The Cake House Read online

  “Do you hate me?” I asked.

  His eyes glistened. He stopped fumbling with his jeans and crushed his lips against mine, our teeth banging together.

  Then I felt him shaking. He stopped kissing me, his mouth slipping down to my neck, his left hand threading through my hair. I held him as he continued to shake.

  “What did you do to her?” My lip was bleeding; I tasted blood as I spoke.

  He rolled onto his side, facing the wall. He put his pillow over his head.

  He lay rigid, unmoving. I had never seen him this upset. I shook his shoulder to make him turn around, but he was stiff; he barely moved. I said his name, but he had stopped acknowledging my presence. Alex wasn’t going to talk anymore. I left his room and walked back down the hallway.

  ALEX WITHDREW BEHIND SNOWDRIFTS OF silence. When further questioned by the police, he denied having anything to do with drugs. He didn’t deal, he didn’t use, he never even gave Tina so much as a bottle of beer. Each time they questioned him, whether Deputy Mike or another policeman or his father, he stood silent and white-faced.

  At school, from the moment Alex stepped on campus, he drew stares. The crowded hallways throbbed with silence as he walked to his classes. In the courtyard at lunch no one sat with him; no one spoke with him. He ate his lunch bite by bite, staring with an unfocused gaze at the ground. Tina’s friends huddled together, holding hands, with tear-streaked faces, but Alex did not see them or acknowledge their existence. No one dared approach him. Not even me.

  The football team wore black armbands. A disembodied voice announced over the loudspeaker that a counselor was on hand should anyone feel unable to cope with the trauma. Bake sales were organized, with the proceeds promised to the families of Tina Myers and the boy who had died. Even the teachers were solemn, speaking in hushed tones, conferring over cups of coffee and saying over and over again, “I can’t believe it. How could this happen?”

  “So young. Such a waste.”

  “I just can’t believe it.”

  And through it all, Alex remained silent and aloof. It didn’t take long for the whispers to grow.

  In the hallway, I overheard a girl with jet-black hair say, “It’s like he doesn’t even care. He acts like nothing happened. That’s cold.” She shuddered.

  “Do you think it’s true, what they’re saying?” asked her friend.

  The girl shrugged. “Tina was messed up in the head. I believe anything.”

  “She told me her parents were having money trouble. Fighting all the time. She complained about it to anyone who would listen. Probably just wanted to get out of the house.”

  The first girl shut her locker. “Shit, you wouldn’t know it to look at her, Miss Perfect. Why does everybody know her family’s problems? That’s not anybody’s business.”

  “I don’t know,” said the second girl. “Damn, give the girl a break. She’s lying in the hospital, near-dead.”

  They walked away. I hid my face in my locker as I took the books I needed for my next class. I hid not from shame but from sadness. From horror.

  At the end of that long week, I sat with Aaron and Tom in the courtyard during lunch. Tom looked like he hadn’t showered or eaten all week. His eyes were red, his normally olive skin waxy and pale.

  Joey was the only one to penetrate through Alex’s glacier-like barrier. She went right up to him, into his face, and pushed him with both her hands. The courtyard sank into silence as if a vacuum had sucked out all the sound. He staggered back but otherwise didn’t react. She pushed him again. “Where the fuck were you?” she asked through tears. “Why weren’t you there?”

  “I couldn’t … It wouldn’t have—” But he bit off whatever he was trying to say. His cool façade slipped, his skin flushed.

  Joey pushed him again, but this time Alex pushed back, and she fell down onto the bench of a picnic table, crying out. The crowd hushed in shock.

  In a flash, Tom jumped forward and slammed against Alex. They both went down hard onto the cement. Alex landed on his ass, catching most of his weight on his hands.

  At first I thought that would be it, that Alex would shake it off and leave Tom and Joey and the rest of the lunch crowd and retreat with his anger and resentment. But then Alex leapt up and punched Tom in the face. And then again. Tom fought back, twisting around to sit on Alex as Alex curled in on himself, like a boxer in the ring.

