North Fork (23 page)

I'm pushing Tristan on the swing while my mom is cooking inside. My mom makes this dynamite chicken that she has to come out and baste continually with this vinegar-and-egg sauce. It gets really smoky and good. So I'm pushing Tristan and she likes it and wants to go higher. Then, out of the blue, she makes me stop the swing and looks at me all earnest and puzzled.

“Corey, why did you go away?”

How do you explain it to a five year old? I said, “You know how your dad isn't really my dad, and I have another dad?”

“Yes.”

“Well, my dad missed me, so I'm giving him a turn.”

“My dad says you were in jail and that you did something bad.”

“It wasn't really jail, and they made a mistake.”

“My dad says what you did was really bad.”

“I didn't do it though. Something really bad happened to someone. That part is probably true. They needed to find the mean person who did it so that everyone would be safe again. Because I get in trouble at school sometimes, they thought it might be me, but it wasn't, so they let me come home to my real
dad's house. Did you miss me?”

“Yes.”

“I missed you too.”

My mom makes really good potato salad too, and the chicken and the salad were the best food I'd had since before all this started. After we ate, the three of us watched one of Tristan's kid movies to pass the time. The poison seemed gone from the air and it felt good, just sitting on the couch with them, the best I'd felt in months. When the light outside started to fade, we got some blankets and those lightweight, folding yard chairs. I was holding Tristan's hand and had her special little chair along with a normal-size one for me tucked under my other arm. We were on the front yard sidewalk, just about out to the street, when Harold's pickup comes roaring up. I knew by the way he got out that he had stopped somewhere and tipped a few. I could tell my mom was really surprised.

“I didn't expect to see you until Saturday,” she said.

“The boat blew a reduction gear. I'm off for a day or two. What's the little pervert doing here?”

He didn't even slow down but came right up to me and grabbed me by the shirt.

“Stay away from my daughter, you little worm.”

He had the sweatshirt and the windbreaker I was wearing all wadded up in his big hammy paws. Like I said earlier, he's pretty big. He lifted me off the ground. I dropped the chairs and let go of Tristan's hand. She was yelling, “Daddy, Daddy, don't hurt Corey,” and was grabbing at his leg.

He threw me and I landed on my butt on the lawn. Tristan ran towards me and Harold grabbed her and picked her up. My mom was crying.

“I hurried home so I could watch the fireworks with my family, and you're not going to wreck that too, you little shit. You're nothing but trouble.”

He picked up the chairs I'd dropped. “We're going and you're leaving. You goddamned well better not be here when we get back or I'll take care of you myself. Keep your perverted ass away from my daughter or you're dead meat.”

He grabbed my mom by the arm and pushed her down the sidewalk. Both she and Tristan were quiet as they headed up the street. I sat there wet-eyed for a minute, so crazy mad and sad I couldn't move. Then I got up and went in the house. I went straight for Harold's MacNaughtons and slugged down a pretty good hit. The burning felt good in my mouth and throat. I took the bottle into their bedroom and sat on the bed, his side. I took another slug, then opened the nightstand drawer. It was right there, out in the open where I knew it would be, lying on top of his socks, a fucking .44 magnum cannon. I picked it up. It was loaded.

I sat holding it, looking at it. I looked down the barrel for a long time. I took one more little hit from the bottle and put the gun in the pouch of the hooded sweatshirt I was wearing under my windbreaker. I closed the drawer and put the bottle back in the cupboard, then left. The big fireworks hadn't started yet, but the whistling of rockets and popping of firecrackers and the occasional M-80 booms had started coming from the rez. The gun weighed a ton and would have been noticeable in the daylight, but it was twilight, and in any case, I didn't care.

I walked up past the Catholic church. There were other people headed the same way. I figured Harold would go down by the boat launch. The view from there is good and there are places to put the chairs, but it's not as crowded as closer in and he probably wasn't in the mood to be social, though I'd seen him throw the switch in a second when he needed to.

