Rescue - By Anita Shreve Page 0,56
to the talent show at the high school. There might be a party after that.”
“What party?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You know I don’t like that.”
“I’ll call you when I get there.”
Both know a cell phone call is only slightly better than meaningless. If she wanted to, she could easily lie about her whereabouts. Would she lie to him?
“You have gas in your car?” he asks her.
“Enough.”
She lifts her head and tosses her hair, a gesture he hardly ever sees her make. Webster doesn’t want Rowan to go, but there’s nothing he can do.
He aches to put his arms around her. Three months ago, he would have done it. He worries about car trouble, about her getting lost, about predators. But he can feel the shield she’s put up against him.
“So,” she says.
He wants to say, Don’t drink.
He watches his daughter slide into the Corolla. He knows he’s making her nervous. He ought to move away, go back into the garden, but he feels as though he has to see her out of the driveway. It’s an old habit, impossible to break. He’s watched her leave in the backseat of a girlfriend’s mother’s van, and driving away after she got her license. The old impulses just don’t go away.
She backs the car around, slides her sunglasses forward, adjusts her hair, and heads down the driveway. He watches until she makes the turn onto 42.
He likes the feel of the earth, the smell of it, the mounded rows of seedlings. He’s already harvested lettuces, and the peas should pop soon. He has a lot of weeding to do tomorrow, the tomatoes to put in. The day before, he worked on the fence, securing it against deer, though he’s heard from others that a vegetable garden in Vermont is a crapshoot. Koenig’s wife, Ruth, said that last year the deer ate all the pink and blue flowers she’d put in. They left the rest alone. Webster has planted marigolds all around the inside border of the fence. It’s supposed to work with small pests. Already he has bigger pests, the tunnels in the lawn suggesting moles. Squishy places where the foot sinks in. He supposes it’s just a matter of time before the critters reach the garden.
He pictures Rowan on the road. Does she drive with only one hand? Does she text while she drives?
By the time she heads for college, he’ll have had her for eighteen years. Maybe that’s all he’ll get. He has to be ready to settle for that. Sheila had only two.
He squats, digs the spade deep into the black dirt, and rests the heel of his hand against the wooden end. He wants to lie down. He wants to let the worry sink into the dirt.
When he gets home after his shift, Webster can smell the alcohol as soon as he enters the kitchen. He takes the stairs two at a time and yanks himself into Rowan’s room by the doorjamb. She’s not there. He can’t tell if she’s slept in her bed or not. After nearly falling down the stairs to get to the living room, he finds Rowan on the couch wrapped in a summer quilt.
“Rowan!” he yells, standing over her. The reek of alcohol is strong and so is something else. He glances at the carpet and sees a dried stain of vomit.
Jesus Christ.
He shakes her and gets a moan.
Shit, he thinks. Is his daughter having a blackout?
He shakes her again and says her name. She opens her eyes and focuses. He sees the moment of panic. Conscious and alert.
“What the hell?” he says to her.
Rowan moans. “I don’t feel good,” she says.
“How much did you have to drink?”
There’s a slight movement under the blankets. Rowan’s hand going to her stomach. “I don’t know.”
“Did Tommy do this to you?” Webster demands, his blood pressure soaring.
“No,” Rowan says. “He was getting pissed at me.”
“Did he drive you home?”
“Oh, God, Dad, why are you doing this?”
“I’ll do a hell of a lot more if you don’t answer my questions!”
“Tommy got me into his car,” Rowan says. “He was sober. I don’t remember anything after that.”
“Jesus Christ, Rowan. Why?”
“Why what?”
“What the hell happened to you?”
She coughs, and he thinks she’s going to throw up again. Was she in such bad shape earlier that she couldn’t even make it to a toilet or grab a pan from the kitchen?
“I don’t know,” she says weakly. “I guess it runs in the family.”
Webster roughly pulls her to a sitting position. Her head bobbles.