Climbing on his bike, Foley kissed the top of my head, and said, “I don’t know, Trace.”
Watching him coast down the driveway, my instinct was to follow, but my tires were flat and it was late. I wanted to catch my mother before she went to bed and tell her Scott was coming home. I used the front door expecting to find her curled up on the couch in her robe, but she was at the kitchen table, still dressed from her date, thumbing through a book in her hand. Katie’s diary.
“I found this in the garage,” she said. “What’s going on in that house? What’s all this stuff about Katie being stalked by some monster—Banana Man, or whatever you guys call him?”
I stared at my feet, trying to find the words to start. Some things never get any easier. How do you tell your mother that your best friend’s stepfather is the worst kind of monster, the kind that devours little girls, devours his own daughters? I could almost feel his putrid breath on my shoulder as I whispered, shivering, “It’s bad, Mommy. Really bad.” I looked up. She knew. I didn’t have to say it. She had this pained look on her face. I dropped down beside her chair and put my head in her lap. My mother stroking my hair was all it took. Something in me broke and everything tumbled out.
“Oh, Tracy,” my mother said. “He never tried anything with you, did he? You’d tell me, right?”
My head on my mother’s knee, I stared into the dark space beneath the kitchen table and asked, “Do you remember that kid from Troy?”
“Jerrod McKinney?” my mother said brightly.
I winced. “Jerrod McKinney raped me,” I breathed.
I knew how it looked, how my mother would see it. It’s not like I was walking down the street, minding my own business, when it happened.
Alone with a boy …
In an empty house …
My shirt unbuttoned …
I raised you better than that, Tracy Louise.
But sometimes my mom surprises me. Sometimes she knows just what to do. Like pulling me up onto her lap like an oversized doll and rocking me gently, whispering softly, “I’m sorry, Tracy. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.” Like telling me it wasn’t my fault and I could’ve told her, should’ve told her. I’m your mother. And then letting me stay like that—curled up against her—until my tears dried and my breathing calmed, and then saying she would get me help, whatever I needed, to work through it. That it was my decision.
“I used to be so normal,” I said. “We all did. What happened?”
My mother didn’t have an answer. “It’ll be good to see your brother,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I miss him. I miss Daddy.”
For the first time she didn’t get all weepy and say “Me, too.” Instead, she kissed me on the head and said there was chocolate cake from her date with Jim. She brought over the container and a fork and then picked up the phone and dialed a number she knew by heart. Scott, I figured. He didn’t answer, and a few seconds later she was leaving a message. But not for Scott. For my dad. She said she knew he was at work, but would he please come over in the morning.
“There’s some stuff going on we need to talk about,” she said, combing my hair with her fingers. “It’s Tracy. She needs you.”
twenty-six
Voices in the kitchen. Hushed and familiar but just out of reach, fragments from a lost dream. Mom. Dad. Scott. The three of them talked easily, back and forth, the rhythm of normal conversation. Scott said something and our parents laughed. Snuggled deeply in my bed, I savored the sounds of my broken family gathered together until the smell of pancakes drew me from my cocoon.
“If it isn’t Sleeping Beauty,” Scott said, standing over the griddle with a spatula, waiting for the batter bubbles to pop. He looked the same, except for the shaved head. I rubbed his stubble. My father had shaved, too. The stupid beard he had the last time I saw him was gone. “Come here, kiddo,” he said, handing his coffee mug to my mom. “Give me a hug.”
My dad’s not always good with words, but he didn’t need them. He wrapped me in his arms, and I pressed my cheek to his chest. He was still in his uniform, which meant he hadn’t wasted time changing. He’d listened to my mom’s message and come straight over. How many times after he’d left had I wished I could trade him for Larry? I cringed thinking about it. My dad would never hurt me. Not like that. His chin on my head, he squeezed me tighter and said, “Your mom told me everything.”
I stiffened. Locking eyes with my mother, I questioned her silently. Everything?
