Susan Phillips - The Great Escape

“I had a half brother,” he said into the quiet gloom. “His name was Curtis.”

Startled, she turned her head to look at him.

“He was seven years younger than me.” His hands shifted on the wheel. “A dreamy, gentle kid with a big imagination.” He spoke softly as they sped along the dark road. “Our mother was either drugged out or on the prowl, so I ended up taking care of him.”

This was her story, except it was coming from him. She rested the back of her head against the door and listened, her heart rate beginning to slow.

“Eventually we ended up in foster homes. I did everything I could to keep us together, but things happened, and as I got older, I started getting into trouble. Picking fights, shoplifting. When I was seventeen, I was caught trying to sell half a gram of marijuana. It was like I wanted to get thrown into jail.”

She understood and said softly, “A good way to escape the responsibility.”

He glanced over at her. “You had the same kind of responsibility.”

“A pair of guardian angels showed up in my life. You didn’t have that, did you?”

“No. No guardian angels.” They passed Dogs ’N’ Malts, closed up for the night. She was no longer shaking quite so badly, and she unclasped her hands. He flipped on his high beams. “Curtis was murdered while I was in juvie,” he said.

She’d suspected this was coming, but it didn’t make it easier to hear.

Panda went on. “It was a drive-by shooting. Without me around to protect him, he started ignoring curfews. They let me out to go to his funeral. He was ten years old.”

If it hadn’t been for Nealy and Mat, this might have been her story and Tracy’s story. She licked her dry lips. “And you’re still trying to live with what happened. Even though you were only a kid at the time, you still blame yourself. I understand that.”

“I figured you would.” They were alone on the dark road.

“I’m glad you told me,” she said.

“You haven’t heard all of it.”

For months she’d tried to get him to spill his secrets, but she was no longer sure she wanted to hear them.

He slowed for the road’s sharpest curve. “When Curtis’s sperm donor found out my mother was pregnant, he gave her five hundred dollars and split. She loved the jerk and wouldn’t go to a lawyer. Curtis was nearly two before she realized her big love wasn’t coming back. That was when she started using.”

Lucy did the math. Panda had been nine when he’d become his brother’s caretaker. A protector, even then.

“When I got older,” he said, “I found out who the bastard was and tried to call him a couple of times, tell him how bad things were for his kid. He acted like he didn’t know who I was talking about. Told me he’d have me locked up if I kept harassing him. Eventually I found out where he lived and went to see him.” He shook his head. “It’s not easy for a city kid to get to Grosse Pointe on public transportation.”

Grosse Pointe? Lucy sat up straighter, an odd feeling coming over her.

“It was a big house, looked like a mansion to me. Gray stone with four chimneys, a swimming pool, and these kids chasing each other around the front yard with water guns. Three boys in their teens. A girl. Even in shorts and T-shirts they all looked rich.”

The pieces fell into place.

“The Remingtons,” he said. “The perfect American family.”

The car’s headlights cut through the night.

“I’d walked the last couple of miles from the bus stop,” he said, “and I hid across the street. They all had that lean, WASPy look. Curtis and I were both dark like our mother.” The shuttered farm stand whipped by on their left. “While I watched, a landscape crew pulled up at the house and wheeled a mower off the back of the truck. Four kids in the family, and they hired somebody to cut their grass.”

He turned into the drive. The house loomed, not even a light over the front door to welcome them. “I found another hiding place where I could watch them in their backyard. I stayed until it got dark.” He killed the engine but made no move to get out of the car. “I felt like I was watching a TV show. It was his wife’s birthday. There were balloons and presents, this big glass-top table set with flowers and candles. Steaks on the grill. I was so damned hungry, and none of them looked like they had a care in the world. He had his arm around his wife most of the evening. He gave her some kind of necklace as a present. I couldn’t see what it looked like, but from the way she acted, I figured it cost a lot more than five hundred dollars.”

Her heart welled with pity for him. And something more. Something she wouldn’t consider.

“The sickest part is that I kept going back. Maybe a dozen times over the years. It was easier after I got a car. Sometimes I’d see them, sometimes not.” He curled his fingers over the top of the steering wheel. “One Sunday I followed them to church and sat in the back where I could watch them.”

“You hated them, and you wanted to be part of them,” she said. “That’s why you bought this house.”

His hand came off the steering wheel, and his mouth twisted. “A stupid decision. It was a bad time for me. I shouldn’t have done it.”

Now she understood why he refused to change anything in the house. Consciously or unconsciously, he wanted to live inside the museum of their lives.

He got out of the car and came around to help her. Even though she was feeling steadier, she was grateful for his hand as he led her through the front door and into the bedroom.

He understood without her telling him how much she needed to wash away the men’s filth. He helped her undress. Turned on the water.

When she was in the shower, he pulled off his clothes and got in with her. But there was nothing sexual in the tender way he washed her, dried her, tended to the cuts on her feet. Not once did he remind her of what she’d said to him at the bar or criticize her for wandering off the way she had.

After he’d helped her into bed, he touched her cheek. “I need to talk to the police. The house is locked, and Temple’s upstairs. Your cell is by your bed. I won’t be gone long.”

She wanted to tell him she could take care of herself, but that was so blatantly untrue that she said nothing. Viper, despite all her tough girl posturing, had proved to be completely helpless.

