Come-Out: Coming out or kicking out of a rotation to stop a dive’s momentum to ensure vertical entry into the water.
GP IS carrying an overflowing recycling bin to the curb when I get home. The necks of at least a dozen liquor bottles stick up in all directions like the back of a dinosaur. If he didn’t drink them all today, I might have a chance at getting some answers about the fire, at best. At worst, he’ll confirm my beliefs about Luanne Cole. Any answers will be better than none.
“Thought I might have to send the dumb dog out after you,” he says.
I’m not sure who he means until I spot Belly sitting on the stoop, tongue lolling like she’s run a million miles.
“How long has she been here?” I grab my duffle from the truck and follow GP into the house with Chip’s dog on my heels.
“She showed up about twenty minutes before you, barkin’ and whinin’ like a baby. I called Chip to let him know. Said his Mom would come by and get her later. I think he called her your girlfriend, unless he was talkin’ about someone else.”
“He was talking about the dog.”
Belly starts licking the hurt side of my face the minute I drop my duffle and crouch to unlace my shoes. I pick up a weird pine aroma and sniff her fur, but she smells the way she always does, like chlorine and wet dog. I stand and look for a new air freshener and notice our kitchen is clean. Not two guys living together clean, but shiny sink and mopped floors clean.
But that’s not the weirdest part.
Dinners is on the table. Roast chicken with potatoes and green beans. GP is watching me, his rough hands folded around a cup of coffee. I realize for the first time in months he’s freshly shaven, wearing a clean polo shirt, but neither of those things mask the discomfort on his face.
“Whatcha starin’ at? Ain’t you seen a man without a drink in his hand before?”
“Plenty. But their names never started with Bruce and ended in Mackey. You cooked?”
“Of course I cooked. A man can’t spend thirty years in a firehouse without learnin’ to cook a thing or two.”
“Why?”
“Why? Christ. You like it better when I’m drinkin’?”
“No. It’s good. I’m just asking why the sudden change.”
“Not to get too sentimental or anything, but I got the feelin’ my grandson needed me to clean it up a little. That and Curtis might have given me a hard kick in the ass with an old boot labeled reality.”
There’s something GP’s not telling me. Something that finally convinced him to give up his beloved Jack Daniel’s, which I doubt has anything to do with me asking for help with our family history.
“You gonna eat?” he says. “I ain’t got all night. Curtis is on his way to bring me to an appointment.”
“What kind of appointment?”
“The none-of-your-business kind.”
Nice to know the lack of drinks hasn’t taken the cranky out of him. I take a bite of the chicken and close my eyes, surprised by how good it tastes.
“Your coach called. Said you got into a slap fight with the pool.” He wiggles a finger at his cheek and takes a bite of his dinner.
“Guess you can see who won.”
“You wanna talk about it?”
“Not really. I’d rather talk about Luanne Cole.”
GP’s fork hovers near his mouth. “Luanne Cole?” He questions her name like he can’t put his finger on whether he knows her.
I leave the table to dig into my duffle for the newspaper articles then toss them onto the table in front of GP.
He coughs uncomfortably for a few minutes, then clears his throat and pores over each one, getting the gist of everything I know.
“This is what you came up with for your project?” His voice is reserved calm behind clenched teeth.
“No. Should it be?” He adjusts my curiosity with a stern look. “Someone left them on my truck.” I don’t go into detail about Les because it doesn’t change anything.
GP places everything on the table with shaking hands and leans back. “Kid, you better take a seat.”
“Just rip the bandage off, GP. I’ve had a weird freaking day.”
“It’s about to get weirder so strap your ass back in that seat. You said you needed a goddamn interview for your project. Wanted to know about your mom and her side of the family, right? Well, here it is.”
I blow out a noisy breath. I’m way past giving a shit about this project. But I sit, fingers laced on top of my head.
“You got your own ideas about any of this?” GP asks.
“Yep. And they’re not mutually exclusive,” I tell him. “I’m pretty sure Luanne Cole was the paramedic on duty the night our house burned down.”
“Could be.” GP covers his mouth and gets a faraway look in his eye. “I can have Curtis look into that to be sure.”
“And I think she’s in a relationship with he-ain’t-your-goddamn-Uncle-Phil. I saw her leaving his house wearing a pair of mom’s earrings.”
I slip him the half-lie knowing he’d probably go ape-shit if he knew I went to Green Hill.
