Angel

Page 65

 

  “You were there,” I said, feeling it suddenly. I reached for his hand. “Oh, Alex, I’m sorry. ”

  He nodded, his jaw tensing. “Yeah, it was . . . bad. But I don’t know; he died fighting, I guess. He would have wanted that. ”

  “You must be really proud of him,” I said softly. “And he must have been proud of you, too. ”

  Alex gave a short laugh. “He used to say I was too damn cocky for my own good. . . . Yeah, he was, though. He was proud of me. ” He glanced up at me and smiled, squeezing my fingers. “OK, enough about me for now,” he said, leaning back. “Your turn. What’s something I don’t know about you?”

  All at once I really wanted to tell him about my mother. I pulled one of my knees up to my chest. “Well — you don’t know how Mom and I first came to live with Aunt Jo. ”

  Alex shook his head. “No, how did you?”

  “We lived in Syracuse,” I said, tracing my hand across the worn wood of the table. “And Mom was on welfare. Everyone knew that she had mental problems — I mean, she’d been diagnosed, and all that — but no one knew how bad it was, except for me. She was able to — to put on a facade for a long time, when other people were around. ”

  I told him how Mom had gradually gotten worse and worse, so that by the time I was six or so, I had to cook for us both and do all the cleaning and laundry. “I always made sure that I kept the house really nice,” I said. “So in case anyone came in, they wouldn’t know anything was wrong. I got myself off to school every day and every- thing. ” I fell silent, remembering sitting in the back of the school bus gazing back at our dinky little house, so worried about leaving Mom there on her own all day.

  “What finally happened?” asked Alex in a low voice.

  “I got home from school one day when I was nine, and Mom wasn’t there. ” I looked at him, tried to smile. “I waited for hours; I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want anyone to know, but I was really scared. So finally I called the police, and they came over. It turned out that they’d picked her up that afternoon. She’d been walking around in a daze, wandering in traffic. She didn’t know who she was. ”

  Alex reached over and took my hand, gripping it wordlessly.

  I let out a breath. “So, they put her in the hospital, and they put me in a foster home, and it was horrible. I was there for almost a month. ”

  “What about your aunt?” said Alex. His fingers were warm against mine.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t know where she lived. They must have found her before too long, but it took a while for everyone to figure out what they were going to do, I guess. ”

  His voice hardened. “So . . . what? You’re saying that she just let you sit in a foster home for a month?”

  Slowly, I nodded, remembering the tiny bedroom that I’d shared with a girl named Tina — how she always wanted me to talk to her, and I wouldn’t talk to anybody. I used to lie on my bed for hours staring at the wall, hating everyone there.

  “Yeah,” I said finally. “I mean, I don’t know what was going on in her life or anything, and I guess it was a pretty big disruption to suddenly have this nine-year-old foisted on her. ” Alex didn’t say anything, and I went on. “Anyway, after a while she came and got me, and I went back to Pawtucket with her. And then a few weeks later, Mom came to live there, too. The doctors thought she should be hospitalized full-time, but insurance wouldn’t cover it all. That sort of thing is really expensive. ” I looked down. “You know, I always hated my father, anyway, for doing that to her. But now that I know he was an actual predator, that he never cared about her, it just makes it ten times worse somehow. ” Not to mention that I come from him; I’m a part of him. I didn’t say the words.

  “I know,” said Alex. And I could tell from his voice that he did. He understood exactly how I felt about all of it, even the parts I’d left unsaid. He rubbed my palm. “You’re not your father, though. You’re nothing like him. You were there for her; you cared about her more than anything. ”

  I swallowed hard, confronted by so many memories. “She’s my mom. I love her. I just . . . wish I hadn’t let her down back then. ”

  “Willow. ” With his other hand, Alex touched my cheek. “You know that’s not true, right? You did better than some adults would have done, and you were only nine years old. You did everything you could. ”

  Letting out a breath, I closed my hand over his, leaning my head against it. “Thanks. ” I managed a smile. “I’ve never told anyone that before. Thanks for listening. ”

  He smiled slightly, too, and stroked back a strand of my hair. “I’ve never told anyone about my dad before, either. ” For a minute neither of us spoke, and then I got up and slid onto his lap, wrapping my arms around him.

  We sat holding each other for a long time, with the lantern light burning golden beside us.

  “Oh! That is so cold!” I shrieked, half-laughing as Alex poured a canful of icy water over my head, and then another. He started laughing, too. “You’re the one who wanted to wash it. Hold still. ”

  Finally — just when I was about to tell him to forget it, that I didn’t care anymore whether I still had shampoo in my hair or not — he said, “OK, I think that’s all of it. ” I felt him wrap the T-shirt around my hair, squeezing the water out.

  “Oh, thank God!” I straightened up from the stream, drops of icy water darting down my neck. “I’m never washing it again; I don’t care how disgusting it gets. ”

  Alex rubbed my arms briskly, grinning. “You say that every single time. ”

  “It’s true this time. I swear that water’s twenty degrees colder than it used to be. ”

  Back in the cabin, I sat on the bed to comb out my hair, trying not to get the sleeping bags wet. It was such a relief to have clean hair again, even if it felt all tangled. Alex sat next to me, leaning back against the wall.

  “Your nose is all red,” he observed.

  “Yes, that’s how it gets when I’m dying of hypothermia. ”

  Bending forward, Alex kissed the tip of my nose. Then he got up and went over to his bag; crouching down beside it on the floor, he unzipped an inner pocket. He came back and sat beside me again. “Here. ” He handed me a small white box. “Happy birthday. ”

  I took the box, feeling stunned. I had lost all track of time up here. “Is it my birthday? But — how did you know?”

  Alex gave a sheepish grin. “I sort of looked at your driver’s license when you were taking a shower that first night in the motel. ”

  I held the box in both hands. “You didn’t! That’s not even fair — you don’t even have a driver’s license with your real details on it. ” I looked down at the box, touched its slightly dimpled top. “What is it?”

  “Open it and see. ”

  I eased the lid off, and then just sat gazing downward. There was a necklace inside — a slim, shimmering silver chain with a crystal teardrop hanging from it. “It’s beautiful,” I breathed, drawing it out. The faceted pendant winked in the sunlight, turning on its chain. “Alex, this is so . . . ” I trailed off, at a loss for words.