Drowning Is Inevitable (8 page)

“Did I get it all?” Jamie asked. He turned his face from left to right. I took the wet wipe from his hand and wiped at a spot next to his ear.

“Now you did.”

He grabbed another one and started wiping at his arms.

Maggie cranked up the truck, jammed it into drive, and sped off. She flipped through the radio stations, relaxing as Janis Joplin started up from the speakers, crooning about the pieces of her heart.

We got off the Trace and cut across Mississippi before hooking a right and coming back down through Kentwood, Roseland, and Amite. Max slept solidly. At Tickfaw we took a left, wanting to avoid the bigger town of Hammond. We went through French Settlement twice, as Maggie often came to a crossroads, shrugged, and took a right. She drove like there was no concern for gas money, and the needle slowly made its way down to empty.

Max woke up after a few hours. He reached into the front seat, hooking me under my arms and pulling me into the backseat. It took my breath away. He always took my breath away. He reached for my hand. I didn't know why at first, but it was an inspection; he was making sure all the blood was gone.

He traced the scars on my palm as he spoke. “I love you,” he said.

My stomach flipped, and I didn't know if it was from what he said or his soft touch. He didn't wait for me to say it back. He'd stopped doing that.

We sat for a while in comfortable silence, then Maggie, who couldn't stand quiet for too long, thought it would be a good time to play one of her favorite games. She asked a question, and you had to answer with the first thing that came to your mind.

“No thinking, just speaking,” she said. “Max, what's your favorite color?”

“Black.”

“President?”

“Woodrow Wilson.”

“Band?”

“The Beatles.”

She nodded, seemingly pleased with that answer.

Max smirked and added, “Justin Bieber's cool, too.”

Maggie swerved and almost ran the truck off the road.

Max laughed, making me do the same. Then Maggie started laughing, and even Jamie chuckled. I caught his eye, and it felt so good for two seconds, but then his face changed, seeming to say that laughing was wrong the day after you stabbed your dad, and we promptly stopped laughing.

Max got in a few questions of his own.

“Have you always hated living in a small town?”

“No, but it seems like it got smaller as I got older.”

“Is that why you wanted to go to New York?” Max asked.

She nodded.

“You're not scared of anything,” he said.

Maggie smiled instead of answering.

“How did you get your black eye?” I asked Max.

He didn't answer. The questions stopped. My hands kept going to my stomach, trying to keep it quiet. Maggie noticed.

“Grab my purse,” she said to Jamie. With one hand on the steering wheel, she opened the purse, revealing an assortment of candy bars and fruit. Without explaining, she divvied up the loot. I got a peach and a Snickers bar. I held the peach gingerly.

“Did you buy this stuff at that gas station?” I asked.

“Um, that's where I got it.” She smiled, proud of herself. “We gotta eat.”

I was hungry enough to be proud of her, too. Maybe this was why Maggie wasn't worried about gas; maybe we were going to steal that, too. I wondered how that would work. I thought this must have been what Deputy Daniel meant when he visited our class in fifth grade to preach against the life of crime. It was the best peach I ever ate.

We drove on, one town bleeding into the next. It was well into the night when we got to Maurepas, and it was no time before she parked the truck on the shore of the lake. It was the only vehicle in sight. Without saying anything Maggie stepped out of the truck and peeled off her clothes, making her way toward the water. This was normal for Maggie. She splashed in the water. Jamie stepped out of the truck, mumbled something about relieving himself, and walked toward the woods, leaving Max and me alone in the truck.

It was quiet for a long minute. “I got in a fight with Lyle outside of Magnolia's last night,” he said.

“Why?”

“It's stupid.”

“Was it about me? Did he say something?”

“It doesn't matter.” Max reached up and touched the corner of his bruised eye. “He only got one in. It really wasn't his fault. I'd gotten into it with my dad earlier. I was looking for a fight.”

“What did you and your dad fight about?”

