Deliver Her: A Novel Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 Patricia Perry Donovan

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503934511

  ISBN-10: 1503934519

  Cover design by Shasti O’Leary-Soudant

  To my own precious cargo:

  Maurice, Molly and Nora

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  PROLOGUE

  SATURDAY

  MEG

  ALEX

  MEG

  CARL

  SUNDAY

  MEG

  THURSDAY

  ALEX

  CARL

  MEG

  CARL

  ALEX

  MEG

  FRIDAY

  CARL

  ALEX

  MEG

  ALEX

  CARL

  MEG

  ALEX

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  ALEX

  CARL

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  MEG

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  CARL

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  ALEX

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  MEG

  CARL

  ALEX

  REUNION

  ALEX

  MEG

  CARL

  ALEX

  MEG

  ALEX

  SATURDAY

  MEG

  ALEX

  CARL

  ALEX

  MEG

  ALEX

  ALEX

  SEPTEMBER 2012

  CARL

  OCTOBER 2012

  MEG

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Let the powers that be warm the path you will tread;

  No journey’s harder than the one in your head.

  Amphibian, “Cloud Path,” Rainmaker

  PROLOGUE

  The music. I can’t hear the music.

  “This isn’t a good idea. It’s not what we planned.”

  “Relax. I’ve got this.”

  “But her mother . . . she’ll worry. We’ll be so late.”

  “We’ll be fine. I’m the driver, remember?”

  Half-dozing in the backseat, Alex craved sleep, and yet the girlish whine beside her persisted like a mosquito’s drone. She longed to swat it away, but her hand wouldn’t cooperate.

  A lurch of the car triggered fresh anguish.

  “What was that? Be careful.”

  “I told you. I’m not used to this car.”

  Shut up. She dug deep for those words, and a caution echoed in Alex’s head, a memory: Don’t express your emotions so freely. Alex’s hand pressed open like a book, a woman’s roughened finger tracing faint markings from pinky to pointer, her kohled eyes beseeching.

  Maybe now was one of those times, Alex thought, when she should just be. Summoning every ounce of energy, she shifted toward the window, shoulder belt slicing across her chest, silky softness cushioning her cheek. Another shimmy of the car triggered more high-pitched dismay from her seatmate.

  “I said, ‘I don’t want to.’”

  “It’s too late. We’re almost there.”

  “We can still turn around. Please stop. For her sake.”

  Who was her? Was she her? Muddled, Alex floated back down to where it was soothing and lovely and quiet, a sanctuary shimmering with love and tranquillity, radiating energy so potent it could carry her across the cosmic divide. She was ready to surrender, to unburden herself, to be transported—when the car’s jerk lashed her head against the window.

  Beside her, the girlish pleadings gave way to a mournful scream, severed by the deadly scrape of metal on metal.

  Protests choking her throat, Alex clung to the seat belt, powerless to stop their descent, a plunge more menacing than the Dragon Coaster’s familiar dive that terminated with the winged demon swallowing its prey. In those terrifying seconds before this leaden, unknown beast exacted its revenge, Alex opened her eyes, meeting the reptile’s garnet gaze: seeing all, judging none.

  SATURDAY

  MEG

  “Right, Meliss. Like Mom would ever have fallen for . . .”

  Meg Carmody’s voice trailed off at the sight of her house, her smile fading as they pulled into her driveway, the sheen of the day’s happiness already evaporating.

  Not again.

  Every light blazed. Beneath her forearm, the car door throbbed with the bass track reverberating from the modest colonial. As she stepped out of her sister’s car, Meg neatly crushed the stem of a wineglass under her heel; one of her favorites, she noticed as she walked around to the driver’s side.

  “Can you believe this?” Meg asked. She gestured to the van angled tipsily beside them, windows wide open. “Somebody even drove my car.”

  “You’re being paranoid,” Melissa soothed. “It was probably Jacob.”

  “Jacob never takes the van. Says he’s not a ‘soccer dad.’ Which leaves Alex.”

  “She doesn’t drive.”

  Meg pursed her lips. “No, but plenty of her friends do.”

  “Be serious. Would they really steal your car?”

  A year ago, Meg wouldn’t have thought it possible. But a year ago, they were living different lives.

  “Didn’t you say she was babysitting?”

  “That’s what she told us.” Meg rubbed her neck. “Anyway, thanks for today. I really needed it.” The matinee in the city, a frothy remake of a seventies Broadway show with a pair of TV stars as leads, followed by cheap Chinese at a place off Canal, had refreshed her. Escaping Manhattan before the evening performances let out, they had sailed over the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge and up 95 to Riverport in under an hour.

  To come home to this: another reminder of her sixteen-year-old daughter’s pain and Meg’s own failure to soothe it.

  Melissa tilted her head toward the house. “Want me to go in with you?”

