Mary Wolf (18 page)

He clutched the steering wheel of our dead RV as if he could lift it with the force of his will and fly it through the clouds, back home to Nebraska, back to the wrong turn in the road that led us here. Mama tiptoed through the Wolfs' Den like a grieving ghost, keeping the children away from him.

When he and Mama were in bed, I heard her say, “Now you'll have to call your sister.” My father answered her with silence.

I lay in my bunk, listening to Mama cry, feeling Daddy's eyes burning up the darkness. When he finally fell asleep, I slipped out.

I found my way down the beach with Rocky's flashlight. The hut was cold but I'd brought a blanket, and after a while I fell asleep. I dreamed we were back home, at our house in Nebraska. I was playing on the lawn. Daddy stepped through the sprinkler. He opened his briefcase; tons of money fell out.
Mary
, he said,
I almost forgot; I had this in my other wallet
.

When I woke up, I didn't know where I was. Fog draped the sun; the light was dim. The hut felt different with Rocky gone. But I imagined I could fell him there, his love reaching out to warm me.

I'll ask Aunt Belle to help us. She'll send us money to come home. Daddy will be furious, but there's no other way. His pride is like a big rock blocking the road.

I've drifted off again. Someone's calling my name.

I'm awake, Mama. I don't want to miss the school bus
.

But Dave's in my dream, calling, “Mary, Mary!”

I open my eyes and crawl out of the hut.

He's limping across the sand, his bad leg swinging. “Mary, your father—” His face is wild. He's gasping for breath, his hands on his knees. “Your father's got a gun—”

“No, I hid it.” It was there last night. There's no way he could've found it.

“He took one of mine. He's shooting up the RV. Mary, he's gone crazy. You've got to come!”

We run across the sand toward the campground.

“I called the sheriff,” Dave says. They're on their way. They're sending the ambulance.”

“Why?”

“He's got the girls in there with him, and your mother, Mary. I tried to get in but he wouldn't let me.” Dave sobs, tears streaming down his cheeks.

We get to the Wolfs' Den. People watch from a distance, crouching behind cars and trailers.

“Just talk to him,” Dave says. “He might listen to you.”

“I'm going in.”

Dave grabs my arm. “You can't! He might shoot you.”

Has Dave gone crazy, too? “He'd never do that.”

“I'm telling you, you can't go in there! It's not safe!”

“He's my father.”

“Listen to me, Mary! He's not your father right now! I've seen this kind of thing before. There's no telling what he'll do!”

“I'll be okay.” I turn away from Dave and reach under the RV. Then I call, “It's me, Daddy. Mary. I'm coming in.”

I open the door and step inside. My eyes can't comprehend what they're seeing. Daddy's in back, by his bunk, holding a gun. Mama's face down on the floor at his feet. I can't tell if she's breathing.

The girls sit on Danielle's bunk, faces white as their nightgowns, silent as a row of those wooden dolls that fit inside each other. Andy's on the floor beside my mother. He holds out his arms to me.

“Mary, I couldn't find you.” Daddy looks relieved to see me, as if I've woken him from a terrible dream.

“I went down to Rocky's hut.”

“How's he doing?”

“He's gone. Remember, he went to Cloverdale.”

“That's right.” He nods.

“What're you doing, Daddy?” My voice is calm, screams are clawing at the back of my teeth.

He spreads his arms wide and empty. He shakes his head.

“I looked for the gun. I couldn't find it,” he says.

“I hid it so the kids wouldn't get it. Here it is.” I hold it up so he can see it.

“Oh, Mary,” Daddy moans. “It's too late now, Mary.”

“Too late for what?”

“Everything. It's all screwed up. I didn't want her to suffer. She's suffered so much. I wanted all of us to be together. You understand that, don't you? You don't hate me, do you, Mary?”

“No, Daddy, I don't hate you.” I inch closer to the girls, figuring the distance to Andy, to the door.

“The world's a terrible place, a terrible place,” Daddy's saying. “It just smashes you like a bubble. You understand, don't you, Mary? You've always been so grown up. Your mother can't take it. She's too gentle, too fragile.”

