“We’re an official, tax-exempt church,” Christine said. “And I’m an official Church representative, and the Healing is an official Church ceremony. We’re completely legitimate — why can’t you accept that I’m here to help?”
Wendy fingered her stolen twig. The leaves felt smooth and soft and gently sticky; the berries were hard and cool. Her uncle’s salvation, if Christine was to be believed, was lying right here in her hand. She thought of all the people who’d tried to rescue her when her mother had been sick, teachers and neighbors and friends’ parents who’d held out their hands and tried to help. But all along she’d known that the salvations being offered were not her salvation, that whatever she needed was beyond their ability to give. Christine couldn’t help them, and her twigs and powders couldn’t help Grunkie. But perhaps there was something she and Win and her cousins could do themselves.
An idea had been forming in her mind while Lise and Christine spoke, and in the pause that followed, it rose to Wendy’s lips and escaped like a bubble. “We ought to go after them.”
“You could do that,” Christine said. “If you chose. You’re old enough to know your own mind.”
The others turned to look at Wendy, and Wendy focused on them and tuned out Christine. “Mom and Dad can’t do anything together,” she said. “You know how they trip each other up. Even if they find Grunkie and Uncle Henry, Mom will mess up anything Dad figures out, and Dad won’t be able to get Mom to agree to do anything.”
Delia, after a guilty look at Lise, chimed in, “And our father’s out of his mind. Honest to God — he’s dangerous. I don’t know what he’s doing, but I know he can’t take care of Grunkie the way Grunkie needs. I’m not saying we should bring Grunkie back here — but at least if we could find them, we could maybe keep Dad from getting arrested. Or worse — what if he smacks up the van the way he smacked up his car?”
“Except,” Win said dryly, “except that you don’t know where any of them are.”
“But we do,” Wendy said. “You saw those maps Dad showed us — he was all excited about that land.”
“What land?” Lise asked.
“This land in Massachusetts, where Grunkie grew up. He told your father and my mother he was leaving each of them half of it, and your father got all excited about it, or at least that’s what my mother says, and then my father got all excited, too — he showed us these maps of the reservoir the land’s on, or under or near or something, and then …”
Rumors, lies, and speculations, she thought as her voice trailed away. She knew those; they were what fueled half her waking hours. She told herself she was not falling under their spell but combating them actively. If she found her family and herded them home she’d be doing something real, which might reverse the events her mother’s phone call had set in motion. She might be able to unwind the day and set them all back to the place where they’d been before.
“But we don’t have the maps,” Win said.
“But I remember,” Wendy said. “Sort of. Don’t you? All we have to do is head for the reservoir. We could find it on a road map, and once we were there we could figure out the rest.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Win said.
“Completely,” Lise agreed.
But Christine was smiling at her broadly. “What an intelligent young woman you are,” she said, and Wendy’s skin prickled in warning. “You’d be doing your mother a favor if you could help her out, keep your father from interfering — and you’d be helping your great-uncle, too. I need to see him very soon.”
“This is my idea,” Wendy said. “We’re not going because of you.” She turned to Delia. “Would you come with me?”
“I guess.” Delia looked at her sister nervously. “You can’t go by yourself. Maybe Roy …”
“I’ll drive,” Roy said. “If you have to go, we’ll take my car. You’ve had too much to drink.”
“If you think you’re taking off at this hour with these two girls …,” Lise said.
“You can come,” Roy said mildly. “If you want.”
“I’m not staying here alone,” Win said. He tilted his head toward Christine. “Not with her.”
“I’ll stay here,” Christine said. “Keep an eye on things.”
She smiled at Wendy again, but Wendy ignored her. This wasn’t Christine’s idea, it had nothing to do with her. They weren’t going after Grunkie just to bring him back to Christine. They were going, she thought, because their parents were children; because they were confused and lost and destructive and incapable of caring for themselves. They were so busy chasing after a past they couldn’t recover that they couldn’t see what was happening right in front of their eyes. Somewhere, she knew, her mother was sitting next to her father and pretending they were still married — wishing, dreaming. Undoing everything she’d spent four years working through. Somewhere her uncle Henry was trying to fix his life by tunneling back to the years before he’d wrecked it.
They’d always been that way — she and Win had known that for years, and now Lise and Delia knew it too. Their parents weren’t like other parents because they had no parents of their own. Sometimes, when she and Win had been living with their father, she had tried to imagine growing up without her parents, in the care of two people as old as Grunkie. Sometimes she tried to imagine the moment her mother had once described, when strangers had come for her and Henry and said, “Come with us. Your parents have been in an accident.” Then, for brief stretches, she’d been able to understand her mother’s quirks.
Their parents needed looking after, and watching over, and she and Win and Lise and Delia were going to rescue them and bring them home. This time it wouldn’t turn out the way it had when she and Win were children. They were adults now, capable and smart. They could fix whatever it was that had gone wrong, and when they were done they could put the past behind them and move on.
“Let’s go,” she said. “If we’re going. They’re hours ahead of us.” She went into the living room and grabbed her flipflops, a light jacket, and the big embroidered bag. The dolls looked forlorn, propped against the pizza boxes, and at the last minute she took them with her as well.
21
SOMEONE HAD WANTED THE RESTAURANT TO LOOK OLD. THE outside was clothed in the same white concrete as the sporting goods store and the discount outlet, but inside someone had paneled the walls with barn boards and installed ceiling fans and a long, scarred wooden bar with brass footrails. The tables were round and sturdy and the chairs were soft; the pink glass of the sconces cast a kind light on the middle-aged crowd. Wiloma had had two margaritas already, although she hadn’t had more than a glass of wine in years. And after the long, dark drive, and the excitement of finding the park at the reservoir’s southern tip, and then the disappointment of discovering that the Visitors’ Center was closed until ten on Sunday morning, the drinks had hit her like a hammer.
She and Waldo had arrived too late for a real dinner; their waitress, no older than Wendy, had offered them a snack menu composed almost entirely of batter-fried foods. Fried onion rings, fried zucchini, fried mushrooms and mozzarella sticks — the potato skins had seemed like the safest bet, but the orange cheese stuck to her teeth like gum and left a waxy film on her tongue. She looked across the table to Waldo and he said, “Another?” Before she could stop him, he’d ordered a new round of drinks.
He was at home here, Wiloma saw, at ease with the waitresses, familiar with the crowd and the food. She wondered if Sarah often brought him to places like this. He touched her hand lightly and said, “Those skins okay? I’m sorry we couldn’t get something more substantial.”