Raising Wrecker

CHAPTER TWELVE





Wrecker planted his feet in the center of the small clearing and surveyed his domain.

He was pushing eighteen. Six feet tall, solid and unstoppable, he had a tender heart, muscles on him like a Russian bodybuilder, a crown of thick blond hair, and a diploma from the home-school company so fresh the ink had barely dried. Deedee’d been jonesing for that. Payback for him was this prime little patch of land upslope and out of sight. Dig a foundation, lay up some log walls—he was building himself a house, working so far off a flat spot and a vision, trying to make up for his late start.

Wrecker glanced around and took stock of what he had. There was so much new growth it was hard to tell he’d scraped this little stretch of level ground down to dirt the autumn before. Gorse and cheat grass, yellow broom and blooming lupine, everything gone rampant, growing too fast for even the deer and the rabbits to get a handle on. Just east of him the steep side of a hill had peeled off and slid to its base in the worst of the rains. This whole place was in a hurry, same as him. He breathed in deep, caught hints of sea salt and pine sap and something sweet. All he had to do was hike a little higher up the hill, ease himself out on the cantilevered trunk of the old maple, and peer through its branches to catch a glimpse of the ocean. There’d been some wild surf out there this winter; it beat the crap out of that kid who came up from the city to try to ride it at Big Flat. F*cking crazy. Crazy like insane. Though he’d thought about it, himself. Was tempted by it. Those monster waves. He hated the thought of passing up a chance that might not come around again for a while.

Wrecker crossed to the northwest corner of the plot. He had a picture window sitting in Len’s lumber shed that would go here. It wouldn’t be hard to score some smaller windows for the rest of the views. He had laid things out so he could keep an eye on the farmhouse and the barn down below, and there was Ruthie trudging up the hill right now, the last of Sitka’s pups following stiffly behind. Ruth was clutching something to her that Wrecker guessed was food. His mouth watered. There was never a time that he was not hungry. But the hill was steep and Ruth and the pup were old and they’d be wheezing already. Wrecker waved his arm in a wide arc. “I’ll come down,” he shouted, and he closed the distance between them like a bull elk on his way to water.

“Made you something,” Ruth said. She had to sit down. Asthma, she told them. Emphysema, more likely, Melody muttered. All those damn cigarettes. Should have cut her off, and Willow had lifted an eyebrow and said, How, exactly? and Wrecker had hid a grin. They were a stubborn bunch. Not that he was any more tractable. Willow had taught him that word. “Tuna fish sandwiches.”

Wrecker flopped beside her and took what she handed him. She idly scratched the pup behind the ear. “You’re a beautiful boy,” she crooned.

“Ain’t I, though.”

“You?” Ruth snorted. “You’re downright ugly. Too bad you didn’t take after my side of the family. Slim—”

“—svelte,” he repeated with her, his mouth full of sandwich, “and so good looking it ought to be outlawed.”

“Close your mouth when you chew. And get down the hill. Your mother said it’s time to go.”

He pushed up to standing and offered a hand. “Race you.”

She’d love that, she said. She’d just hate to beat him and ruin his self-esteem.

He gave her a quick squeeze. “See you in a week, Ruth.”

She held him at arm’s length and looked him over critically. “Don’t let them give you no guff, boy. You’re better’n the whole bunch of ’em put together.”

Wrecker couldn’t believe that Deedee had said yes. Jack must have caught her at the perfect moment. He could tell she was feeling great, now that he’d graduated; she told people she’d managed to get her kid through high school without having to tie him to his chair to do it, but the truth was, without Melody’s constant leaning on him, Wrecker would have bailed early on. And the money thing, her other constant worry, seemed to have improved steadily since she’d squeaked through the meltdown at the Merc. She’d explained it to him, how there was a balloon payment on the farm that had to get paid off at the end of this month, and how after that they’d be clear of the mortgage. She’d hit at last on something vaguely profitable—selling tie-dyed shirts she made in the barn—and with him chipping in from his timber work they splurged and paid the phone company to come string a line to the farmhouse. When Jack called and begged her to come down to L.A. for his wedding, he caught her feeling fine. “I’ll buy you guys tickets,” Jack cajoled. It was dinnertime, and Melody told him to shout into the phone so everybody in the farmhouse kitchen could hear. “I want you there.” He paused to clear his throat. With Jack, he might as well beat a drum roll. “They’re old, Melody. They haven’t seen you in nearly twenty years. And Dad’s been sick.”

