Eighteen
August 21, 1999
The night of the last scavenger hunt
It was my mother who’d tipped my father off about the church people coming that night.
Marjorie Pettit had asked her to confront Alex but she’d refused to come along, said something to my father about people with nothing better to do with their evenings.
At the time I thought it was malicious. My mother’s brilliant plan to shame me, to out me as a liar and a fraud.
But it’s possible she was simply being decent. She couldn’t have known that he would go. Certainly not what his going would set in motion.
My father walked over when she was sleeping. I think he brought the pirate’s flag as an excuse, planning to slip in the warning to Alex about Marjorie Pettit casually, so as not to embarrass her.
Casual. The decisions that flay us often begin this way.
* * *
I called Casey from the pantry while my parents slept.
“How bad is it?” she answered.
“Bad. I tried to explain but he only said, ‘You’re eighteen. Sorry I intruded.’ His voice was so cold.”
“He’s just embarrassed. It’ll be okay, Laur.”
“Did the posse of church people come?”
“Is two people a posse? It was only Marjorie Pettit and some other lady. By the time they came we’d cleaned up and it was only me and my mom. They said something about a noise complaint and stomped off. It would’ve been a nightmare if your dad hadn’t warned us.”
But it was a nightmare.
“Laur. You still there?”
“Yeah.”
“I meant, a nightmare for all of us. Not just you... My mom’s dying to talk to you, here...”
“I can’t talk to her right now.”
A pause, then Casey’s underwater-sounding murmur. She’d put her hand over the phone to tell Alex I didn’t want to talk to her. A wail of protest: Alex’s. Loud enough to break through Casey’s hand barricade. Just let me talk to her.
“J.B. then,” Casey said.
More murmurs, knocking sounds—the handset being dropped on a table?
And then J.B.’s low, slightly raspy “Hey.” His voice sounded so warm and concerned that I felt better immediately. We could fix it.
“Hey.”
“You think if I talk to him it’ll help?”
“Maybe. He won’t even look at me. He’s always defended Alex and now...”
“I know. Alex is crying, she really wants to talk to you...”
“I can’t right now.”
“Are you sure, she’s—”
“Tell her I’ll smooth things over.”
* * *
I hoped when I walked into the sunny kitchen the next morning things would feel better.
But my dad didn’t look at me. He concentrated on his crossword.
“I’m sorry, Daddy. What you saw. Alex was just playing around.”
“You’re eighteen,” he said, studying his puzzle.
I was eighteen, but I’d kept my secrets well. He was sixty-seven, and it had looked ugly to him—me in my bra with boys nearby, a needle piercing my flesh, a trail of blood on my arm, couples in the bedrooms, beer bottles, the sweet cloud of pot on the path. We’d made a fool of him.
Still, I knew I could fix it. He just needed time.
Casey said Alex was writing him a letter. She wanted to get it perfect. Casey read it over the phone, “‘You trusted me with your daughter, and I’ll do whatever it takes to regain that trust. I know what you saw looked awful. There’s no excuse. I’m responsible; I was the adult...’”
But my dad never read those words.
Five days after the party he had a heart attack in the hardware store, playing backgammon with Ollie. By the time I got to the hospital he was “stable but serious,” and they told me he was very lucky. Only a moderate “event,” a warning sign. Doctors were talking about stents and balloons and catheters. He was sleepy, but when I came into his room he reached for my hand.
“There’s my little one,” he said, smiling. He showed me the glowing red monitor attached to his index finger. “E.T.,” he said, lifting his hand and winking, then drifting off to sleep. We’d seen E.T. together at the theater in Red Pine when I was little.
They told me he was fine, to go home.
The next morning when I came downstairs my mother was already at the kitchen table gripping her mug of coffee with two hands. She’d set out another mug for me; that’s how I knew.
I stared at the sun on his empty chair.
“He went very peacefully.”