“I ain’t too happy about you going over there. But the news about him and her don’t surprise me one bit. The question you oughta be asking yourself is why, because Phil Maddox only clings to people that can get him what he wants till he don’t need ’em anymore. He was always strangely ambitious, even as a kid, but motivated by the wrong things. Control. Jealousy. Recognition.”
I think about the way Uncle Phil said, I am the leading authority on posthypnotic amnesia. Like it wasn’t up for debate. Did he just like the idea of being able to do something Dad couldn’t? Up until I figured out he was messing around with Mom, I only ever saw him as good.
“I need to be in control as a diver,” I press. “And sometimes I get jealous of other guys on my team. Those things aren’t necessarily bad motivators, are they?” Even after everything I’ve learned, part of me still wants to justify his actions.
“Phil always took his jealousy and ambition to a different level. He was willing to do things most normal people wouldn’t.”
My patience snaps. “Is that it? You’re just gonna give me a bunch of anecdotes about why you don’t like Uncle Phil?”
“No, that ain’t it, smarty-pants. But there’s no such thing as black and white when it comes to the stuff you just slapped on my table. So you might want to cool your jets. As much as you favor your mother in the looks department, that fire in your eyes—the one that says you’re gonna burn it all to the ground and ask questions later—you picked that up from someone else. And it ain’t conducive to getting what you want.”
“I don’t even know what that is anymore.” I jiggle my leg to keep from exploding. “A few weeks ago, all I wanted was to ask a girl on a date, uncover enough about my family to get a decent grade on a school assignment, and dive well enough to get to states. Now, I’m pretty sure I’m shit-out-of-luck for a scholarship from the school that suspended Mom. Not that seeing stuff that isn’t there will help my case, since I’m smacking almost every time I dive. So I don’t care if I resemble the queen of England right now as long as you tell me something that makes sense.”
“What do you mean seeing stuff that ain’t there?” GP goes paler than the napkin he’s using to wipe the table.
Shit.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and think fast. “I went back to the site of our old house and had this flashback of seeing Mom outside the house the night of the fire. I know it wasn’t real, but for a second, and I mean a literal second, it felt like she was standing there.”
“And you’re not wondering if maybe she went into the house after you?”
My heart leaps into my throat like a giant frog and lodges there. “Did she?” I croak.
“I don’t know. But your dad asked me the same thing once.” He fills his lips with air so tight the philtrum under his nose puffs. “We can figure out how Luanne Cole fits into all this. But you need to understand a thing or two about who your mother is first.”
“Is?” I raise my eyebrows.
“Jesus Christ. Was. You’re just like Mitch. Drop your damn guard and keep quiet for a minute. I want to tell you a story.”
“A true story?”
“The truest one I know.”
In the small gap of silence, the normal noises in the kitchen amplify: the hum of the fridge, the clank of the ice-maker. But the closest, most audible sound is my own pulse, pumping in my ears.
“Your parents met when your mother was in college,” GP begins. “Did you know that?”
I nod, mouth held tight.
“She made an appointment with your dad, hoping he could help her overcome some performance anxiety and he prescribed some attention-deficit disorder drugs. Turned out she needed more than that. Much more. She saw Mitch privately for two years before they got hitched.” He takes a swig of coffee, then clears his throat. “Sophia and Mitch. That girl was an answer to a prayer. I don’t think she ever wanted to hide the fact that she was special. And she didn’t, not from us. But your mother was something different all right. Beautiful and fierce, but different. She’d come visit me ’bout once a month or so, tell me all the things she saw in the future. Bad things. Good things. At first I thought she was just prone to storytellin’. But it turned out she needed to talk about it or she’d go insane holdin’ the truth inside.”
“Things in the future like predictions or her fears?”
“Both. Your mother knew things before they’d happen. Outta the blue. And she was usually right.”
“Right. She used to help Dad with his clients.”
“That was a good way to tame her anxiety,” GP says. “But she knew other things too.”
The room expands around me, pulled by the little threads of memory I’ve regained.
Broke my arm in two places at Sully’s house three hours later.
“Don’t blurt out everything you see, okay? Not everyone will understand.”
“What won’t they understand?” I asked.
“You.” Mom ruffled my hair. “If you see that girl again, promise you’ll let me know, okay? I’ll be looking for her too.”
I’ve been feeling anxious about my own flashbacks and freak-outs lately. Especially the similarities between the girl with dark hair and body tattoos and Iris. But Rocco wasn’t dead in the water. My mom wasn’t really sitting in an empty room underwater.
