Bone Deep

by O'Brien, Kim;

  “Not everything,” Jeremy says gently. “Or I wouldn’t be suspended.”

  Our gazes lock. Mine drops first.

  “I know you’ll do the right thing,” Jeremy says. “So I’ll do the right thing, too.” He pauses and then releases his breath slowly. “About a month ago, I stayed late at the park to update the database in Dr. Shum’s office. As I was leaving, I ran into Emily on the path between the information center and the cliffs. She said she’d been in the ruins, getting background for a blog, but there was something about her… She blew me off pretty fast when I tried to ask her what she was writing about, and her hair was loose, messy…like she’d been making out.” His eyes gleam as if he’s remembering us making out. “It wasn’t the first time I saw her late at the park, either.”

  “You told the police all this?” Jalen asks.

  “Of course. I liked Emily. I hope the police find her.” He pushes back that lock of thick, brown hair that almost-but-not-quite fits behind his ear. “If you ask me, they not only need to be looking for her, but also the person she was meeting after hours at the park.”

  TWENTY

  Jalen

  The first thing I do after I drop my boots by the back door is to head for the kitchen. I’m hot, hungry, and angry. The air-conditioning isn’t working in the truck again, and I skipped lunch. Normally, none of these things would bother me, but today everything and everyone gets on my nerves. Especially Paige Patterson, who is determined to get into trouble and has somehow become my responsibility.

  In the kitchen, my mother pushes around ground lamb in a skillet on the cooktop. It smells delicious. Reaching around her, I grab a sample off the top and pop it into my mouth. She hits me lightly, but the smile in her eyes forgives me. “Any news of the missing girl?”

  “No.” I think of Jeremy and grind my molars into the now-tasteless lamb.

  “God,” she sighs. “I was hoping today…” Her words trail off, and she gives a small shake of her head. “Go wash up. Dinner in fifteen.”

  I head through the living room where Harold sits in front of the widescreen television, playing a video game. He doesn’t look up as I turn down the corridor to my room.

  The back of my shirt still clings to my skin from the hot ride home in the truck, as does the dust from the park, but instead of heading to the shower, I walk up the three steps that lead to Uncle Billy’s room.

  Pausing outside the door, I listen. All day, the need to talk to him has played in the back of my mind like a song stuck in my head. The fear of what he might say wars with the need to ask him. I know he won’t soften his words; if there’s blame, he will lay it without hesitation on my shoulders. I already carry the burden of things he’s said.

  And yet, here I am, hesitating at the doorway. I’d head for my room if it wasn’t for Paige. Am I wrong to help her? At this point, how can I not?

  Leaning forward, I strain to hear inside the room. Is he drunk? Sober? Can I really trust what he says in either case? I hold my breath, frozen in doubt.

  And then, as if he sees me clearly through the wood, my uncle calls, “Come in, Jalen.”

  The handle sticks, and the wood bows a little as I put my shoulder into it. It pops open, and the heat of the room wafts across my face, at least five degrees hotter than anywhere else in the house, which I guess makes sense. The room used to be an attic before he moved in with us. Fifteen years later, it still looks like an attic with its low ceiling, sloping walls, clutter of unpacked boxes, and mismatched furniture.

  The room smells stale, airless, slightly sour. Uncle Billy has forbidden my mother from cleaning. It’s probably been years since the rug has seen a vacuum, never mind dusting. Yet this is the place that pulls me like none other in the house. Here is the past—hidden sometimes in boxes, but visible in the artwork on the walls, the shelf of kachina dolls, a feathered headdress that was my grandfather’s, a sheepskin rug worn bare in the center. Here there is no fusion of cultures, no walking a line between two worlds. Everything here is Diné. To Uncle Billy, I am completely Diné, and this is where I belong. The fact that my mother is white is insignificant.

  To be defined, to be able to point to a heritage and say “this is who I am; on this side of the line I stand” is not a bad thing.

  My uncle looks up from his desk. His eyes are deeply hooded, and the lines carved into his cheeks make him look years older than my father, although he is younger by three years.

