Everything We Give_A Novel Page 24

  Stu reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a cigarette and, rolling onto his hip, leg extended, dug a lighter from his jeans. He made a show—all in slow motion, in Ian’s opinion—of lighting the cigarette and taking a few deep sucks until the end flared orange. Cigarette hanging from his lip, he stuffed the lighter back in his front pocket and patted the space beside him. “Have a seat, son.”

  “We’re late.” Ian glanced at his dad’s truck. He’d packed the cab with road-trip snacks and drinks. The cooler in the back was full of ice and food for the four-day trip. Two there and two back. A mini-vacation, his dad had said. Preseason football started in a month. Best for them to get in some father-son activities before the three months his dad would juggle time between football and baseball.

  Ian had also wrapped a gift for his mom, a book of poems by T. S. Eliot. She loved poetry. She said the words soothed her. Ian had purchased the book with his allowance from the used bookshop in town. He could see the present on the dashboard, floral printed wrapping tied with a yellow bow.

  Stu took a long draw on his Marlboro. “We’re not going.”

  Ian’s heart plummeted into his stomach. “What do you mean?”

  “How do I put this?” his dad muttered. He rubbed his forehead with the hand holding the cigarette, then looked at Ian. “She doesn’t want to see us.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Wish I was.” Stu sucked on the cigarette like his life depended on it. Ian watched the smoke veil his dad’s face. Deep grooves bracketed his mouth. Shallow creases marked his father’s forehead like yard lines on a football field. His dad had aged these past months. The trial had been difficult. He’d spent a lot of time traveling between home, Nevada, and his games. He still had to make a living, he told Ian. Someone had to put food on Ian’s table and keep the roof from collapsing on him.

  “You said we could see her as soon as she could have visitors.” Ian had been waiting for months.

  “We’re not on her list.”

  “Then get us on it.” Ian clenched his hands and took a threatening step toward his dad.

  Stu’s eyes narrowed in warning and Ian shrank back. “I can’t. It’s not that simple.”

  “Why not?” He was her son. How could she not want to see him?

  “She’s sick, Ian.” Stu sucked at the cigarette. “She’s lucky she’s getting any treatment at all in there.”

  “The doctors will fix her.”

  “They’ll try, but there’s no guarantee.” He flicked the cigarette with a thumbnail. Ash dropped in the dirt. “Until she’s stable, no visits.” With the edge of his boot sole, he buried the ash.

  “Do the doctors know why she’s sick?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?” Ian pushed. He wanted answers. He needed to make sense of why his mother’s behavior was so erratic.

  “It’s confidential.” Ian held his father’s gaze, pleading for more information. Stu broke contact and looked at the ground. He scratched his lower lip with his thumb. “She had a rough childhood. Her stepfather wasn’t . . .” He stopped abruptly and cleared his throat, rubbed his eyes. “He wasn’t nice to your mother. She shouldn’t have married me. She probably shouldn’t have had a kid either.”

  Ian stumbled back a step. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. Listen, I’ve got to make some calls.” Stu pushed off his thighs and stood. “Unpack the truck and get your chores done.”

  “What about Mom? She’s waiting for us,” Ian protested.

  “Dammit, Ian. Your mother doesn’t want to see you.”

  Ian moved his head in a slow, disbelieving shake. “Liar.”

  “She asked for space, so we’ve got no choice but to give it to her.”

  “Liar!” Ian screamed. “I took care of her. She needs me.” Ian smacked his chest, and to his humiliation, the tears he tried hard to hide from his dad boiled over. “She loves me. She said she would always love me. I want to see her. I have to make sure she’s all right.”

  “She’s not your responsibility, Ian. Not now, not ever.” Stu retreated into the house.

  Ian watched the screen door slam. His legs shook and a sick feeling twisted inside his stomach. He’d failed his mom at her trial, and he’d failed her with his life.

  His mother had lied to him. She didn’t love him.

  She hated him.

  He never should have been born.

