The Year She Left Us (19 page)

“This is the perfect start to my evening,” A.J. said. “I was headed to the library. I can't study in my room.”

She's a little too cheerful
, Charlie thought.
A little too sweet. I miss my sharp-tongued daughter.
And then, ashamed of herself, her eyes filled with tears. “I'm so sorry,” she whispered.

A.J. squeezed her hand. “No problem,” she said. “I haven't heard from Ari.”

Charlie clutched at the girl's hand. When Ari had vanished and Gran had insisted that she'd gone to Philadelphia, Charlie had called Aunt Rose.
No
, Aunt Rose had said,
Ari isn't here, and she hasn't been in touch.
In the panicky calls that had followed, after that frightening silence fell, Charlie had defended herself to Gran and Les and Robyn and A.J.:
I couldn't have stopped her. All her life she's wanted to go.
A.J., she remembered gratefully, had said she understood.

“I keep hoping she'll call me,” A.J. said. “I wasn't—” She took back her hand to pull the clip from her hair. “I'm mad at her, and mad at myself. We had that bad fight right before I left for school.”

“She was fighting with everybody.” Charlie's own hands felt as heavy as books in her lap. They had called all her friends, starting with the Whackadoodle girls, even WeiWei. No one had any idea where she'd gone. Three days later, Ari had left a message, followed by those phone calls that had gone so badly. Now, she sent only infrequent e-mails.

“I wish she'd answer my texts,” A.J. said.

“She's not using her phone.” Charlie tried to sit up straighter. Her back hurt, and every time she blinked, she felt the scrape of her eyelids. Three kids next to them were sunk deep in their devices. The girl at the counter called for more milk. Everywhere she looked, they were young, young, young. If only they could see themselves as she did: beautiful, blazing, fully alive in the moment.
You are present
, Charlie thought.
You are loved.

“She said not to come to Juneau or she'd disappear for good, right? So that's kind of like saying she'll come back on her own when she's ready.”

“Maybe,” said Charlie. “But when? When?” How many fathers and mothers had asked her the same question, standing outside courtrooms or weeping in Charlie's office? She found herself crying again. A.J. looked embarrassed.

She gathered herself. She smiled at A.J.

“Are you having a good semester?”

“I love it,” A.J. said. “So . . .” She reached down and stuck her laptop onto the table. “I wanted to show you this,” she said, clicking and tapping on the keyboard. “It's kind of rough, so give yourself a moment.”

On the screen was a photograph of an open hand, palm up. A left hand, Charlie saw. In the palm of the hand was a small black-and-white photo of a young Chinese boy wearing a billed cap. The little finger of the hand was missing.
Severed
, she thought. There was a huge empty space where the finger should have been. The owner of the hand might have snapped the picture himself.

“We saw this photograph when we were in Kunming,” A.J. said, “the day after our orphanage visit. A man we met in a café tried to sell us a copy. He came up to our table and sat down and started talking to Ari. He went straight to her, almost as if he knew her. Ari freaked and started to get up, but he asked her to sit down and she did. He showed her this picture and then he showed it to me. He said it was antigovernment. Ari started asking him questions, and then somebody in the café asked the man what he was doing talking to us, and the man got scared away.”

“This same picture?”

Yes, A.J. said. The hand belonged to an artist. Ari had looked it up.

“She wanted to know more. Who the artist was, what the picture meant. She couldn't find out much, but the picture really disturbed her. He made another photograph, too, of his same hand holding a picture of his mother. One article she found claimed that he'd cut off the finger himself. He ordered a taxi to wait at his door and told the driver that if he didn't come out in five minutes, to go in and get him. He used a butcher knife to cut off his little finger. Then the driver took him to the hospital.

“Ari said it was like a Greek myth. Prometheus or Alcestis. A sacrifice to the gods.”

“Is he okay?” Charlie asked.

“The photograph became important. I should have shown it to you before. I'm really sorry.”

“I've been stupid,” Charlie said. “But—” She looked away and down.

“You knew it wasn't an accident.”

“I didn't know. But part of me—” She stopped, not sure that she could explain. She remembered what the doctor had said about the cleanness of the cut. It was terrible to think that Ari had done that to herself. Other parents, were Ari their daughter, would summon the doctors and therapists and peer support and healers in order to cure the patient. Charlie, the old Charlie, would have rushed to fix her, too; nobody had put more faith in the experts than she had as a new and nervous mother. But what if Ari didn't want to be cured that way? “Don't just do something, stand there,” was a piece of advice that her old Legal Aid boss, Marcus, had liked to say when he caught her running in circles. Charlie put her head in her hands. She had drained her teacup, but her mouth felt dry as dirt.

