As Dad releases me I spin, slapping him hard across the face. Something as brief as lightning, and just as hot, burns in his gaze. “You lied to me,” he says.
“I did not! You just don’t trust me!” My eyes cloud with tears. I lunge at him again, unable to control myself. Dad shoves me away, like my strength is nothing, and I fall across the bed.
“The truth only stings, Aspen, when you’ve been putting all your energy into hiding it from yourself and everybody around you. So now you’ll get used to life being elsewhere.”
I shake my head. “It’s my life! You have no right!”
“There was a dead squirrel on our porch Saturday morning!”
I mentally kick myself. I should have known Em would keep doing things on the weekend. But I say, “So? A cat could have left it.”
“Cats don’t hunt with guns. Yesterday I found a mutilated bird in the mailbox. Today, a painted black rock slammed into our front door while you were probably on your way to school. End of discussion. I drugged the Chai and took you.”
“You—? With what?”
“Valium.”
I snug my legs against my chest and give into my tears. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“I’m just doing what I think is best.”
“You have no right!”
“I have every right,” Dad shouts. “You are my child! You won’t see that you’re in danger. You won’t trust me with the truth. You and I both know Em’s stalking you. We both know she shot that horse.”
“If she shot Rox she meant to! Kyle says—”
The muscles along Dad’s jaw line flex. “Kyle says! He’s a kid, Aspen, like you.”
I start to say, “He knows Em better than you do!” but I never finish. Dad steps near the bed and I throw myself at him. He grabs my arm and pushes me away. I launch at him again and he wrestles me down.
“You want to battle until we’re both weeping blood,” he says, “we will. Either way we’re gonna stay here, in this room, until you’ve spilled every secret you’ve been harboring. If you can manage that then maybe, maybe, we’ll get to where we can really talk.”
37
I’M NOT ABOUT to trust Dad with my secrets. Not now. I say, “I hate you for doing this!” and Dad releases me. He shrugs and shifts a bit, settling close. “Well, I love you, baby.” His posture softens, the slight round of his shoulders more pronounced.
I start to say, “You’re such a jerk.”
“Don’t,” he says, cutting me off.
I burst into tears. “You’re ruining my life!”
“I’m saving your life.”
“You don’t even know my life.”
“I know it better than you think.”
“What, you can have secrets, but I can’t?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Oh!” I flail my arms. “I forget. You mean you know my life because it’s so much like yours? Well I’m here to tell you. Just ‘cause Mom used to get beat up—”
Right before my eyes, Dad becomes someone else. He turns from me, staring into space. The transformation doesn’t alter the muscles of his face yet it’s there, and it’s deep. Without glancing at me he stands up and walks toward the couch. He climbs over the back, punches his pillow, arranges his covers and settles out of sight.
A slight click and the room is instant black.
I feel frozen. In shock. Why was it okay for him to talk about Mom’s past with Kyle, but not okay to talk about it with me? Have I ruined things between us forever, and just because I want to know about my mother? If I did, what will I do?
When my shivering becomes unbearable I lie down and pull the covers over my body. The contrast grows between the cool air of the room and the warmth of my bed. “Please don’t do this,” I whisper into the darkness. “I deserve to know about my mom.”
“You know all you need,” Dad says.
“You talked about her with Kyle. I heard you. I don’t get why my own past has to be such a secret from me.”
“What I said to Kyle was a mistake.” Dad sighs and the room seems to swell and shrink with his breath. After a while he says, “You’re seventeen, Aspen. You don’t really have a past.”
“I have a past,” I say.
“You have memories. Stories from growing up. Childhood friends and unconditional love from me and your mother. Disappointments along the way. The pain of your mom’s death. But a past? That comes when you’re older. A past is built from irrevocable choices. Misunderstandings. Regret. I decided a long time ago that my past belongs to me alone. I know you hate the secrecy, but I need it. To your mother I was an open book. She knew the answers to every question you ever asked. She knew me completely, but that right belonged to her alone. My past is mine and that’s where it’ll stay.”
