by Nancy Rue
“Huh,” Hazel said.
“What was that for?” Aunt Pete said from the stove.
“It just seems to me that once a kid gets to be sixteen, there are more influences on her than just her parents. Like hormones, for starters.”
I didn’t have to see Rebecca to know her posture was improving by the second. In another time I would have asked if anybody wanted more coffee, but I didn’t have the urge to smooth it over.
“Well, that’s it right there,” Rebecca said. “It seems to you. But we know that the most important influence on a child is her parents, especially if they’re Christians.” She swept a hand toward me.
“So Serena’s Exhibit A,” Hazel said.
“Serena has an amazing faith in the Lord. You don’t see her breaking down, do you? Look how strong she is.”
Aunt Pete shuffled over from the counter and sloshed more muddy coffee into my cup. “She’s a little too strong if you ask me.” Her eyes cut to me. “I don’t hear you crying. I don’t see you gettin’ mad. I mean, if I was you, I’d have shoved Nicky’s orders right back down his throat about six times by now.”
Hazel clapped.
“You’re not serious,” Rebecca said.
“I’m serious as a heart attack,” Aunt Pete said.
Rebecca put her hand on top of mine. “We just don’t do things that way. That’s why Serena can be so calm. She depends on Nick and on the Lord.”
I slid my hand away. “Rebecca,” I said, “would you do me a favor?”
“Anything. You know that.”
“Would you go pick up the dry cleaning? Nicky’s almost out of shirts.”
“That was on my list.” She scraped back her chair and looked at Hazel. “I’d like to finish this conversation sometime.”
“Oh,” Hazel said, “were we having a conversation?” She hoisted her purse over her shoulder and headed for the door behind Rebecca. When Rebecca had disappeared through it, Hazel poked her head back in and whispered hoarsely, “Way to clear the room, Serena. I have to run an errand. I’ll be back.”
“Nothing gets past that Hazel,” Aunt Pete said after they’d both left. She got up from the table.
“Don’t go,” I said.
“I’m just gonna put on another pot of coffee.”
“No, I mean don’t go back to Philadelphia. Please.”
She turned to me, eyes glassy in her life-dried face. “Who said I was going back to Philly? I’m staying till Tristan comes home or until you—not Nicky—throw me out.” Her breath was uneven for a minute while she filled the coffeepot at the sink. “I’m going to tell him that too,” she said. She let the water overflow as she dabbed at her eyes. “That and a few other things.”
Hazel came back that afternoon to find me pacing around the house. She parked the kids in the family room with a DVD and a package of Oreos and sequestered the two of us in the library.
“Okay,” she said, “I would have taken you with me, but Aunt Pete said you’re under house arrest right now, so I had to go without you.”
“Go where?”
“The tattoo parlor.” Hazel tossed her bangs back. “It took me awhile to find the one where Little Ricky got his done, but I have connections. Anyway, you remember I asked his mother if that tattoo in the picture was new?”
“She said it was.”
“That was three months ago. Which means right about now, he’d be going back in to have it touched up.”
“How do you know that?” I said.
“I used to work at a tattoo place. I told you I was a graphic artist.”
“You went there?” I bolted from the chaise longue. “Has he been back? Have they seen him?”
Hazel shook her head. “No. I hate it, but … I did find out something, and I’m not sure how it’s going to hit you, so—”
“What is it, Hazel?” My hands were tightened into little balls. “Just tell me. I’m so tired of people not telling me.”
“Attagirl, Serena. Okay. The guy at the Lone Wolf told me he hasn’t seen Ricky Zabriski since mid-July, when he came in with his girlfriend.”
“Tristan?”
“I showed him her picture, and he said it was her. He said the Zabriski kid was trying to talk her into getting a tattoo on her ankle. She said no, but this guy was surprised they didn’t come back in to have it done anyway.”
“Why?” I said.
Hazel grimaced. “He said either she was in love with him or she was scared to death of him, but one thing was for sure: she would have done anything he asked her to.”
