Close Your Eyes (4 page)

“I was there,” said Alex.

“But you didn’t see anything!”

“No, I didn’t. Did you?”

I bit my lip. “I don’t remember …” I said. I had not even told Alex about my dream, about swimming into my parents’ bedroom in the middle of the night.

“Lauren, I know him. I’m telling you, he didn’t do it. He couldn’t have done it,” said Alex.

“Oh, really?” I said, sounding a bit unhinged even to myself. “You know what an asshole he could be! He was angry about those fucking shoes from Dr. Schwickrath, I bet.” I held my breath, having finally voiced my theory, which I had never mentioned to anyone before.

“He isn’t capable of it,” said Alex, sounding rehearsed. He seemed not to have heard my idea, or perhaps he had chosen to ignore it. “I know it, Lauren. I know him.”

“Then who killed her?” I asked.

Alex didn’t answer, just looked at me pleadingly. “Who the hell did it?” I said, too loud. A football player was sitting at the next table with his parents, all of them staring, and I was both enraged and humiliated. I bent close to my brother and whispered, “I never want to see you again.” Then I left the International House of Pancakes, crying all the way back to my room at the sorority, telling my roommate I was hungover to explain why I spent the rest of the day in bed.

Alex graduated from Harvard and sent blank postcards as he traveled from Europe to India to Africa. We did not speak for three months.

Remembering the sadness of the time without him, the move to Houston with the wrong boyfriend, the small room on West Campus—I had been so forlorn I finally bought a turtle just to have something to say
good night
to—I put my hand on my brother’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I love you.”

Alex set his jaw and looked at the road. I sighed. He didn’t want to believe it, but the facts told the truth: our father had hit our mother in the head with a glass decanter, cracking her skull. He had left her to die on the bedroom floor. It was a crime (the prosecution said) of passion. It was what could happen if you were a certain type of person, and you fell too much in love.

3

Gramma was disappearing. Pops, my grandfather, had been gone for seven years, and it was as if Gramma just wasn’t interested in a world without him. She was with us bodily, but she often wore a preoccupied expression, as if she were listening to terribly important things happening just outside our range of hearing. She had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, but it seemed to me like Gramma was living in a better time, a time when she was a young mother with her life ahead of her. To live there fully, I guess, Gramma had to abandon the present day. She was leaving us slowly, maybe to make up for my mother’s abrupt departure. I missed her.

After the three-hour drive, Alex parked at Cypress Grove Retirement Village. When I climbed out of the car, the heat flattened me immediately. In Houston, the humidity made summer an absolute hell. If you could help it, you didn’t go outside at all. The beach would be sweltering and miserable. Worse, oil residue in the water turned into tar balls that stuck to your skin after swimming. Most hotels had tar-removal wipes next to the little shampoos and lotions, and I’d known girls in high school who took two bathing suits to the beach: one for swimming and a clean one for sunbathing.

That aside, I did love the Shrimp Shack. We had been to Galveston a handful of times during our childhood, and Alex and I had always begged for dinner at the Shrimp Shack, followed by ice cream cones on the beach.

Alex was searching around in the trunk of the car. “What are you doing?” I asked. I was agitated—though I loved Gramma, it was so hard when she didn’t recognize me or—worse—thought I was my mother. I looked nothing like Mom, nothing at all.

“Here it is,” said Alex. He stood, holding a dented Whitman’s sampler. “She loves chocolate.”

I felt guilty that I hadn’t thought to bring something for Gramma, too. “You’re so nice,” I said.

Alex shoved my shoulder. “Move along,” he said.

Gramma was in her room, a generous single with windows overlooking the man-made water feature that partially blocked the view of a Best Buy next door. Alex knocked and called, “Where’s my beautiful grandmother?”

She looked up from her
Cosmopolitan
magazine, her face growing animated. “Hello!” she said brightly.

“We brought you some chocolates,” said Alex, handing her the box. I stood in the doorway, trying not to look as ill at ease as I felt. My grandmother’s white hair had been recently set, and she wore a pink dress I had always admired. I remembered her arriving at my choir concert in the dress, a dozen years ago.

“Well, how lovely!” said Gramma. She opened the box and selected a truffle.

