The Way Back from Broken (9 page)

“I'll have a chocolate chip cookie,” said Jacey.

“It's breakfast time.” Mrs. Tatlas's voice was a low monotone. “Have a donut.”

Jacey peered up her. “That makes no sense. How's a donut different from a cookie?”

Her mom inhaled slowly, nostrils flaring.

Through his own exhaustion, Rakmen could still hear that baby on the plane crying. Sending the kids to camp was not beginning well. He stepped between the two of them and put his arm on Jacey's shoulder. “Let's get Canadian maple.”

She squinted at him. “Is it chocolate?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Pudding in the middle, though. It's still dessert for breakfast.”

“Okay.”

Mrs. Tatlas handed him a Canadian twenty-dollar bill. “Coffee.”

He ordered two Canadian maples, two milks, and a trucker-sized coffee.

Back on the road again, they kept driving north.

Farmland gave way to rougher terrain. Whether it was the coffee or something else, Mrs. Tatlas seemed to perk up. She sat a little taller and began pointing out things, nature stuff and biology. The jagged rocks jutting up on either side of the road were granite. The Day-Glo stuff splattered all over them was lichen—half fungus, half algae. The bright orange and yellow made Rakmen think of D'Mareay and D'Vareay and their many cans of spray paint.

“Are we gonna see a bear?” Jacey asked, as she took way too many pictures of a huge, domed rock covered with ferns.

“Maybe,” said Mrs. Tatlas, like that would be a good thing.

“Maybe?” Rakmen repeated. No one had said anything about bears when they roped him into this sorry excuse for a summer. Oh right, this wasn't supposed to be fun.

“Probably not, though,” Mrs. Tatlas continued. “In all the time I've spent up here, I've only seen a bear once.” Rakmen leaned his head against the backseat and stared at the ceiling. Every cell in his body wanted to get out of the car.

“What about moose?” Jacey asked, as they passed yet another roadside campground with a picture of a moose on the sign.

“Good chance of that.”

On second thought, he might be better off in the car. No moose. No bears. Only Jacey, bouncing in her seat like a jack-in-the-box.

After nearly four hours on the road, they stopped for groceries in what Mrs. Tatlas said was the last town before the lake and cabin. For the rest of the trip, Rakmen was smashed in between a gigantic package of toilet paper, brown paper bags full of canned beans, a five-pound bag of rice, hunks of cheddar cheese, a basket of peaches, and ominously, a dozen mouse traps.

“This is it.” Mrs. Tatlas slowed the car onto the shoulder and pointed to a narrow, gravel road diving into the trees. If you could call it a road. It looked like no one had driven down it in ages.

“Are you sure?” Jacey asked.

Rakmen took in the high grass in the median of the track and the eroded gullies on either side. “Uh . . . are we in like Siberia or something? Where are the people?”

“This doesn't look like a real road,” said Jacey.

Mrs. Tatlas redoubled her grip on the wheel and turned into the dark tunnel of trees. “It's a driveway.” There were also potholes large enough to lose a cat in. Rakmen shifted nervously in the cramped backseat. Branches scraped and hissed against the side of the car as they bounced over the rutted road. Molly's vision of him water skiing with the happy camp kids was evaporating. The trees were so dense, and so many branches crisscrossed every available inch of space, that he could hardly believe there was a lake in there at all.

“Mom! Can we swim right away?” asked Jacey, pulling off her shoes and socks in preparation.

Rakmen stared at her as she scanned left and right to catch the first glimpse of their destination. The girl really was bats, but there was something contagious in her eagerness, and Rakmen found himself searching the trees for some twinkle of sun on water.

They'd taken Dora to Sauvie Island when she was ten days old. He sat with her in the backseat as Dad drove out Reeder Road toward the beaches on the Columbia River—not the nude beaches, the regular ones. Her newborn clothes were still too big for her and when she opened her mouth to squawk, he'd let her suck on his finger. And for some reason, even though everything else was ruined, that memory still made him happy.

The front tire hit a ridge of rock, and the car lurched forward suddenly. Rakmen flung out his arms to keep the grocery bags from sliding to the floor. Mrs. Tatlas swerved around another rock, made a sharp turn to the right, and stopped with a squeal in front of a low wall of broken cinderblocks.

She shut off the engine. “Well, we made it.”

They piled out of the car and stretched.