At nine I was lying on my bed suffering through the vision of Tristan crawling to please Ricky Zabriski when Aunt Pete brought me the phone.
“Nicky got to L.A.,” she said.
Evidendy she’d told him “a few things” during their conversation.
“I don’t like this,” he said to me, “but I guess I can’t kick her out of the house.”
“I want her here,” I said. “She’s keeping me from losing my mind. I can talk to her.”
“Talk to her all you want,” he said. “Just don’t listen to her.” He sighed. “I guess she’s better for you than that Hazel character.”
I had a flash of myself hurtling a plum right at his forehead.
Maybe I really am losing my mind, I thought after we hung up. I was having bizarre images of assaulting my loved ones with rotten fruit, but I couldn’t bring into focus the one thing that had always kept me sane before.
Perhaps that was a good thing, I decided. The sight of God as Christ comforting a lapful of trusting children raised too many ugly questions I wasn’t allowed to ask. What had He done with my child? What about the comfort I needed? How was I supposed to trust Him now?
The comfort and the safety and the trust had disappeared. Just like Tristan. And I didn’t know where any of it was.
Although Nick’s stay in L.A. lengthened to more than a week, he gave me no information about searching for the disgruntled employee who he thought had Tristan. All he would say was that he was working on it and not to worry. I held back so many retorts of “How can I not worry?” and “Don’t I have a right to know?” that by the Friday of Labor Day weekend, I was stuffed with them. I thought if I spoke at all, I would lose what little control I had. Lissa took one look at me that morning and called in “the Girls.”
“You don’t have to do that, sweetie,” I told her. “I’m fine.”
“You need your friends with you, Serena. We can’t fix you, but I think you need some support.”
Pastor Gary took all the kids to a movie in Fenwick. We gathered, childless, in my family room—Hazel, Aunt Pete, Rebecca, Christine, Lissa, and Rebecca’s mother, Peg—while Baby Mitchell napped in the library. Peg passed around a mound of homemade gingersnaps, and Rebecca told them about my new chauffeuring duties.
“You’re amazing, Serena,” Christine said. “Seriously. You have all this on you, and you can still focus on Max.”
“It’s not that: amazing, really,” Peg said. She stroked the turkey skin on her neck. “Serena just trusts in the Lord. You can keep going when you have that kind of faith.” She nodded conspiratorially at me, as if she and I were among the very few who possessed it.
“I was saying this to Hazel the other day,” Rebecca said. “Serena’s not falling apart. She just keeps being this amazing mother. I bet she could tell you exactly what verse is holding her together.” She nodded to me as if she’d just given me a cue.
The expectation was like a pinch, and I pulled back from it.
Hazel, who had been oddly quiet until then, said, “So, is there a verse for every situation?”
“If you know your Bible,” Peg said.
“Or someone else can show you,” Lissa said.
“So, okay, here’s what I’m hearing,” Hazel said.
Shut up, Hazel, I wanted to say to her. All of you shut up. My imp self scowled—as if while I’d been ignoring her, she’d turned into an ugly troll. I stayed still, lest she sud
denly get away from me.
Hazel pushed her bracelets up her arms. “I’m hearing you say that if you know your Bible or somebody can give you the right verses, your natural feelings will go away, and you can handle everything without ever getting your panties in a bunch.”
Peg scowled, skin sagging down from her forehead. She began to remind me of Duke, the police bloodhound. “That isn’t what we’re saying at all.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“That when we have bad feelings, we can turn them over to the Lord.” Rebecca nodded toward me. “Like Serena’s doing.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” Hazel said, riveting her blazing blues to me.
Peg reached her hand toward Hazel and patted the air since Hazel was too far away to be patted. “This is probably hard for you to grasp, Harriet, since you don’t have the background—”
“Hazel,” Lissa muttered.
“Yeah, thanks, Lissa, but I can speak for myself,” Hazel said. “The question is, can Serena? You’re all talking for her like you know what she’s thinking.”