“Daddy, the girls are going outside now.”

“No.” He shakes his head wildly, waves the gun. “I promised your mother we'd stay together. I was looking for you, Mary. I couldn't find you. You should've stayed here. I couldn't find you.”

“They're going outside now. Do you hear me, Danielle?” I stand between my father and the girls. They're frozen. “Do you hear me, Danielle? Take the girls outside.”

“No!” Daddy thunders. “You girls stay here! I'm your father. You do what I tell you! No one listens to me. I tried to tell them: This is a special situation! We're not some scum you can kick out the door! We just need some help! That's all I'm asking—”

“Do you hear me, Danielle? Get out of here! Now!”

She looks at my father and back at me. Then she takes the girls' hands and leads them out.

“Andrew!” Dave calls after the door shuts behind them. “Let me come in there. Let me talk to you, buddy.”

“Stay out of here!” my father shouts. “I'm warning you!” He aims the gun at the door and fires.

“Jesus, man, you're blowing it!” Dave shouts.

Daddy covers his face with his hands, the gun trembling near his temples. “Oh, Mary,” he groans, “things are so messed up. They won't ever be good again.”

“Yes they will. Things are going to be fine. The ambulance will be here any second to take Mama to the hospital.” Bright red blood pools beneath her nightgown. She hasn't moved since I came in.

My father looks down at my mother, confused. Horror spreads across his face.

“Oh, Wendy! My God! My God, please help me!” He kneels beside her, whimpering, stroking her hair. “Wendy, darling, can you ever forgive me?” Andy lies beside her, howling. Daddy's face almost breaks with pity.

“You poor little thing. You didn't ask for this, did you. You poor little boy. This is some kind of world. It's not a nice place for a baby, is it.”

He reaches for Andy.

“Leave him alone, Daddy.”

“I won't leave him alone!” Daddy's on his feet, holding off a mob only he can see. “Leave him alone to be scared and hurt, to be treated like dirt? I promised your mother! I promised her we'd all be together. Now you've spoiled it. You always spoil things, Mary. Why do you always do that?”

“Daddy, I'm coming over there. I'm going to take Andy. You're scaring him.”

“No! You can't have him. He's not your son! They take everything you've got and leave you nothing! You're not taking my flesh and blood!”

“I'm taking him, Daddy, and I know you won't hurt me. I'm your daughter and I know you love me.”

For a moment my father sees me clearly, his eyes agonized, his face twisted.

“Oh, Mary, oh, honey, it's a crazy old world. It's crazy, you know, the things that can happen. Why is this happening? I don't understand. Mary, I don't understand what's happened.”

“Lot's of things happened. But it's going to be fine. They'll take Mama to the hospital and get her all fixed up. Then we'll move to San Francisco and you'll get a job—”

“I'm so sorry, honey. You believe me, don't you? I never meant for any of this to happen.” He waves the gun at the RV, at the beach, at Mama. “All I was trying to do was take care of my family. To make them happy. That's all I ever wanted. But no matter what I did, it got all screwed up. And now it's too late. It's too late, Mary.”

“No, it's not, Daddy. Please don't make it any worse.”

He almost smiles. “Honey, it can't get any worse. And it can't get any better. Forgive me.”

He raises his gun. I pull the trigger. My father leaps into the air through the sparkling sprinkler. He is calling my name. He is falling forever. Then the fan of silver water closes around him.

Nineteen

There was so much confusion right after that time. I don't remember a lot of what happened. They say I was in shock.

Aunt Belle keeps telling me it's not my fault.

A helicopter landed on the beach and flew Mama to the hospital. She's still in intensive care. The doctors haven't told her about my father yet. She asks for him but then she forgets; she's on a lot of pain medication.

When the cops came, they were going to arrest me until Dave got in their faces. They almost took him, too. He was screaming.

“For God's sake, the guy went nuts! It was self-defense!” Dave said.

The police asked me, “Who was your father going to shoot? You, himself, the baby?”

I didn't know what he was going to do. I couldn't let him make one more mistake.

