Moonglow

by Michael Griffo

  “Dominy!”

  I’ve never heard my father scream at me like this. I’ve never heard him scream at anyone like this before. Sounds as if we’re all entering new territory.

  “Open this door right now or I’m breaking it down!”

  I twist the water faucet and watch Jess’s flesh begin to swirl around the sink in a clockwise motion. Round and round and round and round. I don’t have time to wait, so I help it out and push the pink clumps into the drain. When my father bursts into the bathroom, the sink is empty; there’s not a trace of Jess to be found. Except in the vibrant silence that separates me from my father.

  We stare at each other. I’m so preoccupied with my own thoughts and emotions that I have no idea what’s going on inside my father’s head. He looks like he hasn’t slept; he looks like he’s been out searching for me for hours, but he also looks incredibly grateful that he’s finally found me alive.

  His hand reaches out to grab the counter. I think he’s going to fall, but he only needs strength to speak, to ask the question he doesn’t want to know the answer to.

  “What happened last night?”

  Before I can stop myself, I cross my arms in front of my chest. I know I look defensive, but I can’t help it. Could be that I’m still just self-conscious and trying to hide my fingers from his view; I don’t know. I also don’t know what to say. Inspiration has not come; it’s abandoned me. So without a plan B, I answer my father’s question with the truth. Well, part of it anyway.

  “I don’t know.”

  My father doesn’t need to use the bathroom counter as a crutch any longer; he’s got his strength back. “That’s not good enough, Dominy,” he says. “You were supposed to be home before dark so we could celebrate your birthday. Now tell me, where were you?”

  The force of my father’s question makes me take a step back, but my shoulders hit the tiled shower wall that juts out from the counter. There’s nowhere for me to go. I feel trapped; the feeling is uncomfortable and unnatural, and I don’t like it. Unfortunately, my father is standing in front of the only exit, and Barnaby is right behind him, so it’s the feeling I’m stuck with. There’s nothing I can do to change things.

  “I was out,” I reply, trying to sound casual, but coming off defiant.

  “Where?!”

  Oh my God! If he’s so insistent to know the truth, I’ll tell him. “By the hills!”

  A wave of panic spreads across my father’s face; he wasn’t expecting this. Clearly he was hoping I was going to say something else, like that I was doing it all night with Caleb. That’s not how a father wants his daughter to spend her sixteenth birthday, but better to lose her virginity than begin a career as a homicidal maniac. He takes a step closer to me, and it looks like he’s wading through water; it takes effort for him just to move his leg. “Why?” He’s exerted so much energy, he can only utter one word before he has to regroup to be able to speak again. “Why were you by the hills?”

  The smooth tile feels like a series of sharp needles jutting into my back, and I can’t stand still. This interrogation has gone on long enough. Darting to the right I try to get around my father, but despite his tired, weary appearance, he’s too quick for me. He is a cop, and he’s used to dealing with antsy criminals who freak out when they’re cornered.

  “Look at her shirt!” Barnaby cries. “It’s all torn up.”

  It doesn’t matter that Barnaby is trying to do the right thing, that he’s trying to help me by offering my father proof that something terrible happened last night; when I look at him all I see is my spiteful little brother who’s only motive in life is to get me into trouble. A low grunt escapes from my lips as a reminder to him that I will make him pay.

  “Show me,” my father commands. He’s existing somewhere in between being a father and being a cop. Face filled with fear, voice dripping with authority. There’s absolutely no way I’m getting out of this one, so I bend down to grab my ripped T-shirt from the floor and hand it to my father. He takes it from me and holds it tenderly in his hands like he just delivered a newborn. His eyes fill up with wonder and amazement; he’s acting as if my T-shirt, like a baby, is a product of destiny.

  “How did this happen?” my father asks, his voice now barely a whisper.

  Once again I don’t know how to respond, but it doesn’t matter; Barnaby answers for me. “She was in a fight.”

  My father doesn’t even turn around to acknowledge Barnaby; he keeps staring at me. His eyes lock with mine, and he holds my gaze until I speak.

  “Maybe,” I say, sounding like an idiot.

