“Everything stopped.” She says it slowly. “Frozen moment. I raised my head, turned to see if Flip was okay. He looked right at me. We were both okay! I reached to hug him, and that’s when I smelled his breath, and I knew he’d been drinking.”
“Wait. Drinking with your parents?” I ask.
“No, no. He drank before we sat down with them. He knew it would be tense and awful. He was scared, and he thought a drink would take the edge off.”
“He made a mistake too,” I say.
“He did. I saw both my parents, unconscious in the backseat—terrifying. I asked Flip how much he’d had to drink—and this was all in a matter of seconds. He was afraid it was too much. The police would know.” Mom sighs and presses her hands out along her knees. “I couldn’t let him be caught. This was my fault. So I told him to run. He didn’t want to leave me. But I reminded him about school, and how he’d lose his scholarship. His life would be ruined. I convinced him that I’d be okay—I was sober. It was just a bad accident. I made him go. Later, I told the police I was driving. I figured I’d be in some trouble, but I thought it would all work out.
“The rest is like I told you, Perry. Within hours I learned that my father was dead. My mother froze me out. I knew that she would never forgive me, and I would not forgive myself. Those were the loneliest hours I’ve ever known.”
“But didn’t Flip come back?”
“Oh yes. He tried. More than once. He talked about turning himself in. But I wouldn’t have it. I pushed him away because . . .” Her face drops, and she can hardly talk again. “The more things went wrong for me, the more I wanted him to be free. My father’s death was my fault. That haunted me. But the thought of Flip paying for it, well, that would have been unbearable. I cut off communication. Finally, he put all the money he had into my commissary account. I know because the deposit was exactly the amount we each made lifeguarding that summer.” She smiles a little. “It was all he had to give me, and all I would take from him. And you should know, Perry, he never knew about you. Several months went by before I realized you were coming. You were my sign—my reason—to go forward. I figured if there came a time when I couldn’t have you with me, I’d make the next plan. But our Warden Daugherty made things work for us.” Mom cups her hand around my head. “For a very long time.”
I squeeze onto her chair to be beside her. It’s a chair for one, but we fit. “I’m sorry, Mom. You lost so much,” I say. “I thought I knew. But I didn’t really know.”
“Of course you didn’t. I didn’t tell you.”
“But now I get why you didn’t tell me,” I say. “Sorry, Mom.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she says. “You know, I was always afraid my mother would come forward and say that Flip had been driving. But she didn’t. Then a lawyer sent word a few years after you were born saying that my mother had died. That hurt. But mostly because she’d left me long before that.” Mom rests her cheek on my head.
We sit in the quiet as if a bubble has dropped down over us. If someone walked in right now—even VanLeer—I think our calm would be unbreakable.
“Mom . . . what if the watch is the one thing that could get you out now?”
Mom shifts. She says, “Perry, keeping secrets is hard. I know. I’m an expert. I believe that no good purpose would be served by telling anyone. I won’t bind you with a promise. That would be wrong. But I hope with all my heart that you won’t try to use what you’ve learned. It scares me that the watch is even out there.”
“But I do promise.” I hold the camera where we both can see it. I delete one photo then the other. I wonder if I should tell her that the watch isn’t out there—that it is safe inside a pocket of the warden’s suitcase, deep inside the VanLeer closet. Mom squeezes me like she feels better for having seen the photos disappear.
“Mom,” I say, “there’s something else. You’ll want to know this.” I show her two more pictures—the intersection, before and after.
“Oh . . . look at that.” She breathes. “They fixed it.” Her voice is hoarse and squeaky. “A traffic light . . . thank goodness.”
“It was a really dangerous spot, Mom. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Thank you, Perry.” She puts her lips to my head and whispers into my hair. “You know, he saved you that night too,” she says. “Tiny, tiny unknown being that you were. Your father saved you.”
“Yeah, he did,” I say. We sit curled together a little longer in the peace of my old bedroom up above the common.