“I thought it’d be easier if I explained about Lisa and Katie,” she said, pulling a plate of bacon out of the microwave. I relaxed. My mom knowing about Jerrod McKinney was painful enough. The thought of my dad knowing was too much. I wasn’t ready for that. Not now. Maybe not ever.
Scott plunked a stack of pancakes on the table and said, “I’m starving. Let’s eat.” But then we all just stood there, eyeing the four chairs awkwardly until my mother went to get the butter and my dad and I traded spots. For once I didn’t mind sitting next to my brother. I had a million questions.
“No police yet,” Scott started, drowning his breakfast in syrup. “Their mom was at the station with their grandmother. That’s where they were going last night—their grandmother’s.”
The bacon went around the table and then the juice. I knew where their grandmother lived. I could get there by bus, but it would take an hour and a couple of transfers. I asked Scott to drive me.
“Don’t go trying to see her just yet,” he said.
My parents nodded in agreement.
Scott leaned sideways in his chair and pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. Tattered and yellowed, one side said MISSING with a photo of a cat. The other side was filled with Lisa’s bubble print. I started to read, but my eyes got all blurry.
“Aren’t you gonna eat your breakfast?” my mother called as I rushed down the hall to my room.
I closed my door and sat on the floor, trying to still the paper between my trembling hands.
Do you remember the first time we went to Hillhurst Park alone? Remember how we felt like big girls? For the first time it was just you and me without my mom or your mom or Scott. We were such dorks back then! We actually planned our outfits! I wore all pink—of course. And you wore your new sandals, the ones that stained your feet blue. Remember?
I did. We were in seventh grade. Too big for the swings and the slides, we hung out in the band shell, singing our hearts out, oblivious to everything except the echo of our voices.
I had strict orders from Larry to be home at five o’clock, on the dot, not one second later, but then that huge storm rolled in. Remember how we huddled in the band shell, waiting for it to pass but it just got worse and worse? There was thunder and lightning crashing all around and that insane wind that was blowing the leaves right off the trees. It was the worst storm in twenty years, or something crazy like that, and I was freaking out because I was afraid I’d be grounded if I didn’t make it home on time. “I have to go,” I kept saying. “I have to.” I know you were terrified, but you linked your arm with mine and told me I wasn’t going anywhere without you. I loved you for that. I still do. For sticking with me.
Do you remember the water? How deep it was at the bottom of Bradley?
How could I forget? My mother freaked out when she saw the flood marks around my knees. It’s funny how at that age you worry about the dumbest things. For me, it was ruining my sandals. For Lisa, it was losing her TV privileges. But it was my mom who made me realize the real danger we’d risked. Drowning. Electrocution.
Someone knocked on my door, but I kept reading:
God, I was stupid. But we made it. We survived. That memory has gotten me though a lot, Trace—pretty much the last four years of my life.
Scott poked his head in and wrinkled his nose. “What smells like feet in here?”
I shoved my Cons under the bed. It was time for a new pair, even if they were just getting good.
“Have you read this?”
I asked.
He nodded. “She wrote it on the bus.” Plunking down beside me, he hugged his knees to his chest. “She wanted to write more, but she ran out of room.”
Something in me flared. I’d always known Lisa had a not-so-secret crush on my brother, but it never bothered me, until then. “I’m her best friend. Why’d she go to you?”
Scott straightened his legs. “If you wanted to run away, where would you go? A city of eight million people or two blocks from home?”
He was right.
“Is she mad at me for telling her mother?” I asked.
“It’s complicated,” he said. “She’s not angry. Actually, she is angry, but not with you. She’s pretty messed up right now.”
We sat there for a while—Scott and I—rocking sideways, knocking into each other, until my brother put me in a headlock and rubbed his knuckles against my skull. I punched him in the leg and then winced. My hand still hurt. I flexed my fingers.
“Do you remember a story about a creepy guy who lived in the woods by the park?” I asked.
“Albert.”
I made a face. “Albert? That’s dumber than Banana Man.”
He shrugged. “That’s what I called him. I don’t know his real name. That story’s been going around forever. He’s just some homeless guy. Built himself this weird tent-house out of tarps and stuff. It’s pretty impressive. Why?”
