Riley relit the joint and passed it to Helen. Nate gave her a quick frown. She took a deep hit, let the smoke seep out of her lungs as she smiled at Nate. “A colony of albino deer?” Helen said. “I hate to say it, but a ghost almost seems more likely.”
Riley smiled.
Nate narrowed his eyes, shook his head, and stood up. “I’m gonna go look it up. Do some research.”
“Sounds good,” Helen said. “Enjoy.”
They watched Nate jog back down the hill to the trailer, like walking wasn’t fast enough.
“Nate’s not a big believer in the supernatural, I guess,” Riley said as she lit a second joint, then took a hit.
“He’s very evidence-based. Scientific.”
“Not everything can be explained with science,” Riley said, passing the joint to Helen. Helen looked at the tattoos on Riley’s arms: a crow skull, an Egyptian ankh, a dragon encircling her left upper arm. Or was it a gargoyle?
“I agree completely,” Helen said. She thought of Hattie appearing in her kitchen last night. She was contemplating telling Riley about it when Riley changed the subject.
“I think it’s great that Olive’s spending so much time with you two,” Riley said.
“She’s a good kid,” Helen said. “And she’s really been a huge help with the house.”
“The truth is I’m kind of worried about her,” Riley admitted.
“How so?”
“My brother, her dad, Dustin, you’ve met him, right?”
Helen shook her head. It was a little strange. You’d think he’d be interested to see where his daughter was spending so much spare time, would want to stop in just to make sure she and Nate weren’t obvious perverts or drug addicts or anything.
“Not yet,” she told Riley. “We told Olive we wanted the two of them to come to dinner, but it sounds like he’s kind of busy lately so we haven’t found a time to make it work.”
Olive had offered one excuse after another: her dad was too tired, he was working overtime, he was busy with house renovations. Helen had started to wonder if there might be something else going on. Maybe he was an alcoholic? Or just antisocial?
“Busy?” Riley quipped, shaking her head. “I doubt it. The truth is Dustin hasn’t really been the same since Lori took off. He’s kind of a mess, actually.”
Helen took the joint again, said, “Oh no. I had no idea. Olive hasn’t told us much about her mother.”
That was an understatement. Olive hadn’t really said word one about her mom at all, except to repeat a couple of stories she’d heard from her about Hattie. Helen knew Olive’s mom wasn’t in the picture but hadn’t yet figured out why.
“Yeah,” Riley said. “I’m not surprised. I mean, it’s one thing to leave your husband, right? But your kid? Poor Olive. My heart freaking breaks for her.”
“Was there another man?” Helen asked, worried she was crossing the line, but the pot loosened her tongue.
Riley nodded, looked away.
“No one’s heard from her?” Helen asked.
Riley shook her head, blue bangs falling into her eyes. “No. It’s fucked up. She and I were like—like best friends. Did everything together. It was likeThe Lori and Riley Show,you know? That’s what Dustin used to say. Then she just…took off.”
She looked away, eyes shining with tears. Then she took a deep breath and went on.
“Anyway, Dustin’s been a wreck. He spends all his free time tearing his house apart and putting it back together again. He says he wants to fix it up to surprise Lori when she gets home. Like she’s coming home. And like having a bigger bedroom and a brand-new living room is seriously going to get her to stay, right?” She rubbed at a small hole in her jeans, worrying the fabric, making it bigger.
“That seems so sad,” Helen said, imagining the poor guy constantly fixing things up, thinking that if he just gets it right, maybe his wife will come home and will want to stay this time. She wondered if Olive believed this, too, or if she was just going along with all the work to help keep her dad busy, to give him hope.
“Yeah, but the worst part is he’s so caught up in his grief over Lori leaving him that he’s not really paying much attention to Olive. I hear she barely showed up at school the whole final semester. She somehow managed to ace most of her tests and handed in homework from time to time, so she got passing grades, but from what I hear, it’s lucky they’re letting her move on to tenth grade in the fall. I’ve got a friend in the guidance department there.”
“And Dustin doesn’t know this?”
