the bell twice more. We hear wild, shrieking laughter, thumping and bumping, and twice, I think footsteps are coming to answer the door, but they don’t. My mom finally lays on the bell. She doesn’t let up until we hear someone inside screaming that there is someone at the door and then someone else screaming that someone should get it. It is like a chain of alarms that no one does anything about. Finally, a little face appears, pushing aside the curtained side light to stare at us.

  The little girl has a round face and a plume of black hair, ponytailed at the bulls-eye top of her head. It looks like a thin fountain and it flutters in the air like a bouquet of feathers when she moves. She is only in the side window for a second and then she drops the curtain and we hear her shouting that there are two ladies on the front porch.

  Finally, a heavy gait rumbles to the door and swings it open. I expect a man but see a tall woman instead, with a happy apple of a face. She is thin and firm and curvy all at once. Her muddy blond hair throws me off, but her eyes are unmistakable. They are the sky without clouds, a well of Caribbean water without the sandy bottom. Those are Garrett’s eyes. My mom has somehow found the right house.

  “Mrs. Reese?” My mom puts her left hand to her temple, rubbing, as if her head is aching so bad it will split apart. She is still clutching her purse, like a bloated dachshund, in the crook of her other arm. We look pathetic.

  The woman tracks my mom’s hand with a confused brow, as if my mom might be nuts. Standing on the Reese’s front porch, I cower, embarrassed that we are here instead of at the police station. The woman nods for my mother to continue as the little girl from the side light steps forward and grips onto her mother’s leg.

  “I am Alo Evangeline Maxwell.” my mom says. My ears snag on the word: uh LOW, a weird title my mom has never used, but a word I swear I’ve heard before. I don’t dwell long on it because I am annoyed by the useless introductions. The only thing we should be doing right now is getting people into the woods to look for Garrett.

  “Garrett ran into the woods behind the school track!” I squeal from behind my mother. The replicas of Garrett’s eyes, set above his mother’s round cheeks, flick to me. I spill the facts, flagging my cast in the air to further illustrate what I’m jabbering at break neck speed. “The man that hit me with a shovel was watching us while we were running the track and Garrett went after him!”

  I expect this woman to gasp, to step away from the door or to slam it on us, to run to her phone and dial the cops. But she doesn’t do any of this. The little girl, who is still clinging to her mother’s leg, looks up with her baby-soft mouth dragging open, waiting for her mother’s next reaction. Mrs. Reese’s eyes flip back to my mother as she steps aside from her own threshold.

  “Come in. Come in.” she motions with a hurried tone. Despite the sound of a basketball game being played off the walls in another room, my mother goes in and I follow, a panic bubbling inside me because no one is doing what they should. Mrs. Reese does a quick scan of her front lawn before she closes the door, as if she doesn’t want her neighbors to see how she lets in any crazies that happen to appear on her doorstep.

  Once we are inside, the little girl unglues herself from her mother’s leg and goes running down the short staircase that leads into the lower level, shrieking, “There’s ladies here! Sean, Brandon, Maaaaaarkyyyyy! Garrett’s in the woods!”

  Mrs. Reese turns and steps back two feet to call up the ascending staircase, “Basil! Basil, come down! Garrett needs help!”

  “Help with what?” A man that must be Mr. Reese comes out from one of the rooms and down the stairs, slipping off reading glasses. He’s as tall as his wife and equally athletic. He is dark and handsomely Latino, and definitely responsible for having given Garrett everything from the midnight-colored hair to the underwear-model good looks. My mom sucks in a breath beside me and I nudge her hard with my elbow. I am nearly jumping out of my skin while she checks out Garrett’s dad, holding myself back from screaming, Do something!

  “Who’s it, Mom?” A carbon copy of Garrett emerges from the lower level stairs. At first I am startled, thinking it is Garrett, but the boy from downstairs has
a completely different gait, slightly bowlegged. As he comes up through the shadows of the lower level, I can see that he is also slightly older and a little shorter, but otherwise would be as close as Garrett could get to having a twin.

  All at once, the foyer floods with the entire Reese family. The carbon copy, along with two younger boys, come in with the little girl in tow. I can’t stand it any longer.

