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  “I didn’t think I deserved it,” she said. “There. Is that honest enough for you?”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Dark and Uneven Path

  I’ve lived my whole life in a small town, but in the days after my uneasy breakup with Libby Weller, I was stunned by the downside of small-town living. Even though I had nothing to compare it to. It didn’t matter. The problems were simply glaring.

  It was the second morning after the dreadful picnic. I came down into the kitchen early, hoping to scarf down a bowl of cereal and go running before anyone else was up.

  Instead I found my mom sitting at the kitchen table, talking on the phone. The cord that hooked the receiver to the phone base was ridiculously stretched, and my mom was curling a little section of it around her finger as she listened.

  She looked up and caught my eyes, and I knew all was not well.

  “Speak of the devil,” she said. Into the phone, as far as I could tell. “I’ll have to call you back, Marilyn.”

  She got up to hang up the phone.

  “I’m going running,” I said, and tried to break for the door.

  “The hell you are,” she barked. “Sit.”

  I did as I’d been told. She rarely if ever used that voice with me, though she used it with my father all the time. I found it best to freeze like a deer in the headlights at times like that. Say nothing, do nothing. Almost like playing dead. My father had a different set of theories.

  “How do you know Zoe Dinsmore?” she asked, sitting across the table from me.

  “She has these two really nice dogs,” I said. I had an angle. I was going to play on her guilt over the fact that I’d always wanted another dog and she’d always refused to get me one. “And you know how I feel about dogs. I got sort of attached to them. They go running with me in the morning.”

  Then I stopped talking, and realized my mistake. If I’d left the dogs out of it, I could’ve pretended I somehow knew Mrs. Dinsmore from town. That I kept bumping into her at the library or something. But I had tipped my hand regarding my life up in the forbidden woods.

  “I thought I told you never to go in those woods.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I guess you did.”

  “And do you want to tell me why you went and defied me?”

  What I said next might have been another angle. In the back of my mind, I might have been trying to play the guilt card to get myself off the hook. But it was also the damn truth. Why go further into motives when somebody asks you for the truth and you give it?

  “I think because it’s so quiet up there. It really gets to me when you and Dad fight.”

  I waited for her reaction. I guess I was assuming she would take that into herself in some way. Feel the pain I had just described and understand that she had caused it. I didn’t get what I was waiting for.

  “I told you, you could get lost up there.”

  “But I never do. I know it like the back of my hand.”

  I waited again. Nothing happened.

  “You really can’t get lost,” I added. “I don’t know why you think so. The whole place is only about two or three miles wide. On one side you can see town, and on the other side you can see the river. I don’t know what you think the problem is.”

  “The problem is,” she began, her voice booming, “your little cousin got lost up there, and it scared the hell out of everybody. He was gone overnight. He was only nine. We thought he might’ve been kidnapped. We thought he might be dead. And when the search party finally found him, he had hypothermia. He had to be in the hospital for a day. It was terrible. I never want to go through a thing like that again.”

  My cousin—well, I had three, but only one was a “he”—was five years older than me. So this must’ve happened when I was four. Which explains why I didn’t remember.

  “But he lives in Oregon,” I said.

  “They were here for a visit. You were too little to remember. I felt totally responsible, because they were staying with us. If they hadn’t found him, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I’d have never gotten over it, I can tell you that right now.”

  We sat quietly for a few seconds. In my head, I was going over what I had learned. Not in words, exactly, but I felt it.

  Here are the words I have for it now.

  When somebody holds a view that seems to make no sense, know that it makes sense to them, but for reasons you don’t know anything about yet. And I guess in a lot of cases, you never will.

  I wanted to answer her, but I wasn’t sure what to say. So in my head I went to Mrs. Dinsmore’s cabin. I just thought to myself, What would the lady tell me to do?

  “I’m really sorry you had to go through that,” I said. “It sounds scary and terrible.”

  “It was.”

  “But I’m not nine. And I really know my way around in there. And I promise I’ll be fine.”

  I got up from the table, thinking I could make my break.

  “Wait,” she said. “There’s more.”

  I didn’t sit down again. I didn’t want to commit to much more listening. I just hovered over her, feeling tall. Too tall.

  “What?”

  “I don’t want you anywhere near that Dinsmore woman.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s just not a suitable friend for you.”

  “I wouldn’t say we were friends,” I said. But it was a lie. I would say it. Only, not to my mother. “I just really like those two dogs.”

  “She’s not a good influence on you. On anyone. I don’t want any more phone calls from people telling me you’re spending time with a person like that. It’s not appropriate.”

  “I don’t understand how you can say that. Just because she had a bad accident?”

  “Oh, honey. That’s not all. There’s a lot you don’t know about that lady. She drank, and she took tons of drugs. Showed up different places in town out of her mind. They say it started after the accident, but I don’t know. It just sort of made everybody wonder. Some say she cleaned up her act and stopped. Others don’t believe it. I don’t know what to believe. I just don’t want you near any of it. I don’t know why she stays in this town, but she obviously wants to be left alone. So leave her alone. You understand why I say that to you?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I understand why.”