“It isn’t fair.”
“Few things are.”
“At least tell me why you won’t tell me.”
“I’ll tell you this much, baby. You never really understand how much you hurt your parents. At least not until becoming one yourself.”
Dad falls silent, then. For a while he tosses and turns, like he’s at war with the slight width of the couch. I’m still wide awake when his breathing deepens into a snore.
The edges of the drapes have been glistening with light for hours when Dad finally pulls himself over the back of the couch and wanders for the bathroom. The minute he shuts the door I’m up, tearing the curtains away from the window. We’re on a second story, the open walkway guarded by a snow-topped rod-iron railing. Directly below us our Jeep—the only car in a narrow parking lot—sits under a fresh skim of snow. Forest stretches like a plush green carpet in every direction, the tree tops dusted white.
I stare across the landscape, nursing the prick of disappointment that betrays my hope of still being in Gillette. To know I’m this isolated brings tears to my eyes. I mean, I hadn’t considered we’d be miles from anywhere and, apparently, alone.
I try the door handle, but the deadbolt is locked from the inside. I open the window a few inches. Bitter cold rushes into the room. I search for my coat and boots and bag, but I can’t find them.
There won’t be an easy way out of this.
The far wall is a kitchenette. Lifting a sack of groceries into my arm and carrying another by its paper handles, I put things away until I find coffee. I brew about six cups, pour myself one and settle into the corduroy chair.
Maybe ten minutes later Dad appears. He pours himself coffee too, then sits on the back of the couch, his feet resting on the seat cushions, his elbows on his knees. He sips for a while, looking out at the pines.
“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” he says.
There’s a slight bruise, like a pale blue shadow, across the crest of his cheek. I feel a sudden wave of guilt. “I don’t know what that means,” I say.
“It’s a line from an old movie.”
I set my mug on the window sill. “So where are we?”
“Twenty-five miles from the nearest highway. Three hundred miles from Gillette.”
“Where. Are. We.”
“A friend owns this place. It’s closed for winter. He’s letting us stay a few days.”
“But . . . why?” I take a deep breath. I’m close to crying.
“So we can talk, baby. On the road, we’d have fought too much. Every time I had to stop for gas you might have run off. Here you’re stuck with me. Your boots are locked in the Jeep. Your phone and coat, too. Kyle says you’re not the kind of girl to make a conscious choice to put yourself in danger. You’re on your honor to prove him right or wrong.”
“It’ll be your fault if I end up dead,” I say.
Dad scrubs his fingers through his hair. “Don’t talk like that, Aspen. I don’t want you dead. I want you to have a long, happy, love-filled life. Maybe that life’s with Kyle. Maybe it isn’t. Either way we’re gonna talk until you accept that we’re leaving Gillette.”
“I don’t want to leave Gillette! Kyle
is there. His family’s there. I belong there!” I wrap my arms around my knees and pull my body into a tight little ball. “This isn’t fair! You’re blowing the whole thing with Em out of proportion.”
Dad takes a long slurp from his coffee. “You’re the one who has it out of proportion,” he says. “You seem to see what Em is doing as nothing, like it’s no big deal. She’s leaving dead things on our porch. She shot a horse, and just a few inches from where you were sitting. Who’s to say that once she’s satisfied with threatening you or maiming you or whatever she has in mind, she won’t turn her attention to Kyle? I’m thinking of him in all of this, too. Go take a shower. Calm down enough to really talk. We’re gonna find a way to clear the air between us. Then we’re going back to Portland.”
38
DAY THREE, AND before I even crawl out of bed Dad and I are fighting. We talk in circles, around and around. He insists we go to Portland. I want Gillette. I suggest compromise—Jackson Hole or something—and he laughs. “I’ve gotta work, baby,” he says.
I’m so angry I throw stuff: my pillow, a magazine, my toast. I slam cupboards. I kick the couch. After breakfast I lock myself in the bathroom, just to get some space. Dad barks at me through the door, saying things like, “This is getting old,” and “Get your attitude adjusted!” and “We need to be in Portland by next week.”
