Four Days Ago
I walked back to our old house, the house where life had been good. For a while. When I approached, Robbie didn’t greet me. I saw him in Miss Lauer’s backyard, whining.
“Robbie!” I shouted. His doggy head turned toward me for a moment and then he ignored me.
Something was wrong. He always came running when I called.
I walked down Miss Lauer’s driveway and into her backyard. Off to the side, I saw the empty chicken coop. A few feathers fluttered in wind, stuck in the wire.
“What’s the matter, Robbie?” I went to comfort him, though he was skittish. I pet his fur, and my hand came back wet. Blood. “What happened to you?” I squatted next to him, trying to find his wound. Had he been attacked by an animal? A shiver of worry passed through me. He was my childhood dog. He couldn’t die. He could never die. I ran my hands up his legs, his belly, checked every paw, even his gums and teeth. Robbie was fine. I double-checked to make sure. The blood was only on his fur. But from what?
I held onto his collar and brought him to Miss Lauer’s door. He didn’t want to come and I coaxed him again and again. I rang the bell. No one answered. The lights were on, and I could see the flicker of the television screen. She must’ve still been home. Through the windows, there was more blood on the counter, a splattering of it in the sink.
I knocked on the door. “Miss Lauer? Are you all right?”
No answer.
I tried the knob. It was locked. I rattled the door. “Miss Lauer?”
Suddenly, she appeared in the window, her body hidden behind the door. She opened it only a fraction. She seemed disheveled and out of it, pupils large, her movements birdlike. I’d never known her to use drugs, but she had all the traits of someone who was high. A trickle of blood ran down her nose. She looked so unkempt, so not her.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
Suddenly, she sneezed. Recovering, she said, “You need to go.”
I was talking to a stranger. “I saw Robbie whining. He had blood on him.” I handed the dog to her, but he didn’t want to go inside. He whined again.
“Robbie, come!” He didn’t heed her command, so she grabbed him by the collar and dragged him inside, his back legs splaying against the force.
That’s when I saw her shirt. Blood stained it in dark patches. More blood than from a nosebleed.
“Miss Lauer, there’s….” I pointed.
She looked down, as if seeing it for the first time. She blinked in incomprehension, raising the shirt from her waist, lost in its color. Deep scratches ran up and down her arms like creeping vines. She found my eyes. “Go on. And don’t come back!”
That’s when I realized how quiet it was in her house.
“Miss Lauer…where are the kids?”
Her face contorted into something like rage and sorrow and she slammed the door in my face.
There’s that feeling in the air before a thunderstorm hits, the second before lightning strikes, the air is heavy and the leaves of trees turn upside down. Violence and danger, nature giving warning. That’s how it felt. I knew.
I ran all the way home.
I threw open the doors to find my mother and Mr. Scronce in the kitchen. Theo and Sasha had since left.
“Mom,” I said, “you have to call the sheriff.” My mother moved from the stove.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Miss Lauer. Something’s not right.” I couldn’t even say it out loud. “Her kids, her niece and nephew, they’re gone.”
“Did they run away?”
I raised my hands as proof. The blood from Robbie’s fur embedded in my crevices and fingernails. “I think she killed the kids.”
My mother looked at me as if I was crazy. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No,” Mr. Scronce agreed, “it doesn’t.”
“I’m telling you the truth. She wasn’t acting right. The kids were gone. Robbie didn’t want to be with her.”
Mr. Scronce looked at my mother, and then turned to me. “Okay, I’ll go check it out.”
“We gotta call the sheriff.”
“Ruthie,” he said and spoke as if talking to a child. “I’ll check it out. Let’s not jump to any conclusions.” He moved for the door.
My mother said, “I’m coming with.” She stopped his retort with “She was my neighbor for years, Greg. She knows me.” He didn’t argue.
“What about me?” I asked.
“Stay here.” With that, he and my mother were out the door.
I waited. The house was empty and I couldn’t stand still. I sat down and my legs twitched. I stood and paced. I watched the clock tick as minutes passed. I considered running after my mother or trying to watch, hidden behind trees. I was too freaked out to leave and too freaked out to want to stay. Every minute stretched into infinity. I kept waiting for the sheriff’s car to pass by, his siren alerting the whole island, the whole world to Miss Lauer’s sin.
There was no siren. Not yet.
How could she? The very thought was an impossibility. I wanted to fall to my knees and cry. They had trusted her. Miss Lauer was their guardian.
