Oblivion (21 page)

Guidry’s lips press into a thin line. “I know what kind of guy he is, and so do you. Pay no attention to those who don’t. Anyone tries to contact you … what do you say?”

“No comment.”

“Atta girl.”

All is silent for a few moments. The
tick, tick, tick
of
the second hand on John’s watch consumes the space until Ewing speaks up:

“Tell me more about this memory.”

I take a deep breath. “I wake up on the floor in the garden house, and I’m wet with holy water. Hannah’s on the cot. I see a pair of underwear on the floor, and I think they’re Hannah’s.” I shake my head. Another wave of nausea churns through my gut.

“Let’s talk about the garden house, too,” Guidry says. “You saw a line of your writing on the wall.”

I nod.

“Here.” John leans in, flipping through options on his phone. “I have a picture.”

“You took a picture?” I ask.

“Yeah.” He hands the phone across the table to the detective, who studies it. “I can forward it to you, if you want.”

“Thanks.” Guidry gives a curt nod. “That’ll help until our guys have a chance to circulate in the area.”

“Can I see that?” Ewing asks.

Guidry hands over the phone and then leans forward. “Callie, when was the last time you were in the garden house before today?”

“If my memory is correct, I was there the day Hannah disappeared, but I haven’t always known it … if I was there at all. Before that … I don’t know.”

“We scoured that garden house after Hannah went missing,” the detective says. “Scoured it. But we didn’t find
anything. No yellow underwear, and nothing written on the walls. Which tells me, Callie, that if you wrote on the wall there, you did it recently.”

“That’s not possible,” I say.

“I can bring in the photographs. There’s nothing written on the walls of that garden house the night after Hannah disappeared. You’ve been in there since we did our investigation.”

“I can’t just walk in there whenever I feel like it,” I say. “I need a key. It’s locked all the time.”

“Who has the key?”

John tosses it to the table. “We got it from the new reverend there … what was his name?”

“Andrew Drake.”

“I’ll call him in. See if he’s lent the key to you or anyone else recently.”

“He did say he had only one key,” I say. “I think Palmer used to have a couple.”

Guidry meets my gaze. “Do you think the keys are missing? Or misplaced?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

“Did you take the key, Callie?” Guidry taps his pen against his legal pad. “On some other occasion, and maybe you don’t remember it?”

“I haven’t been there!” I reach for and squeeze John’s hand. “I mean, I can’t have just gone there one day and not remembered it!”

“Hmmm,” Ewing says.

I glance at him, but soon direct my attention to Guidry. “Okay, I know I black out when I’m writing, but I’ve never come to somewhere else—not since that first time at the Vagabond. I’m getting better. I’ve never blacked out long enough to take a train to Holy Promise and back again without noticing, and I’ve
never—
”

“What if she didn’t write it?” Ewing says.

My head spins. “What?”

“I don’t think you wrote this.” He licks his lips. “Callie always writes in red felt-tip. This looks like black ballpoint.”

Guidry reaches for the phone, gives it another gander. “Yeah, it does.”

Someone else has been in that garden house. Someone who’s been writing the same things I write.

J
ohn kisses the crown of my head—“See you tomorrow”—and does as I ask: he drives home, and lets me walk from the harbor to the Hutches’ house. He doesn’t want to hide anymore, but I’ve convinced him to hang on a bit longer. Furthermore, I’ve talked him into calling Lindsey in half an hour, if only to thank her for the night.

He’s part of me now, as if he, like the ring on my necklace, has been with me since long before I can remember.

Lindsey’s going to smell him on me, read him in my face, hear him in the catch of my breath, if she doesn’t first notice that I’m wearing his watch, which he lent me, so I could show my mother the next time I see her. This secret John and I keep from Lindsey puts more pressure on me,
and makes my situation even more unmanageable than it was before John reached over that pew to collect the note I wrote on my sister’s behalf. I can’t keep up with this charade. I have to come clean.

When I approach the foot of the driveway, a weird sort of energy hits me. I already know something’s wrong. For the thirtieth time, I sniff my hands, my shirt, the handles of my backpack, searching for any trace of John Fogel. I know I’m immune. I can’t smell him on me if I smell like him, too.

As I near, I realize Lindsey’s parents aren’t home. When they are, their bedroom light is on—always—but now, their window is dark. I glance toward the garage and see one of the two double doors is open. Only Lindsey’s car is inside, but neither her mother’s nor her father’s is parked there.

“Hey.”

I practically jump out of my skin.

Lindsey’s seated on the steps leading up to the front door, tapping her Keds against the asphalt. She’s bundled in green cargo pants snapped at the shins, white cable-knit leg warmers, a white waffle-knit T, and a blue-and-yellow tie-dyed hoodie with
Ask Alice
scrawled across the top of the hood. While her fingernails looked flawless for last night’s dance, she’s now gnawed them to nubs, and her eyes are rimmed red, suggesting she’s been crying.

Rivet
.

“Hi.” I brace myself for the shellacking that’s undoubtedly about to come my way. But nothing happens, save the two of us staring at one another.

Rivet, rivet, rivet
.

Finally, she breaks the ice: “Let’s take a walk.” She pushes herself up from the steps and yanks on my arm as she passes me.

I fall in step beside her. As much as I want to keep my mouth shut, I can’t handle the suspense by the time we round the corner to exit the neighborhood. “Where are we going?”

“7-Eleven.”

“You want a Big Gulp?”

An exasperated laugh—something between a snort and a sigh—escapes her. “I want a cigarette.”

“Oh. Why?”

“Gotta smoke something.”