  “Maybe?” my father replies. “Were you in a fight or not?”

  “I don’t remember!” I clutch my neck to prevent any of the scratches on my chest from becoming visible.

  Something in my father cracks, and his patience is lost, possibly sucked into whatever world is holding my memory ransom. He bangs his fist so hard on the bathroom counter the three fake marble containers holding Q-tips, cotton balls, and our toothbrushes topple over.

  “What do you mean you don’t remember?!”

  “Just what I said!” I scream. “I don’t remember much of what happened last night!”

  Damn it! I hear the slip of my tongue just as it comes out of my mouth, but there’s no way I can take it back.

  “Then tell me what you do remember,” my father demands.

  Fine! He wants to know everything I know, then I’ll tell him. “We were on our way home, taking the long way, it wasn’t dark out yet, not really, and I remember seeing the moon.” An image of a full moon pops into my head, and its beauty disrupts my thoughts. What was I saying? Was I talking about the perfect roundness of the moon, a halo hanging over all mankind? A halo hanging over all mankind? Maybe I am on drugs.

  “Dominy!”

  My father’s voice brings me back to reality. Where was I? “Then . . . then the next thing I remember is waking up near the hills, with my clothes all torn up!”

  My father’s steady, slow breathing reminds me of my own. “What do you mean ‘we’?”

  That’s his takeaway? I tell him I can’t remember what happened to me during the night and that I woke up on the outskirts of town with my clothes ripped and that’s what he asks.

  “Dominy, who else was with you?” he insists.

  It’s hard to speak while sobbing, but I finally answer his question. “Jess.”

  If this news comes as a shock or if this was the information my father expected, I have no idea because my vision is distorted by my tears. My hearing, unfortunately, is fine.

  “Where is Jess now?”

  I feel as if I’ve been carrying this secret around with me for a lifetime instead of a few hours. My chest feels like it’s going to cave in, like a huge weight has been laid on top of it; it’s incredibly hard to breathe, and all I can see is Jess’s face dangling in front of me. She sways for a bit and then sits on the bathroom counter, watching me talk to my father, wondering what I’m going to say next. Her face and body keep changing: She looks like my best friend; then she looks like my best friend’s dead mutilated body; then she’s my best friend again. I can’t take it anymore! I need help. I need my father!

  “She’s near the hills!”

  “Why? Dominy, why is she still there?”

  I can’t see anything except Jess’s bloodied face, and I feel like I’m going to fall. But this time when I reach out my hands, I’m not alone; I feel something. I hold on to my father’s arms, and they feel strong and steady, and he doesn’t move away. He’s going to help me; my father’s going to make it all right so I can tell him the truth. My knees buckle when I confess. “Because I killed her!”

  I was wrong.

  Instinct has proven more powerful than unconditional love, and my father rips his arm away from me. Doesn’t want to be infected by the poison that he knows I am. My body twists in reaction, and my hand hits the bathroom wall a second before my face does. The impact is cushioned, but still severe. As I stea
dy my body, I examine my father. Thoughts and ideas are being calculated in his head. I’ve seen this look before; whenever he has to make an important decision, he cocks his head to the right, and the skin around his eyes wrinkles. Since this is probably the most important decision he’ll ever have to make—how to deal with his homicidal daughter—this might take a moment. But sooner than I expect, he speaks.

  “Barnaby go to your room,” he says firmly. “Don’t get on the computer, the TV, or your phone. Just stay in there and read a book until I get back.”

  “But I have to go to school,” he replies quietly.

  “Not today!”

  When my father turns to face me, he can’t look me in the eye right away. I don’t blame him; I can hardly look at myself either. “Give me all the clothes you were wearing last night,” he orders.

  Scooping up my jeans I place them on top of the ripped shirt he’s holding. Silently he follows me into my bedroom where I add my jacket to the pile. When he turns around, his face is stern, not completely devoid of compassion, but he’s in action-hero mode, and everybody knows an action hero only has time for compassion after the dirty work is done. My father’s dirty work is just about to begin.

