Crooked River: A Novel

by Valerie Geary

  Ollie and I sat between Zeb and Franny in the front seat of the truck, all of us squeezed together. They stopped to pick up a pizza and when they asked us what we wanted, I shrugged and said nothing because my stomach hurt. And Ollie shrugged and said nothing because she was still pretending to see ghosts. Zeb turned on the radio and asked what kind of music we liked listening to. I shrugged and said nothing. Ollie did the same. Franny turned off the radio and asked us if we wanted to talk about anything.

  “The service,” she said. “Your father’s arrest. Your mom?”

  I shook my head. Ollie slumped down in the seat and crossed her arms over her chest.

  We used to play this game on long car rides where we would both turn our faces away, pretending to look out our respective windows, and slowly, very slowly we’d start to turn inward again, toward each other. If we both turned at the same time, we’d both whip our faces back around to our windows. If one person was looking and the other person wasn’t, the looker would stare and stare until the person being looked at started to turn, then the looker would have to whip her head around fast, pretending she hadn’t been staring at all. We called it Look, Don’t Look, and the point was to not get caught, or maybe the point was just to make each other laugh.

  Ollie was always the first one to start laughing. Her shoulders would bounce up and down, and then she’d snort and giggle, gasping, “Stop it, Sammy. Stop!” And when I didn’t, when I made her laugh even harder, so hard tears rolled down her face, she’d clutch her stomach and say, “My seams! They’re splitting!” And then, if I still didn’t stop, she’d say, “Sammy! I’m going to pee my pants!” And after that we’d collapse into each other, arms and hands tangled, laughing and laughing until we’d forgotten what had been so funny in the first place.

  I stared at Ollie’s profile, her stretched-thin lips and tired eyes, so much weight, so much sadness. In this dim light, her hair looked gray, her skin see-through, like she was a tiny, old woman. I tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away from me, curled it in her lap instead. The last two miles back to Zeb and Franny’s house, no one said a single word.

  At the kitchen table, I picked the pieces of pepperoni off my slice of pizza and stacked them on the edge of my plate. Ollie kicked her feet against the chair rungs and started in on her third piece. She kept her eyes down, staring at the tablecloth.

  Franny was talking about how Pastor Mike should have decorated with lilies instead of roses tonight because roses were too festive and fit better at weddings and birthdays than memorial services.

  I picked up my slice of pizza, then set it down again without taking a bite.

  “Got something on your mind, Sam?” Zeb asked, cutting Franny off midsentence.

  She sniffed loudly, her only protest, and dug into her pizza with a knife and fork.

  I wiped my fingers on a napkin. “Are you going to sell the meadow?”

  Zeb snorted. “Where’d you hear a fool thing like that?”

  “Travis told me.” It seemed a good enough answer as any.

  Ollie stopped kicking her feet against the chair.

  Zeb said, “Boy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  Franny nodded in agreement.

  “You’re not going to sell it to Pastor Mike so he can build a new church?” I asked.

  Zeb wiped his mouth with a napkin, then cleared his throat and said, “Well now, a while back Pastor Mike came asking after that bit of property. Said he thought it would be a real nice place for a sanctuary, what with it so close to the river and looking out over all that green space. Offered me a fair bit of money for it, too. ’Course, I turned him down.”

  “Zeb,” Franny warned.

  He waved his napkin at her and continued, “Bear was here first, and he’s never once been late with his rent. Can’t turn a good man out for no reason. Plus, he and your mama—”

  “Zeb!” Franny said, giving him a hard look across the table and shaking her head.

  He bent over his plate and started eating again.

  “But now that Bear’s gone?” I pressed.

  Zeb shrugged. “He’s paid up through the end of September. Don’t see anything changing until then. And maybe not after, either.”

  Nobody spoke for a while after that.

  I ate a few bites, but my slice was cold and my stomach still hurt. I pushed my chair back from the table and left without asking to be excused.

  Franny called after me, but Zeb said, “Let her go, Mother.”

  A half hour later, he came and found me.

  I was out on the front porch swing, rocking slowly, my bare feet brushing across the worn-smooth boards.

  He leaned on the railing, crossed his arms over his chest, and said, “Something else bothering you?”

  I stared past his shoulder.

  The edges of the barn blurred in the deepening twilight. The gray ribbon road, threading between the fields and disappearing into the trees, was smudged charcoal. Taylor Bellweather had been dead for nine days. My mother for thirty-seven. Almost five days had passed since Bear’s arrest, four since I’d last gone to the meadow. I knew it was time to check on the new hive, make sure the bees were building their comb the right way and the queen was laying eggs. If there were problems and I didn’t catch them early enough, we could lose the whole colony. A thousand bees dead because I was too scared to do what needed to be done.

  I shifted my gaze to Zeb and said, “Did you know about Bear being in prison?”

  “He’s in jail,” Zeb said. “Not the same thing, kiddo.”

  “No, not now. Ten years ago. He was driving drunk, killed somebody. They sent him away for two years. Did you know about that?”

