Heart Echoes

by Sally John

  “It can wait.” Her eyelids were heavy.

  Maiya said, “Yeah, Riv. It can wait.”

  Ignoring them, he made it to the dining table and held on to a chair as he turned toward the front door. “Maybe somebody could bring me a cookie.” He continued past the small entryway and into the living room, another casual space with overstuffed furniture and a fireplace. Windows either side of it overlooked the dark backyard. There were no bookshelves to fall on him.

  He lowered himself slowly to the floor and stretched out in the middle of the room. He recalled Charlie’s report. He had turned off their gas line earlier, but a neighbor who worked for the power company had checked things and decided it could be turned back on. That meant they had hot water and a clothes dryer. Power was on in their area as well. They were in good shape.

  So to speak.

  A short while later he had bed pillows under his head and a plate of cookies within reach. He lay on his back, his feet toward the couch where Teal and Maiya sat at opposite ends. Both of them had changed into T-shirts and flannel pajama pants. Their faces were freshly scrubbed.

  River’s heart did its funny jig like it always did when Teal’s lawyer demeanor dissolved into a sleepy, feminine softness. He loved every side of her personality, but this one most especially made him smile.

  She caught his expression. “Don’t give me that look. I have never been so angry at you, River Adams.”

  He blinked. What was she talking about?

  “Maiya, tell him what you did.”

  “Mom! I told you I didn’t do anything.”

  “Oh, good grief. I am not talking about the guy getting to home base. I’m talking about the lie. Your lie. You did not go to Amber’s last night after work, did you?”

  Maiya’s lower lip trembled. “No. I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I lied.”

  “Tell us where you did go and with whom.”

  Totally in the dark, River bit back an Objection! Badgering the witness. Teal knew better than to use this approach. Maiya always balked and they got nowhere.

  Maiya pouted. “You know everything. Shauna told you because Amber told her.”

  “Don’t you dare blame Amber for breaking a confidence. I was losing my mind worrying about you. How did I know you weren’t lying under some rubble somewhere? I didn’t know where River was or that he was hurt. You do realize phones were not working, right? I couldn’t—”

  “Ladies, please,” River interrupted. “Can we cut to the chase? Maiya, where were you?”

  Myriad expressions crossed her face, from confusion to defensiveness to a snarl that was all but audible profanity.

  He almost wished for another aftershock to scare her into sensibleness.

  At last the daughter he trusted showed up, the one who spoke forthrightly and did not hide behind the mask of “cool” when he needed an answer. “I went camping up in the national forest.” She pressed her lips together for a long moment and then took a shaky breath. “With Jake Ford.”

  Jake Ford.

  A heavy-duty aftershock would have been good right about now, one that split open the ground and swallowed River whole.

  Chapter 12

  I went camping up in the national forest. With Jake Ford.

  A tiny part of Teal had clung to the hope that Amber had gotten Maiya’s story wrong. Hearing her daughter admit to it set off a fresh round of explosive emotions: anger, disbelief, sadness, guilt, fear.

  Probably every ugly emotion there was to feel.

  A female cop lived down the street. She had a rape kit.

  But she was probably on duty with every other emergency worker in the city. And besides, Maiya had already bathed before Teal had gotten home.

  What was she thinking? This was her daughter. This could not be happening.

  River’s eyes were shut. The furrowed brow expressed a deeper pain than from cracked bones.

  Maiya’s legs were curled underneath her. She held a small pillow tightly against her stomach.

  Teal kept her voice soft. “Mai, did Jake hurt you?”

  “Mom! No!”

  “He’s nineteen. You’re fifteen. Even if you consented, you know what that means.”

  Maiya huffed. “I know what that means. He knows what that means. It wasn’t like that at all.”

  “What was it like?” Teal cringed, wishing to unsay the quick retort.

  “It was like camping with you and Riv. We hiked. We cooked hot dogs. We slept in a tent. In separate sleeping bags.”

