The Little Brother (13 page)

“Sure,” I said, and instinctively, I pushed with my heel to make sure the camera was far beneath my bed, invisible. “I'll call you if I find it.”

“Thanks, little brother,” he said. He hadn't called me that in a long time, and it made me so sad.

“I'll be by later,” he said. A short pause, and then he added, “Hey, don't look at what's on there if you find it, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. To be honest, I wanted to tell him right then that I knew. I imagined we'd both cry, and that he'd be remorseful. I'm not sure what stopped me, except for an intuitive sense that he wanted only to save his own skin.

“Promise?” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I promise.”

We said our good-byes, and then I sat for a moment, feeling bad for having lied to him. From his voice and request, I knew that he didn't suspect me at all. But I remembered what was on the camera, and any guilt morphed into horror and fear. No matter if I wanted to forget, I couldn't.

I heard the faint noises of Dad in the kitchen, shuffling around, brewing his pot of coffee. He would be in his bathrobe. I thought about taking the video camera to him, showing him. But it scared me, knowing that he might not do anything about it, and that he might destroy the camera.

Thinking back, this was pivotal, and the first time I didn't believe in or trust my dad's decision-making abilities.

Had I gone to him with the video camera, I would have been making a conscious decision to probably let Gabe, Kevin, and
Kent off the hook. But what I'd seen, along with the knowledge of Sara having witnessed it as well, had extinguished that possibility.

I tried lying down on the bed and deep breathing to ease my panic, but after a few moments, I gave up and went to the bathroom. I tore up Sara's note and flushed it.

A long, hot shower later, I stood towel-dried in my boxers in front of the mirror, and with skin flushed from the heat, I watched myself cry.

16.

JULY 6

I
WANTED
G
ABE'S
S
AMSUNG
video camera out of my possession. That was all that I knew for certain. But I didn't know how to make it happen. So I dressed and prepared myself for the day, all the while wondering how to make it through the hours ahead, and how to get rid of the video camera.

I called Mike's cell but it went to voice mail. I called his house, and his mom told me that he'd left with his dad and sisters to visit his grandma in Whittier. “Are you okay?” she asked. “Your voice sounds different.”

I made my bed. Brushed my teeth. Tucked in my shirt. Put on my socks and shoes. Each small action felt momentous, as if it would lead to an answer, to a bigger and greater action.

The Fourth had fallen on a Friday, and now a bright Sunday loomed, birds whistling their songs outside my bedroom window.

I thought of calling Tove. But what would I say? Are you okay, Tove? Do you know what happened? Did you black out?

Part of me believed that if she didn't know, she'd be okay. She was okay if she didn't know. Right?

I'm not going to relay what I saw on that video. But I will say that Tove looked dead, which scared Sara the most. So I knew that most likely she had blacked out, and had been unaware of what had happened to her.

I'd had a few blackouts—most recently at the girls' volleyball party—as if what happened hadn't happened, because I had no memory of it. If someone told me, then there might be flashes of memory, like a ghost me had been there instead of the real me.

If Tove didn't know—didn't remember—I didn't want to be the one to tell her. She would be safely unconscious, shielded from the pain. I didn't want her to have flashes of memory. I wanted it not to have happened. She wouldn't want to know.

I thought about her parents—Ben and Luanne—and how they both volunteered in our classes in grade school. Luanne, petite and with brown hair like Tove, deceptively normal-looking, bringing her guitar for sing-alongs. Ben with a patch of grayish-white at the back of his hair, as if someone had settled a hand there, full of chalk, rubbed it in, and then pulled the hand away. He'd been fond of me once and had told me, “If I had a son, I'd want him to be like you.”

I remembered sitting in plastic chairs with Tove, first grade or second, listening to her explain her name. “It's a Scandinavian name, the author of my mom's favorite books when she was a kid. The author's a Finn, pronounced
Thou-vé,
last name Jansson, but no one says it right, so I'm just Tove. There's also ‘Jabberwocky,' a poem by Lewis Carroll. A tove is part lizard and part corkscrew. It nests under sundials and eats cheese.” Then I remembered how
Melissa, that afternoon at the pool, had thought long and hard and then called Tove “weird,” and how I'd always suspected this to be a shared trait between Tove and me.

Wouldn't everyone be better off—Tove, her parents, Gabe, the Ks, all of us—if the camera didn't exist? And if it didn't exist, we could pretend—those of us who knew—that it hadn't happened.

With this in mind, I grappled with destroying the camera. Taking a hammer to it. Setting it on fire.

Or I could delete what I'd seen. Delete everything and leave the camera somewhere for Gabe to find. He would be so relieved that he would change his ways. We could pretend that what had been on the tape hadn't happened. It would never happen again.

But it did happen. I'd seen the proof. It was etched permanently inside me. If I destroyed the camera and the evidence, I'd always know.

Then I thought about calling Sara. You're the one that got me into this mess, I would say. You figure out what to do. I'm giving the camera back to you. I want nothing to do with it. Forget about me.

But then I remembered her fear. I wanted to protect her from what we'd seen on the camera, and from having to be involved further. I also liked the idea of being her savior. I wanted to help her.

I had my phone ready and came very close to pressing Sara's number. But then I flipped it shut and put it back in my pocket.

I heard voices coming from the living room or kitchen, two that I recognized—my dad's and Sheriff Krone's—and one that I didn't know.

My dad wouldn't suspect anything from my being awake now, so I decided—since I didn't know what else to do with myself—to join them.

A quick fantasy floated through me. I would give the video camera to Sheriff Krone. He would know what to do. You did the right thing, son, he would say. If Dad protested, he would tell him, This is way beyond a Get Out of Jail Free card, Dan. Appropriate measures need to be taken.