“Are you having a nice day?” I said, too loudly.

“We have got to water the azaleas,” she said, taking a dainty bite of her truffle. “I
told
your father.”

My mouth was dry, and I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Do you mind if we sit and visit for a bit?” said Alex. He acted so normal, relaxing into a chair, smiling at Gramma.

“Not for too long,” said Gramma. “But that’s fine, young man.” She touched a gold circle pin on her dress.

“I like your pin,” I boomed.

“You’ll get it someday, Jordan,” she said. “Never you mind.”

“I’m not Jordan,” I said. “I’m your granddaughter. I’m Lauren.”

“You’re growing up so fast,” said Gramma. “You’ll be going to prom before you know it.”

Alex wheeled his chair close to our grandmother, putting his hand on her hand. He sat quietly, patiently, though my stomach twisted with anxiety. Gramma’s room was filled with pictures of my mother. On the bedside table was a photo of Mom holding me as a newborn, gazing into my crimson face.

Alex talked with Gramma for a while about his trip to Iraq. He promised to write. She listened with an expression of polite bewilderment. He told Gramma that he thought I should marry Gerry, as if I weren’t even in the room. “She’s afraid to be happy,” said Alex.

“I wholeheartedly agree,” said Gramma, nodding. She offered the box of chocolates to Alex. He took a fat one with nuts.

“I’m sitting right here,” I said, reaching for the chocolate-covered cherry.

“Of course you are,” said Gramma, swatting my hand away.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“You can have the white chocolate,” said Gramma. “I know those are your favorite.”

“No,” I said. “Those were my mom’s favorite. I like the cherry.”

“Quite a mouth on her,” said Gramma to Alex. She raised the area where her eyebrows had been. What could I do but laugh?

“I love you, Gramma,” I said.

“And I love you,” she answered. “What a lovely coincidence!”

When the sun had dipped below the Best Buy, Alex gestured to his watch. We were still an hour from Galveston and wanted to have our feet in the sand by nightfall. I nodded and stood. When I kissed Gramma goodbye, she reached up to cup the back of my head. “My baby,” she said into my hair. “My baby girl.”

Galveston Island had once been a major shipping port city, as grand as New Orleans. It had the first opera house in Texas, and the first telephone. In 1900 the island was decimated by a hurricane, and although many of the elegant historical buildings were rebuilt, the city never really recovered. Still, the faded grandeur of the historic district and the seedier beer joints both held allure for me. As a child, I believed there were ghosts in Galveston, and I enjoyed walking down the tree-lined streets, pretending that the sounds of the waves were ghostly murmurs.

Beachview Motel was nowhere near the historic district. It was cheap, but there was no beach view. Alex pulled into a parking space at the mauve-colored building and said, “Well, this sucks.”

“I was hoping for a bit more ambiance,” I said. “Or even a bit
of
ambiance.”

“Oh, look,” said Alex. “Here comes a truck.”

We watched as a Toyota Tundra with oversize wheels pulled into the lot. A man in overalls—just overalls, no shirt underneath—climbed out, followed by two friends holding cases of beer.

“Ah, Galveston.” Alex started the car again. “We can find something else,” he said. “I have faith.”

We drove to the Shrimp Shack on the seawall, claiming a wooden table under a skeleton wearing a pirate hat. When the waitress brought our beers, Alex said, “Excuse me? Can you recommend somewhere to stay in town? Or out of town?”

The girl evaluated us, biting her lip. “What sort of place are you looking for?” she asked.

“A cottage, maybe?” I said.

“My uncle has a bunkhouse,” said the girl. “He calls it the Starry Night. It’s on the bay side, but it’s real romantic.”

“We’re not looking for romance,” I said, grimacing at Alex.

“Whatevs,” said the girl. “Do you want me to call him?”

“That sounds great,” said Alex. The girl nodded and walked off. “Whatevs,” said Alex.

“I’m so old,” I said.

“We’re not old. Just middle-aged.”

