By the time the bottle was empty, the heat and dirt and clay of it had settled directly in my head, so that when we had sex on the floor of the wine cellar I moaned dutifully, even though I could barely feel it. Afterward, we split a joint, a king-sized bag of Twizzlers, and a couple benzos Xander had stolen from his mother. Then I walked home by myself, bare-armed in the October rain, too fucked-up to feel the cold, and passed out in the basement before the soothing pink flicker of Real Housewives reruns.
6
THE BIRTHDAY BOTTLE and the pills and the weed and maybe even the overdose of licorice all contributed to the fact that I wasn’t able to fight back very well when the transport men came for me.
I’m not joking—that’s their official title. Transport Men. Like we’re living in a Marvel franchise or something.
I thought I was dreaming when they grabbed me at first, their voices soothing but their grips firm. By the time my brain had caught up to my circumstances, it was too late to do anything about it. I was already strapped into the back of what I now know was the Red Oak Academy Abductionmobile, and out the window I could see Dad and Alanna, Lauren and Lola, huddled together at the end of the driveway.
They were all crying.
My mouth was dry, and my head throbbed. I started to pound on the window—why was my family just standing there, letting me be kidnapped? Why weren’t they calling 911? And then I became aware of a person twisted around from the front passenger seat, watching me. She had close-set, intelligent eyes; an incongruously delicate nose; and the kind of short utilitarian haircut, threaded throughout with wiry gray strands, that is so unapologetically ugly it feels like a political statement. The words she was speaking with narcotic calmness began to fall into order like metal shots in a pinball machine—Red Oak Academy . . . I’m Dr. . . . but you can call me Mary Pat . . . help you need . . . a new chance . . . pain . . . therapeutic school . . . who you are and who you’re meant to be.
I couldn’t process all of it, but I understood enough to know that the reason my family wasn’t doing anything to thwart my kidnappers was because they were the ones who had called them. The betrayal of it all doubled me over. I’d punched Alanna first, but as it turned out, she punched back much harder. I’d heard about these kinds of places but had always believed them to be just another myth in the toolbox of lies parents use to control their kids, in the vein of If you eat too much candy your teeth will fall out or Keep making that face and it will freeze like that forever.
I thought back, as the car sped along, to the only other time in my life when I was locked away in a car like this. I was fifteen, at my cousin’s wedding. This was early on in my partying career, so I didn’t really know how to handle the rum and Cokes the cute bartender kept slipping to me all throughout cocktail hour. I shattered my glass on the dance floor during the Cupid Shuffle; I ripped my tights. In short, I was an embarrassing, sloppy mess. My dad said we had to go home, but Alanna refused. I’m not letting her ruin my good time, she said. So my dad dragged me out to the car, threw me in the back seat, and child-locked me in. I tried to kick out the window, but it was tempered glass, and all I managed to do was make a spiderwebbing crack. Later, when they came out to the car, they discovered me asleep in my own puke. The smell didn’t leave the car for weeks, not even after I cleaned it up as punishment, not even after I paid for a new window and a professional car shampoo with my own money. I still remember how Alanna, who was a little wine-buzzed herself, took it all in—the cracked window, the masticated chicken breast and scalloped potatoes sprayed all over the back seat, and me, makeup dripping, bra strap slipping down my shoulder. Maybe she thought I was still passed out, that I couldn’t hear what she said next to my dad: I’m sorry, Jim, but you know what? On days like this, I’m glad she’s not my real daughter.
And now here I was again, a year and half later, locked away in a car for my bad behavior. And my physical response was the same. This Mary Pat person was at the ready, barf bag snapped open and passed back to me right in time. Let’s just say that, coming back up, the seventeen-year-aged Bordeaux was no longer incroyable. Once it had finished spewing out of me, she took the bag, tied it neatly shut, and placed it on the floor between her feet in what was surely the most expensive bag of vomit ever regurgitated. She handed me a tissue to wipe my streaming eyes and an Altoid to clear out the heinous taste in my mouth. Biting down on the mint, I thought to myself that if she tried to do something like reach back, squeeze my hand, and tell me it was all going to be okay, I would knock her the fuck out. But she was a pro. She understood that with new captures, it’s best to keep interaction at a minimum. I could kick and thrash as much as I wanted, but it would only be performative, an exercise in protest. She had all the power, and I had none: there was no escaping, and we both knew it.
So after handing me another tissue, Mary Pat turned back to look straight ahead at the road, talked softly to the driver, and left me alone to cry and scream and carry on as if I weren’t there at all.
When I’d finally worn myself out, I put my head against the cold window and watched Chicago, the city of my whole life, drain into the distance like a bloodletting. Whatever Xander’s mom took to regulate her feelings must have been some strong stuff, stronger even than fear, stronger than rage, because even though I didn’t mean to, I eventually passed out again.
I didn’t wake up until many hours later. We were pulling into a round gravel driveway before a series of low-slung wooden buildings with thick wilderness pressing in on all sides. I was made to understand that this was where I lived now. The sun was up, and the sky was an obscene, cloudless blue. There was something snappy and crisp about the air; it had a freshness about it that felt hostile and vaguely foreign. I didn’t know what time it was, or how long we’d been driving, or even what state I was in. I reached for my phone in order to answer all these questions, but Mary Pat informed me, in an unctuous voice not unlike a funeral director’s, that it had been confiscated.
“Once we get you settled in,” she said, handing me a cold bottle of water, “we can talk about ways for you to earn back some tech privileges.”
As I chugged the water, I thought of Xander throwing a tantrum about being kicked off his phone plan. I wondered what he would do if his father took away his actual phone. And his home. And his life.
“I don’t even know where I am,” I croaked, my voice hoarse from screaming. “You can’t do this. I don’t even know where I am.”
“You’re in east-central Minnesota, Mia. And you’re safe. If there’s anything else you want to know, all you need to do is ask.”
But as she led me up the path toward the main building, with the two transport meatheads hulking behind me, the only person I had a question for was my dad. Don’t you remember what you said to me at Mom’s funeral? I mean, I was three, and I still remembered. In fact, it was the only thing I remembered from that day at all. Rain drumming the roof of the hired car as it crawled to the cemetery behind the yellow taillights of the hearse that carried her body. Him turning to me with his dark suit and puffy eyes and squeaky black shoes. Holding both of my hands in his. Saying: Mia. It’s just you and me now. And I will never, ever let you go.