Moonglow (5 page)

At the stoplight is Jess's mother in her bright yellow Nissan Xterra, which is almost as vibrant as Mrs. Wyatt. Sitting next to her in the passenger seat is Misutakiti, Jess's German shepherd and her pride and joy. Loosely translated his name is Japanese for Mister Kitty; he's named after one of that country's most famous exports and Jess's all-time favorite pop-culture icon, Hello Kitty.

Misutakiti sees me, but Mrs. Wyatt doesn't, because she, as usual, is talking on her cell phone, with her hands pointing and gesturing and flying through the air. Misu isn't moving; he's up on all fours facing the passenger-side window, staring in my direction. On second thought maybe he hasn't seen me yet, because when he does he flips out, knowing he's going to get the best belly rub ever. His tail starts to wag frantically, and he runs in circles, his tongue flopping out of his mouth. Now he looks different.

His ears are pointed straight up and look like two motionless, multi-colored teepees, black on top, gradually turning to brown at the base. His entire body, in fact, is stock still, and his beautiful eyes—one blue, one black—are staring straight ahead.

“Hello, Misutakiti!” I say in my singsongy voice, reserved for when I'm talking to dogs and babies, even though I know he won't be able to hear me from where I'm standing.

He might not have heard me, but he does respond. Just not in the way I expected. Bam! One huge paw hits the window. Bam! The other huge paw hits it even harder. His paws start to move quickly, pounding against the glass as if they were clawing at dirt and he was on a mission to bury a bone. The only reason I can't hear his nails scratching against the window is that he's barking too loudly. I stop waving when I realize this isn't Misu's typical “Hello, rub my belly” bark; this is his “I want to get the hell out of this car and attack you” bark.

“Misu, it's me, Dominy.”

Personal identification doesn't temper Misu's barking; if anything, it intensifies it. Despite the sound's being muffled by the car windows, I can still hear how gruff and deep and hostile it is. And the dog's posture matches his sound. He's not his usual flopsy-mopsy self; his body is rigid and ready to pounce. But why would he want to pounce on me? He loves me almost as much as he loves Jess. Probably even more because I bring him people food all the time.

A quick look around shows that there isn't a stray deer behind me or a lost rabbit nearby that Misu would like to turn into an afternoon snack; the area's deserted. No, Misu's rabid barking is directed at me. I can see Mrs. Wyatt's hand motions change, and now she's slapping Misu on his backside to get him to shut up. Oh that must be it! He must want me to help him get out of that car because he's tired of hearing her yak on the phone.

“Hi, Mrs. Wyatt!” I shout.

I wave back, but not nearly as wildly as she's waving at me. Her mouth is moving, but I can't hear her and, of course, I'm not sure if she's talking to me, Misu, or the person on the other end of her cell phone line. Doesn't really matter because the only thing anyone can hear is Misu's harsh barking, which hasn't diminished in intensity since he started. Poor thing, he really wants his freedom. When the light turns green and Mrs. Wyatt pulls away, Misu leaps into the backseat, his body rigid and unwavering, his mouth opening and closing in a steady barking rhythm, begging me to rescue him. Sorry, Misu, unfortunately your place in the world is next to a woman who never shuts up.

My father's place in the world is directly across the street, in the police station. It stands right on the corner, but the entrance to his office is in the back of the building, so I make my way around to the rear. When I hear my name, I stop underneath the window.

“I'm worried about Dominy,” he says.

“Why? She do something wrong?”

The other voice belongs to Louis Bergeron, his deputy. Another local of French Canadian ancestry, but with some Creole mixed in, so his name is pronounced without the “s” at the end. Louis is loud and fun and not at all an authority figure, but he's my dad's best friend, so I guess that's how he became the deputy. His daughter Arla is pretty much the same way, loud and lots of fun, but as one of the best athletes on our little high school campus, she cuts a more authoritative figure at school than her father does in town.

“No, she hasn't done anything wrong,” my father says, “but I . . . I just think she might.”

The drawer of a filing cabinet slams shut. “Of course she will,” Louis replies. “She's a teenager; that's what they do.”

No one's talking now, and I stupidly press my ear up against the brick on the side of the building, as if that's going to help me hear their conversation better, like putting my ear up to a glass on an apartment wall, which I don't think works either, by the way. Acting more logically I walk around the back and see what I had expected, that the screen door is closed, but the main door is wide open. Standing just off to the side of the screen is a much more effective way to listen in on their conversation.

There's a high-pitched whistling sound that I figure must be from the wheels of my dad's chair rolling across the hardwood floor. “Not the usual stuff, something more,” my father says.

