I used my foot to flush the toilet so that it would seem like I’d peed. I was surprised the septic system worked. Beneath the roar of rushing water, I heard Wally’s bedroom telephone ring. Just once, then a beep. Then someone leaving a message. I couldn’t make out the words.
I stepped back into the bedroom and listened for movement. Had Wally heard the phone ring? Was he heading this way?
A red light blinked on the answering machine. My heart matched its rhythm as I pushed the PLAY button. A man’s voice was barely discernible, and I squatted by the speaker.
“—so, yeah, still waiting for my hookup,” I heard. “You sure it’s on the way?”
I recognized the voice, but I couldn’t place it.
“‘Cause I’m crashing hard, man,” Wally’s customer continued. “But it’s gonna be the good stuff, right? None of that dishwater crank?” He laughed a skittering laugh. “Ah, now, I’m messing with ya. I know you’ll take care of me . . .”
“Cat, come on,” Christian called.
“. . . even if it kills me,” the guy on the phone was saying. And God forgive me, I want it to. I gotta get back with Danielle and my sweet little Melody, see?”
My breath caught. I knew Danielle and Melody, or I did before they died.
“Only problem is, Danielle and my sweet Melody are up in heaven, singing with the angels. They are angels. But when I die, I know I’m going straight to—“
“Cat,” Christian said sharply. I heard footsteps. He was coming down the hall for me. I crossed the bedroom in three long strides and closed the door behind me.
“I’m coming. Jeez,” I said. I kept up a stream of words the whole way out, babbling to hide my shock.
From the perspective of gaining information, the visit to Wally’s was pretty much a bust. All I learned was that Wally seemed too thin and feeble to go after a guy like Patrick with a baseball bat, and also that Ridings McAllister, the man with the roadside produce stand, was a user. Danielle was Ridings’s wife, now in heaven, and sweet Melody was their baby girl, dead before her first birthday.
Maybe that’s why Ridings needed a hookup. Maybe he needed it to stay awake when he’d rather fall into an endless sleep.
WHEN I WAS TEN, I CAUGHT MY BROTHER DROPPING his pants in front of the mirror on Aunt Tildy’s bureau. It was summer, and I wanted a piece of ice to suck on, so I went into the house to get one. I must have entered on silent mice feet, and that was why Christian didn’t hear me. I didn’t set out to spy on him, but I did, and afterward, I felt ashamed. He was the one who didn’t think to close Aunt Tildy’s bedroom door, but I should have tiptoed away when I saw what he was doing.
He never did know, though. I didn’t laugh or snicker or use it against him, because back then, we were tight. Plus, I was just . . . gosh. Shocked, I suppose. My brother’s penis was no longer soft and pink. It was bigger, and it jutted out from his body in a way that confused me. I shrank behind the door frame, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away. That thatch of dark hair—when did he get that?
We used to take baths together, turning Aunt Tildy’s old shampoo bottles into squirt toys and underwater missiles. The first time Christian farted in the bath water, it surprised us both. The next time, he did it on purpose. He caught the bubbles in his cupped palms—or made out like he did—and offered them to me.
“I pooted,” he announced, using the dipped-in-grits syllables of Richard from church, a thirty-year-old man with the mental abilities of a toddler.
Oh, man, we laughed. We laughed so hard, Aunt Tildy had to come in and shush us because we were giving her one of her headaches. It wasn’t long after that she didn’t let us take baths together anymore.
Later, when my own body started developing, I realized Christian had probably been admiring himself in Aunt Tildy’s mirror that day, marveling at his manliness the way I would marvel at my tiny soft breasts, turning sideways in the mirror and pulling my shoulder blades together to make them more pronounced.
I guess we all changed. We all grew up, if we lived long enough to. For my whole childhood my brother had been my hero, and now he wasn’t anymore. That’s what I was thinking as I biked home from Wally’s, with Christian stubbornly trailing me on his Yamaha to make sure I didn’t go off somewhere else.