I waited by the door, looking out the window, waiting for my mother’s return. But as the minutes passed, their delay gave way to worry. Scenarios ping-ponged in my brain: Miss Lauer had killed them. Miss Lauer wouldn’t be taken alive. Miss Lauer was on her way here right now.
I even wished Theo were home with Sasha. Anything to have someone to talk to. I was a volcano of emotion, swirling in the core, soon to erupt.
Then the door opened.
My mother walked in, and I couldn’t read her face. Before I could ask anything, Mr. Scronce followed, not meeting my eyes, and left the room without saying a word.
“Did you see?” I asked.
I looked at my mother, waiting for an explanation.
She sighed. “She was bit by the dog.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “That’s what she said? That she got bit?”
“I saw the wounds, Ruthie.”
“By Robbie? You can’t possibly believe that. Robbie would never hurt anyone.”
My mother sat down at the kitchen table. It was scary when she was emotionless.
“Mom, I used to ride Robbie like a horse. If he would’ve bitten anyone, it would’ve been me.”
“Ruthie, sit down, please.”
I remained where I stood. “What about the kids?”
“She sent them to the mainland.”
“She’s lying, Mom!”
“Ruthie, please.”
I said, “The Sheriff placed a travel ban yesterday. There’s no way she could have—”
“She did it yesterday morning. Her sister got out of rehab and Miss Lauer thought it would be a good idea for her to see the kids. Remind her why she was staying sober.”
I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. I wasn’t crazy. I knew the truth. “What about how weird she was acting?”
“Our dog bit her, Ruthie. Our dog. The dog she helped us by keeping.”
“You mean our dog who we couldn’t keep because Mr. Scronce didn’t want him.”
“Greg. Call him Greg.”
There was an awful quietness between us.
I was alone. All alone.
“You believe her over me. That’s what it is.”
My mother didn’t say anything, her answer clear. Maybe living at my father’s was the real world, and here on the island was an alternate reality. A place where mothers didn’t believe their daughters, choosing strangers over their own blood.
And yet something terrible nagged at me: what if I was wrong? What if I’d misinterpreted what I saw? Or even worse—what if I was losing my own grip on reality? Wasn’t that just as possible?
No.
I was not losing my mind.
“Mom, something is happening on this island.”
“I agree. Something is happening.”
“You do?”
She nodded and patted the chair next to her. Appeased, I sat down.
“Greg and I were talking on the way back. There’s no one on the island, but there are people in Seattle.” She grasped my hands. “People you can talk to.”
My eyes squinted as I pieced together what she meant. “You mean therapy?”
“They can help you.”
I pulled away from her. “You think I need therapy? Again?”
“I know the divorce was hard on you.”
I started laughing.
“It’s not funny, Ruthie.”
I couldn’t stop, my whole body shook. I was a volcano, erupting with laughter. “But it is, Mom. It’s so goddamn funny.”
“Language.”
“I need therapy.” I laughed like it was the punch line to the funniest joke I ever heard. “Have you looked at yourself, Mom? I need therapy? You had an affair, you broke the bonds of your vow, you ruined your family, and I need therapy?” My laughter turned to tears. I felt their wetness in the corners of my eyes, and I held onto my anger, because if I let it go I would be reduced to a quivering ball. “I am not going to therapy again.” I fought against my emotion, dropping to a near whisper. “If I ever go to therapy it won’t be for you. It’ll be because of you.”
My mother was stone one second and then crumbled into sobs the next.
Some daughter I was. I hated that I made her cry. I could’ve apologized. I could’ve hugged her. I could’ve said I love you. I didn’t and I regret it every day.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. Scronce enter my room. I heard him opening and shutting dresser drawers.
“What’s he doing?” I didn’t wait for my mother’s answer. I pushed my chair back and stood up.
As I got closer, I heard the slams of my closet door. I turned the corner and my room, my usual empty room, was a mess. Clothes were strewn on the floor, the mattress was tilted sideways, and my dresser drawers were all open.
“What are you doing?”
“I won’t have drugs in my home.”
This day was going from terrible to apocalyptic. I honestly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I’m not on drugs.”
“Really?” He got right in front of me, right in front of my face, so close I could smell his breath. “You want to try and fail my class? That’s fine, go right ahead. You want to accuse some neighbor of murder, go right ahead. But don’t ever treat your mother that way. I won’t stand for it.”