  “SOMEBODY HAS TO CALL THE COPS!” I shriek.

  The whole foyer goes silent. Mr. Reese raises his hand and pats the air down so calmly, that I think my head might blow off, “Okay, okay...we’ll get to that.” He says. He turns to his wife and asks, “What’s this about Garrett?”

  I don’t wait for her to explain. I start speeding through the story again, wagging my cast to get the point across that Garrett’s in danger. Mr. Reese squints like he is concentrating on what I’m saying, until I get to the part about Garrett still being in the woods. I’m still talking as he motions to his wife and the two younger boys.

  “Let’s go.” he says. His voice is anchored like concrete.

  The relief that Mr. Reese is going to finally do something is like a frozen peppermint melting in my stomach. The house erupts into movement again. The youngest Reese boys are pulling on shoes and Mrs. Reese grabs flashlights and jackets from the coat closet near the door.

  “Someone has to call the cops.” I say but the closet assembly line doesn’t slow down.

  Mr. Reese just gives my mom a brief nod and tells her, “Stay put, okay?” And he glances at me and says, “We’ll put out the call.”

  Then the four Reese’s stream out the door, slamming it behind them. My mom and I are left standing in their foyer with the Carbon Copy and the little girl and I can’t even be excited about seeing the inside of Garrett Reese’s house this way.

  ~ * * * ~

  “I’m Iris. I’m six.” The little girl has a wet lisp that I would giggle at and compliment, if Garrett was standing in the foyer introducing us. But he’s not. So, instead of thinking how adorable his little sister is, all I want to do is grab her by her wispy black ponytail and interrogate her until she spits out why everyone is acting as if this is all totally normal. Maybe she can clue me in as to why I’m the only one who seems panicked about her family running off to find a missing sibling that was last seen chasing a shovel-wielding psycho in the woods.

  My mom bends down to the little girl’s level and says, “Hi Iris. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Evangeline. And I’m a little older than six.”

  I watch, crossing my arms over my chest awkwardly and rolling my tongue in my mouth, holding back another plea for someone to do something useful. For someone, besides me, to see how frightening this is. Or maybe just for someone else to lose their cool so I can take a break from losing mine.

  I catch the Carbon Copy eyeing me. He’s dressed like a serious book worm, in a clean polo and pressed khakis. He looks like he should be wearing loafers, but he’s in bare feet. Even though he looks polar opposite of the kind that goes tromping around in mucky woods, it still seems weird to me that he’s the one staying back to babysit while his parents take Garrett’s two youngest brothers with them. I shiver, pushing away the thought of those boys reaching out in the dark woods and touching the man’s ski mask.

  What annoys me even more than the stare is that the Carbon Copy’s lips have the tickle of a patient grin, the kind you’d use when teaching a child how to play a new and complicated game. It is not an arrogant grin, but it still makes me feel like he knows all the moves and is just too polite to point out that I don’t know any.

  “Shouldn’t we call the police too?” I aim the question at my mom this time, like a spear that should pierce her subconscious, but the Carbon Copy answers for her.

  “I’m positive my parents have already called.” he assures me. “They said they would and they have their cell phones with them.”

  Instead of being comforted, I feel helpless. My mom, however, stands up and moves beside the Copy as if he’s not a complete stranger and as if this isn’t some stranger’s house.

  “I’m sure we’ll hear something very soon, Nali. Let’s not worry unless we need to.”

  “Not worry?” I try not to choke.

  “She’s right.” the Carbon Copy adds. He pauses to smooth out his serious brow and let it wiggle instead. “My brother’s got...skills. Mad skills. He can hold his own.”

  “Against a guy with a shovel?”

  “Against Furries even!” Iris interjects with a happy squeal. She squashes up her face and growls as she scratches the air with mock bear claws. My mom and the Carbon Copy giggle at Iris’s cuteness. I just grit my teeth and press my toes into the souls of my shoes to keep myself from screaming at the three of them.

  “Does anyone get that the guy Garrett’s chasing is nuts? That I think it’s the same guy that broke my arm?” I raise my cast in the air like a plaster exclamation point. The three of them, even Iris, regard me dully, like I’m just trying to get attention.

