by Ellis, T. W.
I stand. I’m awkward. I don’t know what to do with my hands.
I say, ‘Guess this is goodbye then,’ and head to the door. ‘It’s been fun.’
I put weight on where I shouldn’t. I yelp. I have to grab Wilks’ arm for support, so I don’t stumble.
She says, ‘Do you need a ride home?’
I look at my dirty, bloody feet. The thought of walking another inch is too much to bear.
I say, ‘Sure, I’d love a ride home,’ with no idea how much I will come to regret it.
Growing up in the big city, I felt like a true New Yorker, yet I didn’t know myself then. I thought I needed the bustle of city living. I was so used to buildings everywhere; I thought of wide-open spaces and nature as alien environments. Quietness meant boredom. Peace meant frustration.
Travelling changed all that.
I lost my parents when I was still at college and I went off the rails for a time. It was hard to care about quantitative analysis, auditing and microeconomics. I dropped out and fell in with the wrong crowd, trying to cope with grief through drugs and alcohol and bad decisions. After one hangover too many and one more existential crisis than I could handle, I packed up my things and bought the first ticket to the first destination available.
I went to South America doing the usual tourist stuff: following the Inca trail, taking pictures with Christ the Redeemer, hiking open-mouthed around the Galapagos and watching the sunset on Easter Island. My mom and dad left me quite a lot of money and I stretched every last cent as far as it would go.
My inheritance couldn’t last for ever and after the carefree adventures of those first few years funds were becoming an issue, so I worked to pay for my travels. I spent a lot of time tending bar. I did a lot of waitressing. I picked fruit. I made jewellery and sold it on market stalls. I taught English as a foreign language. I was a tour guide. At one point I thought I might be a writer. I began keeping a journal of my adventures with the intention of turning them into one great travelogue some day. But I’m no wordsmith. I found myself elaborating too much to make my trips seem more interesting instead of achingly pedestrian sightseeing excursions. I mean, I had a blast, but who wants to read about a wayward soul on one long vacation? I had nothing meaningful to say about the places I visited. There were no grand revelations. No insights. I didn’t see or do anything new. So, I made fun nights out seem seedy, interesting people I met became nefarious characters, dull journeys became dangerous expeditions.
I abandoned the journal eventually. I loved making up stories but I needed to focus on something more productive.
I spent my entire twenties on the move. Or perhaps ‘on the run’ would be a better description. Running from my old life, my mistakes, my grief.
I’ll resist slipping into cliché to say I found myself, but I did discover more about Jem than I ever knew before.
Life accelerated at lightning pace.
First I set my sights on Europe.
Then in Rome I met Leo and before long we were back in the States.
After years on the move without a thought to the future I was married and the future was all I could think about.
Leo called me one day to say he’d found the perfect town to move out to, the perfect place to start a family.
‘How did you end up here?’ I asked him when we first pulled up outside the only bar.
‘Long story,’ he said in reply, and I never did press him for specifics.
We walked around in a kind of awe that day, so used to the big city and big city noise and big city people. It was unreal that strangers would say hello as they passed, that drivers would slow their cars to let us cross the street when there were no stop signs to tell them to do so. It felt as if we had travelled back in time to a more civilised age.
‘I love it,’ I said. ‘It’s perfect. It’s just what we need.’
Leo smiled that matinee idol smile of his. ‘Good, because I’ve already made an offer on a house just outside of town.’
‘You didn’t.’
‘Hey, you’re the one with the plan,’ he said. ‘I’m just implementing it.’
He told me he’d seen the ‘For Sale’ sign and had to go for it, scared that someone else would swoop in and steal our dream home out from under us before he could get me up to view it.
Thankfully, it really was our dream house. We’d spent so long planning and looking that I had an image in my head – a blueprint – of exactly what I wanted, what we needed. The property Leo had found ticked every box I had and more that I didn’t even know about.
Moving in turned out to be a blast.