  “How is the hunt for the girl going?”

  To get to him, I have to twist around the boxes and stacks piled on the floor. “The same,” I tell him. “They haven’t found anything.”

  My uncle nods. I strain to read the level of alcohol in his eyes. They look a little red, moderately shiny. A mug sits near his elbow. I’m sure it holds whiskey.

  “What are you making?” I ask. It isn’t the question that’s bugged me all day—the same one that’s burning me up inside and has been since Emily disappeared.

  He looks down at the block of wood in his hands and then holds it up for me to see. “A kachina doll,” he says, although this already is clear to me.

  Over the years, he has made quite a few of these. For a long time, my father used to try to convince him to sell them at the park, like the other people who spread blankets and sell their jewelry on the grass near the entrance.

  “The tourists will pay good money for them,” my dad said. “Your craftsmanship is exceptional.”

  “They would not be used correctly,” Uncle Billy said scornfully. “They are not idols or household decorations.”

  “You’re not selling our people out,” my father argued. “You’d be making a living.”

  “Food can be found,” Uncle Billy told him. “But who we are needs to stay with us, to be honored by us. What would we be teaching our children?”

  “That our people cannot isolate themselves from the rest of the world. Our cultures have always traded. This is just another form of it.”

  My uncle looked him in the eye. “Trading?” he scoffed. “They steal our children and you call this trading?”

  Looking at the nearly two-foot-long block of cottonwood root in my uncle’s bony hands, I realize it has been a long time since he has carved anything at all. “What kind of doll are you making?”

  His face softens. “The yellow corn maiden.”

  Why the corn maiden? When he puts the doll down and lifts the mug to his lips, I want to knock it out of his hands. He hasn’t told me what I’ve come to ask him, what I’m still afraid to ask.

  “Uncle,” I say as he takes a long, slow sip and then half-closes his eyes as if he savors every inch of the liquid’s passage through his body. “The girl who disappeared. The one you played the drums for. Was she the one you told me about?”

  He opens his eyes and looks at me. The puzzlement in his face makes him look almost childlike. “What?”

  “The night the girl at the park disappeared. You sang the death chant.”

  His brow wrinkles, and he cocks his head as if the memory is a sound that might be heard if he listens hard enough. Finally he sighs. “She came to me. She was lost. I wanted to help her find her way.” He gestures to the doll. “I need yellow yarn for the hair, and more paint. Will you take me to Walmart?”

  I lean closer, see the spiderweb of gray claiming what was once hair as black as mine. “Is she the one you warned me about?”

  He shakes his head. “What are you talking about?”

  “The girl in your dream, uncle.”

  “I told you. She was lost. I was trying to help her find her way.”

  “And was she the same one you dreamed about before?”

  His brow furrows. “I dreamed about her before?”

  He doesn’t remember. All the anger that was slow-burning in the back of my mind leaps to the front, and I want to shake him until he tells me what I need to know. “Think, Uncle Billy. Is the girl who’s lost the same one you warned me about, or are there two girls?”

 
He shakes his head slowly and then picks up a piece of black sandstone and rubs it gently over the wood. “I’m sorry, Jalen,” he says. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I stare at him. How could he forget the night he came into my room, stood beside my bed, and screeched like an eagle to wake me?

  “You’ve got to remember, Uncle. You had a dream and you came into my room dressed as the Eagle kachina and told me about it.”

  Uncle Billy looks at me blankly. I can tell he doesn’t have a clue what I’m asking. Too late, I remember something else about alcoholics. When they’ve been drinking, when their blood alcohol rises to a level you can measure in their eyes, they will forget things. You can tell them what they said or did, and they will deny it and believe with every fiber in their being that you are making it up.

  They will not remember that they were drunk or that they woke you at two in the morning dressed in Eagle’s feathers. They will not remember that they told you that you would be responsible for someone else’s death.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Paige

  All night I think about Jeremy Brown’s words—that Emily was secretly meeting someone else in the park after hours. My mind probes this problem like a loose tooth. It hurts to go there, but I can’t seem to help it.

