Chapter 6
Gwendolyn Madsen Easing her way down the stairs from her bedroom, Gwen put a hand against her head, almost as if to test her temperature. Was she going insane? In her other hand she held her phone, though it hardly registered in her mind what it was. The words rattled her brain, and after last night, when she'd tried to talk to Dane but he'd rebuffed her…well, these texts just added to that, didn't they? Shaking her head as if to clear it, she walked from the foot of the stairs, and turned toward the door of her dad's home office. He didn't often work from home, but he hadn't left so far today--in fact, ever since the funeral two days ago, he had spent more time at home. Of course, part of it was that Lenny was gone, which always threw off their routine. She missed her brother--even if he had been a jerk to her before leaving--if only because the house felt so empty otherwise. In that sense, it had been a relief that Dad kept some of his office hours here at home instead of at the "station"--a small office adjacent to city hall where two cells made up the jail and the parking lot shared space with the firefighters' cars. Dad didn't really complain about that too much anymore--when she was young, Gwen remembered him grousing about it with her mom--and since the internet was solid enough at home, he could do a lot of work remotely. That was the case today, and, without Lenny around, she had no one else to talk to. Under normal circumstances, Gwen wouldn't interrupt her dad during the day, but with everything going on…she just couldn't handle it on her own. She needed some help with-- Her thoughts cut abruptly off as she stopped at the door, hand floating over the handle. How Dad talked--the low, insistent tone that had always meant to her that something was wrong or someone was in deep trouble--sliced through her own preoccupations and froze her in place. She listened, leaning forward ever so slightly. Even still, she only caught portions of what he was saying. "…become interested in what happened." Another voice spoke, one that she recognized immediately, despite the fact that Dane's uncle Clawson hadn't been a large figure in Dane's life up until fairly recently. Coming from the fact he had spent so much time up north, she figured. Still, he had a gravelly gravity to how he talked, which was easy enough to identify, even through the thickness of the door. "I just want to be sure you can do it." "Oh, don't…" Dad must have stood or turned or something, because Gwen lost the weft of his words for a moment. "…to cover up. I have my feelers out, you know, and that'll be--" Gwen's sudden sneeze attack hit her with such surprise force that she nearly leaped in fright. The nasal blast convulsed her startled body, and she kicked the door open inadvertently. "Who the hell--" Clawson stood up like a guilty thing, then relaxed as he recognized Gwen. The familiar office--with its large oaken desk in the center, a laptop docking station, and a few of Dad's favorite trophies mounted on the wall in lieu of bookshelves--felt off with Clawson's presence. She hadn't expected him there. "Oh." "What's wrong Gwen-baby?" asked Dad, his eyes narrowed. Gwen's mind blanked. Had she just overheard--what, exactly? Certainly nothing wrong…but why did Clawson look so guilty? And why was Daddy only now releasing his grip on the butt of his service revolver? Yes, they'd sounded conspiratorial, but that didn't mean anything, did it? And so what if they were whispering about things? It didn't have anything to do with her. Nothing at all. She put the strange behavior out of her thoughts and held up her phone. "I, um…I'm having some problems--" "I'll go," said Clawson, shifting his weight away from the stuffed armchair in which he'd been sitting, angling to scoot past her to the door. "--about Dane." Clawson stiffened and shot a quick look at the sheriff. "My Dane?" Gwen sniffed, then snapped a sharp nod. "Yeah." The thought that Dane was Clawson's made her stomach clench. Gwen normally kept pretty aloof of people's conversations when she worked her shift at the drive-in diner in town--Trucker's Burgers, Shakes, and Fries--but she couldn't help overhearing the baffled conversations by people waiting for their cheeseburgers who opined about how strange it was that the Amleths were getting married already. Much of the town had been at the funeral, though not quite as many had