The Words Between Us, page 17
I brushed my tangled hair as we headed north on I-190. We crossed into Canada with the rush hour traffic, and Peter took a coastal road along the shore of Lake Ontario for several miles, allowing me to stare out the window at the glittering mass of water set alight by the brilliant morning sun. It looked as though all of the stars of last night had dropped into the water to await the next evening, when they would shoot back up into the velvet sky.
We stopped for breakfast and got directions back to the highway from two large and congenial men slurping down coffee in the booth next to ours.
“Wow, those guys couldn’t have been more Canadian,” Peter said as he pulled out onto the road. “‘It’s aboot five miles down da road, ya know, eh?’”
“You know that’s what you sound like, right?”
“No I don’t. People from Michigan don’t have an accent.”
“Yes you do. You sound almost exactly like them.”
“No we don’t. Are you kidding?”
“You have an accent.”
“Haven’t you ever watched national news? Newscasters all sound exactly like me, no matter where they’re from. Which means they’re coached to sound like me. They’re not coached to sound like you. You have an accent.” He gave my arm a playful push.
I flicked his ear in retribution. “And you sound like a Canadian.”
Canada slipped by over the next couple hours, but I was largely unaware. My restless night had caught up with me. Peter had to nudge me awake when he eased the car into line at the next border crossing. The Canadian guard that morning had been pleasant, looking over our IDs and telling us that he could only let us into his country if we could name one Backstreet Boy. We managed to answer to his satisfaction, and he opened the gate. Now on the way back into our own country, the humorless American guard analyzed our IDs with a frown and quizzed us about what we were doing in Canada and why we weren’t in school.
“You went to Canada on your spring break?” he said doubtfully at Peter’s explanation.
“Not exactly, sir,” Peter said. “We’re driving through it because it’s faster.”
The guard examined the ID that had come in the fat envelope from the social worker when I changed my name, and narrowed his eyes. For a moment I panicked, wondering if it was real or if maybe she had gotten it made by some counterfeiter like in the movies. What if the guard didn’t let me back in?
“You two related?”
“No.”
“Your parents know where you are?”
“Yes,” Peter said.
“I’m talking to her.”
“Y-yes, sir. Well, no. I mean, I live with my grandmother.”
“Her parents are dead,” Peter said.
The officer pressed his lips together and seemed to be deciding whether or not he believed that. “Pop the trunk,” he commanded.
He walked around to the back of the car and was gone so long I was sure I would soon be hauled off to a tiny interrogation room somewhere. Maybe the entire Windsor family would end up in jail.
Peter leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Hey, it’s fine. Relax.”
“I thought you said you were from Michigan,” the officer said when he appeared back at the open window. “Your luggage tag has a Massachusetts address.”
“I’m originally from there,” I managed to say. “I moved to Sussex, Michigan, last summer. When my parents died.”
“It’s near River City,” Peter supplied.
“I know where it is. You should change your luggage tags.”
“Yes, sir.”
The guard looked us both up and down once more and then zeroed in on me. “I’m sorry about your folks.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He waved us on but looked doubtful that it was the right thing to do.
At some point I began breathing normally again. On I-75, Peter said, “Last chance to call it quits and go home.”
“Do you want to go home?”
He let loose an enormous yawn. “I sure don’t want to face my dad.”
“Keep driving.”
We were ravenous by the time we found a McDonald’s. We ate quickly and were back on the road by four o’clock. For a hundred miles or more, we passed only farmland and windbreaks, the flat, featureless expanse of fields Peter was so tired of. I followed our progress on the map, ticking off mile markers and mouthing the names of all the little towns we didn’t have time to explore. We raced the sun as it made its relentless journey across the sky. Clouds drifted in from the west. Fields gave way to trees, and the earth began to flex and roll. It was after six o’clock when the towers of the Mackinac Bridge finally came into view.
“Think we’ll make it to Lake Superior before sunset?”
“If we count the Straits as both Lake Michigan and Lake Huron we might.”
For a moment at the top of a hill I could see forever in both directions, green and brown land hemmed in by vast blue inland seas. “That’s technically both of them anyway, right?”
“Yeah. And you’ll see more of Lake Michigan when we get to the UP.”
“Oh! Upper Peninsula. They eat pasties there.”
Peter stared at me for a moment.
“What?” I said. “They do. My grandma told me.”
He looked back to the road. “How do you think she’s doing?”
I’d been trying not to think of her as we slipped down the gray ribbon of highway. It wasn’t working, of course. I’d been imagining every scenario and what I would do. If she never got back her memory of me, if she was brain damaged for life, if she couldn’t make dinner or go to the bathroom by herself. Would I have to drop out of school to care for her? Would we have to have a live-in nurse? Where would I go if she never recovered and had to live in a nursing home?
“She’s in a hospital. I’m sure she’s doing fine.” Only I wasn’t sure at all.
