by Gregg Olsen
Natalie Waterman never really filled the bill of what a mother was supposed to be. No one in the family looked to her for comfort or nurturing. Natalie was a supremely unhappy woman. She blew darts instead of kisses. She slapped instead of hugged. While Summer had seen a different mother at one time, Birdy hadn’t. It took some doing, but Birdy had managed to erase some of those memories from her mind. It was as if she’d taken scissors and cut out the images of her mother. She stood next to her dad. Her sister. The empty spot in her memory was her mom.
Now Natalie was dying. Such mixed feelings it brought. The longing for a genuine closeness. The hope for reconciliation. The dream that the blank faces in the memories she somehow still held would be restored. All of that and more . . . things that she’d be relieved of when Natalie died.
Summer barely glanced in Birdy’s direction as she let the screen door slam and made her way to her pickup truck. The avoidance was wrong. The chill between them stung like a bitter wind on a tear-streaked face.
Birdy got out of the Prius. She walked around the cedars and alders that shrouded her mother’s mildewed mobile home. She thought that a pressure washer could make the place look so much better. She’d hired a boy to do it a year ago, but it only made her mother angry. She didn’t need any fancy help from her fancy daughter.
Natalie Waterman had a way of squelching kindness and stifling generosity. She built a barrier that ensured that when she died, she’d do so alone.
* * *
Natalie was on the couch, the TV blaring, the smoke from a lighted cigarette covering her like a yellow beach umbrella. A soft gray acrylic throw, the color of a wasp’s nest, cosseted her emaciated body.
“You shouldn’t be smoking, Mom,” Birdy said, moving in the direction of the TV remote control.
“Is that a doctor talking or a daughter?” Natalie asked, without so much as a hello.
“Both,” Birdy said.
“I could care less what either has to say,” Natalie croaked. “Besides, I don’t think smoking will hurt my cancer. It’s doing just fine.”
Natalie made a face. “Yes, Mom, I guess it is.” She pressed the volume button until the host of the TV show spoke instead of shouted. Then she pressed mute.
“You know I can’t hear the TV so good when you have it down so low.”
“It’s on mute,” Birdy said. “I turned the sound off so we could visit.”
Natalie turned away and faced the ceiling. “You are still a selfish little bitch, Birdy. You think that you can do whatever you want and that no one else has a say in anything.”
Natalie’s voice was a dull rasp with each utterance. Her breathing was labored.
Birdy could feel her shoulders sag as her mother’s cruelty beat her down. Like it always had. “That’s not true, Mom,” she said.
Natalie glanced at her youngest daughter and returned her gaze to the smoke-stained ceiling of her mobile home. “Whatever,” she said. “What do you want? Did you come so you could watch an old lady die? Usually you don’t get to see any of your so-called patients until they’ve been dead for a while. Isn’t that so?”
“I’m here because I love you, Mom.”
Natalie reached for another cigarette, but the pack was empty.
“That’s funny, Birdy,” she said. “Little Birdy. Fly away from me now.”
Birdy stood motionless. “I’m here to help you, Mom.”
“Help how? It’s too late for help now.”
“It’s never too late to make things right, Mom.”
Natalie laughed. It was a soft wheezing sound that turned into a riot of noises and ended with her retching into a Pyrex mixing bowl placed on the floor next to her sofa.
Birdy went to her mother and tried to help her, but Natalie pushed her away.
“I can vomit on my own,” she said.
Of course you can.
“Mom, I’m here to help.”
Natalie held up her hand. Her finger bones held the thin webbing of her flesh. “You’re here to dance on my grave,” she said. “You’ve always been such a phony, Birdy. I don’t buy your act that you give a crap about me. You have a singular focus. Birdy. That’s been you from Day One and I doubt you’ll change once I’m gone. Own it.”
Birdy had tried to hate her mother. Life would have been easier without the complication of Natalie Waterman in her life. She’d have fewer trips to the reservation. Less opportunity to tussle with her sister Summer over things that neither truly cared about. Birdy might not have to walk around feeling guilty for wanting a life off the reservation. Whenever that feeling of permanent escape from her mother and her past came to her, she found a million reasons to set it aside. To think that moving away meant leaving all of the family drama was a silly fantasy. The drama would always be there.
“I’m going to make a cup of tea,” she said as her mother dropped her hand. “Want one?” Birdy didn’t wait for her mother to answer. She’d bring her tea anyway.
Over the loud hum of the decades-old microwave, Birdy could hear the volume rise on the TV. Her mother had always used television to block out the real world. Before the reservation got satellite TV, Natalie would pore though old copies of People magazine, the Star, and the Globe.
Other people had such nicer lives.
“I made you some tea,” Birdy said, returning to the sofa. Her mother’s eyes stayed riveted on the TV screen.
“Did I ask you for some?” Natalie said, still watching the show.
“No, Mom, you didn’t,” Birdy said. “I thought you might like some.”
Natalie rolled her eyes in the direction of her daughter, then back to the TV. “Well, I don’t.”
“Mom, I want to help you,” Birdy said.
“Help me what?”
“Get through this, Mom,” she said.
