Be Not Afraid (6 page)

The doorbell rang just as I started to fill the water glasses.

“Get that, will you, angel?” Nan did not turn from the stove, where she was whipping up a milk gravy for the pork chops.

“Father William,” I said, opening the front door. “How are you?”

“I’m just fine,” he answered. “I think the more appropriate question is how are
you
?” He was still dressed in his clerical shirt and collar, although he had donned a gray V-neck sweater over it, which bagged in the front. A black fedora sat on his head, framing his bushy eyebrows, and he leaned on his cane with both hands. Even through his clothes, I could make out the knobby red shapes along his spine again. They looked darker than they had earlier, as if the day’s events had taken their toll.

“I’m all right.” A beat. “Are you staying for dinner?”

“No, no.” Father William waved me off as Nan’s footsteps sounded in the hallway. “I just came to see how—”

“Bill?” I stepped to one side as Nan appeared, tossing a dishtowel over one shoulder. “Oh, come in, please. We’re just starting dinner. There’s plenty.”

“I can’t, thank you,” Father William said. “I’m actually on my way to visit a friend. But I was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d swing by and see how Marin was feeling.”

“You mean after all the craziness today.” Nan put an arm around me. “I was going to call you later. You witnessed the whole thing too?”

Father William nodded. “I did.”

They both looked at me, waiting, I guess, for me to say something—anything—that might shed some more light on the situation. An awkward moment passed as I stared at the floor. It reminded me of the time a few months ago when Nan had asked Father William to come over so that he could “give his take on things” regarding my pain sightings. She had started calling it a blessing then, and so I hadn’t really been surprised that she had asked him to look at me. For someone who never missed Sunday Mass and kept a rosary in the front pocket of her apron at all times, it made perfect sense for Nan to explore a possible spiritual explanation after the physical and emotional diagnoses had been eliminated. Father William had been polite, but it was obvious that he was skeptical of my explanation, asking me the same questions over and over again, as if waiting for me to change my answers, to catch me in some kind of lie. The entire night had been full of awkward pauses and curious stares, and after he’d given his final verdict—“Honestly, I
don’t know what to make of it”—I’d said good night and gone to bed, mortified.

“Sister Paulina said the girl has epilepsy,” Nan said. “That it was some kind of seizure she had today.”

“That’s what I was told too.” Father William nodded. “Terrifying to think about. Let’s hope she gets the help she needs now.” He took out a white handkerchief and blew his nose. I looked away while he wiped at his nostrils and then stuck the kerchief back inside his pocket. “May I ask you something, Marin?”

I looked up.

“Did you
see
anything?” The priest looked embarrassed, as if he did not quite believe he was allowing himself to ask such a thing. “I mean, inside that girl today? Were you able to see any sign of the epilepsy?”

My chest tightened. “No. Everything happened so fast, and then she just fainted.” I cringed inwardly at the lie and then dismissed it. Admitting anything right now to Father William would mean admitting it to myself, a thought that frightened me even more than lying.

“Yes, yes.” Something drained out of his face at my answer. “I just wondered, I guess, since, at least from my vantage point, it seemed as if she stopped right in front of you.” He paused, studying me again with that inquisitive stare of his. “But nothing? You didn’t see anything inside her?”

“No.”

“All right.” He nodded a few times, resigned. “You
know, from where I was sitting up on the altar, I couldn’t really tell what was happening. There was so much commotion around you that it was difficult to make anything out.” He lifted his cane and then set the tip of it back down again hard, as if squashing a bug. “Well, as long as you’re all right. That’s what counts. I went looking for you in the main office afterward, but they said you had gone home.”

“They called me right away.” Nan patted his shoulder. “I drove over and got her. Thank you, Bill. For stopping by. I appreciate it.” She nudged me.

“Yes,” I said. “Thank you, Father.”

We watched him leave, waving as he beeped his car horn and disappeared down the street.

Dad’s first response after hearing the details was not quite as concern-filled as Father William’s. He turned on me as Nan finished relaying the events, his dark eyes snapping. “Do you know this girl?”

I shrugged, chasing a wayward pea around my plate. “Not really.”