This is how he spends his day? Imagining that I'm going to do something terrible?

Now there are some clinking sounds that get drowned out by Louis's voice before I can identify them. “One job isn't good enough for you?” he asks. “Now you want to be the town psychic too?”

“It's just a feeling I have.”

My father speaks slowly, choosing his words deliberately. He's lying, hiding something like he was this morning. It's more than just a feeling; he knows something.

“Mason, do yourself a favor and don't make things up,” Louis says. “My Arla can be a handful sometimes, don't I know it, but she and Dominy aren't gonna screw up; they're both good kids.”

“Dominy is good,” my father replies. “For now.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Louis asks.

“Yeah, Dad, what's that supposed to mean?”

The screen door slams behind me. I didn't plan it, but it makes my sudden entrance that much more dramatic. Jess would be proud. My father isn't; he looks the same way he did this morning, like I've caught him doing or thinking something that he wants to keep far away from me.

“Dominy,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

His tone of voice doesn't match his expression. Mildly inquisitive doesn't equal frightened.

“Hey, Dom,” Louis calls out, raising his cup of coffee. My eyes involuntarily shift to take in the coffeemaker, and I know what was making the clinking sounds. One mystery solved.

“I asked you a question, Dad.” The fact that I don't cringe even though I sound as whiny as Barnaby did this morning makes me realize that I'm madder than I thought. After the way I acted yesterday and this morning, my father's proven to be a pretty good psychic; in all probability I am destined to do something seriously bad. But I don't want logic; I want an answer. “What do you mean I'm good . . .
for now?
”

My father is fifty-two years old, much younger-looking than Louis, who is a decade his junior and much younger looking from what Jess and Arla tell me, but now he looks impossibly young. It's not a physical thing; it's more an emotional state. He looks innocent and pure, the way I should look and feel, but don't. There isn't a mirror in sight, but the one feature I know we have in common is that we both look scared.

“I didn't know you were there,” he replies. His voice is meek, and I know that down deep I love him, but right now I can't stand him, because he's acting like a jerk.

“That's not an answer!” I tell him.

I'm completely focused on my father, so I don't notice Louis has moved until he's standing right in my line of vision, and it's not a pretty sight. His rough features—an oddly bent nose, and an array of scars on his cheeks and chin that are tiny but highly visible on his dark black skin—seem grossly exaggerated as his face reels back in shock. I guess my voice is kind of loud and out of control. I'm not acting the way a sheriff's daughter is expected to act. Or sound.

“Barnaby was right,” I growl. “If you act the same way as sheriff as you do as a father, you suck at your job!”

Voices trail after me, but I can't make out any words because the screen door slams so loudly behind me the noise blocks them out. Sends the birds scattering too. If there are any robins around, they can go claw themselves to death and leave a bloody trail from their war zone straight to my father's desk. And there won't be any need for them to worry because he won't say anything about the mess.

 

Two hours later and I'm still staring at the same page in my textbook. Nathaniel Hawthorne's writing is incomprehensible. If he were here in my bedroom right now, I'd write the letter
A
on a piece of paper and staple it to his chest, tell him he wasted his time being an author, and then push him out the window. I'm about to fling the book across my room when someone knocks on my door. Has to be my father; Barnaby has no manners.

A part of me melts when I see my father standing in my doorway. A part of me is always going to be his little girl, the one who still wants to hold his hand or turn around to make sure he's nearby and watching me, no matter where I might be. Another part of me wants to slap him across the face.

He closes the door behind him. It's a slow, deliberate move, so it comes off as awkward. “Can we talk?” he asks.

“I tried to do that earlier,” I reply. Of course I didn't fill my reply with enough sarcasm; have to compound it. “Did it take you this long to come up with something to say?”

He sits on the edge of my bed and places his hands on his knees. The backs of his hands are very smooth, completely unlike the palms, which are calloused and rough. He's never been in a fight, not on the job or off, but he's worked outside most of his life, building houses, chopping down trees for firewood, planting crops even, and his hands tell an intricate story. But he likes to keep that story hidden and only let the world see the smoothness outside, let the world believe in his perfection; that way he thinks he's the only one who can see the cracks in his armor. Unfortunately, I see them too.

“I'm sorry,” he says. That's it. Sorry that he thinks his daughter is some kind of bad seed waiting to blossom into full grown evil.

“Doesn't really explain your comment.”

“I know,” he agrees. Well, that's good; at least I know I'm right to be pissed off.

I want to try a different tactic and keep quiet so he will divulge the real reason behind his words, but I'm too angry and I can't keep my mouth shut. “That's all you've got? Sorry? Why would you say such a thing about me?”

