Canary

by Duane Swierczynski

  Kevin makes a detour into a terminal men’s room to splash some cold water on his face and check on the condition of his eyes. They don’t call it a red-eye for nothing, but there’s plane red-eye and still-drunk-and-unfocused red-eye. Sarie and Marty know the difference. The cold water feels good on his skin, and the busy thrum of holiday travelers all around him is somehow reassuring. Life resumes. You’re going to be okay.

  As long as you maintain The Fiction, Mr. Holland.

  The Fiction is the defense mechanism he came up with over the summer. He knows it won’t work forever, but that doesn’t matter; it’s working okay now. A blend of his own counseling training and his imagination, The Fiction is a state of mind designed to help him deal with the awful new realities of his life one day at a time. Yeah, same basic thing he’s been telling his patients for years. Don’t think about never having a drink again for the rest of your life—that’s too much weight to carry. Just avoid taking a drink today. Don’t think about how you’ll never lose yourself in that high; just avoid sticking the needle in your arm today.

  The Fiction is: Don’t think about the fact that Laura is gone forever. That you’re never going to feel her fingertips running up and down your forearm, because she knows it relaxes you—she knows all the places that relax you. You’re never going to kiss someone whose lips taste like a blend of cinnamon and strawberries. That the intangible, wonderful, fragile, beautiful, difficult thing you shared can never be replicated, and was gone for good. That is too much for anyone to bear.

  So: She’s only gone today.

  According to The Fiction, Laura Gutierrez Holland is merely in Guadalajara taking care of her mother after hip surgery. She’ll be gone a few weeks, maybe a little more. She doesn’t call or email because the connections down there are so unreliable, but she’s thinking of him all the time, and she misses the kids so very much.

  It doesn’t matter that Kevin knows The Fiction is exactly that. Kevin’s never even met Laura’s mother, nor will he ever. He has no idea about the condition of the woman’s hips. And the real Laura would never go a day without hearing the voices of her children. She never could understand how Kevin could travel for days at a time and seem to be okay without hopping on the phone on a regular basis. Laura never traveled alone, and even if she did, she wouldn’t let many hours pass without hearing from her babies.

  So today is Thanksgiving and Laura isn’t here because she’s taking care of her mother in Guadalajara. They’re going to have a small meal together because they don’t do Thanksgiving in Mexico—Laura always thought the holiday was bizarre anyway.

  Sober up, Kevin, you’re on duty this holiday.

  Kevin exits the men’s room, pulling his roller bag behind him.

  Sarie pulls up to the crowded curb looking happy to see him. Behind the open trunk Kevin hugs his daughter tightly, hoping the five mints he chewed and the cold morning air are enough to mask the lovely eau de Daniels that he’s sure is oozing from his pores.

  “How was the party?” he asks.

  “You know, pretty much what I expected,” Sarie says. “How was San Diego?”

  “They kept me busy pretty much the entire time. Though I did manage to sneak off to the Gaslamp to walk around a little.”

  Kevin told his kids he was visiting his ex-colleagues at the retreat for a couple of days. Which was true. But he didn’t tell them he was up for a job at the retreat. And he wouldn’t—not until he was sure the job was his and the contracts were signed.

  “No La Jolla?” Sarie asks.

  “Why would I do that?” Kevin says sharply, and just like that, the awkward silence is back. La Jolla. Why did she bring that up? Of course to her it’s a happy memory; to Kevin, it’s a brutal reminder that The Fiction is Fiction. He does a forensic analysis in his head and realizes he may have snapped at his daughter. Fuck.

  “Did you end up driving Tammy home last night?” he asks, as Sarie merges onto I-95. Planes scream overhead. Everybody’s coming in for a landing on the busiest travel day of the year.

  “No. She didn’t show.”

  “Seriously? That whore!”

  Sarie giggles. “Yeah, well.”

  “So you were there alone?”

  “I knew some people from the triple, so that was fine. And before you ask, I limited myself to one can of beer, nursed lovingly over a period of four hours.”

  How much did you limit yourself to, Kevin?

  “I think you can handle more than one beer, Sarie. You could have had a little, I don’t know, fun?”

  “The beer wasn’t very good. Anyway, I don’t have any of the sides ready yet. And I didn’t start the stuffing, either. By the time I got home I was exhausted and just crashed and then I got up to pick you up and—”

  “Don’t worry. We’ve got all day. Seriously.”

  The Civic speeds past some of the most depressing vistas Philadelphia has to offer. Abandoned fields of industrial muck and a few struggling refineries. Burst of fire in the distance. Smoke. Weedy swamps and dump sites. Must be a shock to tourists when they land and hail a cab to the City of Brotherly Love and feel like they’re pulling into the set of Blade Runner.

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You told me to always tell you when something happens, no matter what, right? And you won’t freak out?”

  Kevin’s stomach sinks. Sure, he probably meant the words when he spoke them. Doesn’t mean he actually wants to hear the words that will follow. Instantly his mind sprints to dark places. Roofies, and grabby hands, and worse. He glances over at his daughter. She’s seemingly no worse for wear, no visible bruises. But Kevin knows that doesn’t mean anything, which takes him to an even darker place.

