Disgraced (16 page)

Sympathy tugged at Lola. She pulled back against it. “You're doing okay,” she said before she could stop herself.

He looked away. When he turned back, his eyes were full of tears. He reminded Lola of Margaret, who cried on only the rarest occasions, managing each time to break her mother's heart. Skiff, not yet twenty, had seen two friends die before his eyes and bore the weight of knowing it was at least partly his fault.

“Am I?” he said. “Do you think I'm doing okay?” He folded his arms on the table and put his head on them. His shoulders heaved. His muffled voice reached her. “Sorry. I never do this.”

Lola's hand hovered over his shoulders. She had a rule when people cried during interviews. It happened. People who'd lost children or spouses, their jobs to the recession, their homes in some sort of natural disaster. Victims of war, of injustice, of damnable circumstance. She always gave them a few respectful moments to collect themselves before resuming her questions as though nothing had happened. That way, everybody kept his dignity. Skiff's shoulders knotted with the effort of withholding his grief. Rusted sobs reached her. She let her hand fall on his back. Held it there. Gave it some pressure, steadying him the way she would a spooked horse.

“Take your time,” she said. “We've got all day.” Even though she didn't. Margaret had tired of the ball. She would soon run out of patience.

Skiff raised his head. He rubbed his face on his sleeve, a ghost of his earlier motion when the moisture on his face had been the healthy sweat of play. “You won't tell?” he said.

Lola's hand fell away from his back. “It's not a matter of won't,” she said. “I can't. Nobody's said anything on the record.”

A smile wobbled at the edges of his lips. “That's good, right? Not for you, I mean. But for us, that's good.”

“You know what I think is good?” Lola said. “The truth. I know you think the way you're handling this is best. And I get it. Truly, I do. You want to protect your men—and woman. That's understandable. But in the long run, it never works. The truth always finds a way out, and the longer it takes, the worse the consequences.” How many times in her life had she given that little speech? Sometimes, it even worked. Not this time, though.

“Hand to God, if it were just me, I'd do it. Get this shit off my chest, and out in the open. Make up for what Pal did to that guy, and for what that guy did to Mike. Even though nothing will make up for it. But what do you think that would do to Mike's grandfather? He and Pal are still close. What'll he do if he finds out she got his grandson killed? I can't do it. I just can't.” He stuck out his hand. “No hard feelings?”

Lola remembered his previous handshake. She flexed her fingers and took it. As before, he stopped just short of breaking bones. “No hard feelings,” she lied.

He dropped her hand and tugged gently at one of Margaret's braids. “Thanks for brightening my day. You're going to make a heckuva soccer player.” He bent and picked up the basketball and tucked it under his arm and started to walk away. “Bye, Margaret.”

She lifted her hand. “Bye, Spiff.”

Lola watched her story walk away with Skiff. She wanted to call him back; make a final tearful plea. Even though she never cried, she reminded herself, as she rubbed the heel of her hand against the damning moisture in her eyes.

As if he'd heard her thoughts, Skiff stopped and turned. “Sorry I can't help with your story,” he called to Lola.

“There is no story.” Lola spoke as much to herself as to Skiff. Saying it made it real as the pain that accompanied the words. She tried it again. “There is no story.” She wondered how many times she'd have to say it before the ache subsided. “There is no story,” she whispered. Pain, three; Lola Wicks, zip. It was going to take awhile.

“Mommy?” A warm hand found its way into hers. Bub nosed at her leg, nudging her toward the truck. “Now what, Mommy?”

Lola turned her face into the hot wind. Let it go, she told herself. The story was never part of the original plan. This was supposed to be her time with Margaret, but so far she'd done exactly what Charlie and Jan and everyone else who knew her well had feared. She'd been unable to let work go. Now it was time to—what did people in these parts like to say? Cowboy up.

The hurt still throbbed within when she looked down at Margaret, but her eyes were dry. “We're going on vacation. And it's going to be fun, dammit.”

TWENTY-FIVE

The Tetons, as Lola
described them on her way out of town, were a mountain paradise. She owed Margaret that much, she thought, remembering her earlier and transparent lack of enthusiasm.

