Deliver Her: A Novel (6 page)

MEG

It was after midnight when Meg crawled into bed to compose her letter to Alex, nauseous with anxiety over whether she would come home tonight. If this transport came off at all, it would be a miracle. She checked her phone again: radio silence.

Pen poised over the blank sheet, Meg wondered if Alex would even read a letter given to her under these circumstances. She never acknowledged anything Meg wrote her—not a word about the notes she had been slipping into her lunch for years. But if a letter were part of the transport plan, she would write one.

Closing her eyes, Meg reviewed the roller-coaster ride of the past nine months following the accident—the partying, the slipping grades, Alex’s growing detachment. Like Jacob, she had at first attributed Alex’s behavior to the grief process, a natural reaction to the tragic loss of her best friend. Meg could only imagine the depths of her daughter’s sorrow. Having watched the girls grow up together like sisters, Meg herself had to avoid Cass’s street for months after, knowing she would break down into tears.

Even now, the memory of Cass’s funeral caused Meg physical pain. Outside Kennington Funeral Home, the line of teenagers waiting to pay their respects had stretched beyond the parking lot. The girls tugged at borrowed dark skirts and jackets, sniffling and holding each other in their fresh grief, bearing flowers and stuffed animals. Standing beside Meg, Alex was silent and hollow eyed.

The boys, so awkward at that age, years too young to know how to comfort anyone, punched each other instead as they inched closer to the entrance. Meg recognized many of them from Alex’s Sweet Sixteen. Inside, parents hung back, overcome by the specter of sorrow. Kennington extended the evening viewing hours to accommodate the throngs of mourners.

A screen at the entrance flashed pictures from Cass’s young life: newborn in a crisp white christening dress, a cheerleader holding pom-poms aloft. Meg winced at the images capturing the girls’ friendship: soccer games, cast photos, the pair crouched at the harbor’s edge the summer Alex fell in love with the water. Meg hadn’t heard much about her dream of becoming a marine biologist lately.

The montage spun images from Alex’s party: Cass, Alex and Shana, arms around one another in their party finery. It was the last time the three were together, just hours before they got in a car driven by Logan, Shana’s brother. Cass had absolutely begged Meg to let Alex go on that after-party Slurpee run in Logan’s car, instead of their going straight home from the party. It would only take half an hour, Cass had said.
So much loss over frozen soda.

After the accident, blood tests showed Shana and Alex had been drinking. Cass and Logan had not. The police blamed the accident on distracted driving. Cass’s distraught parents hadn’t pursued any legal action.

For Meg, there remained many unanswered questions. Why had it been so critical for the three girls to get in Logan’s car that night? Why hadn’t the beautiful party they had thrown for Alex (or that her dear mother-in-law Miriam had thrown, to be precise)—an event more elaborate than Meg’s own wedding—been enough for the sixteen-year-old? Why hadn’t the always-responsible Cass worn a seat belt?

The day after, the school assembled a team of grief counselors, making them available all weekend. Alex refused to go. Days later, she spurned her parents’ overtures at the cemetery, standing alone as her friend was lowered into the ground under a mountain of daisies. Sorrow had sliced through Meg at the sight of Alex’s heaving shoulders, the tears soaking the angry stitches on her daughter’s cheek. Meg leaned on Jacob, imagining Alex now walking out of school alone instead of with an arm intertwined with Cass’s, realizing she would never again hear Cass’s giggles erupting from their kitchen or her van’s backseat.

If these losses seared Meg with sadness, what misery must Alex have been enduring?

Meg and Jacob had made many allowances for Alex, providing her ample time and space to grieve for her friend. Bottling her own sadness, Meg pumped coworkers for therapist recommendations for her daughter. That exercise failed miserably, as had every effort since to get Alex to open up. Nearly nine months had passed, and every time Meg broached the subject, Alex’s response was the same: “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Now the time
had
come to talk about it and all that had happened after. The Birches was Meg’s last hope for her daughter, whatever the cost. She chewed the pen.

Dear Alex . . .

FRIDAY

CARL

Around 3:00 a.m., Carl’s BlackBerry skittered across the hotel night table with the mother’s text:

Alex is home.

All systems go.
The girl would be good and groggy when they woke her,
he thought, tapping a reply to the mother and to Murphy, reminding Meg again about the letter.

