There’s no car in the driveway. Aunt Viv’s Prius still in the shop. Mom’s car gone for who knows how long. Our house looks under siege.
“What should we do next?” Gal asks.
“Drop me off at the front door,” I say. “Then go home.”
Mia turns. “No, Dills, we should —”
“Guys, thanks so much for doing all this for me. But I have a feeling it’s going to be super ugly when I walk in that door.”
“We can help.”
I shake my head. “I need to do this on my own.”
“Are you sure?”
“No. Not of anything anymore. But at least it’s just me facing the music.”
“For now,” Gal says.
Mia clicks her tongue behind her teeth. “Hey, come on.”
“He did not drive himself, yes?”
I ask, “Gal? Mia? Trust me, okay?”
They look at each other and nod, and Mia turns to look me right in the eye. I feel pinned down in the back seat by it. Her dark eyes boring into me. Unsettling and reassuring all at once. The strength of it. Bear. Tiger. Pick your apex animal.
“Call me as soon as you can.”
“I will.”
I pull out the burner and text Aunt Viv.
— we’re here r u home?
Her reply arrives almost before I’m finished typing.
— Yes
— unlock the front door i’m coming in
— Do you see the reporters?
— they’re all watching the side should give me an extra second or two
— Hopefully!
— lol right
I slide the phone into my pocket. “Okay. I’m ready.”
Gal puts the car in gear and accelerates the final distance, cutting a turn at the last second to stop at the curb closest to the front door, and I’m pulling the handle and stepping onto the sidewalk. Slamming the door. Slapping my hand on the roof to signal I’m clear. Watching Gal pull away. For a second, I can’t see the circus, but Walters looks around the corner of the house, recognizes me, and holds her phone out in front, shouting a question of some kind. I realize I haven’t moved from my spot. I dash up the stairs to the door. Walters’s questions are pebbles launched at my back as I reach for the door handle. The rest of the reporters are behind her.
“Wendell, why did you go?”
“Wendell, how does it feel to —”
“What next?”
“Did you talk to him?”
Aunt Viv has swung open the door and stands aside as I rush in. She closes it against the cacophony of voices, which fade to dull chatter through the heavy steel. I stumble into the living room and put my hands on my knees. Maybe ten steps in total and my heart is pounding, my breath as thin as if I’ve sprinted a mile or a klick or something far and uphill. The hardwood floor blurs.
“Dills. You’re home. Thank God.”
Mom’s voice. Mom’s firm hands on my arms, my shoulders, lifting me upright, moving to my face, my neck, my chest, my arms again, and back to my hands. Checking for damage. My eyes clear and she’s right in front of me, looking me up and down and at all points of my face, as though there’s no way to focus on one. Needing to take in all of me.
“Mom, I’m so —”
One of those hands gently covers my mouth. She’s shaking her head. That look is called “Don’t Say a Thing Right Now, Young Man.” I smell soap and skin and something rusty. Solder and flux, ground in. Committed hands. One keeping me from speaking, the other now rising up to embrace me, hard enough to steal some of the breath I’ve only just regained. Both are shaking. She’s shaking. My eyes fill. How close I’ve brought her to coming apart. Like I said, she feels everything.
“The phone,” she says, releasing me and stepping away. “The one Viv gave you.”
“What about it?”
She holds out a hand. The other wipes away a single tear on her cheek.
Aunt Viv takes a step toward us. “Vick, he should have the chance to —”
Mom turns toward her and silences her with a look that you’d say was expressionless if you didn’t see her eyes. I dig the burner out of my pocket and lay it in her hand. It’s still warm. She gives it a long, accusing look and turns away, her filthy workshop shirt — one of Jesse’s old Class A uniform ones, a faint green that can look white from a distance — flapping behind her as she disappears through the door that leads downstairs.
DIG
A short while later I walk up the stairs and into the living room. The noise outside has gone down. Reporters back to their places, back into siege mode. Gramma Jan has come down from her room and is sitting in the easy chair. She is pale and thin. And pissed. She’s watching the front door like she could shoot fire through it. Aunt Viv has seated herself on the couch and looks up as I enter. I shake my head. Mom won’t come out. She won’t speak to me. She locked the door to her workshop and fired up her grinder, making conversation impossible.