  “You can tell me anything.”

  The moments between that last word and the next are excruciatingly long, giving Kevin’s brain plenty of time to invent new awful scenarios.

  “Somebody was passing around a bong.”

  “And …?”

  Sarie turns for a second to lock eyes with her father. “And what?”

  “And how was it?”

  Sarie turns her attention back to the highway for a second to make sure the Civic isn’t about to slam into anything, then locks eyes again.

  “I didn’t try it, I swear, I sort of just … faked it and passed it down the line. Why would you think I’d try it?”

  “It’s okay, just asking. Watch the road.”

  “I swear, I didn’t know they’d have pot at the party.”

  “Seriously, it’s okay. And I appreciate you telling me.”

  “Why wouldn’t I tell you?”

  The implication being, I tell you everything, Daddy. And that makes Kevin more relieved than anyone could possibly know. Despite all they’ve lost this year, he hasn’t lost her.

  I’m almost to the Bridge Street exit when my heart starts buzzing. Takes me a second to realize it’s the super-secret snitch hotline—the phone Wildey gave me. Already? I know I have five minutes to respond, and it’s like a digital clock comes to life inside my brain. I’m not proud of this, Mom, but I play the only card we ladies have sometimes.

  —Uh, Dad …?

  —Yeah?

  —Sorry to do this, but I have to stop to use the bathroom.

  —We’ll be home in fifteen minutes. Can it wait?

  —It really can’t. You know. Girl stuff.

  —Oh. Okay. I really don’t know where we can—

  But I’ve already spotted it: off the highway, in the distance, the reassuring red glow of a Wawa sign. Dad told me you made fun of them when you first moved here from California—“Wha-what?” The rest of the country has 7-Elevens; we have Wawas. Hoagies, sodas, Tastykakes, all your Philly essentials. But most importantly: bathrooms. Doesn’t matter if this one is clean or not, because I’m not really going to be using it.

  The burner buzzes again. Problem is, I’m all the way over in the left-hand lane, and the exit’s coming up, and I’m going to have to pull so
me breakneck maneuvering right now.

  —Easy, Sarie …

  I check the rearview. Clear, but there’s a truck racing up the lane trying to close the gap. I slide into the right lane, then into the next right lane. Someone honks at me. Fuck you, you were nowhere near me.

  —Sarie!

  Then the far right lane, and then the exit ramp, which shares lanes with the on-ramp, with cars rushing up from the right, forcing cars to do this polite crisscross dance. I have no time to be polite. I signal and turn the wheel and there’s a huge chorus of horns to my back and right, so loud it’s as if they’re in the backseat …

  —Sarie, for fuck’s sake!

  But I hammer the accelerator and I’m all the way over now, and cars whiz past the Civic, and I see an old lady—seriously, she looks fucking ninety—giving me a bony, crooked finger as she passes. I gently press down on the brakes as I approach the light at Aramingo Avenue. Dad’s giving me this what-the-hell look. The phone buzzes again.

  With that screeching halt Kevin Holland has been slammed back into vivid sobriety; adrenaline has burned off the remaining booze buzz. His heart is slamming inside his chest, and all he can think of is Marty waking up at his friend’s house to the news that his sister and father both died in an accident on I-95. This is why he loses control. Or so he explains to himself in the moments after he yells at Sarie so loudly and borderline incoherently that she runs from the car and into the Wawa almost shaking. Forget The Fiction. He’s been slammed back into Fact. And the fact is, he can’t control himself. He can’t control anything anymore. He’s an asshole and a horrible father and he’s the only thing his kids have left. God took the wrong one.

  Transcription of text messages between Officer Benjamin F. Wildey and CI #137.

  WILDEY: You there

  WILDEY: Let me know

  WILDEY: You didn’t lose this phone already Honors Girl, did you

  WILDEY: Times almost up

  CI #137: I’m here!

  WILDEY: Hey

  WILDEY: Just wanted to make sure you got home okay

  CI #137: Had to p/u my dad

  WILDEY: ok

  WILDEY: where was he?

  CI #137: business trip

  CI #137: gotta go dad is waiting in the car

  CI #137: you still there?

  CI #137: is it okay if I go???

  CI #137: going now

  WILDEY: keep your phone close honors girl

  WILDEY: happy thanksgiving

  Wildey feels like a massive dick, doing this to a college girl. But Kaz is right—this is the only way she’s going to crack. She’s not like the other CIs he deals with. She doesn’t need to be courted or threatened. She just needs to feel the full-on pressure of that Monday morning deadline all weekend long. Kaz seems to think she’ll crack long before then. “Give her a good night’s sleep, she’ll come to her senses. No guy is worth throwing away your life for. Believe me.” Wildey hopes she’s right. He doesn’t want to keep this up all weekend long. Excuse me, Auntie M.—I need to go torment this little girl for a minute. Enjoy your turkey roll.

