Under the Influence (27 page)

Ollie nodded. Whatever Monkey Man wanted, he would try hard to do it.

After the doctor checked Ollie out, they told him he could sit on the couch in a waiting room. When he got there, Monkey Man and Cooper were already at the table. This was where I found them when I got to the hospital.

Then Monkey Man didn't talk to him anymore. Not then, or ever again.

My son and I had been lying next to each other on the bed while he told me his story. When he was done, I could feel something change. His whole body, which had been stiff and tense, suddenly softened, as if someone had just loosened the strings on a guitar. The whole time he'd been telling me the story of what happened, Ollie's voice had remained
steady—quiet, and a little flat, but he had spoken with a surprising clarity and precision. Now he collapsed on my chest, weeping and trembling.

“I wasn't supposed to tell,” he said. “Monkey Man told me not to.”

“You didn't do anything wrong,” I told him. “The wrong ones were Monkey Man and Cooper. I should never have let you go with him. I am so sorry.”

“I don't ever want to go on any more boat rides,” he told me.

I held him tight and sang him a song—“You Are My Sunshine”—that I used to sing to him when he was a baby. After a few minutes his tears stopped and his breath evened out.

“Mom,” he said, just before he drifted off to sleep, “one more thing. I didn't tell Monkey Man, but I took some pictures.”

A
fter he was asleep, I unzipped his fanny pack and took out the camera.

The first photographs were what you'd expect an eight-year-old would shoot on a long car ride. A picture of Swift, with his hands on the steering wheel and a cigar in his mouth. Pictures of road signs out the window. A McDonald's. A miniature golf place that Ollie probably hoped they could stop at on the way home, with a giant
Tyrannosaurus rex
in front and a statue of Paul Bunyan.

There was a picture of Swift's leg, and a close up of his earlobe, and one of Ollie himself: with only one eyeball and part of his nose visible, and his mouth making a goofy smile.

Then came the Tahoe house, which I recognized from my own trip there only a few weeks earlier. The yellow Viper convertible. The path down to the lake. The Donzi, next to the dock. Red and chrome and streamlined as a bullet, a boy's fantasy. Or an adult man's, evidently.

The next few photographs had clearly been taken while the boat was in motion. They were off-kilter, blurry. Most of what the pictures showed was water, and a little sky, though occasionally part of Swift's face would appear in a frame, and when it did he always seemed to be
laughing. From the angle of the sun in these photographs it was easy to tell that it had still been morning when Ollie shot them.

Then there was a picture of a dot on the horizon, which must have been the Jet Ski.

Around this point, Oliver appeared to have discovered how to switch to video function. A short clip appeared—no longer than seven seconds—of the Jet Ski weaving toward the boat, with Swift's voice audible in the background, calling out, “Yeehaw!”

Then the video went haywire. Sky, water, the floor of the boat, sky again. A voice yelling “Shit!” Another voice:
“Help!”

After this, Ollie had taken a couple dozen photographs. Each nearly identical—the work of a boy stuck on a boat for too many hours—hungry, thirsty, tired, scared—with nothing to do but point his camera at every single object within range of the viewfinder: The floor of the boat. The motor. The gas tank. The life jacket Swift had chosen not to put on. Swift himself, bent over the cooler, taking out another bottle of what he had told Ollie was their very limited supply of water.

There was a picture of Cooper, draped loopily on a boat seat, looking as if he had no idea where he was. Behind him—visible, though ignored—lay Estella's daughter, Carmen. Someone—Swift, probably—had put a life vest under her head and laid Swift's jacket over her like a blanket, as if she were peacefully napping. But even in my son's blurry photograph it was clear: Carmen was not simply sleeping. Something was terribly wrong.

There was a button on Ollie's camera that revealed the time each photograph had been taken. I pushed it and scrolled back through the images.

It had been just after ten o'clock when my son and Swift set out on the Donzi. The time on the photograph showing the approach of the Jet Ski read “10:27
A.M.
”

The photograph of Carmen—lying still, though not sleeping, her wet hair suggesting that she had recently been in the water—bore a time of 11:15
A.M.

In all the commotion, I doubt Swift had even noticed that Ollie was taking these photographs. In all those hours, he had barely made note of my son's presence on the boat.

But I knew who would take an interest. Officer Reynolds.

C
ooper was brought in for questioning. My son's account of his behavior, combined with the clear evidence that Swift and Cooper had delayed calling for help for more than six hours in an apparent effort to bring Cooper's blood alcohol level down to the legal limit, were sufficient that Cooper was charged with negligent operation of a vehicle (the Jet Ski) and driving while under the influence, along with multiple counts of reckless endangerment and failure to report an accident. The most serious of these, for which Swift was also charged, stemmed from the Havillands' apparently mutual decision to delay calling for help for an amount of time that might well have contributed to the level of brain injury sustained by Carmen Hernandez.

