by Joseph Souza
“Every time we talk.”
“What does he know about me?”
“I haven’t told him anything yet. That’s something you should probably discuss with him.”
“I will in due time.”
“Don’t take too long. Time may not be on his side.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ll let him tell you.”
“You see him regularly?”
“He drives us around to our appointments and helps us run errands when we need it. It’s an excuse for me to help him out financially, and spend some time with him.”
I walk over and plant a kiss on top of Wendy’s head. After grabbing her empty teacup, I wash it out and place it in the kitchen sink next to mine. I leave the kitchen and notice that Russ is reclined in his easy chair and snoring loudly. Not wanting to wake him, I tiptoe past and traipse up the stairs. Instead of going to my room, I enter the sitting room and plop down in the rocking chair. The photo album is in the same place where I left it. I grab the album and flip through the pages, taking solace in my long-ago past. There are photos of Wendy when she was healthy, and I see my mother when she was young and beautiful. A family portrait of all of us. There’s my father sporting long hair and a thick mustache. He’s holding Jaxon in his wiry arms, and Jaxon’s beaming with joy. It’s all I can do to keep my composure. Tears fall from my eyes, and I realize I have to stop looking or I’ll become an emotional wreck.
There’s nothing left for me to do but get some rest before I meet with Dalton tonight. I wonder if he has an ulterior motive for meeting me. He was once a bully, and bullies do what they do because of their own deep insecurities. So what’s Dalton’s story? What caused him to lash out and treat others so horribly? Had he too been treated badly growing up?
The floorboards creak underfoot, and I fear that I’ll wake Russ. But then a door opens and I see Brynn standing there. She looks surprised to see me. Something about her today seems different. She nods for me to come inside, and I follow her into the spacious room. A song is playing in the background, something contemporary and poppy. It’s a typical girl’s room: boy band posters, dolls on shelves, photos of her and her friends. The room is clean and tastefully decorated. All her clothes are where they should be, books stacked neatly together, and no unnecessary papers or pop cans cluttering things up. I’m impressed and slightly envious of her organization skills. On her desk sits an open laptop. A profusion of multicolored laser beams shoot out from the computer’s screen. Brynn falls into her chair and swivels around to face me, a self-satisfied smile over her face.
“Have a seat,” she says, gesturing with her hand. “It’s just us girls.”
“Where?”
“On the bed. It’s okay if you wrinkle it.”
I lower myself on the bed and cross my legs until I’m sitting comfortably. It’s soft and pliable, and the duvet billows with air as I settle onto the mattress. I’ve not been in this room since returning to Fawn Grove. It looks totally different from what I remember. From when it used to be Wendy’s room, littered with toys and stuffed animals.
“How do you like it?” she says, looking around.
“You appear to be a very neat and organized person.” I recall Wendy telling me about her emotional issues.
“Yes, I’m like my mother in that regard,” she says, smiling with pride. “Any luck finding out who did it?”
“Not yet.”
She laughs, which strikes me as odd, considering that we’re discussing her classmate’s murder. “Nasreen really got her ass chewed out the other day, huh?”
“Have you heard from her?”
“No. Should I have?”
“I was just wondering if she was all right.” I don’t want to speculate and frighten Br ynn.
“Why wouldn’t she be?”
“I just don’t want her to get fired from her job.”
“I can text her if you like.”
“Could you?”
“Sure. We text back and forth all the time.”
“Tell her I’d like to talk a bit more about her cousin, if she’s willing to speak with me.”
“Okay,” she says. Huge dimples appear over her cheeks when she smiles. “The kids in my school can be such jerks at times. I feel really bad about what happened to Sulafi. Just because she was an immigrant doesn’t mean she deserved to be treated like that.”
“Treated like what?”
“Teased. Girls my age can be so cruel.”
“Something you’ve seen?”
“Yes, it happened to me in the sixth grade, and I swore to never be a victim again,” she says, a hardness in her voice I’ve not yet detected.
“I’m sorry you were bullied.”
“It was humiliating, and I hated myself for letting it happen.”
“But you don’t hate yourself anymore?”
“Oh, hell no,” she says, her tone now upbeat. “I vowed to always stand up for myself and my friends.”
“Good for you.”
“No, good for you.” She smiles and swivels 360 degrees in her chair. “You look so pretty today, Lucy.”
“I do?”
She giggles in a girlish manner. “You totally crack me up.”
“Why’s that?”
“Oh my god,” she says, pausing to stare at me. “Maybe I could help you with your makeup some time.”
“Too heavy?” I suddenly feel self-conscious about the way I look.
She moves a thumb close to her forefinger. “Maybe just a teensy bit.”
“I thought it looked okay when I left.”
“It could just be me, then,” she says. “How are your . . . legs feeling today?” She covers her mouth as if to keep from laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“I just didn’t know how to refer to them.”
“Refer to what?”
She reaches down and rubs her hand on the spot where my legs end.
“Oh. Those. I call them stumps.”
“Stumps. That’s a funny-sounding word.”
“Not so funny when they belong to you.”