He rose easily at five to shower and shave, leaning over the sink to trim the white
O
around his mouth. At 5:30 a.m., Carl and Murphy walked out of the lobby, leaving behind guests in drab business casual circling the breakfast buffet.

Ten minutes later, Carl and Murphy idled half a block from the Carmodys’ red house. He made out the girl’s duffel on the porch, a good sign. A blue minivan warmed up in the driveway, its exhaust blasting the crust of frost below. On the lawn, daffodils pushed through stubborn snow patches.

To the east, the Atlantic sky hinted at sunrise, salmon rays slicing steel clouds. Carl rolled down the window, inhaling the damp, cool air.

A good day for travel.

“Is that the mother?” Murphy pointed to the house, where the front door had opened. Carl nodded as a coatless Meg Carmody bent to slip an envelope into the duffel, then went back inside, reappearing a few seconds later, pushing a sleepy boy in pajamas toward the van. The dog circled nervously, nearly tripping the mother as she stuffed them both into the car. She clasped an adult hand extending through a back window, then returned to the porch, rubbing her arms against the predawn chill.

Carl tested the rental’s child locks one more time, the final item on his predeparture checklist. They clicked into position faultlessly; everything functioned as it should. Adrenaline rippled beneath Carl’s skin, the familiar rush triggered by the start of a new transport. He signaled to Murphy to get out of the car.

“Showtime.”

In silence, Carl and his partner walked toward the waiting mother.

ALEX

Sometimes the dream was different. Sometimes Cass answered when Alex called, when her own stretcher rolled up alongside hers. Silly Cass, lifting the sheet from her face and sitting up, all smiles, Alex’s candelabra earrings gleaming in her ears, so perfect with the dress, reflecting light from every facet. Cass’s violet wrap draped over one shoulder like a beauty contestant’s sash.

“Gotcha,” she would say, like some gruesome Halloween prank. “They checked me out. Said I’m good to go.” She would hop off her stretcher and walk alongside Alex’s, dangling strappy heels in one hand, clasping Alex’s hand with the other. “Happy birthday,” she’d whisper. She’d tuck herself inside the ambulance beside Alex’s mom, and at the hospital, without a trace of squeamishness, would watch the surgeon stitch Alex’s cheek with swift, clean strokes, the dark filament taut in his assured hands, the stainless-steel surgical scissors glittering under the work light.

In this version, her parents brought them both home to Alex’s, so furious over the deceit, but so relieved they were safe. Alex would dream that she woke up the next morning and lay in bed patting her bandaged cheek and looking over at her sleeping friend. When Cass finally opened her eyes, she’d fall all over Alex with apologies, pinky-swearing, like a ten-year-old, never to do something so stupid again. Cass would turn serious, sitting up tall and looking Alex straight in the eye: “It’s OK. I forgive you.”

Awakening from that version, Alex would feel almost human again, daring to think normal thoughts from her previous life:
What’s going on today? What should I wear?
On a good day, she might even get one foot on the floor before the darkness swallowed her again, reality setting in like a soaking rain:
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Sometimes the dream was different. This wasn’t one of those times.

Three sharp raps on her bedroom door: her mother’s lovely wake-up call.
As if.

“Go away. I said I’m not going.”

Alex’s words tasted like last night. She burrowed deeper into her bed, temples throbbing, regret coursing through her like a jolt of Perk Up’s double espresso.

Here it was, like clockwork: the daily standoff. How many times did she have to tell her mom there was nothing for her at that school—that there wasn’t one square inch of the place that didn’t remind her? She had tried again yesterday, and all it did was drive home how lost she was. And yet her own mother expected her to suck it up and go.

A wedge of hall light sliced across her bed.

“I said, don’t come in.” It wasn’t her mother’s fault she felt like crap. If she’d allowed her mother to pick her up last night, she could have shared some of her horrible day. Not a deep heart-to-heart. But maybe a moment on the couch, bonding over Conan’s stupid DVR’d jokes. A place to start.

But she hadn’t let her. And now her mother approached in those clunky, horrible plastic shoes everyone wore, their stupid charms jangling.
They must give the patients a headache.
She peeled back a corner of the blanket. Alex heard her distinct inhale—the sniff test, her mother’s favorite morning ritual. Alex held her breath for as long as she could, until the thud of more footsteps, heavier than her mother’s and heading toward her bed, made her exhale.

This was a new approach. Was her dad now in on the negotiation? Alex jerked the covers back over her face.
Why couldn’t everyone leave her alone?

