He Started It

by Samantha Downing

  Another shrug. ‘She might have looked at my phone. Maybe she saw Tracy called.’

  Tracy. The girlfriend he blew off to marry Krista. ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘She called me,’ he says. ‘I can’t control that.’

  I walk away, refraining from calling him an asshole. Again.

  An hour or so later, our new arrangement feels normal. Almost like Krista was never here.

  Any idea what you would like to be when you grow up?

  Not a parent. Seriously, what a pain in the ass. Everybody’s bored and hungry and someone always has to go to the bathroom.

  Grandpa’s still pretty out of it, because the only water he gets is the kind with pills in it. On our last stop, I also bought some NyQuil, so if he gets extra thirsty he can have some of that.

  Once or maybe twice I’ve looked at him and wondered if I’m doing the right thing. Then I think of when Grandma told me about Christmas a couple of years ago. She got mad about how much he spent on presents, and he got mad because she was telling him what to do. And physically, he was the stronger one.

  She didn’t win that argument.

  The way I remember that Christmas is different. Mom and Dad always had a big Christmas thing with a bunch of food and presents, and Grandma and Grandpa always came over for it. I didn’t even run away during the holidays. But two years ago, Grandma and Grandpa didn’t come because she was sick. The flu, they said. It wasn’t that. She just had too many bruises to show up.

  When she told me the real story, I asked her why she stayed, because that’s what didn’t make sense to me. Who stays for that? Who doesn’t hit back? It was crazy.

  She said she knew that. Grandma also said she had no idea why she stayed, she just did.

  That made me hate him so much more. It’s the whole reason why I agreed to come on this trip, because from the start I knew it was all about him.

  Except now I’ve got a new problem. One I don’t want to fucking deal with and I sure as hell don’t want to write about.

  Part Two

  * * *

  It seems we’ve reached the middle of this story, and given the recent fight between Eddie and Krista, this seems like a perfect time to tell you about my parents.

  I’ll start by saying my father is dead. We don’t talk about him and we don’t talk about our mother either, because she’s the one who killed him.

  When it happened, I was going to school in Florida, Eddie had already graduated from Duke, and Portia finished high school a year early. She left for New Orleans before her first semester at Tulane even started – that’s how badly she wanted to get away from home. My parents were living alone together for the first time since Nikki was born.

  The story, as Mom told it, goes like this:

  They were in the kitchen, making dinner, when Dad brought up Nikki. My parents had been searching for her ever since she disappeared. They had hired private investigators to hunt down every lead, and they even paid a computer specialist to create pictures of how she might look today. Every year. They had a new picture made every single year.

  If you met them, you wouldn’t know this. You wouldn’t know that all their money was gone, their house was mortgaged, and they had nothing for retirement. You wouldn’t notice anything unusual about them at all.

  Nikki’s room upstairs was left intact, right down to the nineties rock band posters she had plastered all over her walls.

  The evening our mother killed our father, he’d had enough. He walked into the kitchen and said, Honey, we have to stop. We’ve spent years looking for her, we’ve spent everything we have trying to find her, and we can’t keep doing this.

  I don’t know if that’s how he really said it, but that’s what Mom claimed in her confession. The thing is, I can imagine it. I can see Mom in the kitchen, preparing dinner, still in her work clothes but wearing slippers instead of her heels. I can see Dad, his shirt unbuttoned at the neck, his slacks wrinkled from sitting all day. Maybe even the beginning of stubble on his cheeks. Grey stubble. His hair had turned completely grey by the time he died.

  Mom didn’t answer him, so he tried again.

  We have to move on, he said. We have to accept she isn’t coming back.

  Still, Mom said nothing.

  Paulette, he said. We have to face the truth. Nikki is dead.

  She had been standing at the kitchen counter, slicing bell peppers. She turned around, the knife still in her hand, and she swung it at him. The blade grazed his stomach, slicing his shirt open, but the wound didn’t kill him.

