Long Bright River: A Novel (34 page)

At nine o’clock in the evening, I hear the distinct sound of a car in the driveway. I don’t believe Mrs. Mahon has left her house since she went downstairs, and I am certainly not expecting anybody.

Gently, trying not to wake Thomas, I wriggle out from under him and stand.

I turn off all the lights in my apartment. I leave on only the outdoor light: all the better for viewing whoever might approach. I slide the chain lock into place.

Then I regard Thomas, out cold on the sofa. I don’t like having him so close to the front door. Abruptly, I scoop him up, bring him into his bedroom, and tuck him into his bed.

I want him out of sight.

Back in my darkened living room, I stand, frozen, listening. In a moment, I hear footsteps walking slowly up my wooden stairs. Outside my door, the visitor pauses. Doesn’t knock.

I wish I still had my weapon on me. I consider going back to the linen closet to remove it from the lockbox.

I crawl instead on my hands and knees to the front door, then kneel next to it. I raise my head to the window and move the bottom of the sheer curtain a fraction of an inch.

It’s Kacey.

I stand up and unlock the door. I crack it open. Cold air from outside hits my face.

—What are you doing here,
I whisper.

—I have to show you something, she says. It can’t wait.

I step aside awkwardly, turn on the lights, and let her into the apartment. She looks around appraisingly.

—This is nice, she says, kindly.

—Yes, well, I say.

I pause. She pauses.

—How did you find this place? I say.

—Dad gave me the address.

I look at her. You told him what’s happening? I say.

She nods seriously. I tell him everything, she says. It’s the only way to stay sober that I know of. Total honesty. Otherwise I start lying about little things and then.

She trails off. Turns her hand into an airplane and mimes a nosedive.

—Can I call him, actually? she says. I promised I would call him when I got here.

Once she’s finished, she turns to me and says, Do you have a laptop?

In my bedroom, we sit side by side on the bed. Kacey is holding the computer.

She navigates it expertly. She opens Facebook and enters, as a search term,
Edward Lafferty.

Together, we look at the screen. Of the seven Edward Laffertys who appear in the results, one of them seems to be him. There he is, wearing sunglasses, his bald head uncovered. He’s grinning and he has an arm wrapped around a dog that looks like a pit mix, which I can recall him talking about.

Before I can point him out, Kacey touches a finger to his face, on the screen.

—That’s him, she says.

It’s not a question.

I nod. That’s him.

—He’s Connor’s friend, she says. I’ve met him before, she says.

Connor.
It takes me a second to process.

—Dock? I say, without thinking, and Kacey says, How do you know that name?

—I know that, I say, because I was looking for you, and I came across him. Unfortunately.

Kacey nods.

—Yeah, she says. Yeah, he’s tough.

—
Tough?
I say. That’s one way to say it.

Kacey twitches suddenly, straightens up on the bed, puts both hands on her belly. Oh, she says softly.

—What’s wrong, I say.

—She’s kicking, says Kacey.

—She, I say.

Kacey shrugs. She looks as if she wishes she hadn’t said anything. Again, she hugs her stomach. Protecting it.

—Maybe I better start from the beginning, she says.

Last summer, says Kacey, I started seeing this guy. Connor. That was his name. People call him Dock but I never did. He was nice to me. First boyfriend I’d had in a long time. Came from a good family. I never met them but he told me stories about them. Told me he missed them. We were gonna get clean together, he told me, and I wanted that too.

Of course it never happened. We’d get clean together and then one of us would cave, me or him, and we’d bring the other one down with us.

—You don’t want to be alone, is the thing, she says. Whether you’re clean or you’re sober, whichever one you are, you want the person you love to be there with you too. So we couldn’t stay straight.

—In September, says Kacey, I realized I hadn’t had my period in a while. Now, I don’t know how long, because I wasn’t keeping track of stuff like that. I tried to use condoms until I got together with Connor, and then we just slipped up, you know. It happens. So all of a sudden I notice it’s been a while, and I go to the free clinic, and I get a pregnancy test. They do an ultrasound right there. And there’s a shape in me, I could see it on the screen. The second time in my life that I’d seen something like that.
That’s your baby,
they said.

Kacey is starting to cry. She wipes her nose on her sleeve. Tucks her hair behind her ears with both hands, just as she did when she was a child. I have the sudden urge to comfort her. I don’t.

—They told me I was eleven weeks along, says Kacey. That was in September. They asked me if I’d been drinking or using any substances. I was honest with them. I told them yes, I’d been using heroin, I’d been using pills. I’d been drinking. Yes to all of it.

