TAUT

by JA Huss

“No, I’m just done.” She turns the cart and begins walking up towards the front to check out.

  “Done with me apparently.”

  I get silence. And she stays that way as we check out. I grab a handful of snacks and drinks in the line, then pay for everything and we head out to the truck.

  “I’ll pay you back for all this stuff, Ford. But thanks for taking care of it right now.”

  “Do you have money?”

  “Not on me, which is why I’ll have to pay you back.”

  “Do you normally have money?”

  “Wow, that was rude. Of course I have money. Do I look like some sort of homeless trash? I’m not, OK? I just needed to figure some stuff out and I couldn’t do it from home.”

  “Where’s home? Texas?”

  “No, I said I came from Texas. And I did. Because I had to see someone there before I could go to LA.”

  “To see your ex?” I say as I unlock the truck and start piling things in.

  “Just stop.” She grabs my arm and waits for me to turn and look at her. “Stop prying. I’m not talking about it. You have your problems and I have mine. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  She puts the baby in the back and I get in and wait for her to finish. It’s snowing a little more now. “Hurry, we need to move west quick before this storm catches up with us and we get stuck somewhere else.”

  She climbs in the backseat and closes the door. “I’m gonna sit back here in case she wakes up and needs to nurse.”

  “We’ll have to pull over for that anyway, though, right? So why sit in back?” She doesn’t answer but I don’t need one either. She’s avoiding me. “I’ll try and drive through to Vegas, then we can stop there and rest.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  I get back on the freeway but I was right. We just need to pull over a half hour later so she can nurse when the baby wakes up. There’s nothing out here in the way of services, but there’s a turn-out near the sign that says Welcome to Utah. I mess with the music playlist on my phone and try to pretend that her ignoring me isn’t an issue. But it is.

  “You know,” I say once she’s settled with the feeding, “I’m not sure why you’re mad at me, but it’s childish. All I did was ask a question about who might be missing you. Believe me, Ashleigh, I’m not into prying into the personal lives of others. So you can stop worrying that I give a shit. OK? I don’t. It was fucking small talk.” I flip through Spotify on my phone and look for some music. “Who do you like to listen to? I’ll put something on so we don’t have to sit in silence.”

  “Here,” she says with her hand out. “I’ll find something.”

  I unplug the phone from the wires that connect it to the cassette player and hand it back to her. “Then will you get in the front with me again? I cross my heart, I won’t be interested in you at all.”

  She grunts a little at that but doesn’t say anything. Her expression is almost sad as she looks through the music. Her fingers fly around the touch screen and then she hands it back. “There, that’s a good playlist.”

  I plug it back in and look over her selection as the music starts. “The Naked and Famous. Never heard of them.”

  “I’m not sure you count, Ford. No offense, but you’re sorta on the outskirts of fringe as far as pop culture goes.”

  “Why would I possibly be offended?” I turn back in my seat and just look outside. “We’ve wasted the whole fucking day. It’s almost dark now.” She’s still in a mood so I get the silent treatment as the music plays. “This stuff is sorta sad, don’t you think?”

  More silence. More sad music. More baby slurping noses. More darkness creeps in as the sun sets to the west. I’m about to lose my mind and insist that she come up front when I hear the sniffling. Like she’s trying to cover up sobs.

  Fucking girls.

  I wait it out and then the baby cries a little as she’s put back into the seat and I let out a long sigh of relief when the back door opens.

  “Come to your senses?” But when I turn to watch her get in the front with me all I see is her back, walking off into the wilds of fucking Utah. I lower the window on the passenger side and yell, “Ashleigh! What the fuck are you doing?”

  The baby does not care for my screaming one bit and decides she’s having none of it. I lean back and rock her seat a little. “Shhhh,” I tell her, like I’ve seen Ash do it. That fucking girl. What the hell is going on?