“Alex. Wake up. I need to tell you something.”

Even through the covers, the full-on blast of overhead light seared Alex’s lids. “Mom, please,” she moaned. “Go
awaaay
.”

“I want you to meet someone.”

Was she kidding? Who had company at this hour? “Not interested, Mother.”

“Alex, Daddy and I love you. We just can’t live like this anymore. We want to get you the help you need.”

Whaaaat???
Her mother’s voice sounded fake, rehearsed—like she was speaking lines in a terrible play.

“This is Mr. Alden and Officer Murphy,” she continued. “We’ve asked them for help. They’re going to get you safely to a school in New Hampshire. I love you, honey.”

Through the blanket, her mother dropped a kiss in the vicinity of Alex’s head.

“Mom, wait. What?” By the time Alex raised herself on her elbows, the plastic squeaks had faded and her bedroom door clicked shut. This was a joke. Alex crawled to the edge of her bed and peered out. Below was a pair of unfamiliar brown work boots—so close she could smell the shoe polish. Above the boots, crisply pressed khakis. She rolled over, shading her eyes against the harsh light, and a man extended a black-leathered arm toward her. A perfect
O
of white hair circled his mouth; in his aviator sunglasses, she saw the Day-Glo reflection of her lava lamp.

Downstairs, the front door slammed. An engine revved and faded. Angel didn’t bark. Angel always barked when someone left. Something was seriously messed up.

“Good morning, Alex.” The man’s voice was deep and booming, like a TV announcer. “Time to get up. My name is Carl Alden. We’re going to get you to your program.”

“What program?”

“The Birches. The one your parents picked.”

“No way. I’ve seen that rehab stuff on TV.” The shows where the family guilt-trips the person into going. At the end, you find out what happened. It almost never worked out.

Alex sat up fast, her stomach roiling, deeply regretting the tuna-sub chaser the three of them devoured in Evan’s Corvette, blasting Amphibian. It had been fun, even with bitch Larke squeezing next to Evan, forcing Alex to take the window. She would never sit in the back, no matter how crowded they were.

“The Birches is nothing like that.” A female voice floated toward her, and a woman in glasses stepped forward. “I’m Officer Murphy. I’ll be in the car with you today.” She had a boxy mom haircut and wore all black—not cool black, but black like she didn’t give a crap: baggy pants, ski jacket over a turtleneck.
Mock
turtleneck. Alex squinted. Was that a
fanny pack
around her waist?

The woman had the nerve to sit on Alex’s bed, motioning to a pile on a storage cube. “Your mom put clothes out. Get up now and get dressed.”

Alex’s heart began to pound in tandem with her temples. These people were serious. Could they really take her? “Wait a sec. I mean, I have rights, don’t I? This is, like, child abuse.”

“This is perfectly legal, Alex. I’ll leave you with Officer Murphy to get ready,” the man said, lifting a camouflage cap to rub his head. “And let’s get a move on. No telling how many folks will be headed to New England this weekend.”

New England?
Alex’s palms grew clammy. She’d been crystal clear about her feelings on that subject when her mom dragged her out to the promenade for coffee.
She wouldn’t, would she?
Panicked, Alex stared at the man, whose hand rested on her doorknob.

“I’ll be just outside the door.”

Alex crossed her arms. “I’m going
nowhere
. I already told my mother that. And you guys could be some child molesters, for all I know.” She groped around her comforter for a cigarette and lit one. She was forbidden to smoke in the house—to smoke at all, actually—but the heck with that. “Where’s my mom? She can’t make me do this.”

“Actually, she can. You’re still a minor.” Quicker than Alex, Camo Man neatly deflected the empty Coke can Alex grabbed from beside her bed and leveled at him, dropping it into her wastepaper basket. She didn’t even know where her own reflex had come from or when the jackhammers began their assault on her chest. She only knew her heart was beating so hard she was terrified she might pass out.

Camo Man pulled a white handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his hand. “That’s not going to help, Alex.”

“I don’t care. I need to talk to my mom.
Mom
,” she cried. Out of bed now, Alex stumbled over old breakfast dishes and clothes to her door. Camo Man blocked her path and grabbed her wrist—not tight, but still. Mom Haircut was on the other side like a shot.

“Your mom left.” His voice was irritatingly calm, like he was talking to a very young child. Or a mental patient. “You can talk to her later. It’s time to get dressed and cooperate.”

