The Ancestor

by Lee Matthew Goldberg

  She left his house that day knowing chaos would remain. People would get hurt, that’s guaranteed. But she had to go. She couldn’t take on anyone else’s troubles or she’d never be able to flee.

  So when she thinks of him, she envisions this other Wyatt, who’s able to be with a family he loves. Even though that’s likely not the truth, it’s enough to keep her moving forward.

  56

  Travis’s been on a bender for a while now. Started drinking before the funeral. Didn’t handle Bobby’s death this bad, but Grayson was always his brother, the one he chose.

  Travis never imagined life without him, uncle to Eli, hunting and fishing trips in the wilderness into their eighties. Papa’s death hard but understandable, easy to reckon. Grayson ripped away too early. The unfairness, the wasted potential. Travis carried all of this, even in sleep.

  First, he honed his anger on the murderer. He went down to the settlement ready to burn Tohopka’s trailer. Stood there with a can of gasoline, but he was never really gonna do it. Then he became pissed at Grayson for getting involved in something he shouldn’t have. The settlement not in Laner’s jurisdiction. It basically had its own. Wild and untamed, meant to be left alone. Bobby made that mistake too.

  Alcohol fueled Travis’s anger but he wanted to rage. And to avoid taking it out on Callie and Eli, it was better to stay at The Goldmine: dodging nails from the floorboards, the half-painted walls, and the so-so plumbing. The bar had been put in, all he really needed.

  It’s the state Wyatt found him. Travis so drunk he questions if he’s talking to himself, because they look so much alike.

  “Are you my fuckin’ better version?” Travis asks, when it walks in the door.

  Wyatt had been by the Barlows’ house after Grayson died to pay his respects. He asked to use the “in-house,” and went through the hamper and stole a shirt, jeans, socks, even Trav’s boxers. To become this man, he had to smell like him. Live in his skin.

  He leaves Trav stinking drunk, yanking him over to the mattress on the floor, a bucket for his puke. Outside he strips down and discards his own clothes, naked blue in the moonlight. He lets the wind dress him in the clothes of another. Once they’re on, he has transformed. He knows how to transform because he’s done it before, many times. His thoughts now belong to a new version. Travis 2.0. He’d been thrust into a world of machines. And he is a machine as well. Engineered to survive over a hundred years of stasis.

  Someone created this force for a reason. But he has many lifetimes to discover why. This will be his last chance to be with Adalaide and Little Joe.

  Going lupine, he charges to the Barlows’. The moon lighting a crescent pathway.

  Howls from his throat like earthquakes through the woods. He’d seen them leave a key in a flowerpot by the door. He unlocks it and goes inside. It doesn’t smell like his home, but it smells like a home. That will have to be enough. The boy is asleep and she’s in the bedroom angling toward the window, her back to the door, a thin moonbeam across her face. She sees him in the reflection.

  “Travis?”

  His nerves are fried, worrying she might know he’s an imposter. But there’s a half-full bottle of vodka on the night table.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to come home.” He takes a breath, speaks from the heart, as if it’s Adalaide.

  That’s how he will win her. “Because I’ve been away for too long. Because you and Eli deserve better. And I’ve learned how to be better. There’s nothing I want more than the two of you, not gold, or I mean, some fish shack. I needed to get over what happened, and I’m getting there. It ain’t easy, hell, it might never be easy—”

  She’s crying. “He was your best friend Travis.”

  And I killed him, like the other two. Because I had no other choice. The last one a roadblock to you.

  “Baby,” she says, and they’re hugging, and she smells like lilac, like Adalaide. Or maybe she doesn’t, but it feels so real the lilac aroma surfaces. She’s kissing his neck, his inner ear, their lips touch and he wonders if she knows now, if she even cares. Maybe he’s close enough to what she desires. Maybe he’s actually what she’s desired all along.

  “Take whatever time you need,” she says, pulling off his shirt, biting down on a nipple. “Eli and I are okay. If you wanna stay at The Goldmine for a while till you get your head together. I want us back when it’s right.”

  Wyatt holds her face in his hands, her red hair cascading through his fingers. “That’s just what I want too.”

  “I love you,” she says. “I’ve only loved you, no one else ever counted.”

  “No one.”

  She removes her bra, slides down his pants with her foot.

  “You’re so hard.”

  The blood swelling. Once inside her, he has an out-of-body experience. Watching from above all through the night. They make love again and again. She does things he has never experienced before, the 1890s being a prudish time in comparison to Callie’s prow-ess. But he has the stamina to keep up.

  She calls out Travis over and over. There are moments when it sounds like she’s asking for the real Travis to return, scolding his replacement. Other inflections seem like she’s encouraging this new snake. After they’ve exhausted themselves, it’s almost morning, the room bathed in a purple twinkle. She’s lying on his chest playing with a tuft of hair. Studying the hair as if there’s something strange about it, different than the hair she remembers. But they hadn’t been intimate in over a month so maybe she figures that chest hair just grows. When he sees this, he moves her hand away. Always on alert of her becoming aware. One day he will tell her. When they are old and gray, or at least before she grows elderly and dies and he simply freezes again until another time, passing through eras in fits and spurts.

