The Voice inside My Head (23 page)

“He told me what happened,” Tracy confirms in a small voice. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you, but it wouldn’t have made any difference. She was gone. We looked everywhere for her — back at the Spiny Starfish and even up at Jamie’s house. We thought maybe she’d gone looking for him. That would have been natural. We didn’t have the nerve to knock on his door, it was so late. If we’d known where she was going …” She stops, her voice cracking as tears roll down her face. She slides down the wall to the floor, burying her head in folded arms, quietly sniveling.

I turn from Tracy to Pete, slumped back on the sofa, his eyes closed.

“How could she get all the way across town, bleeding? Why would she do that?” I demand.

“I dunno,” murmurs Pete, his mouth barely moving. “I’ve asked myself that a million times. Maybe she was upset about the fight with Jamie. Maybe …” He stops.

“Maybe what, Pete?” says Dr. Jake.

He exhales loudly. “Maybe she was hiding from me.” His voice cracks. “Maybe she thought I was going to come back and hurt her and she was trying to get as far away from me as she could. I never would have thought to look for her on McCrae’s dock. Even if I walked from one end of town to the other, it would never have occurred to me to check there. And Tricia, if she was scared, really scared, she’d want to be near the ocean.”

“You’re lying,” moans Zach. “You killed her and now you’re trying to cover it up. Don’t believe him, Luke.”

I sure as hell don’t want to believe any of this, but Pete’s not the same guy he was an hour ago. The swagger’s gone, and not just because Zach beat it out of him.

“Call the doctor, Tracy, and the police,” says Dr. Jake. “I’m sorry, Luke. I wish it was better news.”

“She wouldn’t drown. Tricia couldn’t drown,” insists Zach.

“She was hurt,” says Dr. Jake. “If she was disoriented, maybe she fell in the water, and if she was bleeding, in the water at night …”

My breath catches in my throat as I finish that sentence in my head. “But isn’t there a chance she just wandered off and got lost?” I ask.

“It’s a small island, Luke. Someone would have seen her by now.”

Suddenly my vision is flooded with an image of tangled hair, a gaping eye socket. My ears pound with the steady rhythm of … what? What is it I’m hearing? So familiar. Like breathing. I hunker down on the floor, giving in to it, trying to remember, to understand.

Reesie’s at my side in an instant and Zach with her.

“I’m sorry, man,” says Zach but his voice is coming from a distance. I can barely hear him.

Reesie just folds me in her arms, and I cling to her until the vision is gone, until there’s nothing but emptiness.

“S
he drowned just like they said.”

I hold the phone away from my ear so I don’t have to hear their grief, but it echoes through the handset, reverberating inside me, like defeat.

I promised to bring her home.

I failed.

Again.

“I think she went into the water accidentally,” I continue, hoping to give them some peace.

None of us ever admitted our biggest fear — that Pat was so desperate to get away from us, she took her own life.

“She was attacked. The guy who did it has been arrested, but he didn’t kill her. That part was an accident.”

I move the phone a little closer, in case they want to say something, but it just makes the sobbing more audible. I place the handset on the desk in front of me.

Zach and Reesie sit in silent witness on the couch. Dr. Jake and Tracy have gone to the police station with Pete to give their statements. Later, Dr. Jake will call Pete’s family. I don’t envy him the call. In the end, Pete was an asshole but
not a villain. It’s not clear yet whether he’ll be charged. The police whom Dr. Jake called to pick him up seemed eager to have someone to blame. The island relies on tourism and they’re peaceable people. The death of a teenager is not only bad for business but bad for morale. Pete will lose his job, go home in disgrace and live with what he did to my sister for the rest of his life. He’ll pay, one way or another.

“Are you coming home?” asks Mom.

The tiny voice emerging from the headset is both pleading and frightened. I look at it as if it’s actually the one speaking, taking a moment to contemplate the possibilities.

I pick up the phone.

“There are a few things to tie up here with the investigation,” I stall. “And I’ve still got a couple of weeks left before school.”

“But then you’ll come home?” Her voice is thin, hollow, as it crosses a space between us that’s too wide to be measured.

I picture her, alone in the kitchen though my father is less than three feet away, her wineglass next to her on the counter, the bottle beside it. She’ll be looking out the window at the back garden as she hears my news, watching the birds feed at one of her dozen feeders. Pat isn’t the only one who loves wildlife.

I picture my father, slumped over the kitchen table, watching my mother, helpless to take away her grief. He’s spent a lifetime trying, but this time it’s too much even for him. Maybe, like me, he’ll finally realize it’s easier not to try so hard.

I swallow.

“I’ll be home soon, Mom,” I promise. It’s all I can do for her.

She asks if I want to speak to my father. I lie and say I do. When he comes on the line, I try to think of something to say that will change the reality of Pat’s death. I want to apologize, but I’m not sure why.

“So there’s no body?” he asks.

“No.”

“And you’re sure she’s dead?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you need money?”

“No.”

“I love you, Luke.”

It’s a sucker punch, but I take it like a man, breathing slowly in and out.

“I love you, too, Dad. How’s Mom?”

“You know. She’s taking it hard.”

