Falling Harder (11 page)

As manic and
temperamental as Nancy might be, she serves a clear purpose in this house.
She’s Paul’s sparring buddy and verbal punching bag. They’ve always worn each
other out and kept away from us kids. But now she’s gone, and we’re here with
Paul, all on our own. Without his wife around to tease and torment, what will
he become? Will he just sink into himself, a pathetic husk forever without
love? Or will he lash out at whoever is closest? Think up new ways to punish us
for driving his wife away?

“Maybe she’ll
come back,” Conway says, as we all teeter on the edge of fitful sleep. “Maybe
this will blow over, and she’ll be back in the morning with a fifth and a truce
drawn up.”

“I don’t know,”
Garrick says quietly, “That seemed pretty final.”

“It doesn’t
matter,” Trace says, “Whatever’s coming next, we’ll get through it. Maybe it
will even be better without her around, you know?”

None of us are
convinced by his theory, but we’re far too tired to shoot it down. Trace and I
lay together on the sloppy heap of bedding, my back to his chest. Even with
everything falling to pieces around us, I can still feel safe in his arms. At
least I have that.

Twelve

Nadia

All Alone With Paul

We wake up early
the next morning, a Saturday, and pray that Nancy has returned in the night.
One by one, we creep up the basement stairs to gather whatever information we
can. Throughout the house, signs of last night’s struggle lay. Broken glass,
toppled chairs, general disarray, all indicate the mayhem that occurred when
Nancy finally snapped at her cruel husband.

The four of us
kids search the house from top to bottom, but our foster mother is nowhere to
be found. I can’t help but be a little jealous that she’s managed to escape, at
least for a time.

Paul is still
asleep on the couch, and we decide to capitalize on his slumber. As quiet as we
can, the four of us creep out into the early morning sunlight and pile into
Trace’s car. Garrick slips into the backseat without anyone having to ask, just
so that he can keep holding onto Conway’s hand.

Under any other
circumstances, I’m sure that she’d be thrilled to have so much of Garrick’s
attention, but the current situation stifles all traces of her giddiness.

“Where should we
go?” I ask the group.

“We just need to
regroup for a second,” Trace says, sounding like a military strategist or
something.

“You
mean...we’re going back there?” I ask, “Even after last night?”

“That’s what we
need to figure out,” Trace says.

We cover the
short distance to our standby diner and shuffle inside. We’re closing in on the
holidays, and the other customers seem chipper and merry, basking in the glow
of the season. My foster siblings and I slink to our usual booth, bemused and
befuddled by the casual happiness that everyone around us seems to be enjoying.
I wonder if they have any idea how lucky they are to feel safe and loved this
time of year, rather than fearful and lonely.

“Hey kids,” says
our favorite waitress, Val. “You’re here awfully early for a Saturday.
Everything OK?”

“Sure,” Garrick
says, “Just...you know...Christmas shopping. Want to get an early start.”

“Isn’t that
nice?” Val smiles, plunking four coffee mugs onto the table and filling them up
to the brim. “These are on me,” she says, “As always.”

We force our
mouths into smiles as Val bounces away. The moment she disappears, we get down
to brass tacks.

“Chances are,
this is temporary,” Trace begins, his jaw set, “Nancy will probably be home
within the week, and things will be back to normal.”

“And if she
doesn’t come back?” Garrick poses, “Is it still safe to be in that house with
just Paul overseeing things?”

“We outnumber
him,” Trace says, “That counts for something.”

“But he’ll be
harder to manage, without his human stress ball around to even things out,”
Garrick points out.

“Weren’t either
of you listening to Nancy?” Conway snaps, “This wouldn’t have happened if Paul
hadn’t come after me the other night.”

We look toward
Conway, astonished. Garrick lays a comforting hand on her back and says,
“You’re not blaming yourself for this, are you?”

“No,” she
insists, “But we need to be realistic about what’s been going on in that house.
Paul has been getting way too interested in Nadia and I.”

Trace grabs onto
my hand and squeezes hard. I turn to him with a weary sigh.

“You know it’s
true,” I say, “Remember the other night when we came home together? All he
could think about was whether we were...you know.”

“He was just
being a jackass,” Trace says, “He’d never act on it.”

