North Fork (22 page)

There's a long silence before she says, “I don't know if it was an accident or suicide, but your father died of a drug overdose. He changed when Amy died. You were about a year old when it happened. By then you girls slept in your own room, but hadn't been doing it for long. After your sister died, I was afraid something would happen to you and we put your crib in our room. At night you'd wake and cry because you weren't used to being without Amy. I was walking with you, singing to you just before I found him. I sang “Old Man River,” and “Hush, Little Baby,” because those were the songs whose words I knew.

“When I got you back to sleep, I went to the kitchen for a glass of water. He was on the couch. At first, I thought he was asleep and I went over to get him to go to bed. It was a weeknight and he had to work in the morning. He was a pipefitter and worked a lot of overtime. Except for our grief over Amy, I thought we had a good life. He made enough money so that I didn't have to work; I could stay home with you. We lived well and I had no suspicion of the drugs. Even then I tended to see only what I wanted to be true.

“I sensed something even before my foot bumped against the syringe on the carpet. His position was wrong. You couldn't be comfortable, sleeping like that. He was on his back, one arm draped over the back of the couch and one foot on the floor, but his back was too high up on the armrest. As I moved toward him, I saw the light from the street lamp outside reflecting off his eyes.
His mouth was open. Even as I was screaming at him, shaking him, trying to wake him up, I knew he was dead. But I couldn't accept it. Maybe I still haven't accepted it. Maybe I'm still mad at him for doing it.

“You would have liked him, or at least the part of him I knew and was in love with. We had a good life until your sister died. I know I was happy and I have to believe he was too, and that her death is what changed him. We were married right after I graduated from high school. He was older but only by three years, so he was twenty-one when I graduated. He had dual citizenship. His parents lived in Vancouver but had lived down here when he was born. Amy was born in Vancouver. We didn't have medical insurance and health care there is free.”

I watched Bonnie's face. As she told me how she met my father, it was more alive than I'd ever seen it. They met on the Fourth of July at Gasworks Park in Seattle, where they'd gone to watch the fireworks. Her friends were flirting with him and his buddies, but he picked her out to talk to. Tomorrow would be a kind of anniversary for them.

“How did Amy die?” I asked.

“A truck hit her. She was his angel. It should have been a normal day. I was cooking dinner and needed butter. There was a market nearby and he took her along. When they left, he had her on his shoulders, but she could get squirmy. On the way back he had groceries, and when he stopped to talk to a neighbor, he set her down. For a second, he wasn't watching. She saw a squirrel under a tree across the street and darted out between two cars just as the truck came around the corner. He couldn't forgive himself.”

“God, Mom, that's awful. Then he died and left you alone with me. I'm sorry.”

“So I'm your mom again?” There was a hint of bitterness in her voice.

“Well, I guess. I mean, I can sort of understand. I know I had another stepdad before. At least Sterling's predictable. He's a jerk, but you know he's not going to kill himself.”

“Sterling has been very good to us.”

“Wait until he finds out that I only ran away and I'm not dead, that I wasn't murdered. As soon as the shock wears off, he's not going to be nice to me.”

“He just has high expectations of people. He's not that bad.”

“So what was my other stepdad like?”

“At first he was nice, but he was a mistake. I think I was so hurt and scared that my judgment was bad. I didn't really love him, not like I loved your dad. I had never had a job and I was alone with a baby. He took care of us when I was feeling helpless.”

“Why'd you guys split up?”

“It's complicated. There were a lot of reasons. I don't really want to talk about it. I didn't think he was good for you, and I didn't love him.”

“Do you love Sterling?”

“I'm fond of him. He's taken good care of us.”

“What would make you leave him?”

“I'm not going to answer that. I thought you had a right to know about your father, so I told you. Maybe if I had told you sooner, we could have avoided all this. I'm sorry you don't like Sterling, but he is my husband. Thinking you'd been killed has been very hard on him, on both of us. This will be a big shock for him and I'm glad we had some time by ourselves first.

“Now I want to hear about you, where you went and how you lived. We also need to let the police know. They think that Corey boy killed you.”