  CHAPTER 27

  AIMEE

  Ian and I watch Lacy traipse along the drive. She ambles along in a straight line, one foot in front of the other, hands out like a gymnast on a balance beam. It’s almost childlike, the way she wobbles from time to time. She’s in no hurry, moving at a reluctant pace as though she wants to stay, to linger over mint tea and afternoon gossip. But she insisted on leaving to allow Ian the chance to absorb the impact of her words. If Lacy can be described as anything, I’d say she is a stealth bomber. She appears from out of nowhere, drops her payload on the unsuspecting citizens below, only to disappear as her targets try to make sense of—to survive in—the surrounding rubble and devastation of their lives.

  I can’t imagine the guilt Ian must be feeling about his father. All the years he could have reached out to make amends.

  A gust of wind cuts a path across the yard. We feel its impact on the porch. Air fills my ear with a pop. Ian’s arm hugs my waist a little tighter. I see Lacy’s skirt billow like a sail. She staggers, then does a quickstep to keep ahead of the current so she doesn’t stumble. Another flurry lifts and swirls the dried, crackly leaves at her feet. She’s in the vortex of a red, gold, and yellow dust devil. Everything is flying, ruffling in the wind. She shields her face with an arm and lets the eddy carry her along. I see Lacy as chalk marks on a board, and the swirl of wind, an eraser, expunging her from our lives. On to the next lesson. Time for a new chapter. As I watch her dance around and around with the wind the last few yards to the oak-tree-shaded mailbox on the edge of the road, I know in the way that I know my own heart that this is the last time Lacy’s path will intersect with ours.

  “I forgot to ask why she gave the card to James,” I say, regretful.

  “I didn’t. I asked when I called her.”

  “And?”

  “Serendipity.”

  “What?”

  “Serendipity. Coincidence. She told me she was vacationing with her granddaughter in Hawaii. Hanalei Bay is a popular beach. She recognized James.”

  I scrunch up my lips. “I’m not sure I believe that. Do you?”

  Ian shrugs; then he points his chin toward the road. Lacy has reached the mailbox.

  “Does she have a ride?” I ask.

  “She said a friend dropped her off. I assume she’s picking her up.”

  “She doesn’t have a purse on her.”

  “Or a phone.”

  “How does her friend know when to pick her up?”

  “Maybe she sent her a telepathic message.”

  I look at Ian. He keeps his eyes ahead. His cheek twitches. He leans his head toward me and says, “They probably arranged it ahead of time.”

  “You’re probably right,” I agree.

  Several cars pass. A truck blares its horn.

  “She’s still standing there.”

  “So are we.” He removes his arm from me and grips the porch rail with both hands. He straightens his arms and leans his weight into it, using the rail as support. “Do you want to go inside or wait until she gets picked up?”

  “We’re waiting. I want to see her get into a car and drive away like a real person. Don’t you? Do you believe she’s psychic? And what about the red-string myth? Do you think she can sense connections like she says?”

  A little smile lifts Ian’s mouth like the wings of a butterfly. It looks sad. He seems sad. “You’re just full of questions.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  He shrugs. “I believe in you. And I believe in us,” he answers, kissing my forehead, and my heart makes a swirly di
ve.

  Because he’s right. The two of us are what matters.

  As for Lacy’s psychic abilities, I guess it doesn’t make a difference anymore. She accomplished what she set out to do. She led me to Mexico to find my way to Ian, and she lured Ian to Idaho, which leaves me to wonder. Did she lead him here to find his way to Sarah or back to Stu? Maybe she’s only showing him the road home, back to where it all began. Back to where Ian can make amends.

  Ian sighs. He sounds tired, worn down and depleted, when he says, “My mom’s defense attorney had her plead not guilty on account of her DID. He argued that she was mentally ill and shouldn’t be held accountable for her crime.”

  I rest my hand over his on the rail. Ian looks at our hands and briefly closes his eyes before continuing.

