How to Bury Your Brother

by Lindsey Rogers Cook

  Soon, the lights turned off and a teacher appeared onstage to announce the high school’s interpretation of Antigone, directed by Caitlin Wright. An actor walked onstage with heavy Gothic makeup and a purple mohawk.

  Alice didn’t remember what the actors said. After an intermission in which she stayed in her seat and tried to avoid Jamie, the play continued. Alice sat straight, trying to make out Caitlin’s arm motions from the orchestra pit or the side stage. When Walker sat down, he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, before watching for a few minutes. After that, he typed on his phone, angling it slightly away from her. She noticed him texting Brittani. Of course.

  “Work,” he whispered to her. She watched him text, thinking he had everything situated, everything figured out. She couldn’t help but smile, watching him. She felt powerful, knowing before he did that he would have a terrible night, maybe one of the worst in his life. Knowing what the next hour would bring, how he would feel his life caving around him—a feeling she knew well, but he had yet to experience.

  In what seemed like a flash, the play ended, and the clapping began. They all stood as the actors bowed. After they introduced the students and clapped for them, Dr. Garcia took the microphone. “And I’d also like to honor our fantastic director, Caitlin Wright, who completely reimagined Antigone and what it could be in the twenty-first century.”

  Caitlin stood and waved each hand, like a presidential candidate, instead of bowing like the actors. Alice clenched and unclenched her toes and eyed Meredith with worry. Meredith looked back at her and mouthed What? Alice shook her head and held up a finger. Just wait, you’ll see.

  “And she’ll get to continue to use her gifts next year at New York University. We’re truly honored to announce that Miss Caitlin Wright has won the Emerging Women Writers Fellowship and a full ride to NYU!”

  In a second, Alice saw several things. The first was Dr. Garcia’s large claps and plastered-on smile that looked like he was about to take his own bow in front of the district superintendent. The second was her daughter, briefly shocked, then frozen in place as Dr. Garcia approached her for a side hug. The third was Walker’s warm breath on her ear as he leaned in and hissed, “Did you know about this?”

  He had never been able to whisper. Alice had teased him about it when they first started dating, but after she had told him enough times about his volume, she realized he didn’t care if people heard him.

  On the stage, the spotlights caught Caitlin. She was looking at Alice, or Alice felt she was. Alice watched the emotions play across her sweet daughter’s face—the surprise, the happiness, then Caitlin checked those positive emotions and replaced them with another: fear.

  “Alice.” Her shoulders jostled under Walker’s hand and she turned to face him. “Did. You. Know. About. This?”

  She nodded once, not really listening, and turned her head back to the stage.

  She looked again at her daughter’s face, the one she knew best in the world, the confidence from YouTube gone now. She wondered if Caitlin was watching her mother the same way, studying Alice’s reaction and imagining she could hear her mother’s thoughts.

  Little white lies, Alice thought with a laugh. She thought back to the funeral when she’d made promises to what would become Robbie, still in her stomach then. Caitlin had tugged at her dress, asking why her parents were fighting. Her daughter, who she still tried to protect, took it all in. Alice realized that now. Caitlin had absorbed every facet of their lives like a little sponge. An overwhelming wave of emotion rose up inside Alice that she struggled to identify—pride.

  Dr. Garcia had her daughter’s hand and they were posing for a picture that wouldn’t turn out well, Caitlin staring dumbstruck beyond the frame.

  Alice stood. She heard Walker say her name again, but she heard it without identifying it, like as a child at the river, deep underwater, when she listened for Rob singing Elvis from the canoe.

  She clapped and felt the stinging of her hands. Meredith stood up beside her, pulling Christian up by his sleeve. The rest of the auditorium stood now, and Walker followed. It wasn’t until Alice saw her daughter crying that she realized she was crying as well. She mouthed, I love you. I’m so proud of you, and watched Caitlin nod back at her.

  Walker leaned in toward Alice. “We’ll talk about this in the car.”

  She nodded. It was time. To talk about everything.

  She watched as Walker approached the exit door amid the claps, hoots, and whistles for his daughter. Through his button-down, she could see the muscles in his back tense, as if he wanted to turn to see if Alice was following him but didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

  Alice scooped the flowers off the floor, along with the bag with Caitlin’s stuff still at her feet. “Can you take Robbie to dinner and then drop him home in an hour? I need to talk to Walker,” she said to Meredith.

  The rustling had started as the audience looked for their purses and finished cans of soda, ready to leave. Alice marched up the mostly clear aisle to where her daughter stood on the side, still stunned while people crowded around her and patted her on the back. Alice glanced behind her to where Meredith and Christian were looking in the crowd for Robbie, and to where Walker had strayed from the door and now stood halfway between it and her.

  Alice pushed through the crowd around her daughter and hugged Caitlin, kissed her on the cheek, and smelled her hair, like she always did when she was a baby, breathing her in. In her arms, Caitlin shook, really crying now.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said. “I signed your name. I shouldn’t have. I didn’t know they were going to do that.”

  Alice pulled away and wiped her tears, turning Caitlin away from the crowd toward the wall so no one could see her. Caitlin didn’t care though.

