by Alice Ward
I’d bought a slightly used Volvo station wagon as a learning car. I understood they had the best safety rating, and while they were in training, the two would share it. An adult had to be on board, regardless. “Let’s go,” I said, and they yipped, running out to the car.
They tossed a coin and Mark won. He climbed behind the wheel, and Marga took the back seat. As I climbed in, I watched Mark go through the slow and a methodical check-off as though he was getting ready to fly a passenger airliner. He carefully adjusted his mirrors, fiddling forever with the side mirrors. His seat went forward, it went back. It rotated upward and then backward again. He looked at the gas gauge and checked his mirrors again.
“Enough already, Mark! We’ll never leave to drive at this pace.”
He flushed and jammed the key into the ignition, rotating it. He didn’t release immediately, and the vehicle starter chattered. “Let go as soon as you hear it catch,” I told him and knew immediately I was not the right person to conduct driver’s training. I just didn’t have the patience for it.
Mark finally got everything going and then counted the positions on the gear shift before finding “drive” and beginning to move forward. “Keep your foot on the brake until you’re in gear and ready to move!” I barked, exasperated. His hand was shaking by now, and I knew we were doomed as a team. I stole a glance at Marga in the rear seat and saw a look of triumphant satisfaction on her face. I figured she’d been practicing out on some country road with an older friend. She was wild enough to attempt it. I didn’t blame her; I’d done it too.
Mark finally started moving forward with a jerky gas pedal, and I told him to stay in the complex for this first time around. He didn’t argue, and I realized he was a very indecisive driver. Eventually, he got the hang of the brake versus the gas pedal, and the result was much smoother. A buzzer went off in the back seat, and Marga shouted, “My turn! Time’s up!” She had evidently set the alarm on her phone. Mark reluctantly pulled over and gave up his controls, swapping seats with her.
Marga, by comparison, whipped the seatbelt on and adjusted the mirrors in one smooth move. The ignition clicked on, and she was already looking over her shoulder and pulling onto the road before I knew what was happening. It was definitely the result of having done this before. She was a fast learner, but what I was seeing were practiced moves.
“Marga, slow down!” I barked as she took the curves in the development like an Indy track. She laughed wildly and squealed the tires through the next one. “Pull over!” I ordered her and even though she pouted, she did as I asked. “That’s enough of that, young lady,” I chided. “I know you think you’re smarter and much further ahead than your brother, but you need to exercise a little common sense. Somehow I don’t think this is the first time you’ve driven.”
She just grinned at me. How could I resist that contagious smile? “Alright, now pull back onto the road but this time, keep the speed down below twenty and drive like a little old lady coming home from church.”
She rolled her eyes but obliged. She knew she had to go along with my orders for now, but once she was on her own, look out.
When we finally pulled back up to the house, I got out and walked straight down to the barn. I turned to Carter, one of the senior hands. “You had any driving tickets or accidents in the last ten years?”
He looked surprised. “No, sir.”
“Good. Your new job is teaching my children to drive. I don’t have the patience.” I stalked off, leaving Carter looking after me with amazement. It was considered an act of great trust and importance to be assigned to look after one of the LaViere children. He swaggered a bit the rest of the afternoon and by the next day could be spotted with a driver’s manual in his hand. He was cramming. That was fine. He was taking his responsibilities very seriously.
The next day was Sunday so the family was at home. Lily and Auggie were in the kitchen finishing a cup as they discussed the upcoming week. In the distance, I heard car doors slam, and a moment later, there was a tap at the front door. Before I could stand from my chair, it opened, and Hawk walked in with Liane close behind him.
“Anyone home?” he called out, not seeing me sitting behind one of Auggie’s damn trees.
“Hello, Hawk,” I said. “Come in, both of you and sit down.” Mark was coming down the stairs, and I motioned him over. “Sit down and visit.”
Mark’s mouth opened in protest, but he quickly closed it and dutifully took his seat.
