Deliver Her: A Novel (4 page)

“Not as crazy as this.” Meg dangled the baggie of pills in front of him, the bottom cloudy with fine powder from its travels.

Jacob sat up. “Where did you find those?”

“In the basement. After the house party.” She described the exact location.

“Maybe she’s holding them for somebody.” He fingered each pill as though one might convey some crucial information.

“Come on. Even Alex didn’t try that excuse on me.”

“I’m just trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.” He tilted his head. “What exactly did she say?”

“That she’d never seen them before. That she doesn’t use pills.” She shook the bag. “There’s some lethal stuff here: Xanax, Ambien . . . Oxy, maybe. If she’s mixing them with her prescription . . .” Alex had agreed to a mild dose of antianxiety medication after the accident, which Meg closely monitored.

“There were probably a lot of kids here that night. They could be anyone’s. I believe her, Meg.”

Meg crossed her arms. “Well, I don’t.”

Jacob stood. “Alex doesn’t need a boarding school. She just needs us.”

“She’s had ‘us’ for sixteen years.”
Us
. A concept Jacob appeared bent on redefining.

Meg leaned toward him. “I’m afraid, Jacob. The partying, self-medicating. On top of the shoplifting, the skipping school. What if she . . .” Meg couldn’t verbalize her worst fears.

“She won’t. You’re overreacting. As usual.” He stretched. “I’m gonna catch the rest of the game in the basement. Any objections?”

How much time have you got?
There was no point in bringing up the transport idea now; he was already shut down.

“No. Go.” The slam of the basement door underscored her frustration. In their early days, she would have followed him downstairs, determined to distract him from his nightly practice, convincing him to set down his guitar long enough for their own personal intermission, Meg languishing on the couch afterward while he polished the band’s latest number, the strains soothing the infant in her belly.

She would have followed him in the later years, too, with the freshly bathed Alex and Jack in tow, the kids lugging toy instruments downstairs to join Jacob in lusty, if slightly off-key, jam sessions before bed.

Those days are history,
she thought, crumpling the pizza box into the trash. She was about to make Jack’s lunch for the next day when the basement door swung open again.

“I was thinking,” Jacob said. “Those pills. We shouldn’t leave them around. Jack and all. I’ll dump them.”

“No worries.” Meg patted her pocket. “The hospital has a disposal site. I’ll drop them tomorrow.”

He yawned. “OK. Sounds like a plan.”

Only step one,
she thought, pulling a clean knife from the dishwasher.

“Hey, Meg.”

She turned. Except for a slight swell at the waist, Jacob’s body hadn’t lost its youthful tautness. In spite of everything, the anguish of Jacob’s rejection, she missed him desperately, they way she missed her daughter, their family, the way life used to be.

“Forgot to tell you. I’m heading up to Vermont on Tuesday for a few days with Ben.”

“Really?” Meg smeared super-crunchy peanut butter on the cheap white bread Jack liked.

Ben Johnson was a friend of Jacob’s from high school who ran a local tree service. Business had boomed since the previous fall, when Hurricane Irene ripped a swath of devastation through New England, downing thousands of trees, washing away homes and roads. Ben had more or less established a satellite location near Burlington and frequently offered Jacob work. The money was welcome, but it meant Jacob was away a lot.

He’d be home Saturday, Sunday at the latest, he said now. “Can you cover things here?”

Meg pressed Jack’s sandwich closed. Yes, she could certainly cover things. Four days without Jacob. Ben had no idea of the gift he’d just given her.

THURSDAY

ALEX

How badly do you want it?

“So you see, in an acute triangle, the angles share a side and a vertex but have no interior points in common.”

Vertex, vortex.
Alex didn’t see. She sighed, sliding the textbook across her geometry teacher’s desk in the deserted classroom. “There’s no way I’ll catch up.”

“Of course you will. The midterm isn’t for two weeks.”

“But I’ve missed so much.” Skipping school was almost a daily habit now. She always showed up in the morning, heading resolutely down the main hall toward her locker, but would then duck out a side door and through the teachers’ lot, lured by an irresistible force. She’d snuck back in the same way this afternoon, hitching a ride from the cemetery so she’d get back to school after dismissal but before her geometry teacher left.

“I’m not saying it won’t be hard,” Mrs. Ward said. “But if you come to class . . .”—the teacher aimed her protractor at Alex—“and by that, I mean come and
stay
and do more practice exercises, you’ll have a pretty good shot.”

Extra help was available every day after school, she said. “But you’ve got to put in the time.” Her teacher held out the textbook. “The question is, how badly do you want it?”

