Watch Over Me (30 page)

“Matt, you okay?” Benjamin asked.

Matthew sucked his lips between his teeth, bit them. He stood, using the tree trunk as support, and flipped open his pad.
If someone knew who Silvia belonged to, would you want to know?

“Yes.”

Even if it meant you’d lose her?

Benjamin pressed two fingers against the outside of his ear, dragged them down the side of his face, his neck, skin puckering

around the pressure, turning pink, like the precursor to a bruise. “Tell me.”

But Matthew couldn’t yet, not before speaking to Skye. He went to the deputy first because, if he hadn’t, he would have gone home and put off the confrontation. For a day, perhaps, a week. Longer. And the more time that passed, the easier it would be to ignore, like sand in an oyster, the irritant coated in calcium carbonate, each concentric layer drawing him further from the truth. Still, he needed to warn his cousin.

He wrote,
Wait in the office. I’ll call you. In an hour.

“Matthew, you can’t . . . Please, who is it? Just say it.”

An hour. I promise.

He walked home, head empty. He tried to think, to pray, but couldn’t keep a single word contained; they floated up into the darkening sky. He turned to the numbers. To pi.
Three point one four one
five nine two six five three five eight nine seven nine three two three eight four
six two six four three three eight three two seven five zero . . .

Skye was sitting on the stoop at the apartment, watching Lacie build castles in the sandbox with Tara Blye, the second-grader three doors down. She sucked on a cigarette, blew the smoke out her nose.

Since when do you smoke?

She shrugged. “Since I started.”

He settled next to her, pad on his knee, tapping the pen on the paper.

Skye ground her butt out on the step, tossed it. “I know you know.”

Matthew saw only the side of her mouth, and wasn’t quite certain he’d read her lips right. He scooted around, in front of her.
What?

“You know.”

About?

“Her.”

How?

“The picture. You took the picture.” She dug another cigarette out from somewhere down her shirt, the lighter from beneath her thigh. She flicked the button once, twice. No flame. Her arm fell to her lap. “I knew you’d figure it out, once you started working for them.”

She’s Jared’s.

Skye nodded.

Did he know? Does he?

“No. Have you told?”

Not yet. Not really. I’m going to. Tonight. Deputy Patil is waiting for my call.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

I have to.

“Yeah. I know.”

I’m sorry.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen, Matty,” she said, her eyes focused on something off to the side—her burned-out butt, maybe—not on his face. If he could have looked away, too, he would have. “I got pregnant, and then it was just too late to do anything about it, and all I kept hearing in my head was Ma telling Jaylyn and me that we better not bring any babies home, or we could find someplace else to live. I know she meant it. She made Jaylyn get rid of two. And Jared was planning college, and I didn’t want to ruin that for him. I figured Ma or Jaylyn or someone would notice eventually, but no one did.

“I woke up that morning just feeling . . . I don’t know, kind of sick. Like, nauseous. And I just packed my swimsuit and towel in my backpack, and a lunch, and started walking. I thought it was too early for the baby to come. But I was wading in Hopston’s pond, and the sick feeling turned to pain, and there was blood and water. I sat in the weeds and started to push, and she was there.

“I cut the cord and tied it with my shoelace, like in the movies. She didn’t even cry. And I . . . I panicked. I can’t even tell you why I thought it was a good idea to leave her. But I did. I put her in my lunch bag, tied the handles, and pushed her into the tall grass. I should have at least wrapped her in the towel, but I was afraid someone would recognize it, like evidence, or something.

“Then I started walking across the field. Wandering, really. I told myself if she cried, I’d go back for her. But she still didn’t. And this terrible, sharp pain cut through my stomach, and I felt like I had to push again. For a minute I thought I was having twins, but then this blob fell out of me. They don’t show you that part in the movies.

“I ripped part of the towel off and stuffed it in my underpants, wrapped the blob in the big piece. But then Tallah and her stupid boyfriend showed up, and I got scared, and I left the towel and hid against the closest cottonwood. I watched as Simon tripped over it, and called the sheriff. I watched as the deputy came and found her.

