Truest (11 page)

“It was fine.”

“The human thesaurus just described something as ‘
fine
'?”

“It was
curious
,” he amended. “Our childhood was buried in books. Mom and Dad let us stay up as late as we wanted so long as we were reading. In elementary school, we read our Shel Silverstein books so much that we could recite every poem. We both liked the same stuff—books with magic and disguises and kid geniuses and idiot parents. Then the gulf started to widen in fifth, maybe sixth, grade. By junior high, I was reading the classics and mountains of whichever poets my favorite teacher put in my hands, but Laurel started reading sci-fi.”

I loved the way he talked about books—I could tell that,
just like Gordon, Silas found them “good company.”

“Laurel read this philosophy book in eighth grade—somewhere around there—and afterward, she looked at me in that creepy way of hers and asked, ‘What if there is no God?'”

The brakes of the old pickup made obscene grinding noises at an intersection, and we both grimaced a little and glanced at Laurel, but she didn't wake up.

“And then sophomore year,” he continued, “she started to cry a lot. I mean, all the time. I didn't know what to do or how to help her. Then, the
next
year, she quit eating. I mean, she'd eat when Mom and Dad forced her. It wasn't really anorexia—like with a lot of dancers—it was more like just losing interest in food. So her stomach got really messed up—all the anxiety and her weird eating habits—so she missed a lot of school and did the rest of junior year, at home, online.”

We were entering Green Lake city limits now, driving in from the south. Silas slowed down as we drove through town, which was as quiet and still as a ghost town, the only din of noise and energy coming from the Mean Green Pub.

He drove past my house and toward his own. “You missed my street.”

“I want to drop Laurel off first.”

When we got to Heaton Ridge, it took a bit of rousing to wake Laurel, and she looked really confused when we did, but Silas convinced her to go inside and head straight to bed. “Got it?” he asked. “No Googling the movie.”

She used the garage code and went indoors, then Silas backed out of his driveway to take me home. “She'll be okay, right?” I asked.

“I hope so, West. She's on meds, and she has a new therapist here, but nothing seems to help. You can't reason with her; solipsism always wins. She just thinks you're an illusion, a projection of her own mind. So the good days I swallow like grace on a spoon.”

It was a lovely image. I wanted so much to say something useful.

Instead I said: “I'm staying with my cousins in the Cities this week.”

“That's right; I think you mentioned that. Monty and Mae?” He turned down Cedar, and in the distance, Whit's and Marcy's cars still sat in the church lot. I wondered what they thought of Silas and Laurel and of my sudden exit with them.

“Yup. I'll be back for the Fourth. Trudy will be here, remember? I'll introduce you!”

He smiled. “Deal.”

We pulled into my driveway. My parents had left the porch light on for me, and it glowed like a halo just above the front steps. It was nearly two a.m., nothing awake on Cedar Street but the cicadas.

“So, Elliot doesn't like me,” Silas said, suddenly changing topics as I unbuckled my seat belt, realizing for the first time that I had stayed in the middle seat, right beside Silas. His
familiar sandalwood smell—peppery and musky like scented lumber—mixed with the scent of freshly mown grass coming in through the open window. I thought of his knee pressing into mine tonight.

“Well,
durr
,” I said.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You acted like a crazy person tonight—were you
trying
to rile him up? Why get him pissed off over nothing?”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing,” I repeated emphatically. “
I
am dating
Elliot
”—I pointed to myself—“and you”—I poked his chest—“are dating
Beth.
Remember, your
gorgeous
little girlfriend in the short skirts?”

He looked thoughtfully at the spot where I had poked him. “Yeah,” he said.

“
Yeah?
” I said with incredulity. “You drive me crazy sometimes, you know that?”

“You know you're beautiful, don't you, West?”

It almost knocked the wind out of me. “
Me?
”

“
Durr
,” he said awkwardly to his steering wheel.

I grinned at his uncustomary discomfort. I went to open the passenger door but paused and turned back to him. “You drive me crazy.”

“You said that already.” He was grinning like a total goon. “Hey!” he said as if just remembering something. He reached beneath his seat and pulled out a small container. “Here.”

“What is it?”

