by Lisa Tucker
Lila had planned on sitting in the front, but the first empty place was five pews back. Patrick guided her into a spot and sat down next to her; they each flipped through the program guide celebrating the life and mourning the death of “husband, father, friend” William Cole. No mention of brother. A repeat of the “mistake” in the obituary Ashley submitted to the local paper, and another slap in the face for Lila.
She was fighting off hysteria by the time the service was over. The priest placed too much emphasis on God “forgiving brother Cole’s sins” and “giving the troubled man peace,” and far too little on celebrating Billy’s life, as if everyone there had already tried and convicted him of this ridiculous charge. What about the years he’d supported his family, working two jobs at times, neglecting his talent to take care of Ashley and the kids? What about the night he saved Lila from their stepfather? What about all the beautiful ideas that flowed from her brother’s brilliant mind?
She rushed out of the church and ran to her car, where she was still sobbing when Patrick joined her. He put his arms around her and asked if she wanted to ride in the limo behind the hearse, with the family.
“She doesn’t want me,” Lila sputtered.
“She suggested it,” he said. When Lila didn’t respond, he said, “What about the kids? You said you wanted to see them, remember?”
She nodded and managed to get out of the car without stumbling. She walked to the family limo where, true enough, Ashley had saved room for them. Ashley’s own mother was riding in the next car, along with all the other members of Ashley’s big, extended family except for her sister, Trish. Trish was sitting between Ashley and William, holding both of their hands. Maisie was next to William. Only fifteen-year-old Pearl was on the other side, and she managed to take Lila’s hand while her mother was weeping on Trish’s shoulder.
On the drive out, Lila’s eyes moved back and forth, from William to Maisie to Pearl, drinking in these children. She’d loved them all along, but now that love had turned fierce and protective, knowing they were all that was left of her brother. William looked quiet and stunned and much younger than his eight years. He’d been born prematurely and was still small for his age, and the thick glasses he’d worn since he was a toddler made him look especially vulnerable. He also looked a little neglected: his brown curls were a mess, as if nobody had thought to comb his hair for a while, and he’d missed a button on his white shirt. Pearl had obviously been crying for days; her blue eyes were as swollen as Lila’s own, but there was also a naked fury in those eyes, as though life had been supremely unfair to her—a teenage reaction, to be sure, but one with which Lila wholeheartedly sympathized. Only chubby little red-haired Maisie bore any resemblance to the child she’d been last summer, the last time Lila had seen them. She was humming some kids’ tune, blissfully unaware of the horrible series of events that had taken her father from her, probably even unaware that he was never coming back.
Lila hadn’t seen them for almost a year because Billy had kept putting off her visits, saying only that he and Ashley were having “problems.” Whenever she managed to get him on the phone, he sounded so weary and hopeless that she begged him to tell her what was going on, but he would only apologize for worrying her. Even in email, he ignored all her questions and concentrated on literature and politics and other topics that had nothing to do with his personal life. Of course Lila should have pushed harder to get through to him, but she’d always had a million excuses. She’d actually thought the paper she was writing was important, and her stupid proposal for a new class on the quest theme in American literature.
The last few emails to Billy had focused on that class. He’d said he was excited about it and suggested some novels she’d forgotten about. He hadn’t said a word about being separated from Ashley or losing visitation with his kids, at least not directly. The day after he died, when she’d re-read the emails, drinking shots of scotch, trying to get her grief to quiet down, she discovered all the clues she’d missed. It wasn’t the novels he proposed including, but the reasons he gave for why they belonged. The Scarlet Letter because, Billy wrote, “the deeper quests include betrayal, don’t you agree?” The Crying of Lot 49 because “our ability to break through the noise of our lives is gone and yet we continue the quest to speak.” The Portrait of a Lady because “Isabel Archer has realized the truth that she was always a pawn in someone else’s quest to have what she would have freely given, if only love had been a possibility.”
