The Stories We Tell (17 page)

I straighten the papers and walk to the closet, opening the door. Given might keep her room askew, but her closet is organized as if for a magazine photo shoot. Shoe boxes are stacked on a shelf at the left of the closet, each labeled with a note card: White Sandals; Black Boots with Tassels; Red Converses. And then there is another box: pink and white, without a label, and covered in yarn and stickers, cut-out hearts, and decoupage words from magazines. I pick up the box and remember the day she and I made it.

One rainy afternoon years before, we went into the craft closet and emptied it. “We'll make wish boxes,” I told Gwen. “We can decorate old shoe boxes with everything pretty we can find in this closet and then fill it with wishes.”

Hours later, we had our secret wishes. We used a fountain pen on cotton paper, pretending to hide our wishes from each other. “A horse,” wrote Gwen. “A new Vandercook,” I wrote. “True love,” wrote Gwen. “Willa come home,” I wrote.

Gwen never did get her horse, and she quit riding months after she'd expressed the fleeting desire. Now standing alone in her closet, I lift the lid of that wish box, wanting to immerse myself in the sweetness of all that has deserted us. Inside are the following items: Tylenol PM; Cigarettes; a Photo of Gwen and Dylan kissing on the bow of a boat, his hand on her hip, his fingers twisted around the elastic of her bikini bottom, pulling it out to expose a tan line; beer can tops; the butt end of a joint; a can opener shaped like a hand; and three round white pills, which I recognize as Cooper's Percocet.

I slam the lid shut and shove the box onto the shelf, dropping to sit on a pink footstool.

Downstairs, a door slams, and I stand with its impact, wading out of Gwen's room like swimming through an undercurrent. I wait at the top of the stairs when Cooper appears, looking up, sweaty, earbuds still inserted, so he's deaf to anything but the music. He starts to walk up and then sees me, startling and taking the earbuds out. “Hey, darling. You okay?”

I shake my head. “No, I found some stuff in Gwen's room.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Cigarettes, sleep aids, a joint…” I should have been crying; I wanted to cry.

He climbs the steps and stands next to me. The physical exercise has awakered the scar like a purple tear. I avoid staring at it, looking into his eyes as he speaks. “Like that's some big surprise?”

“Yes, it is to me. All that was in her childhood wish box,” I say, choking on the last words.

“In her what?” He wipes his face with a towel he's tucked into the back of his running shorts.

“And your Percocet. A few of those, too.” I grab the base of my throat—I can feel the bile rising.

“It
shouldn't
be a surprise, Eve. She's been insolent, rude, and disrespectful. She's a seventeen-year-old girl who seems to hate us. She's been caught drinking and I'm fairly sure she was stoned the other night. Add all that together…”

“I get it. I just don't get how you can talk about her like she's a statistic and not our daughter.”

“We have to crack down on her.”

“What?” I ask.

“You really want my opinion?”

“Well, yes. We
are
her parents.”

“Here's what I think,” he says. “You stay on my team. We do this together. Support me.”

“Even when I don't agree?” I ask.

“Yes. We have to be a team.”

“I can't do that, Cooper. It's too important. This is our daughter, her life, our lives together. I can't support you if I think you're wrong. We have to talk about it to agree.”

He stares at me without speaking. “Then don't ask what I think.”

“Stop it,” I say. “I want to know what you think. God, I do. We
are
a team. I'm drowning here, Cooper. But I seriously don't think you mean for me to support you when I think it's bad for Gwen.”

He doesn't answer, just turns away, walking down the hall and into our room. Far off, as if another world away, I hear the rush of water through the house pipes as he turns on the shower.

*   *   *

Late that afternoon, Gwen arrives home from work, tossing her car keys onto the kitchen counter and opening the refrigerator, staring into it. “There's nothing to eat.”

I don't answer. Nor do I argue the point that both the refrigerator and the cabinets are stuffed with food. I sit there with the paraphernalia of her wish box scattered on the table. She hasn't noticed, but when I don't defend our food status, she turns around. Her face is full of obstinate teenage superiority, and then it isn't. Her eyes close to shut out the view and she sighs and says one word: “Shit.”

