Deliver Her: A Novel

by Patricia Perry Donovan

  A final wrap-up call from his hotel tomorrow night would be the last time they’d speak.

  “If I make it that long,” she said.

  There was one more thing: the letter that Begin Again suggested parents write to their child, delivered during the transport when the child would be receptive to it. (Translation: when the teen settled down enough to read the letter without ripping it to shreds.)

  Meg’s hand fluttered to her throat. “I’m still working on that. I’ll have it tomorrow.”

  Carl hated to leave things until the last minute, but, like the father’s absence, this was out of his control. Anyway, the letter was for Alex, not him.

  Walking back to the rental, Carl felt his client’s eyes on him. He didn’t envy her, having to playact through the evening. He hoped, for all their sakes, the girl got home in time to green-light the transport. There was an awful lot riding on one sixteen-year-old’s whims.

  At the end of the Carmodys’ street, he stopped to let a young girl cross. She was bent under the weight of her backpack. In the split second Carl glimpsed her face, he could have sworn it was Alex. And that she was crying.

  Back at the hotel, Carl followed up with another transport shaping up for Sunday. A tight turnaround after the Carmody delivery, but doable. He had no choice.

  That family’s call started out like most others he’d received in his eighteen years of business—something like, “We’ve tried everything. We don’t know what to do anymore.”

  Clients were initially skeptical that Carl could succeed where they had failed, that a child who rejected all parental authority would respond rationally and cooperate with the transporter. The parents didn’t get that Carl lacked their emotional connection, that crazy genetic bond that triggers adolescent defiance and also tricks parents into believing that no matter how much has gone down, no matter how many empties, pipes or pills they discover and destroy, no matter how many heartfelt apologies they hear, that somehow this time really would be the last.

  He knew this because he’d been one of those kids, subjecting his parents to years of hell, bouncing from vo-tech to reform school (they didn’t sugarcoat it in those days) for being a wiseass. He worked odd construction jobs. On rainy days, the work crews sat around, drinking, smoking the occasional joint.

  It rained a lot. Somebody hatched the bright idea of hitting a convenience store. Like a moron, Carl agreed to drive the getaway car. Thought he’d be the hero. Except, when the store owner hit the alarm, they all ran, leaving him to take the rap.

  Lucky for him, he was under eighteen. After juvie, his record was expunged. But by then he had acquired a taste for the hard stuff, his friend Jack D, a habit rendering him unemployable. His sainted parents finally tossed him out when he was twenty-four. Eventually, when he ran out of couches to surf, he got sober.

  Sobriety led him to enlist in the armed forces, ultimately landing him with a military police company out of Fort Benning; its exploits fueled his adrenaline habit. During the intense final days of Operation Just Cause in Panama, Carl’s company defended the canal and democracy and fought to end drug trafficking—post-discharge duties as a stateside police officer paled against those heady adventures.

  But Carl grew restless and bored, and his ghosts resurfaced. Fired from the force, he messed around for a while before deciding to hit the AA rooms again, and hard.

  It took time to do it right. But once he had his blue chip marking six months of sobriety, he took everything he’d absorbed from the military and police duties and poured it into this business, his heart and soul. Begin Again Transport stepped in when families reached their limit—when that one thing put them over the edge: a missing check, the totaled car. When they wearied of sleeping with wallets and purses, keys slung around their necks like wardens.

  The realization, finally, that life had become completely and utterly unmanageable led them to Begin Again. A drill sergeant of Carl’s had once told him something—barked it at him, actually: What’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.

  These parents had their own breed of insanity: believing they had even one iota of control over their teenagers’ behavior. As soon as they surrendered this fantasy, they found their way to Carl.

  He was the answer to their prayers.

  MEG

  Meg was toweling Jack’s hair dry after his bath when Jacob called from the road to say good-night. She made her son answer, afraid she’d slip, that he’d hear something in her voice. After, she nibbled a nail while Jack chose a bedtime story.

