Drowning Instinct

Heaven knows, she needs people to help her negotiate life. You‘re probably not aware but before Turing, she had . . . well, problems and—‖



No, please, don’t say it. I saw my father‘s lips moving but heard nothing over the sudden thump of my pulse. I wanted to melt into the carpet. The earth shifted, a dark chasm opened, and then I was falling and I thought, Good, fine, swallow me up.



―—so I think you can understand that she‘s got some special needs,‖ my father was saying. ―After her hospitalization, we‘d hoped that Turing would be a way for her to start fresh.‖



―This has nothing to do with any of that,‖ said Mr. Anderson. ―We‘re talking about this guy molesting your daughter. Jesus, are you blind, or just stupid? Look at her blouse.



Look at her.‖



―That does it. I‘ve had enough.‖ Dr. Kirby grunted his way to his feet. ―Elliot, I‘ll admit to a bit too much to drink and a misunderstanding, but that‘s all. Now I‘m going home. Tomorrow, I‘m going to sleep late, read the paper, drink coffee, and forget about this. I‘ll see you in the office.‖ He nodded at my mother. ―Emily.‖



When he was gone, Mr. Anderson looked at my father. ―She‘s your daughter.‖



―Yes, she is.‖ My father stood and leaned across his desk to offer his hand. ―I can‘t tell you how grateful I am that you‘ve taken such an interest. Not enough teachers spare the time these days.‖



Mr. Anderson didn‘t move. ―But she‘s your daughter.‖



―Yes. Well.‖ My father‘s smile wobbled and he took back his hand. ―I‘ll just say good night.‖



d



Mr. Anderson asked me to walk him to his car. My father opened his mouth to say no, but then he looked at Mr. Anderson just daring him to do it and so my father, for once, shut up.



Our feet stirred stone as we crunched down the gravel drive toward the road. The night was moonless, and Mr. Anderson only a shadow gliding alongside. It was also colder than I remembered, and an easterly breeze made the bare branches chatter. I shivered and hugged my arms.



―Cold?‖ Mr. Anderson asked.



―I‘m okay.‖



―You say that too much.‖ I heard a soft shoosh of fabric and then Mr. Anderson was draping his jacket around my shoulders.



The leather was warm from his body heat. ―I can‘t. I‘ll be fine. It‘s not that far. It‘s your jacket.‖



―Yes, it is. If it‘ll make you feel better, you can give it back at the car and then shiver all the way back to the house, okay?



Now be gracious and say thank you.‖



―Thank you.‖



―You‘re welcome.‖ Then: ―I‘m sorry, Jenna.‖



All at once, I was that close to tears. I gnawed on my already-raw lower lip. At this rate, I wouldn‘t have any skin left. ―You didn‘t do anything. I should be apologizing to you.‖



―No,‖ he said, his voice rough. ―Don‘t ever say that. You‘ve got nothing to apologize for. I‘m sorry I couldn‘t keep your father from embarrassing you more than . . .‖



He paused. ―Look, nothing your father said makes a difference, all right? You‘re still the same person you were before.‖



―I should explain about what happened last year—‖



―No.‖ His hand reached out of the darkness and touched my shoulder. ―Listen to me, Jenna. What happened doesn‘t matter. It‘s past. I don‘t need to know. All that matters is here and now, you understand? Sometimes it‘s best to let the past go, Jenna. Don‘t get so caught up in looking behind you forget to look ahead.‖



We started walking again. I could feel the words bunching up in my throat. What Mr. Anderson didn‘t understand was...all of a sudden, I wanted to tell him. I wanted him to know me: about Matt and the fire, about the psych ward. I thought of his knife now squirreled in my backpack because it was easier to get at that way and I could keep it close.



I liked the feel of that secret in my hands, and I wanted to confess that, too.



But I said nothing. I let his jacket keep me warm, and I kept my mouth shut.



At his car, he said, ―There‘s something I want you to promise. Anyone touches you, anyone, I want you to call me, you understand? Day or night, makes no difference. Even if it‘s because you only need to talk, I‘ll be there. I‘ll come get you wherever you are. I mean it, Jenna. I‘m here for you. This—‖ His words thrummed with emotion. ―This stuff . . . It‘s crazy; it‘s—‖



―I think my mom is having an affair.‖ The words flew past my teeth and there was no calling them back. ―My dad‘s screwing one of his nurses. Matt‘s gone, and it‘s just me with them, and I‘m scared they‘re going to get a divorce and then I think that would be a good thing.‖



―Oh, Jenna. Oh, honey, I‘m sorry.‖ He took a small step and I thought he might hug me, but it was dark and his face swarmed with shadows. So I‘m not sure, even now. But I will be honest: I wanted a hug. I needed one, so badly. Nothing like that happened, though, and after a second or two, he said, ―Listen, any time you want a break from your folks, you come over to our house, okay? Door‘s open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.