“You’ve seen it?” I asked. “His house? When?”
“Last summer, when I had community service at Hillhurst. Some of the guys on my crew kept talking about him—this freak that lived in the woods. They dragged me with them once during lunch. They were all like ‘fag’ this and ‘fag’ that, and one of them was ready to tag his house until I reminded him why he was sentenced to community service in the first place—for tagging shit.”
Scott rolled his eyes. He’d hated that summer. Not the community service part. He’d hated working with guys who, had they known he was gay, would’ve lumped him in the same category as Larry.
“You know me,” Scott said. “I went and bought some supplies—peanut butter, bread, toothpaste, stuff like that—and left it outside his door. I guess he was offended or thought it was poisoned or something because the next day, when I opened my locker, there it was—the bag. Freaky, huh?” Scott wiggled his fingers in my face. “How’d he know it was me? How’d he know my locker?”
I glanced at my trunk, my stupid fears surging again. Those eyes, his eyes. He’s always watching. But no. That was Katie. No one’s watching. During your darkest moments, eyes always look in the other direction.
“Maybe it was one of the guys messing with you,” I said.
Scott shrugged. “Who knows? Who cares? You ever notice how people project their worst fears onto anything different or strange? Maybe Albert lives like that for a reason. Maybe it’s a choice.”
Guilt gnawed my insides as I wondered where he’d gone. Another wooded area within the city? Another city altogether?
“C’mon,” Scott said, pulling me up by my wrists. “Before Dad steals your bacon.”
I followed my brother to the kitchen and picked at my soggy pancakes, but I wasn’t hungry.
“You can’t sit there staring at your phone all day,” my mother said, clearing the table.
Yes, I can, I thought. What else is there?
My dad proposed we go do something. My mother agreed. Scott suggested mini golf.
“It’s closed,” I said. “The place with the storybook characters. It’s pretty depressing.”
I hoped that was the end of it, but Scott did a search on his phone. “This one looks awesome,” he said, showing me the place I’d gone with Adam and Chris. There were pictures of the moated castle and the giant octopus and the ice cream stand. I’d wanted so badly to take Scott, but not now.
“There’s a dinosaur exhibit at the museum,” my father said tentatively. Scott and I just looked at each other, and then Scott clapped his hands on my shoulders, smiled winningly, and proposed, “Let’s go fly kites!”
“You’re joking,” I said. “That’s the lamest idea ever.” But my dad didn’t think so. Scott prodded me out of my chair and toward my bedroom to change. I assumed my mom was coming, too, but she begged off at the last minute. “You guys go,” she said, shooing us out the front door, and then to me, through the screen: “Try to have fun. Okay?”
Squashed together in my dad’s noisy old pickup, it felt like old times, but the part of me that was worried about Lisa kept chipping away at the part that was happy to be with Dad and Scott.
“There’s a toy store in that new plaza out past the traffic circle,” my dad said.
How would you know? Had he taken the troll’s offspring? My mood sunk even lower. It was a long way to go for some stupid kites, but my dad insisted. I stared out the windshield at the kids making faces at us from the car ahead and asked if I was ever that obnoxious.
“More,” Scott said. “Remember how we used to try to get truckers to blow their horns?”
When did we stop? When did we grow up? When I was little, every Sunday night I’d lie awake afraid of just that—growing up. I’d wanted us to stay just the way we were forever. I don’t know why Sundays. Maybe because I’d had two whole days to be with my family and we were happy. All of us. Once. Braiding the frayed edges of my cutoffs, I cried quietly, Scott and Dad filling my sorrow with small talk until we pulled into a lot where a man in a bear costume was twisting balloons into animals.
“I’ll wait here,” I said, clutching my phone.
“Don’t you want to pick your kite?” Scott asked.
“You pick for me,” I said. “Don’t get anything stupid.”