  Could Emily have been meeting my father?

  Of course not. That would imply an inappropriate relationship, and my mind refuses to accept that. There has to be an explanation for Emily’s disappearance that doesn’t involve him. At least that’s what I tell myself. Any one of the other interns, including Jeremy, could have been meeting her.

  While my dad holds the morning briefing, I head for the ladies’ room. Although the police have already searched Emily’s locker and probably taken anything that might give a clue, I want to see for myself. I know her a lot better than they do.

  Her lock dangles from the front of the locker, like an ugly charm on a necklace. The combination is part my birthday, part hers, and it opens on the first try. As I feared, it’s mostly empty—just her canteen and a Vera Bradley bag holding deodorant, sunscreen, a spray bottle of Victoria’s Secret body scent, and an assortment of makeup.

  The air in the locker smells sour, and I spray the body scent. The odor of vanilla and lavender hangs in the air like a ghost. If you were seeing someone, why didn’t you tell me? I picture her lips curving into a slow smile. Well, Paige, I couldn’t very well blurt out that I was dating your father, could I? You were mad enough at him as it was.

  I slam the locker door shut, but the conversation, like the body scent, lingers.

  Remember those nights he worked late at the park? Emily’s voice asks. You don’t think he was working, do you? It was right there in front of you, Paige. Only you kept closing your eyes. The way you did in New Jersey. The truth was right there in front of you. The way we looked at each other…the photo of us on my Connections page…the way I always defended him…

  Walking out of the room, I cover my ears with my hands. Shut up, I tell the Emily voice. I won’t listen to you. You’re not even Emily—you’re me making up a story, letting my imagination get out of control.

  Why do you think he wanted to send you back to New Jersey? the Emily voice persists. You and I were always good at keeping secrets. Well, it turns out your father was, too.

  I walk faster down the empty hallway. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

  I’m passing Dr. Shum’s office when his deep voice booms, “Paige! Could you come here please?”

  Shit. My stomach clenches. Part of me wants to keep on walking, but I know he’s seen me. A fresh wave of heat sends small beads of sweat sliding down my back. Not now, I think, struggling not to let anything show on my face.

  “Paige,” another voice says, and my heart drops like a stone.

  I step inside. My father is seated across the desk from Dr. Shum. For a moment our eyes meet, and then my dad shakes his head as if to warn me not to say anything.

  “Have a seat,” Dr. Shum waves me toward an empty chair. Although he smiles, he doesn’t quite meet my eye. He takes his time shuffling and reshuffling the papers on his desk. “How are you doing this morning, Paige?”

  How does he think I’m doing? I perch on the edge of a straight-backed chair with a long tear in the fabric seat. “Fine.” I swallow. “You?”

  “Pretty good. Thanks.” His smile fades, and his brown eyes turn serious. “Paige, we need to talk.” He scratches the side of his nose and then runs his hand through his thinning blond hair in a distracted way. “It’s about Jeremy Brown.”

  I close my eyes briefly. “What about him?”

  “I need to decide if he’s going to return to the program or not.”

  Beside me, my dad pinches the bridge of his nose as if he already knows whatever Dr. Shum says is going to be painful to hear.

  “There are some discrepancies I’m hoping you can help clear up.” He leans forward, fingers laced and eyes hard. “He says that you came to his house yesterday. Is that true?”

  I freeze. How much trouble am I in? I look at my father, but his gaze stays fixed on Dr. Shum. “Yes.”

  “Weren’t you afraid of seeing him again?” Dr. Shum’s head cocks to one side, and his brows push together sympathetically.

  “Not really.”

  Now those thick blond brows lift. “That surprises me. Considering that he allegedly attacked you.”

  “Allegedly?” My voice rises. “You think I lied about that?”

  Dr. Shum picks up a piece of paper from the top of a pile. “In your statement to the police, you say that he sexually assaulted you. But according to Jeremy, you were the one who initiated the physical contact.” His brown eyes seem sad as he stares at me. “Now, who’s right? Whose word do we take? Can you see, Paige, why we have a problem?”

