Detached (6 page)

Kyle grabbed a fresh beer out of Sam's hand.

“Let's do it,” he said.

I pulled out my flashlight and headed toward the river while Kyle followed.

“Do you have any idea where you're going?” he called out.

“I've been down here a few times.”

It was slow going and even though I had the flashlight, I slammed my shin into a log hidden in the undergrowth.

“Stupid log,” I muttered and rubbed my leg.

Although there were plenty of stars above, the moon was just a sliver in the sky and the reach of the fire was too limited to offer any comfort. The air was also a lot cooler and damper the farther away we got.

“Crap,” Kyle said. “I just spilled a whole cup of beer down my shirt.”

I turned and shone my flashlight on him. Sure enough, his shirt was drenched.

“Don't worry, it'll dry out when you get back to the fire. C'mon. I bet she's up here.”

We got turned around more than once, but when we finally got to the river Anna wasn't there. I shined the flashlight up and down the banks.

“Anna?” I called out. “Anna? Are you down here?”

I heard a splashing and I spun around. My heart raced. “Anna?”

But I didn't find her. I found Kyle instead, bent over the river, rinsing his shirt in the water.

“What are you doing?”

“Washing the beer out of my shirt. If Mom smells it she'll know I was drinking.”

“Good thing you didn't spill beer on your pants.”

“Yeah, good thing,” Kyle said in a monotone. “She'll kill me if she finds out.”

“Oh, for God sakes, I'm sure she knows you drink by now.” I squatted on the riverbank beside him.

“She thinks Sam is the bad one and I'm the innocent one.” He shivered. “It's freaking cold out here.”

“It is when you're half naked.” I laughed. Then I put my hand on his back to see how cold he felt.

He squealed and jumped away. “Your hands are freezing.”

“You feel warm to me,” I said. “Now hurry up.”

That's when I heard branches snapping in the bushes and I froze.

“Anna?” I called out. I turned and followed the crashing sound through the darkness. Kyle trailed after, ringing out his shirt as he went.

“Hey, watch where you're walking,” some guy said in the darkness. A girl giggled and I flashed my light sideways to see I'd almost tripped over a couple lying in a patch of tall grass.

When we got back to the fire I still couldn't find Anna and by that time there were twice as many kids and ten times the noise. Drunk teenagers get exponentially louder by the hour. I pushed my way through the crowd to Mariam and Gisele.

“Where've you been?” Mariam shouted. Then she flopped an arm over my shoulder and kissed my cheek. “We missed you.”

“Hey, why is Kyle half undressed?” Sam bellowed.

Of course everyone turned to stare and it looked like we'd just stumbled out of the darkness together. I ignored the taunts and turned to Gisele, hoping she was a bit more sober.

“Have you seen Anna?”

“Not for a while. Where've you and Kyle been, anyway?”

“Looking for her,” I said. “C'mon and help us.”

I pulled Gisele away from the fire and together we searched the forest. I even tried calling her cellphone, but she didn't pick up. I thought about calling her house to see if she'd gone home, but it was late and I couldn't very well wake up her mother and tell her I'd lost Anna in the ravine.

I went back to where Kyle was drying his shirt by the fire.

“Did you find her?” he asked.

“No. I'm going to get the girls and go back to Mariam's. Maybe she went there.”

“Text me when you find her.”

I could tell he wasn't having fun anymore. With Anna missing, the party didn't seem like fun to me either. Kids were sprawled all over the place and during one of my searches, I heard someone throwing up behind a tree. Finally I dragged Mariam away from the fire and told her it was time to go home.

“But I'm having fun!” she said.

“I heard the cops are on their way and we should get out of here before we get caught.”

It was a lie, but it sobered her up pretty fast.

I headed up the path as fast as I could while Mariam stumbled behind me and Gisele supported her as much as she could. When we got to River Road, Mariam pulled out her cellphone.

“Oh, look. I have a text! It's from Farah. She says: Anna felt like crap so I gave her a ride home. She says not to worry. See you Monday.”

I hadn't even seen Farah at the party, but there were probably a hundred kids I never saw.

