by Mary Logue
Emily whimpered.
Claire bent and pulled the crying woman into her body, wrapping her arms around her. Emily needed someone to hold onto, it was clear she was drowning. Sobs clenched her body and she gave in to them.
After some time, her crying weakened and she looked up at Claire. “What do I do now?”
Claire knew she needed to pull her back into the world. Give her a task, something to do. “Let’s sit at the table.” She helped Emily up.
The woman shook herself like she was shedding an old skin and ran her hands down her shirt. “Would you like some coffee?”
Rich spoke up. “I’ll get it. You sit down.”
Rich pulled two mugs out of a cupboard—one from the Bank of Alma, the other from the Farmer’s Cooperative—and filled them up with dark coffee. He handed one to Claire and sat at the table with the two women.
“I can’t believe this.” Emily stared at the middle of the table, at nothing.
“I know,” Claire murmured, letting the woman talk.
“She was such a good kid. Happy, trying everything. How can all that be gone?” Emily looked up at them.
“Not all,” Claire said, knowing Emily had to feel the deepness of her loss, but wanting to say something positive. “In some way she will always be with you.”
“But I want her.” Emily hit the table with her fist as her face collapsed, but she kept looking at them.
“Yes, I know.” Claire said.
This statement rocked Emily. She roused. “What about your daughter? Have you found Meg?”
Claire shook her head. “Not yet. I’m going right out to look. I wanted to come and tell you the news first. Search parties are combing the area around the Maiden Rock as we speak.”
“Oh, God. What happened? What were those kids doing? Why were they hanging out at the Maiden Rock?”
“I know this is hard, Emily, but I need to ask you a few questions about Krista. It might help us understand what has happened. Was she having any problems lately? You notice any change in her behavior?”
Emily looked confused. “Like what? School? Here at home? She was doing fine. Nothing was wrong. She’s always been kind of keyed up. That hasn’t changed.”
“Was she ever depressed? Get really down about something?”
“Once in a while, around her period, she’d have a crying jag, but the next day she’d be over it. No, she was happy. I don’t think she had anything going on. I would know, wouldn’t I?”
“I’d think so.”
Emily’s head jerked. “What are you saying? Do you think she jumped? Do you think she tried to kill herself?”
Claire didn’t want Emily to go any further with that thought until they had more evidence. “No, I’m not suggesting anything like that. It’s just … we’re trying to see what might have happened. Could I take a look at her room? Would that be okay?”
The need to get out and look for her own daughter was overwhelming. But Claire wanted to quickly check Krista’s room before anyone else got a chance to touch it. Families had been known to withhold information about suicide notes. Under twenty percent of suicides left a note, but they were always worth looking for. She knew cases where a note cleared up deaths that might otherwise have been thought murders.
A suicide note, or evidence of drug use were what she would be looking for. A quick sweep. She had to get back to Maiden Rock and look for Meg.
“Of course.” Emily stood and wiped down her shirt again, her hands needed to keep busy. “I don’t know how clean her room is. You know how kids are. I try to keep on her about her room …” Her voice trailed off.
“Just show me the way.” Claire followed her out of the kitchen, leaving Rich at the table.
Claire walked behind Emily through the dining room, then up very steep stairs. The farmhouse was old, probably built in the twenties. The stairs had been crammed in, like an afterthought.
“You have to walk through Tammy’s room. Then Krista’s room is off of that,” Emily explained. They walked through a sunny room that had ballerinas on the walls, and plastic horses lined up on top of a long bookshelf. “She’s at a friend’s. Oh, how will I tell her her sister is dead?” Emily sank down on Tammy’s bed and started sobbing. Through her tears, she waved a hand at the bedroom door.
Claire gently pushed open the door to Krista’s room. The one window in the small room faced east, a splash of sunlight played on the wall above the headboard of the bed. The cover on the twin bed had been pulled up but not straightened. Three pillows were mounded together. A small CD player sat next to the bed with a huge pile of CDs and earphones dangling off the bedside table.
Claire scanned the room quickly. Nothing jumped out at her. No note sitting on the pillows, on the desk, propped up on the bookshelf, easy to find. Suicide notes didn’t tend to be hidden.
A pile of photos was displayed at the end of the bed. Claire picked one up from the bed. Krista. Tip dyed blonde hair that spiked out around her face and behind her ears. She looked so alive.
As she looked down at the pile of school photos, her eyes easily picked out the picture of Meg. She lifted it up automatically. Dark hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, a hint of lipstick. Looking so grown-up. Where was her darling daughter now?
Claire strode into the other room and knelt down in front of Emily. She took her shoulders in her hands and waited until the woman looked at her. “Emily, I’m so sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry. I’ll come back and look some other time.”
Claire suddenly couldn’t wait another minute to go look for her own daughter.
***
8:42 a.m.
Even though her shift was over, Amy had decided to drive by the fire that had been reported just as she was leaving. It was on her way home. She knew the woman who owned it. Letty. Amy had babysat her nephew Jared when he was little.
As she drove up to the fire, she was happy to see the volunteers were already there, spraying the fire with foam. The trailer looked like a total loss. The smell was of burned plastic and torched wood. A horrible combination. She wondered if the fumes that were billowing out from the trailer were toxic.