Wrecker watched Melody pause and frown at the phone handset, stretched out in her hand in front of her. “Sick how?” she shouted.

“Prostate. He got the surgery last year.” Wrecker glanced quickly at Ruth and winced. “It turned out okay, though. As in, he doesn’t have the cancer anymore. The rest,” Jack said, his voice adopting a phony tone of reserve, “I don’t ask.”

“Thank God for small favors,” Ruth muttered.

Wrecker grinned. Jack tended to tell all, right down to the sordid details. He finished chewing a piece of gristle. “Getting married, though.” He let out a long whistle. “What’s with that, Jack?”

“There’s a time for everything, buddy. Listen. You guys come down, just stay a few days. So you can meet them. Ruth, baby? You come too. It’ll be fun. I promise.”

“More fun than I can handle.” Ruth raised her eyebrows at Melody. “You two go. Bring back presents.”

Wrecker had to hand it to Jack. He’d had the sense to stop there, and now he and Deedee were booked on a flight out of the municipal airport in Eureka. The plan was to stay with Deedee’s parents for a bit and leave for home once Jack got hitched. He pushed his way in through the farmhouse door and Melody flinched at the noise. “What?” he said defensively.

“What what?”

He shook his head. “I’m driving,” he said. “Your anxiety could get us killed.”

They got there early for the flight. It was an hour in the little puddle jumper to San Francisco, another forty minutes by jet to Los Angeles. Wrecker had never been in a plane before. He stretched his legs and faked nonchalance as they bounced along in the clouds. Melody caught his eye and rested her head against his upper arm. “They’re going to love you. It’s me we have to worry about.”

Wrecker glanced at her sideways. “What’d you do to them?”

“What didn’t I.” She straightened her neck and gave her hands a couple of good shakes.

“Worse than me?”

“No comparison.”

He lifted an eyebrow. He wasn’t finished yet, he reminded her.

“Yeah? Well, bring it on, baby.” She poked him in the ribs. “I’m ready.”

Jack met them at the airport. He hugged Melody and then caught Wrecker in a headlock. Wrecker gently squeezed his way out from under Jack’s arm and examined the new car. “Dude. You got a backseat.”

“I got a family, and a whopping monthly payment.” Jack tossed their bags into the trunk of the BMW. “Check out the leather, bro.” He slid behind the wheel and glanced at Melody as she settled herself in front. “Listen,” he said, lowering his voice to a stage whisper. “Mom and Dad? They’re kind of off the wall.”

Wrecker caught Melody’s eye in the rearview mirror. She gave him an exaggerated wink. “About me?” She yawned. “So what’s new?”

“Yeah. I wish.” Jack glanced over his shoulder and pulled into traffic. He looked trim and groomed—his hair cut in a lawyerly brush and an expensive watch on his wrist—but there were dark circles under his eyes and a sallow look to his skin. “They think Jocelyn’s gone over to the dark side. They asked me again if I was sure I wanted to marry her.”

“Not a bad question, given your track record.” Deedee had her head turned to study the roadside. “Look. Remember that?” Over and over she would point to something and exclaim, and Jack would laugh and nod, or scoff.

“Third time’s a charm,” Jack quipped. He glanced over the seat back. “Sport? They’re dying to meet you. But let me give you a word of advice. That caveman thing you got going on under your chin? Take a razor to it. Get you more chicks that way.”

“Stop it, Jack. He’s proud of his beard.”

Wrecker couldn’t help rubbing his hand across the fuzz. “No problem with the chicks, Uncle Jack. I could give you some tips if you want.”

No, no, Jack said. He had all the action he could handle right now.

Melody snorted. “Why don’t you pull over right here. I’m happy to walk the rest of the way,” and then Jack was pulling the car into the driveway of the house he and Deedee had grown up in, and in spite of being with two of the people he loved most in the world, Wrecker had to clamp his teeth together hard to bar the mix of dread and longing that rose in his throat.