When we slip back down the stairs, we move through the visitors to the refreshment table. Mom gets a coffee. I’m not hungry. But Miss Sashonna has saved the last oatmeal cookie for me, and I know better than to refuse it.
We sit down at one of the long tables where Mr. and Mrs. Rojas and Cici and Mira are visiting. They have crayons and photocopies of family pictures. Mrs. Rojas likes to bring them. I see the photograph of Mr. Rojas with his girls—the one I took at the Fathers and Daughters Dance—how many weeks ago? I was still at Blue River. Everything was different.
“Hola, Perry! Hola, Miss Jessica! Dame cinco!” The girls put up their hands. Mom and I give them high fives.
Mr. VanLeer sits down beside me. We all get quiet. But Mira Rojas is little. She looks up at him with big eyes. She smiles, puts up her hand for him. VanLeer smiles back, and claps his palm against hers. “We’re making art,” she tells him.
“I see that,” he says. “Nice job.” Mira offers him a crayon, and he takes it.
I’m nibbling the cookie. Mom is slowly sipping coffee. She’s still upset and sniffling. Mrs. Rojas passes her a tissue. We watch the artists put borders on their photos. I think to myself that it is a comfort to have a mouse in the house, and even better to have two.
But soon VanLeer looks itchy. He tells me, “Time to wrap it up, Perry.”
Mom leans up and says, “You know what? He’s going to eat his cookie.” Then she tells me, “Perry, take your time.”
“Fine. Fine.” VanLeer rests back in his chair.
Cici climbs onto her father’s lap. She draws a box around the picture from the Dads and Daughters Dance. She adds a roof and a chimney. She writes home at the top. Mr. Rojas picks up a purple crayon and adds more writing at the bottom. He reads it to us. “El deseo de mi alma.”
“What does it mean?” Mom asks.
I can feel VanLeer leaning in to hear the answer.
“The wish of my soul,” says Mrs. Rojas. “It’s an expression.”
“Aw, that’s beautiful!” says Mom. She thumps her fist to her heart.
I take a mouse-size bite from the cookie. I’m going to make it last.
chapter sixty-nine
JESSICA
After Perry left, Jessica found an empty chair in the common and folded herself into it. She watched the crowd of visitors slowly thin. She missed him so much. Again. But today there was a certain sort of warmth at her core—something akin to peace, or contentment, or, this time, relief. When he’d asked to write the Blue River Stories, Perry had made the case that it was easier to tell the truth than to step all around it. He was right. Jessica felt like her long, awful secret had moved out. A much better feeling was filling the space.
This morning, she couldn’t have guessed she’d end up revealing the whole story to her boy—that amazing boy. But he’d pushed her into it. Oh, he was a brave info-digger. Now that he knew, he seemed to understand. Maybe she should credit his weird life at Blue River for preparing him. Perry, she thought, was an excellent student of human nature. How else could he have done the one thing she’d craved all these years—to have someone hold her and say, It wasn’t your fault. She caught a flood of hot tears in her fist and held onto them close to her chest. How badly she wanted to make a home on the outside for Perry.
At Jaime Rojas’s urging, Jessica had pressed again for information on her parole hearing. “They can’t put it off this long.” He’d said it purposefully. “They have thirty days to get it back on the calendar
after a postponement. They’ve gone too long on you. They have to at least grant you the hearing. After that you just have to hope. And I have plenty of hope for you, Jessica. This has to go your way.”
“But there’s VanLeer,” she’d said. She heard his name the way a hammer drives a spike—and not for the first time.
“Not today,” she told herself as she rose from the chair in the common. She determined not to let thoughts of Thomas VanLeer eat wormholes in her soul on this amazing, wrenching day. She climbed the stairs, paused just a second to look at the door to Perry’s old room. Then she air-swam all the way down the Block C corridor to her room.
chapter seventy
A QUESTION FROM VANLEER
The first week of November slides by quietly. The frostier days remind me that Mom was supposed to be out weeks ago. Things are standing still. I don’t know how to make them move. I keep my promise; I hold on to Mom’s secret.
