Don't Fail Me Now (17 page)

“I found it!” I cry triumphantly. I would raise my arms
Rocky
-style if I wasn't worried about accidentally amputating a finger. I shimmy back out to wipe my face and get some tools to find Tim standing next to Leah, looking down at us sleepy and confused.

“What are you
doing
?” he asks.

“Fixing the car,” Leah says excitedly. “It was Michelle's idea.”

“You couldn't wait an hour?” he asks. “I could have helped.”

“She asked
me
,” Leah says.

“I wanted to do it myself,” I say.

“Well, I could have jacked the car, at least.”

I put my hands on my hips. “We don't have a jack.”

“What do you call that, then?” he asks, pointing at the diamond-shaped thing on the ground.

“Oh,” Leah says. “Oops.”

“Whatever,” I say. “I don't need it. I figured it out. There's a rock or something in the heat shield. I just have to take it off and put it back on.”

“Well, you could have hurt yourself. Or Leah.” I can't tell if
he's actually concerned or just mad that I didn't let him swoop in and save us.

“But I didn't,” I say, raising an eyebrow.

“That's not the point!”

“Yeah, the point is I
fixed
it.” I grin and do a little touchdown dance to drive the point home. I'm just rubbing it in now.

Tim shakes his head. “Fine, but I'm driving today. I no longer trust your judgment.”

“Says the boy wearing Captain America boxers.”

His face reddens. “Now you're just being mean.”

“I'm sorry,” I say. “But you can't drive. You're supposed to be lying low, remember?”

“Am I supposed to lie on the floor again?” he asks.

“No. Just sit in the back.” In my peripheral vision I see Cass and Denny unzipping the tent flap. “Cass, you want shotgun today?” I call, a weak attempt at making up for last night.

“Whatever,” she croaks.

I grab the wrench and get back to work, my confidence fading fast. I might be able to fix the car, but there are much more important things that are broken. And I'm terrified they might be beyond repair.

Saturday Afternoon, Part 1

Tucumcari, NM

Grand Canyon National Park, AZ

We spend the rest of the morning driving through New Mexico's sandstone mesas and ponderosa pines listening to nothing but the blissful hum of tires on asphalt. I brag about my rattle-repair skills only once every five miles or so. Breakfast is cold, thin instant oatmeal made with water from a fountain near the campsite, but I try to stay grateful—despite the awful development of last night, our luck hasn't run out just yet. We've been listening to the radio all morning for any updates, but Tim and Leah haven't been mentioned once so far, and we have enough gas to get us a ways before we have to figure out how to score more. Plus, the rising temperature that makes my hair start to frizz and stick to the back of my neck reminds me how
close we're getting to California, to the reality of Buck and what he might give us. I mean, he ended up in Los Angeles; maybe he actually made something of himself. Maybe he's a sleazy Hollywood guy who makes deals over martinis and calls everyone babe. Maybe he invented an app or something and is living large in Silicon Valley. Maybe he's rolling in it, and thanks to his deep regret and even deeper pockets, we will be, too.

“Hey,” I ask Leah as we pass through Albuquerque, “do you know what Buck's doing out in California? Did he tell you anything?”

“Nope,” she says. “Last I heard he was in Utah with Grandma Polly.”

Grandma Polly?
“Did you know her?” I ask, trying to sound casual.

“No. She just sent me birthday cards.” Leah sounds bored. She has no idea that she's exposing my grandmother as a racist bitch who only deigned to recognize the birth of her all-white grandchild.

“Why was he in Utah?” I ask.

“Who cares?” Cass says angrily. I think she can sense the newfound camaraderie between Leah and me.

“Because my mom kicked him out,” Leah says. “He was cheating on her with a legal secretary.”

What goes around comes around
, I think, but to Leah I just say, “I'm sorry.”

“Whatever. He was always out at weird times and acting shady. I knew something was wrong before Mom did.”

“Even when you were that little?”

“Well, I wasn't
that
little,” she says. “I was seven.”

I look over at Tim, waiting for him to correct her, but he's just looking out the window, yawning. “You couldn't have been seven,” I say. “That would mean—” The math takes shape in my head, each number like a punch in the throat. Buck left us when I was six, Cass was two, and Leah was already three. If he didn't leave Leah until she was
seven
, that would mean he stayed in Baltimore for
four years
. I would have been ten, Cassie six, Denny a cluster of cells dividing in Mom's belly. Four years he could have spent still knowing us. Four years that could have changed everything.