You wouldn‘t be the first.‖



Our house. Right. He was married; I remembered my stupid phone call and wondered why his wife wasn‘t here. I was also very glad he couldn‘t see my face.



―Sure,‖ I said.



e



Psycho-Dad was waiting just inside the front door. ―What did you say to him?‖ he demanded.



―Nothing,‖ I said.



24: a



Sunday, after the party.



At noon, I watched my parents‘ car rumble down the drive. Meryl was sitting in back and only she turned to wave goodbye, which pretty much summed up the general temperature of everyone concerned: chilly, just the near side of frost. I lifted my hand to Meryl and then my father hung a right at the bottom of the drive, tooled up the rise toward the highway, and passed out of sight.



I closed the door, listening to the silence settle in. Before Matt left, our family always made the trip up north to Meryl‘s farm on Madeline Island together. The drive was long, over eight hours, so we‘d stay an extra day or two to kayak on Lake Superior, bicycle around the island, or just hang out on the farm, helping out with the sheep that Meryl raised for wool. Mom said that when I was little, I always cried when we left. That was probably true. I loved Meryl just about as much as I loved my mother, sometimes more.



Still, I was relieved to be left behind, afraid until the moment my father turned the ignition and dropped the car into drive that they might make me come along.



At that point, my parents weren‘t due back until Tuesday night. I had sixty hours of freedom, give or take. Other than homework and running, I didn‘t have a clue what I was going to do with all that time.



It was weird, when you stopped to consider that at this same time last year, I‘d been on a mental ward. So, at best, my parents leaving me alone meant that they completely trusted me.



At the worst—well, I guess you could say they deeply didn‘t care.



Which, I thought, was closer to the truth.



b



For the first two hours, I finished up what little homework I had. I surfed the Internet for a while, looked at my former friends‘ Facebook pages. My own page hadn‘t been updated since before my hospitalization. I didn‘t even look the same. My hair was shorter then, and my breasts barely there. (I was a late bloomer. Mom always said I was an ugly duckling that someday would swan. She might have meant well, but every word drew blood.) Besides, what would I add to my page? Free At Last? Forty-Seven Days Since Last Cut?



Then I remembered Matt. I hadn‘t e-mailed him in days, and that wasn‘t right. But what could I tell him? That I‘d flushed Dr. Kirby‘s hundred dollars down the toilet? That I‘d thought of my old nail scissors but instead clutched the kissing knife as my skin begged? That as badly as I wanted to, I hadn‘t cut and that was because I knew now that Mr. Anderson was the only adult willing to protect me? Fight for me? That he would never, ever hurt me? No, I couldn‘t tell Matt any of this.



There were no DVDs I wanted to watch. We didn‘t own Alien, but I found the final sequence on YouTube, where Sigourney Weaver blasts the alien into space, and turned the music up. Mr. Anderson said it was from Howard Hansen‘s ―Romantic Symphony,‖ so I downloaded that and a couple other tracks: an album of Judy Garland, Duke Ellington. That piano piece by Cyrus Chestnut we‘d listened to the other night. Wagner.



Then, I thought: Go for a run. I‘d mapped out a ten-mile route from the McMansion, but I was restless and wanted something new. Pulling up Google Earth, I searched until I found the address.



Well, Mr. Anderson had said his door was always open.



Time to find out if that was true.



c



County Road J turned out to be mainly rolling farmland, the fields fallow now, the withered stalks plowed under to form dun-colored quilt blocks. Here and there, fields of pumpkins shone an iridescent, impossible orange under that clear, bright, October sun. I passed sad farmhouses and tumble-down barns and listing silos. Other farms were better off, the barns painted a deep russet or a flawless, eye-watering white.



Mr. Anderson‘s mailbox guarded the mouth of a dirt road that snaked north over a rise hemmed by hardwood forest and disappeared. From the map I‘d pulled up on Google Earth, Mr. Anderson owned about a hundred acres and his house perched on the southwestern shore of a large kidney bean of a lake. The Google images had been taken during full summer because all the trees were leafed out and the open fields were a deep emerald green. The woods extended from the lake on all sides and then gave way to open land to the east but more woods running north and west. A small stream drained into the lake at its northernmost point and another coiled away to the south. There seemed to be at least one more building way to the west, almost drowning in the forest, so maybe it was a summer cottage or an old hunting cabin. The nearest house was a good three miles east, but there was parkland off Mr. Anderson‘s property, with another lake and plenty of running trails, and that‘s where I headed.



If you‘re thinking that I was daring something to happen, Bob, you‘d be right. At the time, I told myself that I just needed some new scenery to keep my workouts fresh. But I know the truth. I was hoping I might run into Mr. Anderson on the trails. He said he ran on his property and in the park, and I was a runner and lived sort of out here. So we would just happen to run into each other and then . . .