  “All the prosecution had to do was disprove she hadn’t been aware that it was, in fact, premeditated. It didn’t help her case that Jackie never surfaced during my mom’s deposition or trial. There wasn’t much of a paper trail of treatment either. My dad tried for years to get her to regularly see a psychiatrist and go into therapy. He wanted her to do anything that would help her work through whatever it was that damaged her mind. She fought him. She canceled the appointments he’d make or she just wouldn’t show up. She threw away her pills. Then there were the pictures I took.” He swallows roughly. “All those pictures.” He deepens his bend, popping his shoulders, then rights himself and turns to face me. He leans his hip against the rail, crossing his arms, and looks at his shoes. I tuck my hand in my front pocket.

  “When I was a kid, I thought the pictures I took of Jackie would prove Sarah wasn’t herself. I don’t know why I kept it up all those years. Reese seems to think I obsess over wanting to help people, that I want to fix their issues, like I did with my mom. I guess I tried to do that with Reese, too. Who knows, maybe I do. And maybe I knew Jackie would get my mom in trouble and my mom would need them one day. So I kept at it, and I hid all of them from Jackie, just like my mom told me to do. I could see the difference in the photos: her facial expressions and her eyes, especially the eyes. They weren’t the same. Surely anyone else could see it, too. It wasn’t until after I graduated from ASU and read the trial’s transcript . . . Hell”—he shoves his fingers into his hair—“it could have been sooner and I was in denial, but I realized how stupid I’d been to take those pictures. The prosecuting attorney subpoenaed years’ worth of photos. He used them to prove his point. My mom was unstable and violent. In her defense, she’d suffered years of sexual abuse. Her stepfather, Frank Mullins, broke her. It also helped her case when the cops arrested Frank. They found pictures of underage girls in all stages of undress in his truck cab. His browser history was drowning in a thick soup of child pornography. My mom’s attorney bargained for a reduced sentence when she admitted her intention was to keep Frank from harming other girls. It also helped that Frank didn’t die. The judge and jury sympathized with my mom.”

  “Ian, I can’t even . . .” My stomach churns. What Sarah had gone through as a child? I think of Caty. I want to rush home and hug her.

  Ian glances at Lacy, still waiting by the mailbox. “Here’s where it gets strange. A portion of my mom’s deposition was filed with the court. There was mention of a stepsister, Frank’s daughter from his first marriage. Her name was Charity Mullins. She was two years older than my mom and came to stay with them on the weekends. My mom confessed that her stepsister was the one who told her about Frank’s trucking routes because Jackie’s bounty hunter was useless. She said Charity showed her where and when to locate him, and my mom would pass along the details to Jackie in notes between them in the top middle drawer of my mom’s vanity table. My mom was tired of living in fear her stepfather would find her. She worried there were other victims. She thought the only way to solve the Frank problem was to get rid of Frank, but she didn’t have the courage to go through with it. Only Jackie had the guts to pull the trigger.”

  “That’s not strange. It’s tragic. Your story makes me sad.” My eyes feel misty and I brush them with the back of my fingers.

  Ian swings his eyes to mine. “My mom’s stepsister died when she was seventeen. She wandered off while on a hiking trip with friends in Tahoe.”

  The fine hairs along my forearm rise. I shiver. “What are you saying?”

  “I looked it up, Aimee. The articles were there. They never found her. Just her shoes and purse and dried bloodstains in a steep ravine.”

  “Then who gave your mom the tip on Frank?”

  Ian nods his chin in Lacy’s direction. “If Lacy is my mom’s stepsister, I bet he abused her, too. I think the authorities presumed she’d died, but she really just ran away and changed her name to Charity Watson. I can’t tell you whether she’s psychic, if that’s really a thing, but I think she keeps up the disappearing act, initially because of Frank, and later, because of Sarah. She’s an accessory to Frank’s attempted murder. It’s right there in the transcript. Charity—I mean, Lacy—has never wanted to be found. She can’t be found.”

  “Then why would your mom call out her own sister after she helped her?”

  “Think about it. Records show Charity is dead. Blaming her further supports my mom wasn’t right in her head. I doubt her attorney, let alone the prosecution and jury, have an inkling Charity’s alive. And considering how Charity believes she’s connected to people out of duty and obligation to help them, she may have felt she had no choice but to help my mom. She may even have convinced my mom to run away from home when she did.”