So the nurse, really nice nurse, says to me that she’s going to refer me to a methadone clinic, that the recommended course of action was to get on methadone, because if I quit cold turkey that could have a really bad effect on the baby. You know. I’d heard that before. I have other friends on the Ave who’ve gotten pregnant while they were still using, so this wasn’t news to me. But I still felt, I felt awful, Mick, because I just, if I ever got pregnant again I wanted to do it the right way. It’s something Connor and I used to talk about sometimes, having a baby after we got clean. It was a nice thing to think about. But I never wanted another baby taken away, says Kacey, looking at me.

I knew it would kill me, she says.

—I told Connor the news, says Kacey. He was happy, really happy. I started going to the clinic and he came with me. The two of us were really motivated for the first time.

For two weeks, I went to the clinic every day. So did Connor. We found a decent place to stay, it was abandoned but it was clean, and it was still warm enough out so it wasn’t a problem to sleep there at night. We knew we had to find something better when it got cold, but for the time being we were happy.

One day I went to the clinic at our regular time, and Connor was
supposed to meet me, but he wasn’t there. So I get my dose, and I go back to where we were living, and I find him high.

That’s when I knew I had to make a change. I prayed, she says. I’m not religious but that night I prayed to God for help.

—The next day, she says, Dad showed up at the door. Like a sign, she says. Or an answer. Crazy, right? Connor was out. Dad offered to take me to Wilmington right then and there, no questions asked, but I couldn’t do that to Connor. He was the best guy I’d ever known. I know you think I’m crazy, but at the time, I thought that it was true.

I told Dad I needed a day. Just a day. I told him to come back to get me tomorrow, and I’d be ready. I could tell he didn’t believe me.

—Connor got back from wherever he was, says Kacey. I waited until he was awake enough to talk to me, and I told him I was leaving for a while, that I needed to leave him so I could get better, stay clean for the baby. I didn’t tell him where I was going. He didn’t take it well. We got into a terrible fight. He hit me, strangled me, said he was going to kill me. He pushed me down so hard I broke my wrist.

I walked out. I slept in a park that night, and the night after. I didn’t meet Dad.

I missed two doses. I was too embarrassed to show up at the clinic looking beat-up. They ask you questions, make you talk to a social worker.

I started getting shaky. Feeling bad. I know I’m withdrawing. So I figure, if I can just find subs on the street, I can treat myself for a while and taper off.

She pauses for a long time. She is looking at the ground. She’s quiet for so long that I wonder if she’s sleeping. Then she begins again.

—I went right back to it, says Kacey. Right back in, like I never stopped. I was sleeping outside the whole time, sleeping on the street, going on a bender. I was picking up clients on the Ave.

After a few days, says Kacey, I’d had enough. I came to my senses.

Again, she goes quiet.

—What did you do, I say. Where did you go?

—I’ve never stopped being in touch with Ashley, says Kacey. I think you know that. She’s always asking after me, always checking in. Sometimes she even gives me money, Kacey says.

So I found her. I showed up at her house, and she took me in.

I shake my head. Incredulous.

—Ashley knew? I say. She saw you? She knew you were alive? She didn’t tell me?

But Kacey is frowning.

—It’s my fault, she says. I made her swear. I told her the one person she could never tell was you.

—So she lied to me too, I say.

—She saved me, Mickey, says Kacey. She fed me and gave me a shower. She gave me a bed in her house. She or Ron drove me down to the methadone clinic twice a day. They watched out for me. She talked to me about the pregnancy all the time, got me excited about meeting the baby.

You know she’s religious now, goes to church, her and Ron. They’re raising their kids in the church. And she was so supportive of me, brought me to church with them on Sundays. They even gave me work there, like cleaning the basement and the bathrooms. They paid me in food
that I brought home to Ashley. Everyone was nice there. I felt really at home. Everyone there knew about the baby, too, and they were always telling me they were proud of me, that I was doing the right thing. I felt like they respected me. When I was there, in the church, it was nice. I felt almost like a hero to them.

But I was scared, Mick. Every night that I went to sleep I thought about the baby, and what I had done to the baby already. I was scared I had hurt it. I was ashamed. I hated myself. Every dose of methadone I took, I hated myself more. I know what it feels like to withdraw. I’ve had fifteen years of knowing that, and I’m grown.

She takes a quick breath.

—I thought of Thomas, she said. I couldn’t stop thinking of Thomas.

It’s the first time, in my memory, that she has ever used the name I gave him.

Kacey is crying hard now, her voice cracking and high. I stay where I am, watching my sister.

Finally, Kacey calms down a little. Continues.

—Aunt Lynn’s birthday party was at the beginning of November, says Kacey.

—Don’t tell me you were there, I say.

Kacey looks confused. She furrows her brow. Why? she says.

—I saw them two weeks after that, I say. At Thanksgiving. They all knew I was looking for you, I say. All the O’Briens knew it. Why did they lie to me?

Kacey inhales, deeply. She is measuring her words. Deciding whether or not to say something. I can still read her face.

—Look, she says, they don’t trust you.

I laugh, once, harshly.