On Sunday evening I walk into the chocolate-colored bedroom I am using in the VanLeer house with Zoey on my heels. When I see Mr. VanLeer standing there, I stop so fast Zoey bangs into my back.
“Umph!”
VanLeer turns quickly. He’s got the warden’s suitcase—my suitcase—wide open on the bed I never sleep in. My short stack of shirts is spilled out on the bed.
“Tom?” Zoey is advancing to have a look. “What are you doing? Whoa! Are you packing up Perry’s things? Are you unpacking them?”
“I . . . uh . . . no.” He folds his arms across his chest.
I know what he’s doing. He’s looking for something, and I’m scared cold that he may have found something else. I think of Mom. My breath turns shallow.
“Everything is okay here,” VanLeer says. He presses both palms out in front of him. His hands are empty. That’s good.
“But why are you in Perry’s stuff?” Zoey says.
VanLeer lets out a sigh through his nose. “Zoey, would you please leave us alone a minute? Perhaps longer, actually. Perry and I need to talk.”
“Why can’t I stay?”
“Zoey.” He says her name sternly.
“Okay, okay. Whatever.” She shows me wide eyes on her way out.
I head for the bed and my suitcase. I lift the stack of shirts back inside. I secretly brush my hand along the baggy inside pocket. I feel the watch. I close my eyes and breathe in relief.
Mr. VanLeer shuts the door behind Zoey. There are two small hard chairs in the room. He lifts them high and sets them facing each other. He motions for me to sit, and I do. He sits across from me.
He leans forward, out-turned elbows on his knees, and his hands clasped together. His face is in my face. Anybody would want to back away. I hold steady. I see him like I saw him when he was on the television, on Counting on Butler County with Desiree Riggs. I see the tiny pepper dots on his skin—the places where his whiskers grow from. I watch his upper lip. It shines.
“Perry,” he says, and I feel the pop of his breath on that letter P. It hits me right between the eyes. “Do you know why I’m in here? Do you know what I’m looking for?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “There is something missing from my office—an award that was on my wall.” He pulls at his chin with his hand. “I think you know the one.”
“The Spark Award.” I say it.
He nods. His eyes narrow. “Perry . . . did you take it? Because it’s okay if you did. This can be made right. I-I want you to know that I understand—”
“I didn’t take it,” I tell him.
I’m not going to listen to him tell me how much he understands me—how I grew up around bad influences at Blue River. I won’t let him talk dirt about the people I care about. I look him in the eyes. I see his whites and the few tiny red vessels that sit like little curls of red thread there.
“I moved it,” I say.
“Y-you moved it?”
“Yes.” I swallow and my ears pop. “I needed to know something. That was the only way I could find out.”
He tilts his head at me. “I don’t understand. How does stealing—or moving something—give you information? What do you think you found out?”
“That I can’t count on you.”
“What? Perry . . .”
“You said you’d look into my mom’s case.”
“Yes! Perry! That file is in my office right now.” He turns up his palms.
“I know it is. But your word is no good.” I don’t like saying it to him. “You said you’d look at it. But for three weeks now, you haven’t touched that box.”
“What? I-I absolutely have . . . done . . . that . . .” Mr. VanLeer draws his chin back so hard his chair squeaks. He opens his mouth, but no words come out.
“If you had looked at my mom’s file—inside the box in your office—you would have found your award,” I say. I watch one of his eyebrows tick upward just a little. “That’s where I put it. Three weeks ago.”
He lets out a noise—a huff or a gulp. He covers his mouth with his hand. Then he’s out of his chair and crossing to the door.
“I know you’re really busy,” I say. “But time is important to me. I couldn’t wait for you any more. I want to be with my mom. So I had to try to do something to help her.” I stand up and start to refold my clothes. “Check the box that says COOK,” I tell Mr. Thomas VanLeer. “I’m sure your Spark Award is still in there. You can hang it back on your wall.”