Swift had top-dollar legal counsel, of course. Not only Marty Matthias, but a whole team. To some cynical types—and perhaps I am slowly becoming one such person—it matters more in the end who a person's lawyer is and how much money he's prepared to throw at his defense than whether or not he actually committed the crime for which he stands accused. In the case of Cooper and Swift, at least, neither father nor son was found guilty of any crime besides—in Cooper's case—one count of reckless endangerment, for which the penalty was the one-year suspension of his boating privileges and the requirement to take a course in defensive driving of a watercraft. Swift was fined for operating an unregistered Jet Ski.

Based on the extent of injury to her daughter, Estella would have had grounds for a civil case, but here, too, nothing came of it. I can only speculate as to the reasons. A number of months after the accident, on a rare visit to the ridiculously expensive market where Ava and Swift got their groceries, I spotted Estella in the parking lot. She was at the wheel of a Mercedes SUV that was clearly hers; the bumper sported a sticker of the Guatemalan flag, and a little statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe stood on the dashboard.

In all this time, I had not heard from the Havillands. Naturally, once I decided to challenge Swift's testimony concerning the events out on the waters of Lake Tahoe that day—backed up with photographic evidence and my son's eyewitness testimony—I forfeited any possibility that Swift might assist me in mounting a new case for custody of Oliver. But as it turned out, in the midst of so much regret and so many losses, I didn't need Swift's expensive attorney after all.

I never had to mention to my ex-husband the information that Marty Matthias had disclosed to me that afternoon at my apartment. Life over in Walnut Creek had evidently gotten so difficult for Dwight and Cheri that Dwight was the one who suggested that maybe Oliver would do better living with me now. “If you're up for it,” he said.

I was, of course. I still had the photograph in my drawer of that one bad night when I'd fallen off the wagon. I would take nothing for granted, but I wouldn't let that happen again.

And it hasn't.

I take no joy in the fact that the winter after Ollie moved back in with me, Dwight and Cheri lost their home to foreclosure. They moved in with Dwight's parents in Sacramento, where Ollie has continued to make regular visits—eventually driving up there on his own when he turned sixteen and, with his earnings from many summers of yard work and dog walking, bought himself an old Toyota.

He would probably make more frequent visits to Sacramento if it weren't for his swimming schedule. Between practice and meets, his
weekends are generally full. He holds his swim team's number one spot in the five-hundred-meter freestyle. This, at least, we owe to Swift Havilland.

And other good things have happened. Ollie came to love being a big brother to Jared. Strangely enough—or maybe it's not so strange—Dwight's hard times served to make him a kinder and less judgmental person. He and Oliver seem to be forging a better relationship. Maybe one day they'll even be friends.

Friends
. There's a loaded word for you. I know some people, when speaking of a particular relationship, may say “we're just friends,” as if this were some lesser form of connection to that of lovers or so-called soul mates. But to me, there may be no bond that matters more, in the end, than friendship. True and enduring friendship.

Alice was a friend like that. “Loyal as a dog,” she used to say. I wish I could say the same of myself.

I called her up one time. It was the summer after the accident, and there was a new Coen brothers movie out. I actually had to look up her number, it had been that long since I'd dialed it.

“I was an idiot,” I told her. “Worse than that. I was a bad friend.”

Silence on the other end of the line. How could anyone argue that point?

“I was thinking maybe we could get together and catch up,” I said. “Becca must be graduated now. You wouldn't believe how tall Ollie's gotten.”

More silence from the other end. Uncharacteristic for Alice, who always had something to say.

Finally, she spoke. “I wish I could say things could be just the same as they used to be, Helen,” she said.

She had plans that night, she told me. That night, and every other one.

O
ther than that one brief sighting in the parking lot at Bianchini's Market, I'd had no contact with Estella, and I had no idea how Carmen was doing. I didn't have a phone number, and of course the only people I knew who could tell me how things were going with Estella and her daughter were the people who no longer acknowledged my existence.

So one day, more than a year after the accident, I parked my car a couple of blocks down the road from Swift and Ava's house, remembering that this was the time of day Estella usually walked the dogs. Sure enough, there she was.

I jumped out of the car and ran to her. With the exception of the one time she spoke to me about Carmen's studies and her dreams of medical school, and the day she walked in on me when I had tried on Ava's clothes, Estella and I had barely communicated during all the time I'd spent at Folger Lane. Still, I had always felt a warmth and goodness coming from her. She had comforted me that day I feared for Ollie's life, had told me she would pray for my son. So I put my arms around her. All I had to do was say her daughter's name.

She shook her head. A person didn't have to speak Spanish to understand the universal language of grief.

In halting English, Estella gave me the news, such as there was. Carmen had been transferred to a nursing home, she said. A beautiful
place. (I could guess who was paying.) She was receiving physical therapy, but so far, she did not seem to recognize anyone.