My questions don't seem to make much of an impression until my father lifts his head. He's been crying. His eyes are still red and a little wet. I want to take back everything I said and just run into his arms, because I can remember the last time I saw my father cry, and my heart still hasn't completely mended from the sight. He's not the jerk; I am, because despite how I feel I can't manage to lift myself off the chair and embrace him like I know he wants me to. I stay put.

“It had nothing to do with you, Dominy,” he says. “It has everything to do with me.”

He doesn't say another word; he doesn't offer up any more information to convince me that what he's saying is the truth, but he doesn't have to because I believe him. I don't understand it at all, but I believe every word of it. Just as he's leaving my bedroom, I see some flecks of gray hair at his temple that I never noticed before; they're like the hair by my ears, sudden and wrong. Walking out of my bedroom, hunched over, my father now looks old, not the young man I saw in his office this afternoon, and for the first time I realize he's going to leave me someday. And I instantly hate him.

I run to my door with every intention of opening it up and screaming after him to tell him that, but I can't. He's always said you don't kick a man when he's down, and my father resembles a man who got tossed in the gutter. How he got there doesn't matter, but he's lying there in the dirt, the water that flows into the sewer trickling past his face, some drops latching onto his lips, slithering into his mouth, and poisoning his body. Instead, I shut the door tight.

Roughly, I grab a framed photo of my father and me from a few years ago at some police function, I can't remember which one, but it was during the summer, so we're wearing T-shirts and shorts. My father looks so handsome and young; his brown hair doesn't show a trace of gray, and it's cut short against his face, a face that's clean and unwrinkled, nothing like Louis's. His blue eyes are alive and happy and looking at me instead of the camera. He's smiling at me, but is he also waiting for me to do something wrong? Did he know then that I would make every one of his bad dreams come true?

It takes me a few seconds to realize that I'm pacing my room like an animal, like my bedroom is a cage, not a sanctuary, and it's a place from which I want to break free. But where would I go? I feel as lost as The Weeping Lady, straddling two worlds, at home in neither, and because I'm angry at the world I fling the picture frame against the wall. My aim is perfect, and it crashes into the center of the banner.

For a second my father and I are caught in the mouth of the timberwolf and surrounded by fangs that have one purpose. My knees buckle because I instinctively understand what that purpose is: to devour, to destroy, and to kill.

Chapter 4

One look at Caleb and I forget the world can be anything but beautiful.

Even from a side view, he is still one of the best-looking guys in school. In the entire town for that matter. He's got extra long eyelashes (longer than any girl's I know) that are the same shade of blond as his unkempt hair, brown eyes that make his blond hair look blonder than it actually is, and a superhero-style square chin. And unlike my brother's, Caleb's nose is perfect, regal looking according to Jess, which is why she's dubbed him Prince Caleb. It's a perfect nickname for a perfect boyfriend.

In the beginning we took things slow, probably because we didn't know we were in the middle of a beginning. We didn't talk to each other at school; we hardly noticed each other despite the fact that the population at Two W is only slightly larger than the population of Weeping Water itself—and no, I'm not showing off my inferior math skills; we bus in kids from neighboring towns that are even smaller and more isolated than we are.

Of course I was aware that Caleb was a starter on the football team, but he was a sophomore and I was a lowly freshman; there was no reason for our worlds to intersect. Until my dad made them collide.

“What about that Bettany kid?” my father asked one night during dinner. “The one on the football team.”

I had to think for a moment. “
Caleb
Bettany?”

“Yeah, didn't I read in the
Three W
that he won a prize in some math competition?”

My precise response escapes me, but I'm sure I shrugged my shoulders and said something like, “Yeah, I usually skip articles on arithmetic.”

“No, I'm sure of it; he won third prize,” my dad insisted. “He'd be perfect. I'll look up his number tomorrow at the station and give him a call.”

Barnaby couldn't resist making a snarky comment. “Praised by the sheriff
and
the
Three W
in the same week. You might be out of luck, Dad; he probably disconnected his number to avoid the paparazzi.”

I definitely know I laughed at that. The
Weeping Water Weekly
or the
Three W
as it's more commonly known is our local paper, filled with all the town news and gossip, and has come out every Thursday since 1957, a fact proudly stated on the front page of each issue. Since the paper's debut there's only been one editor, Lars Svenson, who does double-duty as sole reporter, churning out issue after issue by himself on some ancient machine in the basement of his house.

