Page 20 of Cut Off from Sky and Earth

I combed the house room by room, calling her name.

She wasn’t in the laundry room. She wasn’t upstairs reading or napping.

The house was empty. No Mom, no note affixed to the refrigerator with a magnet, no clue as to where she might be.

I’d parked on the street in the driveway, so I went out to the garage to check if her car, a silver Honda Civic, was there. It was. But she was gone.

My chest was tight with worry by the time I grabbed the cordless phone from its base and punched in Jessica Chavez’s number. The Chavezes lived across the street, and Mrs. Chavez was my mom’s closest friend. Mom had probably gone over to have coffee and gossip and lost track of time.

Mrs. Chavez answered on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Hi, Mrs. Chavez, it’s Tristan. Is my mom there?”

“No, honey, she’s not here. She’s not back?”

“Not back from where? Her car’s in the garage.”

There was a pause, brief but noticeable.

Then she said, “I saw her leave your house. It was after the worst of the storm had passed and I was checking my trees for damage. One of those Hummers pulled up in front of your house. It idled for a while until she came outside and got in the passenger seat. I waved to her, but I guess she didn’t see me. ”

My stomach twisted and I gripped the phone. “Are you sure it was a Hummer?”

“I’m pretty sure. It was one of those big boxy trucks that looks like a Jeep on steroids. Isn’t that a Hummer?”

“Yeah.”

“Then that’s what it was. A black one.”

I started to sweat. I only knew one person who drove a black Hummer, and he pitched himself into the Atlantic Ocean seven years ago.

Mom had sold that thing before we left. Unless …

I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to block out Tate, red-faced and screaming at her that he wanted Dad’s car.

Could he have bought it back from the lot?

“Did you happen to notice if it had out-of-state plates?”

“Hmm, I can’t say that I did. Tristan, is everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m just worried that she’s not home yet,” I choked out the lie. “The roads were a mess when I left track practice.”

She cooed, “Such a good son. I’m sure your mother is doing fine, just fine. Do you want to come over here and have dinner with us?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Chavez. I’m sure you’re right, and she’ll be home any minute.”

She sounded hesitant about leaving me there alone, even though I was sixteen. “Well, okay. If you need anything, you let me know.”

“I will.”

As I ended the call, the loud rumble of an engine sounded out front. I ran to the living room window. Sure enough, there was a big black Hummer hulking in front of the house. Dad’s Hummer, I was almost sure of it.

When Mom got out of the truck and ran toward the front door, her face was streaked with tears, and I was positive. I wrenched the door open.

“Mom, what’s wrong?”

She ran straight into my arms, sobbing. I patted her back awkwardly and looked over her shoulder in time to watch a tall, burly man exit the driver’s side of the vehicle. He slammed the door shut and stalked slowly up the walk toward us. Tate.

The seven years since I’d seen my brother hadn’t been kind to him. His hair was greasy and lank. His eyes were bloodshot and his skin was sallow. Dirt clung to his nails. In contrast to his broad chest and shoulders, his cheeks were sunken, almost hollow.

“Mom, go inside,” I said, my voice shaking.

She craned to look over her shoulder at Tate’s thunderous face. “Honey, no.”

“Go inside,” I said more forcefully. I gave her a small push toward the open door. Reluctantly, she went inside and shut the door behind her.

“Hey, little man,” Tate said.

I ignored it. I knew he was trying to get a rise out of me, and even at sixteen, I had the self-control to ignore it.

“What are you doing here, Tate?”

“Jesus, visiting my mother and brother. Bring it in.” He stretched out his arms.

I curled my lip. “I don’t think so. You need to leave.”

“You need to watch how you talk to me. I’m your older brother.”

“You’re nobody,” I told him.

He laughed a bitter laugh and spat a stream of chewing tobacco on the patio.

“Don’t,” I warned. “Don’t do that.”

He spat again, and I balled my fists.

His eyes tracked my movement, and he smirked. “Try it, little man.”

In my peripheral vision, I could see our mother peering through the curtain in the living room, watching us.

“Tate,” I said as calmly as I could. “Mom doesn’t want anything to do with you. I don’t want anything to do with you. I don’t know why you’re here, but it’s time for you to go.”

“You two think you can turn your back on me—on Dad?”

“Dad’s dead,” I told him flatly.

“He was your father.”

“I have a father. A decent one.”

