Catch & Release (14 page)

“You should probably carry this,” Odd says, handing me the gun. “Things can happen to girls. You might need it.”

“Need it for what?”

“Bears, rapers, serial killers, drunk squirrels that want to make a nest on your head . . .”

I reach out and take it, not because I'm afraid of bears or serial killers. I take it because Odd shouldn't have it. It's top-heavy in my hand. The weight is in the barrel, not in the plastic grip and clip hiding inside. I pop the clip. I check the chamber. Unloading a gun is a thing my dad thought a girl should be able to do. He taught me to do that before he taught me how to aim.

“It isn't going to be much use if it isn't loaded,” says Odd.

That's the point,
I think, but I don't say it.

 

“Maybe when you get home, you and your mom can have a shoot-out. I bet that woman can fire a rifle from the hip.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your mom. She's fierce. And she's still pretty hot. I'd hit that.”

“Stop! Shut up! Shutupshutupshutup!”

“I didn't say I was gonna try. Just that, you know . . .”

“I don't know. I don't want to know. People don't talk like that about moms.”

“I'm sorry Polly. I just meant nobody should be able to make you do nothing you don't want to. Not even your mom.”

 

“To Gramma Dot and Meriwether Lewis,” says Odd.

“To your Grandma Dot and Meriwether Lewis,” I say. When I hand the red aluminum flask back to Odd, I ask, “Why only Lewis? Why not Clark too?”

“Because Lewis kept his shit together for the whole trip, and then he blew his brains out. He probably wanted to do it the whole time, but he didn't. Gotta respect that.”

It isn't nice to ask,
So how do you feel about your suicidal mom, then?
but I think it. And Odd must know what I'm thinking, because he answers.

“She had the post-parting depression, my mom.”

“Post-partum?”

“Yeah, that. Buck says she was going to kill me first because I gave it to her. He says that was the plan.”

“That's not the way post-partum depression works, Odd. You know that? Buck got it wrong. He was just a kid when it happened. He was probably scared and confused.”

“He mighta been, back then—but not when he said it. He was in high school. He was an adult. I was six. It was right after everybody decided that mom was better and it was time for me to be part of the family again. I was crying because I didn't want to stop living with Gramma Dot. That's when he told me I was only alive on accident.”

Odd gives a twitchy shrug and takes another pull off the flask. “To Meriwether Lewis,” he says, then he hands the flask to me. I take a drink, but I don't say anything.

I make sure Odd gets drunker than I do, and then, when he lurches off to pee, I pull my wadded up, bloody socks out of the pocket of my shorts. I shove the gun into one sock and the ammunition in another. Then I shake out my sleeping bag and drop the whole mess in there. There might be better hiding places, but it's good for now.

 

I'm ready for sleep before Odd is done drinking and poking at the fire with a stick. So I get my sleeping bag and go to D'Elegance. “Welcome home,” says D'Elegance, “You can make a little nest on the lap of my back seat. You can pet my velvety cushions. Welcome home.”

 

Welcome home.

The thing about home is that it ought to be a place you remember, but I never saw this room before. My mom was busy here while I was making great strides to recovery in the hospital. My mess, my stuff, is all gone. She painted everything she couldn't replace and replaced everything she couldn't paint. I mean everything. The light switch is new.

It's very clean and serene. Pale lemon, pale honeysuckle, pale pale.

All the stuff I had taped to the walls is gone. It was mostly things the kids at Kid-O-Korral gave me. Blue-painted macaroni whale? Gone. Smeary finger-paint pumpkin? Gone. It wasn't like I was attached to that stuff. I just didn't know what to do with it. Throwing it away didn't feel right. Those things were gifts. At least the little kids thought they were gifts. So I taped them up on my walls. And the valentine heart Bridger made me last year out of a Wendy's receipt when he remembered he'd forgotten it was Valentine's Day? “True LOVE forever”? That's gone too.

The mix of makeup and pens and hair ties on my dresser is gone. Actually, my dresser, the one I had since I was eight, is gone. This one is new. The drawers are bigger, but I don't know what's in them. Maybe my clothes, but maybe not. How far did she go cleaning house? Far enough to find the Altoid tin with condoms in it?

She is determined that the MRSA isn't ever going to get me again. Thing is, I've got it. I will always have the MRSA. It is too late for hand sanitizer. It is too late to kill 99.99 percent of germs.

“Mom. It's beautiful. Thank you.” We hug. “But I'm tired. Can I just rest for a while?”

“Oh, baby, sure baby. Do you want me to help you change into some PJs?”

“I just want to lie down.”

“OK, baby, OK.”

I curl up on my new bed and stare at the wall. I stare at the new art that's there to replace the macaroni whale and true love forever.

I guess it's very serene and spa-like, that art. It's a study in soft folds and muted pastels.

Oh, shit, it's my Blankie. Mom found my Blankie— and she framed it.

My Blankie. I learned to call it my “transitory comfort object” in psychology class. I learned that the little guys at the Kid-O-Korral needed to get weaned away from the ragged blankets, the stuffed bears, the things they liked to touch, to suck, to smell. “Your cozy will be safe in the cubby. You're a big girl now.” It was a step toward healthy independence. The whole time I was doing that to the little kids, Blankie was in my pillowcase on my bed at home.

And now Blankie is on display in a shadowbox frame, draped carefully to hide the corner I sucked until it was nothing but a raggedy fringe. Poor Blankie, pinned up in there like a big flannel moth. Poor me, if I need some transitory comfort.

In case of emergency, break glass.

 

Breakfast is graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate. S'mores are too much trouble.

“Do you control your impulses, Polly?”

“What? What impulses?”

“Impulses. All of them. Pick an impulse. Do you like, use the three-question technique or something?”

“I don't know what you are talking about.”

“The three-question technique. One: if I do or say this, how will it work out for me? Two: if I do or say this how will it work out for others? Three: if I do or say this, will I be following the rules? Those are the questions. They are supposed to lead to better decisions. So I wonder, Polly, is that how you decide what to do?”

“I do what's right, Odd, if that's what you mean. I know the difference between right and wrong, and I do what's right.”

“Well, I was just asking, because it seems to me that you make some pretty strange choices in the impulse-control department,” says Odd, and he touches the place where I clobbered him with his leg. “Maybe you could use the three-question technique, too. Just sayin'.”

“And be more like you? That's great.”

“Yeah. It is,” says Odd. He is smiling, and the morning light melts all over him like butter.

 

“We got a choice this morning, Polly. We can go home, or we can go to Portland and tear Bridger a new one. I'm thinking Portland.”

“What do you have against Bridger?” I ask.

“Me? Nothing personal. But you're my friend, Polly, and he treated you like shit.”

I don't know if I'd call Odd my friend, but Bridger did treat me like shit.

“Portland,” I say. Easy as that, I've got a new plan. I'm going to Portland and tear Bridger Morgan a new one, that crap hound.