“Yeah,” I say, hauling myself to my feet, using her thin shoulder as leverage. She catches at my leg to stop me, until I reach for the scotch and her fingers let go, hover in the air. “I hate you right back, kid.”
I pour the scotch into the snail tank.
Nan comes up next to me and we both stare down into the clear water with its bobbing lettuce leaves and their little black passengers. I feel guilty.
“Did you just wipe out a squadron of snails?”
“Maybe. That was cold-blooded of me. Ha.”
Nan looks over at Pop’s desk. “Well . . . you come by it naturally.”
I toast her with the empty glass. “Touché. Keep it up and there won’t be any pictures of you in here either.”
Chapter Forty-two
TIM
Nan brushes at the wet scotch stains on me, wrinkling her nose. “Yeech. You reek.”
“You’re one to talk, Bob Marley. Since we’re spilling our guts: What the hell are you pulling, Nan? Truth, this go-round.”
In the time it takes to brew a pot of coffee, we’re chowing down in Nan’s room, having dumped her top desk drawer out on the bed. It’s much better stocked with candy than Doane’s, Stony Bay’s biggest dentist’s nightmare.
“I’m seeing him, Troy, not for drugs,” she tells me, all in a rush.
“Weed, then, obviously. Pills?”
She shakes her head. “It was for pills initially. My reliable supplier went and got himself clean.”
I laugh obediently, thinking she’s joking. For all my sins, I never dealt to my twin. But one look at her face and she’s obviously drop-dead serious.
No.
I ignored her, I needled her, I didn’t show up for her, but I didn’t, didn’t, didn’t mess up my own sister. Something I know for sure.
Or not. I couldn’t have forgotten that too. Could I?
“Take that back,” I say, like the goddamn school bully.
“It wasn’t you! It wasn’t your fault. Tim. This one’s on me.” She shuts her eyes, opens them.
“Nan. In God’s name, why? Or, never mind that, what? Oxy? Percocet? Vicodin? Please, God, not E.”
“None of those, Timmy. Ritalin. Remember when you went to that doctor who said you had ADHD because you couldn’t focus?”
“The one who also thought I was bipolar? Because I was always showing up for appointments altered by a different substance? Yep. He was a genius.”
“You didn’t fill the prescription, but I did. I thought it would work miracles with my focus. And it did, I guess. I definitely concentrated on different ways to get my schoolwork done without actually having to do it.”
“Aw, Nan.”
“But then the prescription ran out. So I went to Troy.”
“That bastard is—”
“He wouldn’t sell to me. Or give it for free. Or write my papers, though one of his brothers does that on the side. His family is even worse than ours. But he did”—she looks down, then up at me, reddening—“ask me out. No judging. That Alice is a million times more of a badass than Troy will ever be.”
“That I’ll give you.”
“My brother’s in lo-ove.”
“I sure am. And, as always, I’ve got better taste than you-oo.”
There’s a pounding on the door.
Nan jumps like an overbred Chihuahua.
Really got to knock it off with these dog comparisons.
“Bet that’s your girl,” Nan says, giving my shoulder a shove.
“Nan . . .” I look down at my scotch-y jeans, my black T-shirt that smells like cigarette smoke, my bitten nails. “The last time I saw her I was a total jackass.”
More pounding on the door.
“Go down before she gets the battering ram.” Nan opens the bedroom door, shooing me out.
But when I swing open the front door, with its wreath covered with smiling pumpkins, it isn’t Alice after all.
It’s Samantha, all flushed, hair messy, Hodges uniform with its little plaid skirt rumpled, beret caught in a tangle of her blond hair.
“Everyone said you wouldn’t come here but I—oh, Tim. Alice told me. It’ll be okay. Thank God you’re all right.”
She throws her arms around my neck, in what may be a hug but is more like a choke hold.
Then she steps back, holding my arms just above the elbows, scanning me over. “You are all right, aren’t you? It’s like everyone’s gone crazy tonight. My mother’s freaking out—”
“About me?”
