Learning Not to Drown (29 page)

•  •  •

But the storm does last. Piling snow higher and higher, until we look out the windows and see only a sheet of white. School is canceled day after day.

On Tuesday our Internet, cable, cell phone, and phone service—all of it goes out. Skeleton points to the dead phones and the computer, reminding us that our connection with Luke and his lawyers is completely gone now. I pull out every scrap of leftover yarn I have, knit squares of bright colors until my fingers burn.

On Wednesday the electricity goes out. I watch the temperature in my fish tank drop degree by degree. Making it my new mission to keep my fish alive, I wrap blankets around the glass and add to the tank a Ziploc baggie of hot water I warmed by the fire, and replace it every few hours. It gives me something to do, something to think about other than Luke's trial.

While I'm concentrating on keeping my fish warm, Mom and Dad pack snow in the refrigerator and freezer to keep our food cold. Then they bring out every board game we have, insisting it'll be fun. There is no way we can get any information on Luke's trial; the phones don't come back on despite Mom's obsessively lifting the receiver every fifteen minutes. We don't even know if, one hour away and fifteen degrees warmer, this storm would be bad enough to postpone the trial. Nobody says a word about it, but Mom polishes the silver star by candlelight as I stitch my squares together, slowly forming another blanket. That night we all pull our blankets and pillows into the living room. It's more comfortable to sleep in front of the fire.

On Thursday the water pipes freeze. Mom melts snow in a pot on the fire. We eat hot dogs and marshmallows for dinner for the second night in a row. Skeleton pings
Mom's bell ornament with his finger, making the silver clapper and mallet hit the fragile crystal again and again. Its high-pitched
ding
drives me out of the warm living room into my chilled bedroom. By flashlight I can see that the fish are lethargic but still alive.

On Friday morning Peter and I can't stand to be inside for another second, so we go out to attempt to shovel the front walkway together. We give up within fifteen minutes and sit with our backs against the house, somewhat protected by the eaves above us, watching the snow fall.

“This seriously sucks,” Peter says. “If I have to play one more game of Chinese checkers or Monopoly or Life or watch Mom polish another ornament, I'm going to go crazy.”

“It'd be really endearing if our family weren't so messed up,” I say flatly. “Kind of like camping.”

Cold is already creeping under my parka, snow pants, and gloves. But I can't go inside and watch Mom desperately rubbing the glass ball for the second time today.

“I've got to move out this spring,” Peter says. “I'm going to go insane if I live with Mom and Dad for another year. I don't care if I blow all the money I've saved for school renting an apartment. Owing student loans can't be that bad. I should have moved out two years ago.”

Just as he's talking, the snow actually stops falling. We sit for five minutes, watching the sun slowly melt a hole in the clouds, then pick up our shovels and start making a thin path to the road. The top of the bank
comes up to my eyes. I can't help but wonder what Luke is doing right now. What a trial is actually like. What the witnesses said he did. What they look like. What they talk like. Did they tell the truth? Did he have anyone on his side, other than the lawyer? He'll be found guilty, at least of the receipt scandal, so that'll be a sentence. But the sexual assault. If he's innocent and the lawyer can prove that . . .

Peter breaks my thoughts. “My hands are starting to blister. You want to finish this tomorrow? The plows haven't gotten to the road yet, so we are kind of digging a path to nowhere anyway.”

I nod, and we head back inside.

•  •  •

Sometime in the middle of the night, the electricity flickers to life, throwing on lights, the heater, and our TV, without signal. Mom runs to check the phone. Dead. She fumbles to plug in her cell phone as the rest of us gather our blankets and head to our own rooms. As the fish tank slowly warms up, my angels start to swim around again. I give them some flakes and add some stuff to the tank that's supposed to help keep them healthy when they're under stress.

The next morning Mom wakes to find no cell service but a dial tone on our landline, and immediately calls Luke's lawyer. When she's done, she turns to face us, her lips thin. Skeleton standing tall behind her.