  I searched for someone to stop them, pushed at a couple of the guys who were just standing there useless, but no one moved. Joey was crying, still sitting at the picnic table. The crowd seemed stunned into immobility, and there were no adults around. Then I saw Aaron attempt to pull Tom off, but Tom pushed him back into the crowd. Aaron stumbled as a couple of students caught him before he hit the ground. The crowd stepped back, away from Alex and Tom as they rolled around on the hard cement.

  Tom grabbed hold of Alex’s jacket. Alex swayed, shook his head. He spoke through a bloody nose. “This is your fault, you fucker,” he said, voice broken.

  Tom wiped his face, his busted knuckles smearing blood. He shook his head, trying to catch his breath. “Bullshit. You hurt her. You know you did. I tried to help.” Tom took his bleeding hands and put them over his head. “I should kill you.”

  “You’re such a fucking liar.” Alex’s voice cracked. “You little shit. I didn’t give her any drugs. You did. You kept on giving them to her, even when you knew she couldn’t handle it.”

  The silence in the courtyard ballooned with the collective breath of everyone watching.

  Then something in Alex snapped. I could see it, like the flip of an electric light switched on. He took hold of Tom and slammed him to the ground, pressed his knee into the crook of Tom’s left arm. Tom cried out, arching with pain, white with it, trying to fight back, but Alex pressed into Tom’s throat, cheeks quivering from strain.

  Several adults charged in and pulled Alex off, but not before I saw in Alex’s face the truth. A moment longer and he would have crushed Tom’s throat.

  THEY CALLED CLAUDE AND MADE me wait outside the main offices.

  “Have you seen Alex?” he asked when he appeared in the hallway, once again big and broad like a ship with a tall mast sailing down a river.

  “He’s in there.” I pointed to the principal’s office as a door at the other end of the hallway banged open and two sheriff’s deputies entered. I could tell right away that one of them was Deputy Mike.

  Claude pursed his lips. “We have to stop meeting like this, Deputy.” There was a flash of an amused glint to his eyes.

  Deputy Mike held up his hands in a plea for peace. He stopped in front of Claude. “This time I’m here as a civilian. Deputy Peters will take the boys’ statements.”

  Claude frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Tom’s my brother, Mr. Fisk. I guess you didn’t know that.” A strange light entered Deputy Mike’s eyes. “This is the second time your son has broken my brother’s arm. I guess you don’t remember that, either.”

  Claude stared at Deputy Mike before saying with a strange, almost calm sadness, “What can I say?”

  Deputy Mike shrugged. I could see the similarities now: the same shape to their heads, the same quiet, dark eyes. Tom was shorter than his brother, a little beefier, and his skin wasn’t as dark.

  “Tom’s not innocent in this either. Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

  The other deputy opened the door to the administration offices. Claude went in first, but before Deputy Mike followed he turned to me. “Did you know?” he asked.

  He didn’t sound angry or disappointed or hurt, yet the weight of his gaze carried such pain that, like a coward, I had to look away. “I didn’t want it to be true,” I said.

  I wanted to say more. I wanted to say I was sorry, but he nodded and disappeared into the office.

  The squares of lights moved across the floor as the sun sank lower. A class period ended, and students filled the hallway, walking over the squares of light. They held up
their hands to shield their eyes from the sun. The bell rang, and everyone disappeared, another class period starting. I continued to wait until paramedics pushed the gurney through the door with Tom lying strapped in, his sweatshirt and T-shirt cut away to reveal his black-and-blue arm in a splint and a jagged open wound right in the crook at his elbow. Deputy Mike walked beside the gurney as they wheeled Tom out. Tom turned his face away from his brother.

  Finally Claude emerged, with Alex in front of him. “We’re going,” he said.

  Someone had stuck a Band-Aid over Alex’s eye and another along the side of his mouth. Claude walked with his hand on his son’s elbow, steering him as if he were a prisoner in the exact same way Alex had guided me through the house in those first days. And maybe we both were prisoners.

