The Dead Enders Read online

  The bus driver is already on his radio, calling for an ambulance, when the medic says, “The cord is wrapped twice around its throat.”

  The delivery is a miracle, the doctors say later. How the medic was able to bring that baby into the world and unwind the cord in the process—a miracle. But the fact remains that when the baby is out, five minutes later, her throat is free from the rope that threatened to pull her under, anchor her inside her mother’s body.

  The college students cheer, though their faces blanch at the metallic scent of blood and body that has filled the bus. The onion worker speaks quickly in the new mother’s first language, offering up a rapid-fire prayer. The first old woman holds up her knitting: a tiny hat. The second old woman holds out a prune to the girl, who takes it. The third woman doesn’t react at all. Her hands keep twisting, twisting, twisting.

  It’s the making of a country song. And it’s easy to want to take something away from the story of my birth. A message, perhaps, about surviving against the odds. That’s the way my mother’s presented it all these years. “You fought your way here,” she says. “I knew you’d always work hard for what you wanted.”

  Here’s what I take away from it: My entrance to the world was a series of lucky coincidences. If the army medic hadn’t been there, if my mother hadn’t screamed so loud that the bus driver heard her through the Led Zeppelin playing on his headphones, if she’d hitchhiked, like she’d planned, I might not have made it. Everything about my birth comes down to luck.

  Dumb luck.

  • • •

  When I get home from the Den, it’s late afternoon. I don’t see Mom. She’s probably still at work. Some resort towns have more spas than restaurants, but Gold Fork’s not like that. It only has one spa, located on the top floor of our town’s tallest building—the Gold Fork Grand Hotel. Six stories up, you can sit in one of the Adirondack chairs around the glassed-in four-season pool and look out over the lake all the way to the mountains at the northern end and, beyond them, the jagged charcoal line of even larger peaks. When I was younger, they used to let Mom bring me with her on days she couldn’t find childcare. She’d set me up in one of the massage rooms with some colored pencils and paper and a monogrammed towel to sit on—THE HARBOR SPA—and she’d come check on me every ninety minutes, between customers. I loved the smell of those rooms, jasmine and lavender and other essential oils staining the cuffs of my shirt when I reached into the little pots that each masseuse kept lined up neatly next to the extra stack of towels.

  She works odd hours, sometimes not going in until noon, sometimes staying as late as ten. Wedding parties and national holidays are the worst. Last weekend, for example. Memorial Day. I haven’t seen her since.

  “Remind me never to book back-to-backs on Memorial Day afternoon,” she says, surprising me by padding through the kitchen in her slippers. She looks hungover, but I know it’s just fatigue. “Coffee?”

  “I’ll put it on,” I say, moving to the pot by the stove. My stomach is rumbling, but I know better than to ask about dinner. I’ll just make some noodles later. “I didn’t think you were home.”

  “Been sleeping since noon.” She sits at the table and rubs at her eyes. Her skin, darker than mine, looks worn and dull. Neither of us says much until the coffee’s ready. I pour each of us a cup and sit next to her. “Thanks, mija.” After she takes a sip, she puts the cup down and rests her forehead in her hands. “God. I was just about to walk out at six yesterday when we get a call from one of the rooms. Woman in town with her husband for some weeklong corporate retreat wants an eight p.m. massage. Carl looks at me—I’m the only one left at that point—and says I’ll do it. He’s on the phone with that woman and agreeing for me and I’m standing right there, shaking my head no. Can you believe that crap?”

  I make all the right noises, but the truth is, yes. Yes I can believe that Carl, the slimy spa manager, would sign Mom up for more work when she’s been putting in ten-hour days all weekend long. Because that’s what he always does. But Mom will never quit. Why would she? Working at the Harbor Spa is one of the best gigs in town, as she likes to say. And, as she also likes to point out, it keeps a roof over our heads.

  Some roof, I like to say in return.