For years, Billy had been reading American literature in this bleak way, but so had Lila. So had everyone she knew, for that matter. By and large, the classic American novels were quite dark; yet as Billy always said, this actually proved that the writers of these books were “true romantics,” “incapable of detachment,” “despairing to the very degree that they believed in the potential of their young country and of humanity.” The literature of Europe, on the other hand, was both more sentimental and more cynical; for what was sentiment but a cynical lack of faith in the real emotions of life?
The fact that Billy saw all these books as fitting with the quest theme wasn’t unusual, either. He was right and Lila knew it, but she ended up leaving ninety percent of his suggestions off her proposed syllabus, though that was only because she knew her students would have enough trouble with more obvious quest books like Moby-Dick. The very idea of a quest was hard for most of her undergraduates.
The clue that something was wrong was the way Billy used the word “quest” in each and every one of his explanations. It was so unlike him to be that literal—how could Lila have missed this? Yes, she was busy, but that was no excuse. This was her brother, the person she knew best in all the world. And he’d told her a million times to pay attention to the language. Look for clues. “Life is an allegory, Lila. If you don’t read it correctly, you won’t see the meaning.” He snapped his fingers. “Bang, just like that, you lose.”
On the drive to the cemetery, Lila’s grief was horrible but intermittent, like waves of nausea, but when they walked across the wide lawn and she saw the deep hole in the ground intended for her brother, the pain was so sudden and terrible that it would have knocked her over if Patrick hadn’t been there, holding her up in his strong arms. Her husband told her later that the ceremony wasn’t very long, but it seemed as long as the rest of her life without Billy, and just as terrible. The strong sunlight was an insult; the manicured lawn and blooming trees were grotesque parodies of beauty; even the other people were strangers—and frightening. Only Billy’s children seemed real, but they were so far away from her, engulfed by Ashley and her family, in danger of being lost forever. Swallowed down the rabbit hole of Ashley’s false interpretation of reality. Eventually forgetting everything, even that their father had—
“He loved you.” She wasn’t aware that she was speaking the chant that was going through her mind. “He loved all of you.” She was looking at Pearl and William and Maisie, wishing this one truth would penetrate their very souls. “He loved you more than his life.”
At some point, she realized that they could hear her. Everyone could. Ashley had turned her face into her sister’s shoulder. William was visibly pale. Maisie put her fingers in her ears—meaning Lila was shouting? She was so dizzy suddenly, and it hit her that her nausea had become real.
She stumbled away and vomited at the base of a hickory tree. Somehow Patrick was there, holding her hair for her. Walking her over to a bench several feet away. Telling her to sit down and rest until the feeling passed.
Before he could sit down with her, she told him she was all right. “I just need a few minutes by myself,” she said, glancing up at him. “I’ll be back over in a little bit.”
If she’d been capable of feeling anything but her grief, she would have felt sorry for her husband as he walked away hesitantly, so clearly unsure how to behave in a situation like this. Her always reasonable husband, who Billy once described as “the last American: instinctively hardworking, unfailingly decent
, and blissfully naïve.” Lila would have defended Patrick if she hadn’t known that Billy meant this as high praise. Her brother always said that everyone was on a journey back to innocence. Billy would have said that Patrick’s journey was just shorter than theirs was, because they were in a more intricate plot of hidden evil and elusive redemption.
And now she was alone in this “evil and redemption” plot that she had never understood as well as Billy had. It was the only important thing she had ever kept from her twin. No matter how hard she tried, despite all her training, she would always be too stupid to understand the plot of her and her brother’s lives.
Her nausea was gone, but in its place was an emptiness so profound that it was a wonder she was breathing with nothing inside her: no stomach, no heart, no lungs, no air. She had no idea how long she’d been this way when she realized someone was next to her. She glanced over and saw Pearl, Billy’s first baby, whose name he’d chosen because she was his pearl of great price, costing him all he had.
“Those are pearls that were his eyes,” she mumbled, quoting the sprite Ariel from her favorite Shakespeare play, The Tempest. But it was true. Beautiful Pearl with the bright blue eyes, just like Billy’s.