  “I wish you would have told me, but it’s okay. We’re so proud of you.”

  Caitlin turned, looking for Walker.

  “He’ll come around. I’m going to talk to him. It will all be okay.” She hugged Caitlin again, dropped the bag at her feet, and handed her the flowers. Then Alice released her daughter back to the crowd. She smiled at everyone waiting to tell her daughter congratulations and backed away, leaving Caitlin with her many admirers.

  Alice felt a hand on hers with a slight pull—Walker. “Come on.” He gave his daughter a small wave as he turned around.

  Alice walked through the auditorium of well-wishers, stopping every few minutes as people told her how magnificent it all was and how they always knew Caitlin was destined for something special. Alice thanked them, and Walker smiled along too. In between, he began a halted conversation.

  “You knew about this.”

  “I just found out. And I was waiting for the right time to talk to you about it.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Walker said, loud enough to make a passing young couple stare, “because she’s not going.” He flashed a smile in their direction.

  “She’s going.”

  “Well, I’m not paying for it.”

  The card Walker had never pulled, even through years of funding the Center. He slapped it down in front of her with such ease that Alice realized it had been there, all along, at the front of his mind, even if he didn’t voice it out loud.

  “You’re not the only with money.” When her father died, he had quietly left a trust to “Alice and her children,” as opposed to “Alice, Walker, and their children.” As if Richard had known her marriage would fail, like everyone else apparently. Something she and Walker never discussed after their meeting with Richard’s lawyer five years ago. “And besides, it’s a full ride. It will be cheaper than UGA even.”

  Walker and Alice trudged forward in silence.

  He leaned in again: “You made me look like an idiot.”

  “I made you look like an idiot?” She mouthed “hello” at another mother in Robbie’s class and waved to her youn
gest child.

  “Yes, you made me look like an idiot!” Walker punctuated the statement with the bang of his hands on the metal push bar on the school’s exit door. They walked back side by side to the dark parking lot.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Alice turned toward him as they stopped at her car. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “What?” Walker said, surprised.

  “Do you honestly think I don’t know you’re having an affair? Do you really think you’re that smooth, that I couldn’t see something so obvious that half the neighborhood knows, that your own daughter knows?”

  Walker put his hands up in surrender as if this was the most ridiculous accusation he had entertained in his two decades of lawyering.

  “I don’t know what you heard or what Caitlin thinks she knows,” he said, in a stilted voice she imagined played well with clients who were about to lose their fortunes. “But I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She felt a rush of sadness for him as she took in his features and the practiced look meant to signal confidence and slight frustration. She still wasn’t mad, even now.

  The ache of failure permeated her chest. This was who he turned into and who she turned into. Who they had made each other. And for all the effort she had put in, to accommodate him as he adjusted to Caitlin coming out in ninth grade, and the rapid growth of the Center in the last decade, and the increased demands from Maura on Alice’s time—to all of the excuses she made for him and patience she gave him, he had answered with betrayal.

  He was the one throwing his life away, the one who wouldn’t realize it until he woke up one morning, without his wife, without his kids, without his dog, without the quiet comfort they had built around him. He was the one who would wake up and realize that he had ruined his life, while she would wake up tomorrow and feel hers beginning again.

  “I’m leaving,” Alice said. Walker flinched.

  “Alice! What? Jesus Christ. Just wait a second!”

  “For a few days,” Alice interrupted. “To think. About things.”

  “This really isn’t necessary.”

  “Just stop pretending. I’ve read some of the messages. You were texting her just now, in the theater.”

  “You read my texts?” he yelled, before he remembered the setting for their argument. He turned to smile in case someone was listening on the other side of the parking lot. He gestured to the car, and they both climbed into her Prius, with her in the driver’s seat.

  “You read my texts?” he repeated.

  “Yes, I read your texts and you’re cheating. Guess that makes us even.” Her voice dripped in sarcasm. She crossed her arms over her chest.

  She hadn’t planned to read her husband’s text messages. She wasn’t one of those spouses. Just a glance to an illuminated phone on the counter was all she had needed to know. Hidden in plain sight, a lie he hadn’t bothered to tell. Somehow the lack of effort he took to mask the affair intensified the betrayal, as if she didn’t deserve proper lies.

  “Fine. Okay? It’s true. But she loves me. She actually treats me like she likes me and wants to be around me, wants to tell me things.” He glanced toward Alice to see if the reference stung her. It had. She blushed.

  “It just… It got out of hand,” he continued. He grabbed her hands and held them over the center console, tracing the lines of her palm like he used to. He looked up at her with his head slightly bent, as if shrinking himself below her. She recognized the gesture from her studies of dominance in wolf packs during her conservation biology classes. “Let’s just talk this out,” he said. “Please.”

  She pulled her hands away and twisted to buckle her seat belt. Out her window, she saw the cars lining up toward the exit. People flooded out of the high school. She cranked the engine and drove a few rows over, then stopped in the aisle at Walker’s Audi and pointed to it, signaling him to get out.

  “You’ll follow me?” he said, one hand on the handle, his face looking back at her. She stared ahead through the windshield at the dusty paw prints that clouded her view, left by the feral cats that lurked around the Center.

