Invisible (14 page)

 [PEYTON]

T
HE DEEPEST PARTS OF THE OCEAN ARE THE TRENCHES
that plunge for miles into the core of the earth. This is the hadal zone, named after the Greek word for hell
.

Here live mud eaters: mollusks, worms, starfish, sea anemones, and sea cucumbers. These creatures creep along the flat and featureless ocean floor, feeding steadily on the detritus no one else wants
.

Nothing changes in the hadal zone. There is no dawn or dusk, no seasons, weather, ice age. There’s no reason to evolve, because there’s nothing to adapt to. The creatures that live at the bottom of the world are exactly the same as they ever were. They’re all that remains of our past, and they’re our future, too. Long after we’re gone, they’ll still be there, and they won’t have any idea that we once were, too
.

Peyton sat in the front pew between her dad and Dana. Her grandma sat on the other side of her dad, gripping his hand and leaning against Aunt Karen. People packed the pews behind her,
filled the vestibule, and overflowed onto the front lawn. From all the way inside where she sat, she could hear the far-off echo of the loudspeakers outside, repeating Father Tom’s words.

Sunlight streamed in through the stained-glass windows and fell onto the gilded objects on the altar. It warmed Father Tom’s white hair, danced across the robed knees of the seated deacon. Light was all free and happy out in the air. Not like in the ocean. Sunlight could shine down only so far before the water particles scattered and dispersed it. The ocean kept a tight hold on its secrets.

Two years ago, when her mom was first diagnosed, she and Peyton had had a long talk.

Why did this happen to you?

I don’t know
.

Does it hurt when they put the needles in?

Sometimes
.

Why don’t they give you a graft instead?

Because they’re prone to infection
.

An infection had crept in anyway.

Music started and she stood. When it stopped, she sat. Someone sniffled and then hiccupped behind her. She clenched her fists. Why were
they
crying? She wanted to turn around and glare, tell them to go somewhere else. More music, swelling loudly to a chorus of amens, and it was finally over.

Shuffling out of the pew and into the aisle, she walked beside her dad, feeling the pricking gazes of everyone upon her. She knew exactly what they were all thinking.
I’m glad it’s her and not me
. She stood on the sidewalk and watched the pallbearers load the casket into the hearse. Her dad helped her grandma into the front seat of the truck, and Peyton climbed in after. Dana took her own car, and Aunt Karen got into her rental with her two sons.

The hearse rolled in front of them, leading them out of town to the cemetery. Peyton had never spent much time out here. It all looked strange to her, as if she’d landed in a foreign land. There
was the blue water tower that loomed in the distance. There were the three silos, the railroad tracks. A flag flapped outside an electrical substation, its ends a little frayed. Someone should replace it.

Over time, more questions came up, and her mom had always answered them.

Are you going to die?

People can live for decades on dialysis. I’m strong and healthy. There’s no reason to think I won’t be one of them
.

What if you aren’t?

Oh, sweetheart. You’ll always have me right here, in your heart. I’ll never leave you
.

“You didn’t tell me Dana was back.” Her grandma clutched her old black pocketbook in her lap, twisting and twisting the metal toggle. She sounded alert.

“She came for the funeral,” her dad said.

That wasn’t the exact truth. It was more that Dana stayed for the funeral, but her dad was just simplifying things. Peyton prepared herself for the endless questions about whose funeral it was, but her grandma surprised her.

“You better keep an eye on her,” her grandma said.

“Sure, Mom.”

“You mark my words. She’s trouble, that one.” She let go of her pocketbook and took Peyton’s hand in hers, her grasp surprisingly strong.

Her mom had been strong, too. She loved to smile, and she sang in the shower, and planted hundreds and hundreds of flower bulbs. She never, ever let on that Peyton needed to stay vigilant. Peyton should have known better. The purple shadows under her mom’s eyes, the way she paused to catch her breath, the looseness of clothes that once fit, all should have told Peyton not to let down her guard. Peyton had gotten lazy. She’d let things sweep her up and propel her along. So she hadn’t even been there when her mom died. She’d been at school, doing stupid school things, and
her dad had been at work. Which meant that, at the end, her mom had been alone.

Do you believe in God?

Yes. Having you made me believe
.

She hoped her mom had been right. She was terrified, though, that she’d been wrong.

 [DANA]

M
Y MOM DIED WHEN I WAS THIRTEEN AND JULIE
was nineteen. Mom had been on her way home from work, following the same route she took every night—the two-lane road that curved through the woods and around the dark lake and tiptoed into our sleeping town. Julie was the one to wake after midnight and realize the car wasn’t in the driveway. Julie was the one to phone the police, to answer the door when they showed up to tell her they’d found our mother’s car at the bottom of the slushy lake, our mother still trapped behind the steering wheel. Julie was the one to come to my bedroom in the icy predawn light and wrap her arms around me tightly to tell me our mother had drowned.

I hadn’t believed her, at first. My mom would never have left without telling me goodbye.

I don’t remember much about her funeral, just a few things: sitting in the pew beside Julie, breathing in the sickening green odor of lilies; looking down into the rectangular pit carved into the earth and realizing with absolute clarity that nothing was in my control. Years later, I sat in that same church, while roses
stood at the altar, and the same minister talked about Julie. And then I stood by her open grave, with the marker of our mother’s grave beside it, and felt the true weight of being completely alone in this world.