‘We should have hired a removal firm,’ Leo said, out of breath after ferrying in yet another box.
I wiped my forehead with a sleeve. ‘Where’s the fun in that?’
‘You think this is fun?’
‘Maybe we can play a game while we break our backs?’
‘Breaking our backs isn’t enough of a game?’
‘We could see who breaks theirs first. Whoever wins, loses.’
‘I fancy my chances.’
He flared out his elbows to make himself look larger and more powerful. He strutted for a moment with an intense look on his face: a silverback surveying his domain.
I rolled my eyes. ‘I’ve seen how you bend over when you lift a box from the floor. You have precisely zero chance, mister.’ I held out my fists, side by side as if they were clutching a bread-stick that I then snapped.
‘I hate to be the one to tell you this,’ Leo said, ‘but your victory would be short-lived. We’d both lose. I break my back and you’ll have to look after me. I could be bedridden for months. You’d have to dress me. Wash me. You’d even have to—’
‘Don’t say it,’ I implored him. ‘For the love of all that is pure in this world let’s not go there. Let’s not even get close to going there.’
I was wearing a pair of denim shorts and one of Leo’s shirts that hung off me like some kind of old-world cape. It provided plenty of ventilation but moving boxes and furniture was strenuous work and I was covered in a film of sweat. Leo was soaked. He looked as though there’d been a miniature rain cloud following him around like in one of those cartoons. His T-shirt wasn’t so much stuck to him as glued to his skin and I couldn’t resist tweaking one of his protruding nipples.
He recoiled.
‘What was that?’ he yelped, batting my fingers away.
‘It was right there. It was calling to me.’
‘Calling to you?’
‘It was looking right at me,’ I assured him. ‘“Tweak me, tweak me.”’
‘You speak nipple now?’
‘You betcha, bud. Three lessons a week for four years. Not to brag, but I can speak classical and ecclesiastical.’
‘I’ve never respected you more.’
I think we were giddy making this first proper step towards our future. It felt like we were building something real.
It hadn’t been easy but we felt victorious at that moment. I had conducted a military-like campaign, harassing the realtor several times a day until the offer was accepted, bombarding the owners with kindness, with flowers and hampers, handwritten cards and homemade candles. I couldn’t let it slip through our fingers. I fought for it like I’d never fought for anything before.
It would be our home.
It was all part of the plan.
9:54 a.m.
I’m in the rear of the SUV for the journey back. There’s plenty of room – more than enough – for little old me, all alone. The interior of the Explorer is so big I kind of feel like a tiny kid again. The idea is helped by the fact that Wilks and Messer aren’t talkers. The silence reminds me of riding in the back with my parents in the front. Messer drives, big hands almost stationary on the steering wheel, at two and ten. A smooth, steady ride. A steady speed. I try and relax but I can’t get comfortable. The seats are too firm, the leather too slippery. I keep fidgeting. I can’t keep still.
‘Won’t be l
ong,’ Wilks says, noting my restlessness.
She’s doing something on her phone. Texting or emailing or whatever. She’s not looking at me but she can feel my unease. It’s a clumsy attempt to calm me down yet I appreciate whatever I can get. Just don’t actually tell me to calm down. That’s a guaranteed way of sending me berserk.
I’m anxious to get home again, although until I can speak to Leo and we can sort out this mess and until I know the truth, going home isn’t going to solve anything. It’s a bandage, at best. Only the wound won’t close beneath it.
Why do I get the feeling everyone just wants me out of the way?
I peer between the seats to look at the clock on the dash. It’s almost ten a.m. This whole mess started only a couple of hours ago. It feels like so much more time has gone by yet there are so many hours left until I can speak to Leo. I imagine him on the plane, relaxing in his seat, unaware the FBI are asking about him. Again, I think back over the last few weeks, thinking about his behaviour, looking for signs of duress. None. I don’t remember anything out of the ordinary.
He couldn’t have hidden this from me.
