Discovering (12 page)

“No.”Willow sobs into the napkin. “I can’t.”

“You can. You will.”

“No . . .”

Calla grips both of Willow’s bony shoulders. “Look at me. Please.”

Willow looks at her, desolate. Her face is ravaged with a pain that’s all too familiar to Calla.

“You’ll go on. You’ll live without her. You have to. I mean, think about it. What’s the alternative?”

“I’m so afraid.”

“I know . It’s awful. It’s so awful, and hard and unfair, but . . . you’ll survive. I promise. Listen, if I can, you can.”She grabs her friend’s hand and squeezes it. “I’ll help you get through it.”

“I don’t want to be alone.”

Her voice is so small. So frightened. So familiar.

“You aren’t alone, Willow.”

“I really am, without her. But I don’t turn eighteen until January. What am I supposed to do until then? Go live with my father and his new wife and ruin their perfect new family?”

“He just lives down in Dunkirk, right? That’s only a few miles away. You could still—”

“No. He doesn’t want me.”

“Sure, he does.”

“No. He’s not like your father. Do you know what he said when I called him last night and asked if he could meet me at the hospital because Mom had just been rushed there in an ambulance?”

“What?”

“He said that he’d see what he could do, because he and his wife had to go to open house at his daughter’s school. He’d see what he could do,”she repeats, shaking her head in disgust.

“Did he show up?”

“Yeah, for, like, two minutes. Then he asked me what time I thought I’d be done there, because if I was going to sleep at his house, they wouldn’t have to get a babysitter after all while they were at open house.”

“So . . . did you stay there? And babysit?”

“No. I stayed in the hospital.”

Calla swallows a lump in her throat, picturing Willow curled up in a hospital bed in the middle of the night, beside her dying mother.

“How did you get back here?”

“I have my mom’s car. I’m going back there after school, too. I’m staying tonight, and every night until . . .”

She can’t say it.

“Willow . . .”Calla can’t say it, either. “Listen, you can’t move into the hospital. That’s . . .”

What? Crazy? Unhealthy? Heartbreaking?

“I can’t leave her. And I’m not going to stay at my father’s,”she adds defiantly, “or . . . home. Alone.”

“You can come stay with me and my grandmother.”

“Yesterday you said that your dad has to stay next door because you don’t have any room.”

“I meant for him. You can stay in my room, with me. My grandmother borrowed a cot from Andy when my friend Lisa came to stay, and—”

“That’s sweet, Calla.”Willow flashes a sad smile. “But I can’t leave my mother. I need to be with her.”

Her voice breaks, and suddenly, she looks ten years younger. Tears stream down her face again.

“I need my mother. I can’t lose her.”

Calla has no more words of comfort.

“I know,”is all she can say, over and over. “I know .”

“Hey, what brings you out here?”Jacy makes room for Calla on the moss- covered fallen log.

“You.”She sinks down beside him. “I need you and I figured this was where you’d be.”

“I need you, too—but I never thought you’d come out here two days in a row. You don’t like to break the rules. Skipping lunch. Kissing guys in the woods when you’re supposed to be in school. . . .”

“I’m not—”

“Oh, yeah, you are.”He pulls her close and his lips meet hers.

It’s tempting— so tempting— for Calla to forget all about everything but Jacy, right here, right now. That would be the easiest, and probably the healthiest, thing to do. It’s what she would have done a few months ago, when she was just a normal girl surrounded by others who were just like her, kids with intact families and enough money, kids who didn’t know things they couldn’t, shouldn’t possibly know, about the past or the future or other people’s lives in this world or the next.

But Calla is no longer that girl, and she needs to talk to Jacy. Now.

She forces herself to break the kiss, to pull back, out of his embrace, to look away, at the trees, at the overcast sky, at the sparse hint of sun struggling to break through.

She thinks about her friend Althea, dying in a hospital bed. And Willow, who left the cafeteria with tears in her eyes, saying she wanted to be alone for a while. And that poor little baby, lying stiff in a blanket, weighed down with rocks in a watery grave.

“You found out more about your mother.”

Startled, she looks up at Jacy. “How did you know?”

He smiles faintly. “A little bird told me. Like Snow White. What’s up?”

She tells him. As she talks, he stops eating.

“That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard,”he says when she finishes.

“The worst thing?”

“Okay, maybe not. It would have been worse if . . .”

“If what?”she asks when he trails off, narrowing his eyes.

“You know, if . . . the baby hadn’t died of natural causes.”

Calla’s stomach turns over. “But it did. I mean, it died at birth.”

“You know that because . . . ?”

“Because that’s what she wrote. That’s what Darrin told her.”

Jacy remains silent.

“You don’t think they killed the baby, do you? Because I know my mother—”Even as the words spill from her lips, Calla wonders how true they are.

She doesn’t know her mother. Not anymore.

“I don’t think she killed the baby,”Jacy says, to her relief.

“You think Darrin did?”

“No. I don’t think that, either. I just . . . well, it makes me wonder. We’ve both seen him, Calla. His spirit. We’ve both heard him trying to apologize to her. For what?”

“For putting their baby’s body in the lake instead of giving it a proper burial.”

“Are you sure about that?”

No.

She isn’t sure of anything.

“Jacy . . . what if he killed the baby? Do you think that’s why he’s hanging around? Is he trying to stop me from finding out?”

“I don’t know . But you have to be careful. I don’t like this.”

“I don’t, either.”

