The Fragile World (16 page)

olivia

It was amazing how easy it was to sit next to Sam and say absolutely
nothing.
I was so used to my own mind going at a reckless, autobahn speed—this worry, that fear—that I was amazed a person could be so absolutely
still.
We spent the morning manning his sales tables outside J & E Automotive. If I strained a bit to peek around the corner, I could see our Explorer in an open garage bay, waiting. Another driver pulled in for service and then left on foot for the diner across the road, the one that said only DINER in huge red letters, as if it were the only such place in the world. No one seemed interested in purchasing a snow globe re-creation of one of humanity’s great tragedies, although a surprising number of cars with out-of-state plates rumbled past. Maybe Lyman, Wyoming, had a strange electromagnetic force that was compelling them off the interstate.

I repeated this thought to Sam, who said simply, “Huh.”

“Like something that might have been on
The Twilight Zone.
”

He nodded, then added a minute or so later, “I’ve never seen it.”

This made me feel very sorry for Sam Ellis. It also made me remember the giant satellite dishes affixed to every house we’d passed in Lyman, and made me wonder how that could be true. Find the one house without a satellite dish, and that must be where he lived. I was thinking about reaching for his hand under the table, remembering how his skin had felt last night, so warm next to mine.

But then he asked, “What’s up with your dad?”

“Excuse me?”

“I just mean, what’s his deal?”

“What’s his deal?” I echoed. “I don’t know what you’re asking.”

He held up both hands, palms out in surrender. “Okay. It was just a question.”

We were quiet for a long time, watching people go in and trickle out of DINER, and a woman push a baby stroller with twins past us and then, completing a loop, back again. The twins were screaming, but the woman had on headphones and didn’t seem bothered by their noise. I was annoyed, both by the crying twins and Sam’s question; after our heart-to-heart last night, it didn’t seem that I should have to put this into words, too. If only there was some sort of electrode I could plug in to each of our brains, so we could know everything without having to ruin it with more talking.

“Fine,” I announced so abruptly that Sam jumped, banging his knee against a table leg. “Fine. It’s none of your business, but I’ll tell you what’s up with my dad. What’s up is that my older brother, who was this musical genius and a way better kid than me, died four years ago. What’s up is that my dad and mom couldn’t handle being together, so my mom left. What’s up is that my dad had some kind of psychotic break at work and he was, like,
this
close to jumping off a roof.” I held up my thumb and forefinger a centimeter apart for emphasis. “So that’s
what’s up
with him, if you must know.” I stood, wanting to make some kind of dramatic exit, and then, considering that I really had nowhere to go, plopped dramatically back into my chair.

Sam contemplated this for a long time. At least, that’s what I figured he was doing. With anyone else, there would have been an instant apology or a hug or a spilled tale of similar woe, but Sam really seemed to be pondering everything I’d said. When he finally spoke, it was to say “That can’t be true, though.”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, he can’t have been a better kid than you. I hope you know that.”

I stared at him.

“But you’re right, it isn’t any of my business.”

“Thanks,” I whispered. Tears smarted in my eyes, and I half turned on my folding chair so that I was facing away from him and toward the parking lot with the rusting car skeletons.

Sam was quiet again, although I could tell he had something more to say. This was Lyman time: nice and slow, no need to get in a rush and mess things up. He cleared his throat and swallowed. “I just—thought I should tell you. I would want to know if it involved me.”

I whirled around. “Want to know what?”

“It’s just that I might know something about your dad that you don’t know.”

The little hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. Where the hell was my Fear Journal when I needed it? I had this sudden
Star Wars
-inspired flash of Sam Ellis telling me that my dad was also his father, relic from a long-ago trip across I-80. Or else that the barber down the road was part of a cult that practiced human sacrifice, and right now my father was bound and gagged and wrapped in someone’s throw rug, mummy-style, ready to be placed on an altar. But for once those fears seemed ridiculous. The panicky feeling in my chest wasn’t new; it had only been lying dormant. There
was
something wrong with Dad, and I had known it since the moment I saw him on the roof. I’d been beating back that fear all week, pretending this trip was some kind of normal father-daughter bonding ritual.

“You’d better tell me,” I ordered, breathless, “or I’m going to hyperventilate, and it’s going to be ugly for both of us.”

But instead of telling me—really, this boy was too infuriating for words—Sam reached into the pocket of his jeans with cinematic slowness and pulled out something, which he held out for me in the palm of his hand.

“What is that?” I asked, and then, understanding and not understanding all at once, I demanded, “Where did you get it?”