He whipped out his hand and slapped me, fast and hard. “Watch your mouth. Next time it’ll be a closed fist.”

“Like father, like son,” I shot back, my cheek stinging.

His eyes narrowed. “You’re soft.”

Adrenaline poured through my body. I was somehow both hot and cold and vibrating with nervous energy, but I kept my voice level.

“And you’re trespassing. Get off our property.”

His face darkened, and his eyes shifted to the window. He flipped our mother the bird and turned as if he were leaving. Classic Tate. Barrel in, cause a scene, and leave. I sighed with shaky relief as he stepped away from the patio.

Then he wheeled back around so fast I didn’t even notice that he had our garden flag in his hand until it connected with my shoulder. As I wondered if the haboob had uprooted it, he swung it at me again. Another heavy blow landed—this one to the side of my neck.

That red mist people describe when they’re enraged?

I saw it. I lunged at him, wrenching the iron stake from his hands.

I threw it aside and punched him, splitting his lip.

Then we were on the ground. He was bigger, stronger, faster, and—it has to be said—meaner than me.

I got a few good punches in, but he pummeled me into stillness and then kicked me, his work boots connecting with my ribs in a series of breath-stealing staccato strikes.

Then, as I was dragging myself to my knees, our mother rushed out of the house, phone in hand, and screamed at him to leave before she called the police.

He left. But first he ripped every plant out of our succulent garden, scattering them across the lawn, then sauntered down the front walk, pausing to spit tobacco juice on the sidewalk before getting into his truck and speeding away, tires squealing.

Mom helped me inside, cleaned me up, fixed me a bowl of soup, and made me promise to never tell my stepfather that Tate had come to the house.

The next day, we went to the nursery for new succulents and replanted the garden.

When he returned from his work trip, he asked what happened to the old plants.

We told him the haboob had torn them up, which was more or less true.

I only asked my mother once where Tate had taken her that day. After I’d had some soup and the painkillers had kicked in.

She took so long to answer that I thought she wouldn’t. But then she said in a dull voice, “He told me he’d been working at Arizona State. Landscaping. He said he thought I’d like to see the orchard.”

That didn’t sound like the Tate I knew.

“What happened, Mom?”

She turned away, her shoulders shaking. “The orchard was blocked off.”

“Downed trees from the storm?” I asked, confused.

She started to cry. “No, police tape. It was a crime scene. One of the dorms behind to the left of it … someone was hurt there.” She let out an inhuman wail, like a wounded animal. Then she ran, sobbing, up the stairs and into her bedroom.

I could hear her crying up there, but I wasn’t sure how to comfort her.

So I stayed where I was. Eventually, I turned on the TV hoping for a distraction.

Instead, I got a breathless local news report that Dana Rowland, a student at ASU, had been brutally murdered, stabbed to death in her dorm room during the storm.

I jabbed the remote to shut off the TV and sank to my knees on the carpet.

Later that night, I knocked on my mother’s bedroom door.

“Come in,” she called in a faint voice.

She was sitting in the big chair in the corner where she liked to read. She called it her book nook. Her expression was vacant and tired.

I crouched near her chair. “I saw the report about that college girl.”

She hugged her arms around herself and rocked back and forth.

“Mom, we have to tell the police.”

She turned her head and gave me a bleak look. “Tell them what, honey?”

I swallowed hard. “Tell them what we know. That Tate?—”

She shook her head. “We don’t know anything. Dark suspicions aren’t facts.”

“But they can investigate. That’s what they do,” I argued.

“Is it? That’s not what the police in Windy Rock did when Lexi was stabbed.”

It was the first time since we’d moved away that she’d brought up the attack in Windy Rock. My frustration outweighed my surprise, and I frowned, wondering how to make her see we couldn’t stay silent.

Finally, she gripped my hands in hers. Her skin was cold as ice.

“Tristan, if the police interview Tate, he’ll know who pointed them in his direction. Think hard about what he might do.” Her eyes pleaded with me, full of fear and helplessness.

I hung my head and dropped my gaze to the carpet.

She kissed the crown of my head. “You’re a good boy. You’ll be a good man.”

When my feet cramped, I stood up, brushed my hand against her cheek, and left her sitting in her book nook. Then I crept downstairs.

My heard pounded and my fingers shook as I called 911 and anonymously suggested the authorities take a close look at the gardening staff at ASU—in particular, a man named Tate Weakes.