Set Me Free (18 page)

It was no surprise, then, that the morning Nat and Willa awoke in Columbus, Ohio, she insisted they eat their first road breakfast
at Denny’s. She’d exerted her influence in other ways too. She’d gotten Nat to agree on sleeping in hotels instead of that
godawful tent from the 1970s. At first he’d made a big deal about whether he had enough cash on him to pay for a week’s worth
of room bills, but in the end, he relented. She kept herself from saying that normal fathers used credit cards instead of
worrying
about a paper trail. While her father checked in at the Motel 6 front desk, Willa put her head to the cat’s and thought about
how there were many things about her father she was never going to understand or like. She was wise to enjoy her father in
spite of these things.

Their hotel room was dark and dank, but it had two beds, and beds were better than the ground. Willa sneaked Ariel in under
her jean jacket, and the cat patrolled the room for mice. It was a good sign that she found none. In the morning, when Willa
repacked her suitcase—she knew now for sure that Nat had hoped she was going to come along, because he’d packed a bag for
her, albeit full of her least favorite and worst-fitting clothes—she felt the giddiness again. In her normal life, she would
be sitting in biology right this second. Nat had put in a call to Bellwether from the pay phone downstairs and let them know
there was a family emergency. He’d try to get Willa back in time for the art show.

When at Denny’s, Nat always ordered the Lumberjack Slam: three buttermilk pancakes, a slice of grilled honey ham, two bacon
strips, two sausage links, two eggs, grits, and an English muffin. He nodded each time the waitress rounded the table with
her carafe of coffee, so he’d have imbibed six or so cups by the time his plate was clean. Willa’s strategy was more conservative,
if no less ambitious, given her size: two eggs sunny-side up, bacon, hash browns, rye toast, orange juice, hot chocolate,
and a piece of cherry pie. When else in your life did you get dessert after breakfast?

“You know those underpants you packed for me?” They were already done with the first round of food and waiting for the second.
Willa was trying to tease Nat. She kicked him under the table to try and jolly him up. “They’re, like, from sixth grade. There’s
absolutely no way I can fit into them.”

Nat smiled gloomily. He wasn’t really listening.

“It’s okay,” Willa continued. “We can just stop at Kmart or something. But I think it’s pretty funny that you thought I’d
fit into them. They’re, like, the size of my
hand.”

“They’re the only ones I could find,” he said finally, fiddling with the sugar packets.

“Did you check my top drawer?”

“Of course I did, Wills.”

“Oh. Then all my other ones must’ve been dirty”

The waitress wedged Willa’s pie onto the table and cleared a few plates. Willa took a bite and, with her mouth full, said,
“And what’s with that pink polka-dotted shirt?”

“What about it?” Nat asked, slathering his pancakes in maple syrup.

“I
hate
that shirt.”

“I guess I didn’t know that.”

“Yes, you do. Remember who gave it to me?”

Nat paused as if considering. “Can’t say that I do.”

“Yes, you do, Dad. Cute-as-a-button Cassie. No lesbian buys a teenager a pink shirt with polka dots on it.” Cassie had lived
next door before they moved to Connecticut. Despite the fact that the place was Northampton, Massachusetts—and thus, Nat had
insisted, this generous, gift-giving woman was most likely lesbian—Willa hadn’t bought it. She saw Cassie as one in a long
line of women who tried to get their talons into Nat by buttering up his daughter. It was all well and good if they wanted
to date him, but it creeped her out when they acted like they’d be dating
her
if things went according to plan.

Nat busied himself with his bacon. He could sense the lightness and ease Willa was attempting to coax out of him, but he wasn’t
feeling it. All he could think about were the four things he needed to say. He wanted to rein her in, get her to pay attention.
He wished he had a way to still her, even for a moment. To make her listen to what he had to say. He cleared his throat.

She went on. “I appreciate you packing those clothes for me, I really do. But I think it’s safe to say, once and for all,
that you have absolutely no fashion sense.”