  Inside the Mercedes, the radio started when Claude turned the ignition. He lowered the volume and let the car idle. I thought Claude must be angry, but as I watched from the backseat, I realized it wasn’t anger that made Claude wait while the Mercedes burned gas.

  “You can kill yourself over it, to try and make it better,” he said to Alex, “but it won’t work.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” His breathing was choppy and damp. “Are you saying it isn’t my fault? That this isn’t our fucking fault? I lied to her. I lied to her parents. She came to me begging to talk to you, begging for her dad. I used her, and I knew I was doing it. Tom at least was trying to be a friend.”

  “What’s done is done, Alex.”

  “Jesus, do you hear what you’re saying? You can’t even say the truth to yourself. You take and then shrug it off. No problem, right, she wanted it. She asked for it, they all do. If it hadn’t been me it would have been someone else? Is that how I’m supposed to think?”

  Claude’s expression flattened and he faced front. Besides the low rumble of the Mercedes, the only other sounds came from Alex, his wet breathing, his snot and tears. With a harsh jab, Claude roughly put the car into gear.

  AT FIRST I DIDN’T SEE the different car parked in our driveway. It was a black sedan even larger than the Mercedes, with tinted windows—a real limousine. Forehead creased, Claude slowed down. Alex sat up when he noticed the new car. He wiped at his eyes, and before the Mercedes could fully stop, Alex had the door open and was running toward the house.

  Claude paused, each of his actions laborious as he hauled his body from the front seat. He waited for me to exit before locking the car. He didn’t speak as he walked toward the house, although I could see uncertainty in his step.

  There was a woman in the front room sitting across from my mother, who waited with rigid patience. The woman had long blond hair swept back from her face, and she sat with a stiff, unbending posture, gazing at the artwork on the wall in a vacant, absentminded manner.

  “Hello, Catherine,” said Claude to the woman.

  But Catherine had eyes only for her son. She touched where the Band-Aid cut across his brow, inspecting it as if she were a doctor, assessing it for permanent damage, almost clinically detached. Her fingers were long, bony, and tapered, and she held his chin, turning his face from one side to the other. There was no obvious affection for the son she hadn’t seen in years, but she stepped closer and took him into her arms. Alex rested his head against her shoulder. He closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  With her thin arms held close to her body and her big-knuckled fingers wrapped around her clutch purse, Catherine Craig seemed out of place without a violin to hold. She dismissed me right away and kept her attention on Alex, whom she looked at as if he were an interesting art piece at a gallery.

  Alex resembled her more than Claude, not only in the details of his face—his thin, bow-shaped lips and colorless eyes—but also in his elevation over us. She held refinement displayed in the fine cut of her suit and her delicate jewelry, in the simplicity of her posture. No one asked where she came from. Claude stared at her like a memory made flesh and bone. I wondered if the real Catherine matched his dreams of her.

  “You’re here,” said Alex, breathless with wonder, with a light-filled happiness I had never seen in him before. His expression showed that he hadn’t believed she would come, and he gazed at her with worshipful devotion, with the same intensity I had seen on Tina’s face when she followed Alex with her eyes.

  Ever since I had first met him, I’d sought to understand Alex, wanting to crack his code as if he were a safe with a treasure inside. At night, in my bed, with his sweat on my skin, when he smiled at me, when we sat together in his room or in mine and he sang for me or asked me to sing—these were moments I came close to understanding him but never truly could, not in any way that lingered.

  Mother and son existed in their own bubble, excluding Claude and me and the world, and I realized that finally, I’d gotten my wish. I understood him now. It was there, in the way he turned to her with his heart willingly given: She was the key that unlocked Alex Fisk. He had been waiting for her.

  “Do you have anything you want to bring with you?” she asked, as if she and Alex were continuing a conversation from earlier, private to themselves.

  “Five minutes,” said Alex. “I’ll be right back.” He ran from the front room, his footsteps thundering up the stairs.

