Teardrop

6 SHELTER

By the time Cat dropped Eureka at home, the rain had dwindled from deluge to downpour. Truck tires on the main road behind their neighborhood hissed against wet pavement. The begonias in Dad’s flower bed were trampled. The air was dank and briny from the salt plug south of Lafayette where the Tabasco plant got its seasoning.

From her doorstep, Eureka waved to Cat, who responded with two toots on the horn. Dad’s old Lincoln Continental was sitting in the driveway. Rhoda’s cherry-red Mazda, mercifully, was not.

Eureka turned her key in the bronze lock and shoved the door, which always stuck when it stormed. It was easier to open from the inside, where you could rattle the handle a certain way. From the outside you had to push like a linebacker.

As soon as she was inside, she kicked off her soggy running shoes and socks, noticing that the rest of her family had had the same idea. Her half brother’s and half sister’s matching Velcro sneakers had been flung to all corners of the foyer. Their tiny socks were balled up like stamped-on roses. The untied laces of her dad’s heavy black work boots had left short snakes of mud across the marble tile, slithering toward where he’d tossed them at the entrance to the den. Raincoats dripped from their wooden pegs along the wall. William’s navy-blue one had a reversible camouflage lining; Claire’s was pale violet with white appliqué flowers on the hood. Dad’s draping black hand-me-down slicker came from his own dad’s days in the Marines. Eureka added her heather-gray raincoat to the last peg in the row, dropped her track bag on Rhoda’s antique entry bench. She sensed the glow of the TV in the den, its volume low.

The house smelled like popcorn—the twins’ favorite after-school snack. But Eureka’s chef dad didn’t prepare anything plainly. His popcorn exploded with truffle oil and shaved Parmesan, or chopped pretzels and chewy flecks of caramel. Today’s batch smelled like curry and toasted almonds. Dad communicated through food better than through words. Creating something majestic in the kitchen was his way of showing love.

She found him and the twins nestled in their usual spots on the enormous suede couch. Dad, stripped to dry clothes—gray boxers and white T-shirt—was asleep on the long end of the L-shaped couch. His hands were clasped over his chest and his bare feet were turned out, pointed up like shovels. A soft buzz purred from his nose.

The lights were off, and the storm outside made everything darker than usual, but a fading, crackling fire kept the room warm. An old Price Is Right played on the Game Show Network—certainly not one of the three half-hour programs endorsed by the parenting magazines Rhoda subscribed to—but none of them would tell.

Claire sat next to her dad, a triangle of stubby legs in the corner of the couch, knees splayed out from her orange jumper, fingers and lips golden from the curry. She looked like a piece of candy corn, a shock of white-blond hair piled on top of her head with a yellow barrette. She was four years old and an excellent sport about TV watching but nothing else. She had her mother’s jaw, and clenched it the way Rhoda did when she finished making a point.

On the near side of the couch was William, his feet hovering a foot above the floor. His dark brown hair needed cutting. He kept blowing puffs of air out the side of his mouth to keep his hair out of his eyes. Other than that, he sat still, his hands folded in a neat cup on his lap. He was nine minutes older than Claire, careful and diplomatic, always occupying as little space as possible. There was a mangled stack of cards on the coffee table next to the bowl of popcorn, and Eureka knew that he’d been practicing a lineup of magic tricks he’d learned from a library book published in the fifties.

“Eureka!” he whisper-sang, sliding off the couch to run to her. She picked her brother up and twirled him around, holding the still-damp back of his head in her hand.

One might think Eureka would resent these kids for being the reason Dad was married to Rhoda. Back when the twins had been two beans inside Rhoda, Eureka had sworn she’d never have anything to do with them. They were born on the first day of spring when she was thirteen years old. Eureka had shocked her dad, Rhoda, and herself by falling in love the moment she’d held each infant’s tiny hand.

“I’m thirsty,” Claire called, without looking up from the TV.

Sure, they were annoying, but when Eureka was down the foxhole of her depression, the twins managed to remind her that she was good for something.

“I’ll get you some milk.” Eureka put William down and the two of them padded to the kitchen. She poured three cups of milk from Rhoda’s organized refrigerator, where no Tupperware ventured unlabeled, and let in their soaking-wet Labradoodle, Squat, from the backyard. He shook out his fur, flinging muddy water and leaves across the kitchen walls.

Eureka looked at him. “I didn’t see that.”

Back in the den, she turned on the small wooden lamp over the fireplace and leaned against the arm of the couch. Her father looked young and handsome asleep, more like the dad she’d worshipped as a girl than the man she’d struggled to connect with in the five years since he’d married Rhoda.

