The Wrong Family(58)

Manda was quiet for a long time, and when she spoke again, her voice sounded much calmer.

“He hears people. I think he’s schizophrenic or something, Winnie.”

Samuel had moved passed the bulldog and was drinking from a water fountain, the toe of his orange Vans pressing down on the pedal. Winnie flinched. He did that to annoy her. He darted away out of sight, probably to avoid the look she was about to give him.

“What do you mean, he hears people...?”

“I don’t know. Ask him yourself. I can’t believe he didn’t say anything to you. He said he saw a ghost in your house. I’m not letting him near the kids, I’m not. Paired with the drinking and drugs, he’s a ticking time bomb.”

Samuel was making his way up the path toward the street now; she didn’t want him crossing without her.

“Manda, he was drunk half the time he was at our place. He wandered around in his boxers crying. I don’t know what he thinks he saw, but you’re right not to let him around the kids. I’ll call him, see where his head’s at. I promise.”

“I don’t need you to call him, Winnie,” Manda said dryly. “I’m done. He may have mental health problems, but he’s also an entitled, drunk narcissist and it was all of you who made him this way.”

“That’s not fair. You know he lost his father when he was—”

“That’s exactly the problem. Goddamn, Winnie, I thought you were different. He thinks he can do whatever he wants to me and the kids, and then just cry about his issues and I’ll forgive him, just like your family always does. And you refused to see the much bigger problems he has because it wasn’t convenient for you.”

“Manda, you called me...”

“Yeah, to warn you that Dakota has it out for your husband. Goodbye, Winnie.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but Manda had already hung up.

Samuel was no longer in her line of sight. She pocketed the phone, pressing back her tears, and sped up. What was that saying? It didn’t rain until it poured.

Samuel was already in his room when she walked through the front door. She slid into a chair in the kitchen and sat with her face in her hands, trying to make sense of what was going on. First the envelope with the clippings, which, aside from the actual night of the incident, was the single worst day of Winnie’s life. Then there was the library card ordeal—she still didn’t know what to think of that. And now the Froot Loops. Samuel was acting like a complete stranger.





      25


JUNO

The obituary was short:

Josalyn Russel, daughter to Terry Russel and stepdaughter to Mark Gordon, died unexpectedly on February 8, 2008. Her funeral service will be held at the First Baptist Church in Lima, Ohio.

Icy, Juno thought. That was not the obituary of a well-loved girl. Juno had seen parents over the years who were distraught over the behavior of their children. They brought their children to her like an ingredient for a recipe they didn’t know what to do with. One parent usually looked anxious and put out, the other hopeful. It was like good cop/bad cop in the family department: What is this? How do we make it work in our family? And there were too many times when the therapy wasn’t working that Juno saw parents harden their hearts against their own children—a lost cause, the problem child, the child who just couldn’t be reached. Emotional detachment was a survival skill. The person subconsciously muted their emotions in order to protect themselves. Josalyn, Juno thought, had been a problem child. She could see it in the wording: Died unexpectedly.

Drugs, she thought. That’s what always got them young. “Died unexpectedly of an overdose” would have been too honest for an obit.

The Russels’ number was listed. She wrote it on her hand, the pen making sharp, black lines on her skin. Then, sitting at the dinette in the kitchen, staring at the checkerboard floor, Juno dialed and waited. A stately woman’s voice said “Hello,” and Juno detected both class and vinegar in that voice. Here was a woman who had lost a child, who’d been forced to alter her reality to accept that she’d outlived the child she’d grown in her own body.

“Hello, Mrs. Russel. My name is Juno Holland. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m calling to talk to you about Josalyn.”

There was a long silence, so long Juno thought that Terry Russel had hung up, and then she heard a release of breath that she supposed was a sigh. Juno pushed on. “I’m a retired clinical psychologist, Mrs. Russel, and I was wondering how—”

“She’s dead. She was twenty years old when she died. What else would you like to know? I don’t know why you people are calling again.”

Momentarily stunned, Juno blinked at the wall in front of her. Juno could hear Terry Russel breathing heavily into the phone, like she was restraining herself from crying. For some reason, though, she didn’t hang up. Juno took the opportunity to say, “People? I’m not sure what you mean. I had no idea Josalyn had passed and for that I am very sorry, Mrs. Russel.”

There was a shocked silence on the other end of the line. Juno’s mind was spinning. You people...had Winnie called Josalyn’s mother, as well? It made sense for Winnie to call if she wanted to confirm Josalyn’s death.

“Listen,” she said, dropping her voice an octave; it was her sympathetic but in-control voice. Whenever she used that voice, her clients would look up at her like she was going to deliver God’s good word. “I lost my own sons, so I know how you feel. I was very fond of your daughter. I had hopes that Josalyn would...” She let her voice drop off, and Terry Russel picked up where she left off.