  I turn the music off and start the engine. Ash has stopped walking away, and that’s a good sign, but she’s on her knees now, like she can’t take it anymore. I put the truck in four-wheel drive and plow down the small embankment, then drive slowly out towards Ashleigh. I keep the engine running and turn the heat on a little higher since the sun’s about to set and that means a sudden drop in temperature up here at this altitude.

  I check Kate real fast, but she’s got her eyes closed, so I get out and close the door quietly. I walk a few paces towards Ashleigh and stop. “You OK?”

  Dumb question. Obviously, she is not OK.

  I walk a few more paces and shove my freezing hands into my pockets. Ash is only wearing one of my zippered hoodies—her winter coat was discarded when she started nursing. She’s got to be fucking cold. I cross the distance between us and I can hear small muffled sobs.

  “Ash,” I say when I get directly behind her. “Come on, it’s cold out here. We can talk about it in the truck if you want.”

  “I don’t,” she snaps. “I do not want to talk about it.” And then a full-fledged sob erupts and she bends over at the waist and presses her head to the frozen ground as she cries.

  Fuck. I have no idea what to do.

  “Ashleigh, get up. We don’t have time for this.”

  She shakes her head and sobs harder.

  I kneel down behind her and pull her up off the ground. “You’re freezing.” I wrap my arms around her upper body and pull her against my chest. She’s trying very hard to stop crying because she’s holding her breath, but that just makes it worse because her sobs escape eventually, only now she’s on the verge of hyperventilating. I can’t ask her what’s the matter because she’s not interested in talking about it. And she’s clearly not ready to get up off the ground.

  So now what?

  My mind races for an answer as her cries become more and more desperate-sounding. She is in full-on life-sucks mode.

  “Ashleigh, I don’t know what to do for you. Just get in the truck with me.”

  She shakes her head. “It can’t be fixed, Ford. Nothing will ever be better again.”

  I guess she’s talking about her ex, but fuck, I have zero information on this girl beyond the fact that she’s not anywhere close to home and she’s got nothing but a baby going for her right now.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with you. You’ve told me nothing. Is it bad?” I get a nod this time. That’s something. “The kind of bad that just makes you want to move away and never talk to anyone again?”

  She’s silent for a moment, then she lifts her head a little. “No, Ford. The kind of bad that makes you want to curl up and die.”

  I’m not an emotional guy. I mean, I get what she’s saying, but even after my dad died, I never wanted to like, kill myself or anything. I have a strong sense of self-preservation. And I suppose that’s why I don’t always put others first. I don’t really know how to put others first, but I’m good at manipulating people, so I figure I need to distract her. Take her mind off her fucked-up life and redirect her somewhere else.

  “I have never been to that place, Ashleigh. But I have had my share of fucked-up times. A couple years ago I tried to fall off the face of the Earth and lose myself in work that took me as far away from Colorado as I could get. But the shit always catches up with you. In my case I lost a girl I liked, she died of an overdose. I almost got in a lot of trouble for something I did with some friends of mine, and then my dad…” She leans into me a little as soon as that word leaves my mouth. “My dad was killed in a�
�” I laugh for a second. “I was gonna lie and say a terrible accident, but it wasn’t an accident and everyone knows it.”

  “What happened?” she asks, turning a little so she can try and look at me.

  Mission accomplished. I should just get her in the truck right now and stop this conversation before it starts.

  But the trip to the cemetery has opened up something inside of me. Something that says I made a lot of mistakes after my dad’s death and it’s time to get over it. “Stay still now. I’m trying to keep you warm since you insist on falling to pieces outside in the dead of winter.” She doesn’t stay still, in fact she turns all the way around and presses her face to my chest. I unzip my jacket and try and wrap it around her as best I can. Her arms reach under my coat and circle my waist. Her hands are cold, but it makes me feel warm.

  And then, before I even have time to reconsider… that shit just comes pouring out.

