North Fork (21 page)

It all happened in an instant. The shock was far worse than the night she left. There was no time to speculate and adjust, to imagine and let it settle. I mean there she was, looking at me. M-80's and rockets exploded in the background, adding noise to our confusion because I don't look like myself and she looked more like me than I do. It took me a moment, and I could easily have choked on the cracker. Instead, I reached up and touched her face with the back of my hand and felt that it was real and warm. I don't remember chewing and swallowing what was in my mouth, but I must have done it because I didn't spit it out, and I was able to say, “You're not dead?”

I really wasn't sure that what I was seeing was real.

“Natalie?”

“Oh Jesus. Kristen. It really is you.”

And it was. That's when I learned what people mean when they say they were so surprised they nearly peed their pants. I didn't do it, but now I understand how you can get thrown so off balance, you can lose control. What I did was hug her. And while I was doing it, I cried, really hard, and so did she. We were in the doorway with the door open, crying away. I pulled her into the living room and pushed the door closed.

 Finally I blubbered out, “We thought you were dead, but you're really here.”

“The letter. Didn't you get the letter?” she said

“What letter?”

“Oh shit. Oh Jesus. Everyone thinks I'm dead? This is really bad.”

“They think Corey killed you.”

“You were supposed to think I was in Hawaii. I gave this lady a letter to send from there, so that's where they'd look. Oh Jesus, Natalie, I'm sorry. What happened to Corey?”

So I told her everything, about Corey being held in Juvie and how he was out now. Kristen was really upset and wanted to call him right away. I thought she was going to fall apart, like clinically, where we would need to call for real help, but there is definitely something different about her now. She surprised me by pulling herself together so fast. She was strong. I was able to talk her into waiting. As much as I hate Corey, what happened to him is really bad and can't be fixed in an instant with a phone call.

So she settled down, and I was able to tell her about meeting Brad the night she left, and how they searched the drainage ditch beside the lane down by Arlington where he told me about his day. And I told her about me and Brad's mom. Then she told me about changing her look and dressing up like me and getting from the mall to the ferry and working as a waitress, and about meeting that creep and him stalking her and her being brave.

When Brad called, I had to tell him that Kristen was back, but I said her parents didn't even know yet so he couldn't tell a soul, and he was cool about it. Then Trish came home, and when she got over being stunned, we told her a short version of Kristen's story, and she said it was like we were trying to trade lives, which made us laugh. We needed a reason to laugh, because getting Kristen (or Amy. She showed me the birth certificate) through the next part of coming back to life in the Valley was going to be stressful at best.

Trish told her she should think each step through and not do anything that would cause more damage. She knew how much of a shock Kristen's not being dead was to me, and how much adjustment it took even with her sitting in the same room with us
where we could actually touch her. We thought it might be better to wait and go see Corey when she could talk to him face to face, or maybe she should just write him. Sometimes emotions can be worked out better on paper. Writing it out can give both people a chance to think more clearly.

I didn't envy Kristen a bit when it came to facing her mom and Sterling. She met it head on. I saw it in her eyes. I watched her find that calm you get when you know you're against the wall and there's nowhere to go. I've been there a few times, and I had to feel some pride for her, going from having all that stuff, the car, the nice house, a free ride to college, to knowing enough about running on empty to keep her head.

“I can't undo it,” she said. “So now I have to try and make the best of it. Fix as much as I can. I'll tell Bonnie tonight, and then I'll have to tell the cops. This isn't going to be fun, but all I can do is tell the truth and find a way to make the best of it.”

She was right. She was sounding like me, and I didn't envy her situation. I was used to being the strong one. Maybe I was a little hurt, too, to learn that there was a part of her buried so deep inside her that even her best friend, me, didn't know it was there, and that she could do something so huge without trusting me enough to say a word.

When someone you thought was dead comes back to life, at first you're glad they're alive, and then you have to forgive them. But the forgiveness might not last when you find out that all of that pain and grief you suffered, thinking they were dead, was because they simply decided to run away. I believed Kristen about the letter from Hawaii. She believed she had let us know she wasn't dead, and she sent the letter to me and not to her parents, but since it never came, the pain for all of us was as real as it would have been if she had actually been murdered or killed, even if she hadn't intended to make us suffer.

Believing she was dead had really hurt me, and it must
have hurt her mom even more. When I remember the pain of imagining her being raped and murdered, helpless and suffering, and acknowledge how ashamed I feel now for blaming Corey, I won't pretend I'm not angry. But the combination of that pain and the happiness I feel that she is alive will sort itself out. I will forgive her, even though I don't completely understand why she did it. I know she learned something important, and when she came back, she came here first. I know it will eventually make sense.

I told her that I have my license now and I offered her a ride home in Trish's Granada. She thanked me, but asked if she could have a little time alone in my room to collect herself first. I watched a Seinfeld rerun on TV with Trish until she was ready. It's weird how life can seem totally normal, and in an instant everything is different. Then, before you know it, you're back watching TV and it seems like nothing has changed, even though it has.

When she's ready, we go out to the Granada. I drop her off up the street from her house. She thinks it will be easier if they don't know right away that she went to my house first.

The letter is probably stuck in the crease of a mailbag in the corner of a post office somewhere. It made me feel awful, learning that everyone believes I'm dead. I think Trudy's friend would have mailed it. It's like that part in Romeo and Juliet when that priest guy is supposed to deliver a letter to Romeo telling him about Juliet faking her death. At least none of us are dead yet.

Natalie looks so different; for a moment I thought I was in the wrong house. I scared her too. Her hand on my cheek... It was one of those moments I'll never forget. By itself, the emotion of seeing her would have been enough, even too much. But what if Corey had killed himself? What if he's thinking about it right now? Everyone thinks he's a murderer and it's my fault, and I need to tell him what happened and how sorry I am. And, I still have to do the one thing I've been dreading most. Maybe it's good that I'm in that zone people talk about, like I'm so numb I'm sort of disconnected from what's happening around me, though not completely.