  Mom’s still complaining about work. “I mean, the nerve.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  She narrows her eyes at me. “You’re not even listening.” Then she smiles. “I guess I don’t blame you.” She stands and shuffles over to the pantry cupboard, opening it and peering inside at the ramen, cans of tomato sauce, boxes of off-brand mac and cheese that we brought back from Walmart’s grand opening last week. She sighs and shuts the cupboard door. “I’m not that hungry,” she says. “You?”

  I shrug. “I’ll get something later.”

  “Oh. Well, okay. If you say so.”

  Sometimes I think about telling her that she’s a bad actor, that she’s never been able to hide her relief whenever I say I’ll take care of things. But what good would that do? She’d just feel bad. And I’d just continue to make dinner, do the shopping, make sure the apartment’s all locked up before bed on the nights she works late. We each have our roles, as scripted as a fairy tale. Only this one doesn’t have a magical godmother who fixes things with a wave of her wand. There’s only me.

  “You visit Vera today?” asks Mom, sitting back down.

  I nod. Then, before she asks, I say, “The same. She doesn’t remember.”

  • • •

  I tried again today. Before I headed to the Den, I went to the Royal Pines Home for Assisted Living and Skilled Care. I usually go on Wednesdays and Fridays because that’s what Abigail and I agreed on when she hired me, but lately I’ve been visiting more often. Vera had what the doctors called a “mini-stroke” last month, and even though she seems fine, I’ve been worried.

  And besides, I’m trying to find her daughter, and Vera’s the only one who can help me.

  Vera is a lovely woman, even at ninety-two. She reminds me of French linens in a bed-and-breakfast—the kind with a canopy bed, a little tea set on a tiny round table. She’s always wearing something pressed and tailored, like a filmy dress or a white blouse. She exudes care and wealth and manners. But the pictures from her younger days are just stunning. Someone (probably a nurse) has tacked a whole bunch of photos up on a bulletin board by her sink and mirror, and I like to ask her to identify the people in them. She can always identify herself, though she sometimes struggles with her daughters.

  “Grand Canyon!” she said today, pointing to a black-and-white photo of herself on the edge of a cliff. “Lewis took me for our honeymoon.”

  “You’re so beautiful,” I said, like I always do. “You look like royalty.” And she did. She was a tall woman, perfect cheekbones, perfect hair.

  “They called me Princess Grace,” she said, “because I looked like Grace Kelly.”

  “I bet they did,” I said. I took down another photo. “What about this one?”

  The photo had the kind of orangey tint that pictures from the seventies tend to have. Vera, gorgeous in a summer dress, was sitting outside, one ankle crossed over the other. She was flanked by her young daughters, who stood behind their mother, a hand on each shoulder. I’ve seen this photo countless times, but I’m always shocked and mesmerized to see that one daughter is prettier than the other. Remarkably so. One girl is tall and thin, the spitting image of her mother, and the other is shorter, almost egg-shaped. She has dishwater-brown hair, not the lustrous mahogany of her mother and sister. Her smile in the photo is in the process of turning back.

  “So this is Kathryn,” I said, pointing to the tall one, “and that’s Abigail.”

  Vera nodded slowly. “My daughters?” she asked.

  We were two archeologists, sifting through the rubble. Making guesses. Naming bones.

  “I think so.” I pointed again to Kathryn, the tall one. “Does Kathryn live nearby?”

  “Who?” she said. Her cloudy eyes focu
sed on the egg-shaped daughter. “Abigail never was a beauty,” she said.

  I was shocked at how flat her voice was, like she was stating an uncomfortable but necessary fact, like: The toilet upstairs is clogged, or You’re going to have to get a bigger bra size.

  “Oh,” I said. “You know, I . . .”

  “Who’s that?” Vera pointed to the bulletin board.

  “Where?” I looked at the pictures, touching each one lightly until she said, “Yes. There. Who’s that?”

  The picture was more recent—probably from the early or midnineties. Vera, seated, was holding a baby on her lap. Abigail, the egg-shaped daughter, was standing next to her with the same smile she’d had twenty years before.