“You listenin’ to me?” GP asks. “Where the hell did you go?”
“I’m listening.” I bounce my knee, trying to wake my legs, which have drained of blood.
“Anyway, your mother had a rough start in life. Her adoptive parents discovered early on that their little girl wasn’t all sugar and spice. Especially after she came home from a diving lesson and told them her coach was gonna die. Now, to hear Sophia tell it, this coach was healthy as a horse, an exercise enthusiast who had no intention of becoming ill, let alone dying. But within a few weeks…” He snaps his fingers. “Dead and gone. Pulmonary embolism. Your mother was ten years old the first time her parents admitted her to a psychiatric hospital. They released Sophia after a six-month stint. Once your mother learned to keep her mouth shut about things. She managed to keep that sham going till she was fifteen. Told me she put all her energy into gymnastics and diving, but the restraint nearly ate her alive. Then later that year, right before she turned sixteen, she was hiking with some friends and fell into a river. Said when she hit the water—bang—she had a vision of another diver she knew laying dead on a patch of grass. The girl’s face swollen and distorted. Sophia had to force herself not to tell a single soul. Can you imagine living with that?”
Yes and no.
“Did her vision or whatever come true?” I swallow the bone-dry lump forming in my throat.
“Not right away. Not for another three months. Enough time for your poor mother to believe maybe they cured her in that hospital. But that girl she saw was home alone one afternoon. Went into the garden to pick flowers and stepped on a wasps’ nest. Got stung a bunch. Bad. She died before she ever made it inside for help. When they broke the news to your mother, she nearly lost her mind. Because she knew, you see, and never told. Well, it was straight back to the hospital for Sophia. Worst part is the Rogans washed their hands of her after that. Just up and abandoned her at the hospital like some unwanted pet.”
I think of the people buried on the grounds at Green Hill and take a sip of water to keep the lump in my throat from rising in my throat again.
“Your mother was made a ward of the state and sent into the foster care system. She never mentioned her visions, or what have you, again. But at twenty-two-years-old the pressure from school and collegiate-level diving piled on. She felt like she might have a psychotic break. But the truth was she had predicted terrible tragedies before they happened and couldn’t handle the guilt.”
Jeezus.
“She had your dad’s full attention after that, not to mention that of his best friend. For different reasons. Phil was whisperin’ in your dad’s ear about potential research in psychiatry. But your father maintained that Sophia was a victim of trauma and needed help redirecting her focus to the right things. Shortly after, Phil was offered a residency at the hospital here in Ellis Hollow with a group that specialized in abnormal psychiatry. He jumped at that opportunity, quickly leading one of their research teams and moving up the ranks. It was clear Sophia admired Phil’s drive and success. Mitch was workin’ with student athletes at the time and offered her what a workaholic like Phil couldn’t, the promise of stability. But it wasn’t for lack of pursuit on Phil’s part. It might be hard for you to understand this, but it is possible for a person to love two people at the same time. After you do some growin’ up, though, you realize you can’t have it all. At the end of the day, choices need to be made. And your mother chose Mitch. Everything seemed hunky-dory until she got pregnant with you and predicted your gender, your hair and eye color…” A clouded look settles into his eyes.
“And?”
“And you arrived exactly as she predicted. All the way down to those moles on your cheek.”
“What the hell?” I slump against the back of the chair. “I thought she left school because she was pregnant. But now, with that article … Are the two related?”
“I can’t be sure. But at least now we’re gettin’ somewhere,” he says.
I think about Luanne saying she felt something from me. And that other doctor saying Philomax raised levels of perception.
“Do you think maybe Luanne Cole can predict things like Mom and that’s why Uncle Phil likes her?”
“That ain’t really the million-dollar question here, is it?”
“No.”
The million-dollar question is: can I?
Thanks to Mr. Malone.
Muffled bird tweets come up from under the table two seconds before a knock at the door sends Belly rushing to investigate.
My grandfather pulls out his phone and his nostrils flare beneath hard eyes. “You expectin’ someone?”
“No. I figured it was Curtis.”
His face darkens. “Phil Maddox is on the stoop.” GP shoves the articles under a fishing magazine. “Tell him I ain’t home if he asks.”
I move with the same jerky motions as the receptionist at Green Hill, unsure which way to go.
“You’re the one who opened this can worms,” GP says. “Time for you to learn how to play a little game called business as usual. ’Cause I doubt he’s gonna go away if you don’t, seeing as he ain’t had the nerve to show his face here in years.”