She got out of her car and watched the four volunteers work the rig. She recognized John Dixon. He gave her a nod when he saw her, but didn’t stop working.
Trailers were the worst for fires. Amy doubted they ever saved one. It was like lighting a bag full of gas fumes. Everything was flammable.
At least, it didn’t look like anyone had been there. No cars were parked right in front of the trailer. But when she walked around the side of the fire rig, she saw a small car tucked into the weeds. An old Pontiac, it looked like. She walked up to it and tried the door. When it opened, she stuck her head inside.
She noticed two things that made her stop breathing: a set of keys on the driver’s seat and a kid’s carseat in the back. Letty and her son. Amy hated to think where they might be.
***
8:45 a.m.
After one last kiss, Curt dropped Meg at the end of the Jorgensons’ driveway. Meg started down the rutted road. She couldn’t believe what she had done: stayed out all night with a boy, making out. If she pulled this little escapade off, it would be great. But what if she got caught? There’d be hell to pay.
The Jorgensons wouldn’t probably get that mad if they caught her sneaking back into their house, but she was sure they would feel obligated to tell her mother. Then she’d be in big trouble.
Her mom. Meg didn’t even want to go there. It wasn’t that her mom would punish her so terribly—worse, she’d probably pull one of those you’ve-really-let-me-down strategies.
To avoid worrying about her mom, Meg went back over the events of last night. Thinking about Curt made her feel like she was swimming in really deep water—exciting and scary at the same time.
She couldn’t believe it. She had a real boyfriend, one who would stay up all night and talk to her about all the things in the world. She had dreamed about finding someone like th
at, but wasn’t sure it would happen to her until she went to college. She had always figured herself a late bloomer.
As Meg walked up the driveway, she enumerated what she liked about Curt: 1. he read books, 2. he liked Bob Dylan and the Cranberries, 3. he thought the space between her front teeth was cute, 4. he didn’t believe in war, 5. he was a great kisser, 6. he wanted to stay living in the country, 7. he wanted to travel, 8. he thought Mr. Langsfeld, their science teacher, was stupid and mean, 9. he hated that animals were becoming extinct, 10. he loved to talk. What more could she want in a guy?
When she lifted her head up and looked down the driveway, she saw a line-up of cars, but didn’t see Krista’s car. Maybe she had parked it behind the barn.
What kind of reception would she get from Krista? Just the day before the party, Krista had been telling her that she wasn’t sure she even wanted to see Curt anymore. Meg wasn’t sure it would help to remind her of that. She’d have to play it by ear.
What if Krista wouldn’t let her in the house? If Krista was at all mean, Meg had decided she would just leave, she would walk home. She wasn’t going to argue with Krista. She would
tell her mom they had a fight. But she wanted to give Krista a chance to be her old self.
Maybe she and Curt hadn’t done it right last night. They had tried to tell Krista earlier, but they hadn’t really had a chance until the end of the party. They had decided to do it together, so neither of them would have to bear the brunt alone. They talked it over, decided that Krista would get angry, blow up, and then quickly get over it. That’s the way she was. She never focused on any one thing for long. She bounced from one idea to another with such energy.
Meg hoped she could work it out with Krista. In a short time, she had become such a good friend.
She froze as she heard voices and then saw people coming out of the Jorgensons’ house. She was too far away to see who it was, but she didn’t want to take a chance. She ducked into the weeds and watched.
They got into a car. As it turned, she saw that it was a squad car. Why would a squad car be there?
Shit, what if they had called the sheriff on her? Her mom?
***
8:47 a.m.
Claire was glad Rich insisted on driving. It was against sheriff’s regulations for a civilian to drive a squad car, but she knew she shouldn’t be behind the wheel at the moment. It was always hard delivering bad news, but when you might be the recipient yourself of the same news, it was ghastly.
Rich started the car and then jumped when the radio crackled.
Claire took the call. Just Stewy reporting they were taking the body out. He’d check in again. Six deputies were out looking for Meg and Curt.
Rich whipped around in the driveway and headed down the long rutted road. When they were halfway down it, Claire caught something move out of the corner of her eye—a flash of red. What could be that color? Too big for a cardinal.
She remembered the red hunting jacket.
“Stop!” she yelled at Rich.
Before he even had a chance to comply, she unbuckled her seat belt, opened the door, and jumped out. She fell to her knees, but pushed up and jumped down into the ditch.
Scrub trees growing on the sides of the driveway served as cover but Claire shoved through them and saw a flash of red ducking behind a cedar. She clawed her way through the remaining branches and tall grass.
She ran around the cedar and saw the red jacket ducking under a pine tree.
“Meg!” she yelled as she spurted forward. She tackled her daughter wearing the hunting jacket she had put on the night before, as she was leaving for the party. They both fell to the ground, but Claire kept a tight grip on her daughter.
Meg sat up and Claire pulled her to her chest.
“Meg, thank god. Oh, I don’t know what I would have done …” Claire started sobbing. All the tears she had held back all night came ripping out of her. She couldn’t let go of Meg. The tears, a river.