  “Slow down, Mom.” Now that Jack was learning to read, she couldn’t fool him as easily. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow, bud. Finished, she tucked the sheets mummy-like around him the way he liked, then switched off his baseball lamp.

  “But I’m not tired.” Jack pulled his arms out from beneath the blankets.

  “You will be, as soon as you shut those eyes.”

  “Ms. Traynor said we have to get eight hours of sleep every night.” Jack’s teacher dispensed a great deal of advice, some of which Meg felt overstepped her bounds.

  “Ms. Traynor is very smart. Now, lights out.”

  “Where’s Alex?”

  “Out. Now stop stalling and get to sleep.”

  The sweet sound of Jack singing a lullaby she usually sang to him herself filtered through his closed door, igniting a flicker of guilt. One more day, Jack. Once Alex was away, she could devote more time to her son.

  Downstairs, she ignored unopened mail and unfolded laundry and collected the things she planned to pack in Alex’s bag. All week she’d pulled things piecemeal from her daughter’s floor, throwing them in with her own laundry, hoping Alex wouldn’t notice. She’d found herself buying the teen new underwear and socks, her usual pre-vacation ritual. “I must be in denial,” she’d told Melissa when they met at the diner the night before Jacob left for Vermont.

  Her sister was on board with sending Alex to The Birches, mostly. The one point they didn’t agree on—and it was major—was telling Jacob.

  “You can’t keep this from him. He’s her father,” Melissa had said as she blew on her clam chowder to cool it. “You always do this, Meg. Remember when you sold all the baby furniture on Craigslist without telling him?”

  “Jack was five. We knew we weren’t having any more kids.”

  “Still, you made things pretty official. Jacob was really upset.”

  “That was totally different. It was about stuff. And I told you, I tried to talk to him about the transport Sunday night. He blew me off—even after I showed him the pills. Like they meant nothing.”

  “Listen, I know how much he’s hurt you, but—”

  “You think I’m doing this to get back at him?” Meg cried. “I would never use my daughter that way.”

  “I know that. But what about later?” Melissa let her spoon fall into her soup. “Jacob could use this in the divorce.”

  Out loud, the word had stung. Meg still hadn’t told many people.

  “He’s the one abandoning us. He’ll probably be happier with Alex off somewhere in New Hampshire. One less kid to cramp his ‘single’ style.”

  “You know he’s devoted to them. Tell him, Meg. Before he leaves for Vermont.”

  “I can’t.” How could she convince her sister this wasn’t revenge? Meg swallowed. “He’ll thank me. I know he will.”

  “That might be a stretch. And there’s still Jack. He could try to take him from you. Use the ‘unfit mother’ thing.”

  “If an unfit mother does every imaginable thing to save her child, then I’m guilty.” Meg dropped her burger, no longer hungry. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  “Yours, of course,” Melissa had said softly. Picking up a small stainless pitcher of hot water, she poured it over her tea bag.

  It reminded Meg of her mother’s dented teapot and the set she hoped to hand down to Alex one day, as her mother had passed it on to her. She stared up at the d
iner ceiling, where tiny lights glittered in the stucco like constellations. “Don’t you think if I had any other option for getting Alex there, I would use it? You know what happened when I tried to talk to her about it. When you tried.”

  “I know,” Melissa sighed. Following the boardwalk debacle, Alex had curtly dismissed the idea of a road trip, as proposed by her godmother. It was an opportunity she would have embraced a year ago. “You think I don’t know how you two work?” Alex had snarled.

  “I’ll deal with the fallout from Jacob later,” Meg said. “I’m just so terrified something will happen to her if I don’t do something now.”

  Her sister reached across the table to clasp Meg’s hands. “It won’t. And now that I’ve said my piece . . .” Melissa slid a folded check across the table. “Put this toward the transport.”

  Meg slid it back. “I can’t take your money. I moved some stuff around . . .”

  “Please. Let me do this for my goddaughter.”

  Reluctantly, Meg pocketed the check. “OK, but I’m paying you back. With interest.”

  They had hugged good-bye in the diner parking lot, after Melissa agreed to come early the morning of the pickup to be with Jack.