Trapped, she rested her forehead on the door, her stomach in overdrive.
I should puke on their shoes.
“I’ll just run away.”

“Alex, your mother told me what a smart girl you are,” Carl said.

The same bull her mom handed her all the time. “I’m smart enough not to go anywhere with you.”

The man’s grip loosened. “Look at it this way. At least you don’t have to go to school today. Excused absence and everything.” Was he busting her behind the aviators? She couldn’t tell.

“Right, road trip,” Murphy chirped. “We’ve got movies, snacks—the works.”

Bribing her with a load of Disney films. This was turning into a bad comedy routine, a nightmare Dr. Drew. Or maybe it was that other TV doctor, the bald one. She couldn’t remember.

They turned her around slowly in a weird three-way dance. “This program will help you figure things out,” the man said. “And I can tell you definitively: cooperating is your better option.

Let the powers that be warm the path you will tread;

No journey’s harder than the one in your head.

He had to be kidding. The dude was singing the chorus from Amphibian’s “Cloud Path.” Alex was obsessed with the second track on the Rainmaker album; Cass had covered an entire notebook with the lyrics. Even more surprising, Camo Man could totally sing, nailing the trademark tremor of Amphibian’s lead singer, Ace Ackerman.

She glanced at the poster over her bed and bit her lip. No way he was a true Phib; this had to be a head game. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of even mentioning it.

“I’ll leave you now to get dressed.” Carl released his grip. Murphy still held her other arm. “And one more thing. Give me that cigarette.”

She took a long, defiant drag, staring at the warped version of herself in his stupid sunglasses, weighing her options. Maybe with him in the hall, she could work on the woman. She stabbed her cigarette into a milky cereal bowl on her desk. “Fine.”

Nodding to Mom Haircut, Camo Man slipped out of her room. How could her mother do this?! Didn’t she realize how super-stressed she was about everything? Alex kicked the clothes off her storage cube. “One thing’s for sure. I’m not wearing those. I’ll look like a nun.”

“Then I’d suggest long pants and a warm top. It’s still pretty chilly in New Hampshire.”

New Hampshire. That at least narrowed it down a little. Now was her chance. Alex sat on the cube, summoning every fiber of sweetness the early hour would allow. “I think there’s been a mistake. I totally planned to go to school today. So if you could just, like, get my mom on the phone, we can figure this out?” Her voice did that question-marky thing at the end that Cass hated. She forced a smile.

“I can’t do that, Alex.”

Alex’s stomach felt like it was jammed on the twisty part of the washing machine. “My dad, then. He’ll be cool with me—”

“Get
dressed
, Alex.” Mom Haircut’s tone was irritatingly final, like her mother’s often was.

Alex opened a drawer, deliberately drawing out the process, holding up one bottom after another, settling on leggings. Bending over to pull them on made the walls whirl; she pressed a hand on the floor to steady herself. Why hadn’t she stayed home last night, like Shana had?

Behind her, the woman had a chirpy comment about everything. “Lava lamp, huh? I had one when I was your age. Had the incense, beaded curtains, the whole nine yards.”

Shut up.
Alex dug in her closet for socks. Her mistake had been coming home at all last night; she should have told Evan to keep going.

Evan. He always went to school late. He’d rescue her. One sock on, she lunged for her phone to text him. Mom Haircut beat her to the punch, pocketing the phone and coiling the power cord into a neat bundle.

Alex stomped her bare foot. “You can’t do that. If you’re gonna drag me all the way to New Hampshire, I at least get to keep my phone.”

“These are the rules, Alex.” Murphy pocketed the charger, then swept Alex’s bag off the floor where she had thrown it last night.

Did this woman think she was airport security? “That’s an invasion of privacy. You need, like, a search warrant,” Alex protested.

Apparently she didn’t. Alex was under eighteen and in her parents’ home. And since her lovely parents had given these two permission to ruin her life, Mom Haircut was entirely justified in rummaging through her bag, where a three-pack of condoms rested at the bottom, Alex remembered, squirming. Shana had thrown them in as a joke. Would anything else in the bag incriminate her? She couldn’t remember. That was the problem with weed. It was awesome at helping you forget stuff, but sometimes it took away things you wanted to remember. She recalled the humiliation of Evan dropping her off first, before Larke, but beyond that, things were extremely fuzzy.