  The next nineteen did.

  Someone next door heard him yell and called 911. The police found her sitting at the table, drenched in blood, eating raw bell peppers.

  Was it wrong? Who’s to say? What’s the right way to act when your child disappears?

  This is why we never talk about Mom.

  Grandpa disowned her. Not just verbally, but legally. He didn’t help with her defense, didn’t try to get her committed instead of sent to prison. Instead, he claimed she was never his.

  He wouldn’t listen to any of us: not me, not Eddie, not even Portia. Even when I reminded him that Mom could have called the police on him, that she could have put him in jail for kidnapping us but she didn’t, our grandfather wouldn’t budge. Mom got nothing.

  With no money and a public defender, Mom didn’t try to fight the murder charge, didn’t even try to claim insanity. She confessed to everything in exchange for life in prison instead of the death penalty. Felix doesn’t even know. It all happened right before I met him, and I told him both my parents were dead.

  Mom wouldn’t see us, either. She refused all visitors when she was awaiting sentencing, so all we could do was sit in her court appearances, watching her from a distance.

  ‘This is so messed up,’ Eddie said. He said that every time we saw each other and every time I talked to him. He said it during the small, private service we had to bury our father.

  I cried. That’s what I did. I cried for my father, for my mother, and for everything they had gone through because of what happened on the trip. I cried for every lie I told them and every secret I kept. Most of all, I cried for all the years we had lived without Nikki.

  Portia was more succinct. The only thing I remember her saying is, ‘That road trip ruined everything.’

  True.

  I saw Mom just once. A week after she had been transferred to Arrendale State Prison in Georgia, her lawyer contacted me and said she wanted to see me. I flew up that day.

  The woman I saw was not my mother. She was a shell of that person, a ghostly figure who looked like someone pretending to be my mother. I don’t think I did a good job hiding the shock.

  We were separated by a thick pane of plexiglass, and we spoke through a phone. I had so many things to say, to ask, to tell her, but she picked up the receiver and spoke first.

  ‘Beth,’ she said.

  ‘Mom.’

  She stared at me. Her eyes were bloodshot but the blue color of them was clear. As clear as I’d ever seen them. She leaned forward a bit and spoke under her breath.

  ‘Find her. You find Nikki, and don’t come back until you do.’

  My jaw dropped, and before I could say a word she hung up the phone and stood up. I tried to get her to sit back down, but she walked away. She didn’t turn around even when I yelled.

  I never got the chance to tell her that I had been looking for Nikki. I had always been looking for her. I had never stopped.

  The day passes in a scenic haze, like we’re driving through a postcard. Without Krista to complain, or lead a cheer, we are silent and bored. Last time we weren’t because Nikki made sure of it. Halfway into the drive, she bought two disposable cameras. One was for us to have fun with.

  I still have some of those pictures. There’s one of Nikki and me sitting on the hood of the minivan, the sun shining down and making us squint. Both of us are sticking our tongues out at Eddie, who took the picture.

  Anot
her picture is of all four of us – the kids – and we’re all lying down on a bed in a motel room, looking up at the camera. An early selfie, I suppose. That was near the end of the trip, and the first time I saw that picture I was shocked at how wild we looked. In just two weeks, we had gone from well-groomed suburban children to near feral. Our hair was unkempt, our faces a mixture of tanned skin and peeling, sunburnt noses. By then our clothes were dirty and we barely bothered to wash. Nikki wore oxblood-colored lipstick she bought at a drugstore and it made her look unreal.

  The second disposable camera was for Grandpa. I don’t have the photos from that one.

  We haven’t taken many pictures of us on this trip. There was one at the beginning, when we first started out, and another at that hotel bar. Felix has taken a bunch of pictures of the scenery but not of us.

  I almost feel bad about it now that Krista’s gone. Not too bad, though.

  Lunch is at a roadside hot-dog stand, and that’s where Eddie corners me about Krista. He waits until Portia is on her phone and Felix is in the bathroom. Or he might be smoking, because I put cigarettes in his bag this morning. Yesterday he checked for them at least a dozen times.