“We have to talk,” I say.

She stands with her eyes shut, and I imagine her struggle inside, her decision to fight and defend or actually open up. Her eyes open and she sits in the chair next to me. “I'm grounded for life. I know.”

“This isn't about being grounded,” I say. “What's going on?”

She bites her bottom lip, and my chest aches. “It's not such a big deal. Seriously, relax.”

“Relax?” I push my fingers against my eyelids; phosphenes flicker in the darkness.

“Trust me, my friends are doing a lot worse.” Gwen's voice makes me open my eyes.

“I don't care what your friends are doing.” I hold up the Tylenol PM. “You can't sleep? I didn't know that.” My voice cracks. “What else don't I know?”

“Mom,” she says in a too-old voice, “I think there is a lot you don't know. Living here is like living…” She looks off. “I don't know. Like nothing is what it looks like.”

“What does that mean? What looks like what? And what isn't what that is?”

She laughs quietly. “I have no idea what you just said.” Sighing, she leans back against the chair; tears gather into a puddle in the hollow below her eyes. She wipes them away with a forefinger on either side, removing the evidence of grief. “I'm miserable. Dylan broke up with me. Dad yells at me twenty-four/seven. My friends are stoned, mostly. I'm the only one who is forced to have a summer job. I'm only allowed to drive to work and back. And no, Mom, I can't sleep worth shit.”

“Oh, Gwen.” I reach to take her hand, but she refuses me.

“And,” she says quietly, “Aunt Willa is all messed up. I love her and everything is screwed up.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“Yes, Gwen, I know. She's my sister. My best friend. She's broken. And I can't fix it.”

“But it's Dad's fault. Don't you care that it's Dad's fault? You just pretend like nothing ever happened. You just cook dinner and go to work and fold the laundry and go to the studio like nothing, like NOTHING ever happened.”

“That's how you see me?”

“Yes, Mom. That's how I see you.”

“And you think this is Dad's fault?”

“I do.”

“You were there, Gwen. You heard him explain what happened. It doesn't sound like it was all his fault. And there was the storm. It was an accident.”

“He made her leave the bar. He didn't have to do that, Mom. Why did he do that? I know what it's like when he's mad or wants you to do something, and I bet Willa didn't have much choice, and then I bet she was mad and—”

“That's a lot of betting about things you don't know.”

“Nothing makes sense.”

“What happened with Dylan?”

“Like I just said, nothing makes sense. One minute ‘I love you' and the next ‘I need space.'”

“Sometimes things just don't make sense.”

“But you still can't just pretend it's all okay. That's weird.”

“I'm not pretending anything, Pea.”

“Yes.” Gwen stands, staring down at me. “Yes, you are. And stop calling me Pea, I'm not a little girl anymore.” She slams her hand on the table, where the cigarette packet shimmies and falls off the edge from the force. “If it looks good, then it is good, right?”

“That's not what I'm doing, Gwen.”

“Like that creepy party with the perfect everything.” She rolls those blue eyes. “Whatever.”

“‘Whatever' is not the way to end a conversation. It's a cop-out.” I stand to face her but speak quietly. “And the Percocet. Gwen, those are prescription meds. Did you share those with anyone?”

She blushes. “God, Mom. No. I didn't even take one. I totally thought about it, but I didn't.…”

“Thought about it? Stole it also. Can't you see what's wrong with that? You took prescription meds from your dad.”

“God, you're so mad at me.” She places her hand over her face to cover her eyes.

“Mad? Yep. Also worried like crazy. I want to understand; I do.”

“If you're so worried, maybe you could keep Dad off my back—that would be good, too. Just leave me alone.”

“Really?” Cooper's yells, as he enters the kitchen, and his voice soaks the kitchen with the vibration of his anger. “You want
me
stay off
your
back?” he asks in a tight voice, a wire that if released would injure anyone close by.

“Yes, I do.” Gwen pulls her shoulders back to stand tall, but her voice doesn't match her stance.