So badly she could taste it. Mrs. Ward’s question stuck with her while she walked, like a cartoon balloon over her head. It had taken everything for Alex to approach the teacher after school, but it had been a breeze compared to facing Sunday night’s study session at Perk Up. Every nerdy eye in the discussion group for
The Giver
had locked on Alex as she entered the coffee shop. She’d considered bolting, until a dark-haired girl waved madly at an empty chair beside her, leaving Alex no choice but to join the circle.

“Glad you came, Al,” the girl whispered.

OMG.
It was Shana, unrecognizable under her newly ombréd mane.

“So? What do you think?” Shana had turned her head this way and that.

Shocked, Alex leaned back for a better look. The full-on black was severe compared to Shana’s natural red-blond. It was edgy. Thinking that she would have to get used to it, Alex nodded and smiled, then turned to the discussion. Following along was kind of a joke because she hadn’t even cracked open the book.
Yet
. From what she could gather, the premise sounded good: a place where there was no war or fear or pain. No choices.
Sign me up,
Alex thought, frantically jotting down essay-friendly sound bites. The group was divided over whether the main characters truly discover a real village in Elsewhere or only imagine it as they fight to survive in a frozen tundra
.
Alex sided with the realists.

Her attendance Sunday night—she hesitated to call it participation—left just two other subjects where she’d fallen dangerously behind. It was scary how fast a few missed classes and procrastinated projects added up to academic probation.

You can do this
, she told herself at her locker. She took the long way out of school, avoiding the auditorium and its stage, hoping to blend in with the after-school jocks. She’d make up the classes one at a time, even if it meant summer school. Get back on track for senior year. Maybe when her parents recognized the effort she was making, it might make up a little for the trashed house. She felt horrible about her mother’s tea set; she knew its story and tradition. If only it had been Aunt Melissa’s turn to keep it, those stupid jocks wouldn’t have landed on it when they were wrestling in the living room.

She didn’t know a way to fix that, but if she did really,
really
well in school, maybe she and her dad could talk again about her college possibilities—this time without fighting. Trying to catch up was hard enough; the thought of having that stressful conversation with him again made her feel as if she would puke.

When Alex arrived at the town library, she glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one saw her going in. She hadn’t even told Shana she was coming.

Inside, she gazed toward the children’s wing with longing. She and Cass had spent tons of hours in its reading corner, even after officially graduating to the young adult room, flopping onto beanbag chairs to reread old favorites:
Miss Nelson Is Missing,
The Lupine Lady of
Miss Rumphius
,
Pippi in the South Seas
.
Happy Corner,
Alex thought ruefully, stopping at the adult room desk to reserve a copy of
The Giver
before ducking into a study carrel, determined to attack a few more geometry problems on her own.

Feeling confident, she flipped open her practice workbook, skipping ahead to the advanced section and reading the first problem:
In the figure below, ABC and DEF are triangles. AC = AB, AB // DF, BC // ED, AC // EF and
∠
CAB = 70°. Find
∠
x,
∠
y and
∠
z.

The figure was a triangle within a triangle labeled with letters and degrees that looked for all the world like a baseball diamond. Alex had no clue where to begin. “No worries,” she whispered, fortifying herself with a fresh slice of Rainbow Bubble and heading back to the front of the workbook.

Avoiding the longer word problems for now, she attacked a true-or-false section, evaluating a list of statements:

A parallelogram is never a square.

A square is always a rectangle.

A rhombus always has four equal sides.

Always and never. Mrs. Ward and other teachers always warned the students about these words on tests. They were usually red flags, Alex remembered; things were rarely that black and white. Which meant that the three statements in front of her must be false, Alex decided, about to write
F
beside each when she wavered. What if they were trick statements? Sweat beads popped out on her upper lip, and every detail she had ever learned about squares, rectangles and rhombuses flew out of her head.

Easy, girl. Don’t freak out.
She got up for a drink of water from the fountain, splashing some on her hot cheeks before returning to her carrel. She smoothed the workbook page and went back to the beginning word problems and read the first one. Its nautical premise might as well have been in Greek:

A naval distress flag is in the shape of a triangle. Its three sides measure 5 feet, 9 feet and 9 feet. Classify the triangle by its sides.

Whaaat
? She read it again, then a third time.
Don’t be a dumb ass.
This is a basic problem.
She had already learned what
classify
meant, only at this moment, she had no clue about its definition. She went back over the problems Mrs. Ward had reviewed with her; none seemed to apply in this case. She was stuck. This entire afternoon had been a waste.

Furious, Alex threw down her pencil, watching it bounce out of the cubicle and onto the floor, where she left it. If she couldn’t solve one little geometry problem on her own, how would she cope with tons more work from her other classes? There was no point.

She could send up a million distress flags of her own, and she would still sink.

