The Way It Ends

by Marnie Vinge

  The Way It Ends

  Marnie Vinge

  Copyright © 2020 by Marnie Vinge

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  For all the women who have made questionable choices for a man. I hope you didn’t end up in a cult.

  Contents

  Part I

  1. IONE

  2. BIRDIE

  3. IONE

  4. IONE

  5. VANESSA

  6. IONE

  7. IONE

  8. VANESSA

  9. IONE

  10. IONE

  11. BIRDIE

  12. IONE

  13. IONE

  14. VANESSA

  15. IONE

  16. IONE

  17. VANESSA

  18. IONE

  19. IONE

  Part II

  20. BIRDIE

  21. VANESSA

  22. IONE

  23. BIRDIE

  24. BIRDIE

  25. IONE

  26. VANESSA

  27. IONE

  28. BIRDIE

  29. BIRDIE

  30. VANESSA

  31. BIRDIE

  32. BIRDIE

  Part III

  33. VANESSA

  34. VANESSA

  35. IONE

  36. BIRDIE

  37. VANESSA

  38. IONE

  39. VANESSA

  40. VANESSA

  41. BIRDIE

  42. IONE

  43. VANESSA

  44. VANESSA

  Part IV

  45. IONE

  46. BIRDIE

  47. IONE

  48. IONE

  49. IONE

  50. IONE

  Afterword

  Also by Marnie Vinge

  Part One

  IONE

  IONE

  My nails cascade like falling dominoes on the table. One-two-three-four, mine count in fourths of a second. Two-hundred and forty times a minute. At least a quarter of an hour passes this way. Wes is now well beyond the qualification for fashionably late.

  He’s late enough that if he were anyone else, I’d call for my tab and go. But this is important. And it’s him, not anyone else. The realization that I’m putting my evening on hold for a man sits like an unwanted guest next to me. I force a smile for the waiter. He smiles back, re-serving the gesture as gingerly as a brittle-boned tennis player. My irritation begins to blossom into full-fledged anger. The kind that’s impossible to bury in a grin. It seeps out at the edges and I think he notices. He continues to look my way awkwardly as if to say, I’ve been stood up before, too. Sucks, huh?

  I look away and still my nervous hands by clasping them together under the table in my lap. I steeple them outward, like they’re praying. They soon feel fidgety and I allow them to return to their previous activity. I glance at the clock on my phone and sigh. Five more minutes and I’m calling it.

  I called Wes when I got back home from Norway. Gone for a year working on my next book, a follow up to my first non-fiction endeavor: A Portrait of the American Death. This second volume chronicles the ways in which the rest of the world grieves. My first book met with some critical acclaim. I got featured in a magazine and did several podcasts. That elusive morning talk show hot seat eluded me, though. Death wasn’t something people wanted to ruminate on over coffee. I’d found in my research that people mostly didn’t want to ruminate on it at all; however, it was something that followed all of us constantly. A bloodhound tracking wounded fugitives. In the end, we’d all be treed.

  Wes and I broke up the month that I left for Oslo. I told him I needed to focus on my work—a chintzy cover for the fact that I’d have rather died than let him get close enough to peel back yet another layer in the multitude of coatings over my innermost self. I was like a wood-paneled bathroom, wall-papered over once, twice, then painted, wallpapered again, and painted once more. Wes was the new homeowner who had noticed a piece of wallpaper beginning to peel. Before he could mix up a chemical solution to get back to that first layer of tacky wood paneling with the names of former owners carved into it, I short circuited the breakers of our relationship, sparked a fire, and ran him out in a cloud of smoke. Better that than let him see me at my worst.

  Still, now that the adventure is over—the trip that I so closely guarded as my own—the only person I want to tell the story to is Wes. I want to tell him about the man I met in a hospice center in Brevik who told me the story of how he lost the love of his life. How he chose the army over the woman that should have been his wife. How he was a coward and she married his brother. How when he told me this story, I thought of myself and I thought of Wes. And how now, I want nothing more than to be with him. It’s time to smoke out the creepy crawly things that live between my ears, chorusing mantras from the past and live for now. I remind myself of this when my watch reaches a benchmark that puts Wes twenty minutes behind schedule. This isn’t a power play—this is the kind of late that means he doesn’t want to come at all.

  It’s then I look up and see him.

  His hair is longer, a mess of dark blonde that could use a haircut. He takes off a pair of glasses—readers—and sticks them in his blazer pocket. It was just before I left that he had to start wearing them. It’s an indication he’s been looking at his phone. His faded jeans seem to be tailored specifically for him, and they hug the muscles in his thighs. I’m suddenly aware of my lingering attraction to him and briefly a thought like a mosquito buzzes in my mind: This is a mistake.

  He spots me and walks over. I stand from the table, and my hip bumps the corner and shakes the silverware and my empty drink glass. Ice clatters in the vessel. Wes reaches down to steady it and laughs. Nervously, I reciprocate. We look at each other. Our hands almost touch as they still the table.

