“Marlena’s not feeling well,” I said, and let them in.
They scanned the barn, a science to their looking, some social worker math whirring in their brains, registering the smell, which was on the edge of uncomfortably bad, the mismatched furniture, the concrete floor and the dishes everywhere and the instability of the ladder/staircase and how the loft seemed to be loosening from the barn walls, on the verge of collapse. The bathroom door barely closed—whenever I used the toilet, I held on to the doorknob to protect myself against someone walking in. Was there a washing machine here? I’d never noticed. Maybe that was why Marlena left so many clothes at my house. There was nowhere for them to sit—the two chairs around the kitchen table, which was really just a Ping-Pong table with the net taken off, were covered with junk, newspapers and cables and three inexplicable N64 controllers. Marlena lay across the couch, which was barely long enough for her whole body, asleep or worse. I knew from experience that the two beanbag chairs against the wall were the source of the B.O. smell.
“Marlena,” said Candice. She sat on the lip of the chest that functioned as a coffee table, and touched Marlena’s arm like a mother. “Honey? Are you awake?” Marlena groaned, turned to face the backside of the couch. Her tank top rode up her back, revealing an ugly bruise, deep purple and spotted with black, rising above the horizon of her shorts.
Josie strode toward Marlena’s dad’s bedroom. I’d never been inside. For all I knew, it was full of guns, or dead bodies, or posters of naked girls Marlena’s age.
“What did she take?” Candice asked me. Nothing mean in her voice, nothing angry. “It’s okay, Catherine. You can tell me. I promise you—we are here to help Marlena and her brother. That’s what we do. We’re not the police.”
“Nothing. She’s just tired.”
“I don’t think that’s true. And I bet Officer Dalkey wouldn’t, either. I think Marlena’s been taking something, and I think she could be in pretty big trouble.”
“She’s tired.” Why couldn’t I come up with a better lie? Food poisoning? The flu?
“Listen to me. We are going to take Sal with us. That’s what’s happening. If Marlena comes too, she’s going to get drug-tested, and if she gets drug-tested I think you and me both know what we’re going to find.” Josie was climbing the ladder. I wished for her to fall. I wished for Sal to hide.
“She can stay at my house. She’s just messing around. Please don’t get her in trouble.”
I wanted to reach down and pull Marlena by that long, greasy hair until she woke up, until her head lifted right off the couch. How dare she lie there snoring on the couch in front of me and this lady, this well-meaning Candice, leaving me to deal with the mess that was her life. “Please—please. She’s really stressed out.”
“Is your momma home? She’d be okay with Marlena staying with you for a little while? Even like this?”
“Marlena stays with me all the time.”
“Okay, so if I go talk to her about what’s happening, she’s gonna open the door over there?”
“Yes.” Was Mom home? I had no idea. Sal probably really was hiding.
“You seem like a good girl, Catherine. You need to be a friend to Marlena right now. She’s gonna need your help.” Candice took one of my hands and cupped it between her own. Her palms were crinkly and velvet-soft. She had a daughter, maybe, and that’s why she was so kind to us that night. She’d come down too hard and pushed her daughter away, and so she was going to try and make it right by giving us an extra chance. I could see it like it was a movie, the girl throwing up behind some A-frame in the woods, this Candice standing at the phone at four a.m., wondering when it became a betrayal to call the police. I didn’t know whether to pull my hand away or climb onto her lap. “I want to give Marlena a break, do you understand? I want to keep her out of the system. I want to give her this chance, because I know what happens to girls when they get sucked up into all that. But that means I can’t ever see her like this again.” Together we looked at Marlena. She was wearing my shorts. Probably my underwear, too.
Sal came down the ladder, still in his pajamas, and then Josie, Sal’s backpack slung over her shoulder. “Cat, can I stay at your house?” he asked me. “I’ll be quiet.”
“I know, Sal, you’re the best,” I said, crouching down to look him in the face. “But I think you have to go with these ladies now, okay? They are really nice, and we’re gonna come see you tomorrow, when Marlena feels better. Does that sound good?” He looked at the floor, and I saw that all he’d ever known was that people couldn’t be trusted, that nothing anybody said ever meant a goddamn thing. This wasn’t something he’d had to learn, like me, after a couple of shitty turns—Sal expected to be left.
“What’s wrong with my sister?” he said, tugging himself away from Josie’s proprietary arm. When he got to her, he shoved Marlena, her body tilting, and then shoved her again with his whole side. She made an untranslatable sound and so he hit her, right between the shoulder blades, with his little fist. He hit her again and again, trying, you could tell, to make it hurt.
“Stop it.” I grabbed his hand. “She’s sick.”
“She’s not sick. She’s high.”
To Candice, Josie said: “That girl might need a hospital.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Candice answered, but I wasn’t sure she was right. “I felt her pulse. She’s just passed out.”
“Sal, she’s sick.”
“I hate you,” Sal yelled. “You are not my friend anymore.”
He spat and a burst of wet trickled down my neck. He slammed the door behind him, and when Josie opened it he was already in the backseat of their car, ready to go.
*
I’ve never been more grateful for Mom than I was that night. After Candice talked to her, the three of us together got Marlena to my house and into my bed. Marlena was kind of mumbling by that point, weird stuff—my brother’s name, questions like where were we, and something that sounded like “watermelon man.”
“Are you okay?” Mom asked, once Candice left and the cars were gone, the barn empty of even Sal.
“I’m okay.”