  He kisses those probing fingers, which probe farther down, but then Eli bursts into the bedroom, excited to see his father because Travis hasn’t been home in the mornings since Grayson’s death. The boy leaps into bed and snuggles between his parents. He’s hugging Wyatt extra tightly. But then he lets go. He looks up, concerned, cocking his head to the side. He pokes Wyatt in the arm, whips his finger back like the arm was made of razor-blades. He scooches out of bed, flip-flopping away but staring down this curious stranger, the one who shares a bed with his mom, the one who’s primed to take over.

  57

  The next morning Travis wakes without the need to obliterate himself into a drunken numbness. He collects all the half-empty bottles and leaves them on the curb in a Hefty bag. He spends the day painting the walls, satisfied with the ocean-blue he’s chosen. The place still a mess of exposed wires and torn-up floorboards, but with each passing day he can make a dent, keep himself occupied. He stops by Stu and Cora’s to check on them, not having seen anyone since the funeral. They’ve left messages but Stu understands his son needed space, even if Cora’s a little hurt. She pours black coffee for them and they sit around the breakfast table in the kitchen. Stu took a few days off after Grayson’s death.

  He promoted Bickley to deputy and they’re in the process of hiring a new officer. Despite dealing with the loss of Grayson, Stu seems less rigid, like he’s accepted that sometimes life can be awful rather than fighting it. Travis’s mother and father sit holding hands, and the way they glance at each other makes him realize that things will eventually be okay.

  He’ll never get his best friend back, but he’ll always have family.

  “So why have you been staying at the restaurant?” Cora asks.

  “Wanted some time to myself.”

  Stu nods as if that’s a completely acceptable reaction.

  “And you and Callie?” Cora asks, stirring cream into her coffee. “I know she went to California.”

  “We’ve had some bumps. But we’ll be okay. I think.”

  “Oh, sweetie,” Cora says, holding onto Travis’s hand too. The three of them joined in unison like they’re about to say a prayer.

  He dr
ives back home afterwards, Cora insisting he takes a rhubarb pie she baked. He’s nervous on the way over because he hasn’t really seen Callie since she’s been back.

  Things didn’t end well, and with all the stuff related to Grayson, there was no chance to have a talk. They spoke on the phone some. He checked in on Eli. The toilet overflowed and in a drunken haze he managed to tell her to get a snake. She had returned from California, a good sign. The question remains whether she’s come back for good.

  He parks the car, greeted by a tackling Chinook who licks his face once he steps outside. He rolls around on the ground with the dog until Callie opens the door, catching them in mid-wrestle.

  “I thought I heard you,” she says, with a smile he can’t quite read. Excited to see him?

  Or gearing up before she explodes? He tickles Chinook under the ears and heads in.

  “Eli’s down for a nap,” she says.

  She’s about to vanish into the kitchen. He grabs her by the arm, spins her around.

  “Travis…”

  “I missed you.”

  He kisses her like he did on their wedding, as if a hundred people are watching. It’s been about a month since they’ve kissed more than a peck on the cheek, and he longs for the way her lips allow him to forget his woes.

  They’re hugging and he continues kissing her neck. She’s giggling like a girl as he reaches under her shirt.

  “Travis, we can’t now. Eli could wake—”

  “No,” he says, pulling away. “We should talk. We’ve got some stuff to get through.”

  He paces the length of the living room.

  “I know I shouldn’t have left the two of you and stayed at The Goldmine, but I…” The tears come hard, his face swelling. He tries to keep his voice down to not wake Eli. “I had to process what happened alone.”

  “I told you it was okay. You could stay there as long as you wanted. Eli and I, we’re fine. Really. I can’t imagine how you’re feeling.”

  “It’s like I’ve been gutted.”

  “Grayson was…for all his faults he cared about you a lot, about our family. I miss him a lot too.”

  “I haven’t treated you right.”

  “Now, Travis—”

  “No, hear me out, baby. Because I’ve taken you and Eli for granted. You had every right to escape to California. Every right to leave me even!”

  “I’m not leaving you, Travis.”

  “I took you away from your family and friends. You gave up your whole life to come and live with me in Alaska.”

  “Wrong, I wanted to. L.A. is a cesspool. There’s not a real person there. Not my parents, my old friends. They’re all just treading water.”

  “And with the business, I’m not gonna let it affect me like I had. So we’ll be in debt.

  It’s only money. I’ll find ways to get it.”

  “Did Wyatt talk to you?”

  “Wyatt?”

  Wyatt had been the furthest thing from his mind. A relief to have him gone.

  “He wants to invest in your business with some of the money he got from the gold.”

  “When did he tell you this?”

  “When you and Gray were camping, I guess. He stopped by. He’d like to see you succeed.”

  “How much does he wanna invest?”

  “You’ll have to talk with him about that.”

  Travis blows out a long breath. “Would help out a lot.”

  “See? Just like you said. Nothing for us to worry about.”

  She rubs her stomach, her face twisting.