I didn’t know what to say. Everywhere I looked, there was wreckage. My life, my family, and now my room. “Did you find any drugs?”
“No.”
“That’s because there aren’t any.”
He looked over the mess he had caused. I like to think there was regret in his reaction. “I wish I would’ve found something. At least then there’d be a reason.” Maybe he was trying to keep his pride, but he added awkwardly before walking out, “You’re grounded,” and he slammed my door.
The only thing I re-arranged in my room was the bed. I shoved the mattress flush with the wall and lay down. The rest of the clothes and drawers could stay as they were. My room would be a visual reminder that there was no control, no stability. Nothing constant. I’d learned in history that wars came and went, borders were redrawn, whole maps and civilizations and cultures changed or went extinct. How was my little life any different?
In the hallway, I heard Mr. Scronce arguing with my mother. As much as I didn’t want to live here, I didn’t want to be held responsible for us getting kicked out.
And yet I wasn’t wrong.
Their voices finally died down as the minutes ticked away. The house went quiet. The lights in the hallway went dark. They still slept in the same bedroom—a good sign. Too often, my father hadn’t.
I started to doubt myself. Maybe Miss Lauer’s story was true. And if so, what was going to happen to Robbie? We didn’t have a shelter or Humane Society on the island. I would have to beg my father to take him. Worst case, I’d take him myself. Build a shed or pen and live with him outside if I had to. My dog would never go homeless.
There was a soft knock on my door. “Come in,” I said.
It was Theo. “Nice room.” He hadn’t been in it since the day we’d picked which ones would be ours.
“I didn’t hear you come home.”
“I wasn’t gonna walk in on that.” He was whispering. He was also talking to me, which meant I’d earned some degree of feeling sorry for.
“How much did you hear?”
“The whole thing. They only beat me by a minute. I saw ’em walk in as I came down the street.”
“So you heard everything?” I’d never told him about Mom’s affair. How I came home from school during lunch, taken with the flu, and Mr. Scronce’s Subaru was parked in the driveway. I remember thinking, gee, that’s weird. I was walking toward the door when my mother and he both left the house, kissing before getting into their cars. It was no friendly peck on the cheek, either. That moment washed over me, as if I was watching a movie. I’d just seen my mother kiss a man who wasn’t her husband. Not my dad.
They never saw me. Later, when my mom came home, she acted exactly the same. She might as well have been a pod person from another planet. She looked and sounded like my mother, but clearly wasn’t. She couldn’t be. Catching me staring at her, she had the audacity to ask, “What’s wrong, honey?” What was worse than seeing her betrayal was feeling like I was betraying my father. Everything in my life revolved around The Lie. The corrosive lie. I never told him what I saw. I knew the whole time and never said a thing. I didn’t know if I was protecting my father’s feelings or my mother’s. I tried to keep our family together even as my mother tried to destroy it. I held that secret even after they divorced. Even after it nearly burned a hole in my stomach.
Back in my room, Theo nodded.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“They’ll get over it.”
“No. I meant about Mom and Dad’s marriage.”
“You mean her affair?”
He never should have heard that from me. This time I nodded.
“Ruthie, I’ve known about that since the beginning.”
I sat up. “How?”
“Probably the same way you did. You see stuff. Things don’t add up. After awhile, you put it together.”
I asked, “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Probably the same reason you didn’t tell me.”
He sat on the edge of my bed, and I couldn’t remember us ever talking this way.
“Why don’t you hate her?”
He seemed genuinely stumped. “I don’t know. I guess people have a right to be happy. She wasn’t happy before. Now she is.” He caught my eyes. “Not right now, like, at this very moment, but you know what I mean.”
Theo had such an easy way of looking at the world. Yes, no, happy, sad. I wished I could see life the way he did. It would be so much better. Who cares if it wasn’t the truth?
“And he doesn’t bother you?”
“Greg?” He shook his head. “Why should he? I’m outta here next year, anyway. You should cut him some slack. He could be a lot worse.” He looked around my disheveled room. “I like your decorating choices. Very angsty-teen.”
He walked to the door, his hand on the doorknob, then stopped. “You know, you should give Sasha a chance. She’d like to be your friend again.”
I considered the enormity of what he’d said. There was a lot I wanted to talk about, but I didn’t want to jinx us. “Theo, if we’re being so honest here…” He waited for me. “How come you never give me a ride?”
His eyebrows furrowed and responded as if it were the most obvious thing ever. “You never asked.”