Chapter Eight. Ingrid
CHAPTER EIGHT
INGRID
Back in Colorado, I had called Joel to tell him about my mother’s cancer diagnosis.
Oh, Iggy. I could picture him sitting down wherever he was, the way he’d run a hand through his hair, knew the expression on his face, even though I couldn’t see him. I’m sorry to hear that. And I knew he meant it.
I have to go down there. She’s having surgery, and I want to be able to help out once she’s home. Dad can’t do it all by himself, not at his age.
I figured Joel would come with me. I guess that’s why I was calling, really, though I didn’t say it.
Instead, at the end of the conversation, he asked, Have you told them about us yet?
Joel moved out two months ago. When Mom asks about him now, I just say, Oh, Joel’s fine.
Because I don’t want to burden her. Not now.
But also because I didn’t think it was permanent.
Joel was going through some kind of midlife crisis, and a few months from now, he’d be crawling back with his tail between his legs.
I didn’t want to taint everyone’s opinion of him, of our relationship, of my life.
But then Joel didn’t offer to come with me on this trip. Not even as a friend. Didn’t bother to give me an excuse as to why he couldn’t. Like the thought hadn’t even occurred to him. Because you show up for the big things when you love someone.
Mom is sitting up in the hospital bed, and bars of sunlight spill through the blinds and wrap around the knitted blanket on her lap.
She has her makeup on, her gold hoop earrings in, but she looks frail—the hospital gown, the large purple bruises at her wrists.
If I try to say anything meaningful, tears will choke my words.
The nurse drops playing cards across the floor. I go to help pick them up, thankful for the distraction. Putting things back in order settles me.
“Well, hello, honey.” Mom peers down at me.
“Hi, Mom.” I look up and lock eyes with her. She looks tired, older, but somehow exactly the same. I rise up and give her a kiss on her dry cheek. Her White Diamonds perfume almost masks the smell of hospital.
“Where’s Joel?” she says, looking to the open doorway behind me.
“He couldn’t get away.”
She tsks. “That’s too bad. Did you see my flowers?
” She points to a bright bouquet in a vase on her bedside table, three miniature sunflowers like happy faces.
“Kennedy Claire brought them by for me earlier. Isn’t that sweet?
She was wanting to know when you’d be coming into town. She sure is eager to see you.”
I think of all those bouquets piled up along the construction site at Sherman Ranch. I’ve always hated flowers. The ratio of sentiments is all wrong, like an equation that doesn’t balance: Hey, I know you’re devastated right now, so here’s some pointless, pretty dead things.
“I’ll give her a call,” I say, reaching past the flowers to grab the oversized Styrofoam cup from the table. “Are you drinking enough water? You need to stay hydrated.”
“Iggy,” Mom admonishes.
“Is she eating the food?” I ask the nurse, who is up from her hands and knees, having gathered the rest of the playing cards.
I pull a binder from my purse, organized into tabbed sections, and flip to a research paper I’d found on diet in preparation for chemo.
“You need lots of protein, Mom. Now, before you lose your appetite.”
“Iggy, for heaven’s sake,” Mom says. “Sit down. Can’t we just visit?”
Six weeks ago, the doctors found a lump in Mom’s right breast. Cancerous cells had spread to nearby lymph nodes. A few days ago, she underwent surgery to have the mass removed.
I check my watch. “I’m meeting with your doctor in ten minutes. Then I’m going to the house to start setting things up.”
Mom tugs a wrinkle out of her blanket.
You cannot prevent bad things from happening, Sheryl, my therapist, has told me time and time again. No matter how prepared you are. Sheryl owns a cardigan sweater in every color and speaks in a voice so measured it’s as if her cadence were calibrated down to being paid by the minute. Which it is.
I, of all people, understand that bad things cannot be avoided in life. But risks can be mitigated.
I’m the one who kept a reminder on my calendar for Mom’s routine mammogram, who called to nag her to make the appointment.
When they found the cancer, it was still regional.
It hadn’t yet spread to the distant parts of her body—her bones, her blood, her brain.
Her chance of survival is better because I’m a nag. The risk, hopefully, mitigated.
When I brought this up to Sheryl, I felt it was a strong piece of evidence in my favor. But she was more interested in whether Mom’s cancer diagnosis had stirred up old grief.
Stirred up.
As though my grief were a layer of silt that had settled at the bottom of my life, just waiting to be kicked back up.
When Izzy didn’t come home the night before the pageant, Mom and Dad assumed she’d stayed over at the Sherman house.
She spent the night with Ben all the time—they’d been dating since middle school.
Our families had always been intertwined: rodeos, carpools, dinners.
If Mrs. Sherman brought McDonald’s up to the elementary school for Ben, she bought Happy Meals for us too.
If Mom made T-shirts for Spirit Week, she made extras for Ben and his little sister, Laurie.
I’d spent just as much time roaming the river and the woods of the Sherman land as I had spent in my own house. They were basically family.
The next morning was a whirlwind. Kennedy Claire and I were getting ready for the pageant.
Mom was on the committee, driving around all day, picking up floral arrangements, meeting with vendors, and chauffeuring around the guest judges.
It wasn’t like now, everyone glued to their cell phones every second of the day, everyone always checking in.
And in small towns like Anhalt, bad things simply didn’t happen.
I wasn’t worried. I knew Izzy would show up. Earlier that week, I’d tweaked my ankle, just enough that I had to ditch my gymnastics routine. Izzy had come up with a magic trick we could do instead.
