Sweet Water(88)

My hands shake on Jay’s contact name.

Then I receive another text from Martin:

Spencer is home. He’s wondering where you’re at. Family dinner at six. I’m cooking.

Oh shit. Spencer isn’t due home from fall break until tomorrow. He must’ve come home early because of Yazmin’s death. He was torn up for Finn when we told him about it over the phone. He’s going to catch on right away that something is very wrong with our family.

I text:

Okay.

Martin texts back:

Thank you.

He should be thanking me for every last minute I grant him under the circumstances.

I remember the Sewickley Children’s Heart-to-Heart Gala is also tonight, and I’m not sure how to handle it. We bought tickets to support the cause this year, serving children’s organizations across western Pennsylvania—back when I thought we were good and decent and did wonderful things in our community. Will I still go? And will Martin be by my side if I do?

The women tend to clock the entranceway with their eagle-eye glances, surveying the other guests’ dresses and jewels, new partners and old. Questions would be asked and answered by mere sideways looks. Which couple would be the highest bidder at the auction, and who would donate the most expensive item? Who sponsored it this year, and did they pull in more money than the sponsors from the year before?

They will suspect something is wrong if I don’t show up with Martin, and as much as I don’t care what they think of me anymore, it’s my business how I want what happened with Finn circulated through the community. And Yazmin for that matter. There would be no one there to defend her.

William and Mary Alice will be there too. What if Martin is complacent and victim blames like he’s been doing, saying they were Yazmin’s drugs and she got Finn into trouble? I could see him mentioning where Yazmin came from with cynicism and William tacking on how Yazmin was apparently rude to them when she visited, and it niggles at me that there’s more to the story there too. The whole scene at the gala plays out in my head like a twisted Ellsworth diatribe against Yazmin, and I can’t let that happen. We left that girl’s dead body, and I won’t let Martin drag it through the mud too.

I need to go.

But I don’t know if I can do it.

I could barely look at Martin last night, so damn happy to discover Finn had been pumped with methamphetamine and Rohypnol that I’d wanted to throttle him.

Look, she tried to drug him!

Look, she deserved to die; we did the right thing!

What about Tush? What has Martin been telling himself all these years to alleviate his guilt for what happened to him? Probably the same thing I’ve been telling myself with Finn. Martin might use the excuse that William influenced him, and I might say the same thing about Martin, but the truth is we are all creatures of our own free will, and I’ve been no better than them. But I can be better in the future.

I climb back into my car and drive to my father’s house.



My father. That’s who I could ask about the weed.

Dad rolls his eyes to the top of his head, thinking. “You’d ask for it in grams. Teenagers would probably ask for two or three grams or a baggie, whatever they’ve got. Why? You that stressed? I’ve got a bottle of Glenlivet in the cabinet. I was saving it for a special occasion, but you can have it if you’re that hard up.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. Investigating a little into what Finn took,” I say.

He nods. “It seems like the ones with more money than they know what to do with always get mixed up with drugs.”

“Yep.” I don’t argue, because I realize he’s been right all along and that I’ve been chasing the wrong dream ever since I left my mother’s funeral.

He looks at me, surprised, but doesn’t say anything more about it. “It’ll be great to see the boys.” He hasn’t said anything to me about Martin either, and I’m guessing he’s just giving me time to let everything sink in after hearing the whole story about Tush.

“Yeah, I’m sorry if everyone isn’t in the best of moods tonight,” I say. Martin didn’t ask me to invite my dad to dinner, but I sort of had to, because I’m living with him now. It saddens me to think that I probably wouldn’t have invited him otherwise. Spencer is in town, and it’s not like Dad gets to see him often, but before all this happened, I’m not sure I would’ve made the call to ask him to join us.

It makes me realize how mixed-up my priorities were before, and I’m sorry it took Yazmin’s death to fully grasp it. Dad’s back seems to be feeling better today. He’s still on muscle relaxers, but at least he’s sitting in my front seat comfortably, his gray wool cabbie hat covering his head. He looks like a cute old man.

A senior with a Medicare card.

Sure, Dad made some mistakes, but he’s done the best he could. It’s my turn to take care of him now.

He fiddles with the heat in the car. “So . . . you don’t think this will be an awkward dinner, do you? Seeing as how you took all your shit and left last night.” He sucks on his teeth, waiting for me to answer.

“Probably. Spencer knows Finn’s girlfriend died, but not that the kids were doing drugs beforehand. At least, I don’t think. Or that I moved out. Martin probably told him I was just visiting with you.”