  “My baby!” said Vera, stretching a shivering finger toward the infant in the photo.

  “Isn’t that Abigail’s baby?” I asked. “Isn’t this when she brought her son to Seattle to visit you? And you and Abigail”—I tapped the photo—“had lunch together at that French restaurant?”

  “I suppose it was,” Vera said, doubt creeping into her voice. “Yes,” she said more forcefully. “It was. But who is that?” she asked, pointing to the baby.

  “I think you told me once that’s Abigail’s little boy,” I said. “Your grandson.” I nodded and smiled, encouraging her to claim this fact as her own. She’s never been able to remember his name, and I’ve learned to stop asking her to try.

  “He is,” she said, nodding back at me. “That’s right. He’s . . .” She peered at the photo. “Oh, he must be around one and a half now.” She looked again. “No, that’s not right.” She glanced up at me. “He’s at least two.”

  I let her have it. What would it matter if she knew he’s probably my age by now, if not in his twenties? Why remind her, even for a fleeting second, that she’s as alone in this world as a person can be? More alone, in fact, than someone who never had a family. Because she had one—has one—and it’s what the word “has” implies, and the pages and pages of blank spaces next to her name in the visitors’ log, that makes Vera the loneliest woman at the Royal Pines.

  • • •

  “If she can just remember,” I say to my mom now, “I can get in touch with Kathryn. I mean, Abigail made it clear she doesn’t want to have anything to do with Vera—aside from paying me to sit with her—so it has to be Kathryn.”

  “If Kathryn hasn’t come back to see her mother yet, it’s possible she doesn’t want to be found,” says my mom.

  “Maybe,” I say, “but maybe she lives in another country. Or maybe she and Abigail had a fight, and she doesn’t know where Vera is.” It probably sounds far-fetched, but I don’t care. “Vera knows where she is,” I say. “I know she does. She just has to remember.”

  My mom smiles, shaking her head. “It’s a fool’s errand, mija. She doesn’t even know what year it is.”

  “I know,” I say. “But what else am I going to do?”

  “Just enjoy your time together.” She takes a sip of coffee. She doesn’t look at me when she says, “Don’t try to force family where it doesn’t belong.”

  In some ways, I know, my mom will always be that girl on the bus as it pulls away from the station, craning her neck to see if anyone is running in, breathless, to stop her. I’ve never met my grandparents, and never will. When my mom got on that Greyhound, she left behind a house that would make most of the cabins on the lake look shabby, a nice car, the promise of college, anything she’d ever want. She left it to have me, the product of a hookup with a rodeo cowboy who was offensive to her proud Mexican-American parents for both his profession and his anonymity. She could have everything, my grandparents made clear, as long as she put me up for adoption. You’re my best reason, my mom tells me, over and over, and I try not to hear the pain behind the words. We’re all the family we need.

  But here’s what she doesn’t say. I’m the reason we live in an apartment building that was built in the sixties, all dark wood paneling and linoleum floors. I’m the reason we don’t have a dishwasher, cable, dinners out, and hey, let’s order dessert. I’m the reason there’s a gray patch over my bed where the ceiling’s been leaking for years. I’m the reason I sometimes hear her crying softly in her room after a long day at the spa, her door shut because she doesn’t want me to know how much she misses the two people who should never have rejected her.

  Who should never have rejected me.

  Still.

  Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way for Vera. If I can return one of Vera’s children to her, maybe she doesn’t have to feel abandoned at the end of her life. Abigail’s a lost cause—she’s never been anything but a disembodied voice on the phone, hashing out how she’ll pay me via direct deposit, and when. But Kathryn—wherever she is—lovely, sweet, oh she just has to be, the look on her face in that photo like she’s delighted, like she’d do anything for her mother—Kathryn is the one I want to find.

  “Hey. How’re your friends?” Mom reaches across the table and ruffles my hair. “Been a while since we’ve checked in with each other.”