It made me melancholy, but mixed with that melancholy was an unexpected pang of love for my brother. Despite his shortcomings, I was proud of him for staying out of that stupid meth business. Maybe I was being naive, but I’d never smelled that gross smell on him, the one still coating my nostrils. His pupils weren’t ever dilated or contracted or anything weird. And Wally himself had called him a straight arrow. Surely anyone doing meth in Black Creek would buy from Wally, at least occasionally.
I missed how it used to be with me and Christian, when he was there for me no matter what. He must have saved me a hundred different times in a hundred different ways back then. Like once, out in our yard, he told me in a scarily calm voice to hold real still and not move a muscle. Then he went and got his rifle and shot a rattlesnake basking in the sun. If I’d gone five inches further, I’d have stepped on it with my bare foot.
He saved me again at Suicide Rock one summer. The day was hot—they always were—and Beef’s daddy, Roy, drove a bunch of us up into the forest so we could swim in the river. Patrick was off with Mama Sweetie, but Beef and Gwennie came, and Bailee-Ann and Tommy, too. I was nine, and I had just finished fourth grade. I remembered being so happy on the drive to the swimming hole, because I was happy pretty much all the time. And I loved the water.
On the close side of the swimming hole, the bank was flat and level, like a beach made of mud and stones. The stones were smooth, but they came in all different shapes and sizes, and they jabbed the flesh of your soles like nobody’s business.
The river water was cool and green, flowing so slow that it was perfect for splashing around in. Or if you were in a different kind of mood, you could float on your back and daydream to your heart’s content, the sun kissing your face while the lazy current rocked you like a baby. In the middle of the swimming hole, there was a big old log, sodden and rotting and yet there, always there, and I figured it must have been a mighty tree at one point, given how its gnarled roots reached all the way down to the muck of the riverbed and held on tight. I loved that old log. Bailee-Ann and I liked to heave ourselves up on top of it and straddle it like a horse.
On the far side of the swimming hole, there was no bank. Just the straight-up side of the mountain. It was lush with ferns and ivy and laurel trees, whose gnarled branches made perfect handholds for climbing the footpath to the jumping rock—or if you went higher, to the rock the swimming hole was named for: Suicide Rock.
Jumping off the jumping rock gave a good thrill. Jumping from the higher-up Suicide Rock was likely to thrill you right to death. It was because of how the two different outcroppings were formed. The jumping rock stuck out nice and far over the river, like a diving platform. But Suicide Rock was tucked into the cliff and jutted out only a little, not even half as far as the jumping rock. If you stood at the edge of Suicide Rock and jumped off, you wouldn’t hit the water. You’d hit granite, break a leg or two, and fall from there to the water, where you’d probably pass out from the pain and drown. Or you’d be unable to swim because of your broken limbs and drown. Or your head would hit the ledge, splattering your brains everywhere, and you wouldn’t even need to drown.
Every few summers that very thing happened, usually to guys hopped up on testosterone and beer who decided to play Tarzan, only without the vine. To do it right—meaning, not die—you had to back up several yards into the undergrowth, get a running start, and fling your body out-out-out. You had to clear the jumping rock, otherwise splat.
Boys liked their stupid juice, though. What could I say?
On the day Roy drove us up there, the big boys—that was how I thought of them—were showing off for one another by jumping off the jumping rock. They’d leap into the air and whoop as they p
lunged down. They’d stay under water for longer than I liked before bursting out of the green-brown water like playful, boisterous seals. I only thought they were big because I was small. I didn’t know what big meant, not then.
I wanted to jump off the jumping rock, too, I decided. I was tough. I could do it. I waded into the swimming hole until it got deep enough for swimming, and then I used my clumsy breaststroke to head for the far side.
“Cat!” Bailee-Ann cried. “What are you doing?”
I didn’t turn back. Gwennie went for her daddy, who was half-drunk and baking in the sun, and I guess Gwennie dripped cold water on him, because he got pissed. He told her she was a baby and that I could do whatever the hell I wanted.
