Invisible Girl

Maggie looked down at her hands and tried to decide where to begin.

Chapter Three

“Courageous and crazy. It’s a volatile cocktail. That’s my father. That’s my brother. My father was drafted during Vietnam. He became a pilot. He tested so high, they’d never seen scores like that. He’s smart, with nerves of steel. Courageous and crazy, both of them.”

“I know a few cops like that.”

“He’s always been like that. My dad has two brothers. One was murdered after a stint in prison, and was supposedly as violent as they come. The other is the dean of Manchester University in Boston. He has two PhDs. They were like the twin sides of my father. Brilliance and violence. And secrets.”

“Secrets?”

She looked at Danny. “It’s as if there was a different life before the war. And then there’s this brick wall of Vietnam. He ended up volunteering for another tour. We know he met my mother there, and that he somehow got her out. Danny and I think he was recruited into the CIA.”

“What do you mean you ‘think’? You never asked him?”

“We don’t ask a lot of questions in our family. But even if we did, he wouldn’t talk to us. The CIA was involved in Laos after the war, during the war. My father flew planes for them—for someone. Someone with a lot of cash. You know, the CIA isn’t the only secret branch of the U. S. government. It could have been them, it could have been another shadow organization. It could have been Air America. All I know, which is nothing, just street knowledge from this neighborhood, is that he was pulling in a lot of untraceable cash from some government organization that wanted missions flown in Laos. And they were willing to pay a crazy-courageous man a lot of money to risk his life over and over and over again.”

“He made it out alive.”

“Yeah. But I’m not sure that he ever made it out,” she said softly, her eyes darting to Danny, almost involuntarily.

“What do you mean?”

“My whole life, my father has been a phantom. I don’t know whether he works for the good guys or the bad guys, or if he plays both sides, or whether he just works for himself. When my brother got to be, I don’t know, seventeen, eighteen, he started getting in deeper with my father. But I was always invisible, always on the outside of whatever it was that they did, whatever it is that they do.”

Bobby leaned back in his chair and ran his hands over his face, giving a weary sigh. “So what happened to your brother tonight, Maggie?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know who did this to him. I don’t even know if he started it or not.”

“Have you ever told your brother not to come to you when he’s in trouble, not to drag you into whatever crazy shit he’s involved with? For all you know, it’s drugs or murder for hire. You don’t know anything, Maggie. You could be in danger. Whatever he and your father are into, they shouldn’t be putting you in the middle of it.”

“I know, but they’re all I’ve got.”

“You have me.”

“I know,” her voice relaxed. “But growing up, this apartment was a place where only good things happened. It was like us against the evil spirits my mother was always talking about. This was a place just for the four of us, and I knew that my father would kill anyone who tried to mess with us, with our sanctuary. After my mother committed suicide, my father went crazy for a while. He never got over it. None of us did. But it only made us closer. I don’t know what my father does. Maybe because I don’t really want to know.”

“That’s pretty severe denial.”

“You’re not my shrink.”

“No,” he said as he leaned forward and looked her in the eyes. “Do I really have to be to see that there’s something very seriously fucked up going on here? You stitched up your brother. And you don’t want to file a police report or take him to the hospital?”

“You don’t know what happened, Bobby.”

“Maggie, don’t play me. Even if Danny didn’t commit a crime tonight, the fact that you apparently have done this for him and your father more than once…that’s not normal.”

She curled her legs underneath herself. “I’m tired, Bobby. Can we just talk about this after I’m sure he’s going to be okay?”

“You’re putting this off again, Maggie. I’ve been with you for two years now, and I feel like I know next to nothing about you. I’ve never met your brother until now. I’ve never met your father. It’s like I’m living with a phantom of my own.”

Maggie looked away. “I’ve lived a lifetime of secrets. It’s like lifting up a rock in the woods and watching all those creepy-crawlers scatter when the light hits them.”

“Fine. You go get some sleep. I’ll watch your brother.”

“No. You sleep. Please. I wouldn’t be able to anyway.”

Bobby nodded. “I’ll be right in the next room. You call me if you need me. And look…we don’t know how much blood he’s lost or what’s up with that arm. If he doesn’t seem like he’s going to pull through all right in the next couple of hours, we’re taking him to the hospital.” He was silent for a minute. “I’ll try to pull some favors, see if we can’t keep it under the radar.”

“Thanks.” Maggie smiled wanly. Bobby walked over and leaned down, tilting her chin to kiss her.

“I wish I knew what went on behind those eyes of yours.”