“I’m sorry, Lucy. I wasn’t trying to make fun of you.”
“It’s fine. You didn’t know.”
She sits up all prim and proper, hands folded over her lap. “So what’s it like being back in Fawn Grove? Is it depressing?”
“Is that how Fawn Grove seems to you?”
“Like, duh! I can’t wait to leave this place. Only difference is, I’m never coming back. Ever.”
“That’s easy to say now. Your hometown always beckons you when you’ve been away from it for a while.”
“This town is so mind-numbingly boring that I’ll kill myself if I stay here any longer.”
“You shouldn’t talk like that.”
“Look at my parents and what it’s done to them. They say the mills caused a lot of people to get sick and die.”
“Your father’s injury was a freak accident.”
“What about my mother’s illness? You don’t think all that smoke and pollution caused her MS? Look around this crappy town. Everyone’s sick or dying from one thing or another.”
“Your parents are doing the best job they can.”
“My father sits around on that stupid recliner all day and watches TV. What kind of life is that? At least my mom tries to stay as active as possible.”
“I notice she’s gotten worse since I’d last seen her.”
“The doctors say there’s no cure for the kind of MS she has.”
“I’m sorry, Brynn.”
“I don’t need your sympathy,” she says, brushing her fingers through her hair. “My only other relative in town is that old pothead who calls himself my grandfather, and he couldn’t care less about me.”
“Do you see him often?”
“On occasion, although I try not to. I hate going over to his depressing cabin,” she says, making a sour face. “It smells horrible in there.”
“What’s he like?�
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“You wouldn’t even recognize him. He looks like one of those homeless bums you see diving in Dumpsters for food. Greasy hair and beard, and his nails are long and yucky. I don’t think he ever showers.”
“Your mother said he’s been doing worse since your grandmother died.”
“From what I’ve heard, he never cared much about her anyway. Gramma was always trying to make excuses for him, but I knew the truth.”
“Your mother told you that?”
“No, I overheard my parents talking about him and the way he treated Gramma. He’s a total loser.”
She’s angry, and I realize I need to change the subject before this turns sour. “I hiked down to the river where that girl was killed.”
“That’s creepy. Why in the world would you do that?”
“Can I show you something?” I say. “Wait right here.”
I hobble back to my room and dig out the earring I’d hidden in the drawer. It feels light in my hand. Almost weightless. I don’t know why I’m doing this, other than I’m searching for answers any way possible. I return to her room and show it to her. Brynn cranes her neck over my open palm and studies it for a few seconds. The expression on her face changes subtly, and I can tell the earring has caught her attention. Her dimples vanish, and her eyes seem to darken as if reflecting some inner turmoil. She looks up at me and shakes her head. But I sense that she knows something about it.
“I found this in a bush not far from the crime scene,” I say.
She stares unblinkingly at me with those large blue eyes.
“You’re telling me you don’t know anything about it?”
“It’s just a stupid earring. Anybody could have left it there.”
I can tell she’s hiding something. “Who does it belong to?”
She hesitates for a few seconds before heading toward her drawer. She reaches inside and pulls out two earrings exactly like the one in my hand.
“Okay, I wasn’t being totally honest. I do recognize it.”
“Why did you lie to me?”
“Because I was afraid you might have freaked out and gotten the wrong impression.”
“And what impression is that?”
“These earrings are like our secret symbol. They represent the fact that my friends and I have bonded for eternity. A bunch of us got the rings as soon as we entered high school.”
“How did it end up in the bushes down by the crime scene?”
She shrugs. “It’s obviously been a long time since you’ve been back in this town. Was it as boring then as it is now?”
“I would imagine even more so back in my day. We didn’t have cell phones or social media to keep us busy.”
“Lucky you,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You’ve got to promise not to say anything to my parents.”
“Okay.”
“That place where the girl was killed is a popular spot for kids to party. Triple Bs, everyone calls it.”
“Triple Bs? What does that mean?”
“Beers, blunts, and blowjobs,” she says, stifling a laugh. “Come on, Lucy. You can’t be that much of a prude?”
“Trust me, I’m no prude,” I say, slightly taken aback by her bluntness. “You don’t go down there, do you?”
“Only when I’m bored.” And I’m bored every second of my life, her body language conveys to me. “But I don’t do all that stuff.”
“What do you do then?”
“Two out of three, maybe.” She giggles.
“But why do you go down there, Brynn? You’re only fifteen.”
“Dude? There’s like nothing else to do in this town except party. Besides, I get decent grades and do all my chores. And there’s no way I’m going to sit at home and be the class dork.”
“I didn’t expect this from you.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“But why?” Sadly, I know why she goes down there.
“Do you know how many kids end up getting stoned or drunk on the weekend? Do you have any idea how many junkies there are in this town because this place is such a dead-end? There’s no future here for us kids in Fawn Grove.”
“Did you tell the police about what goes on down there?”
“Seriously?” Brynn rolls her eyes and makes an exaggerated show of laughing. “Like Dalton and his band of idiots don’t know that kids go down there to party. From what my mother told me, he was the wildest of them all back in the day.”