The next morning when I woke up I had a sick feeling in my stomach, and not just from the beer. I was afraid Anna had seen Kyle and me by the river. When I got home I logged on to Facebook, but Anna wasn't online. I sent her an email but she didn't write back. I tried to call her cellphone five times and left two messages, but either her battery was dead or she was ignoring me. As a last resort I called her house, but the answering machine picked up. Finally, a chat box popped up on my laptop. It was Kyle.

“Did you talk to Anna?”

“Can't find her.”

“But she's okay?”

“Think so.”

“Do you think she saw us by the river?”

“Hope not.”

“Me too
L
,” he wrote back.

I didn't see Anna until Monday morning in class. She already had her brushes and paints out and was working on a watercolour of the city skyline.

“You scared us Saturday night. Kyle and I looked all over for you.” I didn't mean to sound like I was scolding her but I couldn't help myself.

“Sorry,” she said without looking at me. “I didn't mean to scare you. But I wasn't feeling well and Farah was heading home so I thought I'd catch a ride.”

“You should have at least told me you were leaving.” I sounded like my mother and cringed.

“I couldn't find you,” she said flatly. “Or Kyle.”

I paused but I wasn't ready to start defending myself. If she hadn't seen us, I knew it would just make me look guilty.

“You could have told Mariam or Gisele, anybody.”

“I told Tyson to tell you. Didn't he give you my message?”

“Uh, no. It must have slipped his mind,” I said. I couldn't even recall seeing Tyson Saturday night.

I stood there for a few more minutes while Anna continued to paint. I couldn't tell if she was lying or not. It wasn't until I found Farah later in the day that I realized she was definitely lying, or at least not telling the whole truth.

“Farah!” I called out from down the hall. Farah was just closing her locker and heading toward the music room.

“I heard you were at the forks Saturday night. I didn't see you,” I said, breathlessly, when I caught up to her.

“I never made it, actually. I ran into Anna on the way down the hill and she begged me to take her home. She was soaked and crying. Didn't she tell you? She said she went for a pee and fell in the river.”

I went along with the story and didn't press Farah for more information. But inside my head, alarms were blaring. I'd never known Anna to cry and, even in the dark, I was sure she knew the area too well to accidentally fall in the river.

After my husband made the connection between my parents' accident and Anna's painting of the viaduct, I started to watch her more carefully, without letting on how concerned I was. But what was there to see, really, besides a regular, moody teenage girl? I never quite knew when she was going to throw back a joke if I teased or when she was going to give me that withering look of contempt and storm off to her room. But I remembered being the same when I was sixteen, so I did my best not to overreact. I didn't want her to have an excuse to build barriers between us. Without my mother to mediate, I knew I needed to save whatever connection we had.

I didn't say another word about her painting, but I wrapped it back up in plastic and stored it in the attic where it wouldn't get damp. I thought maybe someday we could get it framed and hang it in the dining room, but for the time being she didn't need it staring at her during family dinners. She never once asked what happened to it and I think, with everything else going on, we forgot about that lonely girl standing in the middle of a misty bridge.

That fall though, life with Anna became unpredictable. It was more than just being moody. For the first time she started to act out of character. It wasn't simply that she missed a class or lied about the painting. Late one night she came home soaked from head to toe. It wasn't only strange because she arrived home wet in the middle of the night, it was also strange because she wasn't supposed to be coming home at all. She had plans to sleep over at a girlfriend's house.

My husband was away on business and I was alone, so I had Sherlock in the bedroom with me. It was close to midnight when I heard him push open the bedroom door and run downstairs. When he didn't bark, I knew it was Anna or Joe and that, in either case, something was wrong. I turned on the bedroom light, wrapped a robe around myself, and headed quickly down the hall. The front entrance was in complete darkness so I flipped on the light switch. Anna was in the front entrance, bent over taking off one of her running shoes while Sherlock licked her ear.

“Sweetheart! Are you okay?” I asked.

She looked up quickly and I could tell I'd startled her.

“I'm fine,” she muttered. Then she tackled the other shoe.