“Everyone dies, Birdy. You see it every day at your job.”
Birdy let the words hang in the musty air of her mother’s trailer.
“I thought we could talk about things, Mom. You know, make things right.”
“You should go and do that with Summer. She’s not at death’s door.”
“You aren’t either, Mom. Besides, things with Summer are complicated right now.”
Natalie let out a hoarse laugh. “That’s what you call it? You’ve always been such a liar, Birdy.”
It had been a lie, of course.
“She’s still mad at me for telling Elan.”
The words sagged in the air. They were bait on a hook. Birdy had to just sit still and try not to fill the air with any more words. The glint of the hook sparked.
Natalie took a bite. “What?” she spat out. “What did you tell Elan?”
Birdy kept her eyes on her mother.
“The truth, Mom,” she said. “I told him the truth. At least the part of the truth I thought he could handle.”
Natalie’s eyes met Birdy’s. They were no longer the dark brown that had sparked like steel against flint. They were cloudy, the color of the muddy stream that bisected her mother’s property. Her hair was nearly snow white, save for the black tips of a dye job long since grown out. She sipped the tea she’d said she never wanted. Her silver rings were missing.
“Just what truth is that?” she asked, knowing the answer.
“That you are his mother,” Birdy said.
Natalie simmered. She was weak from the chemo, a rack of bones in an old gray afghan. Even so, Birdy knew a volcano was about to erupt. She could feel tremors of rage that came before any words.
“You had no right!” Natalie said.
Before then, Birdy thought she might cry at her mother’s insistence to bury the past. But she didn’t. In fact, she felt emboldened. Free. It felt very, very good.
“I had every right, Mom,” she said. “You can’t keep secrets like that. Secrets and cigarettes made you ill.”
Natalie looked away. “Is that another diagnosis from the dead people’s doctor?”
“Not a diagnosis, Mom,” Birdy sai
d. “Just a fact.”
“I want you gone,” Natalie said. “Out of my house. Right now. I don’t want to see you again.”
Birdy didn’t budge. “I’ll leave, Mom. I promise. But you’re going to have to listen to me, and you’re going to have to answer my questions.”
“Get out!” Natalie said in as loud a rasp as she could manage.
Birdy planted her feet. “Not going anywhere, Mom. Not until I’m done with you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
With her husband next to her snoring just below the annoyance decibel level, Kendall flipped though the pages of the yearbook she’d taken from Chelsea Hyatt’s townhome. Brenda Nevins was only a few years younger than herself, but the snapshot of her high school was nearly a duplicate of her own at South Kitsap. Hairstyles. Clothes. Activities. All were about the same.
She looked at Brenda’s photo. Her write-up held no mention of extracurricular activities. She was pretty, but not as pretty as she’d become when she had the money to afford the skill of a surgeon’s knife. Kendall looked a little closer at the photograph and noticed that the outfit Brenda wore for her senior portrait was a little tired. The other girls looked like they were wearing something new, a special top purchased just for the occasion. Brenda’s didn’t have that crisp new look.
Her mother in her pashmina and jewelry must have come into some money after she divorced her husband, she thought. Maybe collecting on insurance runs in the family.
If it did, it wouldn’t have surprised the detective. In rare instances, she knew, murderousness sometimes is genetic.
She flipped the pages to the cheerleaders and the X’s, wondering what each of them could have done to deserve the defacement. Stephanie, Terry, Anna, and Charlotte. The last girl was dead, but the others were still alive and living somewhere, she hoped, far away from Brenda Nevins and the kind of havoc that followed her wherever she went.
Steven’s eyes opened, and he rolled over.
“Reliving the past, Kendall?”
She gave him a playful kick under the covers.
“Not mine. Brenda Nevins’s.”
“That Brenda,” he said, “she finally found a way to wriggle into our bed.”
“Not funny,” Kendall said. “In fact, pretty gross.”
“She’s long gone,” he said. “Let’s get some sleep.”
“I don’t think so, honey. I think she’s here, and I’m going to find her. And you know what, I don’t even care if I bring her in alive.”
“Shhh,” he said. “Got to get some sleep. Night, sweetheart. Night, Brenda.”
She kicked him again. Playfully. At least a little so.
Before settling down, turning off the light, and snuggling next to her husband, Kendall looked at the inside back cover of the yearbook. Among the “have a fun summer” and “you’re sweet, stay that way” and “party!” was a message written by Brenda.
Chelsea, we made it through another year! Not the end, but the beginning. I hate this school and I hate this town (so boring!). I will never waste my time with losers again. I’m going to get out of here and be famous. No one will ever stop me. No one can. It will be my turn. Screw the bitches and their kind. Everyone will know my name. I’m going to be on TV. Just watch. See you at the river! Luv you
The river.
Kendall looked back at the photo of the cheer team. Charlotte’s last name was Barrow. Charlotte Barrow. She crawled out of bed and logged onto her computer and into the database of the Tri-City Herald. She typed in the girl’s name. Two stories popped up.
Teen dies in accident on the Columbia
Charlotte Barrow, 17, drowned Sunday at Riverfront Park when the raft she was floating in capsized. Police say bystanders retrieved Barrow from a sandbar and tried to revive her.