Margaret had seen moose in Glacier, but nothing like the profusion of moose that roamed the Tetons, Lola said. “Whole herds of them!” Did moose travel in herds? She was pretty sure they didn't. “Whole families,” she amended. “But we have to be careful not to get close. The mommies get mad if people scare their babies, and a mommy moose is a whole lot of mad.”

“Like a mommy grizzly!”

“Close,” said Lola. She'd encountered her share of grizzlies, but always at a comfortable distance and never with cubs, a record she hoped to maintain. She'd heard the stories. “I don't think anything in the world is as scary as a mommy grizzly.”

“You, Mommy. When you're mad. Like when you were mad at the bad truck.” Lola glanced in the rearview mirror. Margaret's face went from sly to somber at the memory of the truck. Lola had never discussed it with her after that night. She assigned herself another demerit, and belatedly tried to remedy the situation.

“Do you still think about the truck?”

“Sometimes.” Margaret's tone was matter-of-fact. “Do you know what I'm thinking now?”

“No idea.”

“That I'm hungry.”

Lola far preferred hunger to lingering trauma, the former being far more easily remedied. But Thirty was well behind them, and the next town was nearly forty-five minutes away. Her own stomach growled. A sign flashed past, indicating one of the secondary reservation roads. Lola checked her map. Just as she'd thought, the road angled across the reservation, a shortcut of sorts to the two-lane highway that would take them to the Tetons. The gravel surface would make for a longer trip, but the road also passed by the reservation's convenience store. Lola flicked her turn signal and took it. “Lunch, coming right up,” she promised Margaret.

When they got to the store, though, she realized lunch was more easily said than done. “Don't even think about it,” she told Margaret as the girl lingered in front of the refrigerated cases of sugary pop. Lola walked the aisles, rejecting one thing after another. The plastic-wrapped sandwiches made of squishy white bread and processed meat, their stamped dates past due. The fried chicken slowly fossilizing beneath orange heat lights. The shelves of off-brand candy and chips. Yogurt—full fat, and loaded with fruit swimming in corn syrup—actually rated a moment's consideration. But the store was out of plastic spoons. She finally settled on a couple of blackened bananas and apples fast going mushy, pointedly ignoring Margaret's scowl and handing the clerk a twenty.

“Do you mind taking your change in ones?” the clerk asked. She showed Lola the change drawer, the trays for larger bills empty. The dollar bills were limp with use, as though their previous owners had fondled them one last time before reluctantly handing them over.

“I feel guilty taking them,” Lola blurted. Then worried she'd given offense by implying she could spare them.

The young woman pointed with her lips to a jar on the counter. “You could put some in there. Every little bit helps.”

The jar bore a handful of change and a few bills. A Xeroxed photo and hand-printed notice sought donations for Patrick Sounding Sides.

Lola retrieved a dollar from her wallet. “Who's that?”

The clerk slammed the drawer shut. The sound echoed in the empty store. “The guy got beat up by those soldiers. He's home now, but he still needs round-the-clock care. We're trying to help out his family.”

Time stopped. The pain that had hovered above Lola, stubborn as a vulture over a dying animal, flew away even as her story coasted in for a landing, bright with renewed promise. Lola ducked to hide her inappropriate smile and fumbled with her wallet, extracting every bill. She dropped them into the jar, making sure the clerk saw. “Any chance,” she said, “you know how to get in touch with his family?”

By the time she turned off the gravel road onto the two-track that led to Patrick Sounding Sides's home, Margaret was in full revolt. Her usual MO when upset was to sulk, arms folded, lower lip outthrust, her scowling silence both epic and eloquent. Bub squeezed himself into the safe place beneath the sofa when Margaret was in one of her moods. Charlie, the very definition of calm and competence, wrung his hands and pleaded with her. Lola, after lecturing Charlie on the importance of ignoring such manipulative behavior, usually lost her temper and yelled. On this day, however, she would have preferred the sulk.

