Found and Lost (27 page)

48

Around Clay, the world of night rasped and chirped and rustled. Cicadas, crickets, maybe a rabbit in the bushes beside the patio steps. He shifted against the hard Adirondack chair and leaned his head back. He'd sat here less than a week ago and listened to Khloe and Violet's sleepover chatter and thought of how he'd escaped danger. Escape, yeah. So he could dive back into it and drag his girls down with him and …
Stop it. You dragged them down and pulled them back up. Can't change it now, but you did something about it.

The sliding door whispered open, shut. He turned his head.

“She cried herself to sleep.” Natalia took the chair across from him and drew up her bare knees. She'd changed into a fresh shirt and khaki shorts. “She keeps asking me if Violet's okay.”

“Violet's fine.”

“I'm sure she is.” Natalia stretched her legs and met his eyes. That hadn't been sarcasm.

“You don't think I'm a monster for leaving her with those network people?”

Natalia shook her head, but her eyes strayed past the glow of the porch light. Tires squealed from miles away, and Clay's body tensed, waiting for a crash, but the night carried on without one. A tree frog trilled.

Nat's sigh seemed to push out into the dark and fade away. “She made a choice, Clay. Thinking it was the right one … doesn't make it the right one.”

He nodded.

“And Khloe will be fine, but it's hard to … to hate someone. And love them. At the same time.”

What was she saying? Clay's breath drew in too loudly. She had to hear it. She stood up, wandered to the wooden patio railing, leaned her elbows on it and faced the night. Her back shuddered.

Say something. She's waiting.
“I don't think Khloe noticed the lock.”

He was truly stupid.

But Natalia turned around. A headache dug a furrow across her eyebrows. Clay's hand twitched. He could rub the stress away. She'd always said so, all the way back to college.

“I'll, um, I'll buy a new doorknob and everything tomorrow, first thing. Should be able to handle that.”

“No pun intended?” A smile lifted her mouth.

Pun … right. The grin took over his face. He nearly stood up and gathered Nat to his chest. But the levity winged away a moment later. He had to talk to her, and he had no idea what he was going to say.

“Have you checked the news today?” Natalia said. Maybe she wasn't ready to talk, either.

Clay shook his head.

“Texas seceded.”

“They … what? Can they do that?”

“We'll find out, I guess. They've talked about it before, you know.”

“Right, but they were just being Texas. Protesting the erosion of the Constitution, maintaining their individuality among the states … It'll never be allowed.”

“Time will tell. But they're going to become a fugitive sanctuary, if they don't close their borders fast. They disbanded the Constabulary.”

No way it would last. The country was centuries past the idea of civil war, but somehow, the federal government would stop them.

“After this week, I have to admit, the end of the Constabulary might be a relief. But it'll never happen here.” Natalia looked over her shoulder, toward the front of the house. “I'm surprised all they did was force the lock. I expected crime-scene tape and ransacking, but … well, I can't even tell they moved anything.”

“Maybe they didn't.” But if they had … and then put it back … The shiver ran up and down his spine again as he pictured agents roving his house. “Maybe the lock's a message.”

“They're not the Mafia, Clay.”

Close enough sometimes. Making deals, agreeing to leave certain lawbreakers alone on certain conditions … Maybe he was crazy not to care that his front door wouldn't lock right now. Crazy to leave a chair shoved under the doorknob. But after the past five days, he couldn't trust a locked door any more than an unlocked one. He'd sleep in his own bed. Burglars and Constabulary agents and everyone else could go to oblivion.

“Anyway.” Natalia paced back to her chair and curled up. “I should be grateful, I guess. They could've done worse.”

A lightbulb, cobwebbed and flickering, came on in his brain. “You feel okay here? I mean, would you have wanted to stay somewhere else?”

“Oh, it's fine.” But then she stared at him.

“What?”

“You just asked … how I feel.”

Had he? “I … well, sure, I ask that … sometimes. About some things.”

“You don't, Clay.”

He squirmed, stood up, paced to the edge of the patio and wanted to keep going. No. No, he didn't want that. He wanted to live the rest of their lives without giving his wife another reason to write a note and walk out the door. But getting that message to his feet, his legs, the weight in his chest—none of them wanted to listen.

“I think I'll go to bed,” he said.

Back indoors. Walls to keep him where he needed—wanted—to be.

“Clay?”

Her voice barely reached his back. Soft. Seeking. His pulse hammered. What did she need? What if he couldn't give it, didn't have it to give?

