The Fragile World

by Paula Treick DeBoard

  “Liv? Are you up?” Dad called through the door.

  “Yeah.”

  “Feeling better this morning?”

  “Fine,” I said, and sat on the bed to think.

  If Dad had a gun, it was in the bathroom with him now, and he would be carrying it underneath his clothes when he came out. If Dad didn’t have a gun, I was an idiot. It wasn’t hard to believe in my own stupidity, and I wanted to, more than anything, but somehow, our conversation yesterday hadn’t completely reassured me. Dad had done it again—looked straight at me without seeing me at all; said one thing while his mind seemed to be moving in a completely different direction.

  Since Sam had held out his hand yesterday afternoon and I’d seen the bullet, my mind had been whirling. I wasn’t any kind of mental health expert, and a few sessions with a family therapist didn’t qualify me to be a crisis counselor, either. After our search of the motel room, Sam suggested I come right out and ask Dad about the bullets. I’d turned the question over in my mind that afternoon as Dad and I watched TV, but couldn’t bring myself to ask. I was fairly sure he would lie, feigning surprise, becoming defensive. And where would that get me? On the other hand, I wasn’t sure I could face the truth.

  But I knew what I had to do, had known it since the second I rounded the corner of the administration wing at Rio and saw my father on the cafeteria roof. I had to come clean to Mom. I had to tell her the whole sorry mess. I should have told her on the phone, when I’d announced we were coming to see her in Omaha, or during any of our quick conversations since, when I’d done nothing more than update her about the weather and mileage and things I’d seen along the road, like circling vultures and shredded remains of tires from eighteen-wheelers. It had seemed unfair, an awful thing to dump Dad’s craziness on her when she was too far away to do anything about it. One more day, I promised myself. I would spill it all to her the second we pulled into her driveway in Omaha.

  Just then, Dad emerged from the bathroom, looking fully rested and relentlessly chipper. “Let’s get this show on the road,” he said, slapping his hands together. The sound felt too loud for our little motel room, as if he’d miscalculated the volume. I noticed that he was wearing the same hooded sweatshirt as yesterday, its hem hanging low over his pants.

  At breakfast, Betha Caldwell pressed her palm against my forehead, checking for fever, and I missed my own mother all over again with an intense, almost physical ache. Soon.

  Because Dad was hoping to get on the road as soon as possible, Betha gave us a ride to J & E Automotive, and by nine-thirty, our suitcases and backpacks and extra shoes and books were heaped haphazardly on the sidewalk in front of the shop, waiting to be stowed in the Explorer. While Dad went inside to check on the progress, I plopped myself down on the cement next to our belongings, aware that to any passerby our junk probably looked like a homeless camp, missing only the shelter of a giant cardboard box.

  Surprisingly, Sam wasn’t sitting outside the store, and his roadside stand wasn’t there, either. The folding tables were leaning upright against a fence on the side of the J & E Automotive property, and the chairs were there, too—but there was no sign of his snow globes depicting their miniaturized scenes of horror. Had he come back here yesterday afternoon, after our failed search of the motel room, and packed up for good? Or was he waiting until I was on the road again, out of his sight and mind, before he resumed business as usual?

  It had only been two days, but I was already taking Sam’s presence for granted. This was where he always was, and this was what he always did. At any minute, Sam’s stepdad was going to announce that the Explorer was good to go, and that would be the end of Sam Ellis and me, if there had been a Sam Ellis and me to begin with.

  I hadn’t even thanked him, I realized—not for taking me out to see the stars or exchanging stories of our worst things. I hadn’t thanked him for standing on top of my bed in his socks, unscrewing the overhead vent with a handy little tool on his Swiss army knife. I’d protested that my father really wasn’t that savvy—I was pretty sure he didn’t have his own multi-tool, anyway—but I’d felt relieved when Sam’s searching had produced nothing except a small shower of dust bunnies. I hadn’t even said a decent goodbye after Dad had barged wild-eyed into the motel room, looking as if he might strangle Sam, and me, too. At least Sam’s shoes had been back on his feet by then, so Dad hadn’t been able to collect evidence to support his wrong conclusion.