  “You carried a tent and sleeping bags on a two-hour motorcycle ride?”

  Maiya’s chin went up and she started to roll her eyes but had the good sense to blink instead. “He keeps stuff at a primitive campsite. He knows all about surviving in the wilderness.”

  Because River taught him. She cut her eyes to the still figure on the floor. His jaw muscle worked.

  “Mom, Riv—we just hung out, I swear. I’m not like you, Mom.”

  Teal steeled herself, but the innuendo hurt. She had made some idiotic choices as a teenager, the typical high school experiments with alcohol and pot. Obviously she’d had a baby out of wedlock at twenty-two. Given that Maiya was that baby, the sex-ed lesson it provided had always been a tightrope walk. I never regretted having you, but I regret not waiting for the right man.

  She took a deep breath. “This is not about me. Did he pick you up after work?”

  “Stop with the interrogation already! I said I lied. I said I’m sorry. Okay? What more do you want? Jake and I are good friends. That’s all. Why won’t you believe me?”

  “Maybe because you lied about what you were doing last night. Maybe because you broke two of the very few rules we’ve given you: no motorcycles and no dating. Now answer the question. Did Jake pick you up after work?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Teal studied Maiya’s defiant expression. She saw her lips quiver. Oh no. “You didn’t go to work.”

  Her whole chin quivered now. She shook her head.

  “Oh, Maiya.”

  Her daughter adored her summer job. She, Amber, and another friend worked at The Olde Ice Cream Shoppe, an ice cream parlor owned by the friend’s parents. It was a happy place that young families frequented. Customers ordered at the counter; waitstaff delivered goodies to the tables. The best part was the singing. Every so often the staff paused in what they were doing and sang a song together. Sometimes Maiya even played “Happy Birthday” on her trumpet.

  “I dropped you off at work.” Teal remembered driving through the mall parking lot, winding her way to the entrance nearest the Shoppe’s location. Maiya hopped out, dressed in her uniform of blue jeans and colorful striped blouse. She carried her backpack, presumably for the sleepover at Amber’s. “You said you were scheduled to work.”

  “I wasn’t,” Maiya murmured in a low voice.

  Lie number two. Who was this girl?

  Teal felt ill. While their daughter was probably in a mall public restroom changing shirts, Teal was swinging by the market to buy halibut for a romantic dinner with River. Being a semi-newlywed with a teen in the house presented challenges. If Maiya was away for the night, Teal went overboard in the romantic department.

  She wondered if that sweet memory was gone along with the mother-daughter sense of trust.

  “Maiya.” River’s voice was whisper soft. “How long have you and Jake been dating?”

  “We’re not dating.”

  He opened his eyes. “Since when have you been good friends?”

  Maiya blinked rapidly. Tears clung to her lashes.

  He sighed. “Minnie McMouse, we love you. You can’t do anything to make us love you any more or any less. You know that, right?”

  She nodded.

  She should know it. River told her that so frequently, it should be embedded in her brain.

  He said, “This lying isn’t like you. Sneaking around behind our backs is not like you. Please, tell us everything so we can figure o
ut what’s broken between you and us.”

  Teal’s eyes stung. The sight of him loving their daughter always put a lump in her throat. The response was part gratitude, part sorrow that she had never known such fatherly love.

  River said, “Hon, what’s going on with you and Jake?”

  Maiya pressed the pillow to her face and lowered it. “We-we’re friends.” She swallowed. “You know, he just gets me. We’re in sync. I swear, that’s all.”

  “For how long?”

  She shrugged. “Since . . . since . . .”

  Since he worked here. Teal completed the sentence.

  River said, “Since I hired him to help me do the yard.”

  Teal wanted to slap her hands over her ears and hum loudly.

  Jake had been a student at River’s school, one more on-his-last-chance delinquent sent to San Sebastian to either get his head on straight or not.

  Of course the or not usually showed up after they left the school. Teal did not care about the high success rates. There was always that small percentage who did not make it.

