Deliver Her: A Novel (20 page)

MEG

Meg had barely slid into the front seat before Jacob threw the car into gear. They drove twenty miles or so in silence. Finally, Jacob slammed his fist on the steering wheel.

“What the hell
was
that back there with Shana?”

Meg sighed. “I don’t know,” she lied.

Shana’s revelations about the night of Alex’s party had brought it all back. She cringed at the memory of their family photo session, the insults hurled at each other over their children’s heads. Meg remembered walking away to find Jack, leaving Alex with Jacob. That must have been when they’d fought. And then she’d come back, unknowingly heaping fuel onto the fire.

Beside her, Jacob searched for a radio station.

“I can drive if you need a break,” Meg offered.

“I’m fine.”

Jacob did in fact seem remarkably alert, given his full day of physical labor and hours of driving. Probably rejuvenated by Carl’s encouraging call. “At Alex’s birthday party. Do you remember us fighting that night?”

“Fighting?”

“During the family pictures.”

“Oh. Yeah. You were giving me shit about my job situation.”

Meg squirmed. “When I left to find Jack, did you and Alex get into it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. That guy was posing us . . . Wait a sec. She was talking to me about a college.” He shifted in his seat. “Yeah. A school in Hawaii. A pipe dream.”

“Is that what you said to her?”

“I don’t know, Meg. Probably not those exact words. But seriously, where would she get the idea we could manage that? I mean, the airfare alone. I think I told her to look at schools around here.”

“What else did you say?”

He sniffed. “Geeze, Meg. I don’t remember.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter much now.”

“Sounds like it mattered to Shana. That was some meltdown. Why was she there tonight, anyway? Was everybody told about Alex’s intervention but me?”

“There wasn’t an intervention.”

“If it wasn’t for her, we’d have been on the road twenty minutes ago. What was so damned important upstairs?”

Meg swallowed and looked out her window. “She was . . . upset about Alex. I couldn’t just leave her.”

“Nice of you to be so considerate.”

She put a hand on his knee. “Please. Let’s not fight. Not now.”

He sighed. “Fine. I just want to get up there, and get Alex.”

“Me, too.” She took her hand away. “You know, when I was up in Alex’s room this morning, I found her dress.”

“What dress?”

“Her Sweet Sixteen dress.”

“The one she had on in the hospital? I thought you threw it away.”

“I did. She must have gone looking for it.”

“Oh, my God. That is just so sad.” Jacob rubbed his forehead, retreating into his own thoughts.

So much heartbreak surrounded Alex’s special night. And Meg was still reeling over the fact that their marital problems, a casual argument they could barely remember, had had fatal consequences. She’d give anything to redo that evening: to avoid the fighting, to convince Jacob to stay until the party finished, to stand her ground about the after-party activities instead of stewing over Jacob’s abrupt departure.

And knowing Alex had been oppressed by false beliefs about the accident, Meg now better understood the changes in her—the impenetrable emotional walls, cemetery visits instead of school, her obsessive attachment to Cass’s scarf.

And if Meg were brutally honest with herself, she hadn’t fully acknowledged the effect of their separation on her children, especially Alex. She naively thought their staying in the same house together would ease the pain of their split—that pulling out all the stops (with Miriam’s help) to throw Alex an amazing party would soften the blow.

According to Shana, this was the farthest thing from the truth.

Their family situation had probably been tearing at Alex long before that night, Meg too paralyzed over her disintegrating marriage to see it. Jacob hadn’t realized it, either. His shoot-from-the-hip reaction to Alex’s college choice that night was thoughtless and ill-timed, but not meanspirited. By steering Alex to a more financially realistic alternative, he’d actually had been trying to be responsible. But Meg could easily see how his behavior must have deeply hurt Alex, who was used to being Daddy’s girl.

She glanced sideways at Jacob. His arm was slung over the steering wheel, his cheek pulsing the way it did when he was stressed. He was absolutely entitled to be furious. She never should have sent Alex off without his blessing.

And on the subject of guilt, when the time was right, Meg needed to carefully consider what Shana had confessed about the accident. She wasn’t prepared to deal with that right now or the issue of the broken slider door.