Auggie flew into the room and quickly introduced Lily to Hawk and Liane, her fingers twisting in front of her. Lily, sensing this was a family moment, took her leave.
Attempting to have some sort of normal family conversation, I blurted, “Well, it seems we have two student drivers in the house.” Right on cue, Marga came through the front door.
She stood a moment, looking at the gathering and then walked into the next room.
“Marga?” I called to her.
“Yeah?” She came back and looked at me, her head tilted in that cocky teenage way I despised.
“Don’t you think you could at least say hello?”
“Yeah, hi,” she said quickly and left again.
I looked at Auggie. “What’s up with her?” Auggie shrugged, and I decided to let it go for now. This entire thing felt awkward and tense. It felt like Hawk and Liane were company, and we were trying to make a good impression. It didn’t sit well with me. Not in the least.
Hawk must have felt it too because he took a stab at it. “So, Mark, how many ditches did you dig?” he asked, referring to his driving.
Mark looked at Hawk. There was almost a defiance in his expression; certainly one of distrust. I wondered at this. “None,” he said bluntly and fell silent.
Liane tried. “I didn’t get my license until I was eighteen. Dad was afraid I’d pick up strangers and give them a ride.” She smiled, and I knew she was referring to her big heart. Mark simply stared at her, as though she was unintelligible with her accent.
This angered Hawk. I knew it immediately. “Mark, Liane is to be my wife, and I expect you to treat her with respect.”
I closed my eyes. I knew it was the wrong thing to say, but it was too late. Liane jumped in, trying to make it better. “Oh, he’s just a bit shy,” she covered.
“I’m not shy,” Mark stated in a clear voice. He looked directly at Hawk. “I just don’t happen to trust you, and I don’t care whether you’re my brother or not. From what I’ve heard, you’re a psycho murderer, and we’re better off without you. No one asked you to come back.”
“Mark!” Auggie shouted, coming out of her chair. “Hawk is your brother and a member of this family. You will apologize immediately and then go to your room!”
Mark looked at Auggie with surprise. “You said yourself you didn’t know him anymore. Who changes their name? What’s he hiding? Or have you conveniently forgotten why you sent him away?” Mark dropped these bombs and then turned and took the stairs two at a time.
The silence in the room was suffocating, and Hawk stood. “Liane, I think we need to leave.”
“Hawk, no,” Auggie objected, but Hawk was pulling Liane, and they were already halfway to the door.
“It’s alright, Mother. I knew I should have stayed away. He’s right. Trust is important, and he’s not feeling it. I get that.” He opened the front door and slammed it behind them.
I looked at Auggie and saw the tears running down her face. “Why didn’t you do something?” she asked me, choking on the sobs. My mouth was hanging open in helplessness. “You just sat there and let Mark treat him like that. You didn’t stick up for him.” Auggie walked past me, and I tried to grab her arm, but she pulled it flat against her side, out of reach. She left the room and the bedroom door slammed as she retreated. She didn’t come down to dinner, and I saw Letty leave the kitchen with a tray in her hands. She didn’t look at me. It seemed I was in the dog house all the way around.
“Dad?” Marga was standing in the hallway.
“Yes?” I answered, grateful that someone was speaking to me.
“Can I go out with some friends for an hour or so?” she asked quickly, darting looks out the window as though someone would be pulling up to the house soon.
“Who?”
“Oh, just Bobby Fleener. You know his father. We’re just going for a ride.”
Every bone in my body cried out that she shouldn’t go.
“Be home in an hour,” I said, retreating into old habits. It was just simpler.
“Yes!” she squealed and was immediately out the door before I could possibly change my mind. I had no idea who Bobby Fleener was.
I walked upstairs and tried to go into our room, but the door was locked. With a sigh, I went into the guest room and laid down. I didn’t wake up until the next morning.
Auggie was at the table in the kitchen, her robe askew, a worried look on her face. “Marga never came home. Do you know where she went?”
