Neverchangeable | Chapter 5

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The police force everyone who doesn’t have a legal right to be on the property to clear out. Guests are checked one by one as they cross the bridge back to civilization. In the corner of the barn, Mrs. Developer attempts to calm down the little girl’s mother.

The little girl’s mother is half-collapsed into Prince Charming’s arms. Her knees buckle differently now. Her wails reverberate off the twinkling barn walls; they bounce off each one of us before launching themselves out the door and echoing across the forest. In the carnage of her cries only two words are distinguishable, “My baby, my baby, my baby....”

To the side, Officer Logan asks if Farley and I have anywhere else to stay for the night, other than the cabin on the hill. I can tell he means somewhere like with family or maybe even a friend. Mrs. Developer interjects for me. She tells Officer Logan, “We have a lodge over by the lagoon. Everyone can stay there tonight while we look for…”

Officer Logan fills in, “Laine.”

Mrs. Developer smiles. She says, “Yes. While we all look for Laine, the little lamb.”

She leans in and whispers to Officer Logan, “As I understand, it might be a late night.”

Officer Logan doesn’t know I’ve been staying at the lodge for weeks now, despite what the permanent address on my license suggests.

Farley offers to sleep in his van at the edge of the property but Officer Logan doesn’t like that. He tells Farley and I, “We’d rather keep you two close for questioning, if you don’t mind. A van, well, I’m sure you can understand sir, a van is just a bit too slippery for my liking.”

Farley nods. Officer Logan asks Mrs. Developer where the lodge might be. She points out the orange trail on the map beside the kiddie pool wishing well, now minus one aquamarine-duct taped mermaid. Mrs. Developer says, “I’ll bring you all there. Get you settled in for the night and what-have-you.”

She floats to the corner of the barn to tell the little girl’s mother and Prince Charming about the arrangement. I can hear Mrs. Developer’s voice, warm and smooth like butter in the soft lighting. Mrs. Developer coos, “We’ll keep looking while we walk to the lodge. Maybe Laine wanted to see the mermaids at the lagoon, yes? Might that be possible?”

The little girl’s mother sniffs, sobs, then sniffs again. She turns her face into Prince Charming’s chest. She allows herself to be steered out of the barn anyway, towards the lagoon, towards the lodge.

Mrs. Developer’s hips sway at the front of our line as she leads us along the orange trail’s curves and twists. Beside us, the river winks under constellations, oblivious to the tension of the night. Long willow leaves hang along the banks and over the pathways. We walk until Mrs. Developer ducks under a trestle of leaves, marked with another sparkled sign. Here, the pathway becomes narrower. The trail is two shades darker than it was by the river, now fully hidden beneath the canopy of trees and the swinging braids of weeping willows. Far off in the distance, a pack of coyote yip over some unknown small game. The mother’s cries become more ragged, her daughter’s name a plea in the night.

By the third sloping hill on the orange trail, the wafting scent of the little girl’s mother’s drugstore perfume has evaporated into a mix of sweat and salt in the air. The only sound left is that of her exhausted breathing and shouts of her daughter’s name. The coyote have finished their meal, the wind has gone to sleep, the crickets have finished their mating calls. The pattern of Laine’s name bubbles up into the air before popping into silence, voice by voice; across the forest, officers call out for the little girl as though in response to our calls. We call in response to theirs.

The only one not calling out for Laine is Farley. His expression is folded into one I’ve never seen before as we walk the familiar route. He chews his lip and looks down at his boots. It’s a stark difference from when we used to walk this trail. Back then, it was Farley and Becca ahead of me and Annie. Farley and Becca were oblivious to us, though, and I couldn’t help but be oblivious to Annie. I was too busy watching Farley’s hand on the small of Becca’s back, Becca sprinting away, Farley chasing her. The sunlight bounced off Becca’s hair, her bracelets, the small knife she kept attached to the belt on her hip, as she ran and ran. Annie trying to whisper something dumb and sweet in my ear.

Sometimes it felt like Becca knew this place better than we did. I'd known her longer than I'd even known Farley, first off; secondly, she had a way in nature. She didn’t make us feel like idiots about it, though. Not even when she gave Farley the knife from her belt after he lost his on one of those endless summer camping trips. She knew better. Ended up needing it too. Not that Farley ever found out about that. It’s the knife Farley fiddles with again now, the tiny gymnast between his fingers back.