“I … I feel like maybe … something's … different? About you?”

Turn around.
You undeserving dung heap of a husband, turn around.
Clay's body fought his brain every inch of the way, and his heart—did he have one? Which side was it taking?

“What happened? How did you manage to … Why did they let us all go?”

“I …” He faced her at last. Her eyes glimmered under the porch light. A moth fluttered past the back of her chair. “I gave them something they wanted … more than us.”

“Something?”

“I did what I had to, Nat. I finally did what you—what we all—needed me to do, and that's all I'm saying about it.”

A slow nod, but she kept studying him. “Is this problem … could this … come back … in the future?”

That wasn't a general question. “I signed a statement.”

Her eyebrows lifted with surprise. And hope.

“It's over. I recanted.”

“Were you lying?”

He was pitiful, because after all this, he still didn't know. Which version of God was real, which version of Jesus had walked the earth, which one had heard his prayers in the beginning, which one had recently developed deafness. Well, one thing he did know.
Whichever one You are, You didn't deliver us. I did.

“No,” he said.

Natalia stared at him, a bright-haired pixie statue. “Thank God.”

“Look, Nat, I … I don't know … I know I'm … I might not ever be the person you need, and I don't know—”

“Shut up.” Tears filled her eyes, magnified their green glimmer. “Please shut up about that and talk to me.”

“About what?”

“I feel—I feel like I can't get anywhere near you.”

A quaking started somewhere, maybe in his feet, maybe in his chest. Feelings. Curse them. Not now. Too much to process with his Nat standing here. She crossed the patio, and the porch light danced through her hair as she walked directly under its glow. She wrapped his hand in both of hers and tugged him toward the closest chair. His pulse drummed in his head.

Natalia pushed at his shoulder until he sank into the chair. She leaned down and kissed him, and a sweet caution flavored her lips. She pulled back before he could return the kiss and settled on his lap.

“Clay?”

Right, go ahead, say it.
I feel fill-in-the-blank.
“Nat, I …”

Why did she suddenly want his feelings out in the open? Even when they were dating, the early weeks of breathless discovery, of kisses like fireworks and hand brushes like lightning strikes, Natalia had never asked this of him. Never once asked how he felt. About anything. As it should be.

“Please say something, anything,” she said.

She tilted her head onto his shoulder and rested her hand on his chest. She breathed against him. A tear dripped onto his T-shirt. She huddled, the same soft, beautiful thing that learned to shield herself, but she offered herself again now. Right now. If he maintained the silence, he would be throwing away everything she gave.

This was what he'd asked for. Another chance.

But not this kind of chance. Not the kind that asked for pieces of his heart. Natalia lifted her head. Her hand curled into his shirt, then let go.

Silence was safe, but so was Nat.

Natalia shifted her feet to the porch, and her tears reflected the light. “I guess I should … Clay?”

He caged her in his arm. Pulled her close.

“What is it?”

Just give me a minute.

“Clay, what—?”

“I had a sister.” Clay trembled. Of all the words to burst out of him.

Natalia pushed back, sat up. “What are you talking about?”

“In Ohio. When I was a kid.”

“I don't understand. You've never talked about her. Your parents have never talked about her.”

“She drowned. At a park. Like Clinton River. We were insect hunting and she saw the stepping stones and we didn't know, we didn't know the water was so fast. She fell. In. And I couldn't get—I couldn't—I couldn't get to her—”

“Shh.”

Her arms enfolded him. He hid his face against her neck. His tears filled every silence, every space.

“Shh, Clay.”

“They resuscitated her, but she never woke up. She was comatose until … for weeks until … I was at school when Dad and Mom decided. I came home and she … They never let me in the room. I saw her through the door. And then I never saw her again.”

“I'm sorry.”

“They never said that. They never said anything at all. It was like they never had any child but me. We moved and their new friends didn't know her and they never told anyone about her. So I couldn't, either. She's locked inside me, and I want to believe she's locked inside them too, but I've never seen her in their eyes. I don't know if they even remember their daughter.”

“You could have told me. When we first met, you could have talked about her right then.”

“I knew I could. But I couldn't.” He tried to stop the rest of the tears, but they poured. Those few drips in the car with Khloe—they should have warned him more were coming. He never cried halfway. But on his bike, tears dried too fast to count. He'd never known how many he had.

“Have you ever cried for her before?” Natalia whispered into his hair.

He nodded against her neck. “Sometimes I have to, so … so I go off by myself for a while.”