“She’ll be all right,” Aunt Viv says. “We just have to —”
“Give her time, yeah, I know,” I snap at her.
“Easy, Dills.”
“Why is everything about time? Seems like there’s either too much or not enough of it.”
“Maybe life’s biggest damn secret,” Gramma Jan says. “That and love. Regardless, you never get it back. Time, I mean. Maybe love, too.”
“That’s pretty dramatic, Mom,” Aunt Viv says.
Gramma Jan glares at her and points. “Sit in my chair for a few days, Vivian, then we’ll talk about what’s dramatic.”
“Okay. Sorry. It just felt extreme is all.”
Gramma Jan grunts and goes back to her burning study of the door. As soon as she’s sure Gramma Jan can no longer see her, Aunt Viv rolls her eyes. She doesn’t seem to care that I’m in the room. That I can see her. I get this glimpse of the teenager still inside. Apologies as a selfish kind of peacemaking. I sit at the other end of the couch and settle in for a wait. Wondering how and when the waiting could end.
“I imagine you don’t want to talk about it,” Aunt Viv says.
“About what?”
“The trip.”
I’m annoyed at the non-question. The kind of thing you say because you should, not because you want to. Half-hearted. Leading. Hard to turn around without an unnatural amount of force. Actually, I’d love to talk about it, Aunt Viv! Why don’t you put your feet up and let me tell you all the details! Meh.
“I want to talk to Mom first,” I say.
“That makes sense.”
“It was … eventful. I can say that.”
Gramma Jan snorts and stands up. Too quickly. She has to grab the back of the chair to steady herself. Her clothing — the family uniform of jeans and frayed T-shirt — hangs on her. An unsteady scarecrow. Her face is flushed and her eyes have narrowed. An unsteady and livid scarecrow.
“That’s it,” she says. “This ends now.”
Aunt Viv stands, too. “Mom?”
“Reporters chasing you all over like you’re some wounded specimen. Following you home. Goddamn vultures.”
“What’re you going to do?”
“I’m going out there. Beat them off with a broom if I have to.”
“I’d watch that press conference,” I say. Reaching for an inappropriate levity.
Aunt Viv gives me a look. Don’t encourage her, it says. She moves next to Gramma Jan as she reaches for the door handle and puts a hand on her mother’s hand. “Stop.”
“They can’t treat my family this way.”
“They’re following the story, Mom. They’ll go away if we ignore them.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. Not long. Surely this isn’t worth more than a news cycle.”
I don’t think she’s right, but I don’t say anything. Of all of us, Aunt Viv is by far the most media savvy, so surely she knows they’ll feed on this for at least a few days. The stepson of the Windsor Shooter making a pilgrimage to see his wasting father i
n a distant hospital? Caught on tape outside the room? Tracked home to where he and his mother have made a new, anonymous life? Rich material. It’s feast or famine in the news industry, and this is at least a holiday meal. They’ll gorge themselves to bursting and let the calories sustain them a while.
“I want them off my property.”
“They’ll go back to their spots on the road and sidewalk if no one goes out. Public property.”
“It’s still harassment. I should —”
“They’re not breaking any laws. And it won’t help, going out there, looking like —”
“Looking like what, Vivian?”
No response. Aunt Viv’s intentional dangler left in the air for Gramma Jan to grab on her own. Looking like an elderly, sick, crazy woman. While Mom and I cower inside. Gramma Jan’s outburst would be a delicious addition to the meal. The perfect side dish that gets praised as much as the main.
Gramma Jan frees her hand from Aunt Viv’s loose grasp and opens the door a crack. Immediately, reporters fire questions through the gap, a vertical slash of diminished light. Grey clouds instead of blue sky out there. I can see Walters’s bright red jacket and her blond hair. A few seconds pass, feeling like an eternity.
