Page 92 of The Deepest Lake

It’s almost as if Eva wants to keep a close eye on Rose.

Rose has another possibility to consider. Eva is upset about Mauricio’s arrest—one of her greatest success stories, undone. If she feels like her chosen family is crumbling, she’d want to surround herself with the women who adore her, yet another form of substitute family. Even if the police were going to show up any moment—and Rose knows they aren’t—she can picture Eva workshopping to the very end, basking in the respect and gratitude of her favorite students. This was, after all, a woman who sat typing next to her dead baby. No problem is too large to distract her from writing and writers and anything else that makes her feel important and needed. It’s what she’s done her whole life, ever since her own parents failed to show up and prove to her that she was already loved.

Rose remembers Lindsay’s advice. When it’s a short con, you follow the money. When it’s a long con, you follow the story.

Until just minutes ago, Rose would have said she didn’t know what Eva’s most important story is. But of course she does. Everyone does.

PART

III

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26

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She didn’t mean to do it. She just gets that way sometimes, but I saw. I got there quickly. And you were a trouper. Sometimes we really do need to be thrown into the deep end to find out what we’re made of.

Take the straw—I know it hurts, but you have to drink. The jaw won’t heal if you use it too much, too soon.

Good girl. A little more. It’s the perfect thing to flush out all the toxins. And then I’ll get the bucket, and I’ll let you have more tea. It doesn’t do any good to cry. You’re safe, now. It’s all right.

27

JULES

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“You have to eat,” comes the voice near my head. I roll away from it, burying my face in the mildewy travel pillow. Just wanting to sleep again—for days, if I can.

Something soft and salty is pushed into my mouth. Tamale dough. I manage to swallow the first time, but after the second mouthful, I gag. The choking splits my skull.

“Fine. That’s enough.”

When I sleep, the pain ebbs. The hot ache of my broken jaw mellows into a dull throb. The fire in my shattered shin settles down into a warm pulse.

But less physical pain means nightmares. They flow together, a parade of images and overheard conversations. I don’t know what I’m remembering, what I’m imagining. And except for the most terrifying moments—like the hot blast of pain as something hard whacks my lower leg, followed by black water closing over my head—I don’t care.

I am a six-year-old, playing with a red plastic View-Master my mother found at a garage sale. Press the plastic lever and the thin wheel advances to the next tiny slide. Woody Woodpecker. Popeye. The Flintstones. I push the viewer so hard against my face that I’m left with a line across my forehead. My parents find it hilarious that in the age of computers, 3D movies and widescreen television, their daughter is fascinated with a retro toy.

But they don’t understand. I don’t need much to believe—just a tiny celluloid image glimpsed through a tiny hole.

Maybe the smaller view is better, actually. Easier to control.

Click. Another picture.