I know my husband, don’t I?
‘Hey,’ I say, leaning forward, ‘can I get my phone back?’
Messer glances at Wilks, who stops using her own phone for the moment it takes to say, ‘Don’t have it.’
I frown. ‘Wait, what? You guys took it from the kitchen table, right? It wasn’t there when I went back for it.’
‘Maybe it fell off the table,’ Wilks suggests. ‘Slid under something.’
‘I can’t see how that would happen.’
She shrugs without looking at me. ‘It’ll be in the house somewhere, I’m sure.’
I’m annoyed at the thought my phone isn’t where it’s supposed to be. If it’s missing, how am I supposed to get in touch with Leo? I’m not sure I even know his number. I don’t think I know anyone’s any more. The days of memorising phone numbers are long gone. It could be written down somewhere, I suppose. Or perhaps it will come back to me when I need it.
The roads are quiet. We see less than half a dozen vehicles on the way out of town and fewer on the highway. Wilks and Messer don’t say anything to each other and nothing further to me. I’m surprised they aren’t asking me more questions. Surely they need to know more about Leo, about Carlson? They can’t be done with what little I’ve told them.
Can they?
Messer slows the SUV to a crawl as we approach the intersection. I see a pickup coming the other way and for a moment I hope it’s Trevor so I can wave at him as he passes, but we turn off before it reaches us. I swivel round in the back seat to peer through the rear windshield to see the pickup is a different model to Trevor’s and a different shade of red.
The single-lane road that leads to the house has an incline and Messer takes it slow. I can hear gravel crunching beneath the tyres as I look out into the woods, remembering fleeing through them, desperate, terrified of the two people I’m now alone with in a vehicle going back to the same place I ran from earlier.
Quite the turnaround.
Messer parks the Explorer right outside and activates the handbrake. For a long moment neither says anything, nor do they act with any consideration and get out to open the door for me.
The engine ticks as it cools. I reach for the door release but the door stays shut.
Locked.
‘Can you let me out?’
Wilks says, ‘Sure,’ and Messer thumbs a button.
I’m out first, taking it slow and easing myself on to my sore feet. The drive is covered in sharp gravel that may as well be caltrops and I find myself balancing on the outer edges of my feet, one palm on the SUV to help spread my weight.
‘Thanks for the ride,’ I say. ‘Guess I’ll wait for that call.’
Wilks and Messer watch as I round the vehicle, moving at a snail’s pace, half-leaning on the bodywork until I have the narrowest possible stretch of gravel to traverse. I’m shaking my head to myself at their lack of manners. I can do this on my own, sure, but it would have been nice to have at least had an offer of help. This isn’t easy and none of it would have happened had they not shown up earlier.
I’m aware of Wilks and Messer talking to each other in hushed voices. I can’t hear a word they’re saying but I can see their lips moving. I wonder what they’re saying.
I wonder why they waited until I got out before saying it.
I brave the caltrops, wincing and trying not to yelp, and make it to the doormat. The coarse fibres feel amazing against my soles in comparison to the gravel. I can’t wait to get my feet cleaned up, disinfected and put dressings on. I can’t wait to take that shower I needed two hours ago before all the excitement began. With trepidation, I lower my nose towards my armpit. I don’t get anywhere near it.
Jeez, I reek so bad.
I turn back. Wilks and Messer are still there, still sat in their seats, neither looking like they’re ready to set off to wherever the local FBI field office is located, or back to NYC or wherever else they’re based.
The SUV’s engine’s still off, I notice.
The front door has a deadbolt and I don’t have my keys. Why didn’t I think about that before? Good thing Wilks and Messer haven’t gone yet.
‘Door’s locked,’ I call to them.
Wilks says something to Messer, who nods. Both agents climb out of the SUV.
Messer heads to the trunk, while Wilks says, ‘What did you say?’
I point to the door. ‘Don’t have my keys.’