  My stomach drops and inside I’m shaking, but I make myself hold his gaze. “I asked him to stop. The guy’s a creep.”

  Dr. Shum sighs and sits back in his chair. Pressing his palms together, he seems to be thinking hard. “The problem,” he says, “is that, according to him, you said no several times, but you meant yes.” He holds his hand up to stop me from speaking. “If you were so afraid, why did you go to his house?”

  I glance at my father for help, but he seems to want to hear the answer as much as Dr. Shum. “Because I think he has something to do with Emily’s disappearance.”

  Dr. Shum steeples his long fingers and sighs. “He never left his house that night. The police have cleared him. But back to the situation at hand—as far as what happened between you and Jeremy, I’m afraid it’s always going to be a he-said, she-said thing.”

  Finally my father comes to life. “Ray, you can’t ignore the bruises he put on her. I don’t want him in the program.”

  “I know you’re upset,” Dr. Shum says, “but I’ve talked to the boy, and he’s genuinely sorry. I see no reason for further disciplinary action. He’s reinstated into the program effective immediately.” His brown eyes hold my father’s gaze. “In light of the circumstances, however, I’ll be supervising him. That’s my decision.”

  My father’s already sunburned skin gets even redder. “Paige, go outside. I’ll talk to you later.”

  I can’t get out of the office fast enough. I tear down the hallway and into the maze of museum exhibits. I race past the cases of bronze tools and then accelerate past the taxidermy display. I’m almost through when Mrs. Shum steps out from behind the curtained-off exhibit and we nearly collide.

  “Goodness, Paige, you’re in a hurry.” She smiles, but the expression fades as she searches my face. “You’re upset. What’s wrong?”

  For the first time I see she’s not alone. The tall, balding detective—I can’t remember his name—is with her. “I’m fine.”

  Mrs. Shum smiles. A pair of oversized, wiry gold earrings swings from her earlobes. “I was just showing Detective Torres the new exhibit. He’s fascinated with the ruins and wants another look up there. Is your father
still talking to my husband?”

  “Yes.” Any minute he’s going to come out of the office, and my thoughts are so jumbled, I don’t know what—or who—to believe. Before Mrs. Shum can press me further, I run out the door.

  My feet pound the bed of gravel lining the path in the cactus garden, and then carry me down the concrete path snaking around the sand-colored walls of the cliffs. The ruins sit in their niche, their broken walls smoothed by the distance, and black, empty windows gaze back at me as if they’ve seen every bad thing in the world.

  I keep moving, even though my father is going to kill me for not waiting for him. I run until my lungs burn and my legs turn to rubber. And then I push myself farther. But what am I running from? Jeremy? My father? Myself?

  The sweat streams over my body when finally I stumble to a stop. Breathing hard, I look around. I’m past Tacoma Well, basically in the middle of nowhere. Around me the barren landscape seems huge and as foreign as the surface of the moon. The posed cacti, scrubby hunched-over trees, and stubble of browned-out grass look like the sole survivors in a war the sun has long since won.

  I wipe my hot, sweat-slick face and take a deep breath of burning air. I should go back; I’m going to have to eventually. But I press forward, daring whatever happened to Emily to happen to me. Stupidly, I want to prove to myself that my father wasn’t involved. Even if it means I get killed, it’s worth it. The thought is irrational, but nothing, I’m discovering, is really very simple. You can love someone and hate them at the same time. You can think you know someone and then suddenly they seem like a total stranger. You can look in the mirror and not see the truth about yourself.

  I randomly follow the trail of trampled grass along an irrigation ditch. What really happened to Emily? What is it that I’m not seeing?

  Close, close, a voice inside me whispers. I keep going, not understanding how far I intend to go. The heat increases. The sweat pours off me, reminding me how stupid I’ve been to run into the desert without water. I should turn around, but I don’t. I don’t know why.