Scott shrugged. My dad unrolled his window. I turned on the radio and waited for the sliding glass doors to close behind them before sending a text to Lisa. One word, no pressure. Just hi. The crackly speakers pumped out one oldie after another while I counted the number of parking lot seagulls and then rummaged in the glove box for mints. I hadn’t brushed my teeth or showered. I found what I was looking for—the familiar red-and-white tin—but dropped it on the floor like a spaz. Mints flew everywhere. I popped one in my mouth and quickly put the rest back, only to spill the tin again when Scott poked his head in the window and shouted, “I got you one with princesses!”
“I hate you,” I said, chucking a mint at his chest.
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “I didn’t get you princesses. That’s for me. I got you a big yellow smiley face to match that sunny disposition of yours.”
“Don’t even think about taking the alien head,” my dad said, climbing in. “That one’s mine.”
Scott tossed the bag in my lap and then tore open a package of strawberry licorice twists.
“Where are we going to fly them?” I asked.
My dad said he knew the perfect place, but he wouldn’t tell us where. We drove and drove, the city slowly shrinking in the rearview mirror, the strawberry licorice twists dwindling, until Scott turned to our dad and said, “You know I’ve got a bus to catch tonight, right?”
“Tonight?” I said. “You just got here!”
“I’ve got a job. Oh, right, you’ve never had one.” Scott poked me in the ribs. “Seriously, where are we going? You’re not kidnapping us, are you? We’re a little old for that.”
“We’re almost there,” my dad lied. It was another fifteen minutes before he turned onto a narrow road that turned to dirt, the trees edging closer and closer. It was dusk dark and cooler there. We bumped along slowly, the truck squeaking and squealing, the tires kicking up dust and rocks. Just when I thought we were lost, the trees parted and the sun broke through, shining on a gently rippling lake spread before us.
My dad parked on the shore and got out, shading his eyes. “Reservoir’s low,” he said.
“I remember this place,” Scott said quietly.
“Your mom and I used to bring you guys here for picnics when you were little,” my dad said.
I didn�
�t remember.
“Is this the place where we found that arrowhead?” Scott asked.
My dad nodded.
I still didn’t remember, but something about the place instantly calmed me. It was magical—spooky, almost—as if we were the last people on the planet. Or the first. Except for us, and my dad’s ancient pickup, there wasn’t a single sign of life. No houses. No docks. No power lines. No trash. You can’t go anywhere without finding wrappers or cigarette butts, but the shore was immaculate, untouched. I felt my mood lifting, even after Scott made me leave my phone in the truck. I kicked off my sneakers and waded up to my knees, watching the sun bronze across the water. We were less than forty miles from home but it felt like another country. Maybe the man from the woods would find a better place, a place like this.
“Hey!” Scott called. “You want your kite?”
They weren’t anything special, just cheap plastic and a spool of string. I flattened the yellow diamond on the grass and walked with my back to the wind, letting out the line as I went. Scott did the same, farther down the shore. His kite lifted instantly, but mine cartwheeled, skipping along until my father came jogging over. Grabbing the points, he told me to reel it in a little and then tossed the kite in the air. The wind caught. The line went taut. “Now let it out a little,” he said, helping me work the spool. The smiley face rose higher and higher. As I raced along the shore toward Scott, my dad cheered, “That’s it! You got it!”
“What made you think of this?” I called to my brother.
“Think of what?”
“This!”
Scott shrugged. “It seemed mindless. You needed mindless.”
My dad kicked off his work shoes and rolled up his uniform pants. After he got his green alien head launched, the three of us stood at the water’s edge, our kites staggered gracefully above. Wheeling, tumbling, mine took a nosedive until another current lifted it straight up toward the ragged strips of clouds parked over the reservoir. Sometimes it feels like the world is filled only with ugliness and pain, but there’s beauty, too, in the simple act of flying a piece of plastic tied to string, with cool mud squishing between your toes and the bright sun warming your face. I let out my line and my kite soared higher. I was soaring, too, up there with the clouds, looking down on myself, a girl with messy hair and dirty feet, wrestling her brother for the last strawberry licorice twist until their father broke them apart.
What We Knew Page 18
