He looks up, and our eyes connect, and his voice softens as he says, “Hey. You want some advice?” He cracks his neck. “Get as far away from the Bard family as possible.” His chin drops and he mutters to himself, “Now, I consider that going above and beyond the call of duty.”
* * *
—
I don’t want to go back to the church, can’t stand the close feeling of it. If your mother finds out I left early (how could she?), if she questions me about it (why would she?), I will tell her I felt sick. It isn’t a lie. My head is still dizzy from the drive and my guts are twisted from the visit to the police station, so I walk past the church and into a wide park that opens onto the river basin.
I walk down a wet trail to the bank, then perch on a rock above the water and watch ducks slide in and out on the opposite side. I work my hands, testing my aching joints. I almost wish for windows to clean, for something to do, just to stop feeling so useless, helpless, nowhere near you.
Maybe I am imagining things. Maybe you haven’t disappeared. Maybe you did run away. Maybe you are far away and happy now, free in your new life, but for some reason, I can’t believe it.
I check my phone but I have no service. I want to call my ex but maybe it’s better that I can’t. He will just tell me I am getting carried away. He won’t believe I’m doing well, won’t care how hard I’m working at my job, how I’m keeping everything together, even all the way out here, where I could fall apart and nobody would know, nobody real would know.
I burn a little more fire, thinking about the police and how they don’t care, and then I burn a little more, thinking about Jed and how he doesn’t care.
Then I start up the lawn. I see Clementine and her daughters on a picnic bench. I think how strange it is that Clementine is my age and her daughters are teenagers. They sit across from her with the same rapt expression: her lips, her lashes, staring back at her. And I wonder if seeing herself reflected in the faces of her children tricks her into believing she has a higher purpose, like it wasn’t a purpose she herself selected, like she couldn’t walk away at any time.
I swing wide to avoid being seen by them, cut through the brush on a trail that thins until I’m bushwhacking through reeds.
I finally make it to the parking lot. As I approach my car, Clementine appears, walking up the wide path from the park. Her daughters don’t flank her. Your brother is nowhere to be seen. It’s just me and her, alone.
She plucks white fuzz from her purple top. “You’re out at the ranch,” she says like she needs double confirmation. “Do you need a ride back?”
“No. I have a car.” I gesture. “Where do you live?”
“We have a place in Happy Camp.”
“Addy said Jed’s house . . .”
“They wanted us to move in but”—her mouth chews unspoken words—“it wasn’t a good fit.”
“I’m not stupid,” I blurt. I am frustrated with the police, and I am taking it out on her. But I want her to know that I know everyone hates your mother and father. I know that. I am not naive, and I am not a fool, like the police and everyone else seem to think.
She is startled, confused. “I’m not saying you are— I’m sorry. I think maybe there’s been a miscommunication.”
“Sorry,” I allow, although I hate to apologize to anyone. One day, I realized that I apologized too much and so I decided to stop—but sometimes it’s hard to know when an apology is earned. “I just—I know it’s not a great job,” I say like I’m embarrassed to be blue-collar. “I’m here for a story, actually.”
She smiles. “Oh, you’re a writer! I teach at the high school. We’d love to have you come in,” she says like I am Stephen King. I haven’t even been published. I don’t have any intention of being published. I’m not even a writer, except that I tend to get creative with my own reality.
“Maybe,” I say, because it’s the nicest way to say no. “I better get back.”
She nods like she knows exactly what I mean. And I think: Clementine is nice. And I think: I want to be her friend. And I think: Were you?
And I know it’s not smart, but I have to ask her, “Did you know Addy’s daughter?”
“Rachel?” Her smile smears. I nod. “Well, of course I knew her.”
“Were you close?”
Her nose wrinkles. “When we were younger, but everyone was friends when they were young.”
“Did she have many close friends? I thought it might be nice to meet some people around my age,” I add when I realize how strange this must sound.
“I’m your age,” she says, but she doesn’t seem like it. She must have had her daughters when she was a teenager. She has that completed look of a woman with children, like someone switched the lights off on their way out. “But Rachel, Rachel wasn’t really close to anyone. Except Bumby. Her cat. He was probably her best friend.” I think: What an offensive cliché of a single woman. And I think: You’re being too sensitive.
I fake a laugh and I get into my car.
“See you next week!” she calls.
I wave out the window, and I catch Homer’s face in the glass door behind her. He has dimples even when he frowns. He shoves the door open. The gesture looks odd with his wholesome figure; the scowl doesn’t fit on his happy-go-lucky face.
“I thought I told you . . .” But his words dim as he gets closer. And I can’t reverse, so I pull away, back down the twisted trail toward the ranch.
The wheels turn and my head swells, and I think about what she said. I think about the pictures of Bumby you posted on Instagram and Twitter. Yes, there are about three dozen cats on the ranch with the same coloring as the dead cat I found on that first day. I try to remember if it had a collar, but I’m not sure. I assumed it was Bumby immediately. I didn’t look closely. I was afraid to get my hands dirty. And I scold myself: Details, details—you always told me to remember the details. What gun did they carry? What gloves were they wearing? Where were they at two o’clock on Thursday afternoon?
Your mother said she would bury the cat in the pet cemetery. She also said the trash collector comes once a week.
* * *
—
The trash bin is on the other side of the lodge, out of view of your parents’ house. It’s boxed behind a latticed fence, to hide it from the guests. I slip inside the fence and shut the gate behind me so no one will see. The stench of garbage fills my nostrils, but underneath it something else lurks, something every living thing recognizes instinctively.