Ripple

by Heather Smith Meloche

  Still, I hyperfocus. Grip the mailbox’s hinged door, slip the bomb in, and rush back to the hiding spot in the bushes. I hope to hell I’m outside of the blast zone and any flying shrapnel at this distance. But I have to make sure the bomb blows correctly before I leave the scene. Otherwise, this risk was for nothing.

  Smoke snakes into the air. The wick will give me about a minute before the blast. I hold my breath. Somehow, I know Sam and Carver aren’t breathing either.

  Suddenly, Sam jumps out of his car. He waves his arms, spastic and crazy, telling me to stop.

  But I can’t. The wick’s lit. It’s a done deal.

  He points down the sidewalk where some middle-school-age kid on his skateboard fishtails his way down the street, headed toward the smoking mailbox.

  What the fuck! Why’s a goddamn kid skateboarding in the middle of the night?

  My head calculates the time, his position, my distance from him and the mailbox. He’s getting closer to the bomb each second. Adrenaline rocks every cell in my body. I picture his young face blown off by the explosion.

  “Fuck!” I bolt out of the bushes, sprinting toward the kid and closer to the box.

  He startles as I launch myself at him. I yank him toward the bushes as a thunderous crack sounds.

  The blast knocks me onto the kid. He grunts beneath me as the hinged door of the box blows past our heads and hits the ground several feet away. The smell of gunpowder fills the air. The crackle of fire smolders inside the box.

  I lift off the kid, his close-set eyes as big as the O of his mouth. I scan him, make sure he’s not hurt, then realize I need to hide, stop letting him get a good look at me. I pull my hoodie over my head and face again.

  “Go home,” I bark at him.

  Terrified, the kid jumps up. “Whoa. Like, wow. Thanks, dude,” he says, shaking.

  “Get out of here!” I snarl. He dashes off, leaving his skateboard covered in cinders and sparks near the torn-open blue box, where it had rolled to a stop.

  With the kid gone, I sprint over to check my handiwork. Like serious fate is on my side, only one letter sits burning to ash inside the mailbox. It has to be Mom’s. Relief washes through me that I didn’t destroy someone else’s mail. I silently thank the world’s techie geniuses for email and online bill payment. Oh, and for the 3:00 p.m. Saturday mail pickup Mom must have been too late for.

  I leave the letter to burn, get up, and bolt toward the parking lot, past the Escalade already pulling out of the lot. Sam throws me a quick wave as I head to Mom’s car. In the distance, a siren sounds. But I’m on the road and headed home before anyone else arrives at the scene.

  Only when I pull into my driveway do I realize I’ve barely been breathing. I finger a hole in my shirt from a flying spark. I can’t get the scent of gunpowder and gasoline out of my nose. And the eagle emblem of the U.S. Postal Service flashes in my head. The magnitude of the crime I’ve just committed suddenly sinks in. And for the first time in a long time, I’m afraid. Scared out of my mind I’ve gone from simple vandalism to a federal offense. But more terrified that I may not be smart enough to manipulate my way out of this one.

  All I want to do is sleep, to not think for a little while, but I know, after what Tessa found in Mom’s car earlier, that I need to inspect it and see if there is any evidence of Mom hitting something. Or someone.

  Even without any alcohol, Mom is a crappy driver, so her car has always been sixteen kinds of fucked up, with dents and scratches all over. But when I lean down toward the right side of the bumper, I can see that the turn signal light is pushed in farther than normal. And when I get on my back, peer into the wheel well, I find the hard plastic casing torn partly away and hair—Emma’s color—pinched between the casing and the metal car frame.

  My chest hurts as I imagine Mom speeding to the cemetery that night, worked up and emotional, not thinking clearly. As usual. And poor pixie-like Emma not even suspecting Mom would plow her right down. Not even stop.

  Mom didn’t fucking stop.

  If she did, it was just long enough to pull Emma’s hat off her grill. Christ!

