The Forgotten Hours(22)
For example, Katie hadn’t known that Lulu played hooky a lot, that she was often in trouble for unauthorized absences. That she already played in a folk band or that she saw a court-ordered psychotherapist every week. Katie certainly didn’t know that, just a few months after they said goodbye to each other for the last time, Lulu would tell a teacher at her school some outrageous story about crazy things happening to her in the den—in this very room—as Katie slept on the couch nearby.
That she’d say things had happened that were unthinkable, impossible—that Katie’s father touched her late that night. More than that, more.
From the den, Katie could see out the window to the perimeter of the woods where the patio petered out. The forest was a mysterious, tangled place, full of mixed oak, fir, and red spruce. She caught sight of the old shed, where her father used to store their bikes over the winter. A compact wooden structure, it had a tiled roof that was almost entirely obscured by a layer of luminous green moss. Her mother kept brooms and buckets there, cleaning supplies. Katie hadn’t been thinking ahead; she should have stopped in Blackbrooke and bought supplies so she could start in on getting the place tidied up. She picked her way over the loosened stone, shivering in the spring breeze.
The padlock on the door hung open on its rusted hook. Katie kicked aside some matted leaves and inched the door open. Inside, her father had nailed metal grips along the walls and painted the outlines of his tools on the rough boards so he’d know where everything went. They were empty now, faded ghosts. She switched on the overhead. No bikes, just a push mower and a broken bookcase. In the back corner stood a plastic trash can and a bunch of cardboard moving boxes from when they’d sold the West Mills house, including a midsized wooden box that she recognized as David’s old treasure chest. Stenciled on the lid in fading black was the image of a pirate wearing an eye patch and a hat.
She crouched down beside the box, ran her finger over the dusty lid, and then lifted it open. A tiny black spider with long, articulated legs scuttered away. The box wasn’t filled with children’s toys anymore, nor did it hold photos; instead there were a bunch of spiral-bound notebooks and a manila folder full of loose papers. There were bills and old bank statements and some scraps of drawing paper. With a start she realized the folder held paperwork from the trial. Letters from lawyers, a huge envelope marked “bills.” There was a thin pack of letters in there, too, held together with elastic bands. Just as she was about to shove the letters and the paperwork back into the box, a name caught her eye, and her head flooded with static.
Jack Benson.
She puzzled over his name, written on the left-hand corner of an envelope that was addressed to her. The date on the stamp read May 2010, shortly before her father’s trial. The letter seemed a relic from another era, one that dated from long before her time; she couldn’t remember when she’d last received a bona fide, handwritten letter—maybe from Grumpy, who didn’t use a computer. The envelope was thick, creamy, good paper stock. Jack had written her name in ballpoint pen, chicken scratch for letters. Larger K and G. She turned it over and over, handling it gently as though it might disintegrate. It had been opened.
Jack had tried to reach her . . . he had written her a letter! She’d had no idea. They hadn’t been on Facebook back then, but she’d definitely had email . . . and then she remembered that her mother had made her change her email account. When had that happened?
It was in the spring of 2008, when the lawyer first started coming around to the house. Her mother had forbidden her to use the computer, and Katie had grown to like the isolation, the sense of protecting herself from a world that gave not one shit about what she was feeling.
To calm herself, she laid one hand on her stomach. Her body seemed to ache all over, her muscles pulsing and sore. Yesterday she’d had to stop twice in the middle of her run to catch her breath.
All this time she had thought Jack had turned his back on her. The letter was radioactive in her fingers.
10
Sometimes it’s the voices that break through—the varying timbres. Her father’s, always laughing, teasing, cajoling. Her mother’s British cadence, clipped and precise.
And Lulu’s—full, deep, yet feminine. Breathy and rooted at the same time; a contradiction. So lovely in song, making the hairs on Katie’s arms shiver. There’s something powerful about it, even in regular conversation.
“You know, Katie, I love this place. I do,” Lulu says as Katie comes back toward her. She’s sitting in the darkness beneath the maple that leans out over the water. “But please? If I ever turn into one of those old cronies in there, wearing dress-up clothes when I’m forty fucking years old and getting drunk on vodka and soda, just shoot me, okay?” She makes a gun with thumb and forefinger and points it at her forehead.
“Jack’s back,” Katie says, toeing the grass at the water’s edge. “He’s inside.”
“Oh!” Lulu cries, jumping up. “We’d better go in—he might think I’ve already gone home.”
“Why do you assume that he’s . . .” Katie starts and falters instantly. This is ridiculous; she should just come out with it. But there is something unspoken between them, a fact they both accepted long ago: Lulu is the pretty one, with her burnished skin and wide-set eyes. The contagious energy. The brown belly boys can’t drag their eyes away from. That strong voice, daring you to challenge her.