At the base of the enormous suspension bridge, Peter slowed and took the middle lane. The bridge was five miles long, the wind stiff, the buzzing sound of the tires unnerving. For several minutes we were suspended almost two hundred feet above the churning waves below. These waters were not the near mirror of Lake Erie before the morning’s boat traffic disturbed the surface. They did not have the starlight glow of Lake Ontario, which called people to leave their responsibilities on shore and hop on a sailboat. These waters were surly, still edged with winter’s ice, battering the ferries that were busily traversing the space between the mainland and a far-off island like ants following a trail.
When we reached the other side of the bridge I had almost the same feeling of relief I’d had when we finally made it through the border crossing back into Michigan. We paid the toll and then Peter aimed the car toward the setting sun.
I pulled down my visor and examined the map. “Isn’t the lake north?”
“If you go straight north from the bridge you’ll end up at the Soo Locks. You can’t say you’ve seen Lake Superior until you’ve at least seen it from somewhere like Grand Marais. So I’m bringing you up there. There’s a spot that’s easy to park at where you can see the Grand Sable Dunes on one side and cliffs on the other. It’s gorgeous at sunset.”
I found Grand Marais on the map at the eastern end of something called Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. “What’s Pictured Rocks?”
“It’s a national park. There are hiking trails there, gorgeous beaches, and all sorts of cliffs and arches and caves along the water. Some of them look like things—like an Indian head or a fleet of ships—and some of them have waterfalls that go into the lake, and minerals leach from the rocks and stain the cliffs with stripes of all different colors. We took a family vacation up there a year before Mom died. Alex was home from school. The whole family was together. Well, mostly together. Dad stayed at the hotel and got some work done while Mom and Alex and I did a boat tour of the cliffs and then went to the sand dunes.”
I rolled my eyes. Didn’t he see it? It was plain as day if you just paid an ounce of attention.
“Did you ever talk to any doctors about how your mom died?” I asked.
“My dad did. Why?”
“I didn’t know if you had been at the hospital with her or anything.”
“No. It happened when I was visiting Alex at MSU. By the time Dad got ahold of us and we got home, her body was already at the funeral parlor.”
I nodded silently.
“Why?”
There are moments in life when everything pivots, where your trajectory changes and the future you were headed toward dissolves and is replaced by another. This was one of those moments, though I didn’t know it then. The moment when everything twisted out of place. The beginning of the end. The water over the fall. I could have stopped it if I’d just kept my mouth shut. But I didn’t. I never did back then.
“Did you ever wonder if maybe it wasn’t an aneurysm?”
23
Now
Billy.”
It comes out as a whisper the same moment the report of an explosion reaches my ear. He can’t have heard me. I’m not even sure he sees me as he picks a bit of loose tobacco from the wet end of his cigar. I forget about my unconventional trip across the river and stare at the man in the back of the boat. How can he be here? I’m mistaken. It’s not him. It can’t be him.
I step carefully across a couple of life preservers and sit in the opposite corner of the bench seat. I tousle my hair so it covers more of my face, though even if this really is my father’s former chief of staff, I doubt he’d recognize me after all these years.
“This your boat?” I ask between explosions.
“Nah. Mine’s a thirty-footer. Left her in the bay and caught a ride upriver with these fellows.”
“Friends of yours?”
“Just met them.” He leans forward. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
I look around for Sarah, but she is nowhere to be seen. “Emily.”
“I’m Billy,” he says. Or did he repeat “Emily”?
We’re quiet for a moment as the sky explodes above us.
“Where are you from?” I say in a pocket of silence.
“Everywhere. Live on my boat.” More explosions. He leans a little closer, clearly happy that a younger woman seems interested in him. “I winter in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Head up the West Coast some years and summer off Washington or British Columbia. Other years I come up the East Coast and summer in Maine. First time I’ve come down the Saint Lawrence Seaway, though. Tomorrow I’m bound for Lake Superior. Want to come along?”
I ignore the suggestive invitation and shout to be heard over the fireworks. “First time in Michigan?”
“I’ve been here before. Long time ago.”
“Sounds like an interesting life.”
“It’s great. Never feel tied down.” He takes a long draw on his cigar. “Meet lots of interesting—and beautiful—people along the way.”
I fight back my gag reflex. “I assume you’re retired?” I risk a sidelong glance at him and see that he’s frowning.
“Kind of nosy, aren’t you, Emily?”
The sky goes silent for the space of a breath. The finale is coming.
“This is the best part,” I say, pointing at the sky, pointing away from my inquiries.
The fireworks begin again, three times as big and loud, a constant barrage of booming explosions. The cheers and whistles of more than one hundred thousand people rise up from below and seem to blow the lingering smoke across the sky.
After fifteen minutes of nonstop detonation, my chest is rattling and I can hardly take any more. Then the bottom drops out. Silence. The crowd erupts. After the aural bombardment, their screams and whoops sound like they’re coming from inside a refrigerator. I forget myself and join the standing ovation. If there’s one thing my adopted city does better than anyone else, it’s fireworks.
The older man beside me takes the opportunity of being in a boisterous, largely drunken crowd to press his advantage. “God bless America!” he shouts, then he grabs me around the waist and plants a disgusting kiss on my lips. After a moment he releases his hold and finally looks me full in the face.
“Lindy?” he says in disbelief—or is that fear in his eyes? He takes a step back. His heels connect with the bench and he sits down hard.