It wasn’t the disaster it could have been. They were nice, they were polite, Deedee’s mother was a basket case, the old man a drunk who pretended to be joking when he said mean things—all that was normal, from what Wrecker could pick up. Jocelyn was funny and sentimental and looked terrible in that white dress, and Jack broke down and cried every time he had to speak. Jocelyn had a kid who was a couple of years younger than Wrecker and so furious she could barely say a word. Wrecker tried to befriend her but she hissed at him like he was part of some monolithic family front. Melody was so subdued in their company she was nearly catatonic. A few days there and she looked a dozen years older than the day they’d left the farm. The two of them escaped a few times—Deedee watched while he caught some breakers with Jack’s borrowed board out at Redondo Beach, and they snuck out twice for ice cream at midnight on Hollywood Boulevard—but even away from her family Melody’s face showed signs of serious strain. No wonder Jack seemed so worn down. Being around Deedee’s family gave Wrecker a little more appreciation for his own. At least nobody was hammering at him to change the way he was.

The morning of the sixth day, Wrecker and Melody caught a cab to LAX. Deedee sighed loudly as they boarded the plane. “Well.” She fumbled with her seat belt. “I’d rate that a success. Wouldn’t you?”

“Pretty crazy.” Wrecker had chosen a seat by the window and was keeping an eye on the ground crew. “They hardly knew I was there.”

Melody nodded absently and consulted the emergency card. She hated flying, she told Wrecker. Some days she hated living, but she was old enough to realize that there was a reasonable chance the feeling would pass. “What?” she said, turning toward him. “They loved you.”

“That was love?”

Melody looked up and gave a short, sharp laugh. “You bet. Close as they get to it. Mother told you you’d look better in some other color than the one you were wearing and Daddy slipped you a martini. Right?”

“A martini! That’s what you call those things.”

Melody shifted in her seat and studied him intently. “Did he say something to you?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t bullshit me.”

“Forget it.” Wrecker ducked his head and grinned. “It’s just, you know.” He stroked the meager beard that dirtied his chin and cut her a quick glance. “I wonder.”

“He can be an a*shole.”

Wrecker looked at her. “I wasn’t talking about him.”

Melody opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.

“You look like your mother, Deedee,” Wrecker said abruptly, and when she laughed, he said, “No. You do. You have the same—all this stuff.” He reached over and waved his hand over the bridge of her nose. “Eyebrows and eyes and nose, kind of. It’s nice.”

Her eyes widened and she blinked at him. “And you wonder,” Melody said slowly, her voice a little shaky, “who you look like.”

“Yeah. Well, whatever.” He turned away. It felt risky, bringing it up. His heart thumped in his chest. Maybe he should just keep his mouth shut.

“Wrecker,” Melody said. She took a deep breath and let it out. Her gaze flicked toward him and then away. “There are some things I should maybe tell you.” She took one more deep breath and Wrecker saw something rise in her eyes that he was suddenly certain he wanted to avoid. “Not maybe. Should.” Her voice strained and he scrambled for a means to head her off. That wasn’t what he was asking. If there were things he needed to know— “Should have, maybe.” No, Wrecker thought, should not— “Should. F*ck it,” she said, “you’re almost eighteen,” and launched in.

Wrecker felt his stomach lurch as Melody talked, and cried, and talked more. It was as though she’d held everything inside by force of will and once she let go it all had to come out. Her words rolled uncontrollably, and it took every ounce of his resolve not to reach over and clamp a rough hand across her mouth. His head spun with the information. Hello, son, meet your grandparents—and, by the way, you’ve got relatives you never even guessed at. Meg, his aunt? Even better: a mother who’s alive and well and probably on her way to find you. As soon as she gets out of jail. Deedee stumbled over her words, said things badly, tried to correct, stumbled worse, and once the tears started she couldn’t get them to stop. For chrissakes, Wrecker thought. Out of jail? He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Around any of it. Did he have to know this? Because of why? And what was he supposed to do now?

He sat staring at the seat back in shock, his circuits blown and his face still as a stone.

Melody slowed down, gulped another deep breath. She’d made a giant mistake, she said. She had meant to protect him but she could tell from his face she had hurt him instead. If she had told him the truth from the start—goddamn Willow for being right, again—he wouldn’t be looking at her in that way right now. That way that said, you? You? Even you?

Wrecker dropped his chin to stare at his hands. If he kept all his attention focused there, he could try to resist the arc of electricity that cycled painfully through his body.

Melody paused. She had never before understood so deeply, she said softly, that her omission could be as gravely harmful as an outright lie.

Wrecker scowled, and jerked his arm up with an awkward effort. “Stop.” He didn’t want her apology. “Just say it outright. Tell me again,” he said, his voice as hollow as a rotten tree.