Directly in front of Rakmen, a square building with weathered, gray shingles squatted on the edge of Vesper Lake. Shrouded in the shade of six huge trees, the cabin looked like it was waiting for someone to sit on it. Nothing twinkled. Not the dust-coated windows of the cabin, not the layer of pine needles on the ground, and definitely not the greenish surface of the lake.

Ignoring everything, Jacey careened toward the water. The soft plumping sound of her feet gave way to a splash and a squelch. She stopped knee deep, yelling at the top of her lungs. “Gross! It stinks! Mom, I'm sinking!”

Rakmen followed Mrs. Tatlas to the edge of the water, where Jacey was indeed sinking in black, oily muck. Farting sounds and the companion stench rose around her in a ring of bubbles. A few feet beyond there was probably water, but it was so choked and clotted with plants that Rakmen couldn't be sure. Mrs. Tatlas took Jacey's hand and helped her pull free from the muck with a stinky, sucking pop. Out in the lily pads, a frog began croaking like a bullhorn, and a red-headed bird swooped past them, chattering like machine-gun fire. Jacey scowled down at her muddy legs.

“Where's the lake?” she demanded.

Mrs. Tatlas's shoulders rose and fell with a big, worn-out sigh. She gestured toward the water. “Out there, beyond the bay.”

Rakmen couldn't see anything lake-ish. No place to swim. No place to stretch his limbs and pull against the water. The momentary buoyancy when he'd remembered the day at the river collapsed. He'd done it again—expected something better—and again, he got slapped down and knocked out.

This was no happy kids' camp. This wasn't a fresh start. This was what he had to carry for the rest of his life. There was no better ahead.

“You told me it was a lake,” Jacey whined. “You know, water? This is a swamp.”

Mrs. Tatlas grimaced and headed for the cabin.

Jacey's lower lip was trembling. “Look at me. I'm disgusting.”

He forced a smile and tried to joke with her. “Want me to take your picture, swamp monster?”

“It's not funny,” she whimpered. “This sucks.”

“I know,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her toward the car. “Let's get you cleaned up.”

They sat on the retaining wall, and Jacey swabbed her legs with a wad of Kleenex while Rakmen watched Mrs. Tatlas wrestle with the lock on the cabin. When she forced the door open, clouds of dust billowed out of the crooked door frame. Mrs. Tatlas went inside and immediately started coughing.

Rakmen propped his chin in his hands and stared out at the putrid bay. “Water skiing, my ass.” The bullfrog let loose another torrent of gurgling croaks. A disturbing series of bangs came from inside. Something skittered in the underbrush on the other side of the car.

And Jacey screamed.

Not an I'm-ten-and-I'm-weird kind of scream. It was a Tower of Terror scream. Rakmen looked frantically for a bear. From inside the cabin, he heard a human-furniture collision as Mrs. Tatlas ran outside.

Jacey kept screaming and pointing at her leg as if it was about to fall off. “Whassat? Whassat? Whassat?” she howled. Two long, black worms squirmed in the oozy muck splattered over her pasty skin. One end stuck to her leg. The other flicked this way and that. Rakmen's flesh crawled at the sight of them.

“Shut up,” he said, picking up a stick and poking one of the things. It was definitely stuck on her leg.

“What the heck is going on?” said Mrs. Tatlas, limping over.

“SOMETHING'S ON ME!” shrieked Jacey. “GET IT OFF!”

“Will you calm down. They're just leeches.”

“LEECHES!!!”

Jacey was a tornado of arms and legs.

“I swear to God, you stop this right now,” Mrs. Tatlas snapped. “I can't believe I practically broke my leg racing out here. You're freaking out about a couple of leeches.” She swiped the muddy Kleenex out of Jacey's hand. “They can't be on very tight.”

She gripped one with a Kleenex, wedged her thumbnail under the stuck part, and popped it off. Rakmen couldn't stop looking at the leech writhing on the ground—one moment long and thin, and then congealing into a gooey blob. Mrs. Tatlas dropped the second one beside the first, kicked pine needles over both of them, and went back into the cabin without a word.

“Look,” Jacey said in a wobbly voice. “They left marks.”

Two red circles the size of raindrops showed where the leeches had scraped through her skin with their sucky-mouths. Tiny drops of blood oozed out of pin-prick holes.

“Yuck,” he said, squatting beside her and dabbing with a fresh Kleenex.

