Footer Davis Probably Is Crazy (15 page)

“I'll be fine,” I told the wall.

I felt Dad lay something on the bed beside me. “There's your phone. Call me right away if you need something before she gets here.”

I heard my door close. Then I heard the front door close, and the sound of a car engine.

My phone chirped with Peavine's tone. I turned over and picked it up.

R U OK?

Pukey,
I texted back, because that was truth enough.

Ew. Feel Betr.

Thks.

Call u latr.

K.

The landline rang. I sat up and got my feet on the floor, dropped my cell on the bed, then shuffled over to my desk. Morning sunlight tried to slice around my blinds, but it barely got in, leaving the room gray and sleepy just like me. The phone rang again, and I picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

A woman said, “May I speak to Adele Davis, please?” She sounded all official and business-like, probably not one of Mom's support-group people.

I fiddled with the receiver charger. “She's not here. May I take a message?”

“Is Fontana Davis there?”

That made me open my eyes wider. “Um, I'm Fontana.”

“Oh, good. You missed your appointment with Dr. Zephram yesterday at three. Do you know if your mother plans to reschedule?”

“Who is this again?”

“Dr. Zephram's office.”

“But my doctor is Dr. Ellsworthy.”

“Oh, he's a primary care physician. This is a counseling office. Different kind of doctor.”

Counseling office? What? I pulled the receiver away and stared at it, then had enough presence of mind to put it back to my ear and say, “Sorry, I don't know anything about Dr. Zephram or what Mom wanted, and I don't know when she'll be back. I'm sure she'll call if she wants to set up another appointment.”

“Thank you,” the woman was saying as I hung up.

Okay, that was weird. Who were those people? I opened my laptop to look them up online, but my Really Probably Crazy List caught my attention

I stared at it, my fingers hovering above the mouse pad. I knew a lot more now. At least I thought I did.
What's the truth, Footer?
Dad's voice echoed around in my head, pushing tears into my eyes.
What's the truth?

With a quick click, I closed the document. I didn't know
anything. That's what Dad believed. He was probably right. When I tried to take a breath, it came out all shaky, and I really did feel sick. That's what I got for faking, right?

I thought about closing the laptop, but instead I opened my music and played my favorite song. It didn't make my tears go away. I wanted to call Dad's cell phone and tell him he was a great big huge jerk and he hurt my feelings. Or maybe I just wanted to cry, but if I cried, I'd probably get sick for real.

“I know a lot more now,” I said out loud, like Dad could hear me. I imagined him buying stamps as my voice rattled through his ears. I could almost see the way he'd freeze, staring up at the ceiling in shock.

“I do,” I whispered.

Then I opened up my Really Probably Crazy List again, and typed fast, banging my fingers on the keys as I changed everything around.

1. Old Mr. Abrams got shot,
and nobody knows who shot him.
MOM OR CISSY SHOT HIM WITH A SHOTGUN. WHY?
CISSY SHOT OLD MR. ABRAMS WITH A SHOTGUN BECAUSE HE WAS HITTING DOC.

2. The Abrams farm got burned to the ground,
and nobody knows who set the fire.
MOM OR CISSY SET THE FIRE. WHY?
MOM PROBABLY SET THE FIRE, MAYBE TO COVER UP WHAT CISSY DID.

3. Cissy and Doc might be dead or alive, and nobody knows where they are.
BUT THEY MIGHT HAVE DIED IN THE FIRE BY ACCIDENT.

4. Mom
might have been
WAS MOST DEFINITELY
there.

5 I
might have been
WAS MOST DEFINITELY
there.

6. 
Somebody might have been watching us while we searched.
THE SOMEBODY HAD SHOES LIKE CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG.
CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG WAS WATCHING US BECAUSE HE TOLD MOM HE WOULD.

7. 
I might be
PROBABLY AM
crazy.
I MIGHT BE CRAZY, BUT I SAW ALMOST EVERYTHING.

It was hard to look at the items now, because I was pretty sure I was right about all of them, and I was pretty sure Dad would never believe me. I hit save before I could chicken out and delete everything. I'd come back later and clean it up and explain stuff better. Then I'd send a copy to Peavine. He'd believe me. Peavine would never call me a liar or treat me like I was crazy. After everything went so wrong with Dad and Mom, too, that felt really, really important.

Somebody knocked on the front door.

Perfect.

Was this my punishment for staying home when I didn't have the runs or a bad one-hundred-and-three fever? I rubbed one eye, then the other. I really didn't
feel like talking to missionaries or answering a survey. It might be the postman or the UPS woman or the FedEx guy. Whatever it was, they could leave it on the porch.

I decided not to answer the knock and stared at my list some more. Then I started feeling cold, and I couldn't help looking over my shoulder, out into the hall.

What if somebody important had been at the door?

What if a serial killer had been at the door?

Okay, that was stupid.

But . . .

I got up and went to the front door, stood on my tiptoes, and peeked outside. Nobody was there. After a few seconds I turned all the locks and put on the chain. Then I stared at the closed door for a long time, worrying. Blood rushed in my ears, making it hard to think. Was the basement door locked? I couldn't remember.

Stop scaring yourself.

But I couldn't help it. Where was my phone? I ran my hands up and down my sleeping shirt even though I knew it didn't have pockets. On my bed. I left it in my room.

This was completely idiotic. I had nothing to be scared of. Stuff like this—it was why Dad didn't trust me. Because I could act like such a baby.

Something thumped in the basement.

I let out a squeak and ran to my room and grabbed my phone off the bed, barely breathing as I unlocked its screen. The house had gone tomb quiet.

My fingers pushed 9-1-1, but I hesitated before I pressed send. If I called the dispatch center, they'd send a bunch of people, and Dad would know, and he'd be so pissed with me. He might even get in trouble for leaving me alone while Peavine's mom drove over here.

