Always Watching

your car—you have that hospital staff–parking thing on your rearview mirror.”
    I nodded. “Right.” I looked back down at the water. “Remember when we used to dare each other to stay on until the train came?”
    Robbie rested his elbows on the edge of the railing, looked around. “We never made it. Dad would’ve killed us if he knew what we were doing.”
    I gave a small laugh as I leaned on the railing near Robbie, thinking that the train probably hadn’t seemed as dangerous to us as our father.
    He said, “So what did you need to think about?”
    While I considered how to answer, Robbie reached for his pocket, still searching for his smokes. When he didn’t find them, he shook his head. “Damn dog.” The damn dog looked up at him, circled a few times, then fell asleep.
    I took a breath and spilled it all. I hadn’t meant to share everything, not about Garret or what he’d done to Lisa, but once I started talking, I couldn’t stop. When I told Robbie that I thought someone was watching my house and that I’d been getting threatening phone calls, his mouth tightened to a thin line.
    At the end I said, “I’m scared for Lisa. She’s vulnerable right now, but I also have a bad feeling about Joseph. The way he looked … He’s close to the edge. I don’t think it would take much to set him off.”
    When I was done, we both stared down at the swirling river for a while. Far below, one lone tree limb spun around and around, caught in the current.
    Robbie cleared his throat. “I remember what happened at the commune.”
    I turned. “What do you mean?”
    “Aaron, the way he looked at you. I didn’t like you being alone with him.”
    Now I remembered all the times Robbie had interrupted us when Aaron was talking to me, and how ashamed I’d felt, worried he’d find out my secret. I’d snapped at Robbie, told him to leave me alone—and he did.
    Robbie continued. “You were right. Willow and me, we were more than friends.” His face flushed. “Guess you could say she was the first woman I really cared about—last one too.…” He drifted off, swallowed hard a few times. “She was from Alberta.” So I’d remembered that part right. It wasn’t much consolation. “Her parents were dead, and she was being raised by an uncle and an aunt, but I got the feeling her uncle was trying to mess around with her, so she ran away.”
    “Do you know if she really left the commune?”
    He glanced at both ends of the trestle, then looked at Brew, like it was easier to talk to him.
    “We met at the beach by Mason’s Store. I flirted with her and told her to come back to the commune, that we had good weed. So she left her friends and climbed in the truck.… She trusted me.”
    I held my breath, sensing what Robbie was telling me was taking all his courage, and that one movement on my part could stop his flow, maybe forever.
    “But I screwed up. I let her down.”
    When he’d paused for a long time, I whispered, “What happened to her?”
    “He buried her.” Robbie met my gaze, and the torment in his eyes broke my heart. He looked away, blinking hard and clearing his throat.
    My blood was pulsing loud in my ears. Everything else seemed distant and muffled. The river a dull hum. “She’s dead?”
    He nodded. “Aaron wanted her vest. She wouldn’t give it up—I told her it wasn’t worth pissing him off over. He was already angry at her for arguing about spiking trees. I’d warned her that he’d use it as a way to make her leave.” A bitter laugh. “I thought that was the worst that could happen.”
    I remembered following Robbie and Willow down to the river after she’d disagreed with Aaron, wondering what they’d been talking about. Now I knew.
    Robbie continued. “She’d told him he wasn’t the only person who could help people. He hated that. We’d had a fight the next day too, because she’d decided she was sick of Aaron’s crap, and she wanted to leave anyway. She wanted me to go with her, but I wouldn’t, not without you and Mom.”
    As Robbie paused, I wondered why Mom finally did leave. Was it really because of social services, and to give her marriage another try? Or had she actually been afraid of Aaron? Was that why my father showed up with a gun?
    He started talking again. “Willow said she was going to take you with her. She wouldn’t say why, just that you weren’t safe there.”
    I was stunned. I thought about how young Willow had been, only seventeen, and I