Officer Logan mumbles into his radio behind us. He taps Farley on the arm, “Hey, Buddy. I’m going to need that from you.”

A small amber light beckons at the end of the trail. Farley looks at Officer Logan, “Really?”

Farley looks like he wants to say more. Farley’s not so much of a dumb ass to make himself look suspicious for no reason, though. He hands over the knife and Officer Logan pockets it.

When we get to the end of the trail, it opens up into the familiar field around the pond; as Mrs. Developer called it, the lagoon. The lodge, a large, three-story rectangular building decorated by more lights and signs, however is new. Farley stops for a moment at the edge of the opening. Mrs. Developer continues to guide the group forward, like a torch in the night. She slows down and wraps her arm around the little girl’s mother. Mrs. Developer begins to whisper into the mother’s ear. I only catch her near the end as she says, “Lindsay, don’t worry. I promise you that everything will be alright.”

Mrs. Developer says it with such authority I almost forget she has no way to know if what she’s saying is true.

The mother – Lindsay – nods and accepts Mrs. Developer’s words. Farley snorts. No one else hears him. I look over. He’s looking down. Lindsay is focused on moving her legs towards the lodge, her eyes distant, each movement mechanical and forced. She doesn’t stop to ooh and ahh at the grandeur of the lodge, or pause to notice the sparkled signs and lazy rowboats twinkling in the moonlight. She ignores the massive mossy boulder Mrs. Developer imported from Muskoka, as well as its reflection in the glassy filtered waters. Lindsay doesn’t even raise her head at the state-of-the-art waterfall or babbling brook. Deep blue LED cursive letters spell out, Lagoon’s Lodge for no one as we pass under the sign and through the front door.

Mrs. Developer weaves us through the foyer and up the staircase, encrusted with crushed, opalescent shells. The hallways are wallpapered in deep navy. Mrs. Developer leads us through them until we arrive at our rooms. She opens the door to the honeymoon suite for Lindsay. Mrs. Developer motions half-apologetically at the room. She explains, “It’s the nicest in the lodge.”

Lindsay is too tired to ask questions. She walks inside and shuts the door behind her. A moment later we can hear the shower head turn on and Lindsay cry. Mrs. Developer turns to Officer Logan, Farley, and I. She hands me a key to the room next to the honeymoon suite. Next, she asks Officer Logan if he would like anything to eat. She smiles, “Pasta, beans, wieners, whatever you boys in blue need.”

Officer Logan declines. Mrs. Developer goes downstairs to the kitchen to make toast and tea.

Farley asks Officer Logan why we aren’t allowed to help search for Laine. Officer Logan shrugs, “In case.”

Prince Charming leans against the door to Lindsay’s room. The shower water and Lindsay’s sobs become white noise in the background. Prince Charming asks Officer Logan, “Does that mean I’m stuck here too?”

Officer Logan nods.

Under the fluorescent lights in the lodge’s hallway, Prince Charming looks vaguely familiar. The angle of the shadow under his jaw, the crease between his brows… I can’t put it together. There are so many Prince Charmings.

Farley asks, “Did anyone notify Laine’s father?”

Officer Logan shrugs, “That’s not our business. If Mama over there wants to tell Papa, she will. She’s given us no reason to think he was involved in her daughter’s disappearance.”

Farley shakes his head, “Something isn’t right about that. The dad should be notified.”

Officer Logan tenses. He repeats, “Divorce is not police business.”

After a moment Officer Logan continues. He exhales, “Besides if Dad cared he’d have been there, right?”

Farley looks sideways at the officer. He asks, “Sir, do you have children?”

Officer Logan tells Farley to watch it. I unlock the room next to Lindsay’s, the one Mrs. Developer told me to share with Farley for the night. I follow him in and we leave Officer Logan with Prince Charming, standing between the rooms as they rip into Laine’s father. From beside the door I hear Prince Charming say, “Like not even a call to say good night? Even if you and your old lady don’t get along, come on, man… that’s your kid.”

Officer Logan doesn’t respond, but I picture him nodding in silence.

Farley comes over beside me and locks the door. He turns off the lights and flops into bed with his jeans on. I kick off my shoes and crawl into the other bed beside him. We both stare at the ceiling in silence. Prince Charming’s voice trails off and the door to the honeymoon suite next to us clicks closed into place.

Farley sighs into the darkness. He says, “Geeze, Mutt. One hell of a reunion.”