“It’s a bullet. A cartridge, whatever you want to call it,” he said. “It was in your car.”

“It was not.” My face was hot. “That was not in our car. We don’t have a gun. My dad doesn’t have a gun. So why would we have a bullet in our car? And what were you doing in our car, anyway?”

He closed his palm around the bullet, and it disappeared, like a twisted magic trick. I felt sick to my stomach all of a sudden, like I had a bad case of cramps, or the bowl of out-of-season fruit from breakfast was catching up with me. Slowly, Sam explained, “When I got here this morning, my stepdad asked me to check for any warning lights in your car, and I moved the driver’s seat forward a bit. Your dad’s a lot taller than me. So I reached under the seat—”

“And there was just a bullet lying there, under the driver’s seat?” Two pink spots rose like balloons on my cheeks. I didn’t wait for him, but answered my own question. “You’re wrong. Believe me, I would have noticed if there was a bullet rolling around down there.” I wasn’t absolutely sure this was true, given the amount of snack wrappers and pens and other things that tended to accumulate on the floor of our car—but still.

Sam opened his hand again, rotating the bullet back and forth along his palm. It was funny how small and innocent it looked, like something that couldn’t possibly hurt anyone.
Guns don’t kill people,
I thought, stupidly.
Bullets do.
“When I was reaching down there, my hand rubbed against the top of the underside of the seat, you know?”

I stared at him.

“And I felt something kind of funny, so I got out of the car and I bent over to check it out. They were taped to the bottom of the seat with a bunch of duct tape.”

“They?” I was going to throw up. I leaned over my knees, breathing hard, but still I heard Sam say “Yeah. Five bullets, all taped up there.”

I concentrated on breathing in and out, my eyes pinched closed.
In and out, in and out.
Where was Mom, to come to the rescue with a paper bag?

“Maybe it was for—I don’t know, some kind of protection for your trip,” Sam offered.

“But he doesn’t have a gun,” I huffed. “I would know, believe me. He doesn’t even go hunting or anything. He’s not a gun guy.”

“These bullets aren’t for hunting,” Sam pointed out. “I’ve been hunting, and I would know. These are for a handgun.”

“No way, there’s no way,” I whimpered, pulling my hoodie over my head so that it shielded most of my face, and Sam Ellis wouldn’t be able to see me cry.

Sam tried again, probably alarmed by my display. “You know, there are a lot of reasons why—”

I cut him off, blubbering. “No, there aren’t. There are no reasons.” I couldn’t think. Why in the world did my dad need a gun? Was he involved in—something? I couldn’t even imagine. He was my dad, for goodness’ sake. What was he hiding from me? I sniffed, trying to hold back an impending tidal wave of mucous. And then I felt it, hesitant at first, and then firm as anything: Sam’s hand on my back, rubbing a slow, comforting circle.

“I’ll help you,” he promised. “Okay? We’ll figure it out.”

curtis

I emerged from the barbershop in a daze. Catching my reflection in a storefront along the main drag, I saw a middle-aged man with a new haircut and a shiny face, but I had to stop to make sure it was really me. In my post-dream haze, I half expected to see a younger version of myself, the young man who had escaped an abusive childhood to luck into the good life with Kathleen Eberle.

I popped into a convenience store and emerged a few minutes later with a two-pack of pens and a pad of writing paper, the words already forming in my mind. When I rounded the corner, Olivia and Sam were still sitting at the folding tables, the display of snow globes arranged before them. Olivia had her hoodie up, and Sam had his arm on her back. I restrained myself from crossing the street and instead entered the diner with its blazing red sign. She’s being a teenager, I reminded myself. I’d spent most of my life around teenagers, but couldn’t pretend to fully understand them—because even though I’d lived through those years, I hadn’t been one myself. She’s having a little flirtation, and good for her. Why should she be miserable? Why should she carry the weight of the past, when I could do it for her?

It was just after eleven, and only a few tables in the diner were occupied. I was seated in the back, although if I strained I could make out Olivia and Sam, who seemed to be having an intense conversation.

A waitress approached, handing me a laminated menu. “You’re a little late for breakfast, but if you want, we could probably rustle something up.”

“Oh, no—just some coffee, black.”

“You got it,” she said, and I set the pad of paper and a pen on the table in front of me. My palms were sweaty; holding the pen, my hand shook. The first words came out more like a child’s scrawl, I was fairly rusty at this, one of the most basic forms of communication. When had I written anything besides a grocery list, a lesson plan? Every few weeks I’d bundled up mail that came to Kathleen and forwarded it on to her in a padded envelope, writing nothing more than her name and Omaha address across the front.