  Jake’s record included burglary, theft, larceny, drug possession. In his regular high school, he had spent more time suspended than in class. No surprise, his dad was in prison for manslaughter, and his alcoholic mom had been in and out of rehab since Jake was a baby.

  Every mother’s dream guy for her daughter.

  Teal perceived his charming allure, though. He was a friendly kid. Tousled-red-haired-boy cute, once she got past his body art. Tattoo “sleeves” covered his arms, colorful mazelike designs from shoulder to wrist. He was tall, sinewy, and strong as an ox, the perfect choice to help River tear out the front-yard sod and haul in rock.

  Teal wished she had never heard of water conservation.

  River said, “That was in March. You connected in March. Five months ago.”

  Teal felt like she had been punched in the stomach. “You’ve been seeing each other on the sly for five months?”

  “He’s a great guy!” Maiya said. “You know he is, Riv.”

  “What I know,” River answered, “is that at this point in your life, he is too old for you. Period.”

  “I’m almost sixteen!”

  “He’s too old for you.” His voice had gotten raspy again. “You have to trust us on this one. Finish high school and then we’ll visit the subject again. In the meantime, I can’t allow you to see him or talk to him.” He looked at Teal. “Sorry if I jumped the gun.”

  “No. I totally agree.”

  “But I love him!” Maiya wailed. “He loves me!”

  They were just good friends? Lie number three.

  River said, “I’m sure you do. And I mean that sincerely.”

  “Then why can’t we see each other? I won’t lie anymore. I promise!”

  “I’ll tell you why.” River closed his eyes. “When I was nineteen, I loved a sixteen-year-old. She was one hot chick and super straight. I didn’t care if she was still in high school. I was surfing and flipping burgers. I could wait for her to get out of class and do her homework. No big deal. You know what I really wanted, Maiya?”

  “What?” she murmured, her tone hesitant.

  Like Teal, she probably heard the steel in River’s voice. It slipped in now and then, turning his gentle tenor into a lifeless monotone. It was the voice he used to describe something so far removed from their world as to be unimaginable.

  Teal felt herself cringing.

  River went on. “What I really wanted was to have sex with a virgin.”

  “Jake’s not like that!”

  River’s eyes opened to mere slits. “That’s what this girl told her parents.” His smile was repulsive. “I was a great guy.”

  “Oh!” Maiya sprang to her feet and rushed toward the hallway. “I hate you! I hate you both!”

  Teal sat quietly, returning River’s gaze.

  Maiya’s bedroom door slammed.

  He said, “Was that over the top?”

  She shook her head and moved to the floor, stretching alongside him, her head in the crook of her arm. “More powerful than my ‘you don’t want to do what I did’ routine.” She paused. “Was it true?”

  “Mm. Close enough. I’ll have a talk with Jake.”

  “That would be good.”

  “I’m sorry. I should have been on top of this.”

  “You said he wasn’t dangerous. You’ve never brought a dangerous one home.”

  “I’ve never brought home a convicted felon. They’re all potentially dangerous to our little girl.”

  “Who’s not so little anymore. Of course she’s had crushes on older boys forever, but this scenario makes no sense. Secretly seeing him and talking with him over the course of five months? And spending the night on a campout two hours from home? What is going on with her, River?”

  “I don’t know, love. I don’t know.”

  Teal gathered pillows and blankets and tapped on Maiya’s bedroom door. “Slumber party, Mai. Five minutes.”

  “Popcorn?” came the muffled reply.

  “Sure.”

  “’Kay.”

  Teal dropped her armload on the sofa and looked down at River, out cold on the floor. He said he preferred the hard surface to the bed. That was fine with her. After the day she’d had, she would sleep anywhere as long as it was next to him.

  She covered him with a blanket and went into the kitchen. While the microwave nuked popcorn, she stood at the breakfast bar with the television remote and channel-surfed.

  Videos of the overpass played on every single station.