She was pronounced dead at County Hospital upon arrival by ambulance.
“It’s a real tragedy,” said Tom Wolfson, 18, who helped get Barrow to shore. “The place where they dragged her from is so shallow. Seems like she just panicked.”
Brenda Holloway, 17, was on the raft with Barrow at the time of the accident.
“There wasn’t anything I could do,” she said. “One minute she was laughing and paddling and the next minute she was under the water. Her eyes were looking right at me and I tried to lift her, but she’s so much bigger than I am.”
Barrow was a popular teen at Richland High School. She was a member of the yearbook staff and a cheerleader. Her parents are John and Donna Barrow, Richland. Services pending.
Kendall shuddered. Of course, Brenda was there. And of course, she managed to get in a dig about Charlotte being so much bigger than she. Brenda might have insisted to Chelsea that the other girls were catty and bitchy, but it was obvious to Kendall that there were no bounds to Brenda’s own negativity about those she thought had crossed her.
She scrolled down to the second story.
Services held for Charlotte Barrow
Richland teen Charlotte Barrow will be memorialized at Our Lady of the Redeemer, 249 West Valley Highway, at 1 p.m. on Saturday.
Barrow, the daughter of John and Donna Barrow, Richland, drowned in the Columbia last week when the raft she was floating in overturned while she was celebrating the end of the school year with friends.
Services will include a tribute to the teen by her friends on the cheerleading squad. In addition, a teen will recite a poem she’s written about Barrow. Food and beverages will be provided by the family.
Kendall didn’t need the name of the teen who’d be reading the poem. It had to be Brenda.
Brenda hated to be in the shadows. Dark recesses in which to hide were not for her at all. She was always finding her way into the spotlight.
Kendall shut the lid on her laptop and returned to bed. She didn’t want to think about Brenda, but that was impossible. She was an insidious presence that never abated. The trail of destruction that followed her had likely started earlier than she or anyone else for that matter had thought. Charlotte’s death had been ruled an accident by the Richland police. It was summer. Kids were drinking, letting loose. Tragedy visits happy times like that all the time, as though people need a reminder now and then: Don’t overdo it; don’t have too much fun. Guilt obscures what happens. And on that terrible day on the river, no one had thought to question the friend who had been there when the drowning occurred. Kendall thought of the quote Brenda had reportedly given to the paper. She had seen Charlotte’s eyes looking up at her through the icy cold waters of the Columbia River.
Of course you did, Kendall thought. You were holding her head underwater while Charlotte fought for her life.
Kendall turned off the light and tugged at the covers Steven had appropriated. She wondered if the drowning had been the first surge of power that Brenda had felt in taking a life. Had that incident on the river with Charlotte been a spark that over time caught fire, smoldering until she married Joe Nevins, had her baby, and realized that the only way out of town—the only way out of that mundane life—was to do what she’d done before?
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Sherman Wilder went up to what had been his parents’ bedroom. His mother no longer could navigate the staircase so she had Sherman remake the master bedroom into a guest suite. He reluctantly agreed and packed up her clothes for the room downstairs that she’d proclaimed as the best location in the house.
“A straight shot for the undertaker when he comes to get me,” she said.
He cleared the top of the dresser of all of the sentimental odds and ends that his mother had collected—and faithfully dusted—over the years. They were a time capsule of sorts. Among them were the ashtrays that he and his siblings had made at Lutheran Church camp on the coast. Their mother wasn’t a smoker. Neither was their father. Ashtrays were the go-to ceramic gift for parents of children born in the 1950s and early ’60s.
Also ensconced on the bureau was his father’s badge from the paper mill. It rested on top of the last Valentine card he’d given her:
For My Loving Wife. The imagery on the card was two entwined gold wedding bands. Sherman opened it. Inside, under the greeting card verse, his father had written a message: Violet, no life would be worth living without you. He felt his eyes moisten. He slid the card back to the spot where his mother had left it.
Some of what was in that room, however, didn’t tug at the heartstrings. Instead, some of it flat-out irritated Sherman. Enraged him even.
On the wall by the bathroom door were a meticulously organized series of framed family photos—baby, high school senior, and wedding portraits. Of the three Wilder children only Denise and Sherman had been married. Denise, in fact, had been married twice by the time she was thirty-five. Sherman’s ex-wife, Susan, stared out from behind the sheen of her photo’s glass covering.
Sherman reached for that particular photo. He’d argued with his mother over that portrait for years following the divorce. He didn’t understand how she could just leave it hanging there, taunting him and reminding him of Susan’s betrayal.
He confronted her more than once about it.
“She cheated on me, Mom. She ruined my life. And you keep this picture here? What’s the matter with you?”
Violet shook off his concerns.
“She’s the mother of your daughter, Sherman,” she said. “You can’t do anything about that. I expect you wouldn’t want to change it if you could.”
Sherman’s blood simmered. He couldn’t understand her position on the matter.
“She took my daughter away from me, Mom. She screwed that pastor of hers and told me it was my fault. That I wasn’t paying enough attention to her and that she was vulnerable. Took everything from me.”