  I did understand why she’d said it to me. I just had no intention of following her order.

  I slipped out the door, and only as I was jogging down the street did I realize I had skipped breakfast. But I just kept running.

  When I got to Connor’s house, things only went from bad to worse.

  His mom came to the door, then turned and walked away down the hall without saying a word to me. I had no idea what that meant. But she left the door standing wide open, so I came in and closed it behind me.

  I walked up the stairs to Connor’s room. Slowly. Like I wasn’t sure what waited for me up there. Because, truthfully, I was less sure with every passing day.

  I rapped on his closed bedroom door.

  “What?” he said from inside. From the tone of his voice I gathered that, whatever it was, he didn’t want it.

  “It’s me.”

  No answer. I turned the knob and pushed the door open.

  Connor was sitting in the same chair he almost always sat in, but it wasn’t pulled over to the window. It was facing a blank corner of the room. He was literally making himself sit in the corner. It was very strange.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “It looks like you made yourself go sit in the corner.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  He said nothing more, so I perched uncomfortably on the end of his bed. I stared at the back of his head as he sat perfectly still and said nothing at all. Just in that moment I saw Libby’s point about his dark cloud. You could almost see it. The rest of her observations could go take a hike as far as I was concerned.

  Th
e silence lasted for a minute or two, and seemed to get darker.

  Then Connor spoke. His voice was quiet but hard edged.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you broke up with her over me?”

  For a moment I couldn’t find it inside myself to answer.

  I’d told him about my disastrous picnic date the day before, when I’d come and sat with him just about all day, whether he wanted me to or not. But I’d left out what Libby had said about him. Of course I had. Who reports on a thing like that when they could just as easily keep it to themselves?

  “Because I didn’t. It wasn’t about you.”

  “That’s not what I heard. I heard I’m holding you back. That you’d have lots of friends and girlfriends if you didn’t have me standing in your way.”

  I lost it in that moment. It was a buildup of stress breaking free, I suppose. I raised my voice to him, which I don’t think I’d ever done before.

  “Who are you talking to, Connor? Who are you hearing this from? You won’t even go out of the house. Where are you getting all this information?”

  Then I stopped myself. Breathed. Tried to drop my shoulders. I was still staring at the back of his head. If it upset him to be yelled at, he was doing a good job of keeping it to himself.

  “Somebody told my mom about it at the market yesterday. She didn’t say who. Might’ve been Libby’s mom. Or maybe everybody in town has heard all about it by now.”

  So that explained why his mom had been acting strangely at the door.

  I almost walked around and sat in front of him. Because it felt weird to explain a whole big thing to his back. But he hadn’t left much room in that corner, and I knew he probably didn’t want me to, so I didn’t.

  “Look,” I said. “It went down like this. We were having a perfectly nice picnic. And then she said that stuff about you. And I told her we’d been best friends since we were three. And then she said something else. I don’t remember exactly what. And I told her I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I wanted to talk about something else. At that point I wasn’t going to break up with her. I was just going to keep being friends with you, and she could keep her feelings about it to herself. But then later she went off on Mrs. Dinsmore, and wow, Connor. It was weird. It was ugly. She said the lady was a killer. That she killed two kids. And that’s when I realized she’s just not a very nice person. Libby, I mean. I just didn’t know it until we talked a little. She’s just kind of awful. But she was wrong, Connor. She was wrong.”

  “About Mrs. Dinsmore? Or about me?”

  “Both.”

  “No,” he said. His voice sounded weirdly firm. “She was right about me. I’m just holding you back. I release you from this friendship, Lucas. Go have lots of friends and girlfriends.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I want you to.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m staying right here.”

  “Then you’re an idiot.”

  “Well.” I paused. And sighed. “You can call me any name you want. But I’m staying right here.”

  I stayed there with him for most of the day, and I have to say it was just numbing. I don’t know any other word for it. We barely talked. The time crawled by. But I was afraid to leave him alone.

  Then, sometime after lunch, I began to realize the hopelessness of my mission. I couldn’t watch him every minute. Nobody could. Even if I stayed through dinner and spent the night, he could do something stupid while I was sleeping. Hell, he could excuse himself to go to the bathroom and do something stupid before I figured out he’d been away too long.

  “I guess I’m going home,” I said. “But I’m still your friend.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” he said. “But it’s obvious I’m not going to change your mind about that.”

  I walked down the stairs slowly, wondering if I was ever going to see him again.

  When I got down to the long hallway, I saw Connor’s mother in the dim living room. The shades were all drawn, as usual. She was sitting in the chair Connor’s father used to sit in. The last place I’d seen him. Her head was dropped back, just the way his had been. But no ice pack. She just had her eyes closed.

