Deliver Her: A Novel (13 page)

MEG

Jack was at her elbow, aiming a chicken finger at Carl Alden’s picture on Begin Again’s home page. “He looks scary, Mom. What’s an in-ter-vent . . . ?”

Meg slapped her laptop shut. “Nothing you need to worry about. Finish your plate.”
Don’t panic.
A dozen different scenarios had raced through her mind when she was unable to reach Carl. She had called The Birches. Like her, they’d heard from Carl at lunchtime and midafternoon and expected him at any moment.

“When’s Daddy coming home? He promised he’d hit balls to me after school. Tomorrow’s our first practice.”

Baseball. Meg had forgotten all about it. She wouldn’t win any parenting prizes today. Her son’s freckled face crinkled into a frown. “I’m gonna suck.”

Meg buried her face in his peanut-buttery neck. “Honey. You will
not
suck. Everybody’s rusty at the first practice.” She pinched his nose. “Don’t worry. Daddy will have a catch with you this weekend, I promise.”

“Pinky-swear?”

“Pinky-swear.” They entwined little fingers. “How about this: When he gets home tonight, he’ll wake you up to figure out your official training schedule.”

That solution seemed to satisfy Jack. And bought her more time before she’d have to tell him about Alex, Meg thought. Jacob was always so wired when he got back from these road trips.

Licking his fingers, Jack thought of something else. “Mom, can you come to my first game?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because you and dad are getting avorced.”

“Di-vorced,” she corrected. “And why would that stop me?”

Jack shrugged. “’Cause you don’t want to hang out with Daddy now.”

Meg grabbed his shoulders. “Listen, buddy, when it comes to you and Alex, Daddy and I are a team, you know? Like your baseball team. We’ll always be there for you guys.”

“I want the whole family to come. Like we did for Alex’s games.”

“I’d love that, too.” Jack couldn’t possibly recall those fall afternoons. He must be remembering photos of them lofting him as an infant at Alex’s soccer matches, Alex running to the sidelines at every opportunity to kiss her new baby brother.

“How can we? Alex is never here anymore.”

“She’s getting older, bud. Her interests are changing.”

“I know. Kissing
boys
. Smoochy, smoochy, smoochy.” Jack zoomed out of the kitchen making kissing sounds.

Alone, Meg fixated once again on Alex. They should almost be at The Birches by now, she thought, grabbing her phone to call Melissa for a sanity check.

Her sister told her in no uncertain terms she was overreacting. “Remember the last time we skied up that way? Our cells never had service.” She suggested that Meg try Alex’s friends.

Carl had taken Alex’s phone this morning, Meg reminded her.

“That must have gone over well.”

“I know. She’s probably in withdrawal.”

Alex and her friends texted each other at all hours of the day and night. Meg always wondered what happened overnight in the teens’ social circle that was so monumental it couldn’t wait until morning. When Meg lamented her daughter’s unhealthy attachment to her phone one day at work, a young nurse diagnosed the condition: FOMO, a crippling “fear of missing out.”

“Try that girl Shana,” Melissa suggested.

Meg had barely spoken to Shana in months, but she knew how to get in touch with her. Back when their phones were new and the young girls unsuspecting, they’d all given Meg their numbers when she asked. She hung up with Melissa and then called Shana right away, getting voice mail after a curt one-and-a-half rings.
The girl probably hit “Ignore” as soon as she saw the caller ID
, Meg thought. She didn’t bother to leave a message—Alex never checked voice mail and Shana probably didn’t, either. She sent a carefully worded text instead:

Hi Shana, it’s Alex’s mom. Trying to get hold of her. Heard anything?

A sudden downpour pounded the canvas awnings outside the kitchen window. She jumped up and closed the ones she’d opened yesterday to let in some spring air. April weather was so fickle. In the dining room, aluminum verticals rattled against glass sliders leading to the deck. Investigating, she found the slider partially open. Odd. She was usually vigilant about locking up when she left, although that morning had been anything but routine.

Give yourself a break,
she thought, securing the latch. It felt looser than usual. One more thing for Jacob’s growing list. Would he eventually fight her for this house, if they ever got their heads above water financially?

Meg didn’t even know if she wanted it. On the one hand, their home overflowed with delicious memories of raising Alex and Jack: loud, messy Saturday breakfasts, Jacob dishing up pancakes bubbling over with blueberries, catching Jack by surprise with the garden hose, planting a summer garden, Alex’s squeal at the season’s first cherry tomato. For every room, every season, a thousand joyful recollections.