  “They’re fine.” I pause, thinking about this afternoon on the deck. The feeling I’ve had since Davis told us about the Nelson cabin, like there’s something linking the fires that we can’t see yet.

  “Any romance?”

  “Romance. Nice try.” I close my eyes briefly. I’ve almost forgotten the truck that almost ran me down. The way Davis leaned toward me like he might hug me. How much I wanted him to do it. How he didn’t.

  “Who’s that good-looking one? The town track star.”

  “Erik.”

  “Yeah,” my mom says slowly. “What about him?”

  I give her the same answer I always do. “Not a contender,” I say. “I mean, like, seriously.”

  “Okay, okay.” She raises her hands in mock surrender. “Sue me for being interested.”

  I know what she wants. She’s so excited that I have friends to tell her about that she wants even more. We don’t get much time together, and she wants me to give her the whole package: drama, intrigue, a love story.

  And I can’t give her a love story—the chapel fire took care of that. Davis hasn’t looked at me the same way since. But I do allow myself a half second of quiet pride. Friends. My friends. They may not be what I imagined, all those lonely days of junior high when I would go from apartment to school to apartment in one long, uninterrupted feedback loop, but, besides Vera, they’re all I’ve got. And every Tuesday, rain or shine, we meet at the Den. On that redwood deck, the four of us shed our high school personas like starched uniforms and gather together to smoke and talk until the real world calls us back.

  Still.

  Our friendship was no accident. Or rather, it kind of was. We knew one another from the church youth group, but not well. And then one day a match was lit, and in the bright light of the flame, we saw only one another. We’ve been fused together ever since.

  My mom’s hand on my shoulder, shaking me out of my reverie. “Hey. That cabin fire, the one in the news. It must bring up some memories, mija.” She pauses, then reaches down and touches my arm where the scar is. “We haven’t talked about it in a while.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” I say. “I’m okay.”

  “You were hurt.”

  “I wasn’t the only one.” The whimpering, plaintive cry. Smaller sounds, too. And then the sound from Chrissy Nolls, smothered in her tent. I swallow.

  “You couldn’t have gotten them out. You’d have died trying.” My mom’s voice gets quiet. “You almost did.”

  That’s all she knows—all any of them know. There was a fire. We happened to be outside—stargazing, we said—in time to notice. I went in after the cats. Chrissy’s tent catching fire was a freak thing.

  Still. Summer is a relief in one specific way: We don’t have to see Chrissy at school every day. We hardly have to see her at all. And now that she’s graduated? We can almost forget it ever happened.

  Almost.

  Mo
m’s voice changes, becomes upbeat and cajoling. “How about you and I go to the Burger Mill? Extra order of crispy fries, split a huckleberry milkshake? I could eat, after all.”

  It’s a treat, I know—something to make up for her long absences during the week. “Sure,” I say, because I’m hungry, because I’ve missed her, and because I’d do anything to get away from the memory that flickers all around me. Heat. Smoke. The sound of Chrissy’s screams. And always the pitiful, mewling cry. Fainter. Fainter. Gone. “I’ll grab my sweater,” I say, pulling it from the hook by the door and slipping it on. I glance at the silver scar that runs like a river from my wrist to my elbow, splitting my arm cleanly in half. Splitting it like a memory you can never escape: Before. And after.

  The four of us weren’t friends before the chapel fire. Not really. But after? We’re tied together by that night in the chapel. We’re tied together by our guilt. But more than that, we’re tied by a friendship that emerged from the flames scarred, sooty, beaten-down, but stronger than anything any of us had before.

  We don’t make sense together. And that’s its own kind of sense.

  I know what everyone says about us—about all the kids in Gold Fork. We’re Dead Enders. Hopeless. If we’re headed in any direction at all, it sure isn’t up. Davis makes fun of this. He says we’ll be the ones asking burnt-out Weekenders for more cream in our coffee one day, that at least our skin won’t be leathered by the tanning beds they go to all spring. He says the future is what you make of it, and then he laughs at himself because, what a dad.