The article my father was referring to was undoubtedly written by Mr. Svenson, but was less an article and more a photo opportunity, just a picture of Caleb holding a trophy, surrounded by some official-looking men in bad suits and worse haircuts with a blurb underneath. When Caleb's mother showed me the clipping, the first thing that struck me was his smile; it was genuine and not at all forced. This football player was proud to be receiving a prize that celebrated his intellect and had nothing to do with his athletic skill. So much for stereotypes. Luckily I keep them alive and thriving. Despite the progress my gender has made in what are known as the hard sciences, I do my part to uphold the statistics. I'm a girl, and I suck at math. Which is why my father had the brilliant idea to get me a tutor.

The trophy Caleb won was for third place in the Nebraska State Mathematics Competition, justifiable cause for my father to think he'd make a suitable instructor to coach his daughter in the finer aspects of algebra. I had to agree with my father. Since they used math's full and proper name in the title of the competition, I assumed it was a very prestigious event, and even though Caleb only came in third it was still an impressive showing. I never guessed he was übersmart in addition to being überathletic, but his prize was proof that he was worthy of the job. When I told Caleb this he laughed. Later on he admitted that's when he realized he wanted to be my boyfriend as well as my tutor. I'm glad to report he excels at both. It's not every guy who arrives within fifteen minutes when his girlfriend calls unexpectedly on a Wednesday night saying she needs a ride.

Before I asked him to play chauffeur, I apologized for hitting him, and he accepted, no questions asked, like I knew he would. For a smart guy, he really is simple and uncomplicated. When I called him a little while ago he was finishing dinner and planning to write out a chemistry lab. But when I told him where I wanted to go, he said he'd come right over. Again, no questions asked.

We drive in relative silence until he pulls his Chevy Equinox into the parking lot of The Retreat, then he asks his first question. “So, Domgirl, do you need me to come in with you?”

Even though I think Domgirl sounds like “dumb girl,” it's Caleb's sometime nickname for me because Dom—the more popular shortened version of Dominy—is a boy's name, and according to Caleb I'm too pretty for that. Now that's my kind of logic.

In response to his question I shake my head. “Do you mind waiting for me here?”

Caleb isn't put out; he knows my reasons and understands. He's also come prepared. “No prob,” he says, reaching into the backseat to grab some books. When he raises his arm I smell a mixture of sweat and cologne, nothing too strong, just the normal guy smell. “Brought my chem book just in case.” Simple, but smart. And even directly underneath the near-blinding glow of the lamplight, wildly handsome. My heart flutters a bit, and I'm not sure if it's because of him or the person I'm going to visit. Probably a little bit of both.

We kiss each other on the lips, and while we're still connected, he says in the low voice that he thinks is sexy, “The Sequinox will be waiting.” His voice
is
kind of sexy, but his comment is funny, and funny trumps sexy most of the time, so I laugh. His Equinox is silver, so of course Archie dubbed it the
Sequinox,
and, like most of the things Archie says, Caleb thought it was hilarious and the name stuck. I swear if Caleb didn't kiss me the way he does, I'd set him up with the albino. They'd make a sweet couple.

Walking away from his car, I notice as I always do that from the outside The Retreat looks like a regular hospital. But it isn't; it's the local sanitarium. Combination state-run mental hospital and nursing home, The Retreat is where people go if they're insane, if they need electric shock therapy, or if they're unlucky enough to be really old or really sick and have nowhere else to go.

It's built on several acres of flat land, and, tucked in the middle of a spray of bushes that serve as deliberate camouflage, is a weather-beaten sign made out of heavy-duty plastic that's supposed to resemble wood. Engraved black letters spell out the hospital's official title—S
OUTHEASTERN
N
EBRASKA
S
TATE
I
NTENSIVE
C
ARE
C
ENTER AND
N
URSING
H
OME.
The Retreat, my personal nickname for the place, sounds so much more inviting.

The structure itself is more horizontal than vertical, made out of solid brick like a lot of the state buildings in town, and decorated with rows of windows, some normal sized, some floor-to-ceiling, but none functional. They merely provide light into the facility; they can't be opened. The overall look is formidable, like a friendly fortress, which I guess is what a hospital is supposed to look like.

Inside, the décor is equally foreboding and the fluorescent lighting in the main entrance area does nothing to enhance the look. The floors are made out of some kind of linoleum in a design that looks like a team of hyperactive kids dipped paintbrushes into cans of gray, white, and black paint and sprinkled them all over the floor. I've studied them for years and have never found any discernible pattern.

Most of the walls throughout the building are gray, though some have a thick horizontal stripe of black that cuts the wall into two unevenly sized gray blocks. I'm not a specialist in color therapy, but I can't imagine anyone thinking that the combo of black and gray creates a cheery atmosphere.

