Sweet Water(78)

He takes a few deep breaths, and we need to have this talk, but I’m about three days too late. “Her brother is worse off than she is, really. He’s gotten himself into one mess after another. Yazmin said it’s because he blames himself for their father’s death. He keeps trying to do things to bring them up, but each one drags them down. And he wouldn’t let me help. Always hated me for some reason.” Finn stares at his hands balled into fists. “She’d only really open up to me after a few hits. It wasn’t like she was addicted; she just needed something to take the edge off.”

Cash’s name keeps coming up, and Finn wouldn’t mention him if he didn’t have something to do with this. Maybe Cash is involved somehow. I need something more substantial from Finn, because the I-don’t-remember shit isn’t working for me anymore.

“I get it. I do. By ‘bring them up,’ you mean Cash was trying to help out financially? Were they having trouble supporting themselves after their father passed away?” I ask.

“Yeah. Her father was a self-insured truck driver with no life insurance policy. They were left with nothing. They sold his truck, but it didn’t go far.”

“That’s too bad.” I think of my father and how screwed we would’ve been if something had happened to him.

“At least Alisha is employed.”

“She had to go back to work after staying at home for years. Yazmin says she hates working at the casino. She gets propositioned by men a lot.”

I clear my throat. “That’s awful.” I close my eyes and shake my head. “And it’s too bad what happened with Yazmin’s dad. And Cash.” Alisha brought up Cash’s troubles as well. Poor family, but I’m beginning to wonder about the brother.

“Finn, why do you think the drugs were laced?”

He shakes his head, still angry. “I don’t get that part. I think she got a bad batch or something.”

“That you know of . . .” I look at Finn because he has to realize he may not have known everything about his girlfriend. If she smoked one thing to escape her PTSD, she might’ve tried others, whatever was available to quiet the demons. That’s what the women at the shelter with similar circumstances have told me.

“The journal, Finn. What are you worried about that might be in there?” He’s never directly answered the question.

“I don’t know what she wrote, Mom. Writing things down helped her cope. She called it her purge book.” He grins at the memory, and then his smile breaks apart. It kills me to see the sweet smile of my little boy—shreds me more to wonder if I’ve raised a son cold-blooded enough to smile about getting away with murder. “She’d write lyrics in music class too.”

“Well, they can’t find the journal now. There seems to have been a mix-up in evidence.”

“A mix-up with Alton?” he says. Finn’s a smart kid; he understands how things work in this family. Is he in on it? Is that what I’m missing? Martin and Alton and Finn scheming behind my back?

“He’s looking for it,” I lie, and I can almost feel the heat of my words. I can’t do it anymore. Even the small lies, the white ones, are burning me. I’m done with it all. Done with being an Ellsworth.

Martin bursts in the room, banging the door against the wall even though it’s already wide open. His skin is oily, sweaty. His glasses slide down his nose, and he pushes them back up. I watch as he clutches his cell phone in one hand. “Sarah, Yazmin did not have a joint laced with meth and Rohypnol. Only Finn did. Who else did you tell about what was in his blood that night?” His panic turns to rage, the blue vein on his forehead taking on its own pulse.

What he means to say is—did I tell my father yet? I almost did. The sick feeling returns because I could’ve blown our cover. “No one,” I say.

“Great! This is all going to go away very soon. Everything is going to be okay.”

I’m horrified by his words. “What is wrong with you?” I whisper-scream. The tears I’ve been holding in trickle down my cheeks, but I’m so tired, I can’t really cry. Not with the steam I need to express my true terror.

“It’s going to be okay—didn’t you hear me?” Martin says.

Nothing will ever be okay again.

I’m shaking my head, feeling faint. I need to run, but I can’t move.

It’s grotesque that he thinks we can all go back to being a happy family. And it’s disturbing that he thinks the closing of this case will close the issues that go with it. But that’s the way it’s always worked in this family. When the law was no longer looking their way, they were excused.

“Why is this good news, Martin?” I ask.

Martin is elated at this grim fact. But I realize that this is really about covering up his own tracks. I see it now, why Martin was acting so strangely and why the Ellsworths were so motivated to help. If Martin could succeed in helping Finn get away with his involvement in Yaz’s death, in a weird way it would be like absolving his own part in Tush’s death. It’s a sick circle. I can’t be a part of it any longer and neither can my children. I need to know exactly what part Finn had in her death. If he was involved, I’ll have to let him pay the consequences . . . but then I have to get him away from them. It’s the only hope of saving him.