It took me a second to realize why she was struggling so much. The shoes were wet, her jeans were wet, her jean jacket was wet. I could tell her hair had been wet too. And she was shivering from the cold. I rushed over to help her out of her wet jacket but she pulled away.

“I'll get it,” she said.

“What happened to you?”

“I'm fine,” she repeated.

I could smell beer on her and I felt my pulse race. I wasn't sure if I should be worried or angry and since both emotions were swelling inside me, I didn't have a chance of staying calm.

“Anna!” I said too sharply. “You're soaked and you smell like beer. It's almost midnight. I deserve to know what's going on.”

“I fell in the water.”

That's when I noticed her lips were blue and she was having a hard time talking.

“I'll start the shower. You need to get warmed up.”

She finished peeling off her wet clothes while I went to the bathroom and started the shower. I got a clean towel and put it on the vanity, then checked the temperature of the water. As I left the bathroom, Anna brushed past me in her wet underwear. I could see goosebumps on her arms.

“Get yourself good and warm, then we can talk,” I said. Then I left the bathroom and closed the door.

Even though I was desperate to know what happened, I told myself the most important thing was that she was safe. I made myself breathe deeply and count to ten so I wouldn't go back into the bathroom and try to talk through the shower curtain. I knew if I pressed her it would only make things worse. Instead, I went and picked up her wet clothes from the floor by the front door. Her shoes were muddy and there were bits of dead leaves stuck to them. I bundled the entire mess in my arms and dumped it in the laundry room. Then I went back to my bedroom to wait.

Anna was in the shower for twenty minutes but I didn't once knock on the door to see how she was doing. It took a lot of restraint. I thought about calling my husband or Joe, but until I found out what had happened I didn't think I should worry either of them. Finally Anna emerged from the bathroom and scuttled into her room. I heard her moving about and then everything was quiet. When I couldn't stand waiting another minute, I knocked on her bedroom door.

“Anna?” I said quietly. She didn't answer so I knocked again and walked in. She was tucked deep under her covers with her back to me.

“Anna, I need to know what happened tonight.”

“Can we talk in the morning? I'm beat.” She didn't roll over to face me.

“I won't sleep if I don't find out what happened. Why are you coming home so late soaking wet and smelling of beer? I thought you were sleeping over at Mariam's?”

“I changed my mind,” she said.

It was obvious she didn't want to talk about what happened, but I couldn't let it go.

“I want to know why you changed your mind and I suspect it has something to do with you coming home wet, so stop avoiding my questions and just tell me.”

“I'm not avoiding anything.” She sighed deeply, as if I was being a huge pain in the butt and she wanted me to know. “The girls started drinking beer and getting rowdy, and I just didn't feel comfortable, so I came home.”

Her explanation was so mature it winded me, and for a moment I sat on the edge of her bed trying to sort out my thoughts.

“Were you drinking?”

“No, but someone spilled some on me. Can I go to sleep now?”

“How did you get home?”

“I took a cab.”

“Why didn't you call me? You know I'd have come over no matter what time it was.”

“I didn't want you to know they were drinking.” She rolled over on her back and stared up at me. She looked embarrassed and I suddenly felt bad for making her tell on her friends.

“I'm glad you came home, but I really wish you'd called for a ride.”

“I was okay.”

“Still,” I said. “Parents want to do those sorts of things for their kids.”

“I'm sorry. I'll remember for next time.”

“How did you get wet, anyway?”

“The girls threw me in Mariam's pool.”

“I didn't know Mariam's family had a pool. You poor thing. You must have been freezing. Why didn't you change before you left?”

“I only had my pajamas with me and I just wanted to get home.”

“Was Aliya drinking?”

She paused. “No, it wasn't us. Some other girls showed up. Some girls from BHS that Mariam knows. She wanted them to leave but they wouldn't.”

“Were there boys?”

“No, just these girls. About seven or eight of them.”

“Are they still over there? Should I go over and see if everything is okay?”

“No, no.” Anna said quickly. “I think it's probably under control now. Can I please go to sleep? I'm so tired.”

“Of course,” I said and stood up. I tucked the comforter tight around her the way I did when she was a little girl and kissed her on the cheek. “Sleep tight.”