Julie had such promise. She was beautiful, funny, astonishingly kind. She could have married into wealth, sailed the ocean, flown the sky. I’d accused Frank of keeping her stuck here in this North Woods town, assuming no one could be satisfied staying in one spot their entire lives. But maybe I’d been wrong. The people Julie had spent her life with had overflowed the church, and now they stood in sober ceremony as her casket was lowered into the earth. They’d brought by food, sent flowers, dropped off cards and letters, phoned. Maybe, in the end, Julie had been happy. Maybe, even if it hadn’t contained me, this had been the life she’d wanted.

I stood at the kitchen sink, washing dishes that could wait and taking my time about it, too. I was done making meaningless chitchat, agreeing that my sister had been a wonderful person who would be missed, answering the same questions over and over. Where had I been? How was I doing? Was I married? Children? Wasn’t it nice to spend some time with my family?

At one point, Alice Gerkey had rolled up in her wheelchair, still commanding although she’d shrunken to a gnome, and thrust out a bony hand.
It’s good to see you, Dana
, she whispered as I bent to kiss her cheek.
You should come by the plant sometime, and see all the changes
.

“There you are.” Frank’s sister, Karen, reached around me to drop a handful of silverware into the soapy water. She resembled him, with her strawberry blonde hair and narrow features. On Frank, they were a handsome combination; on Karen, they looked a little pinched and unforgiving. But the smile she gave me was generous. “Why don’t you let me take over so you can greet people?”

“That’s all right.”

Karen gave me a thoughtful look. “Guess it’s hard being back after so long.”

Outside the window, people congregated on the lawn. Peyton sat up at the top of the sloped backyard, a solitary figure. I’d been watching as I soaped plates, hoping someone would walk up the hill and join her, but so far, no one had. “I didn’t know Frank had a drinking problem.”

Karen turned with a sharp intake of breath. “Oh no. Don’t tell me he’s started up again.”

So Irene hadn’t been exaggerating. There really was something to be concerned about. “He’s going through a six-pack a night. What do you think? Is this a big deal?”

“I’m not sure. I wasn’t around when it was happening. I only know what Julie told me. She said he got remote. She’d talk to him and he wouldn’t answer. She said it was like living alone, sometimes. The worst part was how he neglected Peyton.”

I frowned at her. “What do you mean, neglect?”

Karen flushed, got busy with a dishtowel. “Nothing terrible. Frank’s a wonderful guy. You know that, Dana. It’s just that he didn’t interact with her. After a while, she stopped going to him, greeting him when he came home from work, that sort of thing. Small stuff.”

That didn’t sound small to me. “How long did this go on?”

A pause before she replied, letting me know her reluctance. “Peyton was in kindergarten when he started treatment.”

So those early formative years where I’d imagined Peyton growing up surrounded by happiness and love had instead been filled with fear and insecurity. Where had I been then? Baltimore, wandering around Fell’s Point or hitting the newest bar, completely oblivious. No wonder Peyton was that quiet, serious girl Irene Stahlberg worried about. Peyton seemed so alone. In the three days that I’d been there, not a single teenager had stopped by to visit her, and there she sat, on that hilltop, surrounded by
nothing but grass. Julie had been so
weak
. She should have stood up for Peyton. “Five years.” My voice trembled with rage. “Six?”

“No, no. It wasn’t every day. He’d go for weeks and be perfectly fine.”

“Until the times he wasn’t.”

“Well … Julie kept hoping he’d get hold of it.”

I heard the darker history in Karen’s voice. “And?”

“Julie was at work, and Peyton was at a friend’s house. Peyton took it into her mind to walk home. When she got here, she found Frank. She talked him into driving her back to pick up a book she’d forgotten.” She turned a plate around and around. “Peyton can be pretty persuasive.”

“They had an accident.” That explained Frank’s limp. Not Afghanistan, then. Closer to home. Somehow that made it feel even more deadly.

“Peyton wasn’t hurt, thank God. But that was it for Julie. She packed up Peyton and moved out.”

Yes, that sounded like the sister I admired and loved. Karen’s words sank in. “Wait a minute. You’re not blaming
Peyton
for talking Frank into drinking and driving?”

“No! Of course not. I’m sorry if it sounded that way.”

That’s exactly how it had sounded. Karen’s eyes were wide with pleading. Julie would have forgiven her on the spot and thrown her arms around her. But Julie had always been the nicer sister. I grabbed a handful of silverware and dropped it in a basket. “Frank better get things under control. He’s responsible for Peyton now.”

“I’ll talk to him,” she promised. “It’s just a terrible time right now. He’ll get it together. Don’t worry.”

Of course I was worried. “Peyton doesn’t have five years for him to get around to doing that.”

She flinched. “It won’t be like that.”

“You can’t know that.”

Karen put a hand on my arm. “It’s too bad we both live so far
away, Dana. We should take turns being here, alternate holidays or something.”

“Babysitting Frank? That’s no solution.” Karen and I weren’t together in this. We were just two women related by marriage. That didn’t make us two halves of a whole. The shape we made when pushed together was lopsided and incomplete. “I have to take these dishes in.” I moved away and Karen’s hand fell to her side.

“Frank’s going to need us,” she reminded me, sounding a little shrill. “He can’t raise Peyton on his own.”