“Stop,” I cry out. “Both of you, stop. We're a family. Let's act like it.”

Cooper steps toward Gwen. “I'm not on your back. You stole my pain pills. This is not to be taken lightly.”

“God, Dad, you sound like you're in a courtroom. It's weird.” She mimics him. “
Not to be taken lightly.
Please.”

“I'm trying to help you; to save you from yourself.”

“Like you were doing with Aunt Willa?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“That worked out well for you, didn't it?”

Cooper runs his hands through his hair and then waves over the table. “What about this, Gwen? Am I supposed to just ignore it and stay off your back? Let you get in trouble or, worse, get yourself killed?”

“I guess not, Dad. I guess you're supposed to make me feel terrible about myself and then ground me and ruin my life. Sounds good to me.”

He sighs, defeated. “Well, I'd rather be the one to ruin your life than for you to ruin your own with a drunk-driving incident or…”

Gwen looks back and forth between us. “And what's with all the weird money lectures lately? You're all over me about getting a job and not spending money, and yet you go all over the country playing golf and fishing and hanging out with your buddies.”

“That's ridiculous. Comparing my work trips to your credit card extravagance? New bathing suits. Shoes.”

“Whatever. Are we done here?”

“For now,” I say.

“Okay, I'm going to see Aunt Willa.”

She walks out the side door of the house, obviously no longer starving, but only wanting to escape the house and her parents. I drop back into the chair and Cooper sits next to me and takes my hand.

We look at each other, dumbfounded. “Cooper, I have no idea how to handle any of this. But here's the thing: She's hurting and we can't fix that by yelling. I don't know a lot, but I do know that you can't hurt a hurting child. It doesn't help.”

“What does help?”

“Maybe we could listen to her instead of threatening her.”

“We can listen to her while she's home, grounded.” He walks to the refrigerator to drink orange juice straight from the container. “I'm gonna go hit some golf balls with Landry.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.”

He's gone, just as Gwen is—out the same door to escape the house and the kitchen, where I remain. The house phone rings and I pick up the wireless handset to look at the caller ID.
Savannah News.
My heart does a quick rollover, a duck and roll, but I answer.

“Mrs. Morrison?” a male voice asks.

“Yes.”

“This is Noah Yorker. I'm a journalist and reporter for the
Savannah News.
I am doing an exploratory piece about Preston Street. I'm hoping I can talk to you and your husband.”

“I believe he already refused,” I say.

“I've talked to your sister and I would love to have his side of the story.”

“‘Side of the story'? What does that have to do with Preston Street?”

“Ma'am, this has nothing to do with blame or the accident itself. This article is about that area and its inherent dangers. The road is both pockmarked and dangerous. The accident is a small part of the article; but I want to cover all my bases and talk to your husband.”

“I will pass on the message, but I can't guarantee anything.”

“Thank you. Let me give you my numbers and e-mail.”

“Okay.”

I sit at the family desk and pull out a pad of paper, scribbling the information. “Got it,” I say.

“One more thing,” he says, as if it is an afterthought. “Did you know someone died there that same night?”

My chest opens with a fluttering of fear. This man is not just after anecdotal information about the street; he's after someone.

I hang up before I respond. What did Gwen say only moments before? “Like nothing is what it looks like.”

Next to the notepad with Noah's information is my typewriter. The ribbon inside is cracked and dried. Time has gathered underneath the carriage, building sand castles of dust. A few weeks ago, I ordered a new ribbon and new letter
p.
I pick up the oilcloth I've taken from the studio and drop two small drops of blue fluid onto it. I wipe across the larger parts of the keyboard and carriage, cleaning it as carefully as I would a newborn. Then using Q-tips, I flip the machine over and clean the internal bones. While I clean, I think, What to do? What is next? How do I fix any of this?

When I remove the old ribbon, it breaks apart in my hands, disintegrating into chunks of black waste. I rip open the packing for the new one and insert it into the Remington, wrapping it around the spool and slipping it into the type guide below the roller platen. I screw the letter
p
into place, and then when I finish, I step back. It's something at least—I've fixed one small thing.