So I told her about going to Victoria, about being a waitress, and about the letter that never arrived. I left out the part about Grant and being stalked. She did want to know whether I had boyfriends there, which I took to mean was I still a virgin, which,
strange as it may seem, I am. She knew about me going out to Corey's campsite on the river and told me about the blood they found on my sock there and finding my hair on his fleece, which made me feel responsible and horrible and I wanted to call him right away, but by then it was really late and I didn't.

Finally she said we should go to bed. She said we needed to call the police in the morning. I hugged her and said, “Good night, Mom. You've had enough hurt in your life. Maybe I sensed it all those years that I tried to be the perfect kid. I was afraid something awful would happen if I made the slightest slip-up, but something had to change. I'm sorry I caused you more pain.”

She hugged me back and said, “I should have told you a long time ago, but I tend to see what I want to, and your life seemed to be going so well. You're alive and you're back. That's the important thing. No one died. We'll get through this. I'm sorry too, Kristen. I'm glad I'm your mom again.”

My bedroom was exactly the way I had left it, stuffed animals and all. I shoved them all in a pile on the floor before I climbed into bed.

The noise that drew me back from my dark, dead-to-the-world, dreamless sleep was loud and sharp, like a cupboard door slamming or something being smacked down hard on a tabletop.

“It was completely selfish! That's what it was. She's a self-centered little tramp!”

It took a second to understand. I thought I was having a nightmare until I saw the stuffed animals on the floor and remembered that I was in my old room in Sterling's house, and Sterling was home.

“It doesn't matter why she did it! I don't care what she thought. There is simply no reason that could justify doing what she did. She put this whole valley through hell.”

Sterling's house is on a hillside overlooking Skagit Bay and Goat Island. It's a nice house. My room is on the lower floor and has a view. The window opens wide enough to climb through, but there is a screen on the outside. You can remove the screen by lifting up and pushing the bottom out. I had to be careful not to let it fall. I was glad I had brought my backpack into my room, and I dropped it to the ground first. Then I was out. I pulled the window shut and replaced the screen before I snuck around the side of the house and out to the street. I had also made the bed and put the stuffed animals back on it. Maybe it was my way of trying to change reality back into a nightmare I could wake up from.

I wanted my bike. I had to find Corey. I had a phone number Natalie gave me, but didn't have an address or a phone to make the call. He walked and hitched everywhere, or took the SKAT
bus. It was the morning of the Fourth of July, a little after eleven. I thought Sterling might have called the detective's cell phone, but if he knew I had left again, he might wait. He would be thinking about how it would look, and it might be embarrassing to tell them I had come home but was gone again, and they didn't know where I was.

If they came looking, it would be hard for me to hide. I didn't know where to go. If Trish was home, she would let me in even if Natalie was at work, but I didn't want to cause her trouble; Sterling and Bonnie would know to look there. The best thing was to go to the cops myself. I got out the bus schedule and saw that I could get a bus to Mount Vernon outside the Shelter Bay gate at 12:30. So that's where I headed. Then I thought that because it was a holiday, the office was probably closed. To get a cop, you'd have to call 911 or have someone's off-duty number. So I decided to use Trish's phone.

I made it outside the Shelter Bay gate just by walking down the side of the road like it was a normal day. There were people in their yards, and cars went by. Some kids from school drove past. They looked at me a little funny, but didn't stop. It felt weird to be back from the dead. When I was past the guard shack and near the corner of Natalie's street, I still had half an hour before the bus came. I figured if Trish wasn't home, I would come back.

Then I saw one of the reservation cop cars parked at the entrance to the village. They look like State Patrol cruisers, and sometimes they set up a trap there to catch speeders. Instead of going to Natalie's, I walked over to it. The window was open and the guy looked at me over his radar gun, which was pointed toward the bend where cars came after crossing the bridge. He seemed intent on what he was doing but nodded politely, like he expected me to ask for directions or something.

“I need to talk to you,” I said. That got him to really look at me.

“Okay. I'm listening.”

“My name is Kristen Nichols and I think everyone thinks I'm dead, but I'm not.”