She remembered the way Uncle Travis had pulled her aside, unprompted, at Dad’s wedding. “You might not be crazy about sharing your daddy with someone else,” he’d said. “But a man needs taking care of, and Trenton’s been alone a long time.”

Eureka had been twelve. She hadn’t understood what Travis meant. She was always with her dad, so how could he be alone? She wasn’t even conscious of not wanting him to marry Rhoda that day. She was conscious of it now.

“Hey, Dad.”

His dark blue eyes shot open and Eureka registered the fear in them when he startled, as if he’d been released from the same nightmare she’d been having for the past four months. But they didn’t speak about those things.

“I think I fell asleep,” he mumbled, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. He reached for the bowl of popcorn, handed it to her as if it were a greeting, as if it were a hug.

“I noticed,” she said, tossing a handful into her mouth. Most days Dad worked ten-hour shifts at the restaurant, starting at six in the morning.

“You called earlier,” he said. “Sorry I missed you. I tried you soon as I got off work.” He blinked. “What happened to your face?”

“It’s nothing. Just a scratch.” Eureka avoided his eyes and crossed the den to dig her phone from her bag. She had two missed calls from Dad, one from Brooks, and five from Rhoda.

She was as tired as if she had run the race this afternoon. The last thing she wanted to do was relive today’s accident for Dad. He’d always been protective, but since Diana’s death, he’d crossed the line into overly.

To call Dad’s attention to the fact that there were people out there who drove like Ander might cause him to permanently revoke her use of any car. She knew she had to broach the subject, but she had to handle it just right.

Dad followed her into the foyer. He stood a few feet away and shuffled William’s deck of cards, leaning against one of the columns that held up the faux-frescoed ceiling neither one of them could stand.

His name was Trenton Michel Boudreaux the Third. He had a defining slimness that he’d passed on to all three of his kids. He was tall, with wiry, dark blond hair and a smile that could charm a copperhead. You’d have to be blind not to notice how women flirted with him. Maybe Dad was trying to be blind to it—he always closed his eyes when he laughed off their advances.

“Track meet rained out?”

Eureka nodded.

“I know you were looking forward to it. I’m sorry.”

Eureka rolled her eyes, because ever since Dad had married Rhoda he knew basically nothing about her. “Looking forward to it” was not a phrase Eureka would use about anything anymore. He’d never understand why she had to quit the team.

“How was your”—Dad glanced over his shoulder at the twins, who were absorbed in Bob Barker’s description of the obsolete motor boat his contestant might win—“your … appointment today?”

Eureka thought about the crap she’d sat through in Dr. Landry’s office, including Dad’s tough nut to crack. It was another betrayal; everything with Dad was, now. How could he have married that woman?

But Eureka also understood: Rhoda was the opposite of Diana. She was stable, grounded, not going anywhere. Diana had loved him but not needed him. Rhoda needed him so much maybe it became a kind of love. Dad seemed lighter with Rhoda than he had without her. Eureka wondered if he ever noticed it had cost him his daughter’s trust.

“Tell me the truth,” Dad said.

“Why? It’s not like complaining to you will get me out of going. Not in this Rhodeo.”

“Was it that bad?”

“Suddenly you care?” she snapped.

“Baby, of course I care.” He reached out but she jerked away.

“Baby them.” Eureka waved a hand toward the twins. “I can take care of myself.”

He handed her the cards. It was a stress killer, and he knew she could make them sail like birds between her hands. The deck was flexible from years of use and warm from his shuffling. Without her realizing, cards began to whir through Eureka’s fingers.

“Your face.” Dad studied the abrasions on her cheekbones.

“It’s nothing.”

He touched her cheek.

She calmed the flying cards. “I got in an accident on the way back to school.”

“Eureka.” Dad’s voice rose and he folded her into his arms. He didn’t seem angry. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” He was squeezing too tight. “It wasn’t my fault. This boy ran into me at a stop sign. That’s why I called earlier, but I took care of it. Magda’s at Sweet Pea’s. It’s okay.”

“You got this guy’s insurance?”

Until that moment, Eureka had been proud of herself for handling the car without Dad’s lifting a finger to help. She swallowed. “Not exactly.”

“Eureka.”

“I tried. He didn’t have any. He said he’d take care of it, though.”

Watching Dad’s face tense in disappointment, Eureka realized how stupid she’d been. She didn’t even know how to get in touch with Ander, had no idea what his last name was or whether he’d given her his real first name. There was no way he was going to take care of her car.

Dad ground his teeth the way he did when he was trying to control his temper. “Who was this boy?”