  I scrub my hands over my face, then head into my house. But I stop instantly. All the kitchen drawers are open, and the knives—butter to steak to cleaver—are missing. I curse myself for not hiding them. The only hammer Mom and I own and my baseball bat from middle school sit by the front door. Mom’s collecting weapons. Panic skitters through me.

  I push at Mom’s bedroom door, careful to make sure she’s not waiting right behind it with a knife. From the dark, I hear a panicked squeak. She’s lying in bed, covers pulled up to her nose, her forehead and the skin around her eyes all wrinkled with terror. The knives from the kitchen splay like dangerous confetti on her covers and along the floor by her bed.

  I flip on the light. “Hey, what’s going on?” I keep my voice smooth and calm. But I wonder if one day, no matter how calmly I talk, I’ll have morphed into something horrific in front of her. Or she’ll think I’ve turned against her somehow.

  “He was outside, Jackie,” she whispers. “Out by our woods. He’s coming for us.”

  I step farther into her room. Slowly. Gauging how she reacts as I get closer. I bend and pick up the knives from the floor. They clink together as I gather them under one arm.

  “Those are his woods, too, Mom. They line the side of his yard just like they line the back of ours. He’s probably just finding kindling from the trees in there. They have a wood-burning stove inside, remember? We saw the fire?”

  She shakes her head. “You know what that fire was!” she cries. And I give a silent curse for bringing it up at all and for trying to appeal to any rational part in her when, right now, she’s anything but rational.

  She pulls the blankets away from her face, agitated. “We should move,” she spits. “He might come tonight, so we should go.”

  And she’s right. We should. It might calm her down a little. But no one is going to give us the rental deal Mayor Kearns has given us, and I can’t afford to pay for anything more. Maybe I could take on another job. Drop out of school and work full-time.

  I nod at her. “I’ll see what other rentals I can find.”

  Mom relaxes a little. I pick up the knives on her pink-and-peach-flowered comforter.

  “Where were you?” she asks. “I thought he might have taken you.” Her worried eyes begin to water. I set the knives down on the chair by the door before sitting next to her. I grip her hands in mine. They’re cold. Always freezing cold.

  “I was at work, remember? I work on weekend nights until midnight.”

  She shakes her head. “After that. Where were you after that?”

  Committing a felony. The guilt strikes me. And before I know it, I’m cocking my head, offering her a confused expression. “I came home. I was right here.”

  Now she looks confused. She thinks about the last couple hours.

  My guilt increases tenfold. I’m using her delusional state to cover my tracks, hoping she’ll second-guess what she knows is true. But if Fogerty 2 or any other cop comes by to find out if I was here during the moment that mailbox exploded, I need her to say I was.

  “Did you take your medicine tonight?” I ask.

  She nods, but doesn’t look at me. She’s still trying to piece the night together.

  “Okay, then.” I smile. “Get some rest. Tomorrow morning, I’ll go out and get us some doughnuts and coffee, okay?”

  She gives me a half smile, but her forehead is still crinkled with confusion.

  I close her door, put the knives away, and put the hammer and bat back in the closet. My hand itches to call Dr. Surrey, because this whole “checking in on her with phone calls” thing she promised me is clearly not working. But it’s 2:00 a.m., and the group home option for Mom cuts into my brain again—all those mentally ill people walking around like zombies. I’ve
read the stories. I Googled them. Even if Mom gets into a group home that takes good care of her, taking her away from everything she knows, from me, would kill her quickly. Mom is not going there. Ever.

  • • •

  My ringing cell phone wakes me. With my eyes still closed, I press the phone to my ear. “Too early,” I say, not even caring who it is.

  “Jack, buddy, it’s Dad.”

  I roll onto my back and pry my eyes open. Last night was rough. I can feel a bruise on my hip, probably from where I fell on that kid, and every muscle is sore.

  “You woke me.”

  “Sorry, kid. Hey, listen. I bought a new queen-size bed yesterday and stuck it in one of the spare rooms here in my place. The room would be a perfect space for you.”

  I suppress a groan. “I’m happy here, Dad.”