“Clay, is this what you do? Not just for your sister, but … is this what you do?”

“Cry excessively? No, I—I don't—” He gulped air. “Not normally.”

“I mean, when … when Khloe was sick. You weren't running away from it. You were running to it. To a place you could let it out.”

What? Did he do that?

Natalia rocked him. “Listen to me, we're going to figure this out. You are my husband. I want … I want to be that place you run to.”

Clay sat up, shifted, pulled her into his arms instead. Her forehead was warm under his lips. He should wipe the tears, but she'd already seen them, and it was all right.

“Nat, I know I've got … things. To prove.”

Natalia kissed him, deep and long, salty and sweet. “You've proved a lot in the last day or two.”

His heart stung, but then it eased. It had been so long since he felt … clean. Open. Ready for whatever might come next. He kissed his wife and saw the unfurling flag of the future. Khloe growing up with a clean record, going to the best art school in the country. Him and Natalia growing together, slowly at first, then twining so close they forgot how to cut each other, holding each other into old age until death at last parted them. And what could he ever need again besides these things?

“I was thinking the three of us should go up to Mackinac next weekend,” he said.

Natalia smiled. “Reclaiming us. Let's do it.”

“Hilary.” He stood up and scooped Nat into his arms. “My sister's name was Hilary.”

“Do you have any pictures?”

“No.”

“Do your parents?”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

“Let's ask for one.”

Maybe he could. He dropped a kiss on Nat's forehead. “She liked waffles with whipped cream. She wanted to be a veterinarian.”

Natalia's hand curled around his neck and tugged. The kiss tasted like honey and a vow.

49

Lee didn't speak during the drive other than to give Violet directions. Violet didn't speak either, only nodded that she understood where to turn next. Her heart pounded for the first few miles because she had an actual passenger, someone she was responsible not to kill with her driving. But by the time they reached Lee's, she could relax enough to lift a hand off the steering wheel when the air vent blew a hair in her eyes.

Lee let them both into the house and dropped her keys on the kitchen counter. Without a glance back, she disappeared into the bedroom at the end of the hall.

At least going to sleep would be good for her. It was after midnight by now. But Violet was wide awake, and she should try to be available in case Lee needed something or had a nightmare.
Because you were so helpful last time that happened.

Lee hadn't restricted her to a single room or anything, so Violet gave herself a tour. The house was small but not cramped, surprisingly … well, cozy. It was the only word Violet could think of. She'd anticipated white walls and carpets, chrome and glass. All-around Spartan spotlessness. But the living room was painted in warm browns. The guestroom was Lee's favorite color—cool, ocean-inspired teal—and the comforter was patterned with seashells. Her kitchen was actually yellow. Not obnoxiously cheery, though. A calm, soft yellow that didn't bring to mind lemons or bananas or canaries but rather the golden top of a perfectly baked loaf of bread. The rug in front of the refrigerator was patterned with sunflowers.

Lee lived here?

The living room bookshelves would probably take Violet a lifetime to get through, assuming she had any desire to get through them. She'd seen some of the literary classics on Clay's bookshelves, read a few of them in school—who would own
Moby-Dick
by choice?—but the nonfiction titles stymied her. She read through them for the heck of it, though she had no idea what most of them were about.

The Two Treatises of Government. The Wealth of Nations. Reflections on the Revolution in France. The Federalist Papers.

Okay, she did recognize
The Constitution of the United States of America.
Wait, had Lee actually read it?

She wandered back to the classics. Lee had them arranged by topic or something. Her edition of
The Glass Menagerie
was the same as Clay's.

Violet tugged it from the shelf, cradled it in both hands, and knelt on the plush carpet. She traced the title letters and let the ache in her chest break off inside, float away, an island that used to be connected to the land. Her wrist felt suddenly naked.

What were they doing right now? Had they met up with Natalia yet?

“God?” she whispered. “Um, do You want me to go back to them? Khloe—will she forgive me someday?”

A couple tears fell onto the book's cover. Violet swiped them off.

She had no idea what she was doing here, why in the world Lee had agreed to this. Violet didn't know Lee. But the way Belinda tried so hard to help in all the wrong ways, and the way Lee shrank further inside herself with Belinda's every attempt … someone had to rescue them from each other.

Still, this hardly felt like her first step in truly serving God. She lay back on the carpet and stared up at the bookshelves.

Economic Harmonies. On the Origin of Species. Democracy in America.