“I go every day to feed her,” Estella said. “She don't eat much. Food for babies. She watch TV. Music videos. She's some salsa dancer,
mija
. She was.”

I stood there on the sidewalk. Sometimes there is nothing to be said. All a person can do is listen.

“I sit by her bed,” Estella said. “I sing to her. I pray. It's like she's an angel. One time she opens her eyes.
Gracias a dios,
she looks at me. But she's not like before, those bright eyes. The doctors can't make it better. Only God, one day.”

I asked about Swift and Ava. They were helping her, right?

Estella nodded. “I got a cousin in Oakland. Right after the accident, she say I can get a lawyer. Make them pay big money.” She shook her head again. “I tell my cousin no,” she said. “Judge gonna listen to me? Judge see me, he send me back to Guatemala City. Where is my daughter then? Mr. Havilland takes care of us. He says we don't got to worry. They make sure Carmen's good.”

The dogs were pulling at their leashes, impatient to get moving. Just Lillian and Sammy now.

“You don't come by no more,” Estella said. She sounded unsurprised. This was not the first time Ava had a friend who suddenly disappeared from Folger Lane, I figured. “She's not so good these days. Mrs. Havilland.”

“Ava's sick?” I asked.

“After Rocco died. She don't get over that. She blames herself.”

For the death of her dog, Ava felt guilt. The brain death of Carmen, not so much. No need to point out the irony. Estella knew.

“This weekend, it's Cooper's wedding,” Estella told me. “I take care of the dogs. The family's in Mexico.”

Cabo San Lucas. As planned before all the rest happened. Whatever Virginia found out about Cooper—what he had done that day, or all
the other days—she wasn't letting it interrupt her wedding plans. Now Estella and I stood on the sidewalk, reflecting on it all.

“My daughter loved that boy,” Estella said. “He gave her a ring one time. From his team. They won the championship.”

The rugby ring. I'd heard about it from Ava. Ava had believed Carmen stole the ring. That was her story. The idea that Cooper might actually have given it to Carmen—that maybe, once, he had actually cared about this girl—was beyond her imagination.

“I hope you get your boy back,” Estella said. “The only thing that counts. Our children.”

“I already did,” I told her. “Oliver lives with me again now.”

Sad as she was, Estella's face lit up then.

“Family,” she said. “The only thing.”

Time was, I believed I was part of the Havillands' family. Time was, they called Estella part of theirs.

She was partway down the block when I called out to her. I ran back. There was one more thing I had to ask her, I said.

“I know you've worked for the Havillands a long time. Since before Swift met Ava, right?”

“I know Cooper when he's a baby,” she said. “Him and Carmen. I start at the other house, with Cooper's mom.”

“Ava's accident,” I said. “What happened?”

Estella shook her head. For a moment I thought she wasn't going to say.

“Bad time,” she said. “Very bad time. Nobody talks about that.”

I thought she might leave it there, but she didn't.

“They were on a trip. The road to Los Angeles? Not the big highway. They want to see the ocean.”

“Going to Big Sur, probably,” I said. “They love that place.”

“He has a new car. No roof. Mr. Havilland likes to drive fast.”

“I know,” I said. What had I been thinking, letting Ollie get in a car with Swift? Had I been so desperate to win my son back that I risked his safety?

Yes.

“They say a car in front goes too slow. They need to get to the hotel. Big fancy place. Dinner reservations. Big news. Celebrating. He thinks he'll pass the car. The slow one. There's a truck coming. No place to turn.”

The car had flipped over. Swift's car, the expensive one. Swift had emerged uninjured. But Ava was trapped.

“When the men come with the ambulance, they say be careful how you move her. One step the wrong way, they kill her. It's her cord.
Espina.
After, she can't move her legs no more. At first they don't believe it when the doctors tell the news. Mr. Havilland brings her to a big clinic. Two. They stay away a long time at the hospital. Then rehab. That's where they give her the chair.”

Lillian was barking now. Up ahead, she'd seen another dog and she wanted to get going. Estella, too, looked as though she'd had enough.

“What can you do?” she said. “Some people are lucky. Some people not so much. That Mr. Havilland, he's always got good luck.

“She lose the baby that day, too,” Estella said. “Five years they try, she don't get pregnant, then she does. That's why they go on the trip, they are so happy. After that day, you know what she tell me? ‘He can do what he wants. I don't share my bed with that man no more.'”

“What do you mean?” I said. “They were always talking about their incredible sex life.”

Estella looked at me. We were the same age, but at that moment, she was a hundred years old and I, born yesterday. She shook her head.

“People tell stories,” she said. “You don't know that? You want to know the truth about these people, your friends, Ava and Swift? She hates him. She needs him, but she hates him.”