Sarah descends upon me. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you! Took me three boats to figure out you were gone!”
I extract my arm from her grip. “Stop it.” I turn to the man. “I’m not Lindy.”
He nods slightly, but it takes a moment for his expression to change.
“Come on, Robin. Ryan’s waiting for us.”
I swat at Sarah like a mosquito. “So go without me.”
“Look, these guys are not going to be happy if I have to come back for you again.”
“I said go without me.”
“Why? You know this guy?” Then to him, “Who’re you?”
I speak close to her ear. “I can’t leave now. This man . . . is a family friend. You go on. Give Ryan my regrets. Take a cab home.”
She lets out an angry huff. “Fine. But you’re missing out.” She wags a finger in my face, then heads to the front of the boat.
For a moment I worry about her stumbling into the river, but then I think of all the men out here who’d love to be on the receiving end of her gratitude for saving her life.
Billy is leaning toward me, elbows on his knees, studying my features, schooling his. “Robin. Wow. I don’t think I’ve seen you in—”
“Almost twenty years,” I supply.
Something flashes across his expression, but whatever it is, he draws the blinds so quickly I can’t even be sure I saw it. The casual, cigar-chomping sailor is back.
“So, what have you been up to?”
“What is anyone up to? Working.”
He nods. “I got out of politics. Bought the boat. I thought it would be best to keep moving. When you’re in one place too long, people start recognizing you, calling up the local news. Maybe you know what that’s like.”
I feel a tightening in my stomach, like the cinching of the belt on a bathrobe to keep it from falling open.
“Couldn’t really get regular work with my . . . associations anyway,” he continues. “Your parents managed to make enemies all over. Especially your mother. Turns my blood cold to think of her getting out soon. If you knew the truth . . .”
I struggle to get the words past my clenched teeth. “What’s the truth?”
He squares his shoulders and looks me straight in the eye.
“The truth is your dad didn’t kill those people.”
24
Then
There are many types of quiet. The quiet after the last dying note of a symphony. The quiet of your bedroom when you’ve woken suddenly in the night with a nameless anxiety. The quiet of the doll in the window of my mother’s decaying childhood home.
Peter’s quiet hung in the air between us like a slowly circling mist. I was tempted to break it apart, wave it away like Grandma’s cigarette smoke, and go on talking to fill the silence. Instead I waited. I’d said what I thought he needed to hear. Now it was his turn.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” he finally said.
“I don’t know, only . . . you had to take your dad’s word for it that an aneurysm was what she died of.”
“And?”
“Well, do you think your dad told the truth?”
Peter shifted in his seat and glanced from me to the road several times in rapid succession. “What possible reason could he have for not telling the truth?”
I hesitated. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t the combative tone I was hearing. “I don’t know. Parents lie sometimes. I always trusted my parents, and look what happened to me.”
“Yeah, and I’ll ask again: what possible reason could my father have for lying about how my mom—his wife—died? Just because your parents turned out to be lowlife criminals doesn’t mean all adults everywhere are hiding some deep dark secret, okay? I know it’s hard to come to grips with what happened with your parents, but you can’t take that out on other people.”
I wanted to grab the wheel and run Peter off the road for saying that. Visions of Sarah Kukla’s bloodied and broken body flashed through my mind.
“Sorry,” I said instead. “You’re right. I don’t know what I’m even thinking anymore.”
He put a hand on the back of my neck and squeezed it gently. “You’ve been through a lot lately. Don’t worry about it. Just . . . get out of your head, okay? It’s kind of messed up in there.”
He was smiling as he said it, and I laughed it off. But I couldn’t escape from the cyclone of my mind. I was always in there, swirling around among the debris. What had I been thinking? Did it really matter how Emily Flynt had died? Wouldn’t it be better for Peter to believe she’d died at the cruel hand of fate rather than at her own desperate hand? Who’s to say I was even remotely close to being right anyway? Maybe I was seeing a pattern that existed not on the page but in my own “messed up” psyche. Maybe the wallpaper was simply wallpaper and there were no prison bars, no grotesque bulging eyes or gaping mouths taunting me from beneath the acanthus leaves. Maybe I was going mad.
In the deepening silence, we stopped at a dinky gas station where patrons could fill their tanks and buy the pelt of a skunk, coyote, or bear, then headed north on an empty road. There was still snow this far north, but the road was clear and we flew down it, trying to beat the sun. Peter passed an empty visitor station, still closed for the season, and an inland lake ringed with ice. It was nearly 7:30 by the time we pried our butts off the seats in a small, deserted parking lot. Peter took the flashlight from the glove box and a plaid wool blanket from the trunk, and we walked along a snowy, paved path until it disappeared into snow-streaked sand.
A sign covered with dire warnings in bold type seemed to indicate that we would be in need of emergency assistance should we choose to go down the steep dune called the Log Slide to the water’s edge, but I had no desire to do anything of the sort. There was some menacing force down there. I could hear it. We crept over the crest of sand and dead vegetation, and my breath was swept from my body by an arctic blast of wind. Then I realized that I could see nothing but water and sky.
