The Invited(55)

“Anyway, Dustin’s been a wreck. He spends all his free time tearing his house apart and putting it back together again. He says he wants to fix it up to surprise Lori when she gets home. Like she’s coming home. And like having a bigger bedroom and a brand-new living room is seriously going to get her to stay, right?” She rubbed at a small hole in her jeans, worrying the fabric, making it bigger.

“That seems so sad,” Helen said, imagining the poor guy constantly fixing things up, thinking that if he just gets it right, maybe his wife will come home and will want to stay this time. She wondered if Olive believed this, too, or if she was just going along with all the work to help keep her dad busy, to give him hope.

“Yeah, but the worst part is he’s so caught up in his grief over Lori leaving him that he’s not really paying much attention to Olive. I hear she barely showed up at school the whole final semester. She somehow managed to ace most of her tests and handed in homework from time to time, so she got passing grades, but from what I hear, it’s lucky they’re letting her move on to tenth grade in the fall. I’ve got a friend in the guidance department there.”

“And Dustin doesn’t know this?”

“If he does, he’s not doing anything about it. He’s made it pretty clear that it’s not my place to step in and give my opinion. I’m actually heading over there after this to check in with him, see what Olive’s up to. Make sure they’ve got food and stuff.” She sat up straighter, pocketed the baggie of weed and the lighter.

    “Wait, they might not have food?” Helen said.

“Last time I went over, Olive was having frozen French fries for dinner because that’s all there was in the house. It’s not a money thing. Dustin works. He just doesn’t have it together enough to shop and cook and be a single dad. Lori, she kept that house together. Dustin and Olive, they’re kind of floundering.”

“Wow, I had no idea,” Helen said. She thought about Olive stealing their stuff, setting the fire in the middle of the night on a school night, obsessed with buried treasure like a much younger kid—of course she didn’t have a good home life. How wrapped up in her own shit was she to have missed it?

They were quiet a minute, staring out at the yard, at the line of trees beyond it, the path that led down to the bog.

“Nate and I will try to do more to help. Ask Olive to stay for supper whenever she’s here. She’s such an amazing kid. So smart and helpful.” Riley nodded at her, looked grateful. “I hate to think of her not doing well in school,” Helen continued. “Maybe there’s something we can do to help with that, too. Nate and I were both middle school teachers, so we’re certainly up to doing some tutoring. We can offer to catch her up if she’s missed a lot of school.”

“That would be so great,” Riley said. “I worry about her a lot, but I don’t know how to help. I’ve offered for her to come and stay with me for a while, but she always says no. Besides, I don’t think Dustin would go for it. Olive’s all he has now. Honestly, I think if she wasn’t there, he’d lose it completely. Back when he was younger, before he married Lori, he was a big drinker. Suffered from bouts of depression. I’m afraid he’s slipping back into his old self. Which makes me so, so worried for Olive. She’s all he has, but he’s all she has, too. Well, her dad and me.” She paused, smiled at Helen, put a hand on her knee and gave it a grateful squeeze. “And now you and Nate!”

Helen nodded. She looked over toward the trailer, thought about telling Nate all of this. Surely he’d want to help Olive, too. He still didn’t trust her, called her “Little Ghost Girl” when she wasn’t around, but once Helen told him what was going on with Olive, he’d want to help. How could he not?

Riley saw her looking toward the trailer. “Nate should be careful,” she said.

    “Careful?”

“Yeah, there’s a story I didn’t mention when he was here ’cause I could tell he’d dismiss it as pure bullshit.”

“What is it?”

“Well, there used to be this guy, Frank Barns. He was the town doctor, and he loved to hunt. He lived over by Carver Creek. One day, back in the seventies, I think it was, he caught sight of the white doe out in the woods and became totally obsessed. He went out looking for it every weekend. One time, he was with his son, Dicky. Dicky was just a kid then, ten or eleven years old. They were over by the bog hunting quail. And Frank caught sight of the doe and took off after it. Dicky tried to keep up but lost sight of him. Frank Barns never came out of those woods.”

“No way!” Helen practically yelled. “He disappeared?”

Riley nodded, eyes widening, caught up in the story and Helen’s response to it. “Search parties looked for him for weeks. Hound dogs, a helicopter even. Nothing. The man vanished without a trace.”

“What do you think happened?” Helen asked. She was good and stoned now. Her thoughts felt strangely fluid.

“Hattie got him,” Riley said matter-of-factly.

Helen felt cold all over. “You know,” she said, feeling brave, emboldened by the weed. “I saw her, too.”

“The white deer?”

“No, the person. Hattie in human form. If I tell you, will you think I’m totally nuts?”