On the other hand, Meg would forever associate this house—the very deck she was staring at, actually—with the defining spring evening last year, a night so warm they decided to barbecue. One minute they were laughing and joking with the kids over a silly YouTube cat video, the next, with Alex and Jack back inside, Meg was slipping through the slider with an armload of dirty plates when Jacob blurted to her back that he no longer wanted to be married.

Somehow, Meg had managed to set the plates on the dining room table before slowly turning back to her husband, praying she had misheard. Jacob’s downcast eyes and hollowed cheeks told her she hadn’t. He’d been feeling like this for a long time, he said quietly, suddenly absorbed in his nails.

A long time.
Three words out of the blue that changed everything. Blindsided, she could only manage one word of her own:
Why?
He still hadn’t fully explained, at least not to Meg’s satisfaction, other than pointing out all her qualities and quirks that led to his decision. Phrases that always began, “See? This is why . . .” as though needing to justify his decision to himself.

At first, she refused to accept any blame.
She
kept this family humming;
she
picked up the pieces when his business fell apart. In her most self-reflective moments, however, Meg admitted he might be right about some things: She
was
too controlling. She didn’t always consult him; her default mode was critical. But those faults and shortcomings shouldn’t short-circuit a marriage that had endured as theirs had without some type of intervention, like couples counseling or maybe individual therapy. Jacob refused both.

Meg worried that he wasn’t in his right mind. Unemployment could do that to a person. She’d hoped working with Ben would lift his spirits, but if anything, Jacob’s moods had grown darker, more mercurial. She heard him sometimes, roaming around the kitchen in the middle of the night, the nocturnal rev of his truck as he drove away. He claimed he had run to the 7-Eleven for coffee when Meg questioned him in the mornings.

There was perfectly good coffee in the house, she countered. Which could only mean something else—or someone else—was percolating.

She’d pleaded with Jacob to reconsider. “How can you not fight for me? For this family?” she asked him that night and many times after.

“Things aren’t what they were.”

“Of course they’re not. We never expected your work to dry up the way it did.”

“It’s not just that. People change.” Jacob more than anyone, she thought, twirling the loose latch. He wasn’t the same Jacob she had first met, when the odds had been stacked against them and their unconventional start as a family.

His mind was made up, he said.

Mourning their disintegrating marriage, she nevertheless agreed to present a united front for Alex’s and Jack’s sakes. Meg was surprised how well Alex had taken the news, running out the door to play practice or whatever the cast did once the show was over. They parceled out their explanation to Jack in small doses.

Meg and Jacob became virtual strangers in their own house. She stopped asking him if there was someone else.
Who else would want the moody bastard?
Meg thought now, jerking the verticals shut against the rain. When the time came,
she
would be the one to start fresh, in a little town house closer to the Sound. She’d get her own promenade bench.

Maybe Shana had called by now. Passing the dining room table on her way to check her phone, she wiped the damaged tea set with the hem of her scrubs.
I’m doing the best I can, Mom.

Halfway to the kitchen, she stopped. The house had grown uncommonly quiet. Meg went in search of Jack, finding him upstairs in Alex’s room, kneeling by his sister’s bed.

“Jack, what are you doing?”

“Nothing.” His stricken face belied his innocence.

“Doesn’t look like nothing. What’s up?”

“Alex said I couldn’t tell. She’ll whip my butt.”

“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. Be a good boy and show me what’s under there.”

“You have to say you made me.”

“Deal.”

“OK. Sit there.” Jack pointed to the floor, and Meg sat as instructed, shoulders tensed. If Alex had put Jack in any danger, she wouldn’t be able to bear it.

Jack made a great show of raising his arms and shaking them, like a swimmer warming up on a high dive, before lifting Alex’s dust ruffle and slithering under her bed just like Angel would. Reappearing, he pushed a white plastic storage bin toward Meg, then sat back cross-legged, chin propped in his hands, watching her pounce on the box and pop off the cover.

Meg covered her mouth.

“See, Mommy. I knew you’d be surprised.”

ALEX

They were back on Route 112 in Lincoln, Camo Man and Mom Haircut still bickering about detours and road conditions. They passed a bunch of restaurants with cutesy names like Mountain Man Inn and Gnarly Gourmet. A movie theater advertised a single film,
A Cabin in the Woods.
Evan, Shana and Alex had seen it stoned months ago. Scary movies were always better that way. As usual, Shana acted paranoid and had to go sit in the car for a while. LOL. Alex had been up for anything that helped her to escape her memories—although her mom seemed to have the opposite intention, dragging her to that horrible therapist.

