Invisible (35 page)

“Get me a beer, would you?” George asked.

“Get it yourself,” Eric said.

He’d do it anyway. Just like he’d microwave popcorn for his mom. That was the way Eric’s family was. They acted like they didn’t care, but their love shined through.

Peyton pushed herself up. “You want anything, Mr. Hofseth?”

He didn’t take his gaze off the screen. “I’m good.”

In the kitchen, Eric tore the cellophane from a packet of microwave popcorn. “You want some Coke with this?”

“I’m good.”

He gave her a look. “You okay?”

So much for acting normally. Eric had seen right through her. “You ever heard of nanotechnology?”

“Sure. It’s amazing. It’s wicked cool.”

“Seriously?”

He nodded. “Seriously. It can do all sorts of stuff, like turn regular paper into batteries. Pretty soon, we won’t even need silicon chips anymore to power our computers. And the health applications are ridiculous. They’ve got these sensors they can stick in people to track cancer cells and zap them before they even start growing, and they’re showing it can disrupt viruses like HIV and influenza.”

She’d never heard of any of that. He was just standing there, holding the popcorn package, like he’d been completely derailed from reality. “How come you’ve never talked about it before?”

He shrugged. “You’re not interested in stuff like that.”

“So we just talk about stuff you think I’m interested in?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Since when?”

He looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know.”

But she did. Since they stopped being just friends and began being something else. “Well, cut it out.”

“They already use nanoproducts in all sorts of things, you know.” He pushed the microwave buttons. “Televisions, clothes—”

“Sunscreen?”

“Well, yeah.”

“So what if
that’s
the reason my mom got sick?”

He started to laugh, then stopped and looked at her face more closely. “Come on.”

“Dana says this stuff is dangerous.”

“Don’t tell me she’s one of those.” He made his voice mocking.
“Technology’s going to ruin our planet.”

“She says there’s this study that showed nano zinc can cause kidney damage.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She didn’t make it up.”

“The government regulates that sort of thing, Pey. They’d never let anything out without testing it first.”

Her father’s words floated back to her.
You can’t believe everything you read online
. “I guess.” Eric looked so serious. She could trust him. She could tell him anything and he’d believe her completely. He never used to be like that. Used to be, he’d argue right back. Now it was like she knew something he didn’t, that she was wiser. Better. She hated that. She reached up and swept off his baseball cap, turned it sideways.

“Dude.” He came close and looked down. “Don’t mess with the cap.”

She pressed her palms against his chest. His lashes were pale from the sun, his eyebrows smooth and soft. She wanted to run her finger over them.

Something altered in his expression, and he bent his head toward hers. Suddenly, she was standing on a cliff looking down, dizzy from the height and the certain knowledge she was going to jump.

“What?” His voice was husky.

“Nothing.”

“You’re a million miles away.”

“I’m right here.”

He smiled a little sadly.
“Sometimes I feel like I’ve lost you, which is dumb.” He reached up and set his baseball cap facing forward again. “Because how can you lose something you never really had in the first place?”

 [DANA]

T
HAT FIRST WEEK OF AUGUST, I WOKE UP FEELING
queasy. Julie had already gone to work. The apartment had that stillness to it that told me I was alone. The day’s heat had begun to build, and the shades hung limp in my bedroom windows. I pushed myself up against my pillow, the solid weight of my belly pinning me in place. I was supposed to check the weather reports. I was supposed to stay hydrated, but all I could do was stare up at the ceiling and think,
I cannot do this for one more day
.

Back then, time had crawled from moment to moment, but now it spilled through my fingers. I couldn’t hold on to it. I shifted from foot to foot while Brian carefully spooned out fish food and dropped it in the tank filled with purple and pink corals. “Come on, Dana. You want me to change my formulation based on some reading you got?”

“An abnormally high reading.”

He screwed the lid onto the food container with an efficient twist. “Look. We use nanoparticles. It’s no surprise to me that you got a reading. That’s like saying you found a banana in a grocery store, Dana.”

“What if it’s making people sick?”

“Right.”

“What if it is?”

“Look. The minute the FDA gives the word, we’ll reformulate. It might be moot by then, anyway. The industry’s constantly changing. We might be onto a whole new technology by then.”

“Why take the chance? Reformulate now.”

“Impossible. Sales went through the roof when we switched.”

“Other companies use regular zinc.”

“Name one that’s turning a profit, one that’s broken into the top ten. Hell, the top fifty.” He switched off the overhead light and held open his office door. The hallway was shushed with emptiness. “I’ve worked hard to turn this crappy little mom-and-pop business into a real success story, and I’m not messing with it just because you got a wild hair about nano zinc.”

“It’s not just me. There’s tons of research beginning—”

“Research. Right.”

“Check it out for yourself. It’s all online.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll let the government tell me what’s safe and what’s not.”

“You can be the forerunner …”

“I can make sure my employees get paid.”

“You owe it to them to make sure their workplace is safe.”

He gave me a sharp look. “I know what my obligation to my employees is.”

“Just let me take a few readings,” I begged. “I can come in after everyone’s gone for the day. No one needs to know.”

“You make it sound like I’m hiding something.” He turned a corner and I lengthened my stride to keep up.

“You’re not listening.”

Flip, flip
. He was switching off lights as we went, the king of his castle.

“You’re the one who isn’t listening, Dana. This stuff is all FDA-approved. Until they tell me I should stop using it, I’m going to keep on keeping on.”

“Who knows how long it will take for the FDA to respond? Julie’s dead. And Sheri’s little boy may not make it.”