But when the talent acts started without her, I panicked and tried to tumble anyway. I hit the mat wrong on my first landing, pain shooting white-hot up my leg, and I went down hard. I ended up in the wings with a bag of ice while the show kept going.
That’s when the worry started. Izzy would never have let me down like that. I knew something wasn’t right, and so did my parents.
I watched Mom fidget in her seat, check over her shoulder. I watched Dad lean in to whisper, then get up, disappearing into the dark shadow that held the rest of the audience in their seats.
After Kennedy Claire’s crowning, I limped through contestants hugging and moms packing away makeup and dresses.
You can’t go yet, Kennedy Claire said. She was wearing her evening gown, the Miss Lone Star crown pinned to her head, a big bouquet in her arms and a pout on her face. We’re supposed to celebrate.
I threw my things in a bag, gave Kennedy Claire a hug. We’ll celebrate tomorrow, I said, annoyed at the way she always had to make everything about her, when I just wanted to be with my parents, just wanted to be looking for my sister.
In the car, Mom kept wiping her palms on her skirt. Dad had already talked to Sheriff Ryan, told him that they hadn’t heard from Izzy all day.
Dad dropped Mom and me off at the house, then headed out to the Shermans’ himself. Look, he said, standing outside the car before he left, arms around Mom. She’s probably there, okay? But if she isn’t, I’ll get Abel, and we’ll find her, and we’ll bring her home.
His words had soothed me. Because Dad, Abel, and the sheriff—the three best men I knew—would be out there looking for Izzy. There was no doubt in my mind in that moment that she would be coming home safe and sound.
But nearly two hours ticked by, the frozen bag of peas on my ankle going lukewarm and mushy, Mom pacing around the living room, peeking out the blinds, calling the Sherman house to no answer.
Finally, Dad came home. He didn’t have Izzy with him.
But he did have the sheriff. They came into the living room, where Mom was perched on the edge of the recliner, back straight and hands knotted in her lap, and I lay on the sofa, my hurt leg elevated on a pillow.
We found Isabelle’s car parked out by the river entrance on Ranch Road 20, the sheriff said.
No, she wasn’t going to the river, I said, sitting up on the sofa, my ankle screaming at the shift. She was going out with Ben. I remembered her packing her little black date night purse.
Where’s Abel? Mom said.
That’s when I noticed Dad’s face, dark and hard like I’d never seen it. They’re not talking.
Mom’s head jerked back slightly, and a quiet scoff escaped her. What do you mean they’re not talking? Did you go up to the house?
Abel barely opened the door, Barb. Said they hadn’t seen Izzy, said they didn’t know anything.
Didn’t know anything? Mom asked, her voice incredulous. She stood up from her chair then. Did you talk to Ben?
Dad shook his head. Abel wouldn’t let me.
I’m going over there, Mom said, walking to the entryway so she could step into her tennis shoes. Carol will talk to me. This is ridiculous.
I’ve already been up there, Barbara, Sheriff Ryan said, gently reaching for her shoulder. Abel told me to get off his property. Said if I wanted to poke around, I’d need a warrant.
Mom’s breathing sharpened and her eyes turned steely. Then get one, she spat.
I stood in the doorway, holding the frame for balance.
I will, the sheriff said, putting a hand to her shoulder. But we need evidence.
Evidence of what? I said.
Then Mom started to cry.
And, like her, I realized what it meant that Abel didn’t want us to come onto his property, what it meant that he wouldn’t let Ben talk to the police, that they hadn’t answered their phone when Mom called. Izzy was missing. And Ben had something to do with it.
“Are you her nurse?” I say to the woman in scrubs. She’s picked up the cards, swept the rest from my mother’s lap.
“Honey, don’t you recognize Melanie?” Mom says. “My goodness. You two went to school together.”
I look at the woman properly. She’s short, plump, her mousey-brown hair tied back in a limp ponytail. My mind shuffles memories like the decks of cards.
“Sheriff Ryan’s daughter,” Mom prompts.
And, oh God, Melanie.
Melon-ball Melanie. That’s what we’d called her.
Kids can be so casually cruel. Melanie had tripped during gym class, going for a soccer ball, tangled up by her own clumsy feet.
She had actually rolled. Dry dirt kicked up behind her.
Like a big ball, Kennedy Claire said, drawing out the words big and ball so they bounced out and into my ears.
Melon-ball Melanie. I’d snorted a laugh.
Izzy had snapped disapproving eyes at me and gone to help Melanie up.
I’d felt a slither of shame. But other girls had heard.
Other girls laughed too. Good try, Mel, Kennedy Claire had said, loud enough this time for even the teacher to hear.
Melanie was tugging her shirt down, grass stains on the wide butt of her gym shorts, her knee skinned, and still she smiled, her cheeks burning red. Sorry, she said. Sorry, everyone.
“Melanie,” I say now. “Oh my God, it’s been forever. I wasn’t paying attention.” Now I’m the one with burning cheeks.
Melanie puts a hand to my upper arm. “It’s so good to see you.
” Her whole face is pure reassurance. She cuts her eyes over to my mother.
“Now, Mrs. Whitmore. I have the next few days off, but I expect my rematch when I get back. That is, if you’re not too tired of counting all those points you’re racking up against me. ”
Mom laughs a pretty, tinkling laugh.
Melanie pats my arm before letting go, smiling at me with that sweet smile of hers. She was always so sweet. And that sense of old shame tightens. Even though it’s in the past, a lifetime ago, and we were just kids, I remember what we did to Melanie.
I remember what cruel really means.