Loading up her backpack, Alex left the library and walked the rest of the way home, ignoring Shana’s texts, kicking random pebbles in her path. Her whole life sucked. She would never be able to turn things around; it had been a waste to even try.

No matter how badly she wanted it.

CARL

Carl Alden sold serenity. Meg Carmody cried a little when she handed him his check.

“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling a tissue from her scrubs. “Everything’s happening so fast.”

Crisis mode was the nature of Begin Again’s business. The two had connected barely a week ago. Now, Carl sat opposite his new client in her modest living room, the transport scheduled for the next morning.

“This is an emotional time, Mrs. Carmody. It’s understandable.” He clipped the check to his file, along with the signed waivers and Alex’s school photo. He stole a look at his watch; if he could wrap this up quickly, he might still make it to the bank.

“Please. Call me Meg.” Her eyes darted to the living room window.

“Meg, then. My job is to make this as easy for you as possible.”

Carl had expected someone taller than this five-foot-four woman, a brunette instead of a bottle blonde. It was a game he played, crafting a mental image from the initial phone contact. He was right maybe half the time. Cancer nurse, she told him. Her voice had a tired, raspy quality. Then again, they all sounded defeated and shell-shocked when they called, often in the middle of the night as she had.

“Will Mr. Carmody be joining us?” Carl asked.

“Unfortunately, no. Jacob is away on business,” Meg said, chewing her lip.

Carl shifted on the couch. The absent father concerned him. Legally, he needed only one parental signature on the release. But things went best when both parents were on the same page. Especially if things became too emotional.

Regardless, delaying this transport wasn’t an option. Business had been light of late, parents hanging in longer than usual with their kids’ dramas. His fees weren’t the issue; most could scrape together the few thousand Carl charged. It was the rehab stays: they cost a bundle. The new health-care law was supposed to fix all that, but it was going to take a few years for all the political dust to settle.

This family obviously had the means to cover the daughter’s treatment, or he wouldn’t be sitting here. The female guide he’d engaged was already on her way.

Begin Again couldn’t afford to let this one go.

“All right, then,” Carl said. “As long as you are a legal guardian.” Behind his client, a family portrait over the fireplace included a towheaded girl of about eight who leaned on the father’s shoulder.
A daddy’s girl.

Meg followed his gaze. “That’s Alex on the right. That was taken on Rye Beach.”

“I’m staying out that way tonight,” he said. “Along with Officer Murphy. She’s very qualified—former police officer, has assisted on dozens of transports.” He softened his voice. “She’s a mom, too.”

“I’m glad.” Still teary, she wiped her nose. “Whatever will make this more comfortable for Alex. She’s been through a lot.” Her eyes darted to the front window again.

Carl cleared his throat. His client needed to have it together for tomorrow morning. He asked to see the most direct way to the daughter’s room. She led him up the stairs into a small bedroom on the right. The space was typical of many he’d entered in the early hours over the past few years, down to the band posters on the wall. One in particular next to Alex’s bed caught his attention: Amphibian’s distinctive logo commemorating the jam band’s watershed moment a quarter century ago. He aimed his pen at the poster.

“Phibs fan, your daughter?”

“Yes. A bit obsessed, I’d say. Her dad’s a musician. She inherited that gene from him.”

“Not the worst trait in the world.” Funny that the girl was drawn to this band in particular. The Phibs crowd was an older demographic, more her parents’ generation. Something to do with the resurgence of the whole hippie scene, he guessed. Tie-dye was mainstream.

Carl tapped his pen on his clipboard. “Mrs. Carmody, this is where it’s all going to happen tomorrow.” Her role in the pickup was brief but critical, he stressed. “Once we’re in the house, you’ll lead us into this bedroom. Alex has to see that you’re in charge. That this is coming from you.”

Meg sniffed. “I’m sure she’ll figure that out pretty quickly.”

“Right off the bat, tell her you love her and that you’ve asked us to help you.” A hug was very important, he stressed—as critical as Meg’s prompt departure.

“What if something goes wrong? If Alex needs me?”

“Trust me. Things go best when you leave right away. You can talk to her later in the day, when she’s arrived at The Birches. Between now and tomorrow morning, act normal. You don’t want to arouse any suspicion.” He instructed her to pack a small bag with essentials for Alex’s first few days. They would pick it up from her porch tomorrow morning.

“This is all really . . . clandestine,” she said, leaning against Alex’s closet. “I’ll be so relieved when it’s over.”

He made notes to share with Murphy later and then returned to the hall to identify any unsecured areas. The mother tailed him nervously, apologizing for the state of the house as he peered into bedrooms and closets. Everything seemed straightforward.