I scream, “Are you trying to make me crazy?”
He doesn’t answer.
Everything between us is breaking down. I can’t wrap my brain around Dad’s s reasons for taking over my life. I’m furious he stole me away from Gillette. He refuses to let me call Kyle, or even Gwen. He won’t tell me where I am. I don’t accept his carte blanche parental right, as he calls it. He won’t listen to my point of view. When I bring up staying in Wyoming he cuts me off cold, saying, “It won’t work, staying here.”
Late in the afternoon, while I take a potty break, Dad makes a trip to the Jeep. He leaves our room unlocked and I sneak out, my feet freezing in my woolen socks. While he’s busy digging for something in the back I grab my bag and run for the trees.
It’s snowed a lot since we’ve been here, and running isn’t easy. My feet are numb; my socks ball with snow; things fall from my bag as I dig for my phone. Dad tackles me while I’m dialing Kyle’s number. He pries my phone from my hand. He says, “Only satellite phones work up here,” as he tosses my phone away. I lay into him, slapping and hitting, out of control. Dad grabs my arm and slings me over his shoulder. I thrash and scream and pound on his back, but his hold on me is firm. “Don’t make me drug you again,” he shouts.
I watch my bag, half-buried in the snow, grow smaller and smaller as Dad hauls me back to the motel. It’s stupid, but I yell, “I want my mother!” as I break out in tears.
He kicks the Jeep door shut before he carts me up one flight of stairs and into our room. For the rest of the day he guards the exit.
We need to talk. I get that. I mean, this whole thing is teetering on berserk. But I can’t find the right words. I’m too sleep deprived. Dad and I are too at odds with what we want. We can’t get out of each other’s space enough to get off each other’s nerves. We can’t find common ground.
At least that’s how it is for me.
I cook our dinner—canned chili, canned corn, apples and a Pop Tart—because I don’t trust him not to drug me. After we eat, Dad settles on the couch and reads until he falls asleep. I stare at my watch, counting with the second hand as it tallies the minutes toward seven-thirty.
Then I turn my attention to Dad. His breathing is slow and steady. As I study him my emotions explode: love and hate and anger, sorrow and a weird drive for revenge. I wish I could leave him here, alone. I wish I could pry his boots off his feet and use them to run away. I wish I could make him understand. Would he feel me digging the Jeep key from his pocket? Probably. And even if I managed to get the keys, even if I somehow made it out the door, I have never driven in snow.
Dad begins to snore. I turn off the lamp.
Sitting in the dark, staring out into a frozen world that still has no name, is my only freedom right now. Last night I sat like this for hours. And just like last night, Dad’s snoring stirs up memories of my childhood comforts. When I was young his snore told me I was safe, that things were okay, that Mom was snuggled up beside him in their big rod-iron bed. Those memories—and the feelings they bring—are alive in me now, but I wish they weren’t. Dad’s snoring is a lie. Things aren’t okay. Things will never be okay again.
It’s a quiet, moonless night, as dark as Devil’s Tower’s shadow. How long ago that day seems, when I Googled the tower and noticed its shadow! It was the day I met Kyle.
The ache to talk with him feels like cancer growing in my body. If he were here he’d help me find the words to say what I need to say. But maybe Dad convinced the Thackers that I’m going back to Portland willingly. Maybe Angella has already sat with Kyle in their breakfast nook, breaking the news over coffee and a game of gin. Maybe he has already accepted that I’m gone for good.
But I can’t believe he’d let me go so easily. When I think about it, I’m sure he’s as desperate for me as I am for him. I press the heels of my hands against my eyes until I see an internal universe of stars. For the millionth time since waking up in this crappy motel room, I shake with violent, hopeless tears.
My eyes burn, like they always do after a good cry. I get up, find a bottle of water, then curl into the corduroy chair. My body needs rest, but my brain needs time to think—it’s the only way I’ll make it through Day Four With Dad.