I decided to go down by Maple Hall first. There's space for parking there too, and more good spots for chairs. It got pretty crowded as I neared the water. Any open spot with the view not
blocked by buildings had people standing or sitting in it, but I didn't see Harold. I headed toward the boat launch, winding between the parked cars and people, the weight of the gun bouncing against my belly.

I felt a hand on my arm, and heard a girl's voice saying urgently, “Corey, Corey!” I turned and that's when it got really surreal. She looked different, but I recognized her. I didn't believe it was really happening. I mean I was pretty much over the edge already, in that crazy place where nothing matters anymore. I had the bomb strapped to me, so to speak, and something was going to happen. Then there's this ghost pulling on me, saying my name. She pulled me around to face her, her hands on my arms. She was desperate too, and her eyes were wet.

“Corey, Corey. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I had no idea they would do that to you.”

Then she took both my hands in hers. They felt warm, the way Tristan's feel. I could barely say her name.

“Kristen.”

“It's me, Corey. I'm back. I spent the day with that detective. He said he would tell you. I called your dad's house before we came into town, but you weren't there. I'm so sorry for what they did to you.”

I'm still dazed, trying to take it in. Our hands are between us. She's holding tight, waiting for a reaction, waiting for me to say something, which I can't do yet because it's as if my brain has short-circuited, and I don't know whether to laugh or cry or just collapse on the ground. Then one of her hands brushes the gun.

“Is that for me?”

It hits me that she's real and what it means, and my knees are all jelly and my throat is tight and I really am about to pop, only in an entirely different way than it would have been before she appeared, and the gun has nothing to do with anything any more but I can't make my mouth work to tell her because it's
taking everything I have to hold in this crying thing that's about to happen, but I can't let it out here in public.

“It's okay if it is. I can't undo what they did to you and it's my fault for running away. But you should know before you do it that I used your story about your uncle and Hawaii, and that I did try to let people know I wasn't dead. I sent a letter. But I remembered how your uncle got caught. I didn't go to Hawaii but tried to have the letter mailed from there. But it didn't come, and I screwed up and ended up hurting people. Hurting you.”

“You ran away?”

“To Victoria. I worked as a waitress.”

So instead of crying or collapsing or blowing Harold's head off, or my head off in front of Harold, or shooting her like she thought I was going to, all that shit came out of me in something that sounded like laughter. I was crying at the same time, of course, the first real tears since the night I woke up and knew my mom was in that tent with Harold back when I was ten, but because the fireworks had started and the sky was full of red, white, blue, and green explosions, I don't think anyone but Kristen heard it, and if it scared her, she took it pretty well. She hung on tight to my hands and shared the ride. There was real insanity in it, desperation, but her hands stayed connected to mine, and a lot of poison came out, and in the end, the absurdity was too good and the laughter won.

“Boy, am I glad to see you,” was what I said when I could make words.

She looked at me for a long time.

“Are you sure?”

“The gun was for Harold, or me.”

“Oh Jesus!”

“I'll be okay now. They were clueless here. I mean totally clueless. What made you come back?”

So she told me a little bit about it, and about the night she left
here, and about how now she was pretty much restricted until the prosecutor decided how much trouble she was in. We didn't have enough time because her mom was hovering not far away, watching us, so we agreed to talk again as soon as she could make it happen. She said her mom was being pretty cool about it all, but her stepdad wasn't. Then she hugged me and left. The gun felt huge between us and she made me promise not to do anything stupid, which I did, promise I mean, and I hurried back to Harold's house, hoping I would have time to put it back and be gone before they got home.

It didn't happen that way, and though her trust hung heavy on me I did something I have always wanted to do.

The lights were on and I could see my mom and Harold at the kitchen table. Harold had a beer and was talking, gesturing, like he was lecturing her. I had to get the gun back to him or he would accuse me of stealing it. I didn't need any more trouble. I snuck up to the window to get a better look, and watched them for a while, making sure Tristan was in bed, deciding what to do next. First, I emptied the bullets out of the gun. I had to do it right. I didn't want any accidents.