  He sighs. “I know. You’ve told me. It’s . . . I miss you, Jack. I don’t see you.”

  I smile. “I miss you, too,” I tell him. “Work and school are killing me lately.”

  “You always were a hard worker. You saving a lot for college?” he asks. “I’ve got those support payments going into an account, but every little bit will help when it’s time.”

  I close my eyes again. I would love to tell him to send that child support money straight to us. But then he’ll know how financially screwed we are. And I can’t let him know I’m basically babysitting Mom and that college isn’t even something I can think about now.

  “How about if, before you go off to college,” Dad says, “you come stay with me for a couple weeks in the summer. We’ll go camping, or maybe mountain climbing somewhere.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” I keep my tone steady, upbeat. “That sounds fun.”

  “All right. Good. That’s good.” I hear the smile in my dad’s voice. “Well, I love you, son. I’ll let you get back to sleep.”

  But when we hang up, I’m far from sleep. It sucks that I’m lying to Dad. And how long can I avoid going to college without him being disappointed or suspicious? I could take classes at the local community college, but he’s always hoped I’d be more. And I guess if I had the chance, I could be.

  But instead, I think of the bomb and the mailbox. The knives on Mom’s bed and the whispers in her head. I think of all the demands from VP Barnes and Fogerty 2. I have way too much to think about. College is the absolute last thing on my list.

  • • •

  My car smells so good—like sugar and coffee. Four dozen doughnuts and ten large coffees in Styrofoam cups sit on the floor of my backseat. But the breakfast-y deliciousness is overtaken by instant nausea as I make my way down Main Street and pass the sight of last night’s felony. See the jagged, blackened form of what used to be the mailbox. Police tape and orange cones surround it. An investigation has already started. Pictures taken. Evidence collected. I take a deep breath, but it does nothing to calm me.

  Just before I pull the Dart onto the short road off Main leading to the Pineville police station, the kid I pulled to safety last night skateboards up to my car. He knocks against my hood. A gust of anxiety whips through me with him so close to the police station. What’s he doing here? Who’s he talked to?

  I roll my window down.

  “Hey,” the kid says. “You’re that guy from last night, aren’t you?”

  I feign ignorance, give him a confused look.

  He ignores it and pulls his board out from under his feet. “I came out early to get my ride.” He holds it up. Dark spots where the embers fell decorate the wood, but otherwise, the board is in decent shape.

  I feel that sweep of relief again. This kid could have been seriously toast. If I’d hurt him, I never would have been able to live with myself.

  He leans against my car. His reddish-brown hair looks in need of washing, and between his freckles is a smattering of tiny zits. I’d peg him as eleven or twelve. He smiles. “I just want to say thank you. I mean, you know, for pushing me out of the way.”

  I keep my tone even, casual, like I save kids from exploding mailboxes all the time while sauntering down the street in the middle of the night. “You’re welcome.”

  His head cocks. “How did you know?”

  “What?” I ask.

  “How did you know it was going to blow?”

  “Oh.” I look past him at the road to the police station. “I saw the smoke coming out of the box as I was walking by.”

  “Wow.” The kid’s in genuine awe. “Seriously, dude. Thanks. I’d snuck out, and if my parents ever knew I was out that late, I’d be grounded for, like, ever.”

  “No worries, kid. Your secret’s safe with me.”

  He looks at me, skeptical. “Promise?”

  “Absolutely. I won’t tell anyone I saw you.”

  He grins. “Thanks.”

  Then he’s rolling away, leaving me smiling in total disbelief. My only witness has become my ally.

  • • •

  In the police station lot, I stack the four doughnut boxes and balance one tray of coffee on top. I spent my hard-earned, very precious cash on all this sugar and caffeine, but I used to do this a lot back in Hallend to create that special love/hate balance between the cops and me. It’s more than past time for me to make it a Pineville tradition. And walking in bearing treats and friendliness just six hours after the mailbox blew might confuse them enough that they consider other suspects before me.