“That would mean he's an asshole,” Leah says, looking over guiltily at Cass, who's busy biting her lip and avoiding eye contact.

“You said it,” I say and then switch the radio over to some loud rock station. If I can't change the past, at least I can drown it out.

• • •

We cross into Arizona around one
P.M.
to find ourselves entering the city of Window Rock as well as the border of Navajo Nation, an unintentional detour that Tim insists is a game changer.

“The reservations have their own police force,” he says. “I don't think they would know about us.”

“You don't think, or you know?” I ask, my fear of getting caught battling to the death with my fear of losing control of my bladder.

“I
know
,” he says. “At least I think I do.”

“Okay,” I say. “We can stop quickly, but we have to take turns going in, and no talking to anyone. Hell, no
looking
at anyone.” Within a few minutes I spot a Navajo shopping center
and park in a barely visible spot between two vans. I go in first, alone, keeping my eyes down until I'm locked safely in a bathroom stall. But on my way out I can't help but notice a big, glittering food court full of scraps for the taking. I don't want to mess with the Navajo spirits—some seriously bad juju—but the kids need to eat, we have seven hundred miles to go, and we're down to a single sleeve of crackers. So I do what I have to do, pretending to look for a seat while I slip pizza crusts into the sleeves of my hoodie like I'm doing a party trick. I'm so nervous walking back to the car that when a nearby baby shrieks, I nearly faint.

“So where are we going today, Magellan?” Tim asks as we chew the stale dough, waiting for the kids to finish up in the bathrooms. I sent Leah in wearing one of Cass's hoodies and some sunglasses, but I'm still on edge.

“As far as we can get before nightfall,” I say, tapping the steering wheel with my knuckles.

“'Cause I had an idea for a day trip.”

“Would you mind keeping your head down?” I ask, glancing back at him in the rearview mirror.

“Do you want to hear it?”

“Not really.”

“Don't you want to see something cool?”

“No.” I pop the last bite into my mouth and frown at him. “Please at least slouch a little. You fail at stealth.”

“Okay, fine, I'll give you a hint,” he says, ignoring me. “It's big—some might even say
grand
—and canyon-y.”

“No,” I say firmly. “We are
not
going there.”

“Why not? It's on the way. Kind of.”

“Do you understand the concept of not having people see
you?” I ask, spinning around. “It's Saturday, and that's the most popular tourist attraction in the entire southwestern United States. Maybe the entire country.”

“That's the thing, though,” Tim says. “Maybe you're thinking about it wrong.” I glare at him. “Hear me out,” he presses. “Maybe sticking to podunk towns and empty roads makes us
more
visible, you know? In a huge crowd that's busy sightseeing, we could really disappear for once.”

“Even if that's true,” I say, peering out the front window for any sign of the kids, “it's a waste of time. If we drive straight through, we can make it before midnight.”

“We won't be able to see him until tomorrow morning anyway,” Tim says. “So what difference does it make if we get there at eleven
P.M.
or eight
A.M.
?”

“It makes a difference to me.” I don't know how to explain that I just want to get there as fast as I possibly can and that until we hit the LA city limits, I won't be able to breathe. I have this growing sense of unease that whatever's approaching—the cops, the devil, the future—is faster than we are.

“Well, I just wish you could see it,” he says. “Dad took me on a trip after the divorce. A lot of what we did was pretty corny—the world's biggest ball of wax and stuff—but the Grand Canyon . . . man, it blew my mind.”

“We went to Washington, DC, once when I was little,” I say. There are pictures in an album, including one of Mom and Buck bisected by the Washington Monument in some heavy-handed foreshadowing. “But we never really leave the city. I've never seen much natural beauty.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Tim says, and I reflexively press down on the gas pedal. Luckily the car is off.

I don't want Tim to think I'm being cold, but I have no idea what to say. Boys have told me I'm pretty before, mostly murmuring stuff as I pass them in the hallway, some of it nasty, most of it harmless. My least favorite catcall, and the one I get the most, is “Come on, beautiful, give me that smile.” I always think about spinning around and telling them I don't smile on command, that I don't have all that much to smile about, and that they can mind their own damn business. I'm used to tuning out those comments, just walking away—but they've never been from someone I actually liked before. They've never been from someone who deserved an answer.

