Anne Brown: Deep Betrayal

He said, “We’ve missed you, too, kiddo. It hasn’t been the same since you left.”

I didn’t correct him by saying that I hadn’t left, I’d been sent . I didn’t want to pick a fight; it felt too good to have them here.

An hour later, we arrived at the Badzins’ house. Inside, the air conditioner hummed and aromatic candles laced the air. Mrs. Badzin had brought out her white linens and good silver service. Several parents hovered around the buffet table where a platter of sushi and sashimi had center stage. I dunked a spicy tuna roll into soy sauce and shoved it in my mouth whole, bending over the table so the drips rolling down my chin wouldn’t stain my lace minidress.

Rob grabbed me as I came around the corner, and he pulled me into a bear hug. “Congratulations, beautiful,” he said, stumbling a little.

I pried myself free and shook my head. My mouth still full, I mumbled, “Knock it off, Wobby.”

He laughed, saying, “C’mon. Everyone’s in the basement.” He pulled me by the arm, down the steps to where our friends were hanging out.

Jules announced my arrival ceremoniously as I tripped in my vinyl platform shoes and fell awkwardly onto the futon with a self-deprecating “Ta-da!”

I lay my head on Jules’s shoulder. “I’m so glad it’s over.”

“Over?” Zach asked as he aimed a dart toward a small plastic target hanging on the wall. “It’s just beginning.” He let the dart fly, but it glanced sideways off the bottom rim and barely missed Jules’s foot.

“Careful! You nearly killed me,” Jules said, pulling her feet up and under her. Zach shrugged.

“So what’s up for tomorrow?” Phillip asked.

Colleen Gilligan lounged on a lumpy, basement-worthy couch, her head in Scott Whiting’s lap. The two had been an item since sophomore year. “Beach?” they both suggested in unison.

I couldn’t help but watch as Scott twirled a lock of Colleen’s dark brown hair around and around his finger. She looked up at him, her lips pulling into a small smile as he took off his thick glasses and curled his body to kiss her. For a second, I thought I could feel it myself. The soft meeting. The momentary heat. Voyeuristic, I know. But there it was.

“What do you want to do, Lil?” Rob asked. “Does the beach sound good?” He dropped onto the futon next to me and swung an arm around my shoulders.

“What? Oh. Yeah. That sounds good.” I let him leave his arm where it was. It was graduation after all.

Phillip laughed. “We’ve got the Hancock seal of approval. Beach it is!”

“Are you going to Square Lake?” Sophie asked, her small feet tripping silently down the carpeted stairs. “Can I come, too?”

“Of course,” I said before anyone else could answer. I slipped off the futon onto the floor and pulled my sister into my lap. The baby-powder scent of her made me homesick. “I’ve missed you,” I whispered in her ear.

“Me too,” she whispered back. “It’s been really bad without you.”

The shine in her eyes brought on the guilt. All this time I’d been focused on me . How alone I felt. How worried I was. Why hadn’t I ever considered Sophie in all of this?

She might have been completely in the dark about what had gone down with Dad, but she was still left with the fallout of the mess I’d made.

“Let’s get something to drink,” I said. She crawled out of my lap, and I led her outside through the sliding-glass patio door. I grabbed two bottles of water from a cooler and screwed off the top for Sophie, passing her one.

“Y’know you could have called me. Or got on the phone when I called Mom.”

“Mom said you were busy with finals and I shouldn’t bother you.”

“Well, school’s over. Start bothering me.”

Sophie peeled at the label around her bottle and pouted her lips. Her once-curled hair flopped in the humidity and clung to her neck. Finally, she said, “Did you see Dad’s face?”

“Yeah. He looks old.”

Sophie kept peeling and picking.

“Sophie, tell me.”

“He’s acting weird. I watch him from my window. Every night he’s down at the dock. After Mom goes to bed … he gets down low, like he’s going to get in the water. Then he stands up and comes back to the house. Sometimes he’ll turn around again and touch the water, and then he pulls back like it’s biting him or something.”

My arms stiffened at my sides. “Has he gone in?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“No. It’s like he really, really wants to, but he’s afraid. Do you think it’s because of me falling out of the boat that one time? Is it my fault?”

I inhaled and let it go slowly. “Don’t be silly. And I wouldn’t be too worried, Soph. You know Dad can’t swim. He’s probably trying to get over his fear, and he was looking to do that in private. You probably shouldn’t tell him you’ve been watching.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t. When he’s not at the dock, he’s in his room.” She dropped her voice lower. “I think he’s crying. He hides it from Mom, but I can hear him. Last few times after church, me and Mom will go to the car, but he stays on his knees for, like, an extra ten minutes. Sometimes more.”

My first reaction was that it served him right for sending me away, but that quickly gave way to pity. Even if he’d allowed me to stay, what help could I have been to him? He needed someone who could actually explain things. He needed Calder.

There it was again. Where the hell is he?

A drop of water hit my arm, and I glanced up at the slate-colored sky. “Let’s get in,” I said. “It’s starting to rain.”

With the crack of thunder, the elegant graduation party turned into a refugee camp. The wind shook the house, and the lights flickered. All the adults came down to the basement as the sky went prematurely dark. Rain lashed at the windows and when lightning lit up the sky, we’d get a look at the backyard trees, twisting and arching like a landscaped yoga class. No one wanted to venture out onto the roads.

Instead, we all hunkered down around the television, watching the giddy weatherman gesture at the Minnesota map. A big red patch covered the metro area with the words Tornado Warning. After he warned the viewing public to stay indoors (as if we needed convincing) and away from windows (harder to do), the screen cut away to the news anchors and the scripted stories of the day.

Mr. Badzin leaned forward and reached for the remote. He turned down the volume just as the picture cut to a young blond reporter. Behind her was a familiar dark lake with spotlights focused on the brambles along the shore. I pulled closer to the flat screen so I could listen.

“Thanks, Geoff,” said the reporter. “This afternoon, twenty miles north of Ashland, Wisconsin, a young man discovered part of an enormous fish that washed up on the shores of Lake Superior.”

The studio cut to video of agents from the Department of Natural Resources carrying something bulky and wrapped in a tarp to a waiting truck. They struggled with its weight. I glanced around the room. No one was watching but me, their heads all turned to watch the storm.

The reporter continued. “DNR officials believe it to be the remains of the largest sturgeon on record. However, one young man has a different theory for us to consider.”

The studio cut to a prerecorded interview, the camera lens tightly focused on a face I knew too well. Jack Pettit was staring intently at the camera, his dark eyes looking directly at me.

“It’s pretty big for a fish,” he said, not blinking. “Even a sturgeon. Makes you wonder.”

The reporter pressed on, capitalizing on the story. “Makes you wonder what?”

Jack seemed unaware that she was making fun of him with her question. “Whether the legends are true,” he said. “The ones about mermaids in the lake. Anyone who looks at those scales has to wonder. It doesn’t look like any fish I’ve ever seen.”