Eden Read online

  “Back off,” my dad said. “Maybe you should’ve been thinking clearly before you slept with my underage daughter.” “No, hey,” the guy said, putting up a palm and looking at my dad over his glasses. “She’s got her own space here. She’s an autonomous person.” “She’s a minor,” my dad said. “She’s my daughter and she belongs to me.” “I am not a fucking object!” Eden yelled. “Shut up,” my dad said.

  Suddenly the flip-flops-and-glasses guy looked sad. I thought he might cry. His face wrenched up and he looked like a powerless kindergartner. He gasped a little and said, “Eden,” in a whimpering voice. He extended his arms toward her to give her a hug and then my dad punched him. I don’t think I had ever seen someone punch someone except on television. At first I wasn’t entirely sure my dad had hit him; it looked more like he accidentally knocked him down. But the guy was clutching his face, and my dad was saying something stolen out of a movie: “You want some more?” or “You’re not stopping me” or something like that.

  The guy was down on the pavement, trying to sit up. “Oh, that’s great,” he said, patting for the glasses that had been knocked off his face. I was worried they would be broken, but he picked them out of the pebbles in one piece. “Using violence. Great way to communicate with someone. Great way to get your daughter to respect you as a human being.”

  “What makes you think human beings aren’t violent?” my dad said.

  When the guy made it up to his feet and took his hands away from his face, we could all see he had a bloody nose. Eden dropped her shopping bag and started crying. She said, “Oh my god, Eric,” and started moving toward him, but my dad pushed her down the driveway and said, “Get in the car.” Eric turned away and said, “You better go. You better get in the car. I’m sorry, Eden.” He walked back toward his double-wide trailer. There were a couple of other high school kids waiting for him on the porch and looking out the window. Eden watched him go, still quietly crying, and let my dad tug her toward The Camper.

  “Hi,” I said to Eden, but she didn’t seem to notice me. I was going to relinquish the front seat, but she walked around the side and yanked open the sliding door to the back. I guessed she didn’t want to sit next to my dad. She lay down on the back couch and wedged her shopping bag against the window as a pillow. My dad started the engine and pulled into the driveway to turn The Camper around.

  “Eden!” Eric came running down the driveway. He tripped over something in his flip-flops and fell forward on his hands and knees. He got up, rubbed his knee, and kept coming toward us. He still had blood on his face and it had dribbled down his T-shirt. “Shit,” my dad said. He put The Camper in reverse.

  “Eden!” Eric made it to The Camper and was banging on the window. Eden sat up and brushed the curtains aside. “You should become an emancipated minor!” Eden tried to crank open the window but the lever broke off in her hand. She put her palms on the slatted glass. “Become an emancipated minor!” he said again. “Un-fucking-believable,” my dad said. He shifted into gear and drove out of there.

  We stopped at a gas station twenty minutes later. When Eden got out of The Camper, my dad yelled at her to stay inside. “People have to urinate, you know,” she said. “Or are you going to deprive me of that, too?” My dad picked up the gas nozzle. He gestured at me with it. “Go with her,” he said.

  I followed Eden into the mini-mart and toward the back. A mop and bucket blocked the entrance to the restroom. Eden kicked it out of the way and went inside. She slammed the door and I heard her latch the lock.

  I wondered if there was a small window in the bathroom that Eden could crawl out of. It probably faced the back of the building and my dad wouldn’t see her. She could run into the brush and out to a different road and hitchhike. She could get picked up easily. But the only place she had to go was back to that guy Eric’s trailer and we would know where to find her.

  She came out of the bathroom, ignoring the fact that I was right there. I was torn whether or not to use the bathroom, but I decided it was okay since Eden was now in my dad’s sight.