“He thinks I'm pissing away my future. He said I needed to stop dicking around and take life seriously. Whatever the hell that means. I told him I was trying to be good, to make up for what I did. He said I had to try harder, that my behavior wasn't good for my future career. I said some things, some below-the-belt things. So did he. And then I tore out of there. I got to Magnolia's and Lyle asked where you were. That's all he did, but I didn't like how he said your name, and I was pissed you weren't with me. I sort of lost it and lit into him. I'm pretty sure I would've been arrested for assault if you hadn't called.”

I crawled into his lap and kissed the side of his bruised eye.

“What am I going to do with you?” I whispered.

He shrugged.

“What am I going to do with you?” he whispered back, pushing the hair behind my ear. “You look like you got in your own fight.” He ran his fingers across the scratches on my legs, then turned my head so he could get a better look at the one on my face. His lips rested on my temple, and I closed my eyes and wished I could go back two days, to when one of my biggest problems was that he loved me too much.

He leaned down to get something from under the seat and pulled out a bottle. This was a new nightly custom, since the wreck. He never drank from it, just held it, testing himself.

“You want some?” he asked. “Just because I stopped drinking, doesn't mean you have to.”

He unscrewed the lid and lifted the bottle to my lips. I knew he needed me to take the drink as much as I needed him not to. We balanced each other out, a screwed-up yin and yang. I opened my mouth, and he poured a little in. Some dribbled down my chin, and his mouth went to it.

“That doesn't count,” he said.

I took the bottle from him, and his fingers tightened on my body. I brought it to my mouth and took a long gulp. I felt his eyes on me, and my stomach muscles tightened in response. The burn from the whiskey trailed down my throat and settled in my belly. I gave the bottle to him. My body immediately hated me. I wiped the sweat from my neck, and my eyes teared. Maybe I should've stopped after the first sip.

“Come on. I know that wasn't your first whiskey drink,” he laughed, low and rough.

“I'm out of practice.”

“You want another?”

I shook my head.

I watched him for a while, but he seemed to be looking at some faraway place. He rubbed his thumb over the bottle's label. It was worn from this. My stomach knotted, because I was about to make the next move in the push-pull game I played with Max every day, but I needed his comfort, his strength. I tamped down the guilt and pressed my face into his neck and breathed him in. He smelled of St. Francisville, if someone can smell like a town. It was a mixture of sun, river, and boy. It was a pleasant smell, and I pressed my lips to him.

This had been one of our nightly customs. I'd missed it.

“I'm sorry,” I said.
For so much.

He squeezed me closer to his body.

“I shouldn't have called you. Getting arrested for assault would've been a lot better than this.”

“Don't say that. Don't apologize. I'm glad you called. If y'all had left town without me, I don't know what I would've done.”

My fingers played with his hair where it curled up at his collar.

“You were with him when he stabbed his dad? You were in the room?” he asked.

“I was in the room,” I said.

“I'm sorry you had to see that. I didn't think his dad messed with him.”

“He didn't usually. He never had before.”

“What made last night different?”

“I don't know,” I said. “It—it wasn't just the knife.”

“What do you mean?”

“It wasn't just the knife that hurt him,” I said.

“Yeah, you said they fought.”

“They did.”

“What else, then?” he asked.

I swallowed the knot in my throat. I couldn't say it.

Max exhaled loudly. “You always protect him.”

He didn't know I was protecting myself.

He shifted in the seat, then slid me off his lap. “Fine, you don't have to talk about it.” He was mad.

I excused myself from the truck and walked to the water's edge. Maggie was spending more time underwater than not, her head bobbing up every now and then. Watching her, I felt a sudden tightness in my gut and realized that Jamie still hadn't come out of the woods. The distance between our bodies was expanding, making the invisible string pull so tight it was painful. I didn't know what would happen if it broke. I faced the woods, ready to charge when he appeared at the edge of the trees, looking down, careful not to trip on the underbrush. At the sight of him, my breath began its cycle again, and I exhaled.

Jamie walked over to me and dropped down to the water. He reached his hands in and washed them in the lake, getting off what the wet wipes had missed. From this angle I noticed he had some blood on the back of his neck, too, and my stomach lurched.

