Betrayers

6

When I came into the condo, Kerry was out on the balcony with the sliding glass door wide open. Ordinarily there wouldn’t have been anything unusual in that. We live in Diamond Heights, on the side of one of San Francisco’s seven hills, and on clear days and nights the balcony view is pretty alluring. But the day had turned even colder as night approached; the wind swirling in through the open door had an arctic bite. And she was standing out there at the railing with her hair tangled and streaming, arms folded, wearing nothing but a light sweater and skirt.

I went out to stand beside her. She looked my way, gave me a wan little smile. There was color in her face from the cold and her eyes were teary. Not from the wind; the unhappy expression in them said she’d been crying. That scared me. The first thing I thought of was her breast cancer, in remission now but always and forever a lingering fear.

“Hey,” I said, “what’re you doing out here?”

“Trying to decide what to do.”

“About what?”

“I’m glad you’re home,” she said.

“Me, too. Do about what? Kerry, you haven’t been to see your oncologist…?”

“No, it’s nothing like that.”

“Cybil?” Her mother was eighty-seven and in failing health.

“No. Cybil’s all right.”

“Then what?”

She sighed and unfolded her arms. Extended one fisted hand in my direction to show me what was on her palm.

Rough-textured, bronze-colored tin box, about the size of the ones sore-throat lozenges come in, with the same kind of hinged lid. Plain, no markings except for a few scratches and dents.

“Open it,” she said.

I flipped up the lid. Inside was a rectangle of cotton, and when I poked inside that I found a clear plastic tube, about three inches long, mostly full of a white powdery substance. I knew what the substance was even before I pulled the little cork stopper in one end of the tube, licked a finger, and tipped out enough for a bitter taste on the tip of my tongue.

Cocaine.

The relief I’d been feeling died in a sensation like an acid burn. “Where’d you get this?”

“I found it. A few minutes ago.”

“Where?”

“In Emily’s room.”

“Oh, Christ, no.”

“I went in to get my Roget’s, ” Kerry said. “She was using it last night and I needed to look up a word. The box was on her desk, in plain sight, and when I picked up the thesaurus I accidentally knocked it off. It popped open when it hit the floor.”

Emily. Sweet, smart, intelligent, forthright, straight-arrow Emily. Not your typical rebellious thirteen-year-old; just the opposite, in fact. In the four years since Kerry and I had adopted her, she’d never given us any cause to distrust her. Not once.

I put the tube back into its cotton nest, closed the tin box, and slipped it into my coat pocket. “Come on,” I said, “let’s go inside. It’s freezing out here.”

“Yes.”

We went in and I shut the door. The living room was cold now, even though I could hear the furnace pumping warm air through the vents. I took Kerry’s hands in mine, chafed them until I could feel some of the chill go away.

“Did you find anything else?”

“No. Just what’s in the box.”

“But you looked. Searched her room.”

“You know I did. I had to, didn’t I?”

“Sure you did. I would’ve done the same.”

The privacy thing. We had a pact in this family: always respect one another’s right to privacy. Even under the circumstances, Kerry felt guilty at breaking the pact. Was that what Emily had counted on, why she’d left the box on her desk in plain sight? Flaunting it because she felt safe? No, that wasn’t like her. But hell, it wasn’t like her to bring drugs home in the first place.

Kerry said, “I keep telling myself it’s not as bad as it looks. That there must be some innocent explanation.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Something. We had the drug talk with her, didn’t we? Both of us?”

“Yeah, we had the drug talk.”

“She swore she’d never have anything to do with drugs.”

“She probably meant it at the time. But thirteen’s a bad age, you know that. And peer pressure can be more persuasive than parental pressure.”

“But my God… pot’s bad enough, but cocaine…” Kerry sank heavily into her chair. “Maybe she hasn’t tried it yet. Maybe somebody gave it to her and she’s just thinking about it.”

“Maybe.”

“But you don’t think so.”

“I don’t know what to think. I’m as hammered by this as you are.”

“It’s after five. She should be home by now.”

“Where’d she go after school?”

“The library to study with a couple of her friends. So she said.”

“Don’t start doubting her, babe.”

“Aren’t you doubting her? After this?”