“I need to talk to you, Willa,” Nat said.

“Well, then, Father, let us commence to talk.” Willa mimicked the seriousness in his voice and sat up straighter. She raised
an eyebrow, a smile skirting the edges of her mouth.

“It’s about your mother,” Nat said, and all of Willa’s pretense disintegrated. She hadn’t brought Caroline up since he’d mentioned
her name yesterday. She knew her father well. She knew that mentioning her mother would bury that information deeper. She’d
become an expert in this truth. All her life, the best way to get the dirt on anything—her mother, especially—had been to
wait in the wings and listen. Eventually, Nat would say something that teased at more. Getting beyond that was the trick.
If you asked, you lost any chance. He’d gather the troops and surround that particular nugget steadfastly. Let him think you
didn’t care, and that was when you got the good stuff. It was rare, however, to get anything this direct from her father on
any point, especially Caroline. Willa wasn’t sure how to proceed.

“Okay,” she said cautiously, and put down her fork.

“I just want you to know,” Nat said, his heart beating fast, “that your mother loved you very, very much.”

“I know, Dad. I know.” She was graceful when she comforted him.

“I know you know. But I want to be sure you really understand. She was a riveting, strange, illuminating woman, and it breaks
my heart that she’ll never get the chance to see how beautiful you are.”

“Da-ad.” Willa blushed. Nat used words like “illuminating” on rare occasions. She didn’t know whether it was a good idea to
start asking questions. But she had to take the risk. “Do I look like her?”

Nat eased back into the booth. “Every day, more and more.”

Willa nodded.” I thought so. From the album she made for your first anniversary. I was looking at the pictures again the other
night. I mean, my hair isn’t quite as long, but I think…” She smiled. “I’m glad. I guess I looked more like you when I was
little.”

“I guess,” Nat said.

She’d said something wrong. She could see it beginning. The way her dad would close up. She scooped up another round of pie
and took a bite, nonchalantly asking, “What else do you remember? About her? I mean, what was so strange?”

“She had the dirtiest sense of humor. Just absolutely wicked. People didn’t expect it, because she was so tiny and looked
so innocent. She got away with a lot because of how she looked. When I met her in high school, everyone called her ‘the hummingbird.’
She was so tiny and fast.”

“And that was in California, right?”

“Yup,” he said. “Los Angeles. We’ve got to get out there someday.”

“Maybe we could stop on our way back from Oregon,” Willa said hopefully.

“It’s a long way out of the way.”

“I’m just saying that maybe—”

“Someday, Wills, someday, you’ll see where your mother and I met. I promise you that.”

“I know your parents died a long time ago, Dad. And I know you weren’t very close to them or whatever. But maybe her parents,
you know—”

“Her parents…” Nat sighed. “Your mom had it rough, kiddo. That’s one of the reasons we moved east, actually. It was something
we shared. There wasn’t anything for us in California. We needed a new beginning.”

“And that’s why you loved each other so much? Because you were like two peas in a pod, right? Just like you used to say?”

Nat nodded. “That’s right,” he said, more quietly than before.

Willa knew to nudge Nat off the touchy ground. She could tell if they kept talking about this part of things, he’d stop soon.
She should make him laugh. “Remember that story you told me about how you guys first got together? About the junior prom and
that creep who kept dancing with her, and you saved her from him by pretending to be sick? And then she had to take care of
you and the guy left her alone?”

“Yes,” Nat said. He had to be so careful with what he told her.
Willa’s mind was a sponge. He’d told that story once, and she’d been seven at the time.

“You said she had on a green dress. And whenever I picture it, it’s always satin, but I realized you never told me if it was
satin or not. And I was just wondering: was it?”

Nat closed his eyes and let himself see Caroline. Long, wild hair. Hips gliding side to side to the music. Lips moving along
with the words. He couldn’t remember the dress at all. “Is satin the shiny stuff?” he asked.