“We probably do,” Rebecca said.
Aunt Pete muttered something. Christine excused herself to go check on Mitchell’s nap situation. Lissa ran her hand up and down my arm. It was all I could do not to jerk it away.
“You know what?” Hazel said. “I don’t believe that.”
Peg gasped.
“I want to hear it from Serena,” Hazel said.
They all turned to me, and I could almost hear them saying, Tell her, Serena. Set her straight.
Yet even as I opened my mouth, I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t validate them all with the reassurance that, indeed, I had turned all my “bad feelings” over to God. I wanted to say, “He sure hasn’t done much with them.” I was dying to say, “Who cares about my feelings? I want my daughter back.” All I could manage to say was, “I don’t want to.”
“You’re tired.” Lissa stroked my arm and turned on Hazel, “Let’s not push it, okay?”
“Okay,” Hazel said, “then I’ll tell you what I think you’re thinking, Serena.” Hazel moved her substantial self to the edge of the Papasan chair, tipping it up behind her. “You’re thinking, ‘If only I hadn’t let Tristan get that job. This is my fault. I’m supposed to be Supermom, and I screwed up.’ ”
“Oh, honestly,” Peg said.
“You’re dying inside because you want to kill the monster that took your kid, whether she wanted to go or not. You want to chew out the cops because they haven’t found her yet. Heck, not just the cops. The mayor. The city council. The governor.”
“Serena, do you want me to stop her?” Lissa said.
“You can’t sleep at night because you’re afraid you’ll dream things that might drive you straight out of your mind—”
“I’m sorry, but you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peg said.
“Maybe that’s how you would feel, Hazel,” Rebecca said.
Hazel didn’t take her eyes off of me. “You can hardly even think about your husband because you want to smack his face.”
“Where are you getting all this stuff?” Lissa said.
“I’m paying attention.” Hazel pointed straight at me. “I look at you, girl, and I don’t see you being all strong and holy. I see you pretending you don’t hate life itself right now. You’re about to crack open like an egg.”
I turned from her and tried to find something to look at that would keep her from being right. I found the stack of stone coasters on the coffee table, the ones with the happy sailboats on them. I hated them. I, Serena Soltani, hated, and I hadn’t even known that I knew how to hate.
“I think we should change the subject,” Lissa said.
“I don’t,” Hazel said. “It’s just starting to get real.”
“You don’t know what real is, Hazel,” Rebecca said.
“What is it?” Hazel said.
“Real is that God is sovereign, and even though we don’t always understand what He’s doing—”
“I hate what He’s doing,” I said.
The air in the room went dead.
“I hate it,” I said. “I hate it.”
“Serena!” Rebecca said.
I pulled a coaster off the top of the stack, like a card off a deck, and, getting to my feet, hurled it. It sang past Rebecca’s ear and landed with a thud in a basket of cotton throws.
“Hon? What’s going on?” Lissa said.
I dodged the hand that tried to grab my arm. “I hate everything that’s keeping Tristan away from me.” I chucked a coaster at the ceiling and dislodged the plaster. And then another at the floor and another, with the hate that poured from my cracked shell.
“I hate Spider Zabriski. I hate myself. I hate being told what a wonderful mother I am. I hate hearing that ‘God is good all the time; all the time God is good,’ because He let her be taken, and He won’t bring her back, and I don’t see anything good in that!”
The last coaster smashed into the telescope and knocked it against the window.
Peg shoved past Lissa to get to me. “Now you just sit down, Serena. And you get hold of yourself. This isn’t you talking; this is Satan, and we need to put an end to it.”
“Stop it,” I said.
“We need to pray, and we need to pray deep—”
“Stop—”
“Serena, now—”
“Get off me! All of you, just get out!”
I snatched up the table lamp and screamed again into their shocked faces.
“Get out. Get out!” Then I let go of my weapon and heard it crash to the floor. Smothering my face with both hands, I followed it.
