“He’s smoking weed, Sash. Don’t overreact. I mean, you just laid it out. Handing over money, a smoke shop, a fight at school. The construction paper thing seems like a giant leap, so I would just punish him like any other kid caught smoking weed. I think you’re really going off the deep end here over nothing,” he says, and on one hand she really wants him to be right, but on the other, she knows he’s not. If it is drugs, it’s way worse than weed; she knows that after what she just encountered.
She’s not sure what she was expecting from Raffy. Maybe she just needed someone on her side. She doesn’t want Tom to know. She wants Drew and Tom to be close and not for Drew to be a delinquent that Tom can never connect with. She doesn’t want a pieced-together family. Shit. Coming here was useless. She knows every time she comes that she will leave with a stone on her chest and an emptiness in her gut, but each time, she just hopes so badly that something willbe different. That she’ll see the face of that man she used to know. Just one more time.
But now, Raffy starts to nod off, and the bottle in his hand spills onto his lap as his grip around it weakens. She takes the bottle and places it on the table and then gets up to leave.
She uses the front door on her way out but just before she opens it, she sees something on the bench next to the front door. Drew’s new school backpack. Drew, who Raffy hasn’t seen in months.
Chapter Eighteen
Andi
“Do you know why I pulled you over?” the officer asks after I’ve handed him my license and insurance card. I know I’m ghostly white in the driver’s seat of my car, and I’m wondering if I should run—wondering if I should just slam my foot on the gas before he can get to his car so I’d have a head start. I could just drive. I could go to Mexico. There has to be a way out. Fuck! I can’t answer him because if I do, if I open my mouth, I might throw up, so I just shake my head and he gives me a puzzled look.
I’m sweating and I know the blood has drained from my face. I see it register in his expression that I don’t look right. He looks past me at the passenger seat and then glances in the back.
“Can you step out of the car, please?” he asks. I could die. I don’t respond. I can’t. I don’t know what to do. “Ma’am.Are you okay?” he asks, opening the door for me. I nod and then I slowly unclick my seat belt and step out of the car and stand, leaning against it to hold myself up because if I don’t, I’m afraid I might actually faint. My head is buzzing and light and I’m swallowing down waves of nausea.
“Fine,” I choke out. And then I’m so overcome with terror and adrenaline that I can’t hold it in any longer and I lean over and retch. I vomit so violently that it covers the officer’s boots before he can move out of the way.
“Jesus,” he says. “Have you been drinking?” He steps back and leans a hand against the hatchback of my vehicle only inches away from where Tia’s body lies. I don’t say anything for a moment.
“Are you intoxicated, ma’am?” he asks again.
“No, I—I have the flu,” I say, but he looks at me with skepticism. He looks at my license and then back at me.
“You live at least twenty miles that way,” he says, nodding back the way I came. “Where are you going tonight if you’re that sick?”
“I was going to the... Halloween Superstore near Walton. For my kids. It just sort of came on suddenly,” I say, shaking so badly, I have to keep my hands in my pockets so he can’t see.
“Get back in the vehicle while I run your license, please.” He waits for me to get in and close the door before he walks back to his car, the windshield wipers squeaking and the misty rain sparkling in his headlights. I wonder if this is the last moment I’ll ever know freedom. I look up at the moon trying to peek through the clouds and I listen to the treetops rustling in the wind and I ache. This is it. This is my last moment before I’m locked away forever. I think again about screeching away and trying to outrun him, but there’s nowhere to run.
After a few minutes, he returns and hands my ID back. Then he steps back from my car door.
“Exit the vehicle please,” he says, and I surrender. I step out. He takes a small flashlight and shines it in my eyes. Then asks me to walk ten steps in a straight line. He points in the direction for me to take and I realize that this is a field sobriety test. Of course it is. I puked on his shoes. I take the ten steps and then he directs me to take ten steps back toward him, so I do. He asks me to move my head side to side while keeping my eyes fixed straight ahead and I do. He looks slightly surprised that I appear sober.
Then, to my shock, he tears a ticket off the pad on his clipboard and hands it to me.
“If you get your taillight fixed in the next seven days, you can get this dismissed. There’s a website to go to for that,” he says. I stare at him. I think my mouth is hanging open.
“I... can go?” I ask.
“I’d suggest going home and getting in bed, not shopping and giving everyone the flu, but yeah. Have a good night.” And then he disappears in the glare of his headlights and his car door slams closed and he drives away.
I almost fall to my knees in the wet grass next to my car when he’s gone. My nerve endings are buzzing with electricity, and my knees are weak and it’s all I can do to keep myself standing and fall into the warmth of my running car and stare out the front window in a stunned silence for a few minutes. I don’t move. I can’t think. How am I even free? The disbelief and revelation of it paralyzes me.
I listen to the drizzle tap the hood of my car and wait. Wait to make sure he’s not coming back maybe, or to get the courage up to finish what I started. But after several minutes have goneby, I realize I haven’t seen a car pass. A cold wind has picked up and nobody is out on these wet roads, so I just have to do it.
Thick sugar maples and white oak line the two-lane road for miles and even though I can’t see the river from my window, I know it’s only a few yards through the trees to my right, so I make my move. I pull as far into the clearing between the trees as I’m able, then turn off my car and lights and wait again in the silence. There won’t be a better time. I click my hatch and hear the hiss of the hydraulics as it opens. Then I pull my hood over my head, jump out and peer into the back of my car, and there’s Tia’s wrapped body. Every time I see it, there is the same jolt of panic and shame, but I have to hurry now. I can’t sit with it or second-guess.
Pulling her out is proving much easier than lifting her up into the car, which was a nightmare. I grab onto the band of duct tape at her feet and she falls easily from the trunk onto the ground with a crack that makes me want to sob.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry,” I mumble to her again as I pull her through the rotting leaves and underbrush. I hadn’t thought about the marks the weight of her body would leave through the mud and I’ll have to cover it on the way back, which sets my mind reeling. Twigs snap under my feet and the cold bites even through my coat as I pull and try to keep my grip on the slippery tarp, straining and heaving the weight of her. I have to stop and catch my breath a couple of times. Even though it’s a short distance, it’s so much harder than I thought, but I’m fueled by fear and adrenaline and so I push through the pain in my back and my burning lungs until I meet the water’s edge.
Then I stand with my heart pounding. The rain drums on the treetop canopy and rinses my face and Tia just lies there,impossibly lifeless and still. God help me for what I’m about to do. I pull a couple of rocks loose from the mud—they’re the size of footballs maybe, and I push one under the folds in the tarp. Then a second and a third. I’m praying the extra weight helps. And then I do it. I close my eyes and I push her body into the rushing water and when I open them, I see her sink gently as the powerful current washes downstream.
And then I fucking run. I run as the rain picks up; it’s already covering over the drag marks her body made and I’m so grateful for this I could cry. I run, ducking branches and pulling the weight of my heavy rain boots. I try not to let out the scream that is crawling up my throat and I force myself to keep running, gasping for breath and aching until I reach my car and I pull away as fast as I possibly can and drive home, breathless, tears blurring my vision and my lungs blazing. I don’t look back.
When I pull into the garage, I see Carson standing in the door frame leading from the garage to the kitchen. He’s waiting for me, which makes my heart speed up. He looks behind him and then closes the door and stands on the concrete step waiting for me to park. When I do, he slips into the passenger seat and it’s so unexpected I just stutter over my words. I can’t run or clean up all of the mud and smeared makeup. I just look at him.