  It took a moment for me to understand, the dominos falling one after another: Alex’s mysterious phone calls, his mother’s sudden presence and the car outside, her question to him. Five minutes, he’d said. She was there to take Alex away.

  “Dahlia, Rosie, could you give us a moment?” asked Claude. He hadn’t looked away from Catherine since walking into the room. I had a momentary flash of anger at this woman who could capture both Claude and Alex so effortlessly.

  “Of course,” said my mother with a stiff nod as she crossed the room, waiting for me to go ahead of her. I had no choice but to move.

  Out of sight, I pressed against the connecting wall. My mother pinched my arm, whispered that I should get away, but I fended her off. After a moment, she gave up and we both pressed our ears to the paint to listen. At first there was nothing, until Catherine spoke again.

  “How have you been?” Catherine sounded cool and mildly curious.

  “Just as you see,” he said. I always pictured Claude’s anger like a red squall raging wild and uncollected. But with Catherine, he pulled back; he became small.

  “Still the same?” she asked. Like her violin, Catherine’s voice struck a strong and sorrowful chord. I pictured how she must look on stage, how she was so compelling you couldn’t look elsewhere. “I always wanted to know how you were doing,” she continued, her tone honest. “You had such dreams. It was what I liked best about you. Your plans, big and small, and the people you would help.”

  “I remember you never cared.” Claude’s voice was flat.

  “He’s been calling me.”

  “I know,” he said. “I know what he’s like when he leaves you a message and you don’t return his call. What right do you have, waltzing back in here like you have any claim on him? You abandoned him.”

  “Don’t pretend as if that wasn’t exactly what you wanted. I know what I did. I would have come for him earlier, but—” She hesitated, and I heard the first hint of vulnerability. Then, as if she stood straighter, her voice dropped in timbre. I heard the rustle of paper. “He’s my son, and he’s coming with me. I had my lawyer draw up these forms. Please sign them.”

  “What is this?”

  “They release you from any right to Alex.”

  “I won’t sign these.”

  She paused. “If you dare fight it, it would only take one phone call. He’s told me everything. I know all about your so-called business. Did it never bother you, using your own son? Was it a pride thing? A chip off the block, so like his father. Except he’s nothing like you. I’ll make sure of that. Do you really want the authorities to know how those families became your clients? And why?”

  I remembered Alex’s earlier conversation with Claude in the car
. Claude lied to his clients. He lied to my mother. Had he lied to my father? Did Alex ever lie to me?

  Next to me, my mother stepped away from the wall, her expression turned inward. She didn’t look surprised or upset. Instead, she seemed deep in thought as she crossed the room. I watched her leave, then pressed my ear back against the wall.

  “You wouldn’t risk Alex just to get at me,” said Claude, strained but in that dismissive way of his that tried to regain the upper hand in a conversation.

  “Well, you’re right there. I wouldn’t. Risk him, that is. I wouldn’t need to, because you’ll sign those forms.” She paused, then added, with a tone of condescension, “I’m sure he’ll call you.”

  I pushed away and ran up the stairs, bursting into Alex’s room. He had laid out a suitcase on his bed and was moving from dresser to suitcase with his arms full of clothing and whatever else he could grab. The suitcase overflowed with T-shirts and jeans, his shoes stuffed around the edges. His music books were zippered into the suitcase’s net pocket, as was the framed photograph of his mother.

  His room, always so clean and ordered, with nothing on the walls, nothing out of place, and the bed always made. As if he lived in the guest room. He had been prepared to leave, at any moment, after any phone call. It was something I should have noticed and never let myself see.

  “Are you leaving?”

  “Yes,” he answered, without hesitation.

  “You’re going to leave me here?” I accused, trying to catch his hands and hold him still. He danced out of my reach. If I had ever thought I could hold him, I was wrong. “Why didn’t you tell me about her? You never said anything. I would’ve understood.”

  He pushed me aside but squeezed my arm. His smile—I always craved his smile, and there it was. He was radiant in his freedom. “I guess I got used to never talking about her. I hated her. I thought I hated her.”

  “Then why are you going with her now?”