Lakewood - Megan Giddings Page 0,88

maybe she was talking about Grandma, but I didn’t understand the context. There was so much between them that I didn’t know, don’t want to know. But now, I think maybe Deziree was already seeing things clearer than I was.

Is there anywhere else, anyone else you can think of who could give us proof? my mom finally asked.

I shook my head.

While we went back to my old apartment, started gathering up my things, my phone was blowing up with texts about Lakewood. You, Kelly, Stacy, people who hadn’t spoken to me since April. It was all about the water. Was I okay? What are you going to do? How do you feel? Are you scared? I sent the three of you a picture of the lake. The foam, the people in hazmat suits. How can I help? you all asked.

When I used to go to service, the preacher loved to talk about how to be good in today’s world. He would use generic, often corny, situations. When you’re in the club. When someone sweet from your past sends you an email, but you booed up. He didn’t usually speak like that and I always thought it was condescending when he said things like booed up, lit, wildin—but with the “g” pronounced. The way a cop would say it. Gambling, sex, violent movies, violent video games, opportunities to do violence. He steered all these situations toward the dads in the room. You will blow up your family if you make the wrong decision. Your kids will never look at you the same. Do you want to be another ain’t-crap dad in this world? Mothers, you are angels. Kids, listen to your mothers.

Everywhere taught me to think about things in the simplest ways. School told me that anything could be summed up and have conclusions drawn from it in five paragraphs. This = good. That = bad. But now I think a lot about context. I think about what I owe the people in my life and what I owe people I will never see, never speak to. Can I make anything better? And if I did break my NDA, would anyone listen?

It’s been six weeks since I’ve been in Lakewood. Deziree refuses to let me talk to any reporters. She says that I have done enough. Every time this comes up, it’s the closest we come to fighting. She says if one of us has to take risks, giving things up, going to jail, it will be her. She says I have somehow forgotten—and the way she says it is so passive-aggressive it makes my teeth clench—that she is the mother. That she is the person who makes decisions for herself, our family.

What we know and don’t say is that reporters might have an easier time thinking I’m more credible than her. She’s reached out and talked to a few. Each one made scans of her invitation letter. They told her what she has to say is interesting. But she’s come back grumpy and defeated from each meeting. There’s no hard evidence. And Deziree says there are so many red flags that she doubts they take her seriously. Her health problems including her unreliable memory, her limp, her high-school-level education, her dark skin. She thinks they see her as someone trying to cash in. Or worse, someone who has read the papers and tricked herself into thinking this was the answer to why she was sick. I went to a good college, I speak confidently, but the times my mother has told me not to do something I can count on one hand. For now, the right thing feels like listening to her.

I think a lot about everyone else in the experiments, especially Charlie. Where was he? Was he okay? Sometimes, late at night, I wonder if there was ever a Charlie. Maybe he was just an actor pretending to be my friend, taking notes to report back to them. There’s now no proof on the internet that a Charlie Graham from Lakewood ever existed.

Deziree says it takes time, but one day, you’ll get used to living without certainty. You’ll accept here are times you’ll never get a clear answer to. Instead of it being the center of your life, eventually it’ll be something you rarely think about. It’ll be in the margins of your life. I want to believe her. I watch as she sips her tea, as she makes soft kind-mom eyes at me, a gaze that makes her