I put the bullets in my pocket and had the gun in my hand when I walked in the door. I went straight to the kitchen. The gun was clearly visible, and menacing with the safety off, but it was pointed at the ground. His eyes bugged when he saw it, and the expression was pretty close to the way I'd imagined it would be. He started to say something, but I stopped him.

“Shut up, asshole, and listen for once in your life.

“You called me a pervert in front of my sister and my mom. You threatened to kill me. I'm not a pervert. I'm not a murderer, and I don't have to take that kind of shit from you or anyone else anymore.”

I could see real fear in his eyes, and I let it soak in for a minute before saying,

“Kristen's back. Nobody killed her. She ran away. Her stepdad's an asshole too. It will all be in the paper tomorrow.”

I let that soak in for a minute, then said, “You're a fucking idiot and you don't deserve to own this. You shouldn't threaten innocent people and you shouldn't leave loaded weapons lying around where kids can find them.”

I set the gun on the table and dropped the handful of bullets in a potted plant as I walked out the door. I didn't know how I would get back to my dad's, so I started walking. It's more than ten miles and I was debating whether to risk trying to hitch a ride. The newspaper hadn't declared me innocent yet, and Harold isn't the only nutcase in the Valley. I hadn't gone far and was still shaky when my mom pulled up.

“Get in,” she said. “I invited you here, and I'm giving you a ride back, whether he likes it or not.”

It's amazing, but I don't think Corey hates me or blames me for what happened to him. He sure scared the crap out of me though. I couldn't stop worrying until I talked to him on the phone the next day. Letting him know I'm back was maybe the most intense thing I've ever done, and lately my life has had its intense moments. It's strange how some things just fall into place and others don't. I could easily have not been there, or not seen him, and he could have gone and done whatever he was going to do with that gun.

But he didn't. The next day when I heard his voice on the phone all calm and normal, it made me wonder. We were there in the dark with the sky lit up and rockets whistling and exploding, and him feeling crazy with that gun, and me afraid that what I did would cause him to break. Then, when he finally understood that it really was me, that I wasn't dead, but had chosen to do what I did, there we were, all normal, talking on the phone the next day. I had to wonder which parts were real and which were a dream. And I had to wonder why we were able to escape from the abyss when lots of people aren't. All it takes is an icy road and a telephone pole to make a simple trip home from a friend's house become a tragedy. It happened to a kid at our school last year, yet somehow we seem to be sliding through all this.

So what Corey ended up doing with the gun was actually pretty funny. He told me how he returned it, and about how he used to imagine having bombs strapped to him, which sounds pretty dramatic, but I get it. It's like everyone gets wound up in
their own agenda and other people get overlooked or pushed away. I don't think Corey's mom was trying to hurt him when she got with Harold, or my dad was trying to hurt me when he overdosed. I know I wasn't trying to hurt Corey or my mom when I ran away. I just hurt inside. I was desperate and had to do something. In a way, what Corey was imagining with the bomb belt was like me standing up to Grant. I had to be willing to risk it all, or it would just keep going along the way it was.

Bonnie is letting me use the Taurus sometimes now. We talk quite a bit, and she trusts me. It feels pretty good, like we're finally connecting. She's standing up to Sterling, too. I don't think that would have happened if I hadn't left. I heard them yelling the other night, probably about me, and she threatened to move out. She started looking for a new job the next day and told me we might be poor soon, so I should enjoy our comfort while we have it. She seems happier. I know I am, but Sterling probably isn't. Sometimes you need a big jolt to face the truth.

They didn't charge me with anything, which is a relief. I guess I didn't break any major laws. I didn't steal the car. I did take some of Sterling's money, but he gave me the debit card and the PIN to use in an emergency, so he would have to bring charges and he would look pretty dumb. The letter from Hawaii finally got here. It helped, even if it was three months late and not from Hawaii. It showed up in Natalie's mailbox, sealed in a bigger envelope with Canadian postage on it. There was a note inside from Trudy's friend saying she forgot to mail it in Hawaii.