Somebody Else's Daughter (33 page)

“Ada,” Willa said. “Ada, you can stop now. Ada,
please, please
just
stop!
”

And Ada turned, her eyes dim and vacant, and she smiled a little and threw down the ax. “She deserved it.”

They watched her walk away. Willa called after her, but she didn't turn. She just kept walking, into the greedy dark.

They went after her. They followed her through the trees and caught up and took hold of her and helped her walk. Teddy said the pills weren't good, it was Marco's fault, and Marco said to go fuck yourself, and he went off with Monica and it was just the three of them, her and Teddy and Ada. Then they went along the lake to bring Ada home and they could hear the sound of loons. It was a crazy sound, Willa thought, and she felt that things could never be the same.

There was a thick fog. They walked along. She saw the moon bright upon the water and she heard the birds swoop down. Ada muttered. Something about an accident on a lake. A girl, her babysitter, who'd drowned. “I saw her dead,” she said. “I saw her when they pulled her out. She looked so cold. She was blue.” She pulled on the sleeve of Teddy's coat. “We found a little kitty once in the woods. It was so cute. We used to feed it. I tried to find it. After she died, I went to the woods. I looked for it. But it never came . . .” Her voice trailed off. Her eyes were distant, vacant. Then she looked at Teddy. “Why don't you love me?” she said to him, walking backward into the lake. “Why don't you love me?”

And Teddy tried to grab her.

“Why don't you love me? I'm too ugly for you!”

“No, Ada. Get out of the water.”

“I'm so ugly I could puke.”

And then she did. She puked in the water. Teddy grabbed her and pulled her out and they waited for her to stop. They walked on. Finally, the Heaths' house appeared, the little cottage, as in a storybook, only it was dark, just the dim light over the door, blinking like an eye full of dirt.

They went in. It was very late. The house was dark. A band of light ran under the door of Mr. Heath's study and up the narrow opening. Willa could see him bent over his desk, the floor littered with crumpled papers. They crept upstairs to Ada's room and put her to bed. Down the hall, emanating from the master bedroom, was the blaring tone of the TV, indicating that the station had gone off for the night. Willa thought of going in and shutting it off, but now they could hear Mr. Heath downstairs, walking across the creaky wood floors, then the crash of ice on the counter, then the cubes tumbling into his glass. She thought he might be an alcoholic and it made her sorry for him, but then her pity was replaced with anger. Stealthily, she and Teddy descended the staircase and crossed the living room to the door. Teddy made it out, but just as she was about to cross the threshold Heath grabbed her wrist.

“What a nice surprise,” Heath said, almost gravely.

“We brought Ada home,” Willa managed. “She's sick.”

Heath stood there. “I hope there wasn't any drinking involved. I wouldn't want to have to suspend you.”

“No.”

“I've been wanting to speak to you.” She could hear the liquor in his voice. “I have things to say to you.”

“I have to go,” she said.

He staggered backward slightly with his arms open like a man asking to be shot. “I want to explain.”

“Don't.”

“I made a mistake.”

“It's okay,” she said, even though it wasn't.

“Please,” he whispered. “Forgive me.”

She shook her head. “I can't.” The words came out silently, and she doubted that he had heard her. She pulled free of him and ran out the door.

“What was that about?” Teddy asked.

“Nothing.”

They walked up the hill under the black trees. Willa debated telling him about Mr. Heath, but couldn't bear the thought of uttering the words. They went to his house. Outside, in the wind, he kissed her. “You can stay here,” he said. She was too messed up to go home. It would upset her parents. For Teddy's sake, she was a good actress; she looked his mother in the eye. I need to call my parents, she said, but Claire said she'd do it for her, why don't you just get in bed. Claire took her hand and brought her to the guest room and helped her into bed. She covered her, like a mother, pulling the covers up. “Good night,” she said, and turned off the light and closed the door. Willa lay awake, her mind reeling. In the room next door, she could hear Claire talking to Teddy about the Ecstasy. Claire said she didn't like him doing pills, she expected more from him, and it would only get him in trouble and hadn't he been in enough trouble already? “How do you expect to get into college?” she asked him.

