Clementine thinks you left of your own accord. Jed does too. Why is it so hard for me to believe it? Maybe I just resent it. Maybe I am just disappointed you left without saying goodbye. Like your mother, I need to believe something happened to you, because the alternative is that you never really cared at all, about the podcast, about your listeners, about me.
“Do you believe her?” I ask.
“I don’t know. . . .” He is hesitant to disagree with me. “I guess I do. I guess I think Rachel just wanted out.”
“No,” I insist, but am I just being stubborn now? It’s almost like I want something bad to have happened. Have I been listening to too many podcasts? Jed said you lost yourself, that you thought everyone was out to get you. Is that what has happened to me? “I don’t believe it.” Is that just what I want to believe?
“Sera, you didn’t really know Rachel.” He puts his hand on my arm but I shake it off.
“Yes, I do. I know her. I know her better than any of you. Her whole podcast, the reason she did it, was to find answers. She wouldn’t do this. She wouldn’t leave behind any questions.”
“Maybe you’re wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, maybe you ain’t right about her intentions.” His accent is thicker when he’s impassioned. It tangles his words, contorts his lips. “Maybe she wasn’t looking for answers for them. Maybe she was looking for answers for her. Maybe she wanted to disappear and she was tryin’ to figure out how.”
“Then why broadcast it? Why publicize it?”
“Rachel was a lonely soul,” he says with a strange finality. “She didn’t connect to people like you or I do.”
“I don’t.”
“Fine, maybe you don’t.” He throws his hands up. Two hectic spots blossom on his cheeks. “Maybe you do understand her better than anyone. Didn’t you do essacty the same thing she did? Didn’t you just up and disappear? You’re looking for her—who’s looking for you?” He goes stiff, like he’s shot himself but he can’t figure out why or how. “Rachel, I’m so sorry.”
He doesn’t catch the mistake, and I don’t correct him. “You never really wanted to find her anyway. Why would you? You don’t care about anything, except where your next drink is coming from.” I snap around and walk away, through the parking lot, out toward the deserted Main Street.
When I am too far away, he calls out, “Hey!” He snaps his fingers. “Hey, hey, Sera!” But it’s too late. “Don’t you need a ride back?”
I keep walking.
“Don’t be like that.”
I put my hands up. “We’re done, right? Case closed. I don’t need your help anymore.”
He shakes his head and walks in the other direction.
* * *
—
There is no bar in Happy Camp, the man behind the counter at the convenience store tells me. The Snake Pit, which was once the apex of all local crime, was shut down five years ago, so the criminals could scatter, I guess. To make them harder to find. I buy a forty and I take it down to the river, where I sit in a break in the brush and drink with determination.
Did I want to disappear? Or was I secretly hoping someone would come looking for me? Did I wish something bad happened to you just to save me from the bad thing happening to me? And what do I do now?
I think of the last person, the only person, who ever really cared about me. I think of the baby, and when I take my phone out of my pocket, I am surprised to see a signal. So surprised that I call him before I can stop myself.
“Sera?” He still has my number saved.
“I didn’t want to have a baby,” I say so fast, I wonder if it’s really me saying it.
I can feel the pressure as his breath escapes his lungs. “Yeah, I figured.”
“Everything was happening so fast and I . . . I thought we were supposed to do it. I thought we were supposed to get married. I thought we were supposed to have kids.”
“We were supposed to.”
“But who said it? Who says?”
He sighs. “Sera, as much as I love spitballing with you, the great thing about not being married is I’m not contractually obligated to.”
“I wished it.”
“Wished what?”
“I wished I wasn’t pregnant. What if God granted my wish?”
“I wouldn’t put it past Him.”
“Everything is so fucked up,” I say, and then I can feel the enforced silence, feel that he didn’t and doesn’t want to reveal anything.
I gaze across the fast, muddy river. “I don’t know where I belong.”
“No, Sera, you just don’t want to belong. This is all your choice.”
“Is it? Because it feels a lot bigger than that.”
“Do you know what I think your problem is? You never had any friends.”
“Thanks.”
“No, I mean, like, girlfriends.”
I think about all of the time I have spent chasing you, and I think he might have a point. I kick a rock. “Sometimes I forget how great you were.”
He groans and then he sighs. “God, why the fuck are you doing this to me?”
“I wanted to apologize.”
“Thanks, Sera. Gee, thanks. I feel a fuck-ton better now.” We are quiet and I listen to the river running. I thought this call would cure something, but I don’t want to go forward and I don’t want to go back. “Are you still in the woods?”
“Yes.”
“What are you doing out there?”
“I’m working at this ranch. I told you, remember?”
“Sure.”
“What are you doing?”
“The same shit. The same shit we used to do. God. You know, sometimes I do miss you.”
“Sometimes I miss me too.”
There is nothing left after that, so I say goodbye before the signal drops and I look out across the river and I wonder how I can make the right choice by leaving him and regret it forever at the same time. And I wonder what the fuck I am going to do now.
* * *
—
My eyes snap open. I drifted off, but now I wonder. I could stay. Your mother and your father like me. Every day they tell me, “We’re so happy you’re here.” And Jed likes me, and I like Jed, and maybe together, we would both be happier. We’re both lost, but what if we found each other? I think about your list of names, your best friends, the ones you lost. Maybe I have been looking at this the wrong way. Maybe you didn’t disappear so I could save you. Maybe you disappeared so you could save me.