  Out at the car, Eden leaned against the driver’s door and said, “I can drive if you want. I know how to drive stick.” “Oh, you are not driving,” my dad said. Eden walked around and climbed in the back. We drove a few hours more and stayed in a motel. “Why are we stopping?” Eden asked. My dad said because it was dark and one of his taillights was out and he didn’t want to get a ticket. “Wouldn’t a ticket be cheaper than a motel?” Eden asked. My dad didn’t say anything. “Are we getting food, or is that not in the budget?” My dad called the motel office and asked if there was a place that delivered pizza. The motel room was dim, with flat, worn-out carpeting and a framed poster from Matisse’s cut-out book Jazz. It looked like a guy doing an awkward dance at night. My dad was about to claim one of the two double beds for himself and have me and Eden share one, but then he changed his mind. He said we could each have our own bed. He took a pillow and one of the scratchy polyester quilts and spread a towel out on the floor in front of the door to prevent Eden from running off.

  Our dad deposited us at my mom’s. He sat on the couch fidgeting with his car keys, wanting to know what my mother was going to do about the situation, as if it were all her fault and as if she had to have the solution for everything. My mother usually did have the solution for everything. She had already figured out what to do with Eden. She couldn’t go back to school because she had already graduated, and it was too late to enroll her in college, or even community college, where she would surely be bored. Instead my mother had called a friend and gotten information about sending Eden to Costa Rica. “You can study environmental science in Costa Rica,” my mother said. “It’s an ecological research center in the rain forest. They have a program for people like you.” “People like me?” Eden asked. “What exactly am I like? Who are my people?” “People taking time off between high school and college,” my mother said. “I’m not going to college,” Eden said. “We can decide that later,” our dad piped in. “This is a bribe,” Eden said. “It’s hush money to forget everything that’s happened.” My mother didn’t take the bait. “How often do you get the chance to go to Costa Rica?” she asked.

  Later that night I tapped softly on the door to Eden’s room. There was no response so I poked my head inside to see if she was there. Eden was smoking a cigarette next to the open window and hadn’t heard my knock. She looked at me and then turned back to the window. Since she didn’t yell at me, I assumed it was okay to come into her room.

  “Shut the door at least,” she said. I did as I was told. Eden sucked on her cigarette. “It’s not good for you,” I said. She rolled her eyes and stubbed out the cigarette inside the window frame. “I thought everyone would be happy,” she said. “Graduating high school is supposed to be an accomplishment and I did it in less time than most people. I also saved them a shitload in tuition. But I get dragged back here instead. And banished to Central America. Fucking indentured servitude. I should get a lawyer.”

  “What would you do with a lawyer?” I asked. “How would you pay for it?”

  “Did you know that you and I could’ve sued, but they decided we shouldn’t?”

  “Sue who?”

  Eden shook her head. She went over and flopped down on her bed. “What were you doing out there?” I asked. “Living,” she said. “Just living. Suddenly that’s a crime. I just want my life to mean something. I just want them to leave me alone and let me do what I want. I don’t need to be taken care of.”

  I thought Eden had made out pretty well. I never went skiing and no one was offering to send me to Costa Rica. I was the one who had to live at home and deal with the parents. I was the one who had to deal with everyone knowing what happened to us, whereas Eden got to go to a new school and reinvent herself where no one knew anything about her. And now she could do it again in Costa Rica.

  Eden used to include me more when we were younger. I was quieter than she was. I was more awkward. I wasn�
�t as pretty. Eden took care of me. One summer she taught me how to dive. It took forever because I was scared of choking on water and I wasn’t a great swimmer to begin with. I was hoping she would be the one to give me driving lessons next year instead of our dad, who would probably end up yelling at me in frustration. And my mom was always busy working on her dissertation. I was the furthest thing from anyone’s mind.

  I crawled into her bed and stretched out next to her. Eden didn’t move. She just stared at the ceiling. “I don’t have any rights,” she said. “I’m just their slave.” She didn’t say anything for a while and I watched her stomach rise and fall with her breath. I turned on my side and curled into her. “Do you ever think about what happened?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer, and I wondered if I really said it or if I only thought it inside my head.