  Hands shoved in her coat pockets against the April night’s chill, Meg shook her head. “I’ll deal with it.” Jacob had been in charge of the kids tonight. So far, their separation had been civil—as civil as things could be when they were forced to share the same house. His car wasn’t in the driveway.

  Meg scanned the street. The only vehicles were her neighbors’; either the revelers were on foot, or whatever had gone down at their house had moved to a new venue.

  Melissa gripped Meg’s arm through her window. “You’ve got to do something.”

  “I know.” Meg ached for her daughter, who had lost her best friend, Cass, the previous year. Cass’s death had been excruciating for all of them, but there were limits. She glanced back at the house and sighed. “I can’t expose Jack to this anymore.” He was only seven, but he had eyes. And ears.

>   Melissa threw the car in reverse. “Jack is fine. For now. And remember, whatever you need, I’m here. Love you.”

  Meg walked up the driveway, kicking cigarette butts into the mulch. At the front door, she squared her shoulders and turned the knob—unlocked, of course. Inside, the stereo boomed from every corner of the house at a volume Meg didn’t know existed, the heavy metal track vibrating in her chest. She turned the sound off on the wall control, clinging to it a moment as she surveyed the kitchen.

  She had to hand it to Alex: the path of destruction was pretty uniform. On the granite counter, snacks of every kind pulled from the pantry, sampled and abandoned. Droppings crunched under her feet. Their dog, Angel, would never leave these forbidden treats; she was probably cowering under Alex’s bed upstairs. On the stove, thick white fat pooled around a burner; a greasy skillet held charred remains of burgers.

  She continued the tour. In the dining room, her beloved mahogany table had been kitted out for beer pong, its top stamped with telltale rings, the floor beneath sticky with spilled beer. Besides this chaos, the room’s landscape seemed off somehow; Meg couldn’t put her finger on the difference. In the living room beyond, the coffee table served as a makeshift bar, holding mostly empty bottles, cheap brands of vodka, gin, tequila. These kids drank dangerously—fast and hard. She’d heard the ER nurses talk. They practically set their watches by the concert schedule at the Eagles’ Nest, anticipating some underage patients before the warm-up act even finished.

  On the end tables, more glasses from the china cabinet: fine-stemmed goblets, wide-mouthed pilsners, champagne flutes—the latter a gift from Jacob’s mother. Miriam would be happy to see them put to use, Meg thought wryly.

  “Alex?” Meg called out while heading upstairs to check, even though she knew she wouldn’t find her. All three bedrooms were empty, as was the hall bath.

  Downstairs again, she brushed off a couch cushion and sat down to contact Alex. Not even bothering with voice mail, she texted her daughter.

  Please call me immediately.

  Given the circumstances, she didn’t expect a rapid response. Next, Jacob. He needed to know about this.

  “Meg?” Wherever he was, it was noisy.

  “Where are you? And where’s Jack?”

  “He’s right here,” he shouted. “We’re bowling. It’s disco night. Jack’s loving it.”

  “It’s almost nine o’clock.”

  “Loosen up. It’s Saturday night. And you’re having fun, right, Jack?”

  Her son’s voice poured into the phone. “Mom, you should come. This is soooo cool.”

  “Hi, honey.”

  “So, Mom. There’s this band playing right on top of the alley, so when you throw the ball it goes right underneath them. And they make you wear these clown shoes before they let you bowl. And Dad got me a chili dog and cheese fries and a giant soda and—”

  Meg couldn’t help but smile at her seven-year-old’s account. “Glad you’re having fun, bud.”

  “See. I told you. He’s fine,” Jacob said when he came back on.

  “I know. He sounds happy. Listen, wasn’t Alex babysitting tonight?” Meg asked.

  “Yeah. I watched her walk down there.” Alex had a standing Saturday night gig with the Millers, a neighborhood family.

  “Well, she must have walked back, because she threw a hell of a party here. The house is a wreck. What time did you leave?”

  “Right after Alex.”

  She glanced around the living room. “The carnage looks about right for a few hours of day drinking.”

  “Sorry you had to come home to that. Where is she now?”

  Meg didn’t have a clue; Alex hadn’t yet responded.

  “Huh. She’s probably with Shana. I’ll try her, too. Wait. Did anybody touch my instruments? Shit. I knew I should have locked them up.”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t been down there.”

  “They better not have. Alex knows damn well what the rules are.”

  “Maybe, but she ignored quite a few of them tonight. Somebody even drove my car.”

  He guffawed. “Seriously, Meg. Did you dust it for fingerprints?”

  “Funny.” She kneaded her forehead, loath to suffer his humor tonight. Lately, his teasing bordered on spite. She missed the Jacob who always had done the honorable thing, starting with making room for her, then Alex and eventually Jack in his carefree life. “We can’t keep making excuses for her.”

  “She’s a kid.”

  Jack whined in the background.

  “Still, it isn’t healthy for her to act out like this. Even Melissa thinks so.”

  “You know I love your sister, but this is our family.”