Because Margaret, never one for a tantrum, decided to give it a try. She threw back her head and screamed to the heavens. Her sneakered feet beat a drum solo on the back of Lola's seat. She flailed about with her fists, catching Bub on the ear. He yelped and dove for the floor, and did his level best to insert himself into the space beneath the passenger seat, managing only to hide his nose and front paws. Occasionally, words emerged from the din.

“Home!” “Jemalina!” “Daddy!” “Now!”

Lola caught her drift. In fact, with the exception of Jemalina, she shared Margaret's sentiments. Her hands shook on the wheel. She wished Charlie were there to deal with Margaret's tantrum. Maybe he'd know what to do. Even if he didn't, she'd be able to take comfort in their shared helplessness. Guilt sat like a boulder in her stomach. She'd turned what could have been a perfectly fine vacation into nothing but misery for Margaret, who until now had spent uncomplaining days playing quietly in the heat as her mother elicited tales of horror and death, punctuated by an unforgiveable amount of curses, from a series of strangers. Lola had been such an unsatisfactory companion that a psychotic chicken apparently was preferable. The truck passed a side road. “Dammit,” she muttered. Although, she could have shouted without being heard. “I think that was our turn.” She hit the brakes. Then she took a good look around. Nobody else was on the road. No houses nearby. Not even a wayward deer. No one to hear the sounds of a child screaming bloody murder. She pulled to the shoulder and turned off the ignition and stared straight ahead.

Margaret gasped for air. There was a brief, blessed moment of
silence. The cessation of motion seemed to have caught Margaret
unaware. Lola spoke quickly, quietly, without turning. “Go ahead,” she said. “Take all the time you like. We'll just sit here until you're done.”

Margaret obliged. Lola hadn't thought it possible for her to scream louder. She'd been wrong. She counted silently. When I get to one hundred, she told herself, I'll say something. Or do something. She had no idea what. At twenty-five, Margaret gulped another breath and Lola's hopes soared. At twenty-six, the scream re-emerged, stronger than ever. At fifty, she was still going strong. Lola put her hand on the passenger seat. It vibrated with Bub's trembling. Margaret breathed again at seventy-five. Lola closed her eyes and prayed. She'd grown up Catholic, but couldn't remember the patron saint of parents. St. Joseph, maybe? He'd married Mary, knowing she was pregnant with what he could only have assumed was another man's child. Would he have been so quick to marry her if he'd witnessed a temper tantrum the likes of which Margaret was throwing? Lola's prayer took her to ninety-eight. When Margaret … just … stopped.

The wind reasserted itself, howling hot past the open window as if to remind Margaret that, whatever it lacked in volume, it more than made up for in staying power. Bub crawled out from under the seat, staying as far as possible from Margaret, plastering his body against the dashboard, ears flat against his head as if to emphasize the pain of the recent aural assault. Lola said nothing at all. She started the engine and took the turn that would lead them to Patrick Sounding Sides's house.

Lola parked next to a truck on blocks, one of several in the yard. The Sounding Sides were like many reservation families in their reluctance to discard anything that might someday prove useful. The disabled trucks had been stripped of tires and bumpers and even their bench seats, one of which sat against the side of the house, its innards erupting through gashes in the vinyl. Still, its spot in the shade made it an inviting prospect, and Lola imagined family members taking their ease there in evening's cool, maybe sharing a cigarette and an illicit beer, watching the sun set the sky afire before it sank behind the Winds. She unbuckled Margaret from her booster seat. Margaret, usually a wriggling eel of a child, lay limp in her arms, flushed and spent from her outburst. Bub, after taking care of his business, stayed so close his nose bumped Lola's ankles, a cold wet shock every few seconds.

Lola stood some distance from the front door, in clear view should anyone choose to move aside the towels that blocked the living room window. Indian people didn't knock. The home's occupants would have heard her truck's approach, the slam of its door. Lola waited. A towel twitched. The door opened. Bub whined. A woman clung to the doorjamb as though fearful that if she let go, she'd slide to the floor, collapsing into exhaustion so complete that Margaret could pitch another tantrum without notice. Margaret's fury had fled, though. “Oh, Mommy,” she whispered.

Lola let go of Margaret's hand and hurried to the woman, taking her elbow. “I think you need to sit down,” she said. The woman leaned heavily on Lola. Patrick Sounding Sides's mother, probably.