  I moved to the living room doorway and leaned there, wondering if I dared speak to her. I thought she didn’t know I was there. So when she spoke up, it startled me.

  “What is it, Lucas?”

  “I just wanted you to know, ma’am . . . Libby Weller did say some things about Connor that were not very nice. But I never did. I said he was my friend, had been since we were three. And when she kept at it, I told her to stop talking about it. And I’m not going to be seeing her anymore anyway.”

  At first, nothing. Maybe she was waiting to see if I was done.

  “I appreciate your telling me that,” she said after a time.

  “I hope you’ll keep an eye on Connor.”

  “Of course I will,” she said. But with not an ounce of life in her words.

  I turned to walk away, but she had one more thing to say. She called it down the hall after me.

  “I can’t watch him every minute, though.”

  It was hard for me to know how she meant that last thought. Was she resigned to the danger of the thing? Already terrified by the guilt she would feel? Or was she just like me: overwhelmed by how helpless we are to change the fate of the people we want to help?

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.

  I slipped out the door and ran home.

  Once again I woke up well before the sun.

  I had an idea, but it was a weird idea. It was powerful, but it was weird. I knew it would change things. Maybe change them in a good way. Maybe make everything worse.

  It was either the best or the worst idea I’d ever had.

  Trouble was, the more I thought about it, the more I knew there was no way to tell which way it would fall. Not in advance. The only way to know best from worst was to move forward and give it a try.

  Now, this next little bit is going to sound like déjà vu, and in a way I suppose it is.

  I got up. Slipped out of the house without waking anybody. Without turning on any lights. I walked over to Connor’s house in the dark and bounced pebbles off the window of his front bedroom.

  The neighbor’s dog barked at me.

  When Connor came to the window and put his hands on the glass, I felt a load of anxiety drain out of me. I wasn’t too late.

  I walked around to the backyard and met him coming out the mudroom door.

  “This is getting old,” he said. Quietly.

  “Come somewhere with me.”

  “This time I was sleeping.”

  “I’m sorry. Do this for me. Please.”

  “I thought we weren’t going to do this anymore. You said you’d stop asking me to go places with you.”

  “Just this once. I promise you we won’t see any of the other guys from school where we’re going.”

  He sighed, and said nothing. And I knew I had won.

  “Go get dressed,” I said.

  And he did. Without any questions.

  “I just like being home,” he said as we walked down the dark sidewalk together.

  He had his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets. He had his shoulders up around his ears, like that would somehow keep the world away.

  We were headed for the woods, but he didn’t know it.

  “You can’t always be home,” I said.

  “Why can’t I?”

  “You have to go back to school in the fall.”

  He clammed up then, and stopped talking. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. But it sure didn’t feel like a good sign.

  It was barely light when we hit the path I liked to use to get into the woods. The one I figured was the most direct route to the lady’s cabin. It was the very beginning of civil twilight. We could see the trees just well enough that we stood a good chance of not slamming into one.

  I took a few carefu
l steps down that uneven footing.

  “Why are we going in here?” he asked.

  His voice sounded too far away, so I turned around to see why. I saw why, all right. He wasn’t following me anymore. He was still glued to the sidewalk.

  “I want to take you someplace.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I do.”

  “That’s not really a reason,” he said.

  I sighed and picked my way back to where he stood.

  “Look,” I said. “I’m working really hard to be a good friend here. And I normally don’t ask you for much. But I’m asking you to do this one thing, and if it doesn’t work out, I won’t ask you to do anything else ever again.”

  Then we just stood there in silence for a moment, unable to see the expressions on each other’s faces. I was wondering why I’d given away the store for this idea, promising him it was the last time I’d ever try to do something to help him. Especially since it could’ve turned out to be the worst idea I’d ever had.

  “Whatever,” he said.

  And he took a step on the dark and uneven path.

  The sun was not yet up when we got to Zoe Dinsmore’s cabin, but it was pretty light.

  The dogs came spilling out of their doghouse to greet us.

  “Holy crap!” Connor breathed. He grabbed a handful of my sleeve. “They’re so big!”

  “They won’t hurt you,” I said. Then, to the dogs, “Rembrandt. Vermeer. Come meet my friend.”

  They wiggled over with tails swinging, and Connor petted their heads. I could tell he was still a little bit intimidated by them. But it’s hard not to pet a dog who’s looking up into your face and wagging.

  “Is this who you wanted me to meet?” Connor asked. He sounded hopeful. Like maybe he could be done now. Maybe he could just go home.

  “No.”

  “Oh,” he said. “That’s too bad.”

  We walked up onto the porch and I rapped on the door.

  “Mrs. Dinsmore? Are you dressed yet?”

  No answer. For one horrible moment I thought I might’ve brought Connor out here to witness the aftermath of the suicide of the lady I was hoping could help him.

  Then the door swung open.