  Going back upstairs with the things to pack in Alex’s bag, Meg realized gratefully that her son’s singing had finally ceased. She grabbed Alex’s duffel and carefully arranged the items inside, pausing every now and then to peer out the bedroom window, hoping to see her daughter returning home. There’d been a tense moment that afternoon, when Alex breezed in moments after Carl left. Meg had feared the plan was blown. But Alex seemed preoccupied, refusing dinner and pouring cereal instead. Later, Meg could tell by the way Alex bounded down the stairs she was headed out.

  “No homework?” Meg had called.

  The door had slammed without an answer. Meg hadn’t fought her. Let her have one last hurrah, she thought now, zipping Alex’s duffel shut and hiding it in the garage under some old shower curtains. She found herself thinking about Officer Murphy, the mother coming into her house tomorrow to take her child. Would she judge Meg for this? The mommy court could be brutal; Meg certainly had issued her fair share of judgments.

  Walk a mile in my shoes, Officer Murphy.

  CARL

  Meetings were like karaoke: some nights you played to a bigger crowd than others.

  Tonight, the two wings of Riverport’s one-story Presbyterian Church beckoned to Carl like open arms. Downstairs, in a dusty classroom festooned with felt Bible banners, the group was small. Step meetings didn’t draw a big crowd. He preferred them, mulling over what each step taught him about his own addiction and recovery.

  Tonight’s was Step Eight: amends. Amends were hard—brutal reparations of relationships shattered by poor choices. For Carl, these included his parents, an aunt whose pearls he pawned, a cousin whose graduation party was the launchpad for his first acid trip. Some forgave easily, some not at all.

  Like Diana, after that night at Grayson Lake. The two had been separated when the Kentucky crowd swallowed him; he came to in the litter-strewn parking lot the next morning to find her kneeling over him, crying in relief, only to rage at the discovery that he had lost the van keys and all their money.

  He lost her, too, that night—Diana, who set the bar for every woman afterward. So far, none had measured up. It took a special kind of partner to sustain things long-distance, to play second fiddle to his life’s work.

  Carl had grown to believe things were better this way, his work a protective shell. He loved women, but nothing could compromise his ability to respond to Begin Again’s next call. He lived alone and had liked it that way—until recently. Maybe it was all the strollers in his neighborhood or the brides in the bar, but he’d begun to crave companionship. It felt like something, someone, was missing.

  He had heard that Diana married a hometown guy, had a couple of kids, ran a graphic design firm. He kept track.

  In making amends, Carl wrote a lot of letters. Diana’s came back unopened.

  Begin Again Transport was one big amends to everyone he’d harmed. Especially Diana. Carl stood, the metal folding chair scraping the church floor:

  “My name is Carl, and I’m an alcoholic.”

  The meeting ended with the usual recitation. Beyond straightening the chairs, he never hung around after. Outside, he read an apologetic text from Murphy. Her daughter’s soccer game had gone into overtime. She was here now. Should they meet by the Sound?

  He saw her on Playland’s promenade, a slight figure waving, standing between two turquoise towers. To his right, mechanics clung to the ribs of the Dragon Coaster, tuning up the old-fashioned roller coaster before the pier reopened for the season. The fierce jaws of the red-eyed reptile gaped open, ready to consume its passengers at the ride’s end.

  Carl caught up with Murphy at the fountains in front of the Ice Casino. The rink was closing up for the night, exiting hockey players hobbling under the weight of equipment bags, sticks over their shoulders like shepherds’ crooks.

  Murphy leaned against the railing. “So, chief, we all set?”

  “Still waiting for the word from the mom that the kid got home tonight. Otherwise, we’re good.”

  Carl led Murphy to the Tiki Bar at the end of the pier. The place had some years on it. They took a table inside, watching the wind off the Sound ruffle plastic palms on the outdoor patio. A shivering waitress in shorts stumbled over reciting the Tiki specials. She seemed disappointed in their simple orders of sandwiches and sodas.