“Somehow I made it home. I showered. I bagged my bloody clothes and shoes and threw them in the dumpster out back of the school. And I waited for the knock on the door. But it didn’t come. Until now.”

She sniffed. “I’m going to jail.”

You don’t know that.

“Yeah, I do. The Internet’s a wonderful thing.”

Maybe you’ll get leniency or something.

“For what? I left my baby to die.” She scrubbed away her tears with her thumb knuckles. “Let’s get this over with. Make your call, or whatever.”

Matthew nodded, his fingertips skating over her shoulder as he went inside and dialed 711, pressed the phone into the TTY hub. He watched until the red light stopped its lazy blink.

HELLO RO#45435F HERE, NBR TO DIAL PLS QQ GA, the screen read.

He typed the number for the sheriff ’s station and waited.

THK YOU DIALING PLS HD. . . . RINGING 1. . . . 2. . . . 3. . . . 4. . . . HELLO QQ (EXPLAINING RELAY PLS HD) GA.

I WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK TO DEPUTY PATIL, Matthew typed.

HOLD PLEASE. And then, PATIL HERE. MATT IS THAT YOU QQ GA.

Matthew typed, YES. METHODIST CHURCH, 30 MINUTES GA.

The screen read, I WILL BE THERE GA.

SKSK, he typed, and then he knocked on Jaylyn’s door.
I have to go out. You need to make dinner for the girls.

“Tell Skye to do it.”

She’s going out with me.

“Why? What for?”

Just take care of the girls.

He wrote a note to Sienna, telling her he was leaving. She didn’t lift her face from the television.

Outside, Skye was still slumped on the stoop. “They coming?”

Matthew shook his head.
Not here. At the church down the road. I didn’t want everyone to see.

She touched his arm, almost smiled. “Lacie, get your butt over here.”

The little girl came running. “I didn’t do nothing.”

“Just get inside and wash up for supper. Matty and I gotta run an errand real quick.”

“I’ll make sure Sienna saves some food for you. You know what a hog she can be.”

“Yeah, great,” Skye said, and she hugged her. “You be good.”

“Ow, stop. You’re crushing me,” Lacie said, wriggling away and charging into the apartment.

After the door slammed, Matthew turned and started walking, Skye beside him on his right, out of the parking lot, onto the road. Head down, he watched her feet against the asphalt, heels of her blue tennis shoes dragging.

Three point one four one five nine two six five three five eight nine seven
nine three two three eight four six two six four three three eight three two
seven five zero . . .

Twilight fell differently on overcast days. When the sun was out, it stretched over the earth, wrapping each tree, each car and house and blade of grass in its pink-orange arms until it tumbled beneath the horizon, the light snapping away in an instant. But when clouds packed the sky and the world was already ashen, the darkness crept in slowly until suddenly it was dark, and no one had noticed it coming. That was how Matthew felt as he and Skye reached the church, sat on the green wood steps leading to the front door—the world went black between Skye’s confession and this place, and he hadn’t realized it until he looked up the road and saw two bright headlights inching toward them.

The Durango stopped, still idling, and Benjamin stepped from the car. He said something, in the shadows. Matthew couldn’t make it out. But Skye nodded and stood, put her arms behind her back, one wrist over the other, hands forming wings. As Benjamin took handcuffs from his belt, Matthew jumped off the steps, grabbed the deputy’s arm. “I have to, Matt,” he said.

Matthew gave Benjamin a little shove, yanked his pad from his pocket and fell back onto the steps. He wrote,
John 16:33
, folded the page over and over until it was more a tube than a rectangle and he couldn’t fold it anymore. Benjamin closed Skye in the back seat, walked around the car. Matthew yanked the handle—
please,
please
—he needed to give Skye his note.

“You can’t get in there,” Benjamin said, coming back around to him.

Give this to her. Promise me.
Matthew opened the deputy’s hand and crammed the paper ball into it.

Benjamin’s fingers tightened around it. He scrunched his lips, nodded. “Get in front. I’ll give you a lift home.”

But Matthew shook his head and ran, down the road alone until the Dodge Durango passed him, and then alone again.