  Wildey drives his unmarked car back to Ninth Street and of course there’s a car squeezed into his former space. He pulls into another spot around the corner, then hustles back to the alleged Chuckie Morphine house. The air is freezing this morning, which is good. Nothing better to wake you up. He’s been up for what … a full day and a half now? He tells himself he’s just going to take a look, satisfy his curiosity, then head home for a few hours’ sleep before the family dinner.

  There are wooden shutters covering the first-floor window. The front door has a diamond of cloudy glass set in the upper middle, impossible to see through. Wildey walks around the block, counting houses as he goes. Around back there’s an alley, and he counts them down until he finds the right house. There’s a six-foot wooden fence, but the lock is simply a hook-and-eye latch, and Wildey uses a pen to unhook it and opens the fence door a few inches. The yard is overgrown but otherwise clean. No sign of lights or life up in the windows. Guess everyone’s sleeping it off after a big night of sales.

  Go home, Wildey. Get your rest.

  One minute, one minute.

  The D.A. in his head keeps after him.

  You got probable cause here, Officer Wildey?

  Probably, Mr. D.A.

  That’s no answer, Officer.

  Best you’re going to get.

  Because Wildey has to look. He’s already opened the door. It’d be a waste not to step inside. He creeps through the tall grass, keeping one eye on the back door and windows and the other on potential hazards in the yard. Stash guns, tripwire, dog shit.

  The back stairs are wooden and creaky. Wildey eases up them, scanning the other yards for curious neighbors. He always forgets he’s not in uniform, and a black man trespassing in a yard is the kind of thing that might get some jittery people in this neighborhood calling 911.

  The back door is solid, no windows, but the blinds are up a little in the back windows. Wildey holds the post, leans over, takes a look inside. The kitchen is stripped, empty. Remodeled and painted, but there is no fridge, no oven, just the places where the appliances would go. What the fuck was this? Did he count houses wrong? No. This was it. He sees through the front of the house, and there’s the same diamond-cut window in the door, the shutters closed. This house is empty. Then why were people coming and going all night last night? An open house? No. You don’t just duck into an open house for five minutes. Besides, college kids like Skinny Boy aren’t in the market to buy houses. There’s no real estate signage. This house is just a shell. Unless he somehow spooked them last night. Maybe Skinny Boy called and warned them, and they cleared out quick.

  Sorry, Honors Girl. You’re going to have to help me find them.

  I drive us home in silence. I know Dad feels like shit about yelling at me, and I know he has a point with that crazy exit I made, but I’ve been through the worst night of my life and the outburst from my dad is one thing too many. I pay attention to the road, coming to full stops at every stop sign, accelerating as gently as possible after every light. I avoid Roosevelt Boulevard—which is crazy enough even on a good day. I am the perfect driver, following the letter of the law.

  We pick up Marty, who’s still laughing about some shared joke with his friend. Dad and I try to fake it but we’re both still pissed and rattled and Marty notices it, too, so he lapses into confused silence. He wants to ask what’s wrong but knows better. There’s so much to do to get dinner ready, but I don’t want to deal with anything right now, so I go up to my room and slam the door and collapse on my bed, exactly where I should have been eight hours ago.

  Marty Holland’s mom is sort of buried in the basement.

  She thought burials were the most horrible thing ever and made Dad swear that, in the unlikely event of her death, her body would be cremated and not injected with chemicals and then locked in a box six feet below the surface of the earth. Dad would smile and deflect Mom’s death wish with statistics about how husbands usually died before their wives. But Dad turned out to be wrong.

  A month after the funeral her ashes had been spread near Coronado Island, one of her favorite places.

  What’s half-buried in the basement are Mom’s belongings, in a dozen plastic containers that have a harsh chemical smell. It clings to your hands even after a good washing or two. Dad couldn’t stomach the idea of throwing her stuff away, but he didn’t want to stare at it every day, either. So down into the family den/laundry room it went. The containers—purchased and packed by Dad in a frenzy one humid Sunday afternoon in early June—sat in the corner where a television and cable box might go.

  Marty started spending a lot of time down there after that. Cooler in the summer, sort of warm in the winter, with the space heater going. Dad leaves him alone, like he usually does. Sometimes he just needs to open a container and pull out one of his mom’s sweaters—she was always cold—just to make sure her scent is still there, and
not overwhelmed by the plastic smell. He knows that every time he opens a container a little more of her disappears. But Marty can’t help himself. It’s like he has to reassure himself that she was real, after all.

  For the millionth time, he wishes she were here now.

  Not just because it’s Thanksgiving. But because Mom was always the one who explained things to him. Not the case with Dad … or, now, Sarie. Ask Dad a question, almost any question, and you’ll most likely hear a brush-off. Don’t worry about it. Wasn’t talking to you, Marty. Nothing to do with you, Marty, don’t worry.

  Yeah. Don’t worry. Sure, Dad.

  Sarie used to be like Mom, the kind of older sister who didn’t (usually) think he was a jerk face and would take her time talking to him. Ever since she started college, though, she was acting more like Dad. Don’t worry, don’t worry. The constant refrain. Which is why Marty knows it’s useless to ask either one what happened between them this morning, because he would be told it was none of his business and not to worry about it. Something was clearly wrong, though. He’d have to figure it out for himself.