  While they waited for food, Carl sketched the layout of the Carmody house on a napkin. Murphy had read Alex’s entire file and bought the snacks and drinks Meg specified. There wasn’t much more to cover.

  Over Carl’s head, Murphy glanced up at the activity in the bar and laughed. “Ah, I get it,” she smiled. “Sandwich and a song.”

  He turned and shrugged. “You know me well enough by now.”

  The machine was set up onstage, a few names already in the queue. Carl got up to add his to the list. A few songs in, when they had nearly finished their meals, the overzealous emcee called his name, teasing out the song’s opening chords. Murphy dropped her napkin into her lap with a flourish. “You’re on, Carl. I just wish your clients could see you now.”

  “Might be bad for business,” he laughed. On his way to the makeshift stage, he passed a waiter, who offered a fist. “‘Oceanus.’ The B side. Cool, dude.” Carl obliged the employee, then grabbed the microphone to serenade a crowd in which the Tiki Bar staff outnumbered patrons:

  Oh mighty river from which all tears flow; this libation of suppliant prayer.

  Show us your pearls, buried treasures, your secrets; reveal what truths linger there.

  ALEX

  “Come on, Al. You owe me.”

  Evan was beyond desperate on the chaise longue next to Alex, pleading. They were hanging in his grandparents’ garage for the last time before the pair returned from Florida. Snowbirds returning to the nest, he had texted earlier. Tonight’s crew included the spray-tanned Larke—the same Larke who had torpedoed Alex’s house party.

  Evan had come through Saturday night, picking her up at the cemetery around midnight—creeped out that she’d stayed there alone, like Shana had been. Alex hadn’t bothered explaining to him that once she’d grown accustomed to the dark and the silence, it felt kind of peaceful—the kind of quirky, out-of-your-comfort-zone thing she and Cass would have done together. With Cass, she somehow ended up doing things she never would have imagined. Cass had a way of making everything irresistible.

  Like marine-science camp the summer before eighth grade. Standing next to Cass on the promenade reading the sign-up sheet, Alex had wrinkled her nose at the suggestion. “Yuck. Too much work. Can’t we just hang on the beach?”

  “It’ll be cool. Look. It says real marine biologists teach it.”

  “So what.” Alex eyed Cass over her sunglasses.

  “Last year’s teacher was really hot. My cousin
told me.”

  “OK, but don’t you realize we’ll probably be the only eighth graders?”

  “Yes. Which means we get to drive the boat the last day of class.”

  “What boat?”

  “The one they borrow from the college. It has a glass bottom, so we can see all the cool stuff in the water.” Cass dug in her bag for a pen. “Do what you want, Alex Carmody, but I’m signing up.”

  And so, as usual where Cass was concerned, Alex caved. Also as usual, she was glad she had. The soft summer mornings flew as the girls worked ankle-deep at the shoreline, drawing water samples and matching real plants and animal life to images on the gigantic chart leaning against the lifeguard’s chair—like assembling a huge puzzle. Who knew this exotic ecosystem even existed? Alex became obsessed with the study of tides, the seining, the sieves—she couldn’t get enough of those mesh-bottomed pans, the marine biologist’s best friend, her sifting through all the junk to get to nature’s heart.

  Alex loved all of it, especially their exhilarating final day. Having each helmed the promised speedboat as it skimmed over the Sound, they sat and dangled their legs above the six-paneled clear bottom showcasing the aquatic universe below. After, eating ice cream on the promenade, Alex crammed the tip of the cone into her mouth. “By the way, I decided. I’m going to be a marine biologist,” she announced.

  Cass slapped Alex’s thigh. “Go for it, girl.”

  “What about you?”

  “That, my friend, is up to the stars. Maybe I should ask Zoltar,” she joked, jerking her thumb behind her. Even though parts of Big were filmed on this very promenade, the locals knew that the arcade fortune-teller was a figment of Hollywood’s imagination, that a rusty soda machine that randomly ate their dollars stood in Zoltar’s place.

  Even without Zoltar, Cass would figure it out. They had all the time in the world, Alex had thought, back on that carefree summer afternoon.