The Fragile World (8 page)

olivia

At 3:15 p.m., Mrs. Silva and I got into her little red Volkswagen Beetle and navigated our way through Sacramento. I tried very hard not to grab on to the door handle every time we turned, and it seemed that she was trying very hard not to appear annoyed with the situation—angling the A/C vent directly toward me, turning the radio station to something fast and upbeat. It was a relief to see Dad’s SUV in the driveway, to feel for a second that everything might be normal. We parked on the street, and Mrs. Silva followed a few feet behind me. I was shaking as I let myself in the front door, not sure what I would find inside.

Mr. Meyers met me in the entryway, stooping to avoid our overhead light fixture. “Hey, Olivia. I think your dad is going to be fine, but just in case, I’m going to leave this with you, okay?” He passed me a slip of paper with a phone number and his name printed in block letters: BILL MEYERS—HOME.

I folded the paper and pushed it deep into a pocket. It was uncomfortable and strange enough to have my school principal in our home—I couldn’t imagine calling him at his.

“You’re all right now, Curt?” Mr. Meyers asked, and from the couch Dad said, “You bet, Bill.”

“Dad?” I let my backpack slide to the floor and studied him. He looked normal—not unfocused like he’d looked coming down from the cafeteria roof, and not grayish like he’d looked only this morning on our way to school. He actually looked
good,
healthy and smiling, as though he’d been home all afternoon doing shots of wheatgrass infused with extra vitamin C.

He patted the couch. “Come here, Liv.”

I sank down next to him, leaning my head automatically into his shoulder, something I hadn’t done in a long time. My head must have grown, because it wasn’t the comfortable fit I used to remember.

“Hey...hey. Don’t cry.”

I was about to protest that I wasn’t crying, that I was freaked out since my father had been sitting on the roof of the cafeteria, thank you very much, but I wasn’t going to cry about it. And then I realized that my shoulders were heaving, and my breath was coming out funny, and that Dad, as usual, was right.

Outside, a car started; Mrs. Silva and Mr. Meyers had left. This made me a little worried, and then it worried me that I was worried—because being with Dad should have been the least worrisome thing in the world.

I pulled away and looked at him. “What happened?”

“Really, it was nothing. I just felt like I needed to take a little break.” There was something I didn’t trust about his face. It was exactly the way I’d look if someone had a gun to my back and was telling me to smile or else.

“In the middle of the school day. On the cafeteria roof.”

Dad pulled me close again. “Everything’s fine now, Liv. There’s something I want to tell you.”

I groaned. Whatever followed this statement wasn’t going to be good. Cue Daniel telling me he was going to college halfway across the country, but we would talk every week. Cue Dad announcing that the guy responsible for Daniel’s death had worked out a plea bargain. Cue Mom telling me she had something to talk about, and then moving to Omaha. I braced myself as if I were preparing for a slap to the face or a punch to the gut. Maybe it was worse than I thought—maybe Dad had had a stroke or been diagnosed with brain cancer or any one of the awful diseases you could find on medical websites.

But what he said was, “Love.”

It took me a minute, and then I realized he was playing this game we’d made up when I was just a kid and had trouble falling asleep at night. It went like this: The first person said the word “love,” and the second person said a word that started with “e” like “elephant,” and the first person said a word that started with “t”, and so on and so on, with the last letter of one word spawning the first letter of the next. It used to make me feel happy and silly, and then somehow in the middle of thinking of the next word, I’d fall asleep. Now it seemed ridiculous. Shouldn’t we be doing something other than playing games?

“Come on, Liv,” Dad prompted. “Love.”

I shook my head. “Empty.”

He gave me a hesitant smile. “Yield.”

“I really don’t feel like playing a game, Dad.”

“One more. Yield.”

I sighed. “Danger.”

“Real,” he said, touching his chest and then holding his hand out to me, as if we were practicing sign language together.

“Dad,”
I groaned. “What’s going on?”

“Okay,” he said. “Okay, I know this is all a little weird. But I’m completely serious. What would you say to taking a little trip with your old man?”

I blinked. Earlier I thought he was about to take a header from the cafeteria roof. Now he wanted to take me on a trip. I chose my words carefully. “First, I would say that the phrase
old man
has always disturbed me for reasons I don’t fully understand. Then I would say that we’re almost out of milk, and if this little trip includes a stop at a grocery store, I’m all for it.”

Dad chuckled. “No, not to the grocery store. I mean a real trip. A voyage.”

Well, this was new. A
voyage?
“Does this involve a boat?” I demanded, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. I was going to have to call Mom for sure. There were probably five hundred water-related entries in my Fear Journals. “You know I’m afraid of boats and sharks and currents and rogue waves and—”

“No boats, I promise. Voyage is the wrong word, then. I’m talking about a road trip. You, me and the open road.” He paced to the windows, whirled around, paced back. It surprised me how young he looked, how goofy.
Like his old self,
I thought, and then out of nowhere:
Like when Daniel was alive.
But he looked a bit manic, too.

“A road trip? Dad, are you sure you’re okay? I’m serious. Do you need me to, um, be a supportive passenger while you drive yourself to the doctor or something?”