I inched over to my window, pried loose one blind, and peeked out. Still nobody out there. I held my breath and counted to five, and I didn't hear any noises, either.

My gaze shifted back to the numbers I had dialed, and I heard Dad's voice in my head, sounding sad and angry.
What's the truth, Footer? Do you even know anymore?

I bit my bottom lip. Then I deleted the 9-1-1 and picked Captain Armstrong from my contact list instead.

He sounded asleep when he answered, but when I told him I was home sick and waiting for Ms. Jones and somebody knocked on the front door and scared me, I saw him come straight out his front door wearing a bathrobe, phone to his ear. He held his free hand above his eyes to shield them from the sun, and he stared down our road.

He studied the scene, and then he said, “It was church people, Footer. I see them on down the road, putting pamphlets in people's mailboxes. Now they're knocking on somebody else's door.”

“Okay.” I relaxed a fraction. “Thanks.”

“I'll keep a watch until Ms. Jones gets here. You don't have to worry.”

“Thanks, Captain Armstrong.” I started to tell him good-bye, then hesitated, feeling the bloom of all that hot guilt in my stomach. Here he was being nice to me, and I hadn't been good to him at all, treating him like a real suspect and giving his name to the MBI, and acting like some people in town did, like he was all dangerous and mean, when he wasn't.

My fingers gripped the phone, then relaxed, gripped and relaxed. I tried to get my breath and find the right words.

“You okay there, kid?” Captain Armstrong asked.

“I—yes. Thank you. I'm just . . . it's . . . I'm sorry I asked you stuff about the war and took a picture of your shoe. I know the rumors around town aren't true, about you and the fire. I always knew that.”

There was a long pause, and the heat in my stomach got ten times worse. I felt it moving up into my chest, my throat, my face.

“I don't know what else to say,” I whispered. “I don't know what to do, except be sorry, even if it's not enough.”

“It's enough,” he said, and he didn't sound cold or angry like I thought he would. “Sometimes when you really slip up in this world, sorry's all you've got. It has to be enough. I'm not mad at you, Footer. I never was.”

“Okay,” I said. I thanked him again and hung up, but I stood there awhile, watching the captain through my window, hoping he really meant what he said about not being mad at me.

He had believed me about somebody knocking on the door, at least. He had believed what I told him, even though my own father didn't.

Why did that make me sad instead of happy?

Once I was pretty sure no serial killer was trying to break into my house, I changed into shorts and a shirt, crammed my phone in my pocket, and sat on my bed. My heart wasn't beating fast anymore, and my breathing sounded like a person now instead of a half-strangled chicken, and I wasn't feeling as guilty about sort of being mean to Captain Armstrong.

As for Dad . . .

My chin dropped toward my chest and I sat there staring at nothing, feeling really sad and completely alone. It was like being in the dark with all the lights on. “Alone” dug at me just like “scared” did, when the lights were off and I couldn't see anything at all.

I wasn't a baby. I wasn't.

But I wanted my mother.

Great, big empty “alone” swelled around me like some awful balloon, taking all the air. I wanted to see Mom, but not sick, staring, crazy Mom. I wanted smiling Mom, happy Mom, with-me Mom. Crying was stupid, but I did it anyway, letting the tears roll down my face and not even wiping them off. Wiping tears was what moms did, and right now I didn't have mine.

My eyes moved to my bedroom door and into the hall, and I looked at my parents' bedroom door. I wasn't supposed to go in there without them, or unless they asked me to, or unless I asked. Privacy and respect and all that stuff.

But it was Mom's room. If I opened the door and went inside, I might smell her or grab some bit of her and be able to hold on to it until she got better and came home.

I wiped my face with both hands, and I went down the hall and through the closed door. For a few heartbeats I just stood there, breathing in and out, in and out, but all I could smell was the light pine scent of dad's aftershave, with hints of soap from his shower that morning, and the minty tang of toothpaste. The tears came back again.

Mom had a desk near the window, just like me, only she kept the blinds up, not down. Even though it felt really wrong and really weird, I wanted to look through her things. I wanted to touch them.

Sunlight streamed through the windowpanes, showing all the dust on stacks of recipe books, boxes
of stationery, notebooks, appliance manuals, and clipped-together bills. The stacks felt like proof that Mom wasn't always sick. They seemed to say,
See? Look. She organized me. She knew what she was doing.

I walked over to the desk, put my hand on the nearest stack, and took a deep breath. My heart thumped when the air swept into my nose, because it smelled a little like her rosy perfume.

Mom. There you are.

My chest hurt.

I could see her sitting there at the desk, smiling to herself as she wrote down instructions for some disgusting fancy dinner dish, or scrawled a letter to somebody, because yes, my mom still sent snail mail.

The top box of stationery was powder-blue paper with lines on it. I opened the box and ran my fingertips across the silky surface. So soft, and it smelled even more like her. Mom had pretty handwriting. I could almost imagine the loopy letters she'd make as she wrote
Fennel Meatloaf
or
Arugula Muffins
or
Carrot Ice Cream
.

Blech.

I smiled.

Then I frowned.

It didn't make sense, how Mom could be so completely fine sometimes, sitting here in this room, working at this desk—or so sweet and nice that she fed yard squirrels and basement mice her breakfast—and then end up a drooling
zombie in the hospital, miles and miles away from us.

My hands wandered across the desktop, sliding pieces of Mom's life and mind and heart back and forth. Fresh tears made me see everything in prisms and rainbows. I wanted to be mad at her for leaving us, mad like I always used to be, when I was really little. Mad would feel better than . . . than whatever made my chest weigh ten-thousand pounds and hurt so much.