“I really don't get it, God. I don't get what I can possibly do for You here. Am I supposed to tell Lee about You? Am I supposed to leave Marcus's Bible for her when I go … wherever?”

She shut her eyes, opened them to the books again.
The Civil War.
Survival in Auschwitz.
Sleep crowded in, wrapped around her without the aid of a pillow or blanket or even an actual bed. Yeah, she was going to fall asleep right here on the floor … with
The Glass Menagerie
propped on her chest.

 

Sunlight warmed Violet's arm and neck and the side of her face. She turned her head and squinted. Definitely morning. She stretched, and her arms grazed something too rough to be a sheet. Carpet. She sat up too fast, and the bookshelves reminded her. She was at Lee's house.

Violet stood and padded to the kitchen. Clatter hadn't wakened her because Lee was like a ghost in her own house. Her hair was mussed from towel-drying, and she wore the same green scrubs from the night Wren had the baby. Her gaze flicked off Violet without pause, and she left the kitchen for the bathroom. The hair dryer came on, the first sound of the morning.

Violet stood just outside the closed door. “Lee? Anything I can do? I could make breakfast.”

“No.”

“Did you eat?”

No response.

“I'll make something light, then.”

Still no response, so Violet returned to the kitchen and scrounged the fridge. Eggs, check. Oh, and a loaf of wheat bread. She could make toast. She wasn't turning into Belinda, really, but Lee hadn't eaten since she'd thrown up. By now, she had to be starving.

Violet threw four slices into the toaster and shoved down the levers. The frying pans hid in a cabinet under the counter, three different sizes. Mom only had one frying pan.

Mom. Violet opened the place inside her where her parents had always been, a place that was better off locked. She waited for tears to come, the way they had for the Hansens, but … No. Nothing. So Mom had called the con-cops on her. Well, she shouldn't have brought a Bible home.

The toast popped up while she was trying to scramble the eggs. See, she truly wasn't turning into Belinda. Just look at her pitiful version of eggs. She snatched up the hot toast, threw it on a plate, and slathered on butter.

The dryer shut off, and the bathroom door opened down the hall. Violet shut the burner off and found two plates for the eggs.

“You did make breakfast.”

Violet jumped. Couldn't the woman shuffle a little or something? She turned to face Lee. “I was hungry, that's all. I left the toast plain, with butter.”

“No, thank you.”

Violet grabbed herself a fork. “Okay, whatever.”

Lee left the kitchen again and came back wearing her tennis shoes, keys in one hand and a small, matte black purse over her arm. “I'll be home around eight tonight to return you to the Vitales.”

Violet nodded and took another bite of eggs. They might look too brown, but they tasted okay with salt.

“Thank you for driving me.”

“No problem.”

Lee nodded, stood still for a moment, then crossed the kitchen to the plate of toast. She picked up one slice and took a petite bite.

“Promise I didn't burn it.” Violet tried to smile, but Lee's eyes didn't look much more alive than they had last night.

She took another bite and nodded. “Thank you.” Keys in one hand, toast in the other, her footsteps faded toward the back door.

So maybe Violet was a little helpful. Not that Lee needed help exactly, but … The footsteps rushed back. Stopped in the bathroom.

Lee threw up. Over and over, though the first time would've gotten rid of a few bites of toast. When the sounds stopped, Violet approached the door, which Lee hadn't bothered to close. She sat on the rug, knees up, back against the wall. One hand still clutched the uneaten half of the toast. She glanced toward Violet, then down, and noticed her crushing grip on the bread. She pushed it away, across the tile.

“Lee, can I—?”

“No.”

“I know you don't talk about yourself, but maybe it would—”

“No.”

Dear Jesus, she does need help. What do I do for her?

“I'll be late now.” Lee threw the toast into the toilet, flushed it, and brushed past Violet without touching her. The footsteps didn't return this time. The back door shut.

Violet sat on the bathroom rug and drew up her knees. She leaned her head back against the cabinet and tried to figure it all out. Why did God's plan feel so unsafe? So awful?

“Jesus, You didn't have to let all this happen. So why did You?”

No voice spoke to her, but His red letters talked about this. In the world, there was trouble. But He overcame all of it.

“How're You going to overcome this? He's dead, and Lee can't even eat. And I can't go back to Chuck and Belinda's house and leave her here with nobody, but she'll take me back anyway.”

Or maybe Violet could convince Lee to let her stay. If that was what God wanted.

“Please show me what to do, Jesus. And help me do it right.”