  The family he wanted to break up?

  Meg sighed. “I don’t want Jack to see this. Take him to your mom’s when you’re done, please.”

  “She’ll want to know why.”

  “Yes, and I’m sure she’ll hold it against me. But it’s the best place for Jack tonight. I’ll wait up for Alex.”

  “Don’t you have work tomorrow?”

  He was right. She’d promised to cover a shift for someone. “I don’t care. Alex and I need to get some things straight tonight.” She was up and pacing now.

  “You guys will both be exhausted tonight. You know you’ll say stuff you’ll regret. Let’s just deal with it tomorrow.”

  She might have considered his suggestion, except that more often than not these days, Jacob made an art out of not dealing with things. Like drumming up new business, leading his construction company to go belly-up soon after his father died last year and forcing Meg to suffer the indignity of sharing the same house with him, even though he’d asked for the separation months ago. He couldn’t even dump her properly, she thought. Though he’d grandly allowed her the master bedroom while he decamped to the basement couch, he decreed to the entire family that the lower level was now strictly off-limits to all. Man cave, schman cave, she’d thought at the time. He was welcome to it.

  “I don’t know if I can wait until tomorrow, Jacob.” As she said this, Meg opened the powder room door and gagged at a puddle of vomit. She dealt with sickness all day at the infusion center, patients retching from chemo, but this was different. She leaned against the door.

  “I’ll be home then,” he said. “We’ll talk to her together. Ground her.”

  “Perfect.”

  “It’s not like you’ve come up with a better solution. Listen, it’s Jack’s turn. Gotta run.”

  Hanging up, Meg rubbed her cheek, wishing Jacob would give her credit for all the ways she’d tried to help their daughter. After the accident, she’d put her own mourning on hold to help Alex cope with hers, offering every support she could think of, from therapy to music camp, only to run into a solid emotional wall. As her daughter’s actions and school attendance became more erratic, Meg alternately entreated, cajoled, wheedled and very nearly bribed her to change her behavior, without success.

  The day the police officer had showed up to report Alex’s shoplifting incident, Meg finally decided to consider other options and began researching her alternatives on the sly. Meanwhile, Jacob had still insisted all their daughter needed was time.

  Meg headed downstairs to check on his curated collection of guitars, amps and bulky cables—relics from his Objects in Mirror days. Recently he’d dropped a few hints about getting the band back together. All seemed in place; each instrument upright in its stand, amps at attention below. The only sign the festivities had migrated down here were a handful of LPs out of their sleeves on the ancient wooden crate that served as their coffee table. Meg paused to reunite the albums with their protective covers. Jacob was anal about his records.

  About to head upstairs, Meg bent to retrieve a fallen barstool cushion, which rattled like a beanbag when she replaced it. Curious, she unzipped the cover. Nestled against its stuffing was a small plastic bag packed with candy-colored pills. There were pinks, whites, baby blues, circles, capsules, little dots
like the saccharine pills her grandmother used to carry in her handbag. A mini-pharmacy.

  A flyer from the pediatrician’s office about kids ransacking parents’ medicine cabinets flashed through her brain. Those pain pills from her dentist for an abscess a few months back: What did they look like? Panicked, she ran upstairs to check her bathroom. The prescription bottle was still there; she thought it felt lighter, but couldn’t be sure. A stop in the kitchen: Alex’s own antidepressants still on lockdown in Meg’s purse.

  She ran back down to the basement and tore apart every pillow and couch cushion, coming up empty. She shook the album covers she’d just straightened, then moved to the wall of storage bins, pawing through ancient school projects and baby clothes like a ravenous bear at a Dumpster. When those searches turned up nothing, she flopped onto the floor, massaging the insistent pinch in her neck that flared up when she was stressed. Lately it seemed to be there all the time.

  Things were worse with her daughter than she had imagined. What if Jack had gotten his hands on the pills? Or Angel? Clearly, the time had come for Meg to put her plan into action.

  She had researched dozens of residential programs over the past few months, convinced the only viable option was to separate Alex from Riverport and its painful memories. After hours of furtive calls, she had settled on The Birches in Silver Mountain, New Hampshire, hoping its mix of therapeutic treatment and academics in a postcard New England setting would bring her daughter back to her.

  Melissa was her partner in crime, covering for Meg when she’d driven three hundred miles in the depths of winter to visit the school. Meg had watched students snowshoe to classes conducted in the string of converted cabins bordering a frozen lake.

  “Think The Shining meets summer camp,” she joked to her sister. In all seriousness, however, the camaraderie of the small student body and the staff’s tough-love affection were palpable. A few brave students who had traveled paths much rougher than Alex’s shared their stories, bringing Meg to tears and convincing her of The Birches’ healing power.

  And while it would crush Meg’s soul to do so, if sending Alex to the snowy, pine-rimmed campus could make her daughter realize there was life after loss and inspire her to pick up the pieces, then Meg would carry out her plan.