“I'm sorry,” Teddy said. “It was stupid.”

But Willa knew Teddy didn't really mean it. Doing the drugs had been fun.

She could hear Claire on the phone, calling her parents, but thank God she didn't say anything about the pills. Teddy's mother was cool; she wouldn't do that.

Tomorrow is Saturday, Willa thought, closing her eyes.

In the morning, they had breakfast with his mom, buttered toast and hot cocoa. She thought Claire was very beautiful and Willa decided she was going to grow her hair long like hers and wear it in a braid. Teddy had a chocolate mustache. He smiled at her across the table. Then, out of the blue, Mr. Gallagher showed up. He drove a truck. He pulled up and came to the door in his scraggly wool sweater, an oatmeal-colored hat with earflaps. He was like an overgrown boy, she thought. In his arms was a big white rabbit.

“I couldn't resist,” he said, grinning, and Claire started to laugh.

“Where on earth did you find it?”

“Over in Richmond. I couldn't believe it—some guy selling rabbits on the side of the road. It felt like destiny.”

“Yes, yes, it was clearly destiny.” Claire took the rabbit in her arms.

“He's so cute,” Willa said, petting the bunny. “What are you going to name him?”

“How do you know it's a him?” Teddy said. “Do we have scientific evidence?”

They all looked at the rabbit, trying to determine its sex, but none of them could.

“How about Bonnie,” Gallagher suggested.

“Bonnie is such a good name for a rabbit.” Claire put the rabbit down. It jumped all over the house. “Oh, my goodness. Bonnie, you get back here!”

“Bonnie he is,” Teddy said.

Claire scooped up the rabbit, then went over and kissed Mr. Gallagher on the cheek. “Thank you for this.”

“It's my sincere pleasure,” he said, and did a little bow.

They spent the afternoon together, all four of them. Teddy and Mr. Gallagher skateboarded in the old pool. The pool had been drained years before and was full of cracks and piles of dead leaves. Teddy was good on the board. He could do all sorts of tricks, but Mr. Gallagher was pretty hopeless. His incredible height made him wobbly.

It was a wonderful day, the last good day, she would remember later, that they would have together.

The sun lit up the sky. The grass was long and tickled her calves. Claire made cookies and Willa and Teddy got to lick the bowl. They were like puppies, licking the big wooden spoons, their fingers. She hadn't felt so good and happy in a long time, and she could almost forget what Mr. Heath had done to her in the van. She could almost pretend her life was normal.

It got late and Mr. Gallagher offered to drive her home. In his truck, he played the radio, the classic rock station. “Brown Eyed Girl” came on and they sang it together, extremely loudly, out the windows of the truck. At the house, her mother came out and invited Mr. Gallagher in for a drink, which, to Willa's surprise, he accepted. He looked a little shaky at first, and when her mother asked him if anything was wrong he said, no, just a little light-headed from a day out in the sun, it was surprisingly warm for the first of November, was it possible that this was a version of Indian summer? And her mother said, yes, it seemed like Indian summer indeed, and they went out onto the porch and drank lemonade and watched the sun sink down into the field while the horses slept on their feet, swatting flies with their tails.

Attachment Disorder

[sculpture]

Claire Squire, Suffer the Consequences, 2006. Plaster and gauze, 60 x 24 x 18 in. Collection of the artist.

The figure of a naked pregnant woman standing alone, her belly full and round and crawling with graffiti: cunt; pussy; auntie; ho; doggie; mama; baby; punta; chica; chick. The expression on her face is one of caution, fear.

30

On the day Luther Grimm's dog escaped, it ran into a school playground and took off the ear of a five-year-old girl who'd come out for recess. Teddy and his mother had seen the report on the morning news. They showed the child in the hospital, the hysterical mother. They still hadn't found the dog. They were offering a reward.