And so she did, because she had to. What she had always said before—I became your mother because I wanted you and your birth mom couldn’t take care of you—all of it true, in its way—became something different, told now. Everything she knew, she told him unabridged. That his birth mother was Meg’s younger sister. That she—that woman, Lisa Fay—had raised him until he was three, and that she’d lost custody of him when she was sentenced to prison for serious crimes. That he had lived with foster families until Len took him in. That he was scared and angry and out of control and too much for Len to handle and so he brought Wrecker to Bow Farm.

She had let him get away once, she said, her voice quavering, and she never would again. Not until he was grown. Until he was a man, and he walked out on his own.

Wrecker’s voice was tight. “What else?”

That was all she knew. Melody hesitated. There was more, she said, and stole a glance at him. But if he wanted to know it, he would have to ask Willow.

“Willow?” he said, incredulous.

Willow had been to see Lisa Fay in jail, and they had talked for a long time. “I wouldn’t let her tell me,” Melody said. Her voice cracked. “I wouldn’t let her tell you, either.” Willow had wanted Wrecker to know, but Melody had sworn her to secrecy. “You were eight,” she said, and her voice trailed off to a whisper. “I had to make a choice.”

“When were you going to tell me?” he asked, a fury behind his words.

“I’m telling you now.” Melody turned her face away and spoke with such a small voice that he had to bend toward her and strain to hear. “I was afraid.” She lifted a hand to shield her face. “I was afraid that I’d wake up one morning and you’d be gone.”

The jet dropped suddenly and Wrecker reached for the paper bag in the seat back ahead and threw up into it.

When he was finished, he glanced at Melody. She looked green.

“You’ve got one there for yourself,” he mumbled.

For the rest of the trip they said nothing. They reached Eureka, and Wrecker banged his way into the driver’s seat of the car and drove without asking. He kept his eyes ahead. The sun plunged into the ocean and left a pink glow on everything, and then that, too, faded to darkness.

There was a light on in the kitchen of the farmhouse when they arrived. They shuffled in, weary, to find Ruth sitting at the table. Her hands were folded together, the backs of them a patchwork of age spots. Ruth had turned seventy this year. It took Wrecker’s breath away, to see her grown old.

“Meg is in the hospital,” Ruth said.

“What?” The two of them spoke together.

Ruth shook her head. “Everything’s gone to hell.”

A bad case of pneumonia in his wife, and Len was a shambles. He wore dark moons like badges of devotion beneath his bloodshot eyes and three days’ stubble on his chin while Meg slept like a baby under her oxygen tent. She looked serene. Untroubled, Wrecker thought, gazing at her, while Len carried the trouble for both of them and bent under the strain of it. Wrecker tried to spell him, let Len spend a night at home, but Len wouldn’t do it. Even a cup of coffee in the cafeteria left him jangled, anxious to return to her side.

Wrecker sat with him. It was the only place he could think to be.

“Go home,” Len said again. “I mean it. You’re no use to me here.”

Wrecker got up and walked to the door and looked down the hall and then came back and sat down again. “The doctors said she’ll be fine.”

“Yes. That’s what the doctors said.”

“Don’t you believe them?”

“Of course I believe them,” Len said sharply. “I’m just making sure of it.”

Len wouldn’t meet his eye. The infection all those years back had weakened Meg’s health, made her more susceptible to illness. Every serious bug left less of her. “Fine” was relative. Meg would likely get over the pneumonia, the doctors said, but the next thing that came along could be her undoing.

Wrecker parked himself there and passed another night in the chair. He woke the next morning with a backache. He had the sense of having dreamed something important, but he couldn’t return to it. They had taken away the oxygen apparatus. Meg was sleeping peacefully. Her cheeks were pink, and Len must have combed her hair before he stepped out of the room.

Wrecker got up, stretched, and stood by the bed. He looked intently at Meg’s face. He gazed at the spider veins that mottled her cheeks, the faint down on her upper lip, the translucence of her eyelids under which her eyes roamed athletically. She had a quality of softness that no other person he had ever met shared. Meg had never lied to him. She had claimed him, out of affection, and he returned it. Affectionately. Not because—

Len backed his way into the room, pushing open the door with his shoulder and carrying two cups of coffee. He nodded to the boy and passed him a cup.