  “Go take a shower, then change your clothes and stay in your room,” he says. The instructions continue. “If the phone rings do not answer it; that goes for your cell phone too,” he orders. “No texting either, no communication whatsoever until I get back.” He sees something out of the corner of his eye. “Where are your shoes?”

  Wordlessly, I look around my room until I see my ruined Pumas, one resting on top of the other, underneath my desk. Picking them up I’m surprised to find the soles are caked with dirt, a multicolored clump clinging to each bottom. Brown, beige, red. I hand them to my father, and he adds them to the pile of clothes he’s holding. Using my jacket as a towel, he bends down and scoops up some dirt and debris that’s fallen onto the carpet. As he kneels before me, I’m reminded of when I was little and he used to bend down to tie my shoes for me. That seems like it happened to another person.

  Something on my face must alert him that he needs to include some fatherly piece of wisdom along with his authoritative instructions. “Everything is going to be all right, Dominy,” he says. As an afterthought he adds, “I promise.”

  His words are empty. There’s no way he can follow through; we both know that. But we both want to believe he can, so we remain quiet. I watch him race down the stairs, and when I hear the back door slam, my body starts to shake.

  Afraid of being alone, I take the fastest shower on record, ignore my image in the mirror while I change into some clean clothes, and go into my brother’s room. I lean against the wall for a bit, then slide down until I hit the floor. Barnaby’s on his bed, not lounging or sprawled out, but sitting on the edge of the bed, the palms of his hands on his thighs, his feet barely touching the ground. His legs aren’t swinging back and forth; his life is no longer a playground. The kid’s in shock, and I don’t blame him. I am too, but at least I’m responsible for my condition; he’s had his thrust upon him.

  He’s so far into his own private world that he doesn’t hear my cell phone vibrate yet again with another text message. I look down at the carpet between my legs where I’ve placed the phone and see that it’s another one from Caleb: Im wrried call me

  It’s his fourth text. The first one asked me if he could come over for my birthday; the second assumed that my father didn’t want to have any company; the third asked if I was sick or mad at him for some reason; and now this one asking me to call him. If I called you, Caleb, and told you what happened, you’d be even more worried. No, in this case silence definitely is golden, and the only way to prevent you from being an accessory to my crime. Our silence, however, is interrupted when Barnaby and I hear a car pull into the driveway.

  Barnaby is the first one downstairs to greet my father when he enters the kitchen through the side door that leads to the garage.

  “Why’d you park in there?” he asks, oddly out of breath for a track star.

  “Don’t ask questions,” my father says, his voice kind, but firm. “Just go upstairs and leave us alone.”

  I can see the muscles in my brother’s neck and all around his jawline clench and twitch. He understands that these are unusual circumstances; he understands that my father is trying to handle a crisis; but he doesn’t understand why he has to be left out of the action. What he’s missing is how lucky he is to be able to leave the room.

  When we’re alone, my father ushers me into the garage and closes the kitchen door behind us. The windowless garage door has been pulled down, so we’re completely alone, unseen. We’re surrounded by bikes, patio furniture hibernating for the winter, boxes filled with junk that we’ll never use but that have sentimental value so we’ll never throw them away, and now my father’s police car, so there’s very little room for us to move, which is kind of good because I feel my strength slipping away from me every second I’m in my father’s presence. Movement will only make me weaker.

  “I know about Jess.”

  My head nods slowly; I don’t know if I’m making it move or if I’m on autopilot. Against all odds, I still must be in control, because I start to talk, and I actually sound rational.

  “I’ve been thinking about it, Dad, and I must be wrong,” I start. “There’s no way that I could’ve killed Jess. She was my best friend! It had to be somebody else or . . . or a cougar, a coyote or something!”

  “No, Dominy, it was you.”

  My father’s words have a finality to them, as if he knows exactly what happened without even being there. As if he knew this day would come, as if he’s been planning for this day my entire life.

  “What?” I whisper. “How can you be so sure?”

  He places his hands on my shoulders, but I toss them off of me. I don’t want a father who believes I’m a murderer; I want one who can erase what just happened.

  “I can explain everything,” he tells me.

  Well, why don’t you start?! “Where’d you go?” I ask. “And what . . . exactly do you know about Jess?”