Her parents should be the ones in therapy,
Alex thought now. Maybe if her dad hadn’t been such a jerk during the photo session, leaving so abruptly; if her mom had taken a single second to notice that Alex was decimated instead of abandoning her; if her parents could have
for once
treated her like the adult they always insisted she be and tell her the truth about what was happening to their family, she never,
ever
would have made the trail of lousy decisions that eventually trapped her in Logan’s backseat.
And
this one. Decisions that cost her
everything
.

Yes, Alex decided. Everything was their fault.

Beyond the Lincoln Theater, large hotels lined the road, advertising indoor pools and game rooms and free breakfasts. Billboards advised passersby to “Take Advantage of Spring Skiing Rates.” Within a few minutes, the road went from totally crowded to dead quiet. The highway climbed; they passed a turnoff for Loon Mountain Resort, “Rated Number 3 for Parks and Pipes.”
Pipes. Ha.
There were campgrounds carved out of the side of the road, scenic overlooks, a deserted tourist information booth. Alex’s ears began to pop from the altitude. Soon there was nothing to look at except trees, trees and more trees, an occasional rain-slicked picnic table on the side of the road.

Bored, Alex shut her eyes. The car wound round a curve. That time, even Alex felt them fishtail. She opened one eye.

Murphy hunched toward the driver’s seat. “Carl, I really think you should reconsider. There are loads of places to stay in Lincoln.”

OMG. Stay?
With these two in a motel room? That was
so
not going to happen.

“We’ll be fine. I’m the driver, remember?” Reaching over the seat to pat Murphy’s arm, Camo Man sounded half-jokey. At the higher altitude, the rain had become sleet, the slushy mix pinging off the metal roof, glazing the windows like rock candy.

“We can still turn around, Carl. Please stop.”

“We’re almost there. Relax, will you? I’ve got this.” Camo Man’s grin filled the rearview mirror.

Defeated, Murphy sat back and tapped on her window, fake laughing to cover her fear. “Look at that. Pink gas tanks painted like pigs. Who would ever do that?” Alex didn’t even bother to look; any acknowledgment might suck her into more unwanted conversation. Carl switched on the news, music appreciation over for now, Alex grateful to Amphibian for making a chunk of the journey bearable.

The satellite signal faded in and out as they climbed, the drone of the newscaster’s voice—news and weather, news and weather—lulling Alex back to semisleep. Pig gas tanks, she thought drowsily; Jack would crack up. Guiltily, she remembered her brother’s first baseball game. She finally agreed to go just to get him the heck out of her room. Jack would be mad she wouldn’t be there tomorrow, but that disappointment she could blame on her mother.

The radio softened to static, white noise against the clink of ice overhead. Then, without warning, Murphy’s scream pierced her half dream. “Carl, watch out!” The nightmare replayed in the backseat, the seat belt straining against Alex’s chest. Only this time, every one of Alex’s senses was sharp, receptive—every nerve on high alert, absorbing and registering every sensation, each jolt.

Her eyes captured each frame, her brain a camera recording high-speed images: first, a dark, impenetrable wall of animal before them, spindly legs supporting barrel body. Next, close-up on its cartoonlike profile. Cut to slo-mo of the steering wheel, the hand-over-hand struggle to maintain control, the car losing traction and spinning crazily.

A single line of dialogue: Carl yelling, “Hang on, everybody!”

Wide shot of the seismic shift of the car, accompanied by the soundtrack of Murphy’s and Alex’s screams and the crush of metal and glass against unyielding mass. Murphy’s side of the car slams into the moose’s legs, propelling its half-ton body heavenward, its brief flight shearing off a great chunk of the roof. Cue Alex behind Carl, jackhammers at full throttle, watching herself at the center of the scene, oblivious to the wind and ice now inside the car, eyes riveted on hooves clinging to the ridge of the gaping roof for interminable seconds before the animal slid off the car in a deadening thunk. Overhead shot of the car ricocheting off the leaden beast like a two-thousand-pound pinball, barreling across the highway into a lush wall of evergreen that mercifully softened its rocky descent.

Spent, finally, in the gulley, the car’s crippled right side rested against a cluster of pines. The mournful wail of the car horn, a final, angry spin of wheels. Then crushing silence.
Fade to black.