Wrecker cradled it in his hands. “Meg is my aunt,” he said.

Len paused mid-sip. He put the cup on the bedside table. “I see.”

“You saw before.”

“Yes,” Len said. “I did.” And then he picked up the coffee cup and slowly drank it all. When he finished he threw the cup in the wastebasket and resumed his vigil at Meg’s side. He appeared deep in thought. He opened his mouth and turned his head to the side once as though preparing to say something, but nothing emerged, and he surrendered again to the silence.

“What.”

Len blinked twice. When he turned to Wrecker his face was lit with a kind of defiant resolve. “Don’t be so angry.”

“Angry?” Wrecker got up quickly and the chair tumbled over. He bent to right it, took a deep breath, and sat down again. “I thought I knew who I was, Len. And now it turns out I had no idea. But you did. And Melody. All of you. It’s just that nobody bothered to tell me.”

Len held his gaze, and then he turned away. He reached a tender hand to stroke Meg’s cheek. Wrecker thought he’d been dismissed. He stood to leave.

“Sit down.”

Wrecker sat.

There was a long silence. Then Len said, his face still in shadow, “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, son. But it wasn’t a mistake to marry Meg.”

Wrecker looked away. He had a lump in his throat that he didn’t know what to do with and he wanted to break something in Len and put him back together in the same instant.

“Your aunt Meg?” Len’s voice was soft and low. “She was the loveliest woman I ever laid eyes on. She worked a parts counter down there in Watsonville and she sold me a replacement taillight when I busted mine taking a curve too fast. Laughed at me for it. I was only passing through, but I knew I wasn’t leaving unless I had Meg sitting on that bench seat next to me. And I managed it, too.” Len rubbed his hands together like they hurt. Then he reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and drew out a scrap of paper and the sharpened stub of a pencil. From his wallet he retrieved a small, folded card. Len bent his head and painstakingly copied some numbers from the printed card onto the scrap of paper, and then he handed it to Wrecker.

“It’s your inheritance,” he said.

“My what?”

“I’ve been holding on to it for you since Meg’s parents died. Willow tried to give it to your mother but she wouldn’t take it. We figured to save it for you.” Len shrugged. “Wasn’t much then, but it grew a little.” He dipped his head toward the scrap. “The account has your name and mine both. I’ll call the bank and let them know to let you close it out.”

“I don’t want it,” Wrecker said, and thrust the scrap toward Len.

Len turned slightly so his elbow shielded him from Wrecker’s outstretched arm. He focused his attention on Meg.

Wrecker looked down at the unfamiliar numbers. “What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked, his voice cracking. He struggled to collect himself. He didn’t know if he should tear it to pieces and fling it in the trash or tuck it in his pocket and leave for good. Forever. Or climb in next to Meg. Or—

“You’re good with the timber, boy.”

Wrecker’s head jerked up. It was the last thing he expected to hear, and he looked at Len like he was crazy.

“My father taught me,” Len said. “He had to.” His lips pursed slightly and he shook his head, remembering. “It took all of us. My father, my brother, and me. When the blight finally got to Tennessee it took out all our trees in a short couple of years. Every single chestnut, dead. And we had to cut them all or watch them go to waste.” Wrecker watched as Len laid his hand gently over Meg’s open palm. “I’m just saying.” Len looked up, held Wrecker’s gaze. “It wasn’t a mistake to marry Meg. And it wasn’t a mistake to go and get you and bring you home to Melody. Two best things I ever did.” He shrugged. “If it matters to you, go find out more. You’ll be eighteen in a few days. You’re your own man.”

Wrecker felt it like a wave of grief passing over him. He stood. He bent down to kiss Meg on the forehead. He was almost out the door when he heard Len call him sharply.

“You sure as hell do know who you are,” Len said, his voice flinty.

Wrecker looked at him and Len never dropped his gaze.

The boy drew himself tall. “Eat more, old man. You’re getting skinny.” He gestured with his chin to Meg. “And take care of her.” He slapped the doorjamb. “I’ll see you.”

“Course you will,” Len said, turning already to gaze at Meg’s tender face.

Before he left, Wrecker called Melody and delivered a terse message. He was headed for San Francisco for a few days. If it turned out to be longer than a week he’d call again. He couldn’t bring himself to say he was fine. He wasn’t fine. And then he caught ride after ride, and let the miles rush before his eyes.