  The next morning I woke up to people arguing. I wandered downstairs and found Eden, Suriya, and my mother in the living room. Suriya’s giant backpack was propped against the couch. My mother was on the verge of yelling something when Suriya saw me and said, “Woo-hoo!” and enveloped me in a hug. She smelled like sandalwood and sweat. Her long hair hung down her back in a thick braid, which she must’ve made days ago because it was frizzy and dandruff dotted the top of her head. Suriya kept an arm draped over my shoulders and held me close, as if we were old army buddies, maybe because my mom was looking at me like she really didn’t want me to be a part of this conversation, whatever it might be. Eden was sitting astride the arm of the couch eating a bowl of cereal. “It’s only five months until my birthday,” Eden said, breaking the standoff. “And she is my mother. In case anyone forgot.” My mother walked out of the room. I asked what was going on. Suriya frowned. “First of all,” she said to Eden, “that wasn’t very nice. Karen’s your mother too. Don’t go grabbing at conventions just because they happen to suit you.” Eden walked to the kitchen. “She doesn’t really want to go to Costa Rica,” Suriya said to me. “It’s a nice idea and all, but maybe not for her.” Suriya and I went to the kitchen. Eden was standing in front of the refrigerator, peering inside. She took out the milk and made herself another bowl of cereal.

  “What?” she said, already annoyed with me. She munched spoonfuls of cereal. “What are you going to do?” I asked. Suriya said, “She’s going to come stay with me for a while. Give your mom a break. She’ll do some independent study. I know some people who were a part of the Free University and they can be mentor types. If we make enough money this fall we can get to India. Or maybe Thailand.” “You want to go to Thailand but you don’t want to go to Costa Rica?” I asked. “I don’t want to be a part of any system. I want to make my own choices,” Eden said and put her bowl in the sink.

  I followed Eden up to her room. She was pulling the clothes she brought with her out of the old shopping bag and smelling them. She packed a big duffel bag with fresh clothes from her dresser, then went to her closet and pulled out a winter coat that she hadn’t worn in ages. My mother had bought it for her in the eighth grade. It was puffy and expensive, but once Eden had started high school she considered it uncool and never wore it. Now she was looking at her backpack and dubbing the coat too big. “Where’s my leather jacket?” she asked. “I have it,” I said. I had been wearing it since she left. “Do you want it back?” “No,” she said. “You can have it.” She opened a drawer in her desk and took out a Band-Aid tin. Inside was a wad of bills. She thumbed through the cash. “Got any money?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe twenty dollars,” I said.

  “Could I have it?”

  “Sure,” I said. This was part of the deal for the leather jacket, I thought. Or I assumed. And twenty dollars for a cool jacket was not that much. Although it was better to just find a cool jacket or have your older sister give it to you.

  I went to my room and got my twenty dollars. I also had a jar of loose change, but I figured she wouldn’t want that. I gave the money to Eden and told her I could ask my mother for more. “Never mind,” she said.

  A car horn beeped outside. Suriya called upstairs for her. Eden didn’t say goodbye. She rumbled down the stairs like she was heading off to school on a normal day. My mother had emerged and was talking to Suriya, who swung her giant backpack over her shoulder and pulled her braid free. She asked my mom if there was anything she had to sign, or any papers she needed for Eden. My mother shook her head. “I have a copy of her birth certificate if you need it,” she said. “Nah, you hang on to it for safekeeping,” Suriya said. She hugged my mother even though my mother obviously didn’t want to be hugged and didn’t hug her back. Instead, she begrudgingly bent her arms and lightly touched Suriya’s waist. “I’m sorry about all this. You know I love everything you’ve done for her,” Suriya said. “Some people just got to go their own way.”

  I followed Suriya onto the front porch. There was some older hippie guy with a bushy white Santa Claus beard leaning against the car. He helped Eden push her duffel bag into the trunk. She had taken the puffy winter coat with her and shoved that in too. A tall, thin woman got out of the car and walked up to the porch. She looked like a man dressed as a woman, with a sinewy body and a bluntly cut bob of overprocessed blonde hair that had been dyed too many times and looked brittle. She wore a cropped white denim jacket and a prairie skirt that were both out of style. She asked if she could use the bathroom.