  “I loved skiing. Fucking loved it. It’s like, fuck. That sport consumed me. Every weekend in the winter I was in Vail skiing. When I bought this Bronco in tenth grade, I’d ditch school early on Friday so I could get in some afternoon runs. My parents never really cared about that, they encouraged me in pretty much everything I did. And my dad and I, we were so much alike. I was definitely less socially astute—he had a ton of friends and I’ve never had any, not really. Just Ronin and Spencer, the guys I keep calling back in Denver. But most of it was business and that was college.

  “But my dad and I were like brothers born a generation apart. He was smart, not freaky smart like me, but just so intelligent. And he was good at all the stuff I liked to do. Skiing, running… all of it. So one day we were gonna hit the slopes in Vail. But I needed some new gear and we always get it from a shop in Copper. A friend of the family owns it. My dad and I went in there to get me some poles and I bumped into a couple of guys I knew from competition days back in high school. And they were gonna ski some backcountry nearby, just up Loveland Pass.”

  I stop to lean down and whisper into her neck. “It was fucking Loveland, Ashleigh. It’s like our back fucking yard. It’s less than an hour from Denver. I’ve been skiing these slopes since I was seven. It was fucking Loveland. My dad and I did that backcountry run a few times in my teens. This wasn’t some virgin cliff in Alaska. It wasn’t some run you gotta sign a fatality release form for up in the Tetons. I could see the goddamned highway when we started.”

  She looks up at me with her red face, chapped and dry from the cold and wind. “Tell me the rest.”

  I stare out at the setting sun, a bright orange outlining the mountains off in the distance. “I saw it. We all saw it. There was a crack in the snow near the summit. But the accumulation the night before wasn’t heavy, just a few inches, so we took a vote and it was a go. We hiked up, put on our skis, and I went first.

  “I can see it clearly in my mind. Pulling my goggles over my eyes, looking back at my dad as he gave me a thumbs up. And then the rush of taking off in that fresh powder. Everyone followed me, my dad second, then the other guys, but I was way out in front—just hitting that shit hard.

  “I triggered the avalanche. My route is what did it. I loosened the slab, heard the crack as it pulled away from the base. And then everyone I came up that mountain with was dead. I was the only one who lived. I didn’t even get buried. I skied off to the side and watched the whole fucking thing happen right in front of my eyes. I saw the look on their faces as they tumbled, then there was nothing but white.”

  The only noise I hear is the idling engine of the truck behind us. Ashleigh says nothing.

  “We all had beacons. Hell, we all know the dangers—we were all very experienced skiers. So we all had beacons and packs with probes and shovels. Just in case. That’s like famous last words, right? Just in case.”

  I stop and take a deep breath as I picture it all in my head again. “And if you’re in an avalanche and you’re not buried, you switch your beacon from transmit to receive. So I switched it to receive and I got my dad’s signal. We had a high-end system with W-link. The other guys had regular beacons, no W-link. There’s a big difference in how you read these signals. So I knew which signal was my dad and I hauled ass down to where it was emitting and started probing and digging.

  “We both know how it ends, obviously. But I watched him die on my transceiver.” I look down at Ashleigh and she’s staring up at my face, all thoughts of whatever it was that was bothering her gone as she listens to my story. “W-link detects the movement created by a beating heart.” Her face crumples a little. “He was buried seven feet deep. I got about four feet of snow removed when his heart stopped.”

  She climbs up my lap and wraps her arms around me and pushes her face into my neck.

  And I let her, because fuck it. I like it. She’s warm and her body is soft. She feels good to me and I probably feel good to her too.

  “I’m so sorry, Ford.”

  “That’s not the worst of it.”

  I stop again, because I’ve never talked about the accident afterward. Not even to rescue officials. I’m trained to say nothing if I’m questioned by authorities because of all the jobs I did with Spencer and Ronin. So when it came time to talk to the ski patrol I just shut the fuck up because I had no Ronin to talk for me. We weren’t even on speaking terms back then.

  “I knew where all the other guys were in that group. I could see all their signals on my transceiver. Their beacons didn’t transmit movement, and my dad’s did. So I clearly knew which signal belonged to my dad and which ones belonged to them. And even though I was a lot closer to every one of those guys, and the signals were stronger so they were probably closer to the surface, I decided to dig out my dad instead.”