  We look at Lacy. She bends over and swipes dust off her shoe. She ties the laces, then stretches her arms overhead, then lets them flop back to her sides.

  Ian’s expression clouds. He frowns and seems to weigh something in his mind, something big. He reaches for my hand. “There’s more, Aimee. I read something else. I found out that I did something wrong, terribly, horribly wrong, to my mother. My dad tried to stop me, but I wouldn’t listen. I was young and cocky with false confidence. I was convinced what I was doing would help my mom. Frank used to take pictures of her and with her. The sessions they had were so disturbing that it fractured her mind. Jackie surfaced during those years. Sarah couldn’t cope so Jackie took her place. That’s what the psychiatrist who evaluated my mom stated pretrial. The defense brought her in as a witness. It was all right there in the transcript. I didn’t break my mom, but I didn’t help her condition either, not in the least. All those pictures I took, every snap of the shutter, they were probably triggering her shifts. Just the sight of me with my camera, I don’t know. It must have done something to her.” His voice is thick with anguish.

  “You didn’t know. You were a kid. There’s no way you could have known.”

  “You asked me once after we married why I haven’t put my full heart into finding my mom. I denied to myself that’s what I was doing. But you’re right. You’re spot-on. My attempts have been half-assed. You know why? I’d have to face her and I’d have to face what I’d done to her. I’d wronged her. I’m the one who drove her away, long before she tried to murder her stepfather. I’m the reason she didn’t put me on her visitor’s list, and I’m the reason she ran away after her release. Me and my stupid camera. Ironic, isn’t it? She hates being photographed but married a photographer and had a son who aspired to be one.”

  Ian’s eyes are damp. His hand shakes in mine. I close him in my arms, my ear pressed to his chest, absorbing the wild thump-thump of his heart, my face turned to the road. That’s when I see what I didn’t want to miss. Lacy is gone. How, I don’t know, and right now I don’t care. Ian’s in my arms and he’s hurting.

  CHAPTER 28

  IAN

  A silver compact turns into the drive, gravel popping like Bubble Wrap. Aimee’s arms slip from me and we turn to watch the driver approach and slow to a stop, facing us, in front of the house. He cuts the engine but doesn’t get out of the car. He stares at us from under the sun visor and behind his dark glasses.

  “Your d
ad?” Aimee asks.

  “My dad.” I haven’t seen him in sixteen years, but the box jaw, defined chin, and wide fingers curled around the steering wheel are unmistakable. So is the wave of hair lifting off his face, one uncooperative lock dividing his forehead. They’re the same as mine. What doesn’t sit well with me, though, is that I’m having a hard time digesting the sunken cheeks and the color of his hair. He’s gone completely gray.

  Stu cuts the engine and opens the door.

  I clasp the back of Aimee’s head and, tucking her under my chin, speak into her hair. “Will you give me a minute with him?”

  “Take all the time you need.”

  I kiss her head and go down the steps to meet with my dad, to get the truth from him about my mom. To find out what’s going on with him.

  His movement from the car is slow and labored. When he finally stands, bracing a hand on the door while reaching the other into the backseat, my step falters. A clear tube wraps under his nose and winds over his ears and dips into the cab of the car like an umbilical cord. With some effort, Stu hauls out a portable oxygen tank. The wheel catches on the runner and drops to the ground.

  I rush to his side. “Let me help.”

  He stops me with a raised hand and a stern, and slightly uncomfortable, expression. I back up, realizing he’s embarrassed. And I’m ashamed. I should have been around earlier, years earlier, to help him. His frame is a wasted, wan version of himself, a dried corn husk of the robust man he’d once been. He cautiously bends over, never letting go of the door, and uprights the tank, balancing the cart on its wheels. He keeps a tight grip on the handle, shuts the door, and turns to me. We watch each other for several moments, each assessing the other. I’m taller and wider. He wheezes as he breathes. I can’t see his eyes behind his shades, but whatever sickness he has, it’s been dining on his body for some time.