The tribe's police station was just down the street, and he was apologetic about it, but made me ride in the caged-in back seat. He took my pack and put it in the trunk, but didn't frisk me. He asked if I had talked to my parents, and I told him I had and that my stepdad was pretty mad and was part of the reason I left in the first place, so I didn't feel comfortable staying there. The offices were empty and he had me sit down and wait while he called Bonnie. Then he called a sheriff's detective, the one whose card Bonnie had.

Bonnie came without Sterling. It's funny, but as soon as I heard Sterling's voice yelling earlier, she became Bonnie again in my head, instead of Mom. Eventually the detective showed up. It was a long afternoon. He seemed almost disappointed that I was back and wanted to know every detail about the night I went out to Corey's campsite, and the night I left and how I got from the car to the ferry dock, and why I left. I was as honest as I could be, but didn't rat out Natalie's neighbor. Bonnie was really supportive, which was a nice surprise. It helped make our talk last night feel real.

I told the detective I wanted to see Corey, that he was my friend. I needed to tell him I was sorry. I was insistent, but he said I should wait. He said seeing him right away wouldn't be a good idea, because he'd been through a lot and could be unstable. The detective said he would tell Corey I was back.

Finally, he said there could be charges brought against me, but they would have to review the case with the prosecutor's office. For now, since I was under eighteen, they would release me to my mom. It was absolutely imperative that she know where I was at all times. If I couldn't agree to that, I would have to go to the detention center.

I agreed and went home with her. She was quiet, but did say that Sterling had calmed down a little and was trying to make the best of it. I took that to mean that he had already figured out what the detective had told us. The newspapers and TV stations would find out soon that I was back and reporters would want to talk to us. Sterling knew it would be best for him if we looked like a family reconciling our problems, reaching for a happy ending, so publicly he would act as if that was true.

I would be a prisoner in my room, living out the reality that I thought was a nightmare when I woke up to it this morning. But there was one big difference. Bonnie was stepping out from behind Sterling, trying to be my mom, and I thought he'd do his best to stay away from me. I'll make that as easy for him as I can.

As soon as I can get alone with a telephone, I'm calling Corey.

My dad was watching TV, his bottomless evening drink in hand, when the phone rang. I was in my room listening to music. The phone doesn't ring all that much and I didn't even hear it. It's never for me. He brought it in, so I took off my headphones.

It was my mom. I was surprised to hear her voice. I hadn't seen her since that day she came to visit when I was in Juvie, so it was pretty awkward having her on the other end of the phone. After the hello, the only thing I could think to say was, “So why are you calling?'

“Corey, I feel like I haven't handled this very well. I believe you didn't do it. It's time to move on with our lives. Tristan keeps asking about you. She misses you. Since tomorrow is the Fourth of July, and Harold isn't here—he'll be gone for the rest of the week—I thought you could come over for dinner. We can barbeque a chicken and then the three of us can walk over the hill and watch the fireworks.”

Tristan is really cute and really smart. I think I pushed her out of my mind during all of this because it mattered to me what she thought, and I didn't want to know if she was angry with me. It felt good to hear that she'd been asking about me though, and I wondered what they'd told her. It's not her fault Harold is her dad any more than it's my fault he's my stepdad, or that my dad is the way he is.

“Do you really want to walk downtown with me?”

“Corey, I'm trying to say I'm sorry. Please come. I can pick you up tomorrow afternoon.”

So here I am. It's the first time I've been in this town since the police hauled me away the morning after Kristen disappeared. It feels surreal. I guess that's the right word. Kind of dreamy, like I'm stoned and not sure what to trust, only I'm not stoned, which makes it a little spooky. Everything looks the same. I don't know if you've ever lived in a small town, but here everyone knows everything about everyone else. In one way though, I think this place is unusual for a small town. Maybe because the reservation is so close, people have had to learn to accept difference. I mean people do things that, somewhere else, would make other people drive them away, but here they just keep on living their lives. But if they think you hurt someone, one of the family, I'm not sure they forgive so easily, so I was more than a little nervous.