The receptionist's desk is bathed in an even more severe fluorescent light show and manned most of the time by a woman who should really stay out of the light. Essie looks like she's past retirement age but still part of the workforce. Lucky for her the state's employment standards are low, as she has not kept her job because of her uplifting disposition; she's about as lively as the color of the walls. I guess she keeps trudging on due to financial necessity or the fact that if she stops working she might actually bore herself to death.

“Hi, Essie, can I have a pass?”

She looks up from her celebrity magazine as if her head is connected to her neck by a rusty hinge. “What room are you going to?”

The same room I've been going to for the past four years. “Nineteen.”

Like she does every time, she writes the number on an index card and hands it to me. The only difference with our routine is that today's card is green. They rotate colors so you can't save your card and come back with it another day; that way there are never more than the allotted number of people in a room at one time. It's about as high-tech as The Retreat gets in terms of its customer service.

I haven't even turned the corner of the receptionist's desk and Essie's neck has lowered back down; once again she's buried in her magazine. Reading about the lives of the rich and famous is obviously much more important than making the lives of visitors pleasant and less nerve-wracking. But in Essie's defense she probably thinks I'm used to the routine by now. She's wrong.

The only real patch of color comes from the hallway. The long, narrow stretch—that I've dubbed The Hallway to Nowhere—is lined with faded gray doors on either side, the same color as the gray on the walls, but outside each door is a chair made out of purple fabric, more orchid than purple pizzazz if I remember my Crayola crayons correctly. The cushions on the back of the chair, the seat, and the armrests are all the same shade; the rest of the chair's frame is silver chrome. They're from a standard issue, industrial-strength office furniture collection, but they're better than nothing. I contemplate sitting on the one outside of Room 19, but before I can commit I see Nadine.

“Dominy,” she says, a bit startled. “Hi.”

“Hi, Nadine,” I reply, not nearly as startled, but not particularly thrilled to see her roaming the halls either.

We stare at each other for a few seconds, but since we're not close friends it seems longer. I blink my eyes, and when I open them my focus zooms in on a cluster of pimples on her chin. Zits for me are like Japan to Jess, sort of a weird obsession. I think it's because my skin so far has been pimple-free. But I'm not a fool, and I know that puberty is unkind and unpredictable; I could wake up tomorrow with a face that looks like the “before” photos in a dermatologist's office.

Nadine's pimple cluster reminds me of a mountain range—snow-capped peaks towering above a reddish-brown valley. It's disgusting and fascinating at the same time. If she were Jess I'd trace my finger all over it like her chin was a topographic map and I was interested in geography. But Nadine isn't Jess, so I keep my hands to myself.

“Haven't seen you here for a while,” Nadine finally says.

“No real need to come,” I respond. “Never any change.”

Nadine fiddles with her clipboard, switching it from one arm to the other, and clicks her pen a few times nervously before smiling. The smile is not genuine like Caleb's from his award ceremony photo, but the situation is much different, so I cut her some slack. At least she follows up her attempt at friendliness with honesty. “No, there isn't.”

And she follows up her honesty with an old nursing home chestnut: “At least no news is good news, right?”

Wrong. But again I cut her some slack since I caught her by surprise. Visiting hours are almost over, and even when I used to come regularly, it was usually right after school or on the weekends. A weeknight visit at this hour is unusual for anyone; for me it's extraordinary. This rare circumstance finally hits Nadine, and her eyes bug out despite her extensive volunteer training to always conceal emotion.

“Did someone call you to come?” she asks. “I wasn't told there was an emergency.”

I wave my hand in front of our faces, and the green index card I'm holding creates a little breeze between us. “No emergency, just felt the need.”

Now her response is genuine; she's relieved that a patient isn't going to die on her watch. Nadine may only be a volunteer, but she considers her position a step toward her ultimate goal of becoming a nurse and then, of course, ruler of The Retreat. That last part is merely assumption.

“Oh that's good to hear.”

Another boring platitude and I'm reminded how similar Nadine and Napoleon are, which makes sense since they're twins. They both spout these clichés that are perfectly acceptable and ones that everyone uses, but for some reason out of their mouths the clichés come off as phony and even a little condescending. Maybe it's their East Coast accents; they're not wildly exaggerated, but Nadine and Napoleon do speak differently than most of us. And I'm not above condemning someone based on how he or she speaks.

I guess
condemn
is a harsh word. I let out a deep breath so it looks as if I'm doing a self-help exercise to prepare myself to enter Room 19, but it's really to remind myself that at least one of the Jaffe twins is cool. From the little bit I know, Nadine's friendly, smart, and driven, all noble qualities, and more than that Jess and Arla like her, so I vow to myself right here and now to give her a fair shot.