“No, because I did what you said, told Alice to go nuclear—but Alice is panicking about you—”
“Is she okay?”
“She started to really stress out. But she calmed down. She’s out looking for you. We all are. I mean, Jase, Alice, me, Andy and a squadron of her friends. Mom’s home with Cal and the phone. George is drawing up missing posters. He’s scared. But you’re okay. Jeez, Tim.”
“Great, George knows?”
“You’re not someone who can disappear without people taking notice.”
“Neither are you,” says a small voice from behind me, and Samantha’s arms loosen; she moves aside to look past me, toward my sister, hesitating on the stairs.
“Nan.” Sam sounds apprehensive, and damn right since Nan still looks like Pogo the Evil Clown.
Nan holds up a hand, silent, waves it a little, like she’s returning the half wave Samantha gave her back at Hodges, weeks ago.
Sam’s phone blasts “Life on Mars.”
“God, it’s Mom. No matter what’s going on, her drama always has to be the biggest one.”
Nan sort of snorts, but not rudely. “Remember what your sister always said? ‘Grace Reed: the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every wake.’”
“I’d totally forgotten that,” Sam says.
“I remember a lot of things,” Nan offers.
“Can you two, like, hug or whatever? I have to get to Alice.”
ALICE
Halfway to the beach, there he is, loping along, hands in pockets, head down. I pull over, call his name. “Get in!”
Tim breaks into a smile when he sees me, but it leaves his face just as fast. He pulls at the collar of his sweatshirt, folds his arms.
“Are you okay?” I climb out of the car. He steps farther off, but I grab his sleeve. “Tim, talk. It’s me. Everything all right?”
“Nope. Sorry I was such an asshole, Alice.”
“No, I shouldn’t have fallen back on facts and genetic explanations. I should have just done this.” My hands are around his back, my face against his chest. There’s a shuddering breath against my cheek, almost a sob. He bends down and I tip up, touch my lips to his, which open, warm and welcoming, tasting faintly of root beer. He rests one palm against the back of my head, the other skimming down to my waist.
It’s only when I pull back for air that I detect it—this smoky, slightly medicinal odor—
I swallow hard.
Tim gives a rueful smile. “Yup. That’s exactly what you think it is.”
I absorb this, choke back anything I might say.
“I only applied it externally. You know what, though? I’m thinking it’s not really the best signature scent for me. I need something more musky, with some notes of leather and saddle soap.”
“You didn’t drink.”
“Got way closer than I had any business doing. But no.”
TIM
I hesitate for a minute or two outside the church basement door. Not only do I reek of scotch, I no doubt look like a mess in every other way. I stand there, remembering how when I first started coming to meetings, back at the beginning with Mr. Garrett, I’d pause in the parking lot and straighten my shirt and comb my hair and shit, like my mom would have done if I really were heading to church. Like I had to look so pulled together outside because I was such a hot mess inside. After a couple viewings of this, Mr. Garrett laughed, took the comb out of my hands. “The official photographer isn’t here today, Tim. AA is stric
tly come as you are.”
Yeah, no judging here. As I told my ma—that’s why I need the strangers.
Chapter Forty-three
TIM
The lights are all on in the Garrett house when I get home, and I can see Mrs. Garrett pacing back and forth in front of the kitchen window, baby in her arms. Cal. Joel’s motorcycle slant-parked near the house. Jase’s tall figure balancing a gallon of milk on his shoulder, moving through the room. Duff and Harry and George sitting on the steps with ice-cream sandwiches.
And there’s Alice. Cross-legged outside my door, waiting, with this little red-and-blue box in her hands, flipping it up in the air, catching it.
Then she catches my eye, stands up, and comes down the steps.
I spread my hands, here I am, and she comes closer, takes one hand, folds my fingers around the box. E-Z-Gene at-home DNA testing.
“You don’t have to do it,” she says. “But it’s one way to be sure. If you put a rush on it, it only takes two days.”
“For our next anniversary, you can just get me a tie,” I say, sitting down heavily on the steps and flipping over the box to read the instructions.
