The Forgotten Hours(50)
“Why?” Katie yells at her parents as the two of them sit eating a cobbled-together dinner at the kitchen counter. “Why can’t we go back? I don’t understand!”
There are fumbled explanations; her mother flushes, her green eyes cloudy. But there is no real answer, other than the answer they all know deep down inside but cannot bring themselves to say. Eagle Lake is Chernobyl; it is fear and confusion and poison. It is Lulu and her fucked-up family and her lies.
Life cants at a strange angle but still moves forward. Nothing will stop time but death, and even then that’s not certain. The West Mills house goes on the market, but it doesn’t sell. Grumpy delays a planned move back to London. Sometimes he and Katie drive into the city to catch a show or to stop at the cliffside picnic spots on the Palisades Parkway to kill time (he does not come for dinner to the house anymore). They eat cheese-and-pickle sandwiches on Wonder Bread folded into wax paper that he grabs from her and crunches in his enormous fist until it shrinks into a damp ball. He tells her about England when he was a little boy. They find safe topics. She tries to dwell on happy, ordinary memories like these rather than wonder why Grumpy wants to leave them to return to England. This leaving, running away, seems like an act of cowardice to her. Gram died years ago; why does Grumpy want to leave now, when their world is imploding? Does he even know what’s going on? He is so stoic, his back so straight inside his corduroy blazer, his neck crisscrossed with wrinkles. But they can’t talk about what’s happening.
Her mother takes a job at a local flower shop and is no longer at home when the kids come back from school. She works weekends, special occasions. One morning Katie comes downstairs for breakfast to find her asleep, curled up on the armchair in the living room like a little girl, a book splayed on her lap, feet in thick socks. Her mouth hangs open and her face is relaxed. She’s been there all night. Katie gently touches her shoulder. “Mum,” she whispers, afraid to wake her but also needing to understand what’s happening.
Charlie startles. Under her eyes are thick smudges of mascara. She runs a hand over her hair, totally disoriented.
“It’s time for breakfast,” Katie says. “David’s not up yet.”
“Sorry, I . . . I fell asleep,” Charlie says, rising. Her book falls to the floor.
“Mummy, are you all right? What’s going to happen to Dad? Are we in trouble?”
A hundred thoughts appear to flit across her mother’s face, yet Katie can’t read any of them. She’s tried to ask before, and all she gets is a panicky glance that quickly turns distant, blocking her. Now her mother seems to be wrestling with making up her mind about what to say.
Anger rises inside Katie. “Dad won’t talk—he’s all, ‘Everything’s fine and dandy.’ And you, you’re . . .”
“I’m fine, darling. We’ll all be just fine, I promise.” She lays a chilly hand on Katie’s forearm. “We’re all doing the best we can. I think it’s wise to concentrate on your schoolwork and think about your own future, and Daddy and I will sort everything out in good time.”
“How am I supposed to do that? How should—”
“Listen,” her mother snaps. “You’re not helping matters. Just get on with things, all right? Think about the things you can control. Focus on that. Now I have to go get David up, or everyone’s going to be late.”
Katie wants to bark something at her in response, but she notices that her mother’s eyes have filled with tears, and she can’t bring herself to make things worse.
Two years pass after “that summer”—the axis upon which Katie’s world has been turning, the invisible yet foundational structure for all that is to come in her life. She sets the alarm for five fifteen every morning and runs through West Mills before the sun comes up. Here and there, lights flash on, and she spots a bathrobed mom at a sink, the kitchen window aflame in the steely morning, or a man bent toward a bathroom mirror, shaving. Children sleep as parents rouse themselves to face the world, and Katie runs and runs. At home and school she is lethargic, always yawning, but on her runs she is tireless, pneumatic. She gets leaner, faster. Her fear fuels her—and as time counts down (finally, finally) to the day when she will testify, she is furious at everyone. At David, now a teenager, for his red-rimmed eyes and shredded lips. At Charlie for her fortressed silence. At her father for suffering in a way she can’t do anything about and for expecting too much from them all. She often dreams of her friend, of screaming at her until the veins in her neck burst, and she wakes up even angrier. Her anger lurks, voracious and annihilating, behind the door she has slammed shut, and she cannot risk letting it out.
But she needs someone. Someone who will understand; she knows she needs this, or she might go mad. Yet there is no one.
Once the trial starts, her parents drive the one and a half hours back and forth from West Mills to Blackbrooke each day, leaving the house early in the morning and returning late, eyes crazed with red tracks, blank expressions denying trouble. John tells bad jokes as Charlie lays the table and serves up lasagna or her disgusting spinach pie. His good cheer is pervasive, the exhaustion so subtle that it’s not that hard to be lulled into a sense of security.
But that changes when Katie takes the stand.
In the front row, Grumpy sits, stooped, and seeing him like that makes her falter. He looks so old, his back weighed down by whatever it is he’s thinking. The judge sits on a raised mahogany throne, or so it seems, surrounded by intricate woodwork scrolls and stacks of leather-bound books, wearing an impressive black robe. Judge Sonnenheim’s narrow, lined face is impassive, but her eyes are kind as they track Katie’s movement toward the witness stand.