  She heard the shuffle of Maiya’s slippered feet across the tile floor. Teal raised her arm and Maiya slid under it, snuggling close.

  “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “I know.” Teal kissed her daughter’s cheek, red from crying. “And I’m sorry, but I have decided to reattach the umbilical cord.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  Teal felt something shift between them. A sense of dread crept around her heart.

  Ever since Maiya first pressed into misbehavior territory as a tyke, Teal meted out discipline with heavy doses of love and forgiveness. Her days at the office were too full of sad stories about families who never bothered with those things.

  Much like her own parents.

  But this one scared Teal. This was adult time. Maiya wasn’t sneaking into an R-rated movie or disrespecting her or River. She wasn’t blowing off homework or stealing her aunt’s cigarette and smoking it with Amber.

  No. Maiya was setting herself up for unimaginably deep regret that she would have to live with every single day for the rest of her entire life.

  Teal wrapped Maiya in a hug and buried her face in her hair.

  For fifteen and a half years this beautiful child had been the only facet of Teal’s life that made her own unimaginably deep regret bearable.

  And yet . . . she would not wish such a plight on anyone. She would fight tooth and nail to protect anyone from taking the path of raising a child alone.

  She cupped Maiya’s face in her hands and looked into eyes the color of a spruce tree on a cloudy day. “I love you.”

  “We did not have sex.”

  “I believe you.” Teal kissed her forehead and let go. “Butter?”

  “And sprinkle cheese.”

  Wordlessly they prepared two bowls of cheesy buttered popcorn and carried them into the family room. They sat on the love seat, a double recliner, and pulled up the footrests. The newscast was showing a block of storefronts with collapsed roofs.

  Teal said, “We should watch something else.”

  “I couldn’t find anything else on my TV.”

  “You were watching TV in your bedroom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hm. That’s usually on the banned list.”

  “Riv didn’t say no TV.”

  “You left the room prematurely. The discussion wasn’t exactly over.”

  “I don’t hate
you two.”

  “We know.” Teal sighed, eyes glued to the television. “This is such a tragedy. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that we are at home. And that Aunt Jen and Uncle Aaron are in Paris and all of our friends are safe. But the city is not going to recover from this overnight. Did they just say three hundred presumed dead?”

  “That’s what I heard. Lots of them at that overpass. What was it like downtown?”

  Teal slowly chewed a few bites of popcorn and set her bowl on the end table. She wiped her hand on a napkin. The diversionary tactic was not working. She and Maiya could eat comfort food until it came out of their ears, but they could not ignore reality. “I wasn’t at the office.”

  “Then where were you?”

  “At that overpass. I—” Her throat closed up. She whispered, “I watched it come down.”

  Maiya—the little girl for whom she had been so strong for so long—embraced her as if she were a baby. The daughter’s shoulder muffled the mother’s cries, her shirt soaked up the mother’s tears until there were no more.

  Chapter 13

  CEDAR POINTE

  As if waking up from a deep sleep, Lacey became aware of a shadow blocking the sunlight. She blinked and the coffee shop came into focus, the entire space aglow from rays streaming through the front windows.

  The shadow was Will, waving his hand at her from across the noisy, crowded room. He mouthed the word go. His brows rose as if the movement could push her away from the counter.

  She gave him a petulant look and put a fist on her hip, pretending to be annoyed.

  He smiled and turned again to the table where early-morning regulars sat discussing the latest Cedar Pointe gossip.

  Lacey glanced at the ornate cuckoo clock on the side wall, wishing the bird would poke out his head and chirp eight times. She had promised herself to wait until then. Seven twenty seemed too early.

  But Will had caught her spacing out, her hand stilled on the sliding window of the pastry case as if she intended to open it.

  Okay. So she was probably less helpful standing there than not standing there. Will and their two employees were perfectly capable of covering for her. If things got too crazy, a few of the regulars would pitch in and serve the tourists. Andy the retired guy made better macchiatos than anyone.