“I’m trying to keep an open mind.”

“So am I. Oh, God, I hate this-I fucking hate it!”

Kerry almost never used the f word. And hearing it from her didn’t have any effect on me; I felt like using it myself. Neither of us had been this upset since the early stages of her breast cancer.

To calm both of us down, I went into the kitchen and poured her a glass of wine and opened the beer I’d been wanting for myself. The alcohol did its job, but there was no enjoyment in the after-work drink now. The beer seemed bitter, left a lingering sour aftertaste.

“When she gets home,” Kerry said, “let me do the talking. You just back me up.”

“Always,” I said.

Emily came in fifteen minutes later. All breezy and bouncy as usual-until she saw Kerry and me in the living room, standing like a couple of stone statues. She stopped, her smile sliding away, and blinked her brown eyes and said, “What’s the matter?”

Kerry told her, flat voiced, to take her coat off and then come back in and sit down.

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Just do what I asked.”

Emily looked at her, looked at me, bit a corner of her lip, and sidled off to hang up her coat. When she came back, Kerry and I were both sitting down again in our side-by-side chairs. Emily went around and perched on the couch with her knees together and her hands in her lap, her gaze on a neutral point between us.

She looked very young sitting there and at the same time almost grown-up: lipstick, eye shadow, a sweater too tight and a skirt too short for my liking. A real beauty in the making, the only worthwhile gift she’d gotten from her screwed-up birth parents. Those big brown eyes, creamy skin, delicate bone structure, long silky hair, a trim body that was already filling out noticeably. Heartbreaker someday. Males would swarm around her-probably had started to already, though she didn’t talk much about boys. Or have any boyfriends yet, as far as Kerry and I knew.

They grow up so damn fast these days, I thought. Everybody says so-it’s not just my perception. They’re kids-Emily had been ten when she first came into our lives-and then all of a sudden they’re virtual adults with adult attitudes, needs, vices. No transition period, or so it seemed. No time for an extended childhood and a slow easing into the grown-up world, as there had been with my generation. We hadn’t been adults, hadn’t considered ourselves adults, until seventeen or eighteen; nowadays kids stopped being kids as early as twelve. Or thirteen.

Nobody said anything for a minute or so. We all just sat there. Up to me to get this started because I had the tin box in my pocket. I took it out and set it on the coffee table between us, unopened.

Emily looked at it, closed her eyes, opened them again. “You’ve been in my room,” she said. Not accusing, not sullen or angry-emotions she seldom expressed. She sounded hurt.

Kerry said, “I went to get my thesaurus. The box was right there on your desk.”

“That’s supposed to be my private space.”

“I just told you-I wasn’t snooping. How long have you been using drugs?”

“I don’t use drugs. Never.”

“Are you going to tell us you don’t know what’s in there?”

“I didn’t, not at first.”

“But now you do.”

“It’s cocaine, isn’t it.” Statement, not a question.

“And you’ve been thinking about trying it.”

“No.”

“Don’t lie to us, Emily. The evidence is right there in front of you.”

“I’m not lying. I don’t lie, Mom; you know that.”

“Then where did this box come from?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why can’t you?”

“I just can’t.”

“It doesn’t belong to you. Who gave it to you?”

“Nobody gave it to me.”

“Then how did you get it?”

“I… found it.”

“Found it where?”

“I can’t tell you. I promised.”

“Promised who, if you found it?”

Silence.

“Did some boy give it to you? A boy at school?”

Silence.

“Emily, answer me. Did a boy give you this box? Do you have a boyfriend you haven’t told us about?”

“No.”

“So it wasn’t a boy. One of your girlfriends?”

Headshake.

“Carla? Jeanne?”

Headshake.

“Kirstin?”

“Nobody. I found it.”

Kerry glanced at me; the frustration in her face mirrored what must have been showing in mine.

My turn. I said, “Emily, you remember the talk we had about drugs?”

“I remember.”

“You said you understood how dangerous they are, how much damage they can do. You swore you’d never use them.”

“I do understand. I’ve never used drugs, not any kind, and I never will.”

“Then explain the box.”

“I already did, Dad. I found it.”

“Where?”

“I can’t tell you that. I promised.”