I climbed all the way to the jumping rock, though it took about a year. The rocks along the side of the cliff were slippery, even when they didn’t look it. The fine mist from the river kept them wet, and the moisture grew a near-invisible moss that was as slick as ice. If you slipped, it was a guaranteed twisted ankle. Or your foot could get wedged into a crack and you could break a leg when you fell, since the rest of you had to obey the laws of gravity regardless.
I got up there, and I made the mistake of looking at the water, despite the warnings of the big boys.
“Whatever you do, don’t look down,” Beef called, treading water in the deep center of the pool.
“And now that you’re there, don’t think. Just jump,” Christian said.
Even Tommy gave me advice. At twelve, he was all about skipping stones and sluicing river water through his front teeth. He was an expert jumper, so he was happy to coach his best friend’s little sister.
“When you leap, clamp your legs together tight,” he told me.
“And when I say tight, I mean tight. So tight you couldn’t get in there with a crowbar.”
Beef laughed, and Christian said dude, like a guy-scold.
Tommy grinned, but didn’t push it. “You gotta be an arrow, that’s what I’m saying. Point your toes, and hold your hands straight up over your head. Otherwise, you’ll smack the heck out of your arms.”
“I know,” I said, trying to sound sure of myself despite the fear pulsing in my veins. I hadn’t expected to be scared. I hadn’t had a clue what being up so high would do to my breathing, or to my balance. Dark flecks messed with my vision, because turned out I wasn’t so good with heights. I didn’t know it till then. Wasn’t that odd? All the stuff that went into mind and body and soul, and so much of it left buried unless the right situation came along to unearth it.
On the bank, Gwennie bit her nails. She had her legs clamped together, like she had to pee really bad and was holding it in, but just barely. She was so tiny down there.
“Come on, Cat!” Beef called.
“You can do it!” Tommy added.
But I couldn’t. My palms grew sweaty and my heart raced and my lungs squeezed themselves so tight I would have been afraid of fainting, if I’d had room for fearing anything other than how’m I gonna get down oh God can’t do this gonna die can’t breathe can’t move can’t—
And then Christian appeared, materializing out of bright air. He’d climbed up to me. The other boys hooted things like “Oh, my hero!” and Christian yelled for them to shut up.
“Come on,” he said roughly. I think I was shaming him just as much as I was shaming myself. Or maybe he was scared—not for himself, but for me.
Since I couldn’t get my muscles to work, he took my arm and led me off the ledge. I didn’t remember the particulars, just that he didn’t talk me off the ledge. He somehow carried me off that ledge, and back down the rocks until, finally, I was in the swimming hole again. My bathing suit was torn up, and snot was running out of my nose, and Gwennie and Bailee-Ann dog-paddled over to lead me out of the water and fuss over me. Christian grunted in disgust and went back to play chicken with his buds.
Or maybe he grunted because he was glad it was over.
THIS MORNING, I WENT TO THE HOSPITAL TO VISIT Patrick. I knew it would be ugly, and I knew it would hurt. Most of all, I knew I should have visited him days ago. I’d pulled an Aunt Tildy by avoiding it this long.
But when I got there, the nurse turned me away. “Sorry, hon,” she said. “Family only.”
I stared at her. “But . . . he doesn’t have any family.”
The nurse, who was young and probably straight out of nursing school, regarded me sympathetically. “I’m sorry. It’s the rules. But he’ll be allowed to have visitors if he comes to, so keep checking on him, ’kay?”
“If he comes to?” I said. I felt wobbly.
“When he comes to,” the nurse said fast. Her name tag said KELLY. She took my hand and squeezed it. “Just pray for him. It’s in the Lord’s hands now.”
I nodded, but I was in a daze, and I walked off in the completely wrong direction. I didn’t come out of my fog until I heard someone else asking about Patrick at the nurses’ station. A guy.
“So, uh, can I see him?” I heard him say.
The back of my neck prickled, and I turned around as Kelly, the nurse, explained the “not unless you’re family” rule. The guy was lean and well built, and his khakis fit him just like khakis should. His shirt was a striped oxford, nice enough for church.