“Luke has been sentenced. A total—” Her voice breaks. She takes a breath and continues. “A total of twenty-seven years, twenty-four years good behavior,
in a maximum-security prison. He was found guilty of everything.”

Twenty-seven years?
Twenty-seven years?
I won't see him for twenty-seven years. Not unless I go to visit him in prison.
Twenty-seven years.
That's almost as long as he's been
alive
. He'll be so old when he gets out. Fifty-six years old.

I have to admit that despite everything I knew about Luke, I still had a little quiet whispering type of hope that wanted the jury to find that he's not guilty. For the evidence to
prove
he's not guilty. A hope that his assault on Heather was a onetime occurrence, a horrible mistake he'd never repeat, a mistake that I could maybe, someday, possibly forgive him for. That the thing with the fork was just because he was on something, and he could go to rehab and get better and never let that happen again. It was such a tiny little quiet hope, but Skeleton and I watch it snuff completely out.

The weather starts to warm in March, slowly, slowly melting down the huge snow walls. I can logically compartmentalize my emotions about Luke: anger, betrayal, grief, frustration, guilt. The emotions all combine and win over reason every time. At school, surrounded by friends, I'm okay enough. I make sure to do my homework and chores, but aside from that I don't do much. I just let the heavy, heavy sadness hold me down.

Toward the middle of the month, the whole school chatters about how Mandy showed up at a party with some guy she met in her weekend photography class at Pasadena City College. She broke up with Ryan by introducing her new boyfriend to everyone that night.

After school the next day I see Ryan sitting on the hood of my car.

“Hey, Clare,” he says, jumping off and shoving his hands into his pockets. “I need to go snowboarding tonight. Half the mountain is lit and open till nine. You in?”

My eyes widen. We've had feet and feet and feet of snow, but not once did it dawn on me that I should
leave my room to go up on the mountain. Not once. What the hell is wrong with me?

I could go up with him. Ride the mountain, just for a few hours.

“C'mon, Clare. Please,” he says quietly. “I've got to get on a snowboard or a surfboard. I know you get that. And I want to go with someone who's just going to be chill. So come with me.”

“Okay,” I reluctantly agree.

•  •  •

Being on the snow feels good. It takes a few runs for me to figure it out again, get comfortable enough to link turns easily. Ryan rides fast, taking jumps, going through trees, waiting for me at different points on the side of the mountain. There's barely anyone else around.

We settle on the ancient chairlift that will take us to the top again.

“Have you ridden much this winter?” I ask.

“No, just a few times. I got busy with other things.” He gives an unconvincing laugh. “Normally I would have been out every day. Guess I just got derailed.” He stops for a second, long enough that I wonder if he'll talk about Mandy, but after a quick shake of his head, his voice lightens as he says, “But it feels awesome to be out here. What about you?”

“I've been spending most of my winter thinking,” I say. Above his goggles, I can see his forehead raise a bit. The lift stops halfway up, causing our chair to sway lightly. I suck in a deep breath and admit, “It's my first
ride all winter. I guess I've been hiding. Just hiding from everyone. Trying to figure things out. . . .”

“That's good. I mean, you don't want to make my mistake and let someone else figure things out for you,” he says.

A clump of snow falls from one of the branches next to our chair and lands with a soft plop in the deep drift below. I love being in the treetops. I love that I can feel the cold creeping into the tips of my fingers and surrounding my toes. And I love feeling that Ryan can somehow understand the complexity of everything that has happened in the last nine months, without me really having to explain anything to him.

“I should have been hiding on the mountain instead of in my room. If the snow is this good tonight, it must have been insane midseason.” I readjust the way my board rests on my foot.

“It was.” Ryan zips his jacket up a little more. “After one of our really big storms, I went backcountry with a couple of guys that I surf with. They're all really solid—they would dig me out of an avalanche, or dive into a riptide. They know I won't bail on them, I know they won't bail on me.” He pauses. Then adds, “It sucks when you think you have that trust with someone and then you find out that you don't.”