All of that would have to wait. First, there was Alex. Meg checked her phone again to make sure she hadn’t missed another of Carl’s calls. In a pocket of traffic, Jacob shifted into the fast lane, at the same time rummaging in the well between their seats, pulling out one CD after another and straining to read their hand-lettered labels by the light of oncoming traffic before discarding them on the seat beside him. With difficulty, Meg kept her comments about his multitasking to herself.

Eventually, Jacob found the disc he wanted and slipped it into the dashboard player, the car filling with the twangy jam band sound he and Alex loved. Jacob lowered the volume, hoarsely singing along.

You called to me, when I was lonely; you sensed my hurt, my deepest pain.

Your heart is home and gives me shelter, and I will never leave again.

Phone curled in her hand, Meg shifted toward her door and tried to doze. When she opened her eyes again, she could swear the same song still played. They were all very long, broken up with lengthy instrumental sections, and mostly sounded alike to her, although Alex and Jacob had gaped at Meg when she said that once.

In your safe space, I find my rainbow, my blazing sun, where troubles cease.

When water’s troubled, or storm clouds gather, your joyful shade can give me peace.

Hap-py Corner, Hap-py Cor-ner, you soothe my soul, you paint my sky . . .

Hap-py Corner, Happy—

“Jacob,” she interrupted. “What’s that you’re singing?”

He glanced at her, bleary-eyed. “This song? ‘Happy Corner.’ By Amphibian.”

“I
know
that. But is the song, like, code or something? For getting high, maybe?”

He chortled. “I’d say that’s a theme in pretty much every Phibs song.”

“But what’s it about?”

“Who gives a shit? Why after all these years do you suddenly care about the background of a Phibs song?”

“I just do. What does ‘Happy Corner’ mean?”

“You’ve heard Alex and me talk about it. It’s a little town in New Hampshire where the Phibs built their
Rainmaker
monument. Satisfied?”

“Yes. Satisfied. Thank you.” She sat back. By this point, the number of cars on the road had dwindled. “I only asked because Alex must really like that song.”

“She likes all their songs.”

“I know, but this one especially.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because she wrote ‘Happy Corner’ on her Sweet Sixteen pictures. The ones of her and Cass that she hung up in her bedroom. I noticed them this morning.”

They sat in silence for a few miles. When Jacob finally spoke, Meg jumped.

“Meg. Get that Alden guy on the phone.” His tone was urgent.

She turned to him, startled. “Why? It’s not going to do any good to yell at him some more.”

“Just get him on the phone. Now.” The passing beams of a lone car washed Jacob’s face white. “I know where Alex is going.”

CARL

Fight, Carolyn.

His partner was out of surgery, Carolyn’s mother told Carl when he connected with her on their way to the bus depot. Now all they could do was wait and pray.

Having survived on the hospital’s meager updates until this point, he was grateful for the additional details she provided. As Carl had feared, Carolyn suffered massive internal injuries, requiring several units of blood during surgery, leaving her extremely weak and in critical condition. They would know more the following day. His partner’s mother and daughter would have arrived at the hospital by then.

“I’m concerned about Jamie,” Carolyn’s mother said. “I don’t know how she’ll react, seeing her mom like this.”

“I wish I could be there,” Carl said, thinking that no child should have to experience that.

“Stay and do what you have to do, Carl. Carolyn would want that.”

Feeling helpless, and deeply responsible for the family’s anguish, he could only promise to meet them there as soon as Alex was safe. “Let me at least find you a hotel room up here,” he offered.

“I can help with that,” Iris said from the driver’s seat.

Carl relayed Iris’s offer.

“That’s kind of your friend. Tell her I’m very grateful.”

Hanging up, Carl was surprised the call had come through. Cell service fluctuated from limited to none, even at this lower altitude.

Iris placed a hand over Carl’s. “I’m sorry, Carl. We’re all praying for your partner, if that helps.”

“Thanks.” Carl turned away. Outside, the sleet had lightened somewhat, but for most of their two-mile journey, they’d plodded along behind a truck that halted sporadically to spit salt onto the road. As they inched along 112, neon logos in taproom windows winked invitingly: “Budweiser,” “Sierra Pale Ale,” “Dos Equis.” Carl swallowed. Beer would be only the beginning for him, a teaser. He imagined lucky patrons warm and dry at the bar, locals during this off-season, cheering the underdog South Florida along the road to the Final Four. What he wouldn’t give to be one of them; he bet at least one tourist spot around here hosted karaoke.