Sobs came out so hard they hurt. When someone tried to put her arms around me, I shook her off. It was all coming out now, and I didn’t want anybody to stop it. The one thing I knew for sure was that if I shoved it back down, it would be there forever, and it would destroy me.
Beyond me, Baby Mitchell’s frightened cries faded out the front door. I heard snatches of Lissa on the phone and Peg still declaring that they needed to pray for a deeper faith for me so Satan couldn’t get to me and Aunt Pete muttering to Rebecca to get her mother out of there before she herself started hurling crockery.
I just kept rocking and retching up sobs. When there was nothing left but little-girl hiccups, I raised my head. The room was empty except for a familiar smell that wrapped itself around me.
“Aunt Pete’s making coffee,” a gravel voice said. “Personally, I think you need something stronger than that.”
Hazel was on the couch above me, restacking the coasters. The lines radiating from her eyes were deep, like wisdom.
“You okay?” she said.
“No,” I said.
“Good answer. If you’d said yes, I would have socked you.”
I looked warily at the doorway. “Is everybody gone?”
“You think? Christine and Lissa couldn’t get out of here fast enough. Aunt Pete ran the other two off with her broomstick.”
“I was just a little bit hard on them.”
“A little? You were better than Judge Judy.” Hazel grinned. “I was proud of you. I knew you had it in you, though.”
“I didn’t.” I stretched my legs out and rubbed my shins. A creeping sense of regret was edging in on me.
Hazel nudged me on the shoulder with her toe. “Don’t go getting all remorseful. If they’re your friends, they’ll get it. You’ve been storing up that stuff for too long. It had to come out.”
“Why did it have to come out in front of them?”
“Who cares?” Aunt Pete said. She carried in a tray of mugs that, in her own words, could have walked in from the kitchen by themselves. I’d have bet she made the coffee triple strength.
“Look, I’m sure they mean well and all that,” Hazel said, “but they don’t let you act like a human being.” She frowned into the mug of mud. “You don’t even let yourself act like a human being.”
I started to cry ag
ain. “I don’t mean to be mad at God, you know, but where is He? And where was I, and where’s Tristan?” I doubled up into my knees. “Oh, my gosh, this hurts.”
“Get it all out, Serena,” Aunt Pete said. “Get all that stuff out of there.”
“I don’t know how!”
“Looks like you’re doing a pretty good job of it to me.”
“Want another stack of coasters?” Hazel said.
Chapter Ten
Hazel stayed until Gary brought her kids over. I sorted through the group on the porch and said, “Where’s Max?” I caught Gary’s sleeve. “Where’s Max?”
“She’s at our house,” Gary said. “Nick asked if we’d keep her overnight, give you a chance to—”
“Nick?” I said.
“Much as I’d love to stay and hear the end of this tale,” Hazel said, “I better get these guys home.”
Sun put her hands on her nonexistent hips. “I wanted to stay with Max. It’s not fair.”
“Who ever promised you fair, kid?” Hazel said.
I gazed after them as Hazel piled everyone into the Suburban. Nick had said something like that to Max dozens of times, but the way Hazel put it—“Who ever promised you fair?”—wedged itself into me. I’d honestly thought Somebody had promised me fair.
“I felt like I had to call Nick, Serena,” Gary said to me as Hazel drove off. “Lissa said you were so upset.”
I set my teeth. “Did she tell you I lost it?”
“Something like that. I suspected you were just having a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. Looks like I was right.” His freckles crinkled as he smiled. “I’ll tell Nick he doesn’t need to fly home.”
“What?”
“He wanted me to check on you and tell him whether I thought he should cut his trip short and come back.”
I tried to imagine Nick pulling into the driveway just then, spraying gravel but smoothing himself down before he emerged from the car to come and put me back together.
But according to Gary, I hadn’t fallen apart. He was the pastor, and he should know. Now he could tell Nick, and Nick would know I was fine. Nobody asked me.
“No,” I said, “I’ll go get Max. Let me just get my purse.”