  Zeb cleared his throat and looked down at his feet.

  “Do you know what happened? In the accident?”

  He looked at me, and the weight of eighty years pressed down on his shoulders, making him collapse and sag, making him old. When he spoke, his words were sighs. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  I waited for him to continue, and when he didn’t, I asked, “Aren’t you going to tell me?”

  He pushed away from the railing, rubbed his bad hip, and went back inside the house. I stopped rocking but didn’t go after him.

  I stayed on the porch until the last drops of day bled into night, and the stars came out. I stayed until the square patch of yellow shining from Zeb and Franny’s bedroom window onto the grass disappeared. I stayed until dew began to form on my eyelashes and darkness squeezed so tight around me it got too hard to breathe.

  When I went inside, Zeb was sitting on the couch in the living room. Just sitting there in the dark. Silent and still. His hands were on his knees, and he stared straight ahead at nothing, even when the screen door squealed open and banged shut.

  I stood at the bottom of the staircase, watching him, and thought maybe he’d fallen asleep like that and maybe I should wake him and help him upstairs to bed. Then he turned his head. I couldn’t see his face or his eyes or mouth or anything, just the silhouette of an old man sitting alone.

  He said, “I’m taking you to see your daddy tomorrow. Seems to me you got a lot of questions and seems to me he’s the one who should be answering. Now get on upstairs and get some rest. Got a long day in front of us.”

  24

  ollie

  My sister’s voice drifts into the bedroom through the open window. Papa Zeb’s voice, too. But they are talking too low for me to hear all the words. Something about Bear. Something about an accident.

  And then they are quiet. The screen door opens and closes.

  I take the Ouija board from the top of the dresser and sit with it on the bed, stare at the door and wait.

  The one who follows me moves back and forth between the bed and the door. A swirling river of fire and light. She brushes my hand. I flinch, but I don’t pull away.


  We will spell out the truth for my sister. We will point her in the right direction. And finally she will see. She will understand.

  She will help us fix this.

  When the truth is told, the one from the river will leave and Bear will come home and we will be a family again. And the one who follows me will be happy seeing us together and safe.

  She will forgive me and go. Ready or not.

  The day before she died, Mom was making plans. She wanted us to move to the meadow to live with Bear. Me and her and Sam. All of us together.

  I heard her talking about it on the phone.

  I was supposed to be playing at Margo’s house, but Margo ate something that made her throw up and so I came home early and found Mom at the kitchen table with an architecture magazine spread open in front of her.

  She didn’t see me come in.

  “I think vaulted ceilings will make all the difference.” She listened to the other person for a minute and then said, “Yes, as much light as possible.” Another pause. “We’re thinking about leaving the floors unfinished. Just having all that bare wood under our feet,” she said and then smiled. “It’s going to be so beautiful. Bear is going to love it. And I think the girls really will too.”

  “Love what?” I said.

  Mom turned and frowned and said, “Heather? I have to go. Yes . . . Ollie . . . I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”

  She hung up the phone and patted the chair next to her. “Sit down.”

  She told me she was sorry she’d kept it a secret. There were so many details to work out, and she wanted to make sure it was really going to happen before she told us. She didn’t want to get our hopes up or make any promises she couldn’t keep.

  “But isn’t it exciting, sweetheart? All of us together again under one roof?”

  She waited, wanting so badly for me to want this too. But I didn’t.

  I ran to my bedroom and slammed the door shut.

  When she came to apologize and explain, when she reached out her arms to hug me, I pushed her away. I told her I hated the meadow and I hated Bear and I hated her.

  She said, “Sweetheart—”

  “Just leave me alone!”

  She reached for me one last time. “Please, Ollie. Try to understand—”

  I threw myself onto my bed and buried my face in the pillows.

  When she left my room, I thought about what it would be like if she were dead, how much easier my life would be.

  Five weeks, three days, exactly.

  And I wish I could take it all back.

  I wait a while, but no one comes up the stairs. I’m about to put away the Ouija board and try again later when the screen door opens and closes a second time.

  Voices murmur in the living room. The staircase creaks and sighs.

  My sister enters our room, looks at the box in my lap, looks at me, says, “Ollie, it’s time for bed,” and changes into her pajamas.

  I open the lid and spread the board out on top of the quilt. The one from the river spirals above me. Gray and white and blue and green and black, forming a ceiling hurricane.

  I tap the planchette on the board.

  My sister sits on the edge of her bed and says, “It’s late.”

  I tap the board a second time.

  “Put the game away, Ollie.”

  I point at the board and wiggle my eyebrows.

  She doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t smile. There are purple-gray shadows under her eyes.

  I put the board away. The one from the river sighs and sinks to the floor, curls into a cold, black ball at my sister’s feet.

  “You have to start talking to me,” my sister says.

  I sit across from her and stare at my hands.

  “You’re the only one I’ve got left, Oll.”

  I look up at the hitch in her voice. She’s crying.