She looked up and saw A.J.'s worried expression. “Don't tell Les,” Charlie said. “Don't tell your mother.” She didn't want them thinking that Ari was somehow crazy.

“No, I won't,” A.J. said. “I haven't.” They touched hands again.

“What will you do?” A.J. asked.

Charlie shook her head. “I'm not sure,” she said. “I think I have to wait.”

A.J. nodded. “That will be hard.”

“I've done it before,” Charlie said. Sixteen months she had waited after her adoption paperwork was in. Sixteen months for word of her baby, every day an IV drip. Later, she had posted comforting messages to other anxious, awaiting parents: if she'd been matched with a baby sooner, she wouldn't have gotten Ari.

“When she gets home,” A.J. said bravely, “we'll have a Gotcha Day party.”

“When she gets home, we'll do that.”

A
week later, Reverend Stanley left her a message. He sounded jolly again. They'd been unable to find Joseph's glove at the ballpark. He was sending her a new glove, signed by some of the players. “You don't need to thank me. I take care of my friends.”

CHAPTER 20

ARI

I
was endowed by Who Knows with a lousy sense of direction, but I got pretty good at finding my way around Juneau. I started taking the bus to the UAS campus instead of catching a ride with Peg so that she and Steve would think of me more as a lodger than a leech. Free-spirited, not freeloading, that's how I wanted them to see me. Connor and Shawna, the couple who owned the Statehood Café, loaned me a bicycle, a single-speed with colored streamers. I preferred walking the steep and slippery roads. I shortened my way with staircases—they were metal, like fire escapes planted into the hillsides; my boots made them ring like a clanging gate.

Steve was determined that Noah and I should meet. It was as if his talking to me about the misty past, speaking about Aaron and conjuring him in the kitchen, had opened a need in him that wouldn't let Steve rest.

“Let me introduce you,” Steve asked me soon after his unwelcome revelation. “We'll have him over for dinner. Peg and you can pick him up on campus. It's been a while since we've seen him.”

“I don't know,” I said.

“Why not?” Steve said. “I'll bet he'd like a home-cooked meal. You need to meet some young people. He can show you around.”

“Let me think about it.” I had buried the photograph of Aaron in my duffel. I knew that nothing good could possibly come of meeting his son, Noah. At best, it would be awkward as hell. At worst, Steve would tell him my whole sappy story. Poor little orphan, who had yearned so for a father that she had come all the way to Alaska, chasing a wild goose. I saw it through the eyes of a skeptical stranger: my grand romantic gesture ending with a whimper. Even if Noah was nice to me, I didn't want his understanding. Compassion, I was convinced, was the first step toward pity.

“Don't be shy,” Steve said. I thought of the face that A.J. would have made at Steve calling me shy. “You're a good excuse to get us all together. Peg understands. You let me know when you're ready.”

A few days later, he brought up the subject again. The morning was cold and cloudy, and Peg and I were in the mudroom, cleaning. We had piled all the boots and hiking poles and Poppy's dog toys on a tarp in the front yard, and Peg was attacking the mudroom floor with a mop. I moved the bucket for her as she worked. Steve came to the doorway. He had called Noah, he said, and told him I was visiting and that he wanted to get us together.

“Good for you,” Peg said warmly. “I hope it went okay.”

“I think so,” Steve said. He had music in his voice, as though the day had turned sunny. “I told him you were Charlie's daughter. He knows about Charlie,” he said.

“Is he coming for dinner?” Peg asked.

The smile slipped. “I invited him, but he said he's really busy with classes.”

“I'll ask him again if I see him on campus,” Peg said.

They both looked at me. I hoisted the bucket of dirty water and walked it outside to the gutter.

T
he next week, Steve came into the Statehood to talk to Connor. They were on the organizing committee for the annual January Dance-Off, a benefit that raised money for local causes. Connor was half Steve's age; he and Shawna had a three-year-old towhead named Caleb, but with his thick beard and barrel chest, Connor looked like Steve's younger brother. Connor took him to the back office, and when they were done, Steve came over to greet me. He glanced around the room and broke into a smile.

“I see you two have met,” he said. He gestured to a guy sitting alone by the window. I had served him tea and a toasted bagel and had asked him about the map he had spread on the table. It was a plan of downtown Juneau from 1970, he'd explained. He was writing a paper for a class in city development. When I had passed by a second time to bring him a dish of honey, he hadn't looked up from the map.