“Maybe you should tell someone.”

“Like who?”

“You said your grandmother knows about it, right?”

“She must. But I don’t know how much.”

“I think you need to talk to her, Calla. And the sooner, the better.”

“I know .”

“The other thing is . . . Walt and Peter told me this morning that a couple of detectives were nosing around town yesterday.”

“I heard. They talked to Patsy Metcalf, and I’m sure they’re looking for Bob.”He’s the red- bearded student in her Saturday morning class who had the vision about the purple house in Geneseo.

“They found him, actually. Asked him all kinds of questions. I think it freaked him out a little.”

“Maybe I should go talk to him.”

“You probably should.”

“I don’t know where to find him.”

“It’s not exactly like looking for a needle in a haystack around here. I’m sure you can find him without a whole lot of effort,”Jacy points out. Then he adds, “What about the Yateses?”

“What about them?”

“You haven’t told them yet. About Darrin. They’re getting ready to leave for Arizona for the winter. Don’t you think it’s time?”

Calla sighs. “I guess it is.”

The grim task can’t wait forever. It isn’t fair to those poor people, growing old without their son, wondering whatever happened to him.

The news is going to break their hearts.

No, it won’t,
Calla tells herself.
Their hearts are already broken.

“Will you really go with me?”

Jacy nods. “After school?”

“Yes. No, wait, I can’t. I’m babysitting at Paula’s till five. How about tomorrow?”

“How about after you babysit? I really don’t think this should wait.”

He’s right.

She sighs. “Okay. I’ll meet you by the lake when I’m done babysitting.”

“Want to stop home first to drop off your backpack or something?”

“No, let’s just get it over with. Although— what about Darrin’s obituary? Maybe we should find a place to print it out off the Internet, so we can show his parents in case they don’t believe us.”

“I already did. I’ll bring it with me.”

“Why do you have it?”

“After what happened this past weekend . . .”Jacy shrugs. “I figured you might need it. As . . .”

“Evidence?”

“Pretty much. And now that those detectives are in town . . . maybe you should tell them about it, if they show up to talk to you again.”

“Do you think they will?”

“Don’t you?”

“I guess.”

This day just keeps on getting better and better.

“Calla, you can’t withhold information from the police. You’ve got to tell them everything you know .”

“But they already have Sharon Logan in custody.”

“They need to know she might be responsible for more than one death.”

He’s right.

She knows he is.

And she can’t go on protecting her father forever. Sooner or later, the whole truth is going to come out.

What then?

ELEVEN

Lily Dale
Wednesday, October 10
5:06 p.m.

All afternoon, as Calla went through the motions of digging to China with Dylan and Ethan—and trying not to be uneasy when Dylan kept talking about saving the hurt people there— her thoughts flew from Althea to the dead baby and back again.

“How come you’re not talking to us, Calla?” Dylan asked her at one point, and she made an effort after that.

It was a relief when her duties came to an end—until she allowed herself to remember what’s coming next.

Now, as she rounds a bend and sees Jacy waiting for her in the pavilion, her stomach starts to churn.

“Hey,” he says, and reaches out to grab both her hands in both of his, pulling her closer. “Are you ready?”

“I feel like I’m going to pass out.”

“Is that a no?”

She sighs. “It’s a yes. Let’s go.”

“Here, give me your backpack. I’ll carry it.”

“That’s okay.”

“It weighs a ton. Give it to me.” He holds out his arm.

She hands over the backpack.

“Better?” he asks as he slings it over his own back.

She nods. Surprisingly, it does feel better to have the literal weight taken off her shoulders. Too bad she can’t hand over the figurative one as well.

“Come on.” He laces his fingers through hers and gives them a squeeze. “It’s going to be okay.”

“I’m dreading this.”

“I know you are. But you can’t keep putting it off. And you’re stronger than you know . Look at all you’ve been through. Most people would crumple up and cry.”

“Don’t think I haven’t,” she tells him, but finds herself warmed by his praise.

They walk in silence toward Erie Boulevard, a narrow, rutted road on the far eastern end of town. She tries not to think about their last confrontation with Darrin’s parents, who basically let her know that they somehow blamed her mother for their son’s disappearance.

Of course, Calla wrongly blamed Darrin for Mom’s death, so who is she to hold a grudge?

“Just take a deep breath,” Jacy advises as she stops walking, seeing the Yateses’ shingle and glassed- in front porch come into view.

“What if they’re not home?” she asks hopefully, despite the car parked in the driveway.

“They are.”

“I know .” She draws a shaky breath into her lungs, holds it, and exhales through puffed cheeks. “Okay, let’s go.”

As they slowly climb the steps to the white aluminum door, a dog begins barking somewhere inside the house.

At last, Jacy lets go of her fingers with a final squeeze and rings the bell.

The last time they were here, the porch was fixed up like an indoor-outdoor living room, with lamps, a television, and furniture. Now Calla can see through the window that there’s nothing but a stretch of bare teal carpet and several cardboard moving boxes stacked near the door.

Clearly, the Yateses are getting ready to vacate their cottage for the winter.

Mr. Yates, a gray- haired, balding man, steps onto the porch, accompanied by a barking terrier. As Darrin’s father peers at them through the window in the door, Calla sees a spark of recognition—quickly followed by dismay— in his gray-blue eyes, behind a pair of wire- framed bifocals.

“Jasmine, shh, down, girl.” He collars the dog and opens the door a crack. “Yes?”