“Mom, what’re you doing?”
Meg tried to pull away, but Claire held her tight.
***
8:48 a.m.
Meg knew, from the moment that her mom jumped her in the bushes at the Jorgensons’ driveway, that something was horridly wrong, even before her mom started sobbing.
But her mother’s tears convinced her it was very, very bad. She had never heard her mother cry like that before, even when her father died. It sounded like she was crying up her guts.
She had to help her mother out of the ditch alongside the driveway, holding her so she didn’t fall. Her mother wouldn’t stop holding onto her and sobbing. Rich stood at the edge of the driveway and helped them onto the gravel.
Meg looked at Rich and asked, “Who died?”
CHAPTER 9
November 3, 8 a.m.
Meg stood at the bottom of her driveway and Highway 35, waiting for the school bus. She had a hard time believing that school would happen, that life would go on as if nothing had happened. She had a hard time.
That morning her mother had told her she didn’t have to go to school. Even Rich had suggested that she stay home, but she didn’t want to put off the inevitable. They didn’t understand. It would only get harder to see all her friends at school if she waited. All Krista’s friends.
Especially Curt. He had called several times over the weekend, but once she had pretended she was sleeping, and the other time she had flat out refused to come to the phone. He got the message and didn’t call again. But he deserved to hear straight from her what she was feeling.
Meg had a pile of Kleenex stuffed in the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt. Even thinking about the fact that she wouldn’t be sitting next to Krista in third hour made her cry.
As she waited, questions kept buzzing around inside her head. Why had she decided to tell Krista about Curt at the party? How stupid was that? She should have waited until they were at Krista’s house where she could have explained it all to her and
then handled her anger face to face. Instead, she had chickened out. Curt and she had told Krista at the party, thinking that way she wouldn’t make a scene. Because of this stupid decision, Krista was dead.
Blinking her eyes to clear them, Meg saw the school bus coming down the highway. She wasn’t looking forward to the ride. She wasn’t looking forward to anything she had to do today, or the rest of her life.
The bus stopped and the door swung open. Mr. Jensen had his hat turned backwards as usual, and said, “Good morning,” like he always did. Then he added, “Sorry to hear about your friend.”
“Thanks,” Meg mumbled and slunk halfway down the bus aisle. She didn’t want anyone to sit with her so she put her books next to her on the seat. She stared out the window and tried to see the fields as they drove by. But it was like she was blind. She couldn’t see the world anymore. Just what she was feeling.
This year in world literature she had read a French poem in which the gray sky was described as being like the cover of a pot. That’s how she felt. Like she was inside a container and someone had closed down her whole world.
Her mother had told her she couldn’t go anywhere unnecessary for a month. In other words, she was grounded, but the weird thing about it was that Meg felt like it wasn’t just a punishment, but rather a way for her mom to feel safe. For one whole month she wouldn’t have to worry about where Meg was.
Meg didn’t really care anyway. There was no place to go, nothing she wanted to see or do. Life, which two days ago had seemed like it could get no better, was suddenly hardly worth living.
One of the Swenson twins looked like she wanted to sit with Meg, but Meg ignored her and she walked farther down the aisle.
As always, when Meg got off the bus at school, Curt was waiting for her. Curt had always been waiting for them—Krista and her—every morning. He bent his head down toward her and smiled. Meg felt her heart turn in her chest.
“Hey,” he said, walking up to her.
Meg felt like she wa
s seeing him for the first time. His tall, skinny body towered over her. He couldn’t afford to lose any weight. She felt protective of him for a moment, then pushed that feeling away.
“I called you a couple times. I really wanted to talk to you,” he said. “How’re you doing?”
Meg had rehearsed her speech. “I don’t want to talk. I don’t have any words for this.”
“Meg, that’s a little melo,” he said gently.
That word took her by surprise. It was in their language. “Melo” was short for melodramatic. A secret word they had created together.
This wasn’t going to work.
She tried to walk past him, but he grabbed her arm. “Meg, I didn’t mean that. I’m feeling really bad too. But we have to help each other. We have to talk it out. Krista was my friend longer than she was yours.”
How could he even try to quantify a friendship like that—by who knew her the longest? Meg wanted to scream at him. But she wouldn’t. It wasn’t the right place, it would never be the right time.
She felt someone grab her arm, then pull on her. When Meg looked down, she was staring at Krista’s little sister Tammy, who
was three years younger than her. Tammy’s eyes were red and swollen from crying, but her mouth was mad. “I want to know what happened to my sister.”
“Tammy.” Meg tried to put an arm around Tammy. She didn’t know her well, but they had always been friendly. Her heart hurt for how Tammy must be feeling.
Tammy pushed Meg’s arm away. “What did you do?” she screamed. “You were supposed to be her friend. How could you let her go with those other people?” Then she turned on Curt. “Big boyfriend you are. Where were you when my sister died?”
Curt started to say something, but Tammy cut him off. “I heard what happened. You two left together. If it wasn’t for you, my sister would still be alive. I hate you. I hate both of you.”
She ran off before they could say anything. Meg felt another weight drop on her shoulders and her stomach turned. She felt sick all over.