  Calmly, too calmly, he opens the trunk of his police car, and Jess is lying there, wrapped in a dirty gray flannel blanket, with only the side of her face and her shoes visible. I open my mouth to scream, and my father pulls me in close to him so I can bury my face in his chest and scream so no one can hear me. His touch is repulsive; his touch is salvation. I feel his chin resting on my head, and I scream even louder, holding him so tightly that when my body shakes uncontrollably his does too. It’s like we’re the same person.

  Screams tumble out of me, ram into my father’s chest, struggle for life, and die. One after the other until the raw sound subsides and turns to soft whimpering. The scents of sweat and dirt and cold air cling to my father, and I breathe in deeply. A whiff of decay overwhelms and excites me. Abruptly, I pull away and look up at him. I may no longer be innocent, but I feel younger than I have in my entire life. “How could I do such a thing?” I ask.

  Before my father can answer, a loud garbled sound fills the garage and then a voice. It’s his deputy Louis calling on his police walkie-talkie.

  “Chief, we have a missing person’s case,” Louis says, his voice bookended by bursts of static. “Jessalynn Wyatt. She’s friends with Arla and Dominy.”

  My father puts a finger up to his mouth, silently ordering me not to speak. “I know who she is,” he replies.

  “According to her mother the kid’s been missing since yesterday afternoon. Arla said Jess might have gone over to your place last night ’cause it was Dom’s birthday. That true?” Louis asks.

  There’s nothing in his voice to indicate that his statement hides a deeper meaning, but it still sounds like an accusation to me. My father agrees. There’s a slight pause, and then I watch my father lie to the man who he trusts with his life. “No, we were just going to do a family thing, but Dominy got sick so we even canceled that.”

  “
Got it. Think the kid could be a runaway?” Louis asks. “I don’t know her that well.”

  This time when my father lies he has to close his eyes. “Could be,” he answers. “Check the bus and train stations and tell her mother . . .”

  “Chief?”

  “Tell her mother we’ll do everything we can to find her.”

  “Will do.”

  When static once again fills up the garage, my father slowly closes the trunk of the car, pushing on it until we hear the lock click shut. Jess and the static and Louis’s voice are gone, and once again it’s just my father and me. Or this man who’s standing before me who resembles my father, but whose actions I don’t recognize. “Why did you lie?”

  He still can’t look at me. He presses down on the trunk again to make sure it’s securely locked and walks to the front of the car. I tug at his arm like I’m five years old and want ice cream. “Where are you going?”

  “To get rid of the body,” he says flatly, getting into the driver’s seat.

  The door slams shut; the engine turns over; my father puts on his seat belt. What is going on? Why isn’t he completely freaked out, surprised? Why is he acting like he had “cover up all traces that my daughter committed murder” on his to-do list for today?

  “Daddy!!”

  I have to bang on the window three times before it starts to descend, eliminating the barrier between us.

  “Why did you lie to Louis?”

  Finally he looks at me, and I shudder. I have never seen him look more apologetic and anguished and helpless than he does right now.

  “Because this is all my fault.”

  Chapter 10

  Where’s Jess?

  Why am I surprised when I see that Jess’s seat is empty? Did I really expect my father to bring her body to geometry and prop her up in a chair? Shove a pencil in her hand and make it look like she was waiting for the bell to ring so class could start? Am I losing my mind?

  Yesterday was like a dream. Barnaby and I spent the day home from school, each allegedly suffering from the same twenty-four-hour bug, while my father spearheaded the search for my best friend after secretly burying her body in a location that he hopes will remain secret. Around lunchtime he came home and spoke to us in a sort of shorthand as if the house were bugged. He never mentioned Jess’s name or the specifics of where he’d been or what he’d been doing all morning; he just gave us the go-ahead to text our friends in an attempt, we both implicitly understood, to make it appear to everyone outside our family that life in the Robineau household was still normal. He did caution us—very firmly—to keep our texts simple and short, let our friends know we were staying home sick. Refrain from including any details about my disappearance the night before or murder or evidence tampering or crime scene contamination, or, of course, Jess.