  “You okay, baby?”

  “Stomach’s been off these last few days. Must be something I ate.”

  “Should you see a doctor?”

  “No, no, think it’s food poisoning. It’ll pass.”

  “Why don’t you lie down? Lemme get you a cold compress.”

  “Travis, really…”

  “Nope,” he says, rushing into the kitchen and running a towel under cold water. He directs her to their bedroom, lying her down in the warm afternoon light. Dabbing the towel on her forehead.

  “Let me take care of Eli these next few days, give you a rest.”

  “Mm hmm, okay.”

  “Are we good?”

  She gives a hard swallow. “Yes, we will be.”

  “I’m gonna be more present. This is a new Travis.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A new Travis.”

  A smile trickles up the side of her face. “Like you were the other night.”

  “Huh?”

  “The other night.” She closes her eyes. “You wild man.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Sure you don’t.”

  “Maybe you should get some rest, Cal.”

  “I love you, Bear.”

  It’s what she used to call him when they first met because he was so rock solid and massive and built like a bear. She’d say she’d feel tiny in his arms, protected like she was his cub. That’s when they were young and foolish. When life was easy.

  “I love you too, Cub.”

  He kisses her nose and a few freckles along her cheeks. She shuts her eyes and soon they’re fluttering and she falls deep into sleep. He sits beside her feeling more love for this woman than he ever has. Perfection with her hands folded over her chest, quiet in slumber. A moment of unadulterated happiness as he creeps to the door, not wanting to disturb their bubble.

  The upset stomachs continue for Callie, especially in the mornings, so she picks up a pregnancy test. It’s been almost two weeks since she and Travis had their wild night, enough time to fertilize a baby. She’d missed her period and the other symptoms mimicked how she was with Eli. She doesn’t tell Travis she’s taking the test. If there’s no news then she won’t say anything. They’d been getting along and falling back into a rhythm. He’s been so sweet and seems to be making headway at The Goldmine. There was even a day she spent in bed when he took off work to watch Eli, and all afternoon she could hear Eli’s high-pitched laugh, pleased to be back with his father. Her parents called to ask her how things were going and she honestly said they were really good.

  She’d told them that before but never truly meant it.

  Now she squats over a toilet and aims her pee at the stick. Then does calisthenics as she waits for the result. Touching her toes, stretching to the ceiling. Time moves glacial-ly. Outside the door, she hears Travis chasing Eli in the living room. Each time Travis catches him, Eli lets out an ecstatic shriek that stirs her heart. She pictures having another child, maybe a girl to balance out the home. Or another boy so she can remain exalted without any competition. Her family of men that look to her as the rock.

  She checks the test, but it’s not ready. If pregnant, she and Travis can always talk of the night this child was consummated. They’d reached a low point in their relationship but that night eased them back to where they needed to be. She decides she’ll be crushed if it’s negative. The ache to have another child with Travis overwhelming. She stares at the stick while caressing the crystal hanging from her neck. Willing the test show a positive. And then, like she’s able to guide her wishes, a plus sign appears. She grabs it, whisking out of the bathroom and finding Travis tickling Eli on the couch.

  His face goes slack. “What is it?”

  She waves the stick in the air, beaming. Rubbing her stomach as if she can feel the ba-by already growing.

  “You’re gonna be a daddy again!”

  58

  Travis doesn’t recognize the number on his cell. He picks it up to a voice on the other end that says, “Trav.”

  It sounds as if the person is light years away.

  “Wyatt?” he responds.

  “Trav?” the voice asks again, even farther sounding this time.

  They go back and forth like this until Travis finally asks, “Are you talking into the wrong end?”

  “Don’t understand these things,” Wyatt says. Travis hears a crackling as Wyatt turns the receive
r upside down. When he speaks again, it’s loud and booming. “Phone company came and said a landline was already installed in the house. Yours is the first number I’m calling.”

  Normally Travis would say, “I’m honored,” or something along those lines. But he doesn’t have it in him.

  “Anyhoo,” Wyatt says. “Wanted to see how you were doing. With what happened to your friend.”

  Travis had woken up not thinking about Grayson, a rarity.

  “Chugging along,” he says, biting his cheek. “Putting one foot forward I guess.”

  “I’m here if you need a shoulder.”

  “Kind of you, Wyatt.”

  The last they’d spoken—except for a week ago when Travis was bombed out of his mind—Wyatt confessed that he was Travis’s great-great grandfather frozen in time.

  Clearly, the man was on heroin.

  “In fact, I was thinkin’,” Wyatt says, “how about you and I go ice fishing? Right on the lake near Anvil Creek. I have a proposition.”

  “Callie told me.”

  “I don’t need the money. Maybe a little saved in case, but I would like to invest the rest.”

  “Could really use it.”

  “We’ll talk specifics when we’re there. How about tomorrow?”

  “I was gonna watch Eli. Been recently taking the load off Callie. I’m trying to be a better—”

  “I’m sure she appreciates. But this is important. It’s for the future, our future. Fishing can be good for the soul. Get your mind off other temptations. I know how that is.”