  “You’re all I’ve got and I need you to talk to me again, okay?”

  I go and sit next to her.

  “Please?”

  The one who follows me drapes my sister in streamers of gold and silver, curls red ribbons around her hands and ankles, whispers love against her cheek.

  “Just try and say something, Oll. One word.”

  I reach for her hand, but she pulls it back and rolls onto her side away from me. She turns off the lamp beside her bed and we sit in the dark not moving, not speaking.

  I get up from her bed and go to my own.

  “You’re not the only one who misses her, you know,” my sister says. “But this whole not-talking, pretending-to-see-ghosts thing won’t bring her back. She’s gone, Ollie. We can’t have her back.”

  I lie under the covers and stare up at the ceiling where the one who follows me is dancing. A small flame, barely visible in the moonlight. She sings us a lullaby.

  25

  sam

  Zeb gave the man at the front desk our paperwork in exchange for badges to hang around our necks.

  “Don’t take these off until you leave,” he said. “Or we might mistake you for a prisoner and throw you in an empty cell.” He laughed at the joke. Zeb and I didn’t.

  We went through a metal detector and a man with a gun led us down a gray corridor through a gray door into a gray room crowded with people, waiting on chairs and benches, leaning up against the walls. No one paid us any attention.

  “Station three,” the guard said, pointing to the middle booth in a row of six that lined the far wall. “Wait your turn. When we bring him in, you just lift up the phone and you’ll be able to talk to each other. Twenty-five minutes is what you’re allowed, but if things get too rambunctious or we just don’t like the way you two are looking at each other, visit’s over. Okay?”

  I nodded.

  Zeb said, “Thank you.”

  The guard went out the same door we’d come in.

  There was someone at station three already, a young woman with purple hair. She was talking to a man on the other side of the glass who had a shaved head and lots of tattoos on his arms and neck. He saw me standing behind her waiting and grinned. His teeth flashed gold. I looked at the floor.

  Zeb put his hand on my shoulder and said, “How are you doing?”

  I shrugged.

  The purple-haired woman and her tattooed boyfriend talked for another few minutes. Then she hung up the phone and left, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a tissue. The man on the other side of the glass went back to his cell.

  I took my place on the stool facing the partition. Zeb patted my shoulder twice, then sat down on a bench somewhere behind me. I stared at the empty stool on the other side of the glass, stared and went over silently what I was planning to say to Bear. I know about the DUI. I know you went to prison. I know you killed someone, and I want to know who. I want to know why. I want to know about the drinking and everything that happened the night of the accident and after. I want to know where you were and what you were doing during those two missing years. I want to know why you and Mom kept it from me, why you never told. I want to know why you lied.

  A buzzer sounded, and the door of the inmate area opened. Bear entered and crossed to station three.

  His chin was dark with stubble. The bruise under his right eye was starting to heal, turning green and pale yellow around the edges, but still plum black in the center. The two scratches on his cheek were gone. He sat down on the stool and picked up the phone.

  I stared at him through the glass. My hands lay frozen in my lap.

  He pointed to the receiver. Then tapped the partition lightly. He mouthed, Pick up, and pointed to the receiver again.

  I lifted the phone from its cradle and pressed it hard against my ear. I could hear him breathing.

  “How are you?” He sounded tired and undone.

  “Fine.”

  “And
your sister?”

  “She’s fine, too.”

  “They told me you’re staying with Zeb and Franny? Until Grandma and Grandpa can come get you?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. That’s good.” He switched the phone to his other ear. “They’re good people.”

  I picked at the narrow shelf in front of me where the linoleum was starting to peel along the edge.

  Bear sighed.

  At another station, a woman laughed loudly. A man shouted, “To Denver. I told you this last time!”

  I pressed my hand to my ear and leaned closer to the glass.

  “You know, it won’t be so bad. Living with Grandma and Grandpa,” Bear said. He rested one arm on the shelf on his side of the partition. “Your mom said their condo’s big, plenty of room. There’s a park close by. And good schools. They love you and Ollie very much. You know, they might even let you have a dog.”

  “I don’t want a dog.”

  “A cat?”

  “I hate cats.”

  Bear sighed again, louder, longer, the smothering sound of a man who’s reached his end.

  And the words I had practiced, all the things I was going to say, jumbled and rattled to pieces. If I tried to say them now, out loud, if I tried to put them together again, they’d come out mangled and wrong, they’d make no sense.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again. I said, “It’s only temporary, right?”

  “What?”

  “This.” I waved my hand in the air at nothing, at everything. “You being in jail. Me and Ollie living with Grandma and Grandpa.”

  Bear rubbed his eyes. He said, “Sam . . .”

  “Because you’re going to get out of here. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I wish it were that easy.”

  “It is.”

  He shook his head.

  “Just tell them the truth.”

  “I did. They don’t believe me.”

  “Tell me, then.”

  “Tell you what?”

  I leaned close to the glass. “What happened with Taylor Bellweather?”

  “Nothing happened. Nothing. That’s the whole story.”