by Jon McGoran
Mom gave me a smile that seemed mostly fake. Then she got out of the car and it turned all fake.
Aunt Trudy was grinning—mostly real, I think—and I found myself smiling back.
“Hi, Diane,” she said to my mom, then she turned to me and said, “Oh, my God,” putting her hands on my shoulders like she was trying to get a physical sense of me, make sure I was real. “Look what a year has done—you’re a grown woman!” Mom’s eye twitched at that one. “And so pretty, just like your mom. And Kevin, look at you!”
“Hi, Trudy,” Mom said. “Thanks.”
Aunt Trudy turned to my mom and went in for a hug, but my mom leaned forward for an awkward cheek-to-cheek air kiss.
“I brought some cookies,” Mom said, holding out the plastic container, giving it a little shake.
Aunt Trudy turned around and motioned toward the house. “Well, come on in and let’s have some.”
Her house was decent. Not too neat or too messy, a bit jumbled, filled with strange, cool objects—artwork and gadgets and wooden toys and stuff.
Kevin sat in the armchair. Mom and I sat on the sofa. Aunt Trudy put the cookies on the table in front of us and brought in a chair from the dining room. My mom declined when Aunt Trudy offered coffee or tea.
The next half hour was a blur of predictable awkwardness. I stayed pretty quiet, freaked out by the whole situation. I guess they were freaked out, too. They seemed to be trying to have a conversation without actually saying anything, like they were playing one of those games where you have to tell