“He said his name was Ander.” She set the cards down on the entry bench and tried to retreat up the stairs. Her college applications were waiting on her desk. Even though Eureka had decided she wanted to take next year off, Rhoda insisted she apply to UL, where she could get financial aid as a faculty family member. Brooks had also filled out most of an online application to Tulane—his dream school—in Eureka’s name. All Eureka had to do was sign the printed-out last page, which had been glaring at her for weeks. She couldn’t face college. She could barely face her own reflection in the mirror.

Before she climbed the first step, Dad caught her arm. “Ander who?”

“He goes to Manor.”

Dad seemed to blink a bad thought away. “What matters most is you’re okay.”

Eureka shrugged. He didn’t get it. Today’s accident hadn’t made her any more or less okay than she’d been the day before. She hated that talking to him felt like lying. She used to tell him everything.

“Don’t worry, Cuttlefish.” The old nickname sounded forced coming from Dad’s lips. Sugar had made it up when Eureka was a baby, but Dad hadn’t called her that in a decade. No one called her Cuttlefish anymore, except for Brooks.

The doorbell chimed. A tall figure appeared through the frosted glass door.

“I’ll call the insurance company,” Dad said. “You answer the door.”

Eureka sighed and unlocked the front door, rattling the knob to get it open. She glanced up at the tall boy on the porch.

“Hey, Cuttlefish.”

Noah Brooks—known to everyone outside his family simply as Brooks—had been weaned of his most extreme bayou accent when he started ninth grade in Lafayette. But when he called Eureka by her nickname, it still came out sounding just the way Sugar used to say it: soft and rushed and breezy.

“Hey, Powder Keg,” she responded automatically, using the boyhood nickname Brooks had earned for the tantrum he’d thrown at his third birthday party. Diana used to say that Eureka and Brooks had been friends since the womb. Brooks’s parents lived next door to Diana’s parents, and when Eureka’s mom was young and newly pregnant, she’d spent a few evenings sitting on log ends on the veranda playing gin with Brooks’s mom, Aileen, who was two months further along.

He had a narrow face, a year-round tan, and, recently, a hint of stubble on his chin. His deep brown eyes matched hair that brushed the limits of Evangeline’s dress code. It fell down along his eyebrows when he lifted the hood of his yellow raincoat.

Eureka noticed a large bandage on Brooks’s forehead, almost obscured by his bangs. “What happened?”

“Nothing much.” He eyed the scratches on her face, his eyebrows arching at the coincidence. “You?”

“Same.” She shrugged.

Kids at Evangeline thought Brooks was mysterious, which had made him the object of several girls’ admiration over the past few years. Everyone who knew him liked him, but Brooks avoided the popular crowd, which deemed it uncool to do anything besides play football. He was friends with the guys on the debate team, but mostly he hung out with Eureka.

Brooks was selective with his sweetness, and Eureka had always been a prime recipient. Sometimes she saw him in the hallway, joking with a cloud of boys, and she almost didn’t recognize him—until he spotted her and broke through to tell her everything about his day.

“Hey”—he held up her right hand lightly—“look who got her cast off.”

In the foyer’s chandelier light, Eureka was suddenly ashamed of her skinny, weird arm. She looked like a hatchling. But Brooks didn’t seem to see anything wrong with it. He didn’t look at her differently after the accident—or after the psych ward. When she’d been locked up at Acadia Vermilion, Brooks came to visit every day, sneaking her pecan pralines tucked inside his jeans pocket. The only thing he ever said about what happened was that it was more fun to hang out with her outside a padded cell.

It was like he could see past Eureka’s changing hair color, the makeup she now donned like armor, the perma-frown that kept most everyone else away. To Brooks, the cast was a good thing to be free of, no downside. He grinned. “Wanna arm-wrestle?”

She swatted him.

“Just kidding.” He kicked off his tennis shoes next to hers and hung his raincoat on the same hook she’d used. “Come on, let’s go watch the storm.”

As soon as Brooks and Eureka walked into the den, the twins looked up from the TV and leapt from the couch. If there was one thing Claire loved more than television, it was Brooks.

“Evenin’, Harrington-Boudreauxs.” Brooks bowed at the kids, calling them by their ridiculous hyphenated name, which sounded like an overpriced restaurant.

“Brooks and I are going to go look for alligators by the water,” Eureka said, using their code phrase. The twins were terrified of alligators and it was the easiest way to keep them from following. William’s green eyes widened. Claire backed away, resting her elbows on the couch.

“You guys want to come?” Brooks played along. “The big ones crawl up on land when the weather’s like this.” He held his arms out as wide as they would go to suggest the phantom alligators’ size. “They can travel, too. Thirty-five miles an hour.”