He laughed a bigger-than-genuine laugh that was not at all reassuring.

I can’t take this,
I thought. One member of my family was gone forever, another lived a few thousand miles away and now my last remaining family member was cracking up—on the cafeteria roof one minute, on the couch talking about a voyage the next. I had to call Mom. This was definitely more than I could handle by myself.

“Don’t you want to know where we’re going?”

I wasn’t sure
we
should be going anywhere, unless maybe it was to some kind of “hospital” for a little “rest.” But they would have to take me, too, because I wasn’t going to survive for a second on my own. “Okay,” I said, slowly, preparing to hear him suggest the wilds of Alaska or a hot spring in Arizona, the sort of place that couldn’t be found on a map. “Where are we going?”

His grin was so big it threatened to split his face in two. “We’re going to Reno, to Salt Lake City, to Cheyenne...and,
drumroll, please...
to Omaha.”

“Omaha? You mean, to Mom?” I tried to say it neutrally, to keep the emotion out of my voice. This was a surprise, and not an unwelcome one. Maybe Dad had come to the conclusion himself that he was cracking up. Maybe Mom and I could get him some professional help.

“Aren’t you excited?”

“Dad, talk to me. Did you just get fired?”

“Fired? No. Of course not.”

“So what were you and Mr. Meyers doing all afternoon?”

“Just talking, Liv. He helped me figure something out.”

“He helped you figure out that you need to go to Omaha,” I clarified.

“I know, it’s sudden. But look—I have an entire plan worked out. We’ll take a few days to get things situated around here, and then we’ll hit the road.”

I groaned. “Dad, seriously. We have another month of school.”

“That’s what Mr. Meyers and I figured out. I can take some sick leave—I’ve got more than enough to spare. And we’ll talk to your counselor about independent study for you, just to the end of the semester. Don’t worry.” Leaning down, he put a hand on my shoulder, and I felt his warmth burning through my sweatshirt.

And then I froze, imagining that conversation with Mr. Merrill. “Dad, there’s something—”

He stopped me. “I know all about your P.E. class, and it’s okay. We’ll get it all figured out.”

I sat back on the couch, about to cry for the zillionth time today. What in the world was going on? I was failing P.E. for the second time, and I wasn’t even going to get yelled at? “Dad, come on. Why are we going to Omaha?”

“Olivia, I just—I feel like it’s time.”

“Time for what? For us to be together again, you and me and Mom?”

“Of course.” He didn’t even blink.

He’s lying,
I knew instantly. Fantastic. My father was lying to me.

“Does Mom know about this?”

“Well. Not yet.”

I groaned. “And how long...?”

“Oh, four or five days, and then we’ll be there.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

But Dad was pretending not to hear me. When I stood and tried to move past him, he caught me in a big, spin-in-a-circle hug that felt phony, too. He felt like a different version of my dad than the one I’d been living with for the past few years, as if a stranger had bought a mask of Dad’s face and borrowed one of his polo shirts. When he put me down, he was red with excitement. “This is the right thing,” he whispered. “I know it.”

I didn’t believe that for a second.

But I would have been the shittiest daughter in the world to say so.

curtis

Olivia was sharp; I could feel her watching me that weekend, waiting for me to slip up, or trying to catch me off guard with her questions. But I’d made up my mind. This was the right thing, the best, the only thing. Kathleen and Olivia would be together, Saenz would be dead,and I would finally, finally have done right by Daniel.

“So, we’re seriously doing this?” Olivia asked me the next morning, after I called
The Sacramento Bee
to put our newspaper on hold.

“You’re not backing out, are you?” I asked.

She glared at me. “I don’t really see that as an option.”

I hauled down two suitcases from a shelf in the garage, where they had aged disgracefully since our disastrous trip to Coronado, acquiring a layer of dust and more than a few spiderwebs. It took a half hour of cleaning with damp cloths before Olivia would consider either suitcase as a viable option. Then she stood before her open closet doors, hands on her skinny hips.

I sighed. “What’s wrong now?”

“It’s impossible to pack without knowing exactly how long I’m going to be gone,” she announced.

I laughed. “Are you kidding me? I know exactly what you’re going to pack. Black pants, black shirts, black sweatshirts, black socks and black boots. Can’t be that difficult.” It was basically her uniform, as much as khaki pants and polo shirts were mine. I wasn’t sure when it had started, exactly, or where all the clothes had come from—but one morning at breakfast a couple of years ago, I realized that I was the parent of a teenage daughter who wore only black.

She glared at me. “But how many black shirts, exactly?”

“What does it matter? It’s not like there are no washing machines in Omaha.” It was better, I figured, to be vague than to tell an outright lie. Telling the truth was out of the question.

There were dozens of small details to figure out, and several major ones. It was almost thrilling to have a plan, to have a specific goal that was further than a day or two ahead, the way we’d been existing since Kathleen left. I had installed a massive whiteboard in the front entryway, and each night Olivia and I had crossed off our completed chores and added new ones.
Buy cereal, take the trash out, pay phone and cable, run sprinkler in backyard.
Now I was thinking beyond today, beyond this week.