But then I remembered Krone's manipulative and ingratiating manner at Banderos Steakhouse. How he'd swung the blond woman from the bar to face us and pretended to handcuff her, and then slapped her ass. Given me a backhanded compliment, while at the same time letting me know that he controlled my dad.

I couldn't give him the video camera, because I didn't trust him.

With a sick, uncanny sensation, I walked down the hallway to the living room, letting my hand skim the wall.

But they weren't in the living room, so I made my way to the kitchen.

I'd never seen the man who was with Sheriff Krone and my dad, but I knew—even though all three were dressed for golf—that he was Assistant Sheriff Scott Jimenez, Krone's right-hand man. Something about his air of authority, coupled with an attentive and fluctuating deference to Krone and Dad. Slim and brown-skinned, with a classic square jaw and a full head of dark hair, he stared at me for a long second, and then he smiled—his face boyish and handsome—setting his hand out for me to shake. “Well, well, well,” he said, with the jovial gallantry of a practiced salesman, “this must be the famous Even Hyde.”

The strength of his handshake surprised me.

Sheriff Krone slung an arm around my shoulder and pulled me to him. He made as if to knuckle my head. He knew that I disliked him and was letting me know that he knew while also working at making me hate him more, all for his entertainment.

“Even,” he said, crooking my head in his elbow, “how's it going?”

I struggled to free myself without appearing too hostile.

Dad, smoking a cigarette, said, “Leave my boy alone.”

To my relief, Krone did, releasing me, saying, “Okay, not a big deal. Just being friendly.”

He leaned forward and slapped my back—one last seemingly sociable but intimidating and hostile action.

I felt rather sick and hot, wishing I'd stayed in my bedroom. My eyes wandered around the kitchen, wondering how to escape.

Jimenez reached into his pocket and extracted a small bottle of aspirin, shaking a few into his hand. He swallowed them dry and noticed me watching. “Want some?” he asked, extending the bottle to me.

“I've got a headache,” I said, accepting them. I took two with a glass of water from the kitchen sink.

Jimenez smiled at me impersonally, and I felt like a caddy at his country club to whom he'd just granted a favor.

Krone said, “I sure hope you don't get migraines like your pop.”

“It's just a headache,” I said.

Dad began to cough, his face reddening and crumpling, and I refilled my glass with water to help him. He set his cigarette in an ashtray and drank the water down.

When he finished, he said, “Thanks, Son.”

“Smoking,” said Krone solemnly, “is a bad habit.”

Dad glared at him and said nothing.

“Lung cancer,” Krone said, “diseases, all of these things can be prevented.”

Jimenez reached for the Newports on the kitchen counter and lit one for himself in solidarity with Dad.

Dad's cigarette smoldered in the ashtray. He looked at it and said irritably, “I've been smoking since I was ten, and I'm fine. You think I don't know what I'm doing? ‘Stop smoking, drinking, cut out the caffeine, eat better, more vegetables and greens, less meat, be careful about your cholesterol.' You don't think I've been hearing these things from my doctors for most of my life?” He waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “What the fuck do they know? How about you mind your own fucking business and not tell me what to do.”

A stunned silence, and then Jimenez blew a puff of smoke.

“Jesus,” Krone said. “Relax.”

Dad shot him a hostile glance. Nobody seemed to know what to say.

We watched Dad take his glasses off and spray the lenses with Windex. He rubbed and polished them with a paper towel, and his eyes looked weak and watery and small, a vague blue, crinkled at the edges. Putting the glasses back on, he said, “Golfing with the Millers?”

“Sure thing,” said Krone. He sounded relieved to have a less contentious subject change. “Pretty thing, that wife of his. Dark hair and blue eyes, nice figure, the real deal. She'll be there today.
None of that silicone. Too much makeup, maybe a little less lipstick would be nice. Gets on her teeth. Three sons but she looks good.” He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “A ton of money. We're talking money like you wouldn't believe. Two helicopters, a private jet. All of it new money, so they're happy to show it off. She wants to contribute and he wants to do what she wants.” He laughed, ran a hand over his balding head. “Hell,” he said, “I want to do what she wants.”

Dad looked at me, and for a fraction of a second he seemed not to know what to say or do. Then he said, “Don't talk like that in front of my son.”

Krone smiled at me with sheer dislike.

“Ándale,”
said Jimenez, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray. “I don't want to be late.”

Sunlight streamed through the window above the sink and the kitchen felt hot and stuffy. My throat dry, I got another glass of water.

As I drank, my dad let me know that he'd be back in the afternoon, after a short round of golf.

He ruffled my hair with his hand, and I got that warm sensation under my sternum.

“You okay?” he said, leaning to speak in my ear so that the others wouldn't hear.

I moved my head so that he couldn't see the tears welling, and I wanted to kiss him. “Yeah,” I said, “I'm fine.”

“All right, Son,” he said.

The back door closed, and it got quiet again. Dad's cigarette smoldered in the ashtray next to Jimenez's extinguished one.

I poured water into the ashtray and watched the cigarette wither and die in a soggy, cloudy mixture of tobacco and ash. Then I rinsed everything in the sink, using the garbage disposal, appreciating its aggressive noise as it ate up the ashtray debris.

My stomach grumbled and I realized that I hadn't eaten in a long time. While making myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I remembered the speaker Tom L. from the AA meeting. How he said that people came to him with their troubles, and he helped sort them out.

In a cold sweat, I ate my sandwich and decided what I would do.

With yellow kitchen gloves, I took the Windex Dad had left out and some paper towels and cleaned the video camera of fingerprints.