The hair raised on the back of my neck. “Not really, she asked to go out with friends for an hour. She must have come home and gone out again, and you just didn’t see her.”
“She’s not been home, Worth. Her bed hasn’t been slept in. Her toothbrush is dry. My calls go straight to voicemail when I call. Where is she? Who did she go with?”
I was groggy and raked my brain for a name. “Bobby somebody.”
Auggie looked at me in total disgust. “Bobby somebody? You let our sixteen-year-old wildcat daughter run the roads all night with someone named Bobby somebody? What the hell kind of a parent are you?” she spat and left the room.
Disgusted with the entire situation, I grabbed my jacket and left for the office. At least there I was still respected.
I was thoughtful on my drive. I wasn’t worried about Marga. She was independent and could take care of herself. If something happened, I would have gotten a call. I made a note to check into this Bobby Fleener — I’d finally remembered his fucking last name. She said I knew his father.
I shrugged it off as soon as I arrived at the office, immersing myself in spreadsheets and forgot about the entire sour day.
Auggie, however, did not. I got hit as soon as I came through the door.
“Let me ask you a question, just for the hell of it,” she began.
“Okay,” I shrugged, oblivious.
“Is Marga home?” she asked.
I shrugged again. “I guess so.”
“You guess so?”
“Well, I assume if she hadn’t shown up, you would have called me at the office.”
“So you parent your children by assumption?”
“Well, all parents do to a certain extent. They have to unless they want to walk them on a leash. What’s this all about, Auggie? Why are you up my ass?”
“It’s so typical of you to only think of yourself and what you want, Worth. You’ve always been that way. As long as what you wanted included me, I didn’t notice I was being steered. But when it doesn’t, it becomes quite obvious.” Auggie was angrier than I could ever remember seeing her. She wasn’t screaming, but her deadly calm voice was far more lethal.
“What does that have to do with Marga?” I asked her, trying to keep her on one course of logic. She was blowing this out of proportion.
Auggie’s mouth distorted with resentful doubt. “Plenty! Number one, Marga didn’t come in until after ten o’clock this morning. Number two, she stank of booze and was slurring her speech — not to mention her clothes looked like she’d slept in them. And number three, there is no such person as Bobby somebody or the father you claim to know! I called some of her friends and none of them know of a Bobby of any last name.”
I saw black. It was an absolutely encompassing rage that I’d not felt since my father had beaten me for not filling a watering bucket, even when it was obvious by the wet soil that it had been kicked over — most likely by him. I was not angry with Marga. Teens were notorious for deceit. I was insanely furious that I’d been caught in this humiliation and in Auggie’s verbal trap.
“Are you rejoicing, Auggie?” I shouted. “You’ve been waiting for your moment, and now you have it! You’ve caught me when I had so much on my mind that I missed one detail, and you were waiting like a cat to pounce! Well, how does it feel, Caren?” I hurled at her, calling her by her mother’s name — a comparison intended to inflame her further.
She was smarter than me, however. “Feel better, Worth?” she asked in that calm, level voice. “You’ve been saving that little comparison for a long time, haven’t you? Now, rather than accept that you exercised poor judgement in your perpetual motion of self-aggrandizement, you behave just like you always have. You try to deflect it by attacking. Only it won’t work with me, Worth. I’ve been waiting for it. Yes, you’re right about that. I knew it would come eventually, but it wasn’t my trap. It was your own.”
Auggie turned her back to me and went upstairs. She didn’t slam the bedroom door. That would have invited argument and been childish. It would have positioned the argument between herself and me. This wasn’t about us. It was about me and my shortcomings, or so she saw them. She was quietly, completely shutting me out of her life.
A few minutes later, I quietly climbed the stairs and tapped on Marga’s door. When she didn’t answer, I opened it. She was on her bed, asleep, dressed in her clothes from the night before. Her arms and legs were splayed wide like she’d simply fallen face down and passed out. It felt all too familiar.