  “You know what? Nalena’s right.” The Copy rubs his neck as if he’s massaging a thought to the surface. “Come on in while I call down to the police station too. It can’t hurt to make sure they know what’s going on.”

  “Good idea.” my mom agrees.

  “But Garrett can...” Iris starts as the Copy swoops down with a laugh and scoops her up in his arms. He tumbles her onto his shoulders and she grabs fistfuls of his oil-black hair and squeals, “Giddy Up, Seany! Giddy up!” He gallops three steps down the hall and takes a right into what I assume is the Reese’s kitchen.

  My mom follows them and I follow her, tugging at her shirt until she slows up.

  “What’s Alo?” I whisper in her ear. She clears her throat.

  “Oh...it’s like a title. From the church I grew up in. It identifies me as part of a deacon’s family.”

  I’ve never heard the name Alo, although I’ve heard stories about my grandfather’s dedication to his church community a few hundred times. My mom and Grandpa belonged to some church my mom never names, although she likes to tell me how much everyone loved my grandfather. She always says that the kids thought of my grandfather as theirs too, because he’d slip polished quarters into their pockets whenever he saw them. The way my mom tells it, she and Grandpa were an island, as far as blood relatives go, so they considered the community their family. But after my grandfather was murdered in a robbery that went bad, I guess my mom was too scared to stay, being on her own and pregnant with me, so she moved us away.

  I’ve asked why we don’t go back to her old community now, because it sure seems like it would be nice to have people who are like family, but my mom has always given me cornball answers like, ‘we go there in our hearts’ and ‘we’re there all the time, in spirit’. When I really keep up with the questions, she just sighs and says, “It’s complicated, Nali. It’s very, very complicated.”

  I don’t push it anymore because I don’t really want to end up crammed into some pew, belting out ancient karaoke to musty organ music every Sunday. That’s been enough to keep me from asking until now, but the Reese’s connection makes me rethink how much I might enjoy sitting for hours on a hard wood bench, listening to heated Bible stories, beside Garrett.

  “I thought we didn’t live near any of them.” I say. “How did you know Garrett’s family is part of Grandpa’s church? It’s not like we ever go.”

  “In our hearts, we do.” my mom says, like usual. “I’ve always known the Reese’s were part of Grandpa’s church. I just hadn’t met them formally.”

  My mom says this last part out loud as we step into the Reese’s dining room. It is a long, wide, rectangle, filled almost to the edges with a huge, oval table and oak chairs. My mom smiles at Iris and The Copy as we scoot around the table and she stands at the end of the kitchen counter, lined with barstools.

  I move off to the side, feeling heavy and hidden in the corner, at the opposite end of the counter. Garrett is a part of a church, a family,
that my mom never bothered to connect with. She never even mentioned it after she met him. We’ve lived in the same area and I’ve been alienated in the same school where I might have started out with at least one family friend to lean on. Anyone would’ve been better than Jen. Or, maybe it is the same problem as always: the paper. My mom probably stays away, trying to hide the hoarding from them like she does from everybody, or maybe they already know and have decided not to mingle with people who stuff their house full of combustive kindling.

  The Copy, or Sean—if his little sister is correct—is in the enormous kitchen, already on a wall phone that he has wedged between his cheek and shoulder. He comes back around to our side of the counter, stretching the mile long cord, so he can plop Iris onto a stool. He reaches toward me, opening a cookie jar shaped like the Sesame Street Monster, and retrieves a chocolate chip for his sister. It’s the real kind, I think, too dark and misshapen to be made by machine.

  “Yes, I wanted to report an incident.” he says into the phone. He smiles briefly in my direction and then his eyes find something distant through the door that leads off to the living room. He walks out of the kitchen, around the corner and his voice drops to a muted rumble.

  I lean a shoulder on Garrett’s kitchen wall, taking in the place where he has probably stood in pajama bottoms, rustling through cabinets for a box of cereal. The kitchen is the size of our entire living room at the apartment, with a wrap-around counter. The only things on the counter are a bowl of fruit, a roll-top bread box and four decorative jars nestled together. No stacks of paper. The cabinets are dark wood, the appliances are almond color and there’s a wooden spoon cradled in a spoon rest on top of the stove. They don’t store cardboard boxes full of paper in their oven.