It was the guy from the public library, here to see Patrick. Why?!
Well, march over and ask him, I told myself. There is no reason on God’s green earth for him to be here, and you need to find out what the heck is going on.
So I did, doing my best to ignore the tree frogs jumping around in my stomach. I walked up behind him and said, “Hey,” so loud it made him jump.
He whipped around. “How . . . why . . .” He blinked. “What are you doing here?”
“Wrong,” I said. I was vaguely aware of Kelly behind us, her sweet face concerned. “The question is, what are you doing here?”
He didn’t reply, and my brain started working overtime trying to supply answers. Did Patrick know this guy? Were they friends? If so . . . why, given that he was such a jerk?
Except I knew the answer to that one. Patrick was friends with Tommy, after all. That’s just how Patrick was. Accepting.
But any thought I had was pure speculation, which meant I was wasting my time, since what I needed were answers. Plus, the look library guy was giving me made me uncomfortable. It wasn’t that he seemed pissed or wanted to throttle me or anything. He looked . . . well . . . remorseful.
I didn’t want to talk in front of Kelly, so I strode away from the nurses’ station and motioned for him to follow. There was a red vinyl sofa next to the hospital elevator, and I dropped down into it, leaving plenty of room for him. He sat. He was very obedient. Or maybe just in shock.
I was certainly in shock. I never expected to see him again, and now here he was.
I gave my head a good hard shake. “So. You know Patrick?”
“Yeah,” he answered cautiously.
“Are you friends with him?”
He started to speak, but hesitated.
And then, finally, it dawned on me. When we first met, I hadn’t gotten the vibe that he was gay. But that was at the library, and now here he was at the hospital, asking to see Patrick.
“Are the two of you, um, together?” I said.
“Are we . . . what? No.”
I didn’t believe him. I didn’t not believe him, but I didn’t believe him.
He raked his hand through his hair, which was long enough to fall in his eyes, and said, “Two things.”
“Okay.”
“One, Patrick already has a boyfriend. And two, I’m not gay.”
“You aren’t?” I said. And then, “He does?”
“Uh, yeah, and I’d think if you were his friend, you’d know that.” His eyes narrowed. “So are you?”
“Am I what?”
“His friend.”
“Yes,” I said. “Are you? Because in all your counting, you never said.”
He fell silent, and I felt like a fool. G
iven his low opinion of people who lived in backwoods towns like Black Creek, of course he wasn’t Patrick’s friend.
In that case, what did his visit mean? Did he come to the hospital to mess with Patrick some more? To admire his handiwork? To finish what he’d started?
“Tell me how you know him,” I demanded.
“Tell me how you know him,” he said.
“I go to school with him. We live in the same town.” Feeling a need to defend myself, I added, “And obviously, I know he’s got a boyfriend. I just haven’t met him yet.”
He slumped back on the hospital sofa.
“He wouldn’t tell you, either, huh?” Under his breath, he muttered, “God, I’m such a dumb shit.”
I was confused.
“I want to talk to the guy, that’s all,” he said.
“To who? Patrick? You can’t, because he’s in a coma.”
“No, I want to talk to his boyfriend. His undercover lover.” He didn’t use air quotes, but his intonation achieved the same effect. “If I could find him, I could see if he knew anything.”
Undercover lover, I repeated silently. I could imagine Patrick referring to a mysterious boyfriend like that. He would have liked the cheesiness of it, the delicious rhyme of the words.
“Maybe he knows something, but he’s scared to come forward,” the guy from the library went on. He pressed the back of his head into the cushion behind him. “Fuck.”
A lump formed in my throat. He was a jerk, but he did care about Patrick. Any idiot could see that.
I thought about what was best for Patrick, what was best for getting to the bottom of things. I swallowed my pride and said, “Then we need to find him.”
“‘We’?” he said.
“Fine, I need to find him,” I said, my face heating up. I stood, went to the elevator, and jabbed the button.
“Wait,” he said.