I threw up on the bank, and Jamie stood. I quickly wiped my mouth. “I'm okay, it's not—I had some whiskey in the truck.” I wanted to reassure him that it wasn't him making me sick.

“Are you okay?”

“I will be.” But it felt like a lie.

The look on his face said he didn't believe me. He walked to the truck and came back with his bloody shirt. Max came to stand next to us. He looked at the vomit but didn't comment on it.

“I don't think it's a good idea to leave this in the truck,” Jamie said. “I think we should burn it.”

Max pulled a lighter out of his pocket and handed it to him. Jamie tried to light it, but his hands were shaking too badly. I grabbed it from him. I wanted to be the one who burned it, to get rid of this thing that scared Jamie. It took three flicks before it lit. I looked to the water to see that Maggie had stopped swimming and stood watching. The shirt took longer to burn than I thought, its light bright in the black night. I wondered if we should burn my shorts, too, and then I thought about Jamie's pants, and the bottom of my shoes, the seams in the backseat of Max's truck, and that spot on Jamie's neck. We couldn't burn everything, so just the shirt burned, until it was nothing but ash floating in Lake Maurepas.

A moment of silence later, and Maggie ducked under the water and Jamie went back to his refuge in the backseat of the truck. Max walked around to the truck bed and opened his toolbox. He pulled out a sleeping bag and mosquito spray.

“I'm going to sleep out here,” he said.

From his tone, it seemed I wasn't invited to join him.

“I guess I'll stay in the truck.”

He shrugged.

It wouldn't be comfortable, but it would do. Sometime later Maggie emerged from the lake, and we tried to go to sleep. We each took a side and propped ourselves up against the doors, our legs tangling on the seat. What I wouldn't have given for a pillow. Jamie was already asleep. I was exhausted, but each time I closed my eyes I saw Tom Benton's face. Jamie whimpered, and I wondered what he was seeing in his dreams.

Maggie started talking about her dad in a low voice, telling me about a mural they were working on together. She spoke about the colors and brushstrokes like she was telling me a story, and I listened like it was one. I knew she was talking about him and art because doing so comforted her.

“I can't wait to see how it turns out.” Then she stopped abruptly. I guess she realized it might not turn out. She closed her eyes and feigned sleep.

The only person who comforted me was my grandmother. I craved her, but I knew if she saw me now, she'd only be glad to see Lillian. At least my dad, with all of his faults, was probably missing me at the moment. I was supposed to meet him for lunch tomorrow. We had monthly meetings at the diner. It had been my idea. We met the first Saturday of every month, our very own support group. I'd dubbed us “Lillian's Left Behinds.” I always felt like my dad didn't want to meet but thought he should, since he wasn't raising me.

We'd been meeting at the diner since I was little, but that didn't mean it was easy to talk to him. Any talk with my dad was awkward unless we talked about Lillian. Then he'd loosen up. He couldn't help but smile when he talked about her. Sometimes we'd play twenty questions.

“Where did you take her on your first date?” I asked him one time.

“We took the ferry to New Roads to see a band. We almost didn't make the last ferry home. I found out how fast my truck would go.”

“Did you kiss her?”

He'd smiled. “Yeah.”

“How'd you like her hair best?”

“I liked it when she wore it down.” He'd motioned to me. “Your hair is just like hers, exactly, down to that little wave.” He reached across the table like he was going to touch me. He thought better of it, though, and dropped his hand.

“Did you guys ever fight?”

“Yes.”

“About what?”

“We fought about everything—how to get out of this town, what to do on a Friday night. Your mother was a fighter.”

“Why did you stay together if you were always fighting?”

“When Lillian was good, she made everything around her good. I can't explain it. I'd do anything to be around her.”

“What's your favorite memory of her?” I asked him another time.

“Our senior year we went to the Gulf instead of on the senior trip. It was just the two of us. Your mom loved the beach. She wore a bikini. She didn't care that she was almost nine months pregnant with you. I didn't, either. We only had a couple of days, because I had to get back to the garage. We stayed on the beach from sunup to sundown. Your mom was almost always moving, but as the sun set she stopped and stayed still. Watching her watch the sun, she was so pretty it hurt.”