A massive yawn creeps over me. I stretch. I’m just about to change into my pajamas when, off to my left, I see a flicker of light. It caught my attention in an after-the-fact sort of way. It could have been my imagination, like my eyes are playing tricks. Or it could have been a falling star. I’ve seen dozens of them across the last few nights. Maybe this time one made it all the way to the ground.
I find that kind of cool.
After a few moments I see a solitary blink of brightness. Dark minutes go by after that; as many as five. I know this ‘cause I’m counting to sixty, over and over again. Another flash comes—one as brief as lightning.
Should I wake Dad?
He’s still snoring, though it’s slower than when I started my night watch, and softer. But something is coming—I decide that’s what the flashes mean. Another slice of light stabs into the dark, and then another. Something is coming! I don’t know if it’s a good something or a bad something, but the light gives me crazy, desperate hope. Quietly, I get up and put on another sweater. I pull on three pair of wool socks. Maybe, just maybe, the light is coming here.
When I return to my chair I see . . . nothing. It’s grown so dark it’s like I’m trapped in some lone place the universe can’t reach. It snowed this evening and everything sleeps under a fresh layer of white, though I’d never know it for looking. Stars hover above the tree line, little pin-pricks of powerless energy capping a basin of black. I wait and wait and wait, but my flashing light of hope has vanished. Did I break some kind of spell when I got up and dressed? Was the light just a passing car or truck coming up the mountain road on its way elsewhere? I wrap my arms around myself and shiver.
And then I see a different kind of light.
It’s warm, like candles are warm, and as small as a firefly. Unlike the brighter light, which I’m sure was made by headlights, this one hardly ever disappears. It flickers across the snow, this way and that, like a live virus in the belly of a great dark creature. My brain alternates between wonder and fear and apprehension.
I decide I don’t care if the light comes here. I want it to, actually. I want something to happen; anything that will change my situation. But either way, the end result of that tiny light is something I won’t influence. If I turn on the lamp I’ll wake Dad and the light might go away. By staying in the dark the light might never know I exist. So I wait, feeling a strange trust in the unknown, while the light inche
s into the narrow parking lot and toward our Jeep.
It stops on a tire. As adjusted as my eyes are to the dark, I still can’t see a person. A hand reaches into the light. I jump to my feet. The fingers twist at something—the valve cap?—then they’re still, the thumb pressing, pressing.
And upstairs, one floor above the hand currently draining all the air from one of the Jeep’s tires, I stand with my forehead cold against the glass of the window, watching. Someone is messing with our Jeep. Are they here to kill us? Is the person, whoever they are, planning to slash our throats, or torture us, or kill Dad and keep me as a . . . hostage? Am I about to become one of those girls who escape ten years later, crawling up out of some hole in the ground, barely alive? I should wake Dad. I should wake him! I can’t explain why I don’t. I’m still deliberating when the little light dances away from the Jeep and disappears entirely.
I feel, more than hear, the weight of footsteps on the stairs. I freeze; a living mannequin in the window. When I feel someone step onto the second-story walkway I burst with cold sweat. The footsteps come toward me, as quiet as falling snow.
I feel them stop.
Whoever is here is right in front of me, looking into the darkness of my room while I look out at the darkness of the night. Maybe the person sees nothing, even though my forehead rests against the glass. It’s so dark it’s possible they can’t tell if the drapes are drawn or open. But whoever it is, I’m sure they’re there, staring at the window. I mentally trace where stars should be, but aren’t.
The little light flickers into being, jiggling like a cigarette butt in nervous fingers. I catch my breath. The light reveals a dark button and the heavy stitching of a coat. Someone unfolds a white paper. Then the light is still, illuminating four small words.
Aspen. Are you there?
39
IN HEART POUNDING silence, I turn the window’s crescent-scoop latch and nudge the glass open, at most, an inch. Then I breathe one hopeful whispered word into the cold night air.
Painted Boots Page 17