  Inside, the station is even smaller than Hallend’s. Six desks scatter around a main area behind the massive front counter. Several closed-in offices line the left wall. Off to the right is a large hallway leading to, I assume, more offices and a jail cell. My goal is to not end up behind those bars.

  I’ve got this, I tell myself. I paste on a smile and set my offerings on the counter.

  A female officer gets up from her desk. “What can I do for you, son?”

  “No, no, Officer . . .” I read her name tag. “Weinhart. It’s more like what I’ve done for you.” I wave my hands at the boxes. “Breakfast.”

  She raises one silvery-blond eyebrow. “Why?”

  I shrug. “I’m new to town. Thought I’d get to know the people protecting me.”

  She smiles, exposing yellowing teeth. She’s either a smoker or she loves her coffee. My bet is it’s both.

  She grabs a coffee. I open one of the boxes.

  “That’s really kind of you, kid.” She takes a jelly doughnut.

  And this is how it’s supposed to work. It’s how it always worked with the Hallend Police. Endear them to me so some of them can’t even believe Original Formula Fogerty or Fogerty 2 could ever accuse me of doing anything malicious. And even if they think I might be culpable, at least they also think I’m one hell of a nice guy.

  “I mostly brought these to thank Officer Fogerty.”

  Her suspicion returns. She gives me the once-over. “He’s not too popular with teenagers. Did you poison these?” She holds up her doughnut.

  I laugh. “I guess that’s a fair question. I mean, I know Officer Fogerty is a ball-breaker.”

  “So does that mean you didn’t poison these?” Her doughnut still hovers in the air.

  “Poisoning is not my style.”

  She nods, takes a bite. “Do you want to leave a message for Officer Fogerty? He’s in the conference room.” She nods toward the hallway. “If you drove through town, you may have noticed the police tape. We had a little incident last night.”

  “Didn’t see it.” I plaster on a concerned face.

  “Officer Fogerty’s just waiting for someone from D.C. to contact him.”

  My skin pricks with panic, but I don’t react. Someone from D.C.? That’s authority way beyond what I’m used to.

  “Well,” I say, “can you tell Officer Fogerty thank you for everything he’s done for me? My job at the hospital kicks butt. Any time he wants to stop
by, I can get him a discount on the blandest hospital food around.”

  She smiles wide. “I’d love to tell him all that, but I don’t know who you are.”

  “I’m Jack Dalton.”

  Both her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. “You’re Jack Dalton. Officer Fogerty has already let us know we should be keeping an eye out for you.”

  I shake my head. “I’m just some punk kid who used to have a lot of time on his hands. But now Officer Fogerty has helped me change my ways.”

  “Don’t listen to a damn thing he says.” Fogerty 2’s voice rumbles from the hallway. He steps out into the main office, his glare pure stone. He looks at me like he knows my hands were all over that bomb last night. Like I’ve already been tried and convicted. He looks at me like prison is definitely in my future.

  “Hey, I brought you a little treat,” I tell Fogerty 2, pointing at the doughnuts.

  “Are they poisoned?” he asks.

  “Officer Weinhart, your official food taster, seems to be surviving them.”

  His colleague holds up her doughnut as confirmation.

  “What are you doing here, Dalton?” Fogerty 2 asks.

  “This is a tradition I started with your brother. Just want to keep it all equal between the siblings.”

  “I don’t really want your doughnuts,” he says, “but I do want to know where you were last night around one a.m.”

  “Technically, one a.m. is not last night. It’s this morning.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “I was home with my mom until I felt the need to do a sugary deed.” I tap a finger against the doughnut boxes.

  “In all seriousness”—I pretend to be serious—“I did want to thank you for letting Vice Principal Barnes assign me to the hospital and the tutoring gigs. Although the volunteering aspect makes it harder to pay my doughnut bills. Which reminds me, I’ll be back. I have one more tray of coffee in my car.”

  I start to head to my car, but before I get to the station entrance, Fogerty 2 is there, holding the doors open for me.