I didn’t find a chance to break away until Sunday night. Olivia had insisted on coming along on all the errands I devised—an oil change, a trip to Target for a few travel necessities, a stop at the ATM. This wasn’t that unusual—Olivia didn’t typically like to be left at home, where she was convinced that all sorts of things could go wrong, like a burglar who assumed the house was empty if there wasn’t a car in the driveway, or a carbon monoxide leak that she couldn’t smell. So I had to wait until she started a load of laundry to say “Why don’t I just grab dinner?”

“Can’t you wait a bit? Twenty minutes?”

“Well, I was thinking In-and-Out. You know how that drive-thru line always takes forever.”

Olivia frowned. “I could stop the washer.”

“Don’t bother,” I said, grabbing my keys before she could jump into action. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

I did go to In-and-Out, and the line was wrapped around the restaurant and through the parking lot, so at least that wasn’t a lie. But while I waited, I made the phone call Olivia absolutely couldn’t overhear. “Pick up, pick up,” I pleaded. It was a long shot; it was Plan A, but there wasn’t a Plan B yet.

“Yeah?” The voice on the other end was suspicious.
One of those conspiracy nuts,
Kathleen had always said, back when we’d known him, back when Zach Gaffaney had lived a few blocks away and been married to Marcia, half of a couple we bumped into regularly over the years. Privately, I’d suspected that Kathleen was right.

“I’m looking for the Zach Gaffaney that used to live in Sacramento?”

“Who is this?”

“This is Curtis Kaufman. We used to be part of that neighborhood beautification group, painting over graffiti, that kind of thing.”

“Okay. I remember you.” There was a long pause. “I don’t live in Sacramento anymore, though. I’m not even married anymore. So I think—I’m probably not the guy you’re looking for.”

“No, don’t hang up.” I almost dropped the phone, my palm was so slick with sweat. “I remember how we used to have those talks about the government, about our rights—that kind of thing. You’re the guy I’m looking for.”

“How’d you get this number?” He seemed less suspicious than curious now. This was why I’d remembered Zach Gaffaney, why I’d thought of him almost immediately, when Bill Meyers was still talking to me about how he’d rediscovered his own purpose. I’d stopped listening—all that was required of me was a sporadic nod—and instead remembered a morning I’d spent pulling weeds at a neighborhood park with Zach Gaffaney, who had gone on and on about his gun collection, how he was prepared for just about anything—not just the threat of home invasion or small scale self-defense, but the inevitable failure of a government that was basically controlled by special interests and our streets being overrun by criminals because the government couldn’t afford to keep them locked up. I hadn’t taken him seriously, but Kathleen had. “
She
seems like such a normal person.
He’s
a walking time bomb,” she’d said, mimicking some of his rants as soon as we were home.

Now I told him, “I heard you were living in Winnemucca, working in a casino.” This was true—a few weeks ago, I’d bumped into Marcia at the grocery store, and we’d exchanged casual information about our exes. I’d told her about Kathleen going to Omaha, and she’d been sympathetic. “Oh, Zach?” She’d laughed. “That was all a million years ago. He’s back in Nevada, working at a dumpy casino, living in some shit-hole trailer with only his guns for company.” I didn’t tell this to Zach, nor did I mention that just about anyone was traceable on the internet.

“Okay,” he said again, guarded. “I’m listening.”

“Well, I need something, and I figure you could maybe help me out with that.”

“You need what, exactly?”

I’d rehearsed this, too, trying for the right balance of vagueness and specificity. Zach Gaffaney was probably the kind of guy who doubted everyone, who suspected the government had wiretapped his trailer.

So I told him: I was looking for some protection. I know I could find that through other means, but I’d become concerned about the way the government was prying into the lives of average citizens, people like Zach and me. What business was it of theirs how I spent my money, what I had in my home? Didn’t a person have a right to protect himself and his family?

“I hear you,” Zach said, relaxing. “You have an idea what you want?” He rattled off a short list of options, makes and models and prices, deciding I could be trusted. Truthfully, I wasn’t worried about the government at all—I was worried about keeping my plans secret from a very paranoid sixteen-year-old and her mother. And I had no intention of letting Robert Saenz live for an extra ten days during the mandatory wait period.

Obviously I wouldn’t be a natural with a gun, and I knew that I could very easily screw the whole thing up if I tried to go with something too advanced. But I’d spent the past two nights researching and was pretty clear on the basics. I told him I wanted a revolver, something snub-nosed—easy to conceal, easy to load and shoot, no serious kickback.

“It’s never going to get back to you,” I promised him.

Zach snorted. “It’s not going to be traceable.”

“Perfect,” I said.

There was a honk behind me, bringing me back to my present reality in the drive-thru line. I’d let a couple car lengths lapse and lurched forward to make up the difference.

Zach gave me the details, told me not to call again until I was ready, and we hung up. I kept his number in my contacts but deleted it from my outgoing calls, in case Olivia looked.

And then it was my turn to order. A voice crackled from the intercom, and I replied, “Two cheeseburgers, two fries, two Cokes.”

I was surprised how normal I sounded, and that the man staring back at me in the rearview mirror looked normal, too.