While I don’t understand why she suddenly wants to acquaint herself with nicotine, I do know that she didn’t have to wait for me if she wanted to buy a pack of smokes. Not only does she have countless connections to supply her with whatever contraband she wants, be it grass or Seasonique, her fake ID is a near perfect match. She can buy a pack on her own.

“Linds?”

She hooks her arm through mine, and shivers a little as she rests her head against me. I’m far too tired to walk
another half mile, let alone hold up her weight while I do it, but because I know this may be the last time she leans on me, I endure the burden.

She pets my arm.

I wonder if she can feel the outline of John’s watch.

When our destination is in sight, Lindsey straightens. “Elijah’s been looking for you.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Because it used to be you’d jump when the phone rang.”

“I’m mad, that’s all.” And distracted. And confused. And busy with the guy she thinks she’s in love with.

“I talked to him about eighteen times today.”

“Elijah called you?”

“Yeah.”

“And you talked to him?”

“Well, no one else was calling.”

She pushes the door open, and gives me a shove toward the counter.

I look over my shoulder at her.

Her eyes widen and her jaw clenches.

All right. I suppose I owe her twenty cancer sticks. One for every time her pseudo boyfriend breathed my name.

“Camel Lights,” I say. It feels funny to ask for cigarettes after nearly sixty days without them. In anticipation, I drum my fingers against the laminate surface. “Box.”

The clerk slaps them onto the counter without asking for
my ID, which is good, as I no longer have the one Elijah gave me at County. The Hutches confiscated it when they took away my last pack of smokes.

In some Pavlovian response, my fingertips tingle when I grasp the pack, just like they do the moment I inhale. This is when I know: I’m going to smoke one. At least one. Not more than two. Or three.

As we exit, I slap the box against my inner wrist to pack the nicotine. I don’t know why I do it. I suppose a cigarette would burn just as well without the extra effort. But it’s something I’ve seen my mother do since my infancy, so I do it, too.

I hope I won’t always blindly mimic her actions.

“Light one for me.” Lindsey produces a fuchsia-and-orange lighter.

I slip two sticks from the pack and bring them to my lips. Flip my thumb over the flint ball to make fire. Savor the sound of crackling paper and tobacco leaves. Breathe the poison into my lungs.

Rivet the shore
.

I hand a cig to Lindsey, who brings it to her lips and puffs on it, as if she’s sending smoke signals.

“I think I fucked up with Jon.”

Speaking of John, he really should’ve called her by now. “Why?”

“The lesbian shit,” Lindsey continues. “Obviously, it doesn’t work for every guy.”

“Probably works for most.” I shrug. “Elijah seems to really like it.”

“You ever … you know … ménage with him?”

“No.”

“Come on, you can tell me.”

“I haven’t.”

“Not what he says.”

I dart a glare at Lindsey, who’s holding the cigarette like she would a sparkler on the Fourth of July. I think she’s writing J-O-N in the air. “I may not remember everything I’ve done, but know I’ve never been part of a threesome.”

“C’est la vie.”

“Whatever he told you wasn’t true. If he had a threesome, it wasn’t with me.”

“I drank too much last night,” she says. “Been hurling all day. I should just stick to pot.”

“Maybe you should quit it all.”

“Maybe you’re a whore who can’t keep her legs together.”

Her words knock the wind out of me. I drop my cigarette and pick up my pace. Tears sprout like twin waterfalls.

Rivet the shore
.

She’s a few paces behind me when I hear her phone ring.

Her hello is an echo.

I’m running now. The town fades to nothingness, to a day last autumn, and I’m running, running, running through back roads of gravel and muck at night.

My hands sear with cuts and abrasions.

My legs are bruised, my back burns with slashes.

Rivet the shore with celebration of the dead
.

I’m wet with sweat, tears, rain, holy water.

Blood.

Footfalls threaten behind me.

I can’t run fast enough.

The gravel path becomes asphalt becomes iron.

I don’t know how long I’ve been running, but the spiral motion of the staircase dizzies me, and I have to sit.

My breaths come in short hiccups.

The earth spins before my eyes.

The staircase jounces, as if someone’s climbing up.

Coming for me.

Wants to tear at my clothing, my trust, my sanity.

I hook my fingers into the iron grid on which I’m sitting.

Steady.

I’m going to faint.

He’s going to have his way with me.

I don’t have breath enough to scream.

“Baby.”

Through a curtain of my hair, I spy Elijah crouching in front of me. My surroundings bleed into view. We’re at the door to the apartment above the Vagabond. I’m freezing. It’s getting dark. How long have I been out here?

I wonder if this is the longest blackout I’ve had since the night Palmer took Hannah. Maybe it is possible that I don’t remember an entire trip to Holy Promise, and maybe
I did write on the garden house wall.

The fingers on my left hand hurt from interlacing with the iron-grid platform, while the fingers on my right are closed tightly around a red felt-tip pen. Heaving, attempting to catch my breath, I release my grip on the platform, finger by finger.

My journal is open on my lap:

Rivet rivet rivet rivet rivet.

Rivet the shore with celebration of the dead.

Celebration of the dead dead dead dead dead dead dead.

I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him. IKILLEDHIM.

Rivet rivet rivet.

Celebrate him. Celebrate Him celebrate celebrate celebrate the dead.

He brushes aside my hair. “You okay?”

I shake my head, and through my sobbing, manage one word: “Lindsey.”

“Yeah, I know.” He chucks me under the chin. “She’s pissed.” He stands and goes to work on the lock.

I pinch my eyes shut to gather a few thoughts, and promptly shove my notebook back into my bag. The moment I’ve pulled myself together, I punch Elijah in the thigh.

“Ouch!”

“Well, what did you expect?” I’m on my feet now, honing in on his space, as if I can physically squeeze an apology out of him. We’re practically nose-to-nose.