Later she awoke to the sound of his footsteps on the stairs. She looked at the clock. It was four-thirty. He’d been gone almost two hours. She flinched as she tried to find a more comfortable position, but her ribs were tender, her neck stiff, her back sore. None of that hurt as much as thinking about what Panda had endured as a child.

She eventually gave up trying to fall back to sleep and got out of bed. He’d done a good job bandaging her foot, and putting her weight on it barely hurt. She made her way to the sunroom, where she curled up on the couch.

As the light leaked over the horizon, she turned her thoughts from Panda to her own foolishness—the last thing she wanted to examine. But last night’s ugly experience had ripped away the veil of her self-deception and shown her the absurdity of the false identity she’d created for herself. What a joke—that hard-boiled swagger and pugnacious attitude. She’d never felt more like a fool—the biggest phony on the island. When it had come to protecting herself, she’d failed abysmally. Instead she’d been a helpless, frantic mess who had to be rescued by a man. The truth tasted bitter in her mouth.

She found her yellow pad. After a few false starts, she wrote a brief note. She owed him that—and so much more. She tossed a few things into her backpack and, as the sun came up, made her way through the woods.

Her sneakers were soaked with dew by the time she reached the cottage just as Bree was emerging from the honey house. Bree’s hair was uncombed, her clothes rumpled, her sticky hands held far away from her body. But her gasp of alarm indicated that Lucy looked a lot worse.

Lucy slipped her backpack off her shoulder. “Could I stay here for a while?”

“Of course you can.” She paused. “Come inside. I’ll make coffee.”

LATER THAT MORNING, WHILE BREE was at the farm stand, Lucy went into the bathroom and cut the dreads from her hair. Standing naked on the white tile floor, she worked at her tattoos with a combination of rubbing alcohol and baby oil. Finally the last remnants were gone.

PANDA CRUMPLED THE NOTE SHE’D written and tossed it in the trash, but throwing the damned thing away didn’t erase it from his mind.

Thank you for everything you did for me last night. I’ll never forget it. I’ve gone to the cottage to stay with Bree for a while and try to get a fresh perspective. I’m glad you told me about your brother.

L.

What the hell? Not even a Dear Panda or a Yours sincerely? The message it delivered was loud and clear. She wanted him to leave her alone. Which he was more than happy to do.

He slammed the cupboard door, trying not to think about what would have happened if he hadn’t gone back to the bar last night. By the time he’d reached his boat at the marina, his temper had cooled just enough that he’d started to worry about her again. He’d made up his mind to get her out of that bar, no matter what she said.

He splashed coffee into his mug, decent coffee because he’d made it. He had work to do, and he forced himself into the den, where he booted up his computer. After he’d left her last night, he’d gone with the local cops to locate the two scumbags who’d attacked her. He’d known the water wasn’t deep enough to drown them when he’d tossed them in, and sure enough, it hadn’t taken long to find them staggering back to the bar to get their bikes. No surprise either, there were warrants out on both of them, which made it easier to convince the police chief to keep Lucy’s name out of it.

He couldn’t concentrate on work, and he pushed himself back from the desk—old man Templeton’s desk, although he’d stopped thinking so much about that. He decided to go up to the gym and take out his frustration on Temple. If she hadn’t talked him into coming here, none of this would have happened.

But he set off for the lake instead. Be the best at what you’re good at and stay away from what you’re not. Right now, caring too much about the daughter of the president of the United States topped the list of everything he wasn’t good at.

THE ORGANIST WAS PLAYING A familiar hymn, although Bree couldn’t recall its name. She smiled at a woman she’d spoken with during last week’s coffee hour. Bree was growing to love Heart of Charity Missionary. Although she still sometimes felt like an outsider, the emotion-filled service gave her comfort. She wished Lucy had come along this morning, but after Lucy had shed her tattoos, Bree had cut her hair, trying to camouflage the areas where she’d chopped off her dreads, and now Lucy was too recognizable.

When Bree had stepped out of the honey house and seen Lucy standing there so pale and bruised, she’d thought Panda had beaten her. Lucy had quickly disabused her of that notion with a brief, disturbing account of what had happened at The Compass, but she hadn’t said much more, and Bree wasn’t pressing her.

Toby turned around in the pew, and she saw why he hadn’t given her his normal flack about going to church. “You came!” he said in a loud whisper as Mike settled next to him.

“Sure I did.” Even though temperatures were already in the low eighties, he wore a light tan sports coat, pale blue dress shirt, and a blue-and-brown-striped necktie. She wasn’t exactly sure when he’d discarded his big college ring and ostentatious gold bracelet. She’d never mentioned either one, no matter how much she’d wanted to, but they were gone. He also smelled great. Like good shaving cream.

He nodded politely at Bree, whatever amorous feelings he’d once harbored for her clearly gone. She studied him as he looked away, something she’d been doing a lot of over the past two weeks. She couldn’t feel good about the way she was using him. By acting friendly and pretending she’d forgotten about the past just so he’d be there for her if she needed him, she was the worst kind of hypocrite.

Since the night he’d appeared at Dogs ’N’ Malts, he’d become a regular visitor to the cottage. Sharing a few meals with him hadn’t been as difficult as she’d thought. He spent most of the time talking to Toby. He treated her politely, but that was all. No more apologies, no more references to the past. He was a man who’d said his piece and didn’t repeat himself. She’d even gone out on the boat with him and Toby after Lucy had insisted on watching the farm stand.