“Noah,” Steve called. He went straight to the guy's table, beckoning me to follow. “This is Ari,” he said, sweeping me in. “Noah Streeter. Ari Kong.” He smiled wide. “I told you Juneau was a small-town kind of place.”

Noah and I looked at each other, then he quickly looked away. I mumbled hello; he jerked his head in a nod. He had a brush of dark hair that stood up from his high forehead, and he wore black-rimmed glasses. On his face was a tight expression. Aaron in the photograph had looked tall and rangy; I couldn't tell if that was true of Noah, but with his face turned slightly away, I saw that he had the long planes of Aaron's narrow face and his wide, thin mouth.

“This is great,” Steve said, “just great. Listen, come up to the house with Ari and me for dinner.”

Noah said no, as I hoped, but Steve wouldn't be refused. He told Connor he was kidnapping me ten minutes early and insisted that Noah join us. He paid Noah's bill and shoved a big tip into my hand. “I'll bring her back tomorrow,” he called to Connor as we left. He practically pushed us up the hill to get us into the house.

“I'll let Peg know,” he said, and disappeared up the staircase. We stood there awkwardly. I didn't invite Noah to take a seat. He dropped his backpack with a thud and shrugged out of his parka.

“This wasn't my idea,” he said.

“Or mine,” I retorted.

“I didn't know that was you.”

“Really?” I said. “You didn't assume that the one Chinese girl waitressing in Juneau was Charlotte Kong's wayward daughter?”

He blanched at that, so I knew the possibility had occurred to him. That was why he had buried his head in his map.

“Your mom made things really hard for my mom,” he said.

I opened my mouth to protest, but Peg and Steve came downstairs and bustled us into the kitchen. Steve opened a bottle of wine while Peg started dinner.

“None for me,” Noah said. He was tall, like his father, with long, knobby-knuckled fingers. His Adam's apple moved like a walnut under his skin. He held himself so stiffly that a single finger poke in the chest could have knocked him over. In the living room lamplight, his hair had looked reddish; under the kitchen lights, it flattened back to brown. His high forehead and arched brows gave him an inquisitive look, but he wasn't talking.

“Ari?” Steve said, pouring a glass of red wine. I took it from him and sipped, aware that Noah was watching.

“You sure you don't want some?” I asked, extending my glass.

“Can I help?” he said to Peg. “I can't stay long. I've got a paper due tomorrow.”

“W
ell, that went shitty,” Steve said. We were cleaning up. Peg was driving Noah back to his room on campus.

“What did you expect?”

“You didn't help.” Noah and I hadn't said more than ten words to each other.

“He was an ass. He told me that my mom and I made things really hard for his mother and him.”

“He said that?” Steve shook his head. “I'm sorry.” He poured the last of the wine into his glass. Peg had had a glass, but he and I had pretty much killed the bottle. I dried the last pot and set it on the stove. I wasn't sure if he wanted my company or not. Poppy wandered into the kitchen and lay down with a deep sigh. Steve didn't move to take her out, so I reached down to scratch her silky ears.

“When he was growing up,” Steve said, “I stayed in touch with him as much as Wendy would let me. We e-mailed, and Peg and I saw him at least twice a year, when we passed through Seattle. I called him on his birthday, and he called me on mine. I really worked on him to get him to come to UAS. I told him how much his father had liked it here, and that Peg and I would be his second family. I even offered to help pay for school, though Wendy's parents gave him the money. That's how he was able to come over Wendy's objection.”

“Did he live with you?” I asked. I wondered if he had inhabited my basement room before me. Poppy, I had noticed, had greeted him like an old friend.

“No, he lived in the dorms, but he came over a lot. We talked about his dad; I showed him some of the places where I'd taken Aaron. Spring of his freshman year, we hiked the Perseverance Trail together. We talked about making it a yearly thing. But then he stopped coming. He was busy with school and into his friends and all that. But something had changed. He never said what. It was like all of a sudden he didn't want to talk any more about his father and why he was gone.”

I felt a flicker in my gut when he said that. I knew that swing from one feeling to another. Steve shuffled to a cupboard and reached high for a bottle of brandy. He fumbled for his wineglass and almost dropped it. I brought him a clean glass and also a glass of water.

“Aaron's death was an accident,” I said. “You said yourself that Alaska's a dangerous place. Noah must know that.”

“It's true,” he said. He sat down heavily and poured himself a brandy. “Everyone who comes here takes their chances. Aaron made a mistake, same as I did.” I sat down beside him. Poppy lifted her head with a question, but seeing us at the table, she settled back down again.

“Will you tell me how it happened?” I asked, hoping I was guessing right that he needed to tell the story.