—Me? I say. It’s
me
they don’t trust? That’s the most backward thing I’ve ever heard.

—You never come around, says Kacey. You’re a cop. And, she says, but she stops. Pulls her punch.

—And what, I say.

—Say it, I say.

—And everyone knows you took Thomas.

I laugh.

—Is that what they say?

—That’s the truth, says Kacey. Whatever the circumstances. They know you took Thomas.

I think of the looks on their faces, that day at Ashley’s. All the O’Briens. Shifting and formal and strange. Stiff when I approached them. All of them knew about Kacey. None of them let on. A slow humiliation spreads from the center of my chest outward, a sensation I recognize from childhood, so potent that it almost makes me cry. This is the feeling that being around the O’Briens has always given me. That I’m an outsider, a foundling, someone who doesn’t belong.

I stand up, abruptly, and walk to the edge of the room. I face away from my sister.

—I’m their family too, I say at last.

I hear Kacey breathing. Considering what to say next. When she speaks, her voice is delicate.

—I don’t think any of them knew you cared, she says.

I clear my throat. Enough of this, I think. Enough.

—Was Bobby there, I say.

—Where?

—At Lynn’s party.

I turn to face her. She nods.

—Bobby was there, she says.

—And what did your face look like?

She winces. Perhaps I was too blunt.

—You mean, she says. You mean was I still beat-up-looking? Yeah. I was. I told him it was an ex. I didn’t say who.

—That explains it, I say.

—What?

—I told Bobby you’d been dating someone named Dock. He must have put two and two together. Because apparently Bobby took matters into his own hands after that.

Kacey fights a smile. You’re kidding, she says. Bobby did that for me?

I shrug. I don’t approve of her reaction, of her satisfaction.

—I’ve always liked Bobby, says Kacey.

—I haven’t, I say.

The whole time we’ve been talking, Kacey has been sitting up on the bed. Now she lies down awkwardly on her side. Head on pillows. She’s tired.

—What happened at the party, I say finally. At Lynn’s birthday party.

—Ashley asked me how I felt about inviting Gee, says Kacey. Lynn and Gee see each other, you know. I hadn’t seen Gee in years but I said sure, why not. One of the steps is about making amends, and I have a lot of amends to make, and I figure I could start with Gee.

That night, at Lynn’s party, Gee was great. I mean, she was ornery, she was herself, but she was pretty nice. She said I looked good. Asked what I was up to. I told her I was on methadone maintenance but that I’d been clean besides that. She said I was doing good. Told me to keep trying.
Just don’t fuck it up,
she said, because Gee is Gee.

By the end of the night I had decided to tell her about the baby. She was going to find out sooner or later, I figured. Might as well break the news. I walked outside with her and stood there with her while she waited for the bus.

Gee,
I said,
I have to tell you something.

She turned on me with this look of absolute horror.

Oh no,
she says.
Please tell me you’re not gonna say what I think you’re gonna say.

I started to feel nervous. My hands were shaking, I was sweating.

What do you think I’m gonna say?
I said.

Gee’s got her eyes closed now. She’s just saying,
No, no.

I’m pregnant,
I say.

And Gee actually starts to cry. Have you ever seen her cry in your life, Mickey? I’ve never seen her cry in my life. She puts her face in her hands. I don’t know what to do. I put my hand on her back.

But as soon as I touch her she whirls around on me and brushes my hand off her. She lost it, Mickey. She screamed so loud. I thought she was going to hit me. She told me she was through with me. She goes,
Who’s gonna be this baby’s mama when you start up with that same old shit?
She told me she was done taking care of other people’s babies. And that you were too. She told me you had enough trouble on your hands without taking in another little bastard of mine. She used that word.
Bastard.

Kacey pauses for a second, waiting for me to react, before continuing.

—She said,
I’m not gonna watch you do to this baby what your mother did to you.

—Did you hear me? Kacey says to me.

I nod.

—No, Kacey says. No. Do you understand?

—Understand what? I say.

—I knew you wouldn’t notice it, Mick. But I’ve always wondered.
To you,
is what Gee said. Not
you and Mickey.
Not
you girls.
Not to us both. To me.

I said to Gee,
What do you mean, to me?
And she said that Mom had been getting high when she was pregnant with me.

But not Mickey?
I said.

Mick, I swear to God she smiled.

Not Mickey,
she told me, like she was satisfied to be telling me this.
Lisa started that shit after Mickey was born.

I wait a moment, letting the information settle.

Then I say, Oh, Kacey. She could have been lying to you. She could have been trying to scare you. I wouldn’t put it past her.

But the question lies there, between us, hovering.

Kacey shakes her head.

—I wanted to believe that, she says. That she was lying.

I thought about it while I was walking away from Gee. She was still shouting at me. She was saying,
I feel sorry for that baby. I feel sorry for that child.