‘Ah,’ Wilks responds, digging into one of her trouser pockets. ‘Got them here.’
‘Phew,’ I breathe. ‘I was worried I’d have to smash a window.’
Wilks approaches. ‘Wouldn’t want you to do that.’
‘Is it a crime if it’s my house?’
‘Is what a crime?’
‘Breaking in.’
Wilks is deadpan. ‘It’s your house.’
Messer has the trunk open. He takes something out.
‘Here.’ Wilks inserts the key into the lock. ‘Allow me.’
She turns the key and pushes open the door, holding it open for me as if she’s suddenly developed a sense of charity. I hobble inside.
Messer’s big feet make loud crunches on the driveway as he comes over. He’s carrying a sports bag.
Wilks says, ‘May we come inside?’
I look at her for elaboration.
‘It’s a long drive back,’ she explains. ‘I could do with making some calls first. Reception’s dicey on the roads up here.’
‘Ain’t that the truth,’ I say. ‘Sure. Come in and knock yourselves out.’
I step aside to allow them past, almost missing the glance Wilks and Messer share as I allow them into my home for the second time.
10:03 a.m.
I lead Wilks and Messer into the living room, trying to ignore the lingering sense of unease. This is some literal déjà vu, I think, offering them seats. They sit down. Messer puts the sports bag down on the floor next to his chair.
‘Can I get you guys anything?’
Wilks shakes her head for both of them. ‘We’re both fine, thank you.’
‘Okay. I’m going to take a shower and sort out my feet.’ I glance around the room. ‘If you see a cell phone lurking about the place, please let me know.’
Wilks nods. ‘Will do.’
I hobble back out into the hallway. The downstairs bathroom is a water closet only, so I make my way to the staircase.
They ascend before me as a mountain.
At the foot of the mountain, I stare down at my feet, then back to the stairs.
This just isn’t going to work the conventional way.
I regress back to infanthood and crawl up the stairs as might an overgrown baby. It’s pretty easy, I discover, and I can move at a decent speed. Better yet, my battered soles don’t have to support any of my weight, least of all one at a time. At the top, I stand back up, albeit with reluctance. I
f not for feeling silly I was tempted to carry on crawling all the way to the bathroom.
We have a walk-in shower, thank goodness, and it’s no trouble for me to get inside the cubicle once I’ve gone through the ordeal of undressing. The hot water feels so good I don’t want to get out. I give my feet several good washes, sat down on the shower floor because it’s too awkward to balance on one leg to clean the other foot. I wash out all the dirt from the cuts, prise free all the debris embedded in my skin, scrub away the crusted smears of blood. I grimace and wince the entire time yet it’s also immensely satisfying.
The water that swirls around the plughole is a whirlpool of black and red. The shower is a rainfall design and, stood directly under it, the rest of the world tends to cease to exist.
Which is how I like it.
The effect isn’t quite as powerful today when so much has happened already and there is still so much unresolved. So many questions without an answer.
Leo. A cartel. Money laundering.
Can it be true?
It feels like a lifetime ago since we met in Rome, which was supposed to be just another stage in my endless journey. I wasn’t planning to stay there for any length of time. I figured I would hang out for a few weeks. A couple of months tops. See the sights. Learn to make pasta. Hopefully come away knowing a smattering of Italian once I had earned enough money to buy the next plane ticket.
I wasn’t looking for a husband, or even romance. I wasn’t looking for anyone or anything at all. I rarely thought more than a week ahead at any time. My life was divided up into moments. There was no plan. I was quite happy to live a nomadic lifestyle. I had no real needs. In fact, I never questioned my lifestyle. I just lived.
But I didn’t account for meeting Leo.
I had several boyfriends while travelling but nothing that I would call a real relationship since my college days. My need to keep moving, my relentless restlessness, ensured that I never grew too close to anyone for long. Maybe that was why I never settled down in any of the destinations. Maybe I was too scared to open myself to someone. Maybe I was always running from myself.