I fill the suitcase and pull it back into the closet. When I turn around, Mr. VanLeer is gone.
chapter seventy-one
A TIME AND A DATE
It happens at the end of a Blue River Tuesday. I’m packing up the book bins with Zoey and Mrs. Buckmueller and worrying that if Mom doesn’t come down in the next minute or two, I’m going to miss her. She’s running so late. All the residents are coming in to the common, even the ones who should have been in her meeting. They shake hands, show their gladness, and the sweet smell of wood shavings surrounds us.
“Perry! Hold up!” Mom waves from the balcony in the Upper East Lounge. She comes down the stairs so fast her feet barely touch down. “Hi! Hi!” Mom hugs me, then Zoey. She touches Mrs. B’s hands and begs her, “Can I have Perry for just a couple of minutes? Please! It’s important.”
“Of course. Perry is yours!”
Mom hurries me to a spot beside the window. We plop into the chairs with a little table between us. She reaches across and takes hold of my hands.
“The date came through,” she says. “My parole hearing is scheduled.”
“Wha—”
“I know. All of a sudden!” she says. “Well, all of a sudden after all this waiting.” She laughs and tugs at my hands. “I don’t know why, but it all jiggled loose.”
“Whoa, Mom! This is the best news! How soon?”
“It’s this Thursday, in the morning.”
“Thursday, the day after tomorrow? That Thursday?”
“Yes, yes! I couldn’t wait to tell you.” She takes a big breath now, and I see that she is hiding her worry behind the smile. “I’m hopeful, Perry. But I think we have to be prepared. We might not get the news we want. Because that dirtbag—sorry, District Attorney VanLeer—knows how to make a strong case for what he wants. He thinks it was wrong that I got to raise you here. And he wants to make a big loud point about it.”
“He wants someone to pay,” I mumble. I remember what Mr. Krensky said. “But he’s not the only one who gets to speak to the parole board, right? Warden Daugherty will be there?”
“And you, Perry.”
“Me? I can come?”
“Open to the public! Anyone can come.”
“But what if VanLeer says no? What if he won’t bring me?”
“I took care of that,” she says. “I just got off the phone with Robyn. She promised to bring you herself.”
“Her word is good,” I say. “Mom, you’re shaking.” I squeeze her hands.
“I can’t help it,” she says. “You know that not much scares me, Perry. But the unknowns do
.”
“Unknowns?”
“Like what VanLeer will say. And I’m terrified just thinking about the things I haven’t thought of!” She lets out a tiny laugh. She whispers, “Like . . . how after all these years, a long-forgotten swim watch is still out there . . .”
I shake my head no and give Mom a small smile. I let go of her hands, and I reach into my sleeve. I pull the watch out from under the elastic cuff.
Mom blinks when she sees it. “Oh . . . Perry . . .”
I slip the watch under her hand. She curls her fingers around it. “Sorry I didn’t tell you. I was trying to keep it safe. But you can keep it safer,” I say.
“I love you, Perry Cook.”
“I love you back.”
chapter seventy-two
ENHANCE!
On Wednesday afternoon I stand at the door to the video room at the library. I have been scheming. Now I have to get my guts up.
“Please,” I say, and Brian Morris looks back at me with a blank stare.
“Yeah, please,” says Zoey. She’s right behind me—my support person for all things difficult.
“I need to make a video,” I say. “I have some . . . pictures of old pictures to use. And words.” I rattle a piece of notebook paper in my hand. “I need to extract a couple of shots from videos like you did. And I’d like to do that voice-over thing.”
“What’s the project?” Brian asks.
“My mom’s story. Actually, it’s my story. Both.”
“But what are you going to do with it?”
It’s a fair question. Everybody knows the Coming to Butler County project is over with. I might as well tell him the truth. “I’m going to use it to get her out of jail.”
Brian’s eyes pop open.
“It’s true,” says Zoey.
“All right!” Brian Morris is so on board he’s falling over the furniture to get us set up. “Nothing like the power of video.” He says it officially, like he’s about to film the Desiree Riggs show.
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