Her head drooped against his shoulder. “I hate it here.”

“Me too,” said Rakmen as he watched the leeches die in the dirt.

CHAPTER 11

If the lake was bad, the cabin was worse.

Rakmen stood with Jacey on the threshold, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the dim interior. Sunlight streamed through the doorway, illuminating Mrs. Tatlas's footprints in the dust. The ceiling sagged in the middle. So did the floor. The wall behind the pink Formica counter seemed on the verge of collapse. Crooked shelves bowed under the weight of more junk than Rakmen had seen in his life.

“Oh no,” said Jacey, sliding her hand into his.

“It's not that bad,” Mrs. Tatlas wheezed through a dust-induced coughing jag.

Piles of National Geographic magazines, their yellow spines faded to beige, towered in one corner next to a plaid recliner that oozed stuffing like pus. “A little cleaning,” she continued, holding out a broom. “That's all it needs.”

Her careful words were a thin sheet of ice over dark water. The look in her eyes unnerved Rakmen. Something in there had shaken loose. He wanted to sprint for the car, locking the doors behind him.

“Uh, Mrs. Tatlas . . .” He cast about for the right thing to say, the thing that would convince her they needed to go, and go now.

She closed her eyes and held up one hand. “Don't say anything. Please. Sweep.”

He took the broom in silence.

There was no right thing to say.

Mrs. Tatlas turned her back and scrubbed at the filthy sink. Jacey moved toward her mother, but Rakmen pulled her back, the smell of Ajax stinging the inside of his nostrils. “Come on, Jacey. Help me move stuff.”

Maybe if they left Mrs. Tatlas alone, the rattling bits would come back together. Rakmen swept to keep the panic down, wondering where she had put the car keys. The bristles of the broom scratched against the rough floor. Fear tugged at him. Even if he could get the car keys from Mrs. Tatlas, it wouldn't help. He didn't have his license yet, and it wasn't like he could make a break for it across the wilds of Canada.

Besides, he had Jacey to worry about. Her nose dribbled snot down her lip as she scooted chairs out of his way and held the dustpan to collect many years' accumulation of dirt, dried-up flies, and piles of mouse turds. The dust made them both sneeze. When she tugged on his sleeve to show him a basket full of collected birds' nests, her tears were gone. She was all twinkly-excited about the fragile eggs still nestled in the tiny cups of grass and moss.

“I'm going to get my camera,” she whispered. “Okay?”

He nodded, and she scampered to the car.

If things had been different, Dora would be learning to crawl. Crawling would have turned to walking, and then she, too, would be bouncing through the world like Jacey—ebullient when everything else was going to shit.

Jacey returned, cradling the camera to her chest and sucking on a lock of hair. He was relieved to have her close in this strange place, but in the same breath, he wanted to push her away. She was not his sister.

He swept harder.

Jacey examined the over-burdened shelves and snapped pictures of warped glass jars brimming with buttons, bottle caps, and feathers. At least five feet of wall space was strung with wire, from which hung hundreds of fishing lures, jangling quietly in the breeze from the open door. Jacey took pictures of all of them.

“We should go fishing later,” Jacey announced.

Mrs. Tatlas frowned into the sink she was scrubbing.

Rakmen urged Jacey out of harm's way. “Come on. Let's do the bedrooms.”

Flimsy walls separated the main room from the two back bedrooms and a closet-sized bathroom. The room on the left had a double bed with a broken headboard and a faded-to-gray quilt. The right had bunks—the top one so close to the ceiling that Rakmen felt claustrophobic looking at it—and a square window with a view of the swamp-lake.

“I get the top—” Jacey began. Then, bunks forgotten, she said, “Whoa. That's some wallpaper.”

Someone had tacked scraps of map and bits of old newspaper articles on practically every visible bit of wall. Most of them were about record fish catches—35-pound trout, four-foot-long muskellunge, bass as big as porcupines—but there were also interviews with crotchety old-timers, accounts of crashed bush planes, and search-and-rescue alerts.

“Your uncle is cracked.”

“He's my great-uncle,” said Jacey.

Rakmen pulled out his notebook and scribbled down a headline about a string of bear break-ins at a nearby lake in 1973. “Major crime spree,” he muttered. Uncle Leroy was clearly a whack-job, but Rakmen appreciated his need to remember.