“Aunt Lila? Are you okay?”
“Of course, honey.” Lila sat up straight. This was her chance to say something important. What was it she was supposed to say? That Billy loved them? She’d said that already. That their mother had killed their father? No, God, she would never hurt his children like that. She would never hurt his children, but wasn’t she hurting them if she took them from their mother? Why hadn’t that occurred to her before? But their mother was evil, wasn’t she?
“I can’t talk long,” Pearl said. She sounded so angry that Lila flinched, but then she noticed the girl was looking back over her shoulder. “She’s going to get pissed that I’m sitting here.”
“Your mom?”
“Who else? She hates you now. She told me when Dad left that he was crazy.”
“I’m sorry. She shouldn’t have said that to you. It wasn’t true. Your dad was brilliant and—”
“She thinks you’re crazy, too. I heard her tell Aunt Trish that Dad fucked up your mind completely.”
“I don’t think she really believes that.” Lila forced her voice to remain calm, soothing, adult. “Your dad and I were always really close and I think your mom was a little jeal—”
The girl jammed a folded-up piece of paper into Lila’s hand. Before Lila could even wonder what it was, Pearl stood up and disappeared.
It was a short note, obviously written in a teenage girl’s handwriting: big letters, lots of curly loops, and a large circular dot above each “i”:
I know what my mother did, but I can’t hate her for this. It’s not her fault that she lacks imagination. But I have to be strong and save my brother. He told me he wished he were dead. I’m really afraid he’ll kill himself if we don’t get out of here. I’m writing this because I have to do whatever it takes to make sure he’s all right. He needs me now so badly. I can’t ever be weak again.
CHAPTER FOUR
William was short for his age and in the dumb class at Chandler Elementary, but he wasn’t a baby. He knew his father hadn’t died of an accident, like his grandma said, or because his dad was “just confused,” like his mom said. No one would talk to William about what had really happened, but he didn’t need them to tell him that his dad had killed himself. He also knew that it was all his fault, for telling his mom about the Challenges. If only he hadn’t done that, his daddy would still be alive. The guilt made him wish he was dead, too, but the letter from Daddy said he mustn’t feel that way. “Please listen to me, William,” the letter said. “Promise me, buddy.”
William knew something that nobody else did and that made him feel older and bigger. It was his special secret—his father had left him a letter. William found it in their backyard, stuck inside the hollow part of the tree, same as all the other things his father had left for William since Daddy moved out of their house and into an apartment. Most of them were little notes, which Daddy called reminders. “Be a good boy today.” “Take care of your sisters.” “Don’t forget to do the exercises I gave you.” “Listen to your music.” “Don’t tell Mommy about the gun.”
Daddy also left quarters and peanut butter cups and other things William liked, like stickers of robots and toy cars. But the reminders were the most important, Daddy said. “Whatever happens, you have to remember those. That’s what a reminder is, something to help you remember.”
William hadn’t forgotten that he wasn’t supposed to tell anybody about the Challenges. That was the part that made him want to slap his own face, because he’d acted like such a baby and babies only learn by being slapped. Mommy said that’s why she slapped Maisie, because Maisie was too young to understand reasons. Daddy said slapping Maisie was wrong. Whenever Mommy did it, Daddy got mad and they yelled at each other so loud that Maisie cried harder than after the slap. When Daddy moved to an apartment, Pearl yelled that she hated Mommy and Mommy was a “barbarian,” just like Daddy always said.
But William loved Mommy, too, and he’d felt so comfortable when she was holding him on her lap, asking him what happened that weekend. He’d been with Daddy by himself ‘cause it was time for the next Challenge, which Daddy said he had to go through if he had any hope of protecting himself and his sisters when Mommy married her new friend, Kyle, who Daddy always called That Bastard. “It’s just like Cub Scouts,” Daddy said. “All you have to do is live in the woods for one day and then I’ll come and get you. Don’t be scared. Remember, you’re pretending you’re hiding out from a very bad guy. The woods are safe. Just keep your glasses on, that’s important. You’ll have a tent and enough food and all you have to do is stay put. Can you do that, buddy?”