The bunkhouse was available for seventy dollars cash, and after we ate platters of shrimp, finishing up with key lime pie, the waitress took off her apron and told us to follow her car. She smoked as she drove along the seawall, her arm dangling out the window. We headed out of town for about fifteen minutes, passing brand-new mansions on the water next to ruined homes that had never been rebuilt after Hurricanes Katrina and Ike. We turned off the pavement and bumped along an uneven stretch of sandy road, reaching a cottage. The waitress parked and let us inside, showing us the bunk beds and the small kitchen. When she left, she said, “Hope you like cats.”

“I don’t really like cats,” I said to Alex.

“I do.” He was in high spirits. “I like cats. Bring them on.”

There were two wrought-iron chairs outside the cabin, and Alex sat in one and pulled a flask out of his backpack. I settled into the other chair and watched the sky. It was cooler now that the sun had set. “It’s so quiet,” I said.

“I love it,” said Alex.

“I guess I’m more a city girl at the end of the day.”

“You used to love camping when we were little, remember?”

“Until that night at Black Bear,” I said.

Alex exhaled. “Here we go.”

“It was terrible,” I said. When I was six or seven, our parents had taken us to the Black Bear campground in upstate New York. We’d gotten a late start, as our mother hadn’t been able to leave the hospital until afternoon. By the time we reached Black Bear, it was the dead of night, and the only campsite left was a fifteen-minute walk through the woods. Our father was angry but couldn’t say anything—after all, our mother was the only one with a paying job. This was a common strain, exacerbated by our mother’s drinking wine on the drive up, and our father smoking in the car, which we all hated. We were silent during the hike to the campsite, nursing our disgruntlements.

When we reached the site, my parents began to argue. I can’t remember what the fight was about, but it dragged on. Alex and I set up the tent and crawled inside with flashlights and books.

My father’s voice rose in volume. I pushed the nylon tent flap aside and peeked out. I saw my father shove my mother. She fell hard and cried for a while. My father stormed off in the direction of the car. A long time passed, and then my mother said, “Alex?”

“Mom?”

“I think my ankle’s broken.”

We crept out of the tent and found our mother, her face tear-streaked. “I’ll carry you, Mom,” said Alex.

“Sweetheart,” she said, “just go get your dad. Little One will stay with me.” I remember feeling nervous as Alex went down the path, but also happy that my mother had chosen me for company. I told her a long story about my new friend Julie and Julie’s pet snake, both to keep her mind off her ankle and because I had a captive audience. She stroked my hair. Leaves whispered in the trees above us, and the air smelled fresh and damp, like moss.

My mother must have been in terrible pain, but she said, “Do you want a snake?”

“No,” I said. “I want a turtle.”

“A turtle! Really? I’ll have to remember that on your next birthday, Little One.” She looked at me with such love that I felt like a pet myself. Maybe what I wanted, I remember thinking, was not to
have
a pet but to
be
a pet. Alex returned with our father, who carried our mother to the car. All the anger was gone, and he waited on her for weeks while she healed.

“It
was
terrible,” Alex agreed now.

“I know he didn’t mean to break her ankle,” I said. Alex took a sip of his whiskey, watching the ground. “I know,” I went on. “There’s a big difference between pushing someone and …”

He raised his chin to meet my gaze.

“What does he say?” I asked. “In the letters, what does he say?”

“Why don’t you read one,” said Alex. He drank again. “He says he loves us.”

“What’s it like?”

“What? The prison?”

I nodded.

“All of a sudden you want to talk about this?” asked Alex. I had refused to discuss my father for years. As Alex investigated every avenue, trying to find a way to prove our father’s innocence, I grew more and more resistant to discussion. The past was over. I wanted to hope for something better and felt only anxiety at the prospect of sifting through old memories. I loved my father. I hated my father. I was scared of my father and what he had done.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“It’s really cold. He’s in solitary, he’s got lots of books. A mattress, a toilet … you can imagine what a cell looks like.” We were quiet, and then Alex said, “Can I talk about him? There’s more.” His voice was drowned out by the sound of my blood pumping in my ears. I gasped for air. “What the hell is the matter with you?” said Alex.

“I can’t breathe,” I managed.

“It’s another panic attack,” said Alex. “Put your head down.” He touched my hair with his fingers. “It’s okay.”

“I really don’t feel well,” I said. “Maybe there
is
something wrong, Alex!”

“Shhhh,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. When I rested my head on my knees, I could breathe more easily.