There would be no songs for him this evening. Instead, taking advantage of a spurt of four-bar service, he searched online for bus routes available to Alex, so he’d have the information to pass on to the Carmodys when they spoke. He found no direct service to Happy Corner, but a local Lincoln Lines bus hugging the New Hampshire–Vermont border could take her as far as Colebrook, leaving Alex about twenty miles from her destination. One had been scheduled to depart ten minutes ago, Carl realized with dismay. They were now minutes from the bus depot. With any luck, weather conditions had postponed or at least delayed the bus’s departure.

At a complete stop now behind the salt truck, Carl was about to jump out and make a run for the depot when his cell lit up with a call from the Carmodys. Stammering with excitement, Alex’s father shared his theory about his daughter’s intentions, describing how he’d watched Happy Corner’s televised unveiling of Rainmaker with Alex and her friend last year, tracked down the rare poster for his daughter.

“The girls were obsessed with it,” Jacob finished.

Carl chose not to mention he’d seen the poster in Alex’s room yesterday, saying only that the band had provided common ground with the daughter during today’s drive and that they had reached the same conclusion about Alex’s plans. Listening to Alex’s father, he wondered if the two men had attended some of the same concerts, perhaps stood in the same muddy line for a Porta-John. The Phibs world was small.

Carl spoke briefly with Alex’s mother, explaining his next steps, raising his voice to hear himself over the fairly heated mother-daughter exchange taking place in the car:

“You could have made some excuse, Mia. Called up on the intercom, at least.”

“I just thought Ellen . . .”

“Right. Ellen. I bet
she
knew about New York.”

“Mom. Come on. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about New York. But Ellen deals with these girls all the time. It’s her job. You’ve seen her in action. We’d only have ended up at Hope Haven anyway.”

“Still, it was irresponsible to drive in that weather.”

“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” Carl interjected, having ended his call with the Carmodys. “Let’s just hope this is where Alex headed.”

The salt truck finally turned down a side street and Iris accelerated. “What I don’t understand is how Alex could have made it this far alone,” she mused. It was too far to walk, and after the girl’s experience with those horrid truckers, Iris said she couldn’t imagine her hitchhiking again.

Carl harbored the same concerns. There was always the chance they’d completely misjudged Alex’s plans.

With relief, he spotted the gas station up ahead. The all-purpose depot looked different at night, the bus company’s sprinting stallion logo backlit yellow, as though the mascot might gallop off the wall at any moment. Iris had barely slowed in the parking lot when Carl bounded out of the car and into the store, Mia tailing him. He rushed up to the counter, where a bored clerk was flipping through a girlie magazine.

“The bus to Colebrook? Did it leave yet?” Carl asked.

Sticking a finger in his magazine to hold his place, the clerk twisted to look at the clock. “Ten minutes ago, maybe? It was already gone when I came on.” The departure had been late, he added, almost canceled because of the storm. “No more till tomorrow.” He opened the magazine again, and Carl slapped his hand on the counter, upsetting a display of cheap neon earphones in the process. “Did a teen girl buy a ticket tonight? Pink braid, lip ring, about this tall?” His hand reached midway up a tower of power drinks on the counter.

“Like I said, I just started my shift.” He pointed the magazine toward the rear of the store. “You could ask her, though. She was here when I came on. Maybe she saw something.”

Carl and Mia headed toward a back wall lined with glass-fronted refrigerated cases and vending machines. In front of these, a jumble of blue plastic chairs served as the depot’s waiting area. All the seats were empty.

Annoyed, Carl strode back to the counter. “Who are you talking about? There’s nobody there.” The clerk reluctantly put down the magazine and started to come out from behind the counter when Mia called out.

“Mr. Alden. Over here!”

MEG

“Happy Corner.” Jacob slapped the steering wheel. “Do I know my girl, or what?”