Matthew entered the house to Jaylyn screaming at Heather, Heather screaming at Jaylyn, Sienna complaining as they kept crossing in front of the television, where Tom and Jerry raced around the globe. Lacie, middle fingers jammed deep into her ears, shouted, “Stop, you two. Why won’t you stop?”

When they saw him, it did stop, and Heather asked, “Where’s Skye?”

Sheriff’s office
, he wrote.

“What for? What’s going on?”

Maybe you should just go down there.

Heather looked at him, opening her mouth as if she wanted to yell some more, but instead slung her purse over her arm and said, “Put the girls to bed,” before leaving.

“You better tell me,” Jaylyn said.

“No,” he managed.

“I can’t understand anything that comes out of your stupid mouth.”

Understand this. I’m not telling you.

“Retard.”

Jaylyn stomped off to her bedroom, cordless phone in hand, and Matthew sent Sienna with her.

“It’s too early,” she whined.

I don’t care. I’m tired and want the couch.

“You’ve been so mean today.”

Good.

“Jerk.”

“I don’t think you’re a jerk,” Lacie said. “Or a retard.”

He picked her up and spun her, once, twice, three times, until he couldn’t keep his balance. Then he helped her brush her teeth and tucked her into Heather’s bed. She slept there now; his aunt needed a warm body next to her.

But he couldn’t sleep, didn’t try. He waited in the dark, eyes open and toward the door, and when he saw a crack of light, he turned his head into the back cushion, pretending to sleep. Even when the brightness penetrated his closed lids he still didn’t move. Not until someone wrenched him by the arm, onto the floor.

“Get out,” Heather said. Shouted. He knew by the tendons straining through her neck, the wide-open mouth, like the Munch print Abbi once showed him. He sprung to his feet, and with one hand snapped open his pad. His aunt tore it from him, hurled it across the room.

“I don’t want any of your notes. I want you out of my house.”

She hefted his clothing tote from beside the couch and, standing on the stoop, flung it into the night. The girls appeared from their rooms, Jaylyn pale and confused against the white wall, Lacie sobbing, Sienna holding on to her.

“Now go,” Heather said.

He went, shoeless, into the playground, and the door shut behind him. He gathered his clothes, pulled on a sweatshirt, and closed the rest in the plastic bin. Then he tried to balance the bin on the handlebars of his bicycle. He rode ten feet before the tote spilled forward. He picked everything up again and, after shoving the bin into the shrubs next to the building, rode down the street toward the church, pedals poking into the soles of his feet.

The building was unlocked; he knew it would be. He thought he’d sleep on a pew but must have made more noise than he realized. Perhaps the door hinges gave him away, squealing in the night, or his bike when he dropped it in the gravel. Whatever it was, the pastor found him and, without a question, guided Matthew to the back bedroom in the parsonage.

Chapter THIRTY-FIVE

They stood together just inside the door of the family services office, Abbi’s body rigid, Silvia caged against her, tears dripping silently off her jawbone and onto the sleeping baby’s head. Benjamin, no more than a hand’s length away, didn’t dare reach for her.

Four days. It had taken only four days to undo the past four months.

He didn’t have a chance to explain to Abbi, to soften the blow. He had called her to say he wouldn’t be coming home until late, and as soon as she heard his voice, she understood.

“What’s going on?” she had asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

“You know enough to be at work still.”

He sighed. “We have Silvia’s mother in custody.”

“Just her mother?”

“Abbi.”

“No. No, no, no. You fix this, Ben, I mean it. You don’t come home until you fix it.”

But when he had walked into the living room a few minutes after one in the morning, Abbi was sitting in the chair facing the door, Silvia sleeping in her lap. He bent down to hug her, but she said, “Don’t touch me.” So he went to bed alone, in his clothes, watching fuzzy gray spots spark as he stared at the ceiling in the darkness, until the first splashes of sun spilled over the windowsills and he abandoned all hope of sleep, only to find Abbi still in the chair, still stiff and alert, eyes on the door.

“No one’s coming today,” he said, and she wept, clamping her torso to her knees, gulping and wheezing and pressing the baby into her belly until Silvia, too, began to wail. He’d never seen Abbi break down like that before. If she ever cried, it was a few tears and done. “No sense wasting time on the wet stuff,” she’d always said.