  The office door swung open, and Dad came out.

  I tried not to sound as if our car being fixed would be the end of the world. “The Explorer’s ready?”

  “Not yet. Within the hour, they said. I’m going to grab some coffee. You in?”

  I shook my head. If Sam Ellis came by, I wanted him to see me here, waiting for him. “I’m saving room for forty-four ounces of sugar and cancer-causing additives once we’re on the road.”

  Dad patted the top of my hoodie affectionately as if I were a small dog and crossed the street. I was leaning back against my suitcase, staring after him when Sam said softly, “Hey.”

  I whirled around to find him a foot from me. “Sneak up on me, why don’t you?”

  Instead of saying anything, Sam crouched down beside me and grabbed my hands. Actually, he grabbed at the outline of my hands, which were tucked up into my sleeves. Even though our actual skin was separated by a thick layer of fabric, I swear I could still feel the warmth of him coming through.

  “Where did you come from?” I demanded.

  He jerked his head in the direction of the shop. “Inside. I’ve been helping out with your car.”

  “I tried to ask him, but I couldn’t,” I whispered. “What am I going to do?”

  He smiled shyly, as if we’d just met. Except when we’d met, he hadn’t actually been shy at all. “I figured you weren’t going to say anything, so this morning I took care of it for you.”

  “What do you mean? You took care of what?”

  He sank down next to me, reached into the pocket of his jeans, and held out five bullets in his cupped palm.

  I leaned away from him, feeling sick at the sight. “You just took them out?”

  “Yep. All of them.”

  Panic was rising in me again, like water in a backed-up sink. “But what if he notices? What if we get on the road and he feels around under his seat and they aren’t there? What am I supposed to say then?”

  Sam smiled his smile that wasn’t all the way even, but a little crooked, so that his lips met in two not exactly parallel lines. “Well, I replaced them with something else. So if he just feels around down there...”

  “He’ll think the bullets are still there.”

  “Right.”

  “What did you replace them with?”

  “Some AAA batteries.”

  I let out a snort of laughter. “Oh, wow. That shouldn’t be funny. But it is.”

  “They’re about the same size, and it might work.”

  “Yeah.” Relief had flooded through me, and something else—gratitude. A warm, happy flush snuck up my face. “It might.”

  “But you’re going to tell your mom everything, right?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “And you’re sure you’re going to be okay until then, between here and Omaha?”

  I slid my hands out of my sleeves and locked fingers with Sam. His hands reminded me a bit of my mom’s, gently calloused, hands that knew how to make intricate pieces of art, or take the cover off a heating vent, or help with an oil change. “My dad isn’t going to hurt me. He wouldn’t ever.”

  He gave me that crooked smile again, and I leaned close to him, so close that I was pretty sure the heart I heard beating wasn’t my own. “Sam Ellis. Do you know what I’m going to do right now?”

  “You’re going to kiss me,” he said.

  And he was
right.

  curtis

  An hour later, I had almost used up the credit on my Visa, and the Explorer was ready to go. Jerrod Ellis backed it to the curb, and I loaded up the trunk. With Olivia conveniently distracted—I tried not to flinch too hard when I saw her kissing Sam—I eased the revolver from my waistband, wadded it in a T-shirt and tucked it back into the spare tire well. I felt an immediate, almost physical relief. We were back in business. Olivia and Sam moved slowly toward the car, their arms wrapped around each other’s waists. It struck me that they were exactly the same size, like matching chess pieces.

  I cleared my throat pointedly. “Ready?”

  Sam held out the hand that wasn’t hugging Olivia and said, “It was very nice meeting you, sir.” The same grin was mirrored on Olivia’s face. They were happy. I felt a little rush inside my head. How strange—I had completely discounted the possibility of happiness.

  “Likewise,” I said, returning Sam’s firm grasp.