I made sure the front door was locked then went back to bed. It took me a long time to fall asleep, and as I did the questions I should have asked scrolled through my mind. Why didn't she borrow some clothes from Mariam before she came home? Why were her shoes covered in mud and leaves? If she got thrown in a pool, why didn't her clothes smell like chlorine? Where did those girls get the beer? Would she have minded if I'd lain with her awhile, just until she fell asleep, the way I did when she was little?

There was one long ago night that stood out in my memory suddenly, a bedtime that ended in tears when Anna was about four years old. She had always been mature for her age, even as a very young girl, and yet it still threw me off guard twelve years later. You'd think I'd get used to it.

“Stay with me,” she begged when the bedtime story was over and I leaned past her to turn out the light. I often lay with her until she fell asleep. If I didn't, she complained that lying flat in the darkness felt like being dead.

“I'll stay, but just until you to go to sleep,” I said.

“Okay,” she agreed and moved close to the wall to make room for me.

I lay down beside her and fought to stay awake after a long day of work.

“Are you asleep?” she asked after a few minutes.

“No.”

“Okay, good. Don't leave yet. I'm still awake,” she said in her sleepy little voice. Then she yawned.

“I won't leave until you go to sleep,” I promised. It was one I'd made a hundred times.

“When I die will you still love me?” she asked suddenly.

The question startled me but I tried to stay calm so sleep would come to her faster.

“I'll love you no matter what, sweetheart. But you're going to live much longer than me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I'm older than you. When I'm old like Granny, you'll still be young and healthy.”

“Is Granny going to die soon?” She sounded alarmed.

“No, Granny still has a lot of life left in her.”

“How much?”

“Years and years. Now stop talking and go to sleep.” I couldn't help but think of the dinner dishes that needed washing and the laundry waiting to be folded.

“When are you going to die?” she asked. Her breath caught in her throat and I knew she was going to cry so I pulled her close and kissed the top of her head.

“I don't know when, but not for a long time yet. I promise.”

“What if I still need you?” she sobbed.

“By the time I die, you won't need me anymore.”

Her little body shuddered and then she sighed. “I hope you won't need me anymore by the time I die too,” she said.

The day after the failed sleepover, she slept until noon. Part of me thought she was hiding in her room so she wouldn't have to face me, but I didn't hear any sounds either, even when I stopped and listened at her door. By the time I heard the shower running, I'd washed and dried her wet clothes and set her shoes out in the sun. I'd also talked to Joe.

“I'm sure you'll make it worse if you go in there and wake her up. She probably had a fight with Aliya and feels stupid. Just let her get up on her own,” he said over the phone.

“Don't you think it's crazy though? Coming home in the middle of the night wet like that?”

“No crazier than some of the stuff I did back then. I mean, come on. This is Anna we're talking about. It's actually pretty responsible of her to bail on a party because she was feeling weird about what was going on.”

“I guess, but you should have seen her. She looked like she'd been crying and she was blue from shivering.”

“She'd probably been wet for forty minutes by then,” Joe said. “And if she had a fight with the girls, she might have stormed off. Don't make too much out of it.”

“Okay, you're right,” I agreed. But still, I didn't feel good about letting it drop either.

“And, Mom?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Maybe you better not tell Dad. He'll just get all worked up. And besides, you'll score more points for next time if you keep her secret.”

“Is that how you operate?” I asked.

“Something like that.” He laughed.

When Anna finally appeared, she acted as if nothing unusual had happened and I let the whole thing drop. But when the phone rang she tensed up.

“It's probably Aliya,” she muttered. “Let the machine get it. I'll call her later.”

I nodded and offered to make her some scrambled eggs and toast. For a change she agreed and it felt good to be needed again, as if some of the balance was restored. I put the plate of eggs in front of her and made myself leave the kitchen so I wouldn't sit and watch her eat. It seemed as if Joe was right and she was going through the regular ups and downs of being a teenage girl.

“You want to go to a movie tonight?” she asked later in the day.

The suggestion surprised me, but I was happy she wanted to be with me at all. It seemed like a good way to spend some time with her, even if there wouldn't be much chance to talk.