“And that maybe you never did,” I say.

The motor of the lift starts to run, our chair slowly moves forward again.

It's weird how I know so little about Ryan that he's almost a stranger, but at this moment I'm feeling
more comfortable with him than any of my friends.

I think of the beanie I knitted for him, shoved deep under my bed, and decide to give it to him tomorrow at school, even though on April first the no-hat policy returns. Maybe he can wear it next winter.

It's better out here, in the cold, under the unnatural fluorescent lights. Sitting next to someone else who feels heartbroken and betrayed. Maybe not exactly like me, but close enough.

It's April.

Happy letters of acceptance arrive from UCLA, Pepperdine, CSULB, and Shithole State. It feels good. Good to be wanted. Good to have options, even after UC Berkeley regrets to inform me that I'm not good enough for their school. My future is becoming a reality. In the fall I will be out of this town, able to start fresh. I imagine meeting new people and the conversations being like talking with Ryan or Peggy. I'll leave Skeleton here. He's not allowed to follow me.

For now I have to deal with the loud clanking of his bones that keep me up all night—he wants me to think about Luke, all the time. No matter how good I feel hanging out with my friends. No matter how hard I study. No matter how many times I try to have a normal conversation with Mom or Dad or Peter, Skeleton is there. And he wants to go to college with me.

The more I try to ignore him, the more he persists. Each night he gets closer and closer to my bed. I hide under the covers, drowning out the clanking with my pillow over my head, until, in the middle of the night,
toward the end of April, I wake up to see Skeleton lying in bed next to me. His fingers draw in the air T R U T H.

“Why are you here?” I snap at him.

T R U T H.

“I know the truth. I know everything that I want to know about Luke, okay?” I say. “Can you please just let me sleep?”

He pokes me with his pointer finger.

“What more truth could there possibly be for me to face?” I ask him.

Then a horrifying idea occurs to me: Megan's Law. I've never thought to look for Luke on the sex offender registry. I've never thought to look for the truth there.

I'm trembling and afraid, but I get out of bed and walk to the family room, turning on every light switch as I go. I don't care if Mom or Dad wakes up. I don't care if they yell at me for being out of bed, or burning their money with the illumination.

The computer is cold; it rattles and moans when I turn it on. Putting in passwords, watching as the desktop loads. Finally online.

It's existed for years. I never looked at it. It never even occurred to me. Why would I look up what sex offenders may live here?

Search by name: Luke Tovin.

I barely hit enter, and there he is.

His name. First. Middle. Last. His birth date.

An
INCARCERATED
banner under his picture. He looks unusually calm in the photo. His eyes are those of
the good Luke. His eyes say he is a good person and that we can trust him.

The list:

Sexual battery.

Sexual assault.

Assault with intent to commit rape, sodomy, or oral copulation.

A black-and-white list, right next to his name. Right next to his birth date.

I pull away from the screen, the glaring light. This can't be him. It can't. He couldn't have done all of this. I look at his picture. Name. Birth date. My eyes flickering between the list and my brother's photo, faster, faster. Back and forth. It is Luke. It is Luke.

The proof is all here. Skeleton taps on the screen. Agreeing. It is Luke. Skeleton taps again at the list. He's right. All of these charges can't be from only one incident. My breaths move to the top of my lungs, and I can't force the air down any deeper. Heart beating so fast. The screen is going out of focus. I push the chair back from the desk. I need space.

“What are you doing, Clare?” Mom's voice. I turn toward her, stand up. I am taller than her, bigger than her.

“Why didn't you tell me? Why would you lie? You said he was in jail for stealing. You said he wasn't a bad person; he just made some poor choices. You said he wasn't dangerous.” I don't want to be crying. But I am. And spitting. And boiling. The room begins to move, Skeleton spins away, but Mom's face is perfectly in
focus. The vein is bulging under her skin, bright blue, icier than the light in my nightmares. Her jaw starts to tremble.