gone to the luncheon. Many were audibly (albeit figuratively) kicking themselves for having skipped the potatoes and missed the proposal. Still, there was a difference between hearing people gossip and Clawson say something so…paternal about Dane. He wasn't really Dane's stepfather. Not yet, at least. "Let's hear it," said Dad, pulling her out of her revulsion. Clearing her throat, she thumbed on her phone. The blue-bubble field, intermittent with gray comments, glowed in her hand. She had screenshot the important parts of the conversation, as she didn't want her dad to see everything that she and Dane had said to each other. Nevertheless, she hesitated; there was something almost…dishonest in showing her dad this way. "What is that?" "Just…I took screenshots. You know, in case he deleted his texts." "What do they say?" "Read it." She swallowed and glanced at Clawson, who had returned to his spot and now looked over Dad's shoulder. A cold moment passed. Gwen chewed a fingernail--a habit she hadn't done since she was a kid. Her mind kept ping-ponging from what she'd overheard to what her dad was looking at to the bathroom upstairs. The whole swirl of everything was enough to make her want to scream. She could feel her face heating up and a panicky surge in her chest that made her want to sob or vomit…maybe both. "What is this even mean?" asked Dad, his face a mixture of smooth edges and sharp wrinkles. He glowered at her, then the phone, as if both had somehow offended him. "'I think you're a dumb slut, that's what.' 'How could you do this to me? You stupid bitch.' He wrote this too you?" Hearing the words said aloud made it hurt worse; tears began to slide out from her eyes. She could only manage a nod. "What inspired this?" asked Clawson, who took the phone and started trying to scroll. Instead, he dismissed the pictures. Gwen snatched the phone back and held it close to her chest. "I…I don't know," said Gwen honestly. "I didn't see him…" She knew she was ugly crying, her lips downturned and jaw slack. Tears melted the mascara she'd been putting on when the texts had come through. Swallowing hard, she struggled to get her voice under control. "I didn't see him yesterday until last night, when he came in to Trucker's just as I was closing up. He was…really upset. He wouldn't say why, but…I can guess." "Why?" asked Dad, his jaw tight. "What do you guess?" "I…I decided that I would…you know…do what you asked of me." "What?" Clawson glanced at the sheriff. "What'd you ask of her?" "Just to leave Dane alone," said Dad. "I'm worried about her, that's all. I worry a lot." "You broke up with Dane?" asked Clawson, his face slack with shock. Gwen swallowed loudly and nodded, sending black-swirled tears off her chin and onto the hardwood floor of the office. The vacant stares of a half dozen forest animals regarded her from their places on the walls, making her feel small and insignificant and out of place. "Damn, girl, weren't you thinking?" "Hey, Claw, calm down on that." Clawson held up an apologetic hand to Sheriff Madsen, then refocused his attention on Gwen. "I mean, he's been through a lot in the past week. Maybe now is the wrong time to break up with him." "It's what you wanted, Dad!" She almost shouted the words, but managed to put enough of her genuine fluttered confusion into to keep it from savoring too much of insolence. "I thought--" "I didn't mean you should dump him last night," said Dad, his jaw working up and down as if he had a good scoop of chaw in his cheek. He shot Clawson a look. "Do you think this is what's going on with him, then?" "Maybe," said Clawson. Now it was Gwen's turn to be confused. "What do you mean?" Dad sighed, then deferred to Clawson with a gesture. Clawson rubbed a hand across his silver-shot black goatee and said, "Dane's been acting strangely at home. Just…pissy, you know, like he's got PMS or something. I was actually just chatting with your dad about it--you know, father to father talk, that sort of thing--when you came in." Gwen didn't respond to that. What she'd overheard didn't square with that idea. Clawson continued, "But seeing those texts makes me think that maybe he's giving his mom--and me--some attitude because of what you did." A puddle of guilt began to form in the base of her heart. "I didn't mean to," she began weakly. Her thoughts flitted upstairs again, then crashed back down to the office. She looked