Rapid Falls(40)

“You help the one who can be saved. No matter what,” he continued. His lips lifted at the corners, but he was not smiling. His eyes were as dark as the river at night. I left the room without saying goodbye, trying to squash down a feeling of panic. It was going to be okay. He was just drunk and confused. Only I knew what really happened; even Anna didn’t remember. The truth was down deep, at the bottom of a cold, dark river. With Jesse’s body.

I walked by the guest room. The bed was rumpled from my mom. When I asked her why she had taken to sleeping there lately, trying to force her to admit the tension between her and my dad, she told me he snored. As if that was a new development.

Anna’s door was closed. I hesitated as I reached for the handle to let myself in. At the last minute, I pulled back and decided to knock.

“Anna? It’s me,” I said as I cracked the door. The room smelled like stale perfume. Anna was lying on her stomach on the bed, hunched over a book. I could hear the river through her open windows.

“Hi.” Her voice was dull.

“What happened? Mom is freaking out.”

Anna shrugged. “I’m going to jail.” Her lack of emotion made the situation scarier. “What am I going to do, Cara?” Her voice broke like a failing dam releasing a flood of emotion. She put her hands over her face and started to cry.

“Can I sit down?”

Anna nodded and took a gulp of breath. “Where were you?”

“I was with Wade.”

“Does he hate me too?”

“Nobody hates you, Anna.”

She snorted. “Yeah, right.”

I wasn’t going to try to make her feel better. It was happening to me too. Rapid Falls was circling its wagons. They wouldn’t even serve me at the post office two days ago. The woman who had sold me stamps since I was a kid closed the till as soon as I got to the front of the line, announcing that it was time for her break.

“What did you expect?” I asked her flatly.

“I don’t know. It’s just so awful. The police treat me like I’m dirt. Sergeant Murphy wouldn’t even look me in the eye when he took my statement.”

I felt disgusted by her self-pity.

“People loved Jesse.”

“Yeah. Everyone loved Jesse.” She turned away from me. Her words made me clench my fists, hard. I took a deep breath to will away the anger and regain control. Anna buried her face into a pillow. After a few moments of silence, she said a few garbled words.

“What did you say?”

She lifted her head. “I got in.” She gestured toward her nightstand where I saw a folded piece of paper on top of a thick envelope.

“I got into film school. Classes start September fifteenth.” She looked at me with a face raw with pain.

“Oh,” I said, still thinking of Jesse.

“Yeah. My first day would have been September fifteenth. The same day as the start of my trial.”





CHAPTER FIFTEEN

July 2016

If I ignore the lingering odor of cigarettes, I could be in a classroom for troubled kids. The drawings on the walls look childish but desperate. Wobbly letters on one of them command me to LIVE, LOVE, AND LAUGH. Another shows a face with a screaming mouth crammed with a dream catcher. Their raw emotion puts me on edge even before the interview begins. I’m meeting with Anna’s counselor at the inpatient rehab center that Rick and I are paying for. After five days in the hospital, Dr. Johal recommended transitioning Anna there. Rick’s dad had pulled strings with some of his former colleagues, and the district attorney had agreed to dismiss charges, provided Anna completed the entire program. I roll my shoulders, trying to will away my mortification at involving Rick’s father in Anna’s sordid story.

The counselor clears her throat loudly. The wet sound makes me wince. “Have you ever been to therapy”—she looks down at her notes—“Cora?”

“It’s Cara,” I say, trying not to let my disdain for her lack of professionalism change my voice. “And no, I haven’t.” The couples therapist Rick and I saw is none of her business. I am a stable person. I have never required the kind of help she is asking about. I smooth my hair and look at her with a patient smile. She is overweight but doesn’t seem to realize it. Her flesh spills out the top of her too-tight polyester pants.

Anna called the night before, while I was in the middle of giving Maggie a bath, to ask me to come today. It felt like she had waited until the last minute to ask me, as a test. I didn’t know how much longer I’d feel obligated to drop everything in my crowded life for her. Maybe it would never end.

“Okay. I’ll start slow.” The woman winked at me and I smiled back. “I’ve been trying to help Anna understand the different roles each person in a family can play.” She hands me a packet with the title Family Roles. I flip through it quickly. I see descriptions of lost child, enabler, hero, codependent, scapegoat, or mascot.

“So let’s begin on page one,” she says.

I rush in. “I think I understand. Anna talked to me about this last night,” I lie.

“Okay, great,” she says. “So what role do you think Anna plays in your family?”

“Um, probably scapegoat.” I toss off the word quickly and unthinkingly. I’m not prepared for the image that springs to mind, of a balled-up piece of paper I found in her room after she went to prison. The words, written in blue ink, were smudged as if she had cried on the page. My stomach clenches at the memory.