After I was cried out and took control of my panic and the feeling of helplessness, and accepted that I can't escape what I have to do, I decided that Natalie's right. This is already such a mess, I need to try not to make it worse. I need to do this one step at a time, and do each step as well as I can. I need to see Corey, to be able to touch him, to let him touch me if he needs to.

It's still light, probably about eight-thirty, but feels earlier because of its being close to the summer solstice. So, up Bonnie's driveway I go, one foot in front of the other. I don't feel like I'm
going home, and that's kind of a relief because if I did, I would also have to feel wrong for leaving. The Mercedes isn't here. What if they're not home? I wonder if the key is still hidden under the potted plant on the deck. What if I have to wait? Should I go in, or go back to Natalie's? If I go inside and fall asleep, and they come home and find me, it will be worse than facing them at the door. What if they're gone for the holiday and don't come home until tomorrow night?

I'm on the porch now. The house is dark. The porch light is off, a sign that they're not away for the weekend. They leave it on when they're gone. I push the button and hear the bell chime its annoying little tune. It's quiet. I wait. Then I hear the creaking sounds of movement behind the door. It opens.

Bonnie looks like she's been sleeping. She does that, falls asleep in her recliner downstairs in front of the TV. Our eyes meet. I feel the shock as she registers that it's me. Her eyes break from mine and she turns aside. She lets out a wail, an animal sound that would have cut straight through me even if I didn't know I was the one who caused it.

It brings up the image of the cement bathtub/coffin from Emily's poem. The sound that comes from Bonnie is the way you'd feel if the ice water was gushing from everywhere and you were too helpless and burning-cold-frozen to cry out, except you'd have to because you couldn't bear it any other way. It's the wail you would let out because the pain is overwhelming and you know there's no fixing it or getting away from it, and the only relief from it is in releasing the anguish. It's a horrible sound and I hope I never hear it again.

She bends over like her stomach has cramped, or her heart, and she needs to catch her breath or is going to throw up. My eyes well up immediately. I feel helpless and responsible and I'm crying hard again. All I can think to do is put my arm over her shoulder and say, “I'm sorry,” because I'm sorry for both of us,
separately and together.

I hold on tight with my arm and don't let go until she pulls herself together enough to face me, and I hug her until she finally hugs me back and I realize that the valves go both ways, whether you're paying attention or not, and that from this moment on I can't be a kid anymore about the cold water I let my valves release.

“They had divers looking for your body in the river. Where have you been? Why?”

So here it is. My big chance to explain. Sterling, if he's here, isn't showing himself. For this moment, she's all mine and I don't know where to start, so I dig into my pack that has somehow gotten from my back to the floor of the porch, and come up with the birth certificate. I hand it to her. “Who am I? Kristen or Amy? I'll tell you where I've been when I know who I am.” I say it matter-of-factly, trying not to be challenging or insolent. She looks at it only long enough to recognize it, then says, “Oh my God! How did you get this?”

“I was borrowing some earrings. It was under the jewelry box. I didn't go looking for it.”

She's crying. She takes my hand and leads me to the kitchen where she takes down two wine glasses and pours the expensive red wine she drinks, a full glass for herself and half a glass for me. We sit silently at the table for a long time.

She finally says, “I'm not very good at this so it will be hard for me. I'm glad Sterling isn't here. He had work in Seattle today that's keeping him late. He'll be home in the morning. Amy was your sister.”

“I have a sister? Why didn't you tell me?”

“I guess it was easier to keep it buried. It's a hard memory. I gave you her middle name after she died.”

“So I really am Kristen? Is my last name Mackenzie or Nichols? Am I Canadian or American?”

“Technically, you're a Mackenzie. Sterling never legally adopted you. But I've been with him since before you started school and your having a different name would have required a lot of explanation I didn't want to give, so I had it changed when you were still small. You have dual citizenship. Your father was Canadian, but you were born in Seattle.”

“Is my father alive?”

“No.”

“How did he die?” I locked in on her eyes. I could tell she didn't want to answer. So I pleaded, “I need to know, Bonnie.” The “Bonnie,” just slipped out. “I have to know who I am.”

“Bonnie?”

“Yes. Bonnie. It doesn't feel right to call you Mom. I've been thinking of you as Bonnie for years. The most important thing I learned from going away, and the reason I came back, is that pretending doesn't work. It makes you crazy, and I'm not going to pretend anymore. I don't want you to either, at least not with me.”

She doesn't say anything, but just looks at me, like maybe I am a ghost after all, or she's having a bad dream.

“Do you want to know why I left?”

She is quiet, but she's listening.

“I left because leaving wasn't permanent. I walked around all the time feeling like making that sound you just made. My whole life has been a lie for years, and I just couldn't do it anymore. I hate Sterling. He's a greedy hypocrite. I hate church. God doesn't go there. School's okay. At least some of it is about important things, but for me it isn't about the high-paying career everyone says is so important. It's about knowing the truth. And I want to know the truth about my father.

“I wrote you a letter to let you know I wasn't dead, but it didn't get here and I'm sorry for letting you think I was dead. I left because when you leave, you can come back. I didn't commit
suicide. I went away to see if I could live on my own, and if not living the lie I had to live in order to stay in this house would make me like living. I didn't starve, and I didn't cut myself once while I was gone. It wasn't all fun. Some of it was scary, but I learned I could make it on my own. Because I was a runaway, I was still living a lie, a different lie, so I came back. I'm here and I'm through pretending, and I'm not afraid to leave again if that's what I have to do.”