Back downstairs, he picked up his backpack. His client’s hands were fists in her scrub pockets.

“That’s it, then?” She seemed like she might cry again. Clients were always jittery during this phase.

“The next twenty-four hours will be tough, but try to stay calm.” At the front door, he gestured to the rental parked a discreet distance from the house. He would have preferred his own, but his mechanic was fixing the essentials—enough to keep the car on the road a few more months. Carl planned to pad the next few transports a bit to cover the expense. He felt justified; he hadn’t raised his prices in years. “Assuming she’s home by five a.m., we’ll execute tomorrow, as we discussed,” he said.

“Execute. Sounds like a firing line.” Her pressed lips were white.

“Sorry. Jargon comes with the territory.” He smiled to reassure her. “Everything will be fine. I’ve staked my reputation on Begin Again, on providing a hundred-percent-success rate.” Carl reminded his client to text him when Alex arrived home. “Get some sleep. Things will happen quickly tomorrow morning.”

He ticked off the three check-in calls she would receive: once the transport was under way, during the lunch stop and upon successful delivery to The Birches—about this time tomorrow, he noted, checking his watch.

A final wrap-up call from his hotel tomorrow night would be the last time they’d speak.

“If I make it that long,” she said.

There was one more thing: the letter that Begin Again suggested parents write to their child, delivered during the transport when the child would be receptive to it. (Translation: when the teen settled down enough to read the letter without ripping it to shreds.)

Meg’s hand fluttered to her throat. “I’m still working on that. I’ll have it tomorrow.”

Carl hated to leave things until the last minute, but, like the father’s absence, this was out of his control. Anyway, the letter was for Alex, not him.

Walking back to the rental, Carl felt his client’s eyes on him. He didn’t envy her, having to playact through the evening. He hoped, for all their sakes, the girl got home in time to green-light the transport. There was an awful lot riding on one sixteen-year-old’s whims.

At the end of the Carmodys’ street, he stopped to let a young girl cross. She was bent under the weight of her backpack. In the split second Carl glimpsed her face, he could have sworn it was Alex. And that she was crying.

Back at the hotel, Carl followed up with another transport shaping up for Sunday. A tight turnaround after the Carmody delivery, but doable. He had no choice.

That family’s call started out like most others he’d received in his eighteen years of business—something like, “We’ve tried everything. We don’t know what to do anymore.”

Clients were initially skeptical that Carl could succeed where they had failed, that a child who rejected all parental authority would respond rationally and cooperate with the transporter. The parents didn’t get that Carl lacked their emotional connection, that crazy genetic bond that triggers adolescent defiance and also tricks parents into believing that no matter how much has gone down, no matter how many empties, pipes or pills they discover and destroy, no matter how many heartfelt apologies they hear, that somehow this time
really
would be the last.

He knew this because he’d been one of those kids, subjecting his parents to years of hell, bouncing from vo-tech to reform school (they didn’t sugarcoat it in those days) for being a wiseass. He worked odd construction jobs. On rainy days, the work crews sat around, drinking, smoking the occasional joint.

It rained a lot. Somebody hatched the bright idea of hitting a convenience store. Like a moron, Carl agreed to drive the getaway car. Thought he’d be the hero. Except, when the store owner hit the alarm, they all ran, leaving him to take the rap.

Lucky for him, he was under eighteen. After juvie, his record was expunged. But by then he had acquired a taste for the hard stuff, his friend Jack D, a habit rendering him unemployable. His sainted parents finally tossed him out when he was twenty-four. Eventually, when he ran out of couches to surf, he got sober.

Sobriety led him to enlist in the armed forces, ultimately landing him with a military police company out of Fort Benning; its exploits fueled his adrenaline habit. During the intense final days of Operation Just Cause in Panama, Carl’s company defended the canal and democracy and fought to end drug trafficking—post-discharge duties as a stateside police officer paled against those heady adventures.

But Carl grew restless and bored, and his ghosts resurfaced. Fired from the force, he messed around for a while before deciding to hit the AA rooms again, and hard.

It took time to do it right. But once he had his blue chip marking six months of sobriety, he took everything he’d absorbed from the military and police duties and poured it into this business, his heart and soul. Begin Again Transport stepped in when families reached their limit—when that one thing put them over the edge: a missing check, the totaled car. When they wearied of sleeping with wallets and purses, keys slung around their necks like wardens.

The realization, finally, that life had become completely and utterly unmanageable led them to Begin Again. A drill sergeant of Carl’s had once told him something—barked it at him, actually:
What’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.

These parents had their own breed of insanity: believing they had even one iota of control over their teenagers’ behavior. As soon as they surrendered this fantasy, they found their way to Carl.

He was the answer to their prayers.