He hesitated and slumped forward. I could see the top of his head. He lowered his red reading glasses from the top of his head to his nose, as if he were getting ready to read to me from some official report. He'd probably relived it a million times in his head.

“It was April fifth,” he said, “and we were stupid. Some years it's okay to hike the trail that early; other years, it's dangerous. I wasn't a complete idiot—I checked the avalanche report. I knew the trail was clear, at least up to the second bridge, because my buddy Debra had run it a few days before and said it was fine, no problem. But it froze again in between, and I didn't account for that. Aaron was leaving soon to go see Wendy or maybe your mother—he hadn't made up his mind. It was the last chance for us to spend some time together before he left. I wanted the hike to happen; I had things I wanted to say. I thought he needed me to hit him upside the head, to get him to make up his mind about what he was going to do and to stop lying to his family and to Charlie.” He paused to drink. Poppy's snores and the tick of the cooling oven were the only sounds in the room.

“It was a beautiful day, clear and cold. The sun was out when we started. We went up Basin Road to the trailhead and right away spotted a black bear, which got Aaron excited. The bear wasn't interested in us, but I told Aaron to slow down and keep a lookout. There wasn't much snow on the ground, just patches on the high sides of the trail and up on the mountains. The trail was wet, but the walking was pretty easy. After we got less than a mile up the trail, Aaron wanted to pick up the pace. He was always impatient. He always had a better plan. He said let's run the thing and reward ourselves after with a beer. I said I couldn't keep up with him running, and I was only there to keep his damn ass company, so he'd better stick with me. I wanted to watch for snow slumps, and I didn't want Aaron taking a wrong turn without me.

“I asked him what his plans were, and he had the class not to pretend he didn't know immediately what I was talking about. He said he didn't know. He didn't have a fucking clue as to what he was going to do. He loved Charlie, and he wanted to be with her; but he had a wife and a son, and what kind of father would he be if he left his three-year-old kid? A lousy father, I said, and then we got into it. He said he was thinking, What if he told Charlie about Noah, wouldn't she be fine with it? They could raise the two of you together, Noah and Ari, brother and sister. Noah would live with Wendy some of the time; other times, he'd stay with Aaron and Charlie. I said he was fooling himself to think that's what Charlie would want. ‘She just got her kid,' I told him. ‘That's complicated enough. She's not going to jump up and down with joy that you're bringing her another.'

“He got mad when I said that. ‘You don't know Charlie. She loves everybody. She's a natural-born mother. If I explain the situation to her, she'll understand.'

“I told him he had his head up his ass, where it'd been for the past year. Had he ever stopped to think about why he hadn't told Charlie about Noah? Something inside was holding him back. Some part of him that knew it wasn't right for him to abandon one kid for another, the same part that was telling him to come clean with Charlie. You better be ready, I said. You better be ready for her to dump you because that's what any grown-up would do. And he gave me a funny look and said I didn't know Charlie, and then he took off, running up the trail.

“By then, we had climbed to the part of the trail that runs along a shelf and hooks around a sharp curve. The path was really narrow after we passed the overlook because there'd been a dirt slide at some point, blocking part of the trail. This was April, so the waterfalls across the ravine were out-of-control gorgeous. There's a drop-off on the outer edge of the trail that goes straight down to the bottom. The cloud cover had come in and the sun had gone away, and it'd gotten a lot colder. I could see him running. He was moving really fast. He was a bony guy, tall like Noah; his legs were pumping and his feet flying. He had lightweight boots on that didn't slow him down. I glanced up, worried all of a sudden that the morning sun might have loosened a chute above us. Then Aaron hit a patch of ice and he went down and slid. It happened so fast he didn't even shout. He fell on his butt, right on top of an ice slick, and kept on going three hundred feet to the bottom.”

I was looking past the kitchen into the dark house. The night felt unnaturally still. I had heard the front door open, but Peg had gone straight upstairs. Maybe she'd heard him talking and was tired of the story. Or maybe she trusted me to sit and listen. Steve took a harsh breath. He lifted his glass and drank.

“It took us two days to retrieve his body. That whole time, we were frantic to contact Wendy. She was traveling in Germany. Noah was with her parents. By the time we reached her, Aaron had been dead for three days. Wendy cratered. She screamed at me on the phone to get him into the ground, but I couldn't find anyone to do it. Finally, I found a guy out in Skagway, a retired rabbi, and our friend Pete flew him into Juneau. We buried Aaron at sundown.” He looked at me at last. “I don't visit his grave,” he said. “Noah does, but I can't bear it.”