He stopped, the sound of his footsteps falling into silence. We’d reached the lobby. The halls stretched out in all directions. The parking lot outside the front doors was bathed in the tangerine and rosy glow of a sunset. In here, everything was bleached bone.

“Don’t you pin that on me.” His face was stone, the face of a stranger, and I glimpsed the man who ran a small empire, the man who made a salesman wait for a week before dismissing him, the one who by sheer force of will had turned a small town around from the edge of despair.

I searched his features for the friend I’d once had. “Brian—I’m not pinning anything on you. But you can’t just ignore what I’m telling you.”

He sucked in a breath, released it. “Look,” he said. “I know you’re upset about that. Julie was great. I get it that you’re having a hard time dealing with her death.”

Julie was
great
? That was how you summed up a person? “That has nothing to do with anything.”

“Tell me something, Dana. How come you’re so cut up about a sister you haven’t even bothered to visit since high school?”

“You can’t win this, Brian.”

“Look around you, Dana. I’ve already won.”

Hawley Hospital was twenty-six miles southwest of Black Bear, thirty minutes by car, twenty-five if you gunned it and weren’t held up at the train trestle. I sat in my car and studied the bland stucco building through the windshield. It looked exactly as I remembered;
even the maples lining the front walk were the same height, but I had to be wrong about that. I hadn’t exactly been paying attention to the landscaping.

A sedan drove by, slowed to take the curve into the visitors’ lot. A young couple emerged, the woman leaning on the man’s arm, their faces turned toward each other as they walked toward the entrance. I imagined them heading to that room on the second floor, the one facing south with the sink missing a chunk of porcelain along the back rim, with a window that didn’t offer a sunrise or sunset, just middling sky that gradually darkened and lightened.

Julie had arrived home just after six that day.
Sorry I’m late
, she said.

It’s got to be a million degrees in here
, I complained.

She laid a cool hand on my forehead.
Are you sure it’s just the heat?

She worried about everything. Was I eating enough, sleeping enough? Was there enough gas in the car in case we made a midnight run? Julie grew very protective those last few months. And distant, as though she could see something coming from far away.

I wished she were here now, to tell me what to do.

I started up my car, drove slowly out of the parking lot and turned onto the highway leading back to Black Bear.

It was late by the time I got back. I let myself in with the key I’d found hanging on the brass hook. A brass
J
dangled from it. Julie’s key. I held it loosely in my cupped hand, imagining it resting in my sister’s palm, then turned to hang it back up.

A voice spoke out of the darkness. “So you’re back.”

Frank sat by the kitchen window, moonlight throwing his face into high relief. He’d meant to startle me.

“Brian called,” he said. “He wants that lab coat back. I looked but I couldn’t find it.”

The lab coat was stowed in the trunk of my car, where I hoped
it couldn’t release any more particles. “I’ve got it,” I said. He’d been drinking, I realized with dismay. The air stank of whiskey, and a bottle sat on the table before him. “And even if I returned it, he can’t cover up what I found. I’ve already downloaded the readings onto my computer.”

“No one’s talking about covering anything up.” He tipped the bottle to the glass by his hand. “That coat’s his. Peyton shouldn’t have taken it out of the building.”

“I’ll talk to him. I’ll let him know Peyton has nothing to do with this.”

“I don’t want you talking to anyone. You’ve already done enough talking.”

It was late and I was tired. Frank and I would never agree on anything, so why try? “You’re drunk,” I said with disgust. “Go to bed.” I turned to go.

“My God,” he said. “You sound just like Julie.”

I whirled around. “Do I, Frank? I’m glad. Someone needs to talk to you. Someone needs to straighten you out.”

“You’re the last person to straighten anyone out. Last I heard, you killed someone.”

I gritted my teeth. That had nothing to do with anything. “You’re the one who has the problem. You need to get yourself under control.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll take Peyton.” The words just slipped out. I hadn’t even realized I’d been thinking them.

He snorted. “Peyton’s not going anywhere.”

“She’s not safe here.”

“You don’t get to decide that. She’s my daughter.”

My heart pounded.
Tell him
. “You think she doesn’t know you’re in here, drinking? You think she doesn’t smell it on you the next day?”

The scrape of a chair and he was there, looming out of the darkness. “You don’t know anything.”

“Julie should have never come back. She should have kept Peyton as far away from you as possible.”

He grabbed my arms and shook me. “Shut up.”

My heart pounded. I’d never seen this side to him, this violence. Afghanistan had changed this man in ways I’d never understand. What kind of life had Julie lived? What kind of house had Peyton grown up in? “Did you hit Julie?” I hissed. “Is that why she left you?”

“No!” He released me and I stumbled back. “Of course not! I loved her.”

I rubbed my arms. He was telling the truth. “Maybe you never touched her,” I said. “But you hurt her anyway.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” He fell into his chair and sat there, head bowed.

I left him there, lost among his own memories, his own regrets. I stayed up for hours, huddled on my makeshift bed, scrolling website after website. There were hundreds of products containing nanoparticles being manufactured and sold all over the world. Scientists were raising concerns, and consumer organizations were issuing warnings. So Greg had been right. There was something terrible going on.

Toward dawn, I picked up the phone and pressed the buttons. It was early and I was prepared to leave a message, when someone answered.

“My name is Dana Carlson,” I said quietly. Was I doing the right thing? Was this what Julie would have wanted? “I believe the factory in my hometown is making people sick.”

 [PEYTON]