Chapter 10
At dusk, we arrive in the Heise area in Idaho. We drive along Snake River for a while, where anglers are packing up their equipment.
Since looking at me so strangely earlier, River now seems deep in thought; at least, he’s quieter than usual and irritated by every little thing—other drivers, the music on the radio, mosquitoes, even the fucking darkness. He says he wants to run a few more lines, so he turns onto a forest path used by forestry workers.
We’re lucky to find a clearing at the edge of the forest, framed by lush coniferous trees and a few scattered deciduous trees.
We set up the tent together, and then River sets off, but not before handing me a few sandwiches inside the tent. “I bet you could eat in front of me now,” he says with a wink, cheerful again for a tiny moment and then disappears. I hear him fiddling in the car trunk before moving away.
He didn’t ask if I wanted to go, so I guess he needs some peace and quiet. I hope I’m not getting on his nerves, but maybe he’s just exhausted. It sounds like he may be suffering from insomnia; I know from Dad that it’s a real illness because he himself has hardly slept a wink in years.
While I eat, I listen to one of Dad’s voice messages again in airplane mode:
“Just come home, Kans. Chester keeps asking me if I know where you are. He’s afraid for you. Let’s talk!”
Why can’t he ever leave Chester out of it? Why can’t he simply say, I’m afraid for you? Is it that too hard?
I close my eyes for a moment, and the night he came into the basement replays in my mind like a movie. I feel the cold on my forearms and fingers like I’m wearing long, snow-filled gloves.
I mechanically hung the colored laundry on the line in front of the washing machine. I can’t sleep anyway, not tonight. It’s October, and there’s already snow outside. The basement is drafty and cold, but it’s even colder deep inside me. Arizona refuses to talk to me. With stiff fingers, I press her damp red blouse to my chest and stand there for a moment, smelling the lavender of the fabric softener. Where my heart should be, there’s a black hole burning so hot that it feels cold. I don’t think I’ve ever been so lonely in my life. Just that morning, Chester, Hunter, and Zachery dragged me into a closet for the first time. I hear the water running into the cleaning bucket and them laughing and cracking jokes. They force me to my knees and push my head into the filled bucket until all I see are red sparks and black circles. Until my body is a single tremble.
With stiff fingers, I hang up the blouse and try to push down the panic about tomorrow, but suddenly everything is blurry. My neck still burns from the pressure of their hands. I’m so busy trying not to freak out that I don’t hear Dad come down the creaky stairs.
Suddenly, he stands before me, sleepy and in his dark blue pajamas. “You’re back… oh my God, you’re back. I never stopped waiting, you know that, Mery?” For a tiny moment, his dark, lonely eyes shine like the sun. A sun that warms me. He pulls me into a hug, and even though I know he’s mistakingme for Mom, I cling to him, my icy hands and heart burning because there’s no one else left to hold me. I hold him so tightly I probably almost break his ribs, and all I can think is,Don’t let me go! Please, please, don’t let go of me!
Until he wants to kiss me.
Only then do I hastily free myself. “Dad...” I choke out, the word weighing on my tongue like lead. It takes him forever to understand. He just stares at me. “It’s only me...” My cheeks burn with shame.
Those were the last words I spoke to anyone but myself in our home. Dad stared at me, dumbfounded, for a few seconds, shaking his head as the light went out in his eyes. Then he went upstairs without saying a word.
I blink to drive away the memory. Sometimes, I believe he punished me—consciously or subconsciously—for looking like Mom. When I was little, I tried to talk to him about Mom, but I rarely had the courage to ask specific questions.
Did Mom call?
Of course not.
Did she write?
Leave me alone.
When will she come back, Dad?
When I asked him too many questions in a row one evening, he burned all of her pictures in the garden except for one, the one I stored in River’s bag.
They say parents should love their children more than anything, but I think Dad always loved Mom more than us. And Mom didn’t love us enough, or she wouldn’t have left. Or maybe she would have taken us with her. She didn’t lose her memory and forget us. Dad didn’t abuse her, either.
She was just... gone. I was never as angry with her as James, Arizona, and Dad were. No, I basically blame myself. I was too difficult a child, and she couldn’t stand it. Maybe I occupiedtoo much of her time and annoyed her, I don’t know. That’s probably why Dad is so dismissive of me.If only this child wasn’t so pathologically shy, Jessica, Mery would still be here.He was talking to my aunt.
On a sudden impulse, I dig the two newspapers out of the bag and open the older one. Anxiously, I leaf through them. Something irritates me as I scroll through the pages, but I don’t pay any attention to it. I hope there’s a picture inside.
I’m lucky when I see one and turn on my phone flashlight.
The heading reads, “Meredith Fox—a portrait of an unusual artist.” In the middle is a photo of just her face, but it’s like looking into a mirror that’s aged me about twenty years. Mom is now using the name of her third husband since she also left William Sparks, husband number two, and the man she ditched Dad for. She probably didn’t want to take us with her because I was too difficult. Too difficult to burden a new lover with. When she married millionaire Frank Fox somewhere in the Bahamas on an island with pink sand, pictures of the ostentatious ceremony were all over the media.
I leaf through the newer newspaper and stop at an article about Ben Adams. I remember Arizona or Dad mentioning this at breakfast, but I didn’t think much of it.
Intrigued, I scan the report and learn that Ben Adams kidnapped the sixteen-year-old daughter of a fashion czar in Italy and blackmailed her family. He was finally caught in the U.S., his homeland, but managed to escape police custody.