Gramma Jan closes the door and stands still, head down, one hand on the silver handle and the other against the doorjamb. When she turns back into the living room, she looks paler. Thinner. Defeated. She grabbed hold of what Aunt Viv didn’t say. Maybe it was the sight of the reporters. Maybe the noise. Whatever it was, the realization soaked her through. That the media would insist on learning more about her. They’d scoop and dig and do what they do. And they’d find her cancer as surely as the tests the doctors did a few weeks ago. She’d become part of the story. Part of the reality she was trying to banish. Part of that sickly potluck that was being assembled about my family. More calories.
NO APOLOGY
It’s evening now. Late. Dark outside. I’m in the kitchen, staring into the cupboards, hungry but not seeing or craving a thing. Aunt Viv leans against the counter. Mom’s still in her workshop, and Gramma Jan went to bed a while ago. In the end, I told them the story. It was bursting out of me anyway. Gramma Jan tried to stay awake, but lost more colour with every passing minute. Her body pulling its limited supply of blood back to its core to combat the pain and fatigue. She stopped me as I talked about Noor’s apartment, then said goodnight and eased her way upstairs. I watched Aunt Viv deflate as she watched her mother leave. She wondered out loud when they’d have to move Gramma Jan to the main floor. When the stairs would become too much. I didn’t say anything. It would need to happen soon. Way too goddamn soon, Gramma Jan would say.
“So you and Mia …?”
“I suppose.”
“I suppose?”
“It’s good. I like her.”
Aunt Viv smiles. “As your older and wiser and scary aunt, my official position is that you’re too young and that no one, of course, is good enough for you.”
“And unofficially?”
“I met her. She’s nice. I’m happy for you.”
I exhale. “I’m glad, Aunt Viv.”
“Just don’t rush it, okay?”
“I won’t.”
“Good.”
There’s a knock at the side door. Aunt Viv gives me a weary look and tells me to stay put and out of sight. She doesn’t have to. The last thing I want is to give some eager reporter a chance to stick his camera in the door to get a picture of me like they did at the hospital. I hear the whoosh of the door opening followed by a few seconds of silence. The murmur of low voices. More silence. Then the heavy clunk of the sticky door. Aunt Viv steps back into the living room.
“He’s in here,” she says over her shoulder.
Sean walks in, looking like hell. Untucked shirt. Hair sticking up. Unshaven. He’s removed his shoes, which Gramma Jan calls “a common-sense sign of respect,” but his brown socks look worn. And they’re sloppy, as if he’s too tired even to pull them up after removing his shoes. This all at a glance.
I stand up out of reflex. He waves me down again and kneels on the floor next to me. He tugs on the LoJack’s nylon strap, checking for extra give. For compromise. He pulls out a little black device from his pocket that looks like a beeper, holds it next to the ankle monitor, and pushes a button. Three green LEDs light up in sequence and the device in his hand emits three quiet and cheerful chimes. Satisfied, he stands and drops onto the couch next to me, tossing the device onto the coffee table.
“Okay, then,” he says by way of greeting. But he’s looking at Aunt Viv. Sad eyes. She’s still leaning against the doorframe separating the living room from the hallway, arms folded.
“Hi, Sean,” I say.
I don’t say any more, aware of the delicate balance of fact and fiction that we’ve built around this weekend. Something is obviously making him worry about the integrity of the LoJack, but I can’t guess what. Aunt Viv has been clear — there should be no anomalies in my movements to find. No digital trail.
And yet.
“So here’s a little story, yeah?” he says. “There’s this youth probation officer who procrastinates a lot, and sometimes has to use his Saturday mornings to get caught up on paperwork. Imagine him heading to a local café to take advantage of its excellent sausage biscuits, strong espresso, and free Wi-Fi, and imagine him ordering and sitting down. Imagine a TV on the wall, which he watches while he waits for his breakfast. And guess what he sees?”
Ah. I know where this is going.
Aunt Viv is obviously processing the same thing, studiously willing herself not to look at me. Like I’m willing myself not to look at her. But she does speak first. Maybe thinking that she can control the narrative. “What does he see?”