“Are you gonna leave?”
“I’m gonna go to my appointment, like I said.”
He walks away, leaving me to open the door like everything is normal.
When I see Uncle Phil my arms and legs go numb. It takes serious effort to pull my shit together and present the Theo who’s good at fulfilling expectations.
“You left the hospital without coming to see me,” he says.
“Yeah, sorry about that. I had my friend Iris with me, and her dad called and told her she needed to get home ASAP.” I look over my shoulder for GP.
“I should have told you bringing friends to Green Hill isn’t something we normally allow. There are strict visitation policies. Not to mention the issues of liability we have to consider.”
“Understood. I won’t let it happen again.” He looks past me like a vampire waiting to be invited inside.
“Is your grandfather home?”
Every instinct in my body has me primed to lie. “I just got here. He could be holed up in his office, but I haven’t heard him banging around in there or anything.”
“I couldn’t help noticing the plethora of empty bottles at the curb. It’s always interesting to me how some people feel safest behind locked doors when others want to be free. Regardless of whether those doors are physical or the ones we construct in our minds.”
“Did you come all the way over here just to tell me not to bring friends with me?” I ask. “Isn’t that kind of risky, considering how GP feels?”
“Actually, I was hoping we might initiate a reunion. I’d like the opportunity to speak with him about your treatment and the possibility of you coming to stay at Green Hill. Seeing as he isn’t here, though, I think it’s safe to give you these.” He reaches into his pocket and hands me a new prescription bottle. “I wanted to ensure you had enough for the Andover meet on Friday.”
“Are you coming to that?”
“I’d be a fool to miss it. But Theo, as pleased as I am that the Adderall is helping, I’m afraid my resources for acquiring information about your mother’s family have run out. The photos I gave you seem to be the best I can do.”
“No worries,” I say. “GP filled me in on all things Rogan. Plus, Chip and I are going over to Andover Prep tomorrow to ask about her school records. I’ll figure it out in the end. Adapt or perish.”
The slightest curve of amusement lifts one corner of his mouth. “I have no doubt. The ability to adapt to a change in conditions is sometimes all it takes to succeed. My research colleague often reminds me of his affinity for Darwinism. Survival of the fittest.”
“Dr. Aldridge?”
The name spills out of my mouth before I can think fast enough to stop myself.
Uncle Phil studies me for a long beat, his face an expressionless mask, and I start sweating bullets.
“Have you two met?”
“No. I think I remember you mentioning him, though.”
“Yes, well, I should probably get back to the hospital,” he says. “Dr. Aldridge and I have a big research project on the verge of breaking, and much to discuss.” He makes a move to leave and stops. “There is one other thing. The nurse who took your blood today said she found your behavior somewhat erratic. Is there anything you want to tell me? Anything you’d like to ask?”
Loads. But I do what GP said and keep up business as usual, with a twist.
“Not really,” I lie. And then drop another lure just to see if he’ll bite. “I thought she was top-notch at her job. Once she stuck that needle into my arm my mind went to everything other than what was happening in that room at the time.”
Uncle Phil tilts his head. “Perhaps having Iris with you was a comfort. Some women wield an incomprehensible power. Especially those who possess a certain magic.” He reaches into his trench coat pocket for his keys. Tell your grandfather I’m eager to speak with him about your treatment.”
“I’d rather not, Uncle Phil. I don’t think it’ll go over the way you think.”
“Very well then. You and I can continue meeting privately untill you’re ready to discuss it with him yourself.”
When Uncle Phil reaches his Escalade he pauses to look back at GP’s house like he knows I’m lying. But he does a good job faking it with a wave.
I lean against the back of the door and exhale every bit of air in my lungs. Then I head back to the kitchen with the intention of sending GP a text, but see he got to me first.
Won’t be home till late. Keep up business as usual until I can hunt down some answers on Luanne Cole.
I’m good at fulfilling expectations but I can’t wait that long.
I grab my laptop and search as many keywords as I can think of that might pull up something about my mom’s suspension from the Stanford team. Nothing. I switch to googling Luanne Cole + diver, Luanne Cole + paramedic, looking for a connection to Uncle Phil. Nada. I try Philomax. Zilch. I search Dr. Phillip Maddox and the page fills with returns but every topic is in praise of his excellence. I stare at the blinking cursor trying to come up with different sets of search parameters until I fall asleep.