“I need to get going now.”

“Right, of course.” He’s suddenly awkward. “Do you need anything?”

“No, I’m okay.”

I notice Reesie and Zach watching me, listening to every word. How much can they understand from hearing just my end of it? Zach gives me two thumbs-up. Reesie crosses the
room, leans on the arm of my chair and puts her hand on my shoulder, looking into my eyes with the promise of her world, where love doesn’t come packaged with disappointment.

“I’ll call again in a few days,” I say. Not waiting for his reply, I replace the receiver and stare at it for a few minutes in silence.

“Parents — who needs them?” Zach blusters, but I see pain in his eyes.

“It’ll work out,” says Reesie.

“Go for a beer?” asks Zach.

I hesitate. I can’t imagine a situation where I’d have a better excuse to get hammered, but that’s just what it is. An excuse. A cop-out. A way to block out the reality that Pat’s gone and she’s never coming back.

“I think I may lay off for a while,” I say, hoping I don’t sound preachy.

Zach scowls at Reesie like she’s responsible. “I’ll be at the Spiny Starfish if you change your mind.”

He looks so broken as he trudges out of the room that I almost go after him, but as much as I feel like I’m betraying him, dulling my pain would betray Pat.

“We should tell Jamie.” Reesie breaks into my thoughts.

It’s an effort to stand up, put one foot in front of the other. The mechanics of motion, breathing, moving forward, are no longer automatic. I’m grateful when Reesie takes my hand.

——

The walk up the hill to her house seems to have lengthened. I’m surprised it’s still daylight. Nanny says something when we let ourselves in through the gate. I register her presence, rocking on their porch swing, but can’t make sense of her words. Reesie responds, Nanny hugs me and goes inside. We take her place on the swing, still warm from her body. Donny comes out almost immediately, looks at me with huge eyes and sinks down onto the porch deck.

Nanny reappears with Reesie’s mom and two trays laden with tea, Nanny’s bread, homemade cookies and mango preserve. There’s far too much food for just us. I note every detail and am handed tea and an overflowing plate. Touching neither, I rock with Reesie, back and forth, as she tells the end of Pat’s story. More chairs appear and more people. The porch fills with faces I don’t know; people spill into the yard as word spreads and the community rallies. Reesie retells the story many times and, each time, her audience listens in silence.

Finally, Jamie appears. It’s been dark for what seems like hours, though time has lost all meaning. I feel numb. Nothing seems real. The landscape of sea-weathered people, lush towering trees, hand-hewn furniture on a rickety porch blurs at the edges like a watercolor, too charming for the despair that fills me.

As Jamie walks through the gate, he shimmers in the moonlight. I see the certainty of Pat’s death dawn on his face before Reesie says a word. Hands reach out for him as he works his way slowly through the crowd. Someone brings him a chair. He collapses into it under the weight of lost hope. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized that he, too, at least
half-believed I could bring Pat back. We keep a silent vigil.

Time passes. The crowd thins out, drifts away. I shake many hands, don’t hear many words. But they are spoken — offers of sympathy and solidarity. Nanny takes Donny inside, Reesie’s mom follows, and as the first cock announces the approaching dawn, Jamie, Reesie and I find ourselves alone.

“It’s my fault she left,” I say. “My fault she didn’t want to come home.”

Jamie looks at me. “How can you say that? She loved you, Luke, more than anything, maybe more than she was capable of loving anyone else. You weren’t the reason she left.”

“You don’t understand.”

“You let her go, Luke, because it was the right thing to do. As for not wanting to go home — I never met your parents, but the way Trish told it, she always felt like she had to be in control, she could never let loose and be a kid. It was a burden she carried a long time. When she got here, she was ready to set it down, but you weren’t ever the burden.”

I search his face, wanting badly to believe him. It explains a lot — a new name, new behavior — but it doesn’t explain everything.

“I was the one she had to be perfect for, not my parents. It was me she was trying to protect.”

“You sure about that? The way she told it, you were the one who always looked out for her.”

“She gave away my necklace,” I say dully. “I gave it to her years ago. She never took it off. But she gave it away. I couldn’t have been that important to her.”

Jamie gapes at me.

“You probably never noticed it,” I continue. “Maybe she gave it away before you met her.”

“The silver starfish?”

“Yeah.”

“What makes you think she gave it away?”

“I saw it. Tracy has it. Pat gave it to her.”

“Trish never took that necklace off!” says Jamie vehemently. “You have to believe me, Luke. She told me the whole story of how you saved up for it and what it meant to her. Not to mention the fact that she and Tracy hated each other. Trish had already asked Dr. Jake for a single room. She made it a condition of her staying on permanently.”

I examine his face, trying to get some hint that he’s just trying to make me feel better, but his confusion is palpable. As the implications of this new information filter through both of our minds, he’s angry, too.

“Do you remember if she was wearing the necklace the last night you saw her?” I ask urgently.

“She
always
wore it,” he insists, jumping to his feet. “There’s something very wrong here, Luke.”

All three of us are off the porch in seconds, sprinting out the gate. We don’t even need to discuss where we’re headed as we careen down the hill toward the Shark Center.