at her father, the pain at his misguided advice apparent on her face. "I thought you wanted me to do this!" "Okay, look." Dad put up a hand to Gwen in the traffic-cop pose that she'd seen from him anytime he was trying to moderate an argument between her and Lenny. He looked at Clawson. "I'm sorry, all right? I thought she was taking things the wrong way. That's my fault. But maybe we can fix this, right?" "I don't know," said Clawson, chewing his lower lip. "I don't like this. It feels…weird." He pulled out his own phone. "What are you doing?" asked Dad, but Clawson shook his head as he scrolled through for what he wanted. "Claw? What are you doing?" Clawson glanced up at him as he raised the phone to his ear. "I'm going to get some help on this, Paul. I'll get back to you." He gave Gwen a slight nod, but if he was going to say anything to her, he interrupted himself by saying in the phone, "Hello? Hey, yeah, it's me. Look, I've got something I need you to do…" The office door clicked shut behind him, cutting Gwen from the rest of his conversation. Dad shook his head and sat down in his chair with loud grunt. "Damn, Gwendolyn, this is a mess." "I'm sorry," she said. The swirl of confusion and frustration and embarrassment made her dizzy. Her tears had dried, if only because she couldn't tell what she was feeling any longer. "I didn't think…I didn't think he'd react this way…" Dad fingered his short hair and looked at her for a long, quiet moment. "Well, we'll fix it. Clawson's really motivated to keep the family together. We'll fix this." "Yeah." The word sat on her heart like a stone, pressing down. We'll fix this. He didn't mean that Gwen would fix it; no, she'd broken it too far for her to be involved. It was now a Dad Problem that he would solve. It was times like this that she missed her mom the most. Mom could always find the way to diffuse Dad's anger, to make him see things differently, to take her side. Whenever Gwen felt lonely or misunderstood, Mom had been there to help ease the burden. Until she wasn't. Just like with Dane. Gwen hated herself for not seeing how she could have said something condoling about losing a parent to Dane. He had needed her…and she'd thrown it back in his face. She hadn't wanted to--God knew how she trembled when she'd told Dane that they were done. He had stared at her, unspeaking, before making a cry that shocked her with its frustration and pain. Without a word, he'd stormed out of the diner, almost knocking over a garbage can in his haste to get out. That was the last thing she'd said to him before the texts. They were bitter, angry, filled with a vitriol she hadn't known Dane to have. That it was her fault that he felt that way made her wish that the earth would devour her; she could well drown with her sorrows. "Dad?" she said into the painful silence that enveloped them. "I'm sorry." "I know. We'll fix it." "How?" Before he could answer, the door creaked open and Clawson stuck his head in. "Look, I have to go. I have an idea, though. I think that if we can get Gwen over to the Lodge tomorrow to talk to Dane, we can maybe see what's going on with him." "Based on what you said, Claw, he's not going to want to listen to you. He won't talk with you there." "I know. I do, however, have this." He held up his phone. "I've a home security app that lets me listen in on any place of my house. We can listen in while you have Gwen talk to him. That way, we won't have to worry about missing something because Gwen forgets a detail." Dad nodded slowly, then glanced at Gwen. "Yeah," he said, "I think that's a good idea." Gwen, shocked, started to protest, but the glare her father gave her killed the thought. If she tried, he would just say, "We'll fix it, Gwendolyn," and that would be that. Swallowing hard against the knot in her throat, she stared down at the phone she cradled in her trembling hands. Why did it seem like everything was going wrong? "Okay. Tomorrow, then. At the Lodge." Clawson threw the sheriff a farewell wave, glanced at Gwen, and then was gone. "Anything else, Gwendolyn?" She looked at her dad, his face impassive and unapproachable. Her mind flitted upstairs. "No." "I think I'll go find Junior and maybe have a chat with him myself," said Dad in a way that sounded more like he was musing aloud than seeking any input from Gwen. She didn't trust her voice. Without another word, she excused herself. |