Sean laughs, quick and harsh. “Get this, Vivian, you’ll never believe it. He sees one of his clients on the news, caught on film at the hospital in Windsor. But the youth worker thinks That’s impossible! He’d have gotten an alarm if the client had left town. Some of his clients wear ankle monitors, yeah? So he checks his monitoring app, and guess what?”
Aunt Viv does not respond to this one.
Sean throws up his hands. “The app tells him that there’s no problem, that his client hasn’t gone anywhere except for a few short walking jaunts around the neighbourhood!” His voice has gone up a few levels. His eyes move between Aunt Viv and me, as narrow as toothpicks. “In two places at once! What do you make of that, guys?”
“Quite a story,” Aunt Viv says.
“Oh, it is,” Sean says. He snorts. “It really is.”
He sits back against the couch cushions, folds his arms, and falls silent. We hear footsteps on the stairs from the basement, and Mom steps into the hall. She waits while Aunt Viv, who’s still blocking the doorway, stands aside to let her in. Her eyes rest on Sean. I can see deeper shadows under her eyes. More exhaustion and weight to bear.
“Sean? What’s going on?”
He gives a quicker, less sarcastic version of the story. Same result for us. Silence. But Mom hasn’t been brought in, so she’s confused. “I don’t understand. Is there some malfunction?”
Sean points at the diagnostic device on the table. “I checked, and all’s well with the equipment.”
“So how can this happen?”
“That’s the mystery of it, isn’t it, Vivian?”
He’s glaring at her again. Mom follows the look.
“Why would she have anything to do with —”
She goes quiet, too. Everyone waits. Breaths are held. Mom looks her sister in the eye, pinning her down with a scrutiny I know can melt glass. Aunt Viv tries but can’t hold it. I get that feeling. You have to look away to protect your delicate insides. Mom exhales through her nostrils, an extended, low hiss of constricted air.
“You didn’t,” she says to Aunt Viv.
“Vick, there’s no need to —”
But there’s nowhere to go from there without admitting everything, so Aunt Viv stops
herself.
Sean is watching all of this intently. Very, very interested. And looking more and more pissed off by the millisecond. “You screwed me, Vivian.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.”
“I should report this.”
“You do what you need to do.”
“But you know that I can’t —”
“As I said —”
“Because what do I show the court, yeah? The digital record? Spotless. But then they say they’ve seen the news. Oh, right, that, I say. Well, I’ve been hacked. They say, Course you have, so let’s order an inquiry. I say, Great. Easy. Until they discover that I’ve been dating the hacker.”
“I’m not a hacker.”
“I can’t believe you did this to us, Vivian,” Mom says.
Aunt Viv winces but doesn’t respond. She glances over at me. Remember the plan, the look says.
Mom tries to get a response out of her again and again, but still Vivian doesn’t say anything. Sticking to her resolution that you can’t be incriminated by something that never gets said. She folds her arms again and simply looks at the floor through the onslaught. Sean occasionally pitches in or answers a question, but I can see he’s wrung out. Resigned. All he sees is a bleak, unemployed future. If not worse. He hasn’t done anything other than his job, but he still got led on and used, and he’ll live out the consequences.
Meanwhile the person who started it all fades away in a distant hospital bed. Jesse will never face a trial. He’ll never answer for what he’s done. I can’t get my head around that. He was all about accountability. I remember one time when I broke a spoke on my bike trying to tighten it. I heard somewhere that you have to keep them tight, not realizing that cheap kids’ bikes aren’t made that way. The spoke bent and popped out and I tried to ignore it, but a bike needs every spoke to work or it limps along on a warped rim that you can’t hide from anyone. “Stop,” Jesse said when I tried to worm my way out of it. “Don’t make it worse by lying. One, take responsibility. Two, fix what you’ve broken. It’s that simple. Clear as mud?” But there are some mistakes that can never be fixed. Sometimes what’s stolen can never be recovered.
Nothing but Life Page 18