William said yes, but he hadn’t even lasted an hour before he got scared. This kid in his third grade class said there were tigers and bears in those woods. He was more afraid of bears than of people, even bad guys. When he ran out of the tent, his only thought was to find Daddy and ask if they could do the Challenge from last week instead. He liked shooting the cans, even if it was loud and he missed a lot. He liked it because Daddy was right there next to him, saying stuff like, “Good try, buddy. I’m so proud of you.”
He ran and ran and he couldn’t find Daddy. His legs were about to give out when the sun got lower in the sky; then he tried to go back to where his tent was and he couldn’t find that place, either. He was sitting on the ground, shaking and crying, when a man and woman came up and asked if he was lost. They said they were hikers and the woman took a bottle of water from her backpack and gave it to him. Then he said he was lost and his daddy was so worried about him. He knew the last part was true ‘cause his daddy was always worried about him. That’s why Daddy came up with the Challenges, to keep him safe.
The hikers said they would help him find his father’s tent, but then they didn’t. They took him to the end of the woods and used their cell phone. A few minutes later, the police were there, but William wasn’t worried. He told them what Daddy had taught him to say: that he and his father had been camping and he’d wandered off. Now he couldn’t find his daddy. The police officers believed him and moved through the woods, using a loud horn thing until they found William’s father. Then Daddy was crying and hugging William and it was all okay.
Mommy didn’t believe it, though. She said she knew William wouldn’t wander off; he’d never wandered off in his life. She said, “You’re a good boy.” She was stroking the top of his arm, nuzzling his head like she used to do when he was little. He liked the feeling of being in her lap. He felt his eyes closing as she told him how good he’d always been, even as a baby. But then she said, “I know if your daddy told you to stay put, you’d stay put,” and he felt so guilty that he blurted out it wasn’t true. He only stayed put for a little while. When the stopwatch said 1:37, he ran out, looking for Daddy.
“But you stayed
put for an hour and thirty-seven minutes,” his mom said. She was still stroking his arm, but her fingers were sort of fast and jerky, like the way she put grease on a cake pan. “Where was your daddy all that time?”
When he didn’t answer, she hugged him and her touch was gentle again. “You were very brave to stay in the woods alone for almost two hours. You must have been so scared.”
He felt his eyes stinging. “There was nothin’ to be afraid of.”
“Did your dad tell you that?”
William nodded. “He said he wouldn’t have had me do the Challenge if there were tigers and bears in the woods.”
If only his mom had asked what William meant by Challenge, he would have known not to tell her. He hadn’t forgotten. He just was too dumb to realize that he was talking about it.
She asked how long he was supposed to stay there. He said, “For twelve hours. Daddy said he’d be back when the stopwatch said 12:00. It would be dark but not spooky dark, he said.”
“It sounds hard.” She kissed him on top of his head. “Were the other challenges all that hard?” She leaned her face around and smiled at him. “You must have been very brave to get through them, too!”
He smiled back. “I was brave. Daddy said I was the bravest kid ever.”
“What other cool things did you do?”
“I paddled a canoe across a lake.”
“Wow,” she said. “And you don’t even know how to swim!”
“I didn’t, but I learned a couple days later so I could jump off the cliff.”
“You jumped off a cliff?” She’d leaned back; he couldn’t see her face. But he heard her voice get screechy. “The cliff at Hamburg?”
“I don’t remember.” He put his hand over his mouth. His eyes were burning again. Why couldn’t he be smart like his big sister Pearl? He was so dumb for telling Mommy all this. He was such a baby for being so scared of the policeman who came to the house to ask William questions. If he hadn’t been afraid of the policeman, he would have kept his hand over his mouth instead of repeating the things he told Mommy.