“Cookies. Oatmeal chocolate chip. Maybe now you can find it in your heart to forgive me for crashing your date.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Depends on how good they are.”

“Oh, they're good.”

We looked at each other then while the pickup engine purred. “You drive me crazy,” I said again, quieter this time.

“You might have mentioned that before,” he said softly.

After a long pause, I said, “I have to go.” I opened the door and stepped out of the pickup. “Good night, Silas,” I said, closing the door behind me.

But through the open window he called after me, “‘Just fine' isn't how you should be kissed, West.” His smile had returned full force.

“Good
night
,” I said again, without turning around.

I didn't want him to see that my face matched his.

The nine a.m. church service came much too early the morning after the drive-in. I had missed a couple of late-night calls from Elliot, but I knew he'd be sleeping now.

In the front row, I sat between my siblings, mouthing the words to “Amazing Grace.” The Hart family was conspicuously absent from the row behind us, setting off an alarm in my stomach. Even the Mayhews were gone.

Dad's message was about God's faithfulness, but I couldn't help calling it into question as my mind focused on what must be happening at the old Griggs house that morning. I slipped away after the service and called Silas as I walked across the parking lot toward our house.

“Hey, where were you this morning?” I asked.

“Laurel's freaking out.”

“Great,” I said dryly.

“She was asleep when I got home, but when I woke up this morning, I found her in the den on her laptop. She'd been on the computer for
four straight hours
, looking up hypnotism and prayer healers and studying forums that discussed the movie. And searching on eBay for that doll with the red dress too. She looked like a total zombie.”

“That doesn't sound good.”

“No. And bastards on the movie forums were discussing this quantum mechanics
bullshit
that's got her wondering if the universe is always splitting and there are all these different realities.” He paused, really upset. “Then she started crying—like, really crying. Bent-over-on-the-floor crying. Mom came in and tried to help. I was standing over them, watching it all go down like I was looking into a hamster cage. I am just so sick of this shit. West—” I heard something in the background, as if one of his parents had just poked their head into his room. “I've gotta go,” he said. “I'll call you later, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, wishing I were at his house, if not for Laurel then at least for Silas.

I sat on the steps alone, expecting my family to be home soon. I wondered about the methods Laurel had researched in the early-morning hours. Hypnotism. Would something like that really work? I didn't know anything about it. It sounded kinda hokey to me, but what if it could honestly make Laurel forget about ideas that were preying on her? Then again, even if
it did make her forget, it would be up to the rest of us to keep her from ever rediscovering, wouldn't it? Silas and I couldn't even protect her from a drive-in movie last night; there was no way we could keep her safe. The answer was to somehow unlock Laurel's mind.

It all seemed so impossible.

I pictured her on the floor of their den, huddled over as if she had stomach cramps while her mother tried to calm her down and her brother stared at the whole scene in frozen horror. The return of the banshee. I felt terrible for Silas; I could go the rest of my life without hearing those screams again.

“Whatcha doing, kiddo?” Mom asked as she and my siblings climbed the front steps.

“Just thinking,” I said. “Is Dad on his way?” I wondered how much Glen and Teresa had told him about Laurel's condition.

“Oh, he's off again, heading over to the hospital with the Talcotts. Miriam Talcott—you know, Tony and Janie's grandma?—isn't expected to make it much longer, and Dan and Monica asked your dad to come to the hospital and be with the family.”

If Mrs. Talcott died today, we virtually wouldn't see Dad for the next week or so—first, there'd be the “last rites” or whatever it was that he did alongside deathbeds; then, comforting the family; then, planning and executing the funeral; and after that, a head-splitting migraine that would leave him cooped up in my parents' bedroom for twenty-four hours. After all that, he'd
be behind on planning his sermon, so he'd practically live in the office all of Saturday just to get ready for Sunday morning. “This blows,” I said, and then, “I know, I know. Don't say ‘blows.'”

“Your dad's a good man,” Mom said, parroting the rest of the town. “Come inside, all right? Lunch is in the Crock-Pot.”

“Five minutes,” I promised.

It was a month into summer and I'd hardly seen my dad.

Was it my fault? Sure, I'd been busy—but I thought of all the times I had sought him out, stopped by his office, asked Mom where he was or when he'd come home, and I realized that, no,
he
was the busy one.