  ‘Hey,’ Eddie says, motioning for me to follow him. He leads me away from picnic tables. ‘Can you text Krista?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I just want to make sure she got home okay. She’s not answering mine.’ He sighs. ‘She’s not really talking to me, so I didn’t think she would.’

  ‘How bad was this fight?’

  ‘Bad. She wanted me to leave, too. Said our marriage was more important than any inheritance.’

  ‘Did Tracy call again?’

  He shrugs.

  I don’t say anything, so he says, ‘I can’t control what Tracy does.’

  He’s right – he can’t – but knowing Eddie, this is partially his fault. ‘Okay, I’ll text her.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You want me to ask her if she has the ashes?’ I say.

  Eddie gives me the finger as he walks away.

  I type and retype a text several times before sending it.

  Hey, Krista, I just wanted to check in and see if you got home ok? Sorry we didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. This road trip has been so stressful for all of us.

  I think a minute, then send her a second text.

  P.S. Yes, my brother can be an asshole.

  It’s true. It’s also true that the last thing I want to do is encourage her to come back and join us.

  The rest of the afternoon is just like the morning. In the front, Eddie and Felix talk about sports, bad sitcoms, and standup comics. Several times I hear Portia giggle and it’s not because they’re funny. It’s because they’re ridiculous.

  She sends me a text:

  Are we sure this is better than listening to Krista?

  I reply:

  I think so? Ask me again tomorrow.

  Honestly, at least she was entertaining. This is like listening to random guys on a podcast or something.

  She has a point. And she says:

  You know, I think Eddie is lying about the ashes.

  I ask:

  What do you mean?

  I think he’s hiding them.

  I disagree but keep my mouth shut. I’ve already told her who I think is behind it.

  Up front, the guys move on to discussing their favorite cartoons as kids and I put on my headphones. White noise drowns out their voices and I doze off for the rest of the drive, and I don’t wake up until the car jolts. A dirt road is the only way to get to the ghost town.

  Nikki didn’t really know what a ghost town was. That’s my theory, anyway; otherwise, I’m not sure we would have gone. We all thought it was a haunted place filled with castles and old Victorian houses. And ghosts. Lots of ghosts.

  When we hit the dirt road, Nikki started singing the Ghostbusters song. Eddie and I joined in, but Portia didn’t know the words. She just pretended she did.

  She was also scared. At one point, Portia whispered in my ear. ‘Will the ghosts hurt us?’

  ‘No. They’re nice,’ I said.

  ‘Like Casper?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  She nodded, her hair covered half her face. It hadn’t been brushed that day. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘It’ll be fun.’

  Lie, though I didn’t know that when I said it. I believed ghost towns had ghosts, but they don’t. They have empty buildings and stories about miners who worked there a hundred years ago. Like Mom said, nothing is what it seems. It was true in so many ways that day.

  During the drive up, when Portia was scared, I reached into Nikki’s bag to get her CD Discman. Nikki had stopped singing by that point. She was concentrating on getting up the hill, and I thought some fun music would keep Portia calm.

  I searched around in Nikki’s bag, never expecting to find a pregnancy test.

  I watch Felix searching the Internet on his phone, looking for information about the ghost town. Refresh, scroll, refresh, scroll.

  I pull out my phone and check Instagram. He’s working today, and even posted a picture of his giant coffee cup. For a second, I forget about the mountain that we’re about to drive up.

  When the incline starts, I put on my seatbelt. Portia climbs back to her seat and does the same.

  The road hasn’t improved since last time, although we’re in a better car for it. Last time we bounced around, in part because Nikki had no idea how to make this kind of drive. If anyone had seen us, they would’ve stopped us from even trying. I grab the plastic handle above my head.

  I used it last time, too. One hand gripping the handle, the other rooting through Nikki’s bag.