“He tried to,
with me,” Conway points out, “I know it’s ugly to think about, Trace, but we’d
be better off thinking about the reality of the situation than denying it.”

“So, what do you
suggest we do?” Trace asks Conway, “Call the cops, get hauled away to new homes
in different states, never see each other again?”

“Of course not,”
Conway says, “But I don’t think we can just turn a blind eye either.”

We all keep our
mouths closed as Val delivers our usual orders to the table: four plates of
waffles and home fries. It all looks as delicious as ever, but not one of us
has much of an appetite.”

“Look,” Trace
says finally, “I admit that the situation is shittier than ever, but I’m not
about to blow our entire setup because of one drunken idiot. Jesus, I’ll be out
of the system in a matter of months, you guys. And from there, I can actually
help you. But I’ve got to make it through to the end.”

“And what about
us?” Garrick says, “We’ll still be stuck in that place.”

“We can figure
that out once I’m gone,” Trace says, “For now, I think we should hang tight.
We’ll watch Paul more closely than ever, make sure he’s not up to anything.
We’ll never leave each other alone with him, we’ll stay out of the house as
much as we can. He’s no match for us if we stick together.”

“You really
think it will be OK?” I ask.

“Of course,”
Trace says, “You know I’d never put you in harm’s way. Any of you.”

That’s a fair
point. Trace would never risk staying in Paul’s house unless he thought we’d
all make it out OK in the end.

“Fine,” I say,
“We’ll stay.”

“We’ll stay,”
Garrick agrees.

“I guess. We’ll
stay,” Conway finally allows. “But if he comes near me again, I’ll be AWOL
before you can say ‘pedophile’.”

“That’s fair,”
Trace says, “Now let’s dig in before this all gets cold. I’m freaking
starving.”

As we lift
heaping forkfuls to our hungry mouths, the sky outside opens up. The first
timid snowfall of winter begins to drift toward the ground. Every other year,
the first snowflakes of the season have been a welcome sight. But this year, they
seem like one hell of a bad omen.

The first
weekend without Nancy in the house passes tensely. Garrick, Conway, Trace and I
tiptoe around the house as if the carpet was made of eggshells. But even as we
fret and worry, we can’t help but notice that Paul doesn’t seem very different
at all. He follows his usual routine of drinking and sleeping, pausing every
now and again to shove something deep fried down his gullet. If I didn’t know
any better, I’d think that he doesn’t even remember that his wife walked out on
him just a couple of nights ago.

For our part, we
kids turn to all our typical methods for calming our nerves. I’ve started
partaking in the drinking that goes on around the basement, for lack of any
other option. A girl’s got to stay sane somehow. But on Sunday night, I take
the next step.

We’re sitting
around together, listening to Garrick’s favorite heavy metal album, when Trace
starts to roll a fresh joint. It’s a wordless ritual: Trace puts the smoke
together, lights it up, passes it to Garrick, then to Conway, then back. Round
and round they go. But this time, after the three of them have filled their
lungs with the heavy pot smoke, I hold out my hand to Conway. She blinks at me
in the multicolored light, uncomprehending.

“I want to try
it,” I tell her, “Pass it over here.” Conway glances at Trace, as if asking his
permission. “It’s not up to him,” I tell her testily, “I can make my own
decisions.”

“Hey, be cool
Nadia,” Garrick drawls.

“Just...come
on,” I say, taking the joint between my finger and thumb. “I’m curious.”

“You know what
you’re doing?” Conway asks.

“Sure,” I lie,
and lift the joint to my lips. I suck on the smoke as if sipping soda through a
straw. The hot cloud fills my mouth, tickling my throat. Feigning mastery, I
take the longest pull I possibly can and hold it. The other look at me, amazed,
as I count out the seconds. Finally, I release my breath, sending myself into a
coughing fit. My head feels like it’s grown three sizes, the sights and sounds
around me are on a three-second delay. My mouth feels like an arid desert, and
the whole thing seems hilarious, for whatever reason. I suppose this is what
getting stoned feels like.

“Are you OK?”
Trace asks, his concerned face swimming up out of the darkness.

“What...me?” I
giggle, “Oh, sure. Don’t be such a Mr. Sourpuss.”

“Oh man, she’s a
giddy one,” Garrick says, “Better than getting all down or quiet, I guess.”