  “Sure,” I said, “it’s in the back.” She thanked me and disappeared into the house, her clog sandals clomping on the floor. When she came back out, she said, “Sorry,” with a hand on her chest. She walked halfway down the porch steps so there wasn’t so much of a height difference between us and extended her arm to me. “I’m Chrissy,” she said.

  I shook her hand. “I’m Hope.”

  Chrissy sat down on the porch steps, daintily tucking her skirt around her legs and angling her shins to one side. She rummaged through her woven purse for sunglasses, then tilted her face to the sun and closed her eyes behind her amber shades. She acted like a movie star. I wondered if she had once been famous. She looked over to the car where Suriya was changing her shirt, stripping down to a threadbare tank top in the middle of the street and putting on a short-sleeve blouse that she left unbuttoned. Suriya never wore a bra. I thought it was interesting that she was friends with a drag queen like Chrissy.

  “Chrissy!” the Santa Claus hippie called. Chrissy stretched out her legs and dragged herself to her feet. She took off her sunglasses, folded them, and deposited them back in her purse. She extended her hand to me again, but this time she leaned in closer to me. She air-kissed me on both cheeks. “I’m sorry you can’t come with us,” she said.

  I watched her walk down to the car. I heard the screen door open behind me and my mom came out onto the porch. Suriya gave us a peace-sign salute before she got inside. Eden was in the back seat next to Chrissy. Santa Claus started the car and looked over his shoulder to see if anyone was coming behind him before he pulled out into the street. “Bye,” I yelled, feeling kind of weird about it, like maybe no one was going to say it if I didn’t. Eden stuck her hand out of the window and waved.

  5

  I called the number listed on the district attorney’s letterhead. I gave my name to an assistant and she asked what it was in reference to. I said I was responding to a letter about Larry’s case. She asked me what my relationship was to the case. I paused. I thought everyone would know who I was. After all, they were the ones who sent the letter. I was silent. Maybe her other lines were lighting up, because she prodded me. “Are you a lawyer for a party involved?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Can you tell me your relationship to the case?”

  “It’s my case,” I said. “I am the case.”

  There was a moment while she sorted through her confusion.

  “Are you the victim?” she asked quietly.

  It was strange to have to say yes. I didn’t like the word “victim.” At various points in my life I had read self
-help books about people who had been through traumatic events. “It’s not your fault!” they always said. “You’re the victim!” I guess I was the victim, but acknowledging it never made me feel any better. I didn’t see why I had to relinquish control over my life a second time.

  I was placed on hold. Then the woman picked up and made an appointment for me to come to the office and speak with the district attorney. She sounded excited.

  “Of course you’re going,” Zara said. “Wouldn’t you donate a kidney if you could keep someone from dying?” I said I didn’t know. I guess I would. “It’s not that big a deal,” Zara said. “You only need one. Like testicles.” “But this girl is already dead,” I said. “Someone else might not be,” Zara said. She got up and walked across the loft to get more tape for her boxes. “If it were me,” she said, “my gallerist would make me do it. She’d get a fashion magazine to publish my crappily written essay about it.” I winced. “Isn’t that kind of gross?” I asked. Zara shrugged. “Being an artist is inherently gross,” she said. “We’re self-commoditizing savages.” “That’s rather harsh,” I said. “But you are considering going,” Zara said, “and not necessarily for purely altruistic reasons.” “What do you mean?” I asked. “You’re bored,” Zara said. “You’ve got nothing to do and nothing going on. You haven’t put up a play in a long time. This is the best thing to happen to you in years. The tragedy of life is raw material. And you could use some new material.” “My mother just died,” I said. “Isn’t that enough to work with?” Zara shrugged again. “Everyone’s mother dies,” she said. “It’s relatable, but not terribly dramatic. This is better. In the big sense. If you want to make a splash.” “Now I really feel gross,” I said.