  “No, I’m on the last flight out tonight.” She turned her body to glance at her duffel resting on the back seat. He followed her eyes. “Meredith will drop Robbie off at home in an hour, and Caitlin’s going to the cast party and then to a friend’s to sleep.”

  She turned back to the windshield and tapped on the steering wheel twice with her fingers, as if to signal the conversation’s end. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his face looked briefly shocked, but she didn’t turn toward it. With her left hand, she flipped the locks from muscle memory and the car clicked with the new freedom. He jumped at the sound.

  “Where are you going?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve got a few things to take care of.”

  “How long are you going to be gone?”

  She shrugged again. She traced the seam on the back of the steering wheel with her fingertip.

  “You’re not serious?” She looked at Walker’s face now. It made sense. For him, this seemed completely out of nowhere, when for her, she had built to this moment for the last decade as they stepped further and further apart.

  “I’m serious.” She released her seat belt and leaned over him to pull the passenger door latch. It sprung open.

  “What do you expect me to tell the kids?”

  She looked him right in the eye. “What do you think I tell them when you’re with Brittani?”

  “There’s someone else, isn’t there? You’re getting all high and mighty with me when you’re doing the same thing behind my back.” He pointed to his chest and his finger crumpled against his heart with the force of it.

  “We’ll talk when I get back.”

  “I really think we should talk now!”

  They both knew their talks went nowhere, neither willing to get into the ring, neither willing to show their scars. It was why they fought so infrequently—they didn’t know how to cut each other, didn’t know where to twist the knife because of all the unknowns between them. He could never hurt her as Rob had, as Jake had, as Caitlin’s video had. The safety had drawn her to him, but to get what she wanted, to let her desires and hopes and dreams and fears out of their locked boxes in her mind, she had to leave that safety behind.

  “Problem?” She and Walker both turned to see Jamie, approaching Walker’s open door.

  Alice’s heart jumped again. She had to get out of here. Her calm facade eroded with the introduction of another adversary.

  “Just get out!” She pushed Walker’s shoulder, trying to encourage him to get out of the car. He finally climbed out to stand with Jamie. As she leaned over the seat again to shut the door, her heart raced. She had more energy than she had had in a long time. She was doing something. She smiled.

  She threw the car into reverse, as Walker and Jamie looked at her, with different shades of surprise. She backed out of the spot, skidding her wheels, and flipped to drive. Then, on second thought, she braked and rolled down her window.

  “I’m onto you too, buster!” Alice said, pointing at Jamie wildly as she drove away. He wouldn’t steal money from her mother without some consequences. Wouldn’t call off the search for Rob without her finding out about it. And as much as he probably thought he would get away with it, he wouldn’t. She wouldn’t let him.

  She chuckled to herself as she exited the parking lot, remembering their faces. By the time she reached the highway, though, and the adrenaline had worn off, her heart raced for a different reason. She knew there was no going back from what she had just done.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Alice drove along the highway through Atlanta to the airport, watching the buildings dotted with light rise against the black night. As always, her Prius rattled slightly when the speedometer rounded seventy miles per hour. Usually it didn’t bother h
er. Tonight, though, she needed the speed to add miles to her distance from home.

  Her flight to New Orleans took off at 11:35 p.m., so by the time she checked in, only a few people waited in the security line. A college-aged girl in an oversize T-shirt, Chacos, and a backpack the size of her body explained anxiously to the TSA employee checking boarding passes that she was going backpacking. He looked her up and down as if to say “Duh.” A young couple wrapped and unwrapped their limbs around each other and pointed to each other’s wedding rings. “I’m traveling with my husband,” the woman said before they exchanged giggles.

  Alice held her boarding pass in front of her and looked up at the ceiling. She heard the light buzz of her phone vibrating in her backpack, as she had for the entire drive. She wouldn’t look at it until she buckled her seat belt on the plane, she promised. It would be Walker.

  She busied herself with finding her gate, changing out of nice jeans and a button-down blouse into leggings and a pilled sweater, and filling up her water bottle. Alice riffled through her backpack to retrieve the final letter one last time. Her eyes settled on the words New Orleans as if to verify that they hadn’t disappeared off the page in her absence.

  She boarded the plane with the letter in hand and stroked the seal with her thumb as she walked down the aisles to a row that remained clear thus far. She sat down and immediately took out her phone: twelve missed calls, thirty-seven text messages. Before she could stop herself, Alice let out a groan that made the man across the aisle glance at her, then turn away. Her eyes skipped over Walker’s text thread and missed calls from him and Jamie.

  Alice opened a text from Meredith: Dropped Robbie off with Walker after dinner at Waffle House, his choice :-)

  She texted Caitlin: Have fun at the cast party! Let’s talk tomorrow. She thought about telling Caitlin about her trip but didn’t want to worry her on her big night. They could talk tomorrow.

  She turned the phone off and lay back in the seat, with the letter still in her lap. Alice had never been afraid of flying but as the plane took off, she played all the things that could go wrong with this trip in her head, beginning with the plane crashing. Lila could be gone. Maybe she wouldn’t find her.