It hadn't been this way when I was younger. When Libby was a baby, and before Shea was born, my dad used to come into my bedroom every night, read to me, and listen to me say my prayers, which usually amounted to saying “God bless” everyone I knew even a tiny bit.

There was this one book I especially loved because of its tiny pictures, and Dad read it using different voices.
Wink & Wallace Do the Waltz
—about a girl named Wink, who was hosting a dance, and about her father Sir Wallace, who had to fight through forest and fence and fire and flood to get to the party to dance with his daughter.

Mom thought it would give me nightmares, reading about disastrous obstructions before bed, but it never did—I loved the way Sir Wallace was so brave and so persistent to get to his daughter. When Dad started calling me Wink, I was quietly
thrilled. It always made me think
my
dad would do anything to get to me. A couple of times he even let me get out of bed and stand on his feet, and together we'd “waltz” around the room till Mom would whisper up the stairs, “Kerry! It's
way
past her bedtime!”

So I'd snuggle under the covers, and he'd rub my back while he told me stories. Stories about his childhood and the trouble that he and his best friend Tommy D would get in to, about the animals that Grandpa Paul had on the farm where Dad grew up, about how he'd met Mom, about their first dates. He stayed until I fell asleep.

And even after Shea was born, we still reserved Saturday nights for our family. We'd play Mouse Trap or Cootie or watch a movie, make pizza or stovetop popcorn. I loved those nights, when the five of us were cozy in our little parsonage and we got Dad all to ourselves.

It occurred to me now as I sat outside my house that I couldn't even remember the last time Dad was in my room—those nights when he'd read me stories and rub my back felt like another lifetime. Was it Dad's fault? Was it mine, for whining about family nights and being a typical moody teenager? Was it really anyone's fault?

My heart was a heavy, wet sponge in my chest, one I needed my dad to wring out.

My dad: busy, absent, distracted—a good man.

Elliot called that afternoon. “Shit,” I muttered when I saw his number show up. I'd forgotten to call him back.

“Hi,” I said, almost flinching at what I knew was going to be an uncomfortable conversation. Then, hearing how abrasive my voice was, I overcompensated with a cheery “How's your day?”

“Hey,” said Elliot, his voice flat. “Can we talk, West?”

“Of course,” I said. “About?”

“You
know
what. That asshole hijacked our date, and then you
left with him
! I felt like an idiot sitting through that movie.”

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“Are you?” He didn't sound angry—only hurt—and that made me feel worse.

“Yes.”

Elliot was quiet for a while, then said, “This sucks. This summer, I mean. It just fucking sucks. I feel like . . . like everyone was busy, so you found new friends.”

What could I say? It was mostly true. “Did you want me to sit inside and read all summer? Spend every day at the beach listening to Marcy and Bridget gossip?”

“Yes,” he said honestly. “I guess I did.” After a moment, he said, “I hate being the jackass. It's who people expect me to be. Like being able to catch a football means I'm allowed to treat people like shit—”

“You're not a jackass.”

“—and I hate that. So I'm not going to tell you to stop
hanging out with him, because I don't want to be
that guy
, you know? But I just want you to know I felt like shit when you left last night.”

I breathed in deeply and let it all out in a noisy exhalation. “Okay.”

“Okay?” he asked, and I couldn't tell if he was clarifying what I'd said or if he was stunned by my noncommittal response.

“I'm sorry,” I amended. “Look, I can't really explain it, but something was wrong with Laurel last night, and I wanted to make sure she'd be okay.”

Elliot was quiet for moment. “Really?”

“Yes.”

He didn't press for any details, for which I was grateful.

“I really like the Harts,” I continued, “and I want you to like them too. Let's get the whole group together again. The Fourth of July. Trudy will be home; the camp staff gets it off. We can watch fireworks from the roof of the old Griggs place. I know Mr. and Mrs. Hart won't mind. What do you think?”

“I'd rather it would be just me and you,” he said.

“On their roof?” I teased.

“Anywhere,” he said, and it was supposed to sound like a joke, and it was so far from a joke, and we both knew it, so Elliot rushed to say, “That sounds good. Fourth of july. I'm in. If that's what you want.”

“That's what I want,” I said.