  I close my eyes, thinking back to when I found that pregnancy test. I remember thinking it must belong to Mom – she must be pregnant again and Nikki had found this test. But that made no sense because why would Nikki take it, and why would she bring it with her? It also didn’t make sense that the test belonged to Nikki, yet that seemed to be the only answer. She would’ve had plenty of chances to buy it; there were so many times we stopped and she ran into the store to get something, leaving me with Grandpa and the others.

  So it was hers, then. Had to be. I swear I can still feel the shock of that moment.

  Or maybe it’s the road.

  ‘Jesus,’ Eddie says.

  I open my eyes and see the mountain.

  Eddie slows down and tries to avoid the bumps. He also tries to avoid the steep drop-off on one side of the road. The old town of Kirwin is in the mountains, and this is the only way to get there.

  ‘You remember this?’ I ask Portia.

  She nods, looking as scared now as she did then, which is a little surprising.

  Portia never saw the test in Nikki’s bag. Her eyes were squeezed shut.

  Felix looks up from his phone, sees the mountain on one side and the cliff on the other. He puts the phone away. ‘Service is gone,’ he says.

  ‘Ya think?’ Portia says.

  No one answers. No one says anything. It feels like we are balancing, hovering in the air in a place no one, certainly no car, should be. Yet somehow we keep going.

  The town is at the very top. A jeep is what we should be driving, maybe an ATV. Or a helicopter.

  Behind me, Portia whispers, ‘This is where the ghosts live. At the top.’

  I smile. That’s what Nikki said when she saw how scared we all were during the drive up. She was scared too, she was just better at hiding it.

  ‘All the ghosts,’ I say.

  ‘Even Grandma.’

  Yes, Nikki had said that. I believed it. We all did because we wanted it to be true. No one cared what Grandpa thought about seeing Grandma’s ghost. He was just the asshole who hit her.

  The drive also made him sick. He vomited when we got to the top, although that was probably due to the pills and the NyQuil. Bad mix.

  Now Felix is the one who looks queasy. He has one hand on the dashboard, the other clenching the seatbelt.r />
  I pat him on the arm. ‘Exciting, right?’

  ‘Almost there,’ Eddie says.

  ‘Jesus Christ, your grandfather brought you guys up here?’ Felix says.

  I don’t answer that. No one says another word until our car makes that final lurch up to the top. I exhale because that’s what you do when you escape death, or at least feel like you did.

  Another dirt road brings us to Kirwin, where two hundred residents once lived and worked mining both gold and silver. We get out of the car and stare at the buildings. They’re all boarded up, every last one. If there are ghosts, we can’t see them.

  It’s spooky, though. Spookier than I remember as a kid. Now I can imagine the people who used to be here, can envision them walking, working, growing food, and praying at the little church. What I can’t imagine is the same thing, day after day, without any relief in sight.

  Not so different from life now.

  Felix is the only one who hasn’t seen Kirwin before. He glances around, still looking a little sick from the ride. ‘Seems like we could’ve done this with a drone,’ he says.

  It takes a second, but everyone starts to laugh. A big laugh, the kind you feel deep in your belly, the kind that makes you double over and try to catch your breath.

  Sometimes Felix makes me laugh this hard. I might miss that.

  What are you most grateful for?

  Having a brain. I can’t imagine being stupid.

  I’m also grateful for Beth, not that I’d ever say that to her. But really, this wouldn’t work without her, because someone’s got to keep an eye on everything when I’m driving. If Eddie wasn’t so into his NIN world, maybe he’d help out, but of course, he’s not. Trent Reznor’s got his attention.

  I’m also grateful for Thelma & Louise. Grandma and I used to watch that together. She loved it, but I never understood why until she got sick and told me what Grandpa did to her. Then I got it. She was Thelma, the one with the horrible husband, and all she wanted to do was run away and get back at him. At everyone. When I finally understood why she liked that movie, I told her I’d be Louise. So that’s what I’m doing.