“You keep saying that. Why would you make such a promise?”

Silence.

I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Reason wasn’t working, and reason was the best way to deal with Emily on any subject. Threats, even if I believed in that kind of parental approach, wouldn’t work, either. You couldn’t force a girl like her into submission and confession. Punishment, constant badgering, would only cause her to withdraw.

It was already starting to happen; I could see it in the way she was sitting, eyes remote, face pale, shoulders hunched. Same hurt look, same unwillingness or inability to communicate, same form of self-defense, as when she’d first come to live with us-a fragile kid, badly damaged by the violent deaths of her parents and the lonely existence their sins had forced her to lead. Lost and hiding in a place deep inside herself that no one could reach. The fact that she’d been a near witness to an incident not long afterward, in which I’d been ambushed and nearly killed, had made her situation even worse: she’d had so much loss in her young life, she couldn’t bear the thought of any more.

It had taken months of patience to bring her out of herself, to earn her complete trust. We had it now. Trust, loyalty, unconditional love. She was happy, much more outgoing and better socialized, with a bright future ahead of her. But she was still young and fragile; not enough time had passed for her wounds to fully heal. If we pushed her too hard, punished her too severely, we could drive her right back into that inner twilight world. We could lose her again.

And yet a thing like this, drugs, misplaced loyalty… we couldn’t just ignore it or tiptoe around it. I glanced again at Kerry. Her expression said she was thinking along the same lines.

She said, “Emily, I know you understand why we’re upset, why we’re asking all these questions. Don’t you have anything to say?”

“I’m sorry.”

“For bringing drugs into this house.”

“Yes. I swear I’ll never do it again.”

“Well, that’s a start.”

“Are you going to search my room again when I’m not home?”

“Not if you don’t give us any cause to.”

“I won’t. Is it all right if I have the box?”

“… What?”

“Not what’s in it. Just the box.”

“Why? Does it have some special meaning to you?”

“No. May I have it?”

“To do what with?”

“Give it back.”

“To who?”

“The person it belongs to.”

“So you know who lost the box.”

“I… Yes.”

“And you told this person you found it.”

“Yes. But not that I opened it.”

“Are you going to say that we did? That we know about the cocaine?”

“No, but I won’t lie if I’m asked. May I have it?”

“No,” I said, “you may not.”

Emily started to say something, changed her mind. There was misery in her expression now, as if her emotions had begun to give her physical pain. Half a minute ticked away, during which time Shameless the cat wandered in and hopped up next to her. She clutched at him, pulled him close-something warm and furry to hang on to. Then, in a small voice, “May I be excused now?”

I melted a little. It wouldn’t do any of us any good to keep her sitting there, keep hammering at her to no avail and watching her suffer. “All right, go ahead, but we’re going to talk again later. I want you to think about telling the whole story when we do, think very hard.”

“I won’t break my promise, Dad. I can’t do that.”

Up and out of the room she went, carrying Shameless, her steps slow and not quite steady. I had the feeling that as soon as she was inside her room with the door shut she would start to cry. Soundlessly.

Kerry said, “Oh, Lord. You think she really did find that box?”

“She said she did and she doesn’t lie.”

“Then who is she protecting? Some boy?”

“I hope not.”

“She’s only thirteen. What if she’s gotten herself involved with somebody older? What if she’s already started having sex-”

“Hey. Don’t go there.”

“Don’t tell me the thought hasn’t crossed your mind.”

“… All right. But you be the one to ask her if it comes to that.”

“I will.”

“She won’t admit to anything if it means breaking her promise.”

“Oh, Lord. That damn teenage code: don’t break promises; don’t snitch.” Kerry leaned across the table between our chairs, touched my hand. Her fingers were cold again. “What’re we going to do?”

“I don’t know. We can’t force her to talk to us; we can’t threaten her-you saw the way she looked.”

“Calling up her friends’ parents or talking to her teachers isn’t the answer, either. All that’d do is open up a huge can of worms, with no guarantee of results.”

“And turn her against us, drive her back inside herself.”

“Well, we can’t just pretend this didn’t happen,” Kerry said. “We have to get to the bottom of it. We have to do something. ”

Something. Sure. But what?