That evening, I was reading and trying to avoid Libby and Shea as they raced around the house, when Silas called. “I have to get out of here,” he said. “Can I come over?”

“My siblings are the most annoying creatures on this earth,” I said doubtfully, hearing a high-pitched squeal from one of them and then something being knocked over. Dad had brought home these stupid paper dolls for Libby, somehow failing to realize that, at twelve, she was way too old for them, and she and Shea had been chasing each other around with them all night.

“Honestly, I can't imagine that any sibling is more frustrating than my own right now.” His voice sounded so tired—as if it were dragging suitcases of defeat. I wondered at which point over the last few weeks I had learned the nuances of his voice. The sheer exhaustion I heard made me wish that I could save him.

“Ugh, family,” I said. “Listen, come pick me up. We'll go somewhere else.”

“Okay, bring the radio.”

“I will.”

“Leaving now.”

I assumed that he'd text me from the driveway, but fewer than five minutes later, he was knocking on my bedroom door as he pushed it open.

“You can't be in here,” I told him right away, half because my room was its usual messy hovel, half because those really were the rules.

“Your parents sent me up,” he said.

“They—they
did
?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Weird. Okay. Let's go.”

“Your room smells like you,” he said.

“Dirty pillow and dusty shelves?”

He laughed. “No,” he said. “Like black cherries and book pages. And molasses.”

“Molasses?”

“Brown sugar, maybe.” He closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, and confirmed, “Yup, brown sugar.”

Just outside my open door, Libby tore after Shea with a paper doll in each hand, past my room and down the stairs. We followed them down.

“Going out!” I shouted from where I stood by the front door.

Mom was lost in her scrapbooking and said absently, “All right, have fun!” Dad was reading the newspaper, home for once.

Shea suddenly braked, and Libby slammed into him. “Are you the new Elliot?” he asked Silas.

Libby's eyes were as wide as I imagined my own were. Mom and Dad looked up.

“Because that'd be okay, if you are,” Shea added.

I was tongue-tied, but Silas didn't miss a beat. “Sure am.” He picked my brother up under the armpits, tossed him into
the air, then tucked Shea under his arm like a human-sized football. He ran across the living room with a stiff arm like the Heisman pose and shouted, “Touchdown!” in the “end zone.” Then he looked at Libby. “Should I spike the ball?”

She nodded, grinning, but Shea was screaming in delight, “Nooooooo!”

Silas pretended to spike Shea into the ground and then, from behind Shea, held up each of my brother's hands in a victory celebration.

Libby and Shea were laughing; my mom was laughing too. My dad looked pleased—and maybe a little confused.

“We've gotta go,” I said before Shea—or my dad—could ask any more questions. Silas waved to my family as we left.

We drove to the Green Lake beach, even though it was closed after sundown. Silas parked in the empty lot, and we got out of the car and walked to the lifeguard stand, me scrambling to keep up with Silas's long strides. In spite of the tiny intermission with my family, I hadn't forgotten the reason we were at the beach: things were bad at the old Griggs house. His frustration made him
fast.

He climbed up first and then helped me, before pulling his sweatshirt hood over his head and leaning back. The wooden stand, painted white, was like a caricature of a chair, the seat so huge that even Silas's long legs barely hung over the end. “Your brother and sister are fun,” he said, then admitted, “It's like the freaking apocalypse at my house. My grandparents have been there all day, and Mom's on edge. And Dad—well, it's not good.”

I sat beside him, knees pulled up to my chest. A light from the parking lot shone on us, and Silas groaned to see it was a cop car's headlights. “It's okay,” I said to Silas, waving to the police officer. “Sgt. Kirkwood is Trudy's dad. He'd let me get away with anything short of murder.” The squad car drove away silently.

“I am
not
used to this small-town thing yet,” Silas murmured. “Is it time for your show?”

“You don't want to talk?”

“We will. I don't want you to miss your show. Besides, I feel about a thousand times better already just being away from home and with you.” In the dark, and with his hood up, I couldn't see his face, but a thrill went through me. I felt powerful, like some sort of human talisman. I wanted to push his hood back, cup his face in my hands so that he had to look me in the eyes, and tell him,
I will stay as long as you need.