I mail the swabbed cell samples—scraped from the inside of my cheek, then Cal’s, the next morning, expedited delivery, return receipt requested. Everything but accompanied by armed guards. After I hand it to the postal clerk, I have to fight every impulse I have not to snatch it back from him.
E-Z-Gene my ass. This is the hardest test I’ve ever taken.
ALICE
“Bright side,” Tim says, saluting me with his coffee cup as I polish off the last of my vegan burrito, bright and early at Garrett’s Hardware the next day. He snags my hand just as I’m about to lick the last bit of guacamole off my index finger, and does it himself, looking at me underneath his eyelashes. “You wanted sink-in time. We’ve both got forty-eight hours. At least.”
“Look, about that sink-in stuff,” I say. “I never thought—ever—good riddance or bye bye baby or anything like that”
“Forget I said that. You were right anyway. Fuck the self-pity. I was just being a—”
“Whatever happens,Tim . . . it just . . . happens. I’ll deal. We’ll deal. As long as you don’t go charging off to bathe in scotch.”
“Deal. As long as you don’t go facing down Grace without backup again. When I asked Sam if she’d be your ace in the hole, I didn’t think you’d be going there without me.”
“It had to be between me and Grace. You would just have been a distraction. I think she sort of has a thing for you.”
“Christ, no. She just recognizes a fellow amoral person. One of her tribe.”
“You remind me of myself.” God. There aren’t enough showers to wash that off me.
“We need to talk about choices, Alice,” Dad says.
I look up sharply from the floor, where I’m once again packing things—Dad’s about to be dismissed from rehab.
His tone is serious. I know what this is all about. Mom walked into Garrett’s during lunch, catching Tim and me kissing, yet again. She didn’t say anything, just offered to take Cal because she was headed to the playground with Patsy and George. But there’s no doubt Dad heard about it.
“Look. I know what I’m up against here—I’m not flying blind. He’s got a long road ahead of him and a lot of growing up to do—he’s draped in red flags—I know that—and if he starts drinking or whatever again, all bets are off. I’m not walking that road. Well, not hand in hand with him. I’ll be there, of course, because he’s—he’s worth it, but I won’t be moving into the garage apartment with a baby and a drunken teenage boy, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I can look out for myself, Dad, I do, first and foremost—you guys know that—”
“While reassuring, Alice, that’s not what we need to talk about. We’ll get to that later.”
“Oh.” What else have I done? “If it’s about the—”
Dad holds up a hand. “About the what, Alice? The store? Your schoolwork? Taking care of your brothers and sisters? Holding the fort down? Going up against Grace Reed? All the battles you’re fighting? On how many different fronts? That’s without any personal life of your own, plus whatever is going on with—”
“The recovering alcoholic high school dropout teenage father I’m in love with?”
He smiles. “Let’s just call him Tim. Yes, except for that and whatever comes or doesn’t come of it—none of these battles are yours to fight.”
I open my mouth to argue and he stares me down. “None of them,” he repeats gently. “No exceptions.”
“But that’s ridiculous, Dad. I’m, I’m one of us—that’s who I am. When something happens to my family—”
“Al—yes, you are. But that’s not all you are. And it’s time for you to be Alice, not the standard bearer for your family. You can give that job back to your mother and me.”
I’m hovering on a tightrope, somewhere between a relief so great that my breath comes out in a whoosh, and a totally lost feeling. This has been my fight. This is my job. Looking at Dad’s steady green eyes, calm as they’ve always been, I shake my head.
“Dad—I have to do this. I’m supposed to do this.”
“No, Alice. You’re not. You didn’t choose to have a large family. Your mother and I did. But this isn’t the eighteenth century. We didn’t decide to have you to be our workforce on the farm, or at the store.”
“You didn’t decide to get hit by a car—”
“And you weren’t driving that car. This”—he moves one hand slowly down from his eyes, past his ribs, down the length of his body—“is a setback, and a pain in the ass. But it’s all temporary. I’m a jock. I understand recovery time, when to push myself, when not to. You can let go of that.”