Claire squealed, her face bright with envy.

William tugged Eureka’s sleeve. “Promise you’ll tell us if you see any?”

“Sure thing.” Eureka tousled his hair and followed Brooks outside.

They passed the kitchen, where Dad was on the phone. He gave Brooks a measured glance, nodded, then turned his back to listen more closely to the insurance agent. Dad was chummy with Eureka’s female friends, but boys—even Brooks, who’d been around forever—brought out his cautious side.

Out back, the night was quiet, steady rain hushing everything. Eureka and Brooks drifted to the white swinging bench, which was sheltered by the upstairs deck. It creaked under their weight. Brooks kicked lightly to start it swinging, and they watched raindrops die on the begonia border. Beyond the begonias was a small yard with a bare-bones swing set Dad had built last summer. Beyond the swing set, a wrought-iron gate opened onto the twisting brown bayou.

“Sorry I missed your meet today,” Brooks said.

“You know who was sorrier? Maya Cayce.” Eureka leaned her head against the worn pillow padding the bench. “She was looking for you. And hexing me simultaneously. Talented girl.”

“Come on. She’s not that bad.”

“You know what the cross-country team calls her?” Eureka said.

“I’m not interested in names called by people afraid of anyone who looks different than they do.” Brooks turned to study her. “Didn’t think you would be, either.”

Eureka huffed because he was right.

“She’s jealous of you,” Brooks added.

This had never occurred to Eureka. “Why would Maya Cayce be jealous of me?”

Brooks didn’t answer. Mosquitoes swarmed the light fixture over their heads. The rain paused, then resumed in a rich breeze that misted Eureka’s cheekbones. The wet fronds of the palm trees in the yard waved to greet the wind.

“So what was your time today?” Brooks asked. “Personal best, no doubt, now that you got that cast off.” She could tell from the way he was watching her that he was waiting for confirmation that she’d rejoined the team.

“Zero point zero zero seconds.”

“You really quit?” He sounded sad.

“Actually, the meet was rained out. Surely you noticed the torrential downpour? The one about fifty times wilder than this? But, yeah”—she kicked the porch to swing higher—“also I quit.”

“Eureka.”

“How did you miss that storm, anyway?”

Brooks shrugged. “I had debate practice, so I left school late. Then, when I was going down the stairs by the Arts wing, I got dizzy.” He swallowed, seeming almost embarrassed to continue. “I don’t know what happened, but I woke up at the bottom of the stairs. This freshman found me there.”

“Did you hurt yourself?” Eureka asked. “Is that what happened to your forehead?”

Brooks pushed the hair back from his forehead to expose a two-inch square of gauze. When he peeled back the bandage, Eureka gasped.

She wasn’t prepared to see a wound that size. It was deep, bright pink, almost a perfect circle about the size of a silver dollar. Rings of pus and blood inside gave it the appearance of an ancient redwood’s stripped trunk.

“What did you do, dive into an anvil? You just fell down, out of the blue? That’s scary.” She reached to brush his long bangs back from his forehead and studied the wound. “You should see a doctor.”

“Way ahead of you, Toots. Spent two hours in the ER, thanks to the panicked kid who discovered me. They say I’m hypoglycemic or some crap like that.”

“Is that serious?”

“Nah,” Brooks leapt from the swing, pulling Eureka off the porch and into the rain. “Come on, let’s go catch us an alligator.”

Her wet hair was slung down her back and she yelped, laughing as she ran with Brooks off the porch, down the short flight of stairs to the grassy yard. The grass was high, tickling Eureka’s feet. The sprinklers were going off in the rain.

The yard around them was punctuated by four huge heritage oak trees. Orange hallelujah ferns, shimmering with raindrops, laced their trunks. Eureka and Brooks were out of breath when they stopped at the wrought-iron gate and looked up at the sky. Where the clouds were clearing, the night was starry, and Eureka thought there wasn’t anyone in the world who could make her laugh anymore except for Brooks. She imagined a glass dome lowering from the sky, sealing the yard like a snow globe, capturing the two of them in this moment forever, with the rain eternally falling down, and nothing else to deal with but the starlight and the mischief in Brooks’s eyes.

The back door opened and Claire stuck out her towhead.

“Reka,” she called. The porch light made her round cheeks glow. “Is the alligator there?”

Eureka and Brooks shared a smile in the darkness. “No, Claire. It’s safe to come out.”

With extreme caution, the girl tiptoed as far as the edge of the doormat. She leaned forward and cupped her hands over her mouth to project her voice. “There’s someone at the door. A boy. He wants to see you.”