After school, he walked through the woods behind his grandfather's house to see for himself. This time, the woods were quiet, save for the groaning of the old trees. When he got to Grimm's yard, there was no sign of the dog. A police cruiser was parked behind Grimm's pickup truck. The door of Grimm's house opened and the cops came out and Luther Grimm was with them. He brought the cops over to see the tree where he used to chain up the dog. Grimm's face looked blurry and wet. He was clutching a handkerchief. He kneeled down and showed the cops how the chain was broken. “He's a good dog,” Grimm was saying. “He's just a puppy. He don't mean nothing. He don't mean it.”

Teddy stood there and watched Grimm go back into his house. Something didn't seem right. He wondered where the dog was now.

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving break, the school did its own version of Thanksgiving, and everyone had to contribute to the meal. Three long tables were set with real china on white tablecloths and it was like a big deal and people were supposed to dress up. Teddy wore the jacket he'd worn to his grandfather's funeral. Even Mr. Gallagher had put on a tie and he'd trimmed his beard. Teddy sat next to Willa and they held hands under the table, their hands twisting together like two desperate spiders. He could feel her needing him. “You make me feel safe,” she said into his ear. She seemed distracted, he thought, like she wanted to be someplace else, all jittery in her seat. Her face so pale and this nervous look in her eyes that hadn't been there before. He wondered if she were in some sort of trouble. On Halloween, when they'd taken Ada home, he'd overheard Heath asking her to forgive him and she'd stood there shaking her head. Forgive him for
what,
he wondered. And she'd walked up the hill with tears streaming down her cheeks.

Mr. Heath stood up at the head of the table next to his wife. Even though he was all dressed up, there was something ragged about him, Teddy thought. He caught Mrs. Heath staring off into space while her husband gave a speech about the importance of being thankful. Teddy knew it was good advice, but somehow, coming from a douche bag like him, it felt watered down.

Later that afternoon, Willa took him riding. They rode her horse bareback and he got on behind her and held her around the waist. He could smell her right at the neck, a sweet baby scent, and felt like their bodies were one. He held her tight. They galloped across the wet field.

Over break, she went to Barbados with her parents. His mother invited Mr. Gallagher for Thanksgiving dinner. It was becoming obvious to Teddy that Gallagher and his mother had the hots for each other, even though they went to great lengths to hide it. That morning, his mother bought a fresh turkey from the farmer down the road and plucked the feathers off herself on the back steps, saving them in a shoebox to use in her work. Teddy liked Gallagher all right, but he wasn't sure how he felt about him hitting on his mother. Whenever he was around, she'd get this look on her face, this kind of radiance. She was a beer poured too fast, her golden liquid spilling over the edge.

It started snowing that afternoon. Gallagher showed up in a corduroy blazer, his beard neatly trimmed, his hair combed back behind his ears. He held an armful of yellow tulips and his mother took the flowers in her arms like a fussy infant and brought them into the kitchen and laid them on the table. She stood on a chair to get down a white pitcher and put the flowers in the pitcher with some water and brought the pitcher to the table. While the turkey was cooking, the three of them put on boots and walked out into the back field. The snow fell heavily and dazzled in the cold sunlight like a shower of sequins. After a while, they came upon a coyote with something dead in its mouth, a woodchuck maybe. For a moment none of them moved, and he noticed how his mother squeezed Gallagher's arm. It occurred to him that he was used to having his mother to himself and compared the moment to other times when they'd confronted the possibility of danger and it was just the two of them. Those times she didn't need anyone protecting her. The coyote lifted its head slightly, as if to be polite, and ran off with its supper.

Teddy helped his mother set the table. First, they whipped up the linen cloth like a parachute and watched it settle down on the surface. They set each place with the old china plates that had been her grandmother's. She took the silverware out of an old wood box with a red velvet lining, and placed the tarnished silver candlesticks in the center. His mother put on dangly crystal earrings that made little shapes on her cheeks whenever she laughed. There was something almost formal about the way she moved in front of Gallagher, something contained. Teddy compared it to the beginning of a symphony, when you don't really know what to expect, but the music lures you gently and you get pulled in. Somehow there is no letting go. You want to follow it. You want to get to the end.