“You bet,” I
tell him, winking theatrically.

The joint makes
the rounds again and again, and I happily suck in breath and breath of the
stuff. With every puff, I feel my cells loosen. The weight of everything that’s
been going on around here seems to roll off like a fog before the sun.

After a time, I
hear a soft snoring beside me. Conway has curled up into a little ball on her
bean bag chair, her skinny arms wrapped around her knees. In sleep, she
actually looks her age. So often, I forget that Conway is even younger than I
am. She’s so tough, so scrappy, that it’s easy to forget the fact that she’s
still a little girl. We both are.

Garrick notices
that Conway’s drifted off and pulls himself up from sitting. He gathers her
little body in his arms and lifts her effortlessly.

“I’ll put her to
bed,” he says drowsily.

“Stay up there
with her,” Trace tells him, “It’s better if we don’t leave the girls alone.”

Garrick nods and
starts up the stairs with Conway. Trace crushes the spent joint in an empty
beer can and turns toward me. His brow wrinkles in concern as he notices how
far gone I really am. When he speaks, it sounds like we’re both underwater and
very far away.

“I shouldn’t
have let you smoke that much,” he says. I imagine that I can see air bubbles
rising from his mouth. “I’m sorry, Nadia. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Did you...send
Garrick away on purpose?” I ask, my filter all but demolished by the pot I’ve
smoked.

“Sure,” Trace
says, “So he can keep an eye on Conway. Like we talked about.”

“Is that really
why you wanted them to leave?” I ask, tipping forward onto my hands and knees.
It feels like Trace is a thousand miles away, but I know I have to go to him. I
place one hand in front of the other and slowly, very slowly, start to crawl to
him.

“Nadia, you’re
stoned,” he tells me, worry ringing clear in his voice.

“Yeah,” I admit,
“But so are you.”

“I’m used to
it,” he says, closing the space between us. “Come on. Let’s just curl up and go
to sleep, OK? You want to be the big spoon or the little spoon?”

I stand up and
make my way to the closest couch, stretching out luxuriously. In the darkness,
I can just make out Trace’s balanced, beautiful shape. The tension of our
situation isn’t the only thing that’s evaporated with the help of this herbal
remedy. My inhibitions seem to have faded away like the morning dew as well. I
realize that Trace and I are utterly alone, and a new thought occurs to me.

“Will you hold
me, Trace?” I ask, opening my arms to him.

“Of course,” he
says, lowering himself onto the sofa beside me.

There’s plenty
of room for us, and he pulls me flush against his body. I rest my hands on the
firm panes of his chest, pressing my body against his. We’ve been circling each
other for months, now. And finally, the time seems right. Imploringly, I raise
my lips to Trace’s. As ever, he accepts my kiss, opens himself to me. The tips
of our tongue brush against each other, and I know exactly what it is I want.

“Trace,” I
breathe, pulling away from him just an inch, “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Of course,” he
says, running his hand through my hair.

“I...uh...the
thing is,” I stammer, “I’m a...virgin.”

The pause that
follows my admission seems to stretch on for an eternity. Trace peers down at
me, searching my face for meaning and intention.

“I guessed that
you were,” he says, “I mean...when would you have had the chance to...you know.
I just figured, I guess.”

“That doesn’t creep
you out?” I ask.

“No. Why would
it—”

“I don’t know.
You’re a lot more experienced than I am,” I laugh nervously.

“Doesn’t
matter,” he says, “Doesn’t change anything between us.”

“Yeah, OK,” I
smile.

Trace takes my
face in his hands and kisses me, deeply. I rake my fingers lightly through his
sandy blonde hair savoring the taste of him. My head is light and empty, the
only thought I can muster is that I want him.

I stretch my
body out against his, throwing a leg over his hip. His hands wander down my sides,
memorizing the curves of me. A moan almost escapes my lips as I flatten myself
against him, feel that telltale pressure that even I can’t mistake. He wants me
as much as I want him—I know it.

With trembling
fingers, I reach for Trace’s belt and snap open the buckle. His body tenses
instantly, and I feel his startled glance on my face.

“What are you
doing?” he asks.

My face burns in
the dim light. “I just...I thought maybe tonight was, you know. The night.”