I laugh. “He was.”
“You knew him?”
“Some.”
“The cops chase us out of there all the time. Then one of the boys got smart and ran a fishing line across the trail. It’s attached to a bell so that whenever the cops come after us we have enough time to escape.”
“Don’t you think it’s odd that I found this earring near the crime scene?”
“Hardly,” she says, now sitting cross-legged in her chair. “Bet if you look hard enough you’ll find a lot more of our stuff down there: bottles, condoms, cigarette butts.”
I stand to leave. “You probably shouldn’t be partying down there, Br ynn. It could be dangerous.”
“No offense, Lucy, but you don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“I understand, but what would your mother say if she knew?”
“My mother was known to party back in the day too. So what’s she going to say? I’m just following in a long tradition of Fawn Grove juvenile delinquency.”
“But she wants better for you. To get good grades and attend college.”
“You’re right, but I’m sure you don’t want to upset my mother right now, especially with all her health problems.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t say anything.”
Brynn seems far older than fifteen at the moment. Then again I was just like her at that age.
“How well did you know Jaxon?”
“Everyone in town knew him.”
“What was he like?”
“He’s gone now, Brynn. It’s still too painful for me to talk about what happened.”
“Maybe some other time?”
“Sure.” I stand to leave.
“Take care of yourself, Lucy.” She smiles.
“You too.”
I walk back to my room and bury my head in the pillow, trying not to think about the past. My head is spinning as I reflect on that strange conversation with Br ynn. Who is this conflicted girl playing the role of my sweet niece? She doesn’t seem so sweet anymore, but then again no one is ever as they seem, especially the more I learn about her. It should come as no surprise that a pretty girl like Brynn would rather hang out with the cool kids in school than be in this house of sickness and impending death. And who am I to talk? I used to be one of the wildest kids in town. I drank, smoked weed, and ran with a crowd that would have shocked most people.
I need to rest before I meet with Dalton this evening. I close my eyes, but all I can think about is that fateful day when my life forever changed, the day before my legs got blown off. Had it not been for that IED, who knows what would have happened to me or how my life might have turned out? I suppose it doesn’t really matter at this point. Legs or no legs, the voices in my head would still be there.
Sleep proves difficult, and my mind races like the hands of a clock on steroids. It seems odd how everything has led me back to Fawn Grove. Honestly, I never thought I’d end up back here. Even contemplating a visit seemed far-fetched and ludicrous—until I suffered that nervous breakdown.
The notion that I might be going on a “date” with Dalton terrifies me. Or at least that’s how this dinner feels, despite my strong assertion that it’s not at all a date. In all my time in Manhattan, I had a total of four dates. There could have been more if I’d wanted, but what’s a girl to do when she’s working hundred-hour weeks and partying every night in order to survive until sunrise? All I ever wanted was someone to love and love me back. Nadia was the only person in my life who made me feel special, and I left her without even a good-
bye.
My eyelids fall gently as I settle into a woozy listlessness. Darkness turns into darkness. It’s the one place where all my demons reside. Tonight she visits me, the beautiful girl from the fruit market. She often makes an appearance in my dreams. And although she tells me that she’s in a good place now, and that I’m not to blame for what happened, it only serves to intensify my guilt. It’s why I will keep searching for this killer.
15
I CHECK MYSELF IN THE MIRROR WHILE WAITING FOR DALTON TO ARRIVE. I’ve not moved from this spot for thirty straight minutes. This is not a date, I keep reminding myself. So why do I care how I look? Or the special way I draw the outline of eyeliner? The long, yellow dress and black stockings tell a different story, although what kind of story I appear not to understand. Ask my subconscious. Ask the black leather boots that come up under my scarred and rebuilt knees, hiding any trace of prosthetic. I can’t remember the last time in New York City I wore a dress this nice. To this I add the double-breasted peacoat and flowery black scarf before heading downstairs to wait for him.
Ten minutes pass sitting in silence with Russ and Wendy. Wendy knits a scarf while Russ watches a documentary on the Wright Brothers. Suddenly the doorbell rings. A flock of doves patter in my stomach as if I’m getting ready for the prom, which I’d never had the pleasure of attending. I open the door and see Dalton standing on the stoop. He’s cleaned up nicely and is wearing a shirt and tie. An edgy five o’clock shadow is beginning to form over his chiseled face, and his dark hair has been gelled to look stylishly messy. The black leather jacket over his rugged shoulders reeks of masculine charm, and I can’t help but be impressed. I keep reminding myself that I don’t want to like him and that he treated me terribly as a child. So why are goose bumps forming along the skin of my arms? I should hate this guy for what he’s done. He escorts me down to his car and opens the passenger door like a true gentleman.
“You look fantastic,” he says.
“Thanks.”
“Look, I’m sorry about what happened the other day at the diner. Are we good?”
I smile at him. “Hell, no, we’re not good. Not even close to it. Now start driving before I starve to death.”
“You kill me, Lucy Abbott.”