  “Ford—”

  I squeeze her a little to make her stop. “Don’t bother. My mom has already said it multiple times. Everyone said it over and over. But none of them were there. If I could dig down four feet, I could’ve dug down three and saved Rob. Or four feet and saved Steve. He was practically right next to Rob. I could’ve saved two people that day if I was rational, but instead I let everyone die because I decided to try and save my dad instead. Hell, I’m the one who caused the fucking slide in the first place. So you can tell yourself I didn’t kill them, but I absolutely did. Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but it hardly matters to the families left behind, does it?”

  Ashleigh has nothing to say to that. And I don’t blame her. There’s nothing to say.

  She starts shivering uncontrollably and I haul both our asses up off the frozen ground and lead her back to the truck by the hand. When I open her door the heat rushes out and I check Kate real fast. She’s still asleep so I go around to my side and get in.

  “I’m sorry,” Ashleigh whispers. “It sucks. And there’s really nothing anyone can say to make it better. It just… sucks.”

  I navigate us back onto the highway. It’s fully dark now, just the headlights out in front to break the black that surrounds us. There are no streetlights here. There are no cars behind us and several minutes can go by before another car comes from the west heading towards us.

  “I’m lonely,” Ashleigh says with a sigh. “It’s dark and empty here and that’s exactly how I feel right now.”

  “You have Kate,” I offer up. But it’s a half-hearted attempt because I feel the exact same way. Everything sucks right now. I have nothing. At least she has a baby that needs her, depends on her for everything and loves her back.

  Ashleigh rubs her eyes to stop the new tears. “I know, and I should be thankful about that. Things can always get worse, so I should just shut the fuck up and be happy with what I have.” She looks back at her daughter and I know she’s crying again, just silently this time. “But I’m so far from satisfied I just want to curl up in a dark corner and die. Because part of making a family is getting to experience life with the person you love. You know?” She looks over at me but I have nothing to say. What do I say? “And I don’t have that anymore. So who gives a shit a
bout her but me? Who do I celebrate all her firsts with?”

  “Your parents? His parents?”

  “My mom’s dead and my father—” She snorts a little at the mention of her dad. “He’s ashamed of me. And Tony’s parents absolutely hate me. They’ve never even seen her.”

  “What? Haven’t they seen a picture?” I don’t get this.

  Ashleigh shakes her head. “No, nothing. It’s like…” She stops and looks out into the darkness for a few seconds. “It’s like no one even cares about me. And I think…” She stops again to try and swallow down whatever it is she’s feeling. “I think I’d be OK with that, if I just had him, ya know? I could live with all the rest of it if we were in it together. Is that how you feel about Rook? Like, you could give it all another shot and live through the next day if she was with you?”

  Is that how I feel? “No,” I conclude. “No, actually, that’s not how I feel about her at all. I just want her around. I like her company. I want to try normal things with her, like—well, just normal things.”

  “Oh.” This defeats Ash and she turns away from me and faces the darkness again. But I can still see her reflection in the window from the dim dashboard lights.

  “She’s pretty though, she’s a model.”

  “Figures,” Ashleigh snorts. “You’re handsome, Ford, I’m sure your girlfriends are all beautiful, so I’m not surprised.”

  I’m not even sure what to say in response. I’ve never had an actual girlfriend and I’ve never had a conversation with a girl about this kind of stuff. Hell, I might never’ve had this kind of conversation with anyone about this stuff. “Well, she used to be a model, now she’s an out-of-work reality show receptionist. But she doesn’t need the money. Ronin has enough to keep her happy forever, I suppose.”

  “What’s Ronin do?”

  “He’s a model too.”

  Ash snorts loudly this time. “You’re totally fucking with me.”

  I laugh a little. “No, really. He lives this life straight out of Cinderella, only he’s the fucking long lost princess. I don’t get it. It’s not fair to get handed things so easily.”