The Forgotten Hours(37)

John had polished this car every weekend during the warm-weather months. During the winter he had parked it in the heated garage at West Mills. In the summers, the roof had always been down, kids clambering with wet feet over the back seat. Now the roof was up, but the windows had been left lowered. Katie looked toward the Nicholses’ house, dappled in the shade like a hen’s egg. Constance was standing on the listing front porch, sun hat in hand, watching them. “She’s sorta creepy,” she said under her breath. “Staring at us like that.”

“She’s okay,” David said. “She was really good to Mum after the trial. They were kind of friends.”

Katie sidled into the darkness of the garage and tried the passenger door, but it wouldn’t budge. The roof’s sagging fabric was clogged with pine needles and mouse droppings. Together they hauled it back like a huge black tongue, something diseased or contaminated. For what seemed like a long time, they both stood looking at the leather seats, graying from years of disuse. Coldness emanated from the interior, combined with the faint smell of mold.

Cautiously, Katie leaned forward and slid into the passenger seat. David clambered into the back and began rooting around under the seats. He held up a sneaker and a T-shirt. “There’s tons of shit back here. There’s even some empties. Schlitz, for Christ’s sake. We’ve got to clean this out.”

“First we gotta get it rolling,” Katie said. “Dad’ll be so happy.”

“And that’s the most important thing, right? That he’s happy.”

She stopped in midmotion. “You being sarcastic?”

“No, no. I get it. It’s just . . .” He shook his head, frustrated. “I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like everything revolves around him. If he’s here, if he’s not, whatever, it’s always about him.”

“Davey . . .”

“I know. Sorry. I’m just saying what I think.”

The ignition wouldn’t turn at all. David went into the house and came back with some olive oil, a handheld brush, and a few plastic bags. They tried again; now the key turned, but there was no sound from the engine. He peered under the hood and swept away some debris.

“This thing’s a mess,” he said. “We probably need to get it towed.”

Katie looked up a garage in Blackbrooke that she remembered her father using when the car kept stalling one summer. They would tow it into town and see if they could get it running. “This is going to cost us a fortune,” she said when she hung up.

“Let’s at least get the junk out,” he said.

Katie noticed something David was holding. “What’s that?”

“It was stuffed under the front seat.”

Curious, she took the rag from him. Shaking it out, she held it up in front of her. The material was thin, and even in the stippled light of the woods, it was almost transparent, a faint rosy pink from years of being wet and drying and then getting wet and dry again. Holes by the neck and short capped sleeves. This T-shirt was familiar to her: It had been left countless times, soaking wet, on the floor in the laundry room. It had been hung on the line to dry. It had been worn by Katie, and once even by David, who had only taken it off when John had remarked on pink being a strange color for a boy to wear. It was crinkled and dirty. The blue print on the front was so faded as to be almost illegible, but she knew what it said.

It said Hawaii in bubble letters. Lulu had been wearing it that night, the last night of summer.





17

Holding that flimsy material in her hands, Katie could almost smell Lulu, feel the texture of her skin, see her impish frown. How had her father gotten hold of that T-shirt? Maybe he had gone swimming with Lulu while Jack and Katie were at the Dolans’ house, but what—if anything—did that mean? Maybe her father had played a trick on Lulu—snatched her clothes away while she was in the water. It could have been entirely harmless. But Lulu had been upset when Katie found her at the dock. None of this was adding up.

“This is Lulu’s,” she said to her brother.

“Oh,” David said. “We should just throw it away, right?”

“I mean, Lulu was wearing it that night. You know? During the square dance?”

He cocked his head to one side. “Shit, that’s weird, right? Why would it be in the car?”

“That’s what I’m wondering.”

“Look, all this rooting around? It’s not going to end well.”

“What do you mean? Why not—do you know something?”

“Nothing more than you do. I promise,” he said. “Really. But . . . but I don’t know. I have a bad feeling. I just do.”

“Well,” she said, cramming the T-shirt into the trash bag, “I guess at this point what we feel isn’t really all that relevant, is it? He’s our father, and we love him, and he needs our help.” Even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t really that simple. Yes, she loved him. Yes, he needed help. But she also knew that to move forward, she was going to have to keep going backward. Stars specked the black beneath her lids as she rubbed at her eyes. It felt as though she hadn’t slept in days. She couldn’t explain it to David, or she didn’t want to—at least not yet, not until she knew more. He had his own path to take, and she didn’t feel like justifying herself to him.