“Yes.” Willa smiled triumphantly.

“Then you’re right.”

“I knew it.” The waitress brought more coffee. “And what else?”

“Your mother and I took a cross-country trip together. Because I got an apprenticeship, learning how to build furniture, and
she was thinking about college. We started driving at the end of June. Right after we graduated from high school. From California
back to Connecticut, the reverse way we’re going. That’s how we ended up back east.”

“Will you ever show me the house you guys bought together? You keep saying you will, Dad, but you never do. And now we live
in Connecticut. But you won’t even tell me where it is.”

“I’ll take you there.”

“When we’re back from Oregon?”

“Yes,” Nat said, and told himself wishful thinking wasn’t lying, exactly. “It was a cottage with a door that was black on
the outside and white on the inside. And we had very little, just a bed we’d gotten on sale, and a table and chairs the neighbors
were throwing away.”

“And me,” said Willa, beaming. “You also had me.”

Nat withdrew his fingers from the table, taking them into his lap. He watched them move as though they were not his own. “There
are parts of your mother that are hard to understand,” he said, fixing his daughter in his gaze.

Willa nodded. “I know you guys had problems.”

“But no matter what you hear, Willa, you must never forget how much she loved you.”

Willa cocked her head to the side. “What would I hear? And who would tell me?”

Nat cleared his throat again. It wasn’t time for this yet. He took out his wallet and handed her a twenty.“I’ve got to stretch
my legs. Get the check, will ya? I’ll take care of Ariel and meet you at the car.”

Willa watched him walk away and tried to measure her emotions. She should be happy, she told herself. She had gotten more
already than she’d ever had before, and there was promise of more yet to come. Still and all, she couldn’t shake the feeling
that something wasn’t right. She was old enough to know that when someone tells you wonderful things about someone else, there
is often something bad close behind. That, and when Nat handed her the money, his hand was shaking like crazy.

A
M ELIA

Where-We-Have-the-Parti es
Saturday, October 5, 1996

The party everyone had been talking about was east of the academy, away from the mountains. It was on a dusty yellow spot
of land that everyone knew about but had no name. A lot of places around here don’t have names. Names are given to a piece
of land when something happens on it. Take some local favorites: Broken Balls Creek, Infidelity Peak, Maidenhead Point. And
you think I’m kidding.

Aside from the parties held on the land where the parties happened, there was nothing much to distinguish it from any of the
wide space surrounding it. There was nothing denoting its limits. This place was as wide and as long as the number of bored
Friday-night teenagers who could spread across it under a wide, cloudless sky.

In retrospect, it is easy to note that this land
was
distinguishable; there was an ancient skeleton of an old homesteader barn lying a
quarter mile or so away from where the bonfire was usually lit. The crisp gray wood of the barn lay against the earth like
the ribs of a whale beached long ago, swept clean of flesh by a sand-filled wind. But no one would notice that barn until
After.

Because nothing important had happened in a very long time at the place where Amelia and Lydia were going for the party, the
name that the place had gotten for itself, which was not written on a map and did not exist at a latitude or a longitude,
was simple: Where-We-Have-the-Parties. That is not the name of that place now. Now it is called Don’t-Go-There-Because-of-What-Happened.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Where-We-Have-the-Parties is not, contrary to what you may think, an Indian name. This was a place named by teenagers, most
of whom were Indian, but their age is a much more relevant fact than their cultural heritage or the color of their skin. They
had been given access to this place because no one else wanted it, as is often the way with teenagers. Teenagers will turn
an unwanted piece of land into a kingdom, because simply being there offers a freedom of the soul. (I am contradicting my
own mind when I say that people had never been over this land, when I say they had never named it. When I use the word “people”
like that, I mean white people. All these places have Neige Courante names, and these names are not the ones given by Neige
Courante teenagers. Except among the tribal elders, most of those names sound inconsequential, and even then they mean nothing
compared to what they meant to our wandering ancestors.)