  Olivia was beaming, her cheeks burning red through a fine layer of pale powder. “We’re going to see Sam again in what, a week? Two?”

  I stared at her, not understanding.

  “On our way back home, right? We could swing through Lyman, couldn’t we?”

  Oh, shit. Not only was I going to break Olivia’s heart, but I was going to crush poor Sam Ellis, too. Add that to my list of wrongs in the universe—not protecting my family from tragedy, not being there for Daniel when he lay on the sidewalk, his heart beating for the last time, not being the husband Kathleen needed and, of course, deserved. And now this. I was simply dragging my misery eastward, scattering bits of it along the interstate.

  “Dad?” Olivia’s smile had faded. “We’ll be coming home this way, won’t we?”

  I needed to get to Oberlin fast, like yesterday. I needed to be out of Olivia’s life before I could hurt her any more. “Of course,” I said, with a little shrug. “But maybe you should exchange addresses just to be safe.”

  Olivia rolled her eyes. “Maybe we could send each other telegrams while we’re at it.”

  Sam leaned his head against Olivia’s. “I’m making her something. It’s a surprise.”

  Olivia smiled. “You are?”

  “Yeah. It might take a while, though. I’ll have to send it to you when you get home.”

  Home, I thought.

  Olivia’s nose brushed Sam’s, reminding me of the penguin kisses she used to give each night after her bath, when her hair was still tangled and she was wrapped only in a towel. Daddy! she would shriek. I’m all wet! But the Olivia standing in front of me was a woman—a girl who could soon be independent, who was in the process of becoming the person she was.

  “Okay, then,” I boomed, clapping Sam on the shoulder. I rounded the Explorer and climbed inside. Sam and Olivia separated like taffy pulling apart. My legs felt cramped, and I reached down, adjusting the driver’s seat. With a quick glance to make sure they weren’t watching, I ran my hand along the underside of the seat. Everything was intact—the duct tape, the bullets—and I withdrew my hand quickly.

  Olivia buckled herself in and rolled down the window for a last goodbye.

  “Remember your promise,” Sam said, and Olivia nodded.

  Promise? We needed to leave before Olivia and Sam became engaged. I adjusted the visor, squinting into a hearty sunlight. The day was getting away from us. When I backed out of the parking lot—the Explorer revving harder than I’d intended—Olivia waved her hand out the window. In the rearview mirror I saw Sam raise a single hand and hold it over his head in a solemn goodbye.

  And we were on the road. The Explorer moved along smoothly, rejuvenated—no odd starts, no sudden acceleration. I gave it more gas, pushing the speedometer to eighty, thinking of lost time, the long, open stretch of road in front of us. Olivia didn’t comment on the speed, which meant she hadn’t noticed. Her face was averted from me, but I could see her reflection in the dusty window. If I hadn’t known it was Olivia in the passenger seat, I wouldn’t have believed it. That girl wasn’t my moody, brooding, darkly funny daughter. That girl was smiling. That girl was grinning like a fool.

  “So,” I said, breaking a twenty-mile silence. “If we push through, we could be in Omaha late tonight.”

  “Really?”

  “About eleven hours, give or take stopping time. What do you say?”

  She was still smiling, her face open and happy. “I say drive, Kemosabe.”

  I chuckled, enjoying the small release from the tension welling inside me. Robert Saenz was back in my sights, and my whole body felt sharp and alert as a nerve ending.

  “So,” Olivia said. “Lyman, Wyoming. Who knew?”

  “Not me.”

  I could hear the smile in Olivia’s voice as she said, “Love.”

  I turned to her sharply. “What?”

  “Love,” she repeated.

  It took me a long moment, during which my mind probed for the kinds of words used by therapists on TV talk shows: get to know a person before you commit...don’t jump into things too quickly...

  Olivia was looking at me, an eyebrow raised significantly.

  “Oh! Um...electrostatic.”

  “Canyon,” she countered.

  “Necrosis.”

  She pulled a face. “Scrambling.”