But before I can come up with something, the girls and Denny emerge from the front entrance of the mall. All three are inexplicably holding hands, and for the second time in ten seconds, I'm rendered speechless.

When Cass gets in the car, it's clear she's been crying. “I'm really sorry,” she says.

“Sorry for what?” I ask.

“Everything,” she says.

“Did something happen in there? What took so long?” Cass won't meet my eyes, so I look to Denny. “Are you okay?”

“She's sad about stuff,” Denny says.

“She wouldn't tell us what,” Leah adds.

“Hey,” I say, touching Cass's cheek as she sits down in the passenger seat. “I love you. You know that, right?”

She nods, but her eyes are watery, threatening to spill over. I'm not sure what broke this dam in my sister—given the past few days, there are plenty of contenders—but if there was ever a time to give her a break, it's now. Tim's right—it doesn't matter if we get to LA tonight or in the morning, and camping's
probably safer out here anyway. We haven't so much as seen a police cruiser in the past eighteen hours, and we all need a rest from the tension that Buck's previous dickery and imminent non-absence is bringing up. As long as we're careful, a stupid sightseeing detour might be exactly what we need.

I learn a few key facts about the Grand Canyon as we pull up to the South Rim entrance in the late afternoon. One, it's popular on Saturdays; the line to get in is a quarter mile long. Two, it's not free; it costs $25, over a
third
of our funds, which Tim neglected to mention but swears he'll make up for with as many al fresco concerts as it takes. Three, he wasn't kidding; it's breathtaking. Even before we get all the way to the visitor's center I can see the scope of it stretched out in front of us, an unbelievable panorama of sunset-colored rock rising out of the Colorado River.

We finally find parking and leave Goldie to bake in the searing Arizona sun. Cass, who's been fidgeting for most of the four-hour trip from Window Rock, seems out of it, but at least the angry edge that's been clouding her eyes all week is gone. Any trace of Leah's former attitude has also evaporated, and walking up to the sprawling nexus of the park, it almost feels like we're just a normal family taking in a tourist attraction on a road trip. Especially since all the kids want to do is eat junk food and go to the gift shop.

“You can go in the gift shop, but don't try to steal anything,” I say to Denny, drawing side-eyes from age-appropriate moms who don't have to coach their children not to break laws. Cass sits down on a bench looking sweaty and shaky, and I dig
a five-dollar bill out of my pocket. “Can you get her something?” I ask Leah, who's also looking limp under her heavy disguise. “She needs to eat; don't take no for an answer.” I look for Tim, but he must have taken Denny someplace, because they're nowhere to be found. Cass slips on her sunglasses and turns away, and I take that as my cue to get lost, if only for a few minutes.

I go in the opposite direction of the masses of cargo-shorted, sunburned tourists and follow a sign for a greenway that leads to the Kaibab Trailhead. It's just a little road lined with rocks and brush, but after a few hundred feet the canyon opens up on one side, vast and awe-inspiring and almost instantly profound, like nature smacking you in the face and saying, “Get your head out of your ass and just
look
at this glory,” and so I listen. I climb my ragged, city-kid butt up on a rock (far enough from the edge so I don't have to worry about coughing and tumbling to my death), fold my knees Indian-style, and just
look
. It's been so long since I just stopped to breathe, I've almost forgotten how.

The canyon makes me think of Buck, the absence of it. The lack of something coming to define it, like the lack of him has come to shape me in so many ways. It reminds me of Mom, too, the depth of it that could swallow you whole if you don't watch your step. Mom hasn't fallen yet, but she's hanging by her fingers, scratching at the stones, waiting for someone to reach in and pull her up while all I want is for her to stop doing drunken cartwheels along the edge.

But it's not depressing somehow. It's the first place I've seen where the absence of matter is what makes it mean something, what makes it special. And the canyon's huge rock formations
aren't mountains, even though they look like mountains. They're just parts of the earth that haven't fallen into the fissure. They're survivors.

“Hey, is this rock taken?” Tim asks. I shake my head—not taking my eyes from the vista even though the sun is so strong I'm seeing spots—and feel him sit down next to me. “It's amazing, isn't it?” he murmurs.

“Beats the hell out of Baltimore,” I say.

“Don't rub it in, I'm stuck there for four more years,” he says.

“But you get to go to college.”