Lone Wolf A Novel Read online

  When I first met Cara, she was twelve and angry at the world. Her parents had split up, her brother was gone, and her mom was infatuated with some guy who was missing vowels in his unpronounceable last name. So I did what any other man in that situation would do: I came armed with gifts. I bought her things that I thought a twelve-year-old would love: a poster of Taylor Lautner, a Miley Cyrus CD, nail polish that glowed in the dark. “I can’t wait for the next Twilight movie,” I babbled, when I presented her with the gifts in front of Georgie. “My favorite song on the CD is ‘If We Were a Movie.’ And I almost went with glitter nail polish, but the salesperson said this is much cooler, especially with Halloween coming up.”

  Cara looked at her mother and said, without any judgment, “I think your boyfriend is gay.”

  After that, she made herself scarce whenever I visited Georgie or came to take her mother out on a date. When Georgie and I decided to get married, though, I knew that I had to connect with Cara somehow. So one morning, I presented Georgie with a surprise trip to a day spa, and then I straightened up her kitchen and started cooking the Cambodian food my mother used to make for me.

  Let’s just say if you haven’t experienced prahok in your lifetime, you might want to keep it that way. It’s a staple in the Cambodian diet, one of those you-wouldn’t-understand-unless-you-grew-up-with-it foods, like Marmite or gefilte fish. My mother used it at every meal as a dipping sauce, but that morning, I was frying it in banana leaves as a main dish.

  It didn’t take long before Cara stumbled into the kitchen in her pajamas, her hair a mess and her eyes still swollen with sleep. “Did something die in here?” she asked.

  “This,” I announced, “is a good home-cooked Cambodian meal, for your information.”

  She raised a brow. “Well, it smells like butt.”

  “Actually, what you’re smelling is fermented fish paste. On the other hand, durian smells like butt,” I said. “It’s a fruit Cambodians eat. I wonder if they sell them at Whole Foods . . .”

  Cara shuddered. “Yeah. Next to the rotten whale meat, probably.”

  “Some things,” I told her, “are an acquired taste.”

  I had been talking about the prahok but also about me. As a stepfather, as a partner for her mother—maybe I was an addition to the family that would grow on her.

  “Just try it,” I urged.

  “I’d rather die,” Cara told me.

  “I was afraid you might say that,” I replied. “Which is why I made this, too.” I opened up a wok and used tongs to serve her some mee kola, a noodle dish that I’d never seen a kid turn away from.

  She picked at the crushed peanuts on top, and stuck her finger into the sauce. “This,” she conceded, “is decent.” And she proceeded to eat three full bowls, while I sat down across from her with the dreaded prahok. While we ate, I asked her questions—gently, the way I approached traumatized witnesses. Cara told me that some kids in her class only wanted to be her friend because her father was famous on television, and that it was easier to be alone than to try to guess someone’s motivations for sharing their Thin Mint cookies with you at lunch. She talked about a teacher who had made a mistake on an answer grid for a test, and how unfair it was that she still marked students wrong. She said she desperately wanted a cell phone but her mom thought she was still too young. She said she secretly thought the Jonas Brothers had been sent by aliens to judge the reactions of humankind. She told me that she could take or leave ice cream, but that if she were told she would never be able to eat another Twizzler in her life, she would probably kill herself.

  Cara left the kitchen thinking she’d had breakfast. But as I rinsed the dishes and pots and pans, I knew that what she’d really had was a conversation.

  After Georgie and I got married and moved into our house, I’d get up on Sunday morning and I’d start cooking. Amok trei, ka tieu. I’d make desserts like sankya lapov and ansom chek. Georgie would sleep in, but Cara would get up and pad into the kitchen. We’d talk while she worked beside me, cutting up papaya or gingerroot or cucumbers. Then we’d sit at the kitchen table and devour our creations. As she grew older, our discussions changed. Sometimes she complained to me about a punishment Georgie had lobbed at her, hoping I would intercede. Sometimes she turned the topic to me—asking what it was like to grow up first-generation American, or how I knew I wanted to be a lawyer, or if I was nervous about having twins. After Georgie had the kids, and even after Cara moved out to live with her father, if she was visiting us over the weekend as part of the custodial arrangement, I always knew to set out a second plate for her on Sunday mornings.

  Which is why, when I get back to the house and am filling Georgie in on the turn of events, I start cooking. I haven’t gone to the Asian grocery in a while, so I have to make do with the ingredients we have in the fridge. “So he’s free?” Georgie says to me. “Like, really truly free?”

  “Yup,” I reply, and squint into the bowels of the refrigerator. “Didn’t we have some stew meat?”

  Suddenly I am pulled backward by my wife, who’s grabbed me around the neck to kiss me. “I love you,” she says against my lips. “You are my superhero.”

  I hold her tight, kiss her like I’m never going to get to kiss her again. I’d like to say I’m an optimist, but I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Georgie to tell me she’s made a mistake and is leaving me. When things are this good, I have to believe that they can’t last.

  Case in point: I need to tell her the reason Edward wound up indicted for attempted murder in the first place. “Georgie,” I confess, “Cara is the one who testified against Edward.”

  She shakes her head a little, as if she has to clear it. “That’s ridiculous. She’s been here or at the hospital, not at the grand jury.”

  “Were you the one to take her to the hospital?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then how do you know it’s where she actually went?”

  Georgie’s mouth tightens. “She would never do that to her brother.”

  “She would if she thought it would save her father,” I argue.

  I know Georgie will not fight me on this one. If Luke Warren is larger than life for most people who know of him, he’s absolutely mythic to Cara.

  “I’m going to kill her,” Georgie says calmly. “And then I’m going to ask her what the hell she was thinking.”

  “You might want to reverse the order,” I suggest. I pour oil into the wok and turn up the flame beneath it; then with a sizzle and a flash of steam, I toss the beef cubes and vegetables in. The room fills with the smells of onions and pepper.

  She sits down on a kitchen stool, rubbing her temples. “Does Edward know?”

  “Does Edward know what?” Cara says, suddenly standing in the doorway, her face stricken. “Did something happen to Dad?”

  Georgie stares at her, her features rigid. “I don’t even know what to say to you right now. You know how you feel about losing your father? Like a piece of you would be missing? That’s how I’ve felt, every day, since your brother left home. Now he’s back, and you try to get rid of him by getting him charged with attempted murder?”

  Cara’s face flushes. “He started it,” she says.

  “You are not seven years old! This isn’t about who broke a lamp!” Georgie cries.

  “He would have killed Dad if I hadn’t found out what he was doing in time to stop it,” Cara answers. “I’m seventeen and three-quarters, and no one gives a crap,” she says. “My vote still doesn’t count. So you tell me how else I was supposed to get everyone’s attention.”

  “Maybe by acting like a grown-up, instead of a spoiled brat with a grudge,” Georgie argues. “If that’s what people see, they’ll treat you like one.”

  “You’re criticizing my behavior?” Cara laughs, incredulous. “You know what I see? I see Edward, who’s been pissed off at Dad for six years. I see the doctors, who would rather have a new patient who can pay the hospital bills. I see that you wish deep do