I closed her door, still angry and headed to the guest room where I slept the night before and sat on the edge of the bed. I needed a shower, a nap, and to think. Before I stood up, there was a knock at the door, and I assumed it would be Marga. “Come in,” I said sternly. It was Mark.
“Dad?”
I knew this was about to be another problem. “What is it?”
“Can I talk to you?” He could obviously tell I wasn’t in a great mood and surely had heard the shouting from downstairs.
“What is it, Mark?” I repeated impatiently.
He stepped through the doorway and nervously closed the door behind him. “Dad, I’m not sure how to say this, but I don’t like Hawk.”
I looked up, surprised at the turn of events. “You’ve made that abundantly clear. Where’s this coming from?”
“There’s something about him, Dad. He acts like he’s trying to bully me. Like he hates me, but he doesn’t even know me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve only known him a total of five seconds.”
“I’m not being ridiculous. It’s there. It’s a look in his eye. It’s like he thinks he is a hawk, just watching for the right moment to pounce.”
“Mark, it’s your imagination. Listen to yourself! You sound like a little girl. Be a man, son. He’s got problems — he always has. Just ignore it and leave me alone. I’m tired and need some space.”
Mark’s face fell and I felt momentary guilt at my callous words. But not enough to change them or say anything different. He was being ridiculous. The end.
He looked down as though he was thinking of something more to say, but changed his mind and nodded. He turned slowly, opened the door, and closed it as he left.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Auggie
I was living the curse.
The one all mothers wished on their errant daughters and went something like, “I hope when you grow up, your kids give you everything you’re giving me, twice over!”
I lived in constant terror every time the phone buzzed. Both of the twins had gotten their driver’s licenses. Worth and I had not resolved our argument the morning Marga came in late. He was brooding, and I was stubborn. To best me, he took the twins out and bought them each a brand new car of their choice.
Marga had, of course, chosen a snow white Mercedes convertible. Where we lived, most of the kids in high school had expensive automobiles in the school parking lot. It was symbolic to the affluence of the parent, not the child, and anyone who came from middle class hom
es looked impoverished by comparison.
Mark, the more reasonable of the two, chose a red pickup, and I knew he was a boy after my own heart. He was being practical, and I knew he would take over the farm for me when the time came. He never was one to care about status.
I sat Marga down for a conversation.
“We’re going to have a talk, young lady,” I began, and she was already rolling her eyes. That was the moment I realized the curse had come true. “Don’t look at me like that, Marga. I’ll take the car away.”
“You can’t. Dad put it in my name and paid the insurance for the next five years. Like it or not, Mom, you can’t do anything about it.”
“Don’t be so sure, young lady. Until you’re eighteen, I’m responsible for you, and if that means that you sit in the bedroom, and I feed you with a tray slid under the door, then that’s what I’ll do. Don’t push me on this, Marga. There isn’t anything you can think of that I haven’t already tried. Believe me.”
“Are you trying to impress me, Mom?”
I ignored her jibe. “Starting with that.”
She rolled her eyes again and threw herself down on the sofa with her shoes on to irritate me. I ignored that too. “You know, Marga, we can play this little game.”
“What game is that, Mom?”
“The one where you spend all your time trying to irritate me so I’ll give up and let you have your way. The only problem with that scheme is that you’ll soon discover you’re spending more time trying to aggravate me and getting punished than you are out with your friends having fun. It defeats the purpose. So, if you’re smart, and I think you are, you’ll hear me out on the rules, follow them, and we can live in peace in this household.”
She rolled her eyes again. “Okay, Mom, have it your way. What are the rules?”
“You ride in your car alone for the first year. No one rides with you who isn’t your parent or an adult who is in our employ. Second, you will never be gone for more than three hours without checking in with me here at the house first. Not your dad; we both know you have him twisted around your finger. Third, you don’t leave this county, and I have an app on your phone and mine to track you.”