“So do I sometimes. Good night, Bobby.” She kissed him back and watched him go to the bedroom. He was the first good man she’d ever dated. She’d known that the first time she’d met him, as surely as she knew one day his world would come colliding with hers with a fury like nuclear fusion.

Two years earlier, she had quit drinking, cold turkey, on her own, white-knuckling it. For three days, she’d ridden out the shakes and the endless clenching and unclenching of her jaw by eating Valium she’d taken from her brother’s stash of drugs in the medicine chest. They all hoarded pills from years of “home repair,” as their father called their questionable medical skills.

By day three, the Valium had done its trick. She had slept until she ached, and she was through the worst of it. She sat in her apartment in the dark, staring at the emergency bottle of scotch. She had brought scotch up from the Twilight, an old habit. She hated scotch and had figured that if all she had was something she truly despised, she’d be less inclined to break the seal. She had brought it upstairs with the idea that if quitting got truly unbearable, she’d change tactics and wean herself slowly, decreasing her intake of alcohol day by day until she was clean.

Now, she had gone without alcohol for three days. Three whole days. Not great days, glorious days, or even halfway decent days. Three of the most god-awful, soul-sucking days of her life.

A thought came into her mind: AA. She’d never been to a meeting, not even out of curiosity. She knew a regular or two at the Twilight who were in and out of AA, on the wagon for months at a time, falling off when life just got too damn hard. Teddy, a good guy, a plumber, had a son die about five years past. He walked a wobbly line, not unlike the straight line cops made people walk to see if they were drunk. Some days, Teddy walked it well. Others, he just plain toppled off to the side and lost his balance completely.

Maggie sat in her apartment and, for reasons she didn’t understand, she felt tears come. They weren’t like her occasional drunken tears. These came with a racking ache. So she picked up the phone, called information and, the next thing she knew, she was at a meeting in a church basement not eleven blocks from her apartment. The first person who said hello to her was Bobby Gonzalez.

“New to the rooms?”

She never liked admitting being new at anything to anyone. “No. First time here, though.”

“Bobby.” He stuck out his hand and smiled. He was about six foot two, and dressed in a black sweater and jeans. She took his hand, looking into his eyes, searching for something. Later, she realized it was the elusive serenity they talked about in the rooms and basements of AA meetings. Did he have what she was looking for? The secret to peace of mind?

“Maggie.”

“Hi, Maggie.” He seemed so gentle. He directed her to the coffee urn and poured her a foam cup of the worst coffee she’d ever tasted in her life. He chatted about the program. She didn’t really remember much of what he said because she still felt like she was under water, foggy. Then he guided her to a metal folding chair. Bobby took a seat at a table at the front of the room, next to an older man. The older man, who said his name was Gus, started the meeting off, and Bobby was the speaker.

“Hi, my name’s Bobby,” he began softly, “and I’m an alcoholic.”

“Hi, Bobby,” came a chorus of a voices.

Maggie listened as he spoke.

“Most of you know me from the rooms. I’ve been coming here about ten years, sober for eight straight. I’m a cop, a detective. I used to think it was my job that made me drink. Now I realize I drank because. Just because. Because I’m an alcoholic.

“I started drinking when I was maybe eleven, copying my older brother and his friends. But they were typical teens looking to be cool, to rebel a little. I wasn’t. I couldn’t stop drinking once I started. I had my first blackout at fourteen. Smoked a lot of pot. I was a mess through high school. By the time I was twenty, I knew something was seriously wrong. I became a cop, met a lot of alcoholic cops. Man, if you’re looking for validation for your drinking, law enforcement is one profession you’ll find it. Everyone needs a drink to settle down after a tough night, a tough call, a tough tour. You see the worst, the dregs. You see wife beaters and child abusers and rape victims. I needed a drink to shut my brain off at night.

“So why did I get sober? I hit bottom. I got lucky. I didn’t think I was lucky then, but I was. Everybody has their bottom—DUI, jail, divorce, whatever. Mine was waking up with a prostitute and having no memory, none, of what happened the night before. I felt such a sense of shame that I went to my first meeting that day, and then that night, and then the next day. I screwed up a couple of times early in the program, but then I got it. It’s one day at a time. I get that now. That and the promises of AA. If you get sober, life gets better. I went back to school, made detective…. I have so much more now than I ever did before. I’m not going to mess up. Thanks for listening, and now we’ll go around the room and share.”

There were about forty people in the room. They applauded. Maggie felt mesmerized, and she wasn’t sure why. His voice was soothing. He looked so confident, so calm. She wanted that.