“You're the whitelady from the store. Mona called. Said someone was coming.” Her voice came out in a rasp. Her hair hung rough and matted, as though she arose from too-short bouts of sleep without brushing it. The house was dark and ferociously hot. It smelled of rubbing alcohol and urine and unwashed humans, a combination Lola associated with third-world hospitals. She made out a love seat covered by a star quilt and, across the room, a single bed with a kitchen chair beside it. Another star quilt covered the unmoving form in the bed. Lola led the woman to the love seat and eased her onto it. Bub draped himself across the woman's feet. Margaret clambered up beside her and stroked the back of her hand, her gaze fixed on the woman's face. Lola's heart swelled with love and pride and tenderness. “Are you sick?” asked Margaret.

The woman looked at her with uncomprehending eyes.

“I think she's just worn out,” Lola said. “You stay here with her.” Lola went into the kitchen and found a glass and filled it with tap water, hoping that the water on the Wind River Reservation was safer than that on some of Montana's reservations, where contamination from all manner of causes—usually at the hands of outsiders—had forced some people to drink bottled water for years. A washcloth lay on the counter. Lola lifted it to her face and sniffed. It was clean. She ran cold water over it, wrung it out, and brought it and the water glass to the woman in the chair.

“I'm going to put a cold cloth on your head,” she said. The woman nodded. Lola lay the cloth on her forehead and held the glass to her lips. She sipped, and turned her head aside and closed her eyes.

“I thought someone was coming to help you.” Lola tried to keep the anger from her voice. The man in the bed likely needed round-the-clock home health care. Yet he'd been returned to a remote reservation and left to the ministrations of well-meaning but untrained amateurs. But the woman disabused her of that notion.

“We got help. All kinds of help. Both my sisters are nurses. They've been here every minute they're not at their jobs.”

“Then why—?” Lola didn't know how to finish the sentence. Why was the woman such a wreck? Was she a druggie, filching her son's medications? A loathsome scenario, but hardly unique. But no, if her sisters were nurses, they'd have been alert to that particular problem, and would have taken steps to fend it off.

The woman's whisper drifted toward her. “Can't sleep. Not when he was in the hospital, not since he's come home. Afraid to close my eyes. Afraid—” As though pulled by her own words, the woman put a hand on the love seat's arm, levered herself upward and tottered toward the chair by the bed. Lola and Margaret and Bub followed close. The woman put her ear to the mouth of the man in the bed. Relief bathed her face. Lola understood then. The woman was afraid that if she relaxed her vigilance long enough to get the sleep she so badly needed, her son would relax his tenuous hold on life, let it slide from his fingers and fly out the window before his mother could rise and snatch it back.

The man stirred. “Ma. You look like hell.”

Lola stepped back at the surprising strength in his voice. It seemed to flow directly into his mother's body. The woman straightened and ran a hand through her hair. She managed a smile. “Maybe I should bring you a mirror. You're no movie star yourself.”

His head moved slowly from side to side. “Maybe not. Who's this?”

Lola took a breath. She had no idea how long he'd be lucid. Or when his, or his mother's, patience would wear thin. And whether they, like everyone else, would show her the door the minute she stated her mission. But it had to be done.

“I'm Lola Wicks. This is my little girl, Margaret. I'm a newspaper reporter. I'm here to write about all the people from Thirty who went over to Afghanistan. Mostly, I'm writing about Mike St. Clair and how his death affected everybody else.”

A laugh rattled in Patrick's chest. It turned into a wracking cough. His mother slipped a hand beneath his shoulders and strained to raise his torso. Lola hurried to the other side of the bed to help her. Patrick's body, like his voice, was unexpectedly robust. Lola guessed he'd inflicted some damage on T-Squared until the two-against-one odds had finally triumphed. Patrick caught his breath and nodded. Lola and his mother eased him back onto the pillow.

“Why write about how it affected everybody else? Looks like it affected Mike most of all.”

“Yes. But nobody will talk to me about that on the record. They don't want the story to come out because of the shame to his grandfather.”