He continues, “Here I was thinking we’d catch up over beers at the cabin. Maybe have a campfire. Something normal. Thought maybe your moms would be waiting for us in the kitchen with one of those dinners she used to make. You know. Normal. Fuck, Mutt. Do you remember how this place used to be?”

He doesn’t give me room to interject. Farley rattles on, “Of course you do. Wasn’t even that long ago it was still just a pond we grew up swimming in and fuckin' off around.”

Farley waits for me to say something. I count Farley’s breaths. Next door, the shower head has long been shut off. News blares from the television. It barely mutes Lindsay’s sniffling or Prince Charming’s words of consolation. In the hallway, Mrs. Developer offers Officer Logan the tea and toast she’d disappeared to make. Officer Logan declines.

Outside the lodge, voices call out Laine’s name. Officer Logan’s buddies throw their voices into the forest. Prince Charming tells Lindsay everything will be alright in the honeymoon suite next door.

Farley bangs his fist on the night table with the Bible in the drawer between us. He asks, “But do you remember?”

He continues, “All those campfires. Fuck, we had fun that summer. That’s when Becca made all those other friends and we really had to start fighting to get her to come around. What were their names? Shit, who cares. And those freaks from up the road. I hated those guys. Ugh, and fuckin’ Freddie. But that was the summer.”

I say, “The summer of Becca.”

He goes, “Sure. Yeah. Whatever.”

Next door, Lindsay has stopped sniffling. The television doesn’t blare as loudly. Someone’s changed the channel. A shaky cover of a pop song seeps through the thin wall.

Outside our door, Mrs. Developer asks Officer Logan if he knows the story of the Lagoon. Officer Logan tells her no.

Farley laughs, “Becca didn’t need any of us.”

I look away. I listen to the shifting of the bed in the room next door. The volume of the music channel on the television turns up, some slowed down version of Britney Spears’ Toxic cranks through the speakers.

Farley goes, “That night by the pond, you and Annie, Becca and I. I was so damn nervous. Didn’t expect a thing. Don’t think Becca really expected any of it, either. Annie, that sly girl… I swear she had her eyes set on you. I’d bet she planned the whole day just to end up at the campfire with you that night.”

Mrs. Developer tells Officer Logan, “There once was a family who lived here, many years ago. A mother, a father, their boy, and a little girl too. Long before the boy’s first memory, when he was only learning to walk, the mother left him and his little sister alone by the river as she went to greet her husband only a few meters away.”

In the honeymoon suite the rustle of bed sheets gets louder, the movement of the metal bed frame rocking back and forth speeds up. Lindsay’s cries take on a different tone.

Farley says, “None of us wanted to be virgins anymore, sure, but no one really cared about it like Annie.”

Mrs. Developer tells Officer Logan, “The baby girl, fresh and pink and new cried as her mother disappeared from sight. The boy, new to sharing his quiet play time and wide field and his mother’s vast love, put his small hand over his sister’s face. He whispered, Hssh, hssh, as his mother and father embraced and his little sister squealed.”

The Britney Spears cover artist wails on the television. Lindsay’s moans grow louder. Prince Charming grunts in time to the thrusts and throes of the bed frame against the wall. The thrusts come faster now, each beat melting into one another until they cascade into one long pulsating throb.

Farley sticks his hands down his jeans, fishing for his wallet at the bottom of his pocket.

Mrs. Developer says to Officer Logan, “Hssh, Hssh, the little boy murmured until his small hand had covered his baby sister’s small rosebud lips.”

Farley fishes and talks at the same time. He says, “I remember Annie prying open that bottle of honey Jack’s and saying something about not wanting to go to college both a country bumpkin and a virgin.”

Mrs. Developer continues, “Hssh, Hssh, as the little boy toddled forward, he lost his balance.”

Prince Charming’s thrusts are louder now, skin hitting skin. The sharp sound of an open palm’s quick smack to the ass cuts through the air. The wall shakes until there’s an earthquake in the other room.

Farley tells me, “I reminded Annie we live in a city, just in a part removed from it. She could still drive ten minutes up the road and get a Starbucks on her way to gym class. Oh God, she hated me for saying that.”

Mrs. Developer says, “Hssh, Hssh, the little boy’s fingers still stretched across his sister’s face…”

The bed creaks in the honeymoon suite as weight is shifted around on the mattress. Lindsay grunts and snarls. She starts to come but stops suddenly, a chortled and ecstatic gasp as the sound is cut off. I hear her fingernails scrape at the wall, the soft pound of her fists, then nothing. Prince Charming starts to thrust again before the mattress shifts once more. Lindsay’s moans start up again, softer now.