It took several tries to get it right. First I wrote, “The Last Will and Testament of Curtis Kaufman.” Too formal—like a character on an old episode of
Murder, She Wrote,
with a room full of weeping relatives who had gathered to hear how my wealth was going to be distributed. There wouldn’t be much wealth at all, when it came down to it. The house in Sacramento was paid off, and that could be sold—but the housing market was in a slump. I’d managed to stay debt-free by driving an old car, by planning our purchases in advance—but Visa would be paying for a rebuilt transmission, and after the hotels and gas and food for this trip, there wouldn’t be much left in savings.

Besides, it wasn’t absolutely certain what would happen to me. That was the great unknown, the variable I wouldn’t be able to control. Robert Saenz could easily fight back, wrestle the gun from me, return fire for fire. If everything went according to my plan—but why would it?—I’d be arrested by the Oberlin police, booked and put on trial. I would request only a public defender—no heroics. I wasn’t planning to deny anything. I imagined A.D.A. Derick Jones handling my case for the prosecution, laying bare the facts: a man who hadn’t come to terms with his son’s death, a man who was so consumed by his desire for revenge that he allowed his family to fall apart, a man who had executed his crime with malice aforethought—traveling thousands of miles and purchasing a handgun illegally along the way, all to hunt down his son’s killer. I would plead guilty, not denying anything. Best case scenario, I’d only be locked away for half of my remaining years.

The coffee came, and I angled myself in the booth so that my writing wouldn’t be visible to anyone walking by. I tried again: “To Whom it May Concern”—but that was ridiculous. There were only two people on earth who this would concern, and they deserved to be named.

I began on a third page, “Dear Kathleen and Olivia.” For a long time, letting the coffee grow cold, I stared at the paper. A few people trickled in and out of the diner; a man at the counter spoke loudly about the construction on Highway 189, leading north. I imagined Kathleen finding the letter, long afterward, opening the sealed envelope with trembling hands. I pictured Olivia reading it, encountering for her what must have been the sum of all her fears. Even after the fact, I didn’t want them to feel responsible, to carry secret knowledge, to be hounded by a relentless D.A. in search of the truth. I needed to be vague, to speak in generalities. I wouldn’t allow myself to hope that Kathleen or Olivia would visit me in prison, that they would send letters, that they would be waiting for me on the other side.

And so I wrote:

Dear Kathleen and Olivia,

You will want an explanation, and you deserve that, and so much more.

I could say that I did it because I was hopeless and desperate, but that wouldn’t be true. With both of you, how could I have been?

It may be said that I was full of rage, but that isn’t true, either. At least, I am equally full of love for both of you, for Daniel, for the life we had, all four of us together. All my rage was focused in one direction, but I wouldn’t say I was blinded by it.

Years ago, I made two promises. One was to myself, that I would rise above my circumstances and be a better person. Another was to you, Kathleen, and I kept that promise as best I could. I’m still remembering it now, even as I write this, even when I find it’s too late to convince myself of any other alternative but what I’m about to do.

If you had known what I was planning, you would have talked me out of it—and that’s exactly why I couldn’t tell you. I knew I couldn’t be stopped, and I didn’t want either of you to get hurt in the process.

This letter is a goodbye, because I don’t know when or if I will see either of you again. It would be bliss for me to believe that you have moved on. I can only be sorry, Kathleen, now and always. Remember your drive, Olivia? The way the sun glittered off the salt, and the world was peaceful and quiet and endlessly good? That’s what I’ll remember, too.

I thought for a long time, and signed the letter simply,

Curtis (Dad)

I bunched the other pages with my sloppy beginnings into little balls, and tossed them into the trash basket next to the counter. Somehow, without my notice, most of the booths were full. The diner smelled pleasantly of grease.

“I should hardly charge you for that,” the waitress commented, ringing me up for a $1.19. “You barely drank a sip.” Her tone was faintly accusatory, fishing for an explanation.

“Thank you,” I said simply, handing over two dollars.

Outside, the day had gone cloudy, and Lyman looked faintly gray, as if it were buried beneath a layer of dead skin cells waiting to be sloughed off. I was suddenly hungry, the overload of carbohydrates at breakfast long forgotten. Maybe Olivia was ready for some lunch, too. I’d get her and Sam, too, and come right back to the diner.

When I looked across the street, the tables were still there, light glinting faintly off the snow globes—but Olivia and Sam were gone.