  “Ghoul.”

  “Labyrinthine.”

  I gave her a small salute. “Not bad. Been reading a dictionary again, have you?”

  She laughed, turning again to look out the window.

  The sky was an endless blue, so large overhead that even the distant rocks and ridges, enormous up close, looked inconsequential as anthills.

  This, I thought. Even at the end of it all, we’ll have this one happy moment.

  olivia

  It was ridiculous how happy I felt. Twenty-four hours ago I’d been in a panic because I thought my dad might have stashed a gun in our motel room, but right now, I was riding along like everything could be okay. It was possible—maybe even probable—that we would make it to Omaha, and things would be good. At the least, we could have a few happy days together. I was too cynical to believe in some kind of Parent Trap reunion, as if Mom and Dad had secretly been in love with each other this whole time, and in a week Mom’s belongings would be packed in a U-Haul trailer being pulled behind our Explorer westbound on I-80 on our way to happily ever after. But at least, maybe, things would be okay.

  I smiled at the Olivia whose face was reflected in the window. It was a different face than this morning, before I’d kissed Sam, and he’d kissed me right back. Could everyone in the world tell that I was a girl who’d been kissed? Would Mom be able to tell instantly, as quickly as she could spot Dad’s new haircut?

  My stomach rumbled, and Dad said we could stop in Green River, just down the road.

  “Green River,” I said. “That sounds pretty.”

  “It is,” Dad told me. “I mean—it was, at least. Your mom and I stopped there overnight.”

  “On the mythical expedition across America?”

  He laughed. “Right—it was really mythical. The Datsun overheated about five times, if I remember.”

  “What did you do in Green River?”

  “We spent the night, wandered around. There was this trainyard...” He cleared his throat, his words coming out thick. “I remember we stood on this bridge for a long time, watching the trains come and go beneath us. It was—” He stopped.

  “Beautiful? Amazing? Lovely? The ultimate Wyoming experience?” I prodded.

  “All of the above,” he said, and went quiet. This time I thought his faraway look wasn’t directed to the future, with all the possibly frightening things I couldn’t imagine, but into the past. Both were places where I hadn’t been granted access.

 
We stopped at a McDonald’s off the freeway. A long drive-thru line snaked through the parking lot, but only one other car was actually parked.

  “Whoa,” I said as we entered. “It’s the McDonald’s that time forgot.”

  “I was thinking Reagan-era,” Dad agreed.

  The seats were yellow plastic, attached via metal arms to the central tables, which were topped with a dull wood veneer. Standing in line, I was dwarfed by a towering cardboard Ronald McDonald in massive red shoes. Strange, I thought, that plenty of people, including me, were scared of clowns but not necessarily scared of Ronald McDonald.

  The only other customers in the restaurant were a frazzled-looking blonde woman and two young boys with matching wispy ponytails. Dad and I watched the boys chase each other through the play area, wiggling their way through a plastic tunnel, climbing the rope ladder and skidding down a red slide with a dingy gray streak in the middle where the paint had worn off.

  “Every McDonald’s should have a play area,” I mused, slurping my too-sweet orange soda.

  Dad nodded absently, taking a bite of his sandwich.

  I watched as the taller boy reached the top of the play structure and pounded on his small chest, Tarzan-style. “And not just every McDonald’s,” I continued, dunking a French fry in a tiny paper bucket of ketchup. “Every restaurant. Every building, period. Can you imagine what it would be like if you went to, like, the DMV and while you were waiting for your turn at the counter, you could flop around in a giant bin of balls?”

  Dad considered this. “Would you have to take your shoes off?”

  I pretended to be offended. “Of course you would have to take your shoes off. Those are the rules. We’re living in a society, after all. There are some rules that just have to be obeyed in order for society to function.”

  “Would the equipment be sanitized on a regular basis?” Dad teased.

  I frowned. “That’s a given.”

  The woman called to her children, and we watched as they struggled back into their tennies and sweatshirts, then raced each other to a minivan in the parking lot.