“Marin was invited to her house earlier in the year,” Nan volunteered. “Remember? They live near the Woodruff family, over in Liberty Hills.”

Dad grunted. Liberty Hills was a wealthy enclave a few miles outside of Fairfield. He’d even been on a team that had built some of the houses there. But Dad wasn’t impressed with things like that. Working hard and earning your living was his big motto in life, not the number of big
houses and television sets you owned. “She invited you to her house, but you’re not friends?”

“No.”

“Why not? What happened?”

“Nothing happened.” I caught the pea, smashing it flat beneath the tines of my fork. All Dad needed to hear was that Cassie and I had argued and he’d be on the phone with her parents. If I told him what really happened, he’d be on their front porch. With a gun. “We’re just … different. I don’t know. We didn’t have anything in common, so we just … didn’t end up becoming friends. It happens. No biggie.”

He snatched at a forkful of food, gesturing with it as he spoke. “Okay, then, here’s what I don’t get. There’s got to be eight or nine hundred kids in that school, right? So why’d this girl stop in front of you? And if you’re not even friends, what the hell does her saying ‘It’s you’ mean?”

“John,” Nan chided. “Please. Your language.” The pink shape in her chest was pinker now, and the size of a small cherry.

A muscle pulsed in Dad’s jaw. “Answer me, Marin.”

This was the way we talked to one another now, about everything, each of us having settled into a new, suspicious place with hard edges and harder words. I was starting to hate him for it. “Maybe because she’s crazy?” I said. “Or confused?”

He waited, still looking at me.

“I have no idea why she stopped in front of me. It was totally random. She could have done that to anyone.”

“But she didn’t,” Dad pointed out. “She stopped in front of you.”

I bit the tip of my tongue. Hard. “Well, whatever. I don’t know what to tell you. And I don’t know what she was talking about either. I already told you, the girl’s nuts or something.” I paused, tasting blood. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Dad stayed quiet, staring at me. His jaw was moving up and down so hard I could hear his teeth clicking.

“What?”
I said.

“There’s something you’re not telling us.” He clenched his fork. “I can feel it.”

“What, do you think I’m secretly friends with Cassie Jackson?” I tried to laugh, but the sound got trapped in my throat. “Do you think we talk in code or something, just the two of us? Oh, I get it.
That’s
what we were doing today! We were talking in code, in front of the whole school, right in the middle of Mass.”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic, Marin.”

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you!”

“I want you to tell me the truth.”

“I
am
telling you the truth!” My voice quavered. “Why won’t you believe me?”

He held my gaze until I couldn’t look at him anymore. “I don’t know, Marin.” He dropped his fork, letting it
clatter against the plate. “I just don’t know what to believe anymore.”

Anymore.
As if I’d been some sort of poster child before, an obedient, perfect little girl. He was still frustrated by the whole thing with my eyes, acting as if I was purposely keeping myself afflicted or stuck, playing some weird game that had to do with Mom dying. He thought that was the thing that had changed me. But the truth was, I’d become someone else long before it had arrived. He just didn’t remember anymore.

“I can’t even believe you.” I stood up, balling my fists. “You’re being such a
jerk.
”

“Marin!” Nan pleaded. “Sit down, sweetheart.”

I ignored her. “Why are you acting like any of this is
my
fault? I didn’t
do
anything. I was just sitting there, minding my own business. She’s the one who flipped out, okay? Not me!”

He studied me for a moment, his jaws still grinding his food. A new S-shaped glob glowed bright yellow under both cheeks, getting darker behind his nose. The original sinus infection had cleared up somewhat, but his allergies, which flared up in the spring, were a source of constant annoyance.

“Okay,” he said. “Fine. If you’re telling me you’re not involved in something with this girl, then I don’t have any choice but to believe you.”

“But you don’t believe me.” I stared at him.

“No, I do.” There was a catch in his throat, and he
cleared it. “I just … I don’t want anyone pushing you around, okay? I mean it.”

It was this kind of seesawing, this up and down between hate and love, that threw me the most. It was hard to hold on to either one, harder still to know which one to trust.

“Yeah, well guess what?” I shoved my chair against the table. “That includes you, too, Dad.”