They took the kids and me to Child Protective Services and then to a big place out in the country where lots of other kids were staying. Aunt Belle arrived the next day and got us out. The cops said we couldn't go home until the investigation was over, so we checked into a motel.

The newspaper ran big articles about us. Aunt Belle didn't want me to read them, but I did. Daddy was described as a “top executive”; a “broken man driven to despair and desperation by the collapse of his multimillion-dollar insurance empire.” He would've liked how important he sounded.

The articles said the Wolfs' Den and the beach were “squalid.” They said my sisters' clothes were ragged. Phone calls poured into the county, people wanting to adopt us. Reporters waited outside our motel room, shouting questions whenever we opened the door. TV talk shows invited me to be a guest. Movie producers wanted to buy the rights to my life story.

“What's the matter with you people? Are you out of your minds?” Aunt Belle shouted into the phone, and hung up.

My grandparents flew out and took the girls and Andy home. I had to stay for the investigation. Aunt Belle rented a car and drove me to the county offices for my appointments.

The detectives asked, “Had your father been drinking that morning?”

“I don't know. I don't think so. He never drank in the morning.”

“When did he usually drink? In the afternoon? Had he been drinking that night? Was he intoxicated?”

“It's not the way you're making it sound. He's not an alcoholic. He just drinks when he's sad or feeling down in the dumps, or maybe he'll have a beer or two if we're having a barbecue or something.”

“Why'd you hide the gun? Did you fear for your life?”

“No, so the girls wouldn't find it.”

“He was in the habit of leaving a loaded gun lying around?”

“He never had a gun before we got to that place. Before we got to the beach.”

“Why'd he get the gun?”

“I don't know. Sometimes there were strange people around.”

“And he taught you how to use it?”

“Yes. So I could take care of the family in case he wasn't there.”

“Why wouldn't he be there? Was he planning to be gone?”

“I mean, if he was at work or something. He was going to get a job when we got to San Francisco.”

“Were you planning to kill him, when you went into the trailer?”

“Oh, for God's sake,” Aunt Belle snapped. “Has everyone gone crazy?”

“Please, ma'am, let her answer the question.”

“What kind of question is that? Of course she wasn't planning to kill him. She loved him. He was her father!”

“Please, ma'am, let her answer the question or we'll have to ask you to step outside. Were you planning to shoot him when you went into the trailer, Mary?”

“It's not a trailer; it's an RV. They keep saying it's a trailer in the newspaper.”

“Were you planning to shoot him when you went inside?”

“No. I didn't know what he'd done. I didn't know what he'd done until I went inside.”

“Why'd you take the gun in there with you?”

“I was afraid. Dave said he'd heard a shot.”

Hour after hour I answered their questions. All that time, a tiny voice in my mind whispered: None of this is real. It's not happening.

They made me talk to a psychiatrist, a gray-haired woman. She asked if I hated Daddy.

“No. I love him.”

“But you must be very angry at him now.”

“Let's say I'm not too happy.”

“Did he ever hurt you? Did he ever hit you?”

“Just a couple of times. He didn't mean to.”

“Why did he hit you?”

“He was so upset. Everything was falling apart.”

“Why were things falling apart?”

“We didn't have any money. We had no place to go. We didn't know what to do.”

“You say ‘we,' Mary. Did you feel that this was your responsibility, figuring out what your family should do?”

“Well, kind of. I'm the oldest. I try to take care of things.”

“What about your mother? Does she take care of things, too?”

“Sometimes. When she can. It's kind of hard to explain.”

I could tell that the woman didn't like my parents. She didn't understand that they did the best they could. Okay, so maybe it wasn't so good. They weren't trying to hurt us; they loved us. For a while the cops wanted to charge Mama with neglect because we'd missed a lot of school and there wasn't much food in the RV. Millions of kids go hungry every day. If it's a crime, why doesn't somebody help them?

The psychiatrist said, “Mary, you're just a child. You should never have had so much responsibility. Your parents put you in an impossible situation. Your father even forced you to kill him.”