He dedicated the next forty miles to demystifying the hallowed significance of the Rainmaker shrine for Meg, tying together the words scrawled on the Sweet Sixteen photos to Amphibian’s first album, immortalized on their daughter’s bedroom poster.

Still, after all Alex had endured today, Meg couldn’t buy the idea of her daughter heading to an aging hippie commune to worship a giant frog. “She’s been through hell, Jacob. What would she be thinking?”

“She’d be thinking, ‘What a great place to escape to.’ Same as everybody else who ends up there.”

The way Jacob described it, Happy Corner possessed the healing powers of a holy shrine, which sounded ridiculous. Then again, as Jacob pointedly reminded her over the next three exits, Meg wouldn’t buy into this logic because she wasn’t an Amphibian disciple, a member of the club that counted Jacob and Alex as members—and apparently Carl Alden as well.

Meg couldn’t help but acknowledge the poetic justice of it all: this serious, all-business ex-military guy she hired was also a golden tree frog worshiper. The whole thing bordered on cultism, as far as she was concerned. Happy Corner or no Happy Corner, Meg could never put her faith in some toad on a band poster.

Beside her, Jacob hummed something unrecognizable. Meg was unable to relax without another positive update from Carl. Over the next fifty miles, she grabbed her phone once or twice from where it rested on her thigh, certain she’d felt the pulse of a call, only to be mistaken. She would have thought enough time had passed by now to allow Carl to check out the bus depot and get back to her.

Outside her window, the dwindling number of box stores and mega gas stations marked their passage to a less populated north. If Alex
had
taken a bus to a godforsaken corner of New Hampshire, what might she see from the bus window this very moment? Meg leaned her head on the glass, absently reading a bumper sticker for the Vermont Lake Monsters as an SUV whooshed by.
A better name for a band than a baseball team
, Meg thought drowsily.

Baseball. Jack’s pinky swear came back to her, along with a surge of guilt at the realization she hadn’t left Melissa any instructions. She tapped out a text with the time and location of Jack’s practice and a wild guess at where she might find last year’s cleats—probably too small, the way the little guy was growing.

Another disappointment for Jack. How many other times in the last year had her second child gotten lost in the shuffle while Alex’s drama took center stage? It wasn’t fair. Jack deserved as much of them as Alex did.
Things had to change starting now
, she thought, watching the open highway. She’d make it up to Jack once she knew Alex was safe, as soon as they got home. Whether he liked it or not, Jack was about to get a major dose of mother-son bonding. She could pitch to him after school as well as Jacob could.

In fact, there were tons of things the two could do together. She’d make a list and tack it on the fridge when she got home. Meg clicked open Jacob’s glove box for something to write with.

“What are you looking for?” Jacob asked.

“Paper and pen.” She settled for a stained Dairy Queen napkin and a stubby pencil from minigolf. Smoothing the napkin on a knee, Meg had jotted only a few items when the pencil broke. She dove back into the glove box, rifling through car manuals, maps (who needed those anymore?), the overstuffed pocket of registration and insurance cards, for the pen she swore she placed there back in the day.

“How about putting a note in your phone?” Jacob suggested.

“I’ll forget it’s there.” The pen-shaped object in the back of the glove box turned out to be a Blizzard straw.

“Try your purse.”

“I lent my last one to Jack yesterday.”

“It’s only a friggin’ pen, Meg. Do it later.”

Ignoring him, Meg yanked the entire glove box contents onto her lap, tossing manuals and maps onto the car floor until only the pocket of auto credentials remained. Abruptly, Jacob reached over, trying to swipe it.

“Is there some woman’s picture in there you don’t want me to see?” she asked.

“Very funny, Meg. Of course not. It’s just that I forgot to pay the insurance on the truck. I didn’t want you to see the expired card.”

Meg sighed. “I’ve got bigger things to worry about right now. Just drive, will you?”

Determined now, Meg dumped the pocket’s entire contents onto her lap: ID cards, papers, two paper clips, a Band-Aid, an old gas station receipt and a pen embossed with the name of Alex’s orthodontist.

“See?” She shook the pen at Jacob, and the gas receipt fluttered to the floor, exposing one last item on her lap. In Meg’s second of recognition, a sucker punch; the air drained from the front seat.

“What the
hell
, Jacob?”