Farley says, “Becca laughed and laughed and laughed at that. No one ever dared make Annie mad. Annie was such a menace, it was hard for me not to at least try.”

Mrs. Developer whispers, “Hssh, Hssh as the little boy slipped and gently rolled his sister into the lagoon.”

Farley pulls his wallet out of his jeans and presents two Polaroid photos from in it, both of Becca. He asks, “Would you believe these photos are 20 years apart?”

I stare. The only difference are the laugh lines around Becca’s eyes smiling from the photo marked last summer.

Farley shakes his head. He says, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you she looks the same as that night. She does. Even after two kids. Her eyes full of every star in the sky, green as God’s great earth under us, even now in the ‘burbs.”

Prince Charming spits in the next room.

Mrs. Developer tells Officer Logan outside, “The father, noticing his son had fallen, at once raced to the water’s edge, but it was too late. His son stared up at him from the grassy mound by the lagoon, while his daughter looked up from its depths.”

Farley says, “I wish we had waited. Annie wouldn’t fuck off, though. Becca just wanted it all done with. She was tired of listening to you and Annie make a big show of the whole thing right next to us. I knew that. Knew Becca didn’t do it because she wanted me or anything. It was all about keeping up with Annie back then. I didn’t think too hard about all that at the time. I went along with it anyways. After that, Becca was always planning campfires out here. Remember, how we’d come down from the cabin and there Becca and Annie would be, sunbathing by the pond?”

Lindsay screams out, “More!”

Mrs. Developer says, “The mother wept and wept into the murky waters until the lagoon started to overflow and become clear, the grass lush and the crops fertile. The merfolk of the lagoon approached her and said, We know you are missing your little girl. We cannot reverse time, however, we have attempted to raise her as our own. She will never be yours again, however, she will forever have a home here. One day, when she is strong enough to swim to the surface, she will visit you once again.”

Lindsay cries out, “Harder!”

I tell Farley, “Yeah, except for that one time we came out of the cabin to find Becca and Annie right there, stoking a fire outside our front door.”

Farley isn’t listening to me. He traces the sun behind Becca’s ear in the photograph from when we were young. Her long brown hair is tucked safely behind one ear. Her mouth is hiked up in a crooked smile.

Prince Charming tells Lindsay she’s a good whore and she pants, yes sir.

Mrs. Developer tells Officer Logan, “The mother waited there. Waited and waited, watching her daughter grow up at the bottom of the lagoon, forever invisible to her little girl from the shore.”

Lindsay yips like the pack of coyote outside. Her voice hitches and whines. Her breath is heavy, desperate like the bed frame to come off its hinges.

Mrs. Developer continues, “She never looked away, not even as the years went by. Her boy grew but she never looked up from the lagoon long enough to know his face. Still, feeling indebted to his mother, the boy did not leave her side. After some years, the father abandoned the mother and son, in their lush field where nothing grew.”

A final thud hits the wall and Lindsay’s release is loud enough to fill every room in the hallway. It’s a sound like desperation, like pain mixed with pleasure, like shame, like catharsis, begging on its knees.

Silence hangs in the air. Then footsteps. A gasp from Mrs. Developer. A low, “Shit” from Officer Logan. A knock on the honeymoon suite door.

Farley drops the photos of Becca on the bed and gets up. I follow him into the hallway.

Lindsay leans on the open doorway of her room, a bath robe hastily thrown over her shoulder. Purple bruises bloom from the sides of her neck, her eyes are empty, her hair a wild, matted clump. Her lip bleeds. It doesn’t stop the smile that spreads across her face.

A tiny pair of nylon wings poking out from a heavy, wool blanket stands in the hallway.

Lindsay falls to the burgundy carpet on her knees. She pulls her daughter into her breast, another seed dripping down her thighs.

She looks past the police officers and directly at Mrs. Developer. She mouths, “Thank you.”

Behind Lindsay, Prince Charming rests his hands on his hips. His fingers play with the hem on the towel slung around his waist. When he smiles, it doesn’t reach his eyes. I remember it then. That smile.

At the bonfire that night. With Annie. With Becca.

Mrs. Developer winks at Lindsay. She comes and stands next to me. Out of Officer Logan’s sight, Mrs. Developer slips Farley’s knife into my pant’s pocket.

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