Tears are jabbing at my eyes now, prickles of heat. I blink, swallow. “I know. I mean, I’m not giving up my life forever and ever. Just until things are on an even keel at home.”
“When will that be, honey? When I’m all better? When the new baby is born? When Jase goes to college? When George and Patsy do? When the new baby is doing the solar system project? There’s never going to be an even keel. It’s a matter of constant adjustment. And that’s just fine. I wouldn’t recognize it any other way.”
“But Dad—”
He puts his hand on my arm, shakes his head. “Speaking of balance, give me those.” He indicates the crutches, propped against the wheelchair with all the other apparatuses of injury—the walker, the reacher, the quad cane. One tucked under an arm, he swings to a stand, grabs the other, walks a few steps, pivots, slide-walks back to the bed, sits down, looks at me, raising one eyebrow. He’s whiter than my nurse shoes and sweating more than Jase during practice. And he’s walking.
“Dad,” I say, that word that means everything.
“Nothing to it,” he says, completely out of breath. “By the time the new baby is walking, I’ll be running wind sprints—if not well before. Pass me that reacher thing, if Harry hasn’t broken it again.”
I hand it to him, resolutely ignoring the fact that he’s gasping for air. He hooks it into the handle of the bedside table drawer. Pulls. It clatters to the ground. I hand it back to him. This time, he pulls the drawer slowly out, then, winded, holds up a hand, breathing hard for a moment. Flash of Tim running on the beach at the end of the summer.
“Get me what’s on top, ’kay?”
What’s on top are two packages, both wrapped in construction paper, art by George. I recognize the troop of Garrett stick figures on one, accompanied by various pets, some of which we don’t actually own, like a centaur and a whale shark. “The little one first.”
The little one is covered with drawings too—a bucket, a broom—
I look up. “I never saw myself as Cinderella slaving away, Dad. I’ve done all this gladly—”
“And dutifully, and resentfully, and impatiently, and lovingly, and many other ways, Alice. I know. Open the little package.”
Crackle of paper, and
the Kleenex-wrapped contents drop into my hand—a cardboard heart with a gold star in the center, hanging from a twist of dark yellow pipe cleaner. Dad reaches for it and holds it up. “George does good work. Lean over.”
“It’s a—”
He attaches it to the front of my shirt, only pricking me with the safety pin once. “Your purple heart, Alice. Well done. You’re discharged.”
Tears hot on my face, so many, they’re dripping off my chin. I put my hand over the heart, then my arms around Dad, my wet cheek against his sweaty, stubbly face. “I’m almost afraid to look in the second box.”
His big hand comes up, rubs the back of my neck. “Oh, that? It’s Godiva chocolates. The closest we could get to bonbons. Now go, lie back and eat them while everyone else is at the game and the house is quiet. As close to an even keel as we’re going to get.”
TIM
For the next two days—forty-eight hours—Cal gets a taste of what it’s like to be a Garrett.
Mr. Garrett gets released from Maplewood, the deal being that he’ll do daily physical rehab at Live Oaks Center for Living, the best PT place around, according to Alice the research queen.
“Doesn’t that place cost an arm and a leg?” Joel asked as he, Jase, Samantha, Alice, and I pounded the last nails into the hastily constructed ramp for the Garretts’ front steps—a bitch to build, but everyone but me got all stubborn about it and insisted it was a DIY project and not a call-in-a-professional one. Even when Joel put his foot through one of the floorboards.
“Not Dad’s, in this case,” Alice answers with a Cheshire Cat smile.
“Worth every penny,” Sam agrees, sucking on her thumbnail, which she kept whacking with the hammer until Jase pried it out of her hands. “Every pound of flesh.”
So the afternoon we bring him home, we’ve raked up all the leaves in the Garretts’ yard, and the younger kids jump into them and make sure all that sweaty work is shot to hell. Joel lights up the coals in one of those copper fire-pit things. Mr. Garrett whistles for the kids and tells them all to find sticks. Everyone abandons the leaves, and piles sticks on sticks on sticks, so the coals get smothered and have to be relit.