I braced myself for his comeback as I stalked out of the room, a flying barb that would hit me in the neck, but there was nothing.

Behind me, the silence screamed.

I went out back, fastened my helmet under my chin, and unlocked my bike, a silver Aggressor that Dad bought me last year for Christmas. My fingers were shaking, and my legs felt like jelly. I stomped hard on the ground—once, twice, three times—and shook out my arms.

Nan appeared on the back porch, rubbing the space between her knuckles. “You’re going for a bike ride now? It’s almost dark.”

“It won’t be dark for at least another two hours.” I swung my leg over the seat. “I’m just going to Lucy’s. I’ll be back.”

She sighed. It was a heavy, weighted sound that made something twist inside my stomach. I knew how hard it was for her to watch Dad and me fight. But I didn’t know what to do about it. “You have your phone?” she asked.

I patted my back pocket. “Don’t worry, Nan. I’ll be fine.”

I rode off, feeling her eyes on me. She would stand there the way she always did whenever I left on my bike, one hand inside her apron pocket, her lips moving silently, until I crested over the first big hill and she couldn’t see me any longer. The familiar pop and snap of gravel sounded beneath my tires, and my thighs burned as I pedaled harder, not stopping to coast even as I went downhill, squeezing the handlebars with a grip that turned my knuckles white. The pain felt good, directly proportional to the buzzing ache inside my head, and I pushed down harder, as if to squeeze it out of my pores. The dirt road went for a mile past the farmhouse, and I rode it almost to the end without pausing, relishing the feel of dust and wind against my face, the explosion of freedom that always accompanied such treks.

A green Jeep Cherokee appeared around the bend. It seemed to brake as it saw me, and I moved over, giving it room to pass.

“Marin?” I heard my name float out behind me. I braked hard and glanced over my shoulder.

The Jeep was backing up; a thin arm with a chambray shirtsleeve settled along the window ledge. A little farther up, I could see a blue shape inside the wrist, smooth along the edges, darker in the middle. I froze.

“Marin?” Dominic Jackson said again. The Jeep was stopped right alongside me now. If I reached out and stretched a little, I could touch his arm. “Holy shit, I can’t believe I caught you. Where are you going?”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. He remembered my name? “Oh, I’m just out for a ride.”

“I can see that.” He grinned, his eyes taking in my bike for the first time. “Nice bike.”

“Thanks.” How much of a dork did I look like right now with my helmet and my sunglasses on? I didn’t want to think about it.

“I was just on my way to your house,” he said. “Like, right this second. To talk to you.”

“Oh.” For a single, preposterous second, I imagined that he had come to ask me out, that the two of us would walk over the bridge to Kirby Park and sit under the two willow trees next to the tennis courts. He would sit close enough that I could feel the soft material of his shirt against my hand, the heat of his breath against my cheek. “Marin,” he’d say. “If you only knew …”

Except that he wouldn’t say that. This boy was here to ask me something else entirely.

“About Cassie?” I asked.

He nodded once, a solemn look on his face. “She’s in the hospital. They took her to Fairfield General this afternoon, and she had another fit there. It was actually worse than what happened at school.”

I bit my lip, tried not to imagine it.

“She got hold of some kind of scalpel or something nearby and carved a number into her face.” Dominic’s face paled as he spoke, and his lips twisted, as if he had just
tasted something rotten. “It was really bad. It took a long time to stop the bleeding.”

“She carved a
number
into her face?” I repeated.

“Yeah. An eight.” He stared at me for a moment, as if I might tell him something, or explain the significance of such a horrific action. His upper body, framed inside the window of the Jeep, could have been a photograph. The light illuminated his smooth skin and turned the green in his wide, expectant eyes a pale emerald color.

“God. That’s awful.” I looked away from him, stared at the black triangle of another farmhouse roof peeking out in the distance. It looked like a toy, a picture in a book. “So you just … I mean, you drove over here to tell me that?”

“No. I’m here because I want you to come with me to the hospital. To see Cassie. She keeps begging to see you, Marin.”

I jerked my gaze away from the farmhouse, fastened my eyes on Dominic’s face. “To see
me
?”