Rapid Falls(46)

“She’s not even sleeping in their room anymore.”

“I know.”

We were both silent. A few months ago, it would have been our biggest problem. Now it barely even registered.

“So what now?” Anna said. “What am I supposed to do?”

I felt my anger rise again. “About what?” I tried to keep my voice neutral as I dragged another piece of skin from my thumb with my teeth.

“Are you kidding? About what to have for dinner. What do you think I’m talking about?” Anna said.

“How the hell am I supposed to know?” I took a deep breath to keep the blackness from engulfing me. I needed to keep myself focused. I needed control. I kept my voice level. “Anna, it was graduation night. My graduation night. No one is going to believe you stayed sober. If you plead not guilty, you’re going to jail. For a long time.”

Anna sobbed again, but softly. “Cara . . .” Her voice was pleading.

“I can’t lie to you, Anna. I don’t believe you. Why would anyone else? I’m trying so hard to make what you did be okay. But it’s not.”

Anna looked at me with eyes that were full of remorse. I wondered if she was feeling bad for all the things she had done. Even the ones she thought I didn’t know about.

“I know. I’m sorry, Cara. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Maybe you are, Anna. But it’s not enough. Not for Jesse. Not for me. And not for the rest of Rapid Falls.”

Neither of us spoke for a while. A dragonfly clicked against my closed window, and we both looked up at the evening light. The sun was setting purple and pink. It was probably a beautiful night.

“You did this, Anna.”

She looked at me, and it seemed like her eyes wouldn’t ever contain anything but pain.

“You’re right,” she said. I nodded as she got up from the bed. “Thanks, Cara.”

“For what?” I said, unable to keep the scorn from my voice.

“For helping me decide.”

I heard her go downstairs and tell my dad she needed to talk to him. My bedroom was right over the kitchen, and I could hear her accept my dad’s offer of a drink after she told him what she was going to do. It was the first time I had ever heard my father allow us alcohol.

The next morning, Anna called the lawyer herself to tell him she was pleading guilty.





CHAPTER NINETEEN

August 2016

Rick hasn’t spoken since we got in the car twenty minutes ago. His hands are tight on the wheel.

“Are you okay?” My voice is flat. I’m too tired to take care of him today.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He is lying. I muster up the strength to issue a follow-up question. Rick needs attention. Just like everyone else. Maggie was up at 3:00 a.m. last night, crying about monsters. She was inconsolable, and all I could do was hold her, letting her tears warm and then cool my skin as she clung to me with hands that felt like claws. Finally she relaxed into sleep, and her small, soft body melted into my arms. I stayed in her bed all night, listening to her deep, even breaths. My mother’s confession kept me from sleeping. I was only a couple of years older than Maggie when my mother had left me all alone with my drunk father. I could never do that to my daughter. Back then, none of them understood what real love was. I have to remember that. Rick and Maggie are what matter now.

“Are you sure?” I reach over to touch his arm, and he puts one of his hands over mine. He is still facing away from me, but we are connected now. I hear a swallow click in his dry throat.

“I just . . . I just don’t know what I’m going to say to her,” he says.

“You didn’t have to come—”

He doesn’t let me finish. “I know I didn’t have to come. But you do so much. I just want to help.”

I don’t even know where to begin. Somehow we have to try to halt my sister’s self-destruction in the few moments when we are not handling the constant needs of a toddler. We are both so tired. It feels like it’s going to overwhelm us.

“Anna’s fine. She’s safe now. Maybe this time at the center will be what works. We’ll get through this.” The words feel like a recitation. I wonder if he can tell that I don’t mean any of them.

He smiles at me. “I feel like we are parenting two crazy people.”

I nod and laugh a little. “I don’t even know which one is worse.” I am grateful that this elicits a chuckle. It’s hard to see Rick like this, to deal with a stressed husband on top of everything else. He’s always been so poised, so controlled. It’s why I married him. I lived on campus the first year that we were dating, and I was so proud to have a boyfriend who had already finished school. He was clean, stable, unmarked by small-town tragedy and chaos. Marrying him meant I’d succeeded. I wasn’t white trash.

“Are you ready?” I ask as he turns the car left into the small parking lot. A handful of people stand outside the building, smoking unhappily. A young girl stares at us as we pull up, and I return her gaze. Despite her youth, her eyes are hard and empty, as if she’s reached the end of a harrowing road only to find another more difficult path ahead.

“Yes,” Rick says, and he climbs out of the car. Once we’ve closed our doors, he presses the locking fob, meeting the eyes of the staring girl pointedly as our BMW emits a high-pitched beep-beep. Rick uses his high-class upbringing like armor when he feels intimidated. It looks like snobbery, but for him it’s survival. The girl spits deliberately on the sidewalk in front of my husband as we walk past.