  “Ione, I—” he starts with my name. Hearing him say it is a balm on wind-beaten skin. I stop him short, though.

  “No need to apologize,” I tell him it’s fine that he was late. He produces an excuse that dings a distant bell of recognition and makes me uneasy.

  “I have this student right now—super bright—and she needed some help coming up with a thesis,” he fiddles with his napkin, and never fully settles into his chair to unfold the piece of cloth and throw it over his lap.

  My body grows rigid, my muscles against my bones like resin settling into a mold.

  “She’s writing about your book,” he adds, not oblivious to my silence. A dynamic so familiar yet entirely forgotten during the course of my absence blankets us. We are wrapped in suspicion. Or at least I am. Wes isn’t to blame. It’s one of those names carved on the bathroom paneling that’s responsible. The letters might as well be etched in granite, the way they hold me tighter than the dash between the dates on a tombstone.

  His addendum does little to warm me up. My hand finds the arm of my chair and clamps down like if I let go, I’ll fall to my death. I’m a bullet, shot towards him but now I’ve glanced off his shoulder and I ricochet into the past. I smile and when the waiter comes by, I order another drink. Wes seems to accept the idea that we’ll be staying for at least one more round. He fidgets with the menu as we talk. I slowly loosen my grip on the arm of my chair. Maybe it’s the past melting away in the August heat, or maybe it’s the second mixed drink permeating my blood stream. Either way, it’s a welcome relief.

  Wes loosens up, also. The evening stretches over the horizon and the tension between us seems to stretch out, too. After two more drinks, we’re feeling good. He gets th
e check and I let him. We stand. He helps me when I stumble. He laughs, and I lean into him. I inhale the scent of his aftershave. For the dying, the scents of home do more for comfort than almost anything else. I begin to think that if I were to die right there with my face in the bend of his neck, I’d be content. And I think far too often we chase after happiness when what we really want is contentment.

  He rights me and leads me out by the hand. We navigate the stairwell and emerge onto the street where we stand for a moment. Wes looks down and fiddles with his keys. Only two feet separate us.

  “It was good to see you, Ione,” he looks at me like he’s seeing me for the first time.

  I lean in and kiss him. I run my hands through his hair and he gingerly places a hand on my back. Surprise colors his features. I’m taken aback by it, too, but it feels right. There’s time to apologize for everything—for the way I left, for the way I kept him at arm’s length—there’s time for all of that now.

  He pushes me away.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” he looks away this time.

  I stumble and step unexpectedly off the sidewalk. My stomach lurches and I’m not sure if it’s the sudden change in elevation or his sudden change in tone. He reaches out to help me.

  “I met someone this past year, Ione,” he offers me a hand.

  I’m close enough to inhale the words as he speaks them, the sweet scent of his whiskey sour fanning across my cheeks. I shrug away from his touch.

  “I missed you—I still do—but she’s here. She’s always here,” as he speaks, I know exactly what he means. “I should go.”

  He looks at the sidewalk for validation that it doesn’t give. Stoic and unmoved by the breaking of my heart, it offers me no solace, either, other than a path by which to return to my car. We part ways and I look over my shoulder twice to see Wes retreating into the evening, his steps quick—the steps of a man whose mind is made up. He’s not going to turn back. But I do, a third time, just to be sure.

  Once at my car, I get inside. The dimly illuminated cabin fades after I sit for a few moments in silence. In the darkness, I start to cry.

  I really fucked that one up.

  BIRDIE

  A flurry of kicks below her ribcage keeps Birdie awake in the small bedroom above Tom’s office. Impatient, the baby makes its presence known with a constant series of acrobatics inside the womb. She doesn’t know her exact due date, but by her best estimation, less than two weeks remain. She came upstairs an hour ago and crawled into bed with a book. Living in the main house—Tom and Vanessa’s house—was a recent change. The accommodations here had far surpassed those in the cabin she’d spent the majority of her pregnancy in. The closer she comes to giving birth, the more Tom wants to keep an eye on her. Though she can’t sleep, she’s grateful for the air conditioning. Late August in Oklahoma makes it feel like a furnace burns just below the crust of the earth with heat that radiates into your bones. The extra weight of the pregnancy doesn’t help, either.

  Birdie never wanted to get pregnant. It wasn’t something she ever desired the way that some women do. And yet, here she was. Alone, thoughts swirl around the core of her brain like water rushing a drain. They become claustrophobic, the idea that only a couple of weeks remain between two very distinct portions of her life seizes her like a partially desiccated hand reaching up from a grave.

  Voices echo through the vent grating beside the bed and under the nightstand. The reverberations of a conversation grow louder and less apt to be ignored. Birdie lays the book on her stomach, a tent atop a hill. As she focuses more intently on the two male voices, the conversation becomes less white noise and more a viable source of data about the situation surrounding Tom Wolsieffer’s compound, the place she now calls home.

  Birdie makes out the distinct voices of both Tom and Jeff, Tom’s right-hand man. Minion might be a more accurate description. Jeff fears Tom in a way that brings to mind the nervousness of a mouse before a cat. She smells fragility on him like a sickness. It’s a scent that has never attracted her aside from the way blood piques the curiosity and hunger of a shark. The tone in Jeff’s voice does that to her now.

  Lying with the book on her stomach, she strains her ears and listens. The silence of the room around her and the tunnel made by the vent create the perfect echo chamber for their voices.

  “…the hell is that?” Annoyed, and most likely interrupted from staring uselessly at the blinking cursor of his word processor, Tom’s tone of voice expresses his irritation. He’s been working on a follow up to his wildly successful self-help volume, The Way, which had prompted more than five hundred people to seek enlightenment at Revelation Ranch. Birdie had been there from the beginning. Long before there was a Way to be spoken of.

  “We found it by the creek, close to Bower’s property line,” Jeff informs him. Silence descends and Jeff’s words echo in the vent chamber. The two men are looking at something, Birdie decides. Tom seems to be considering it. Then he speaks.

  “Take it down.” His statement is a demand, not to be questioned. Birdie imagines Jeff nodding assent and hears his footsteps lighten as their tread moves away from the center of Tom’s study. She sits up and the book falls from her stomach off the side of the bed to the floor with a thump loud enough to be a rabbit’s powerful foot hitting the carpet.

  Birdie throws back the covers and slips on her flip flops. Still wearing the sweats that she had on at dinner, she goes to the door and opens it a crack. The light from Tom and Vanessa’s bedroom stretches into the dark hallway like a long, illuminated claw, their door only open a few inches. Not wanting to explain herself to Vanessa she creeps quietly to the staircase and cringes as the fifth step down moans her exit from the upstairs guest bedroom.

  The baby isn’t going to let her sleep and it’s been weeks since she’s gotten to do anything worth remembering. The pregnancy has shortened Tom’s leash on Birdie, something that was normally left with a lot of slack. He keeps an eye on her constantly, reminding her slightly of a parole officer, though she hasn’t done anything wrong. A little like Big Brother, Tom’s eyes are everywhere. He exchanges privileges for information with the people living on the ranch. And Birdie’s comings and goings are of particular interest to him these days.

  Still, she wants to know what’s going on. She imagines some sign constructed by Wade Bower, the rancher to the south. Perhaps NO TRESPASSING even though Tom’s followers adhere to strict rules when it comes to the laws of the land they reside on. Even on their best behavior, though, they haven’t been welcomed by the locals of Kenton, Oklahoma, with open arms.

  Their arrival, a year prior, garnered suspicion from the locals. People accustomed to living off the land, far away from government intervention, didn’t have much interest in making their new neighbors—over five hundred people—feel particularly wanted.

  Birdie glides past Tom’s office doorway like a wraith, moving more delicately than she has all day. He stirs and she hears him pause in the shuffling of papers on his desk. She holds her breath, back pressed against the hallway wall. After a moment, he resumes what he was doing. Birdie slips down the hallway and out the back door, sure that she turns the knob until the bolt slides silently into the doorframe as she closes it.

  Air still warm from the heat of the day coats the landscape like a scarf wrapped around her mouth. As Birdie steps out of the air-conditioned house, it feels like she’s opened the dryer and stuffed her head inside. The nights will still be hot when the baby comes. Relief won’t arrive until November. The thought makes her stiffen as she walks. The heat is enough of an annoyance. Caring for a child is not something she ever wanted to do, and the cons of the equation are rapidly stacking up. It’s too late now, though.

  She walks, unable to look down and see her feet. They find their footing in the dim evening light, though. She puts a football field between herself and the main house as she walks toward the property line, and finally she begins to feel like she’s out from under Tom�
�s ever-present eyes.

  In the distance, she makes out the forms of three men. Jeff is among them. The other two, Ollie and Sid, play equally as vital roles in the hierarchy of the ranch. Sid not as much as Ollie, but still to a certain degree. Tom exchanges privileges—a cell phone, for one—with Ollie for the information that only he can glean. People trust him out here. Ollie is slightly younger than Birdie while Sid could be her father. On a mission, the three men march towards the creek.

  Birdie keeps just enough distance so as not to alert them to her presence. It feels like an adventure, getting out of the house to investigate what’s up at the border of the two properties. She knows Tom won’t approve, which makes it delightful.

  It’s true that familiarity breeds contempt. She’s grown too familiar with Tom, she thinks. Too much time spent together over the last seven years has made their relationship lose the shiny varnish that it was once coated in. She feels a lot of things for Tom, but she’s not sure that love is still one of them.

  The men walk through the field that butts up to the back of the main house, and they begin following the creek on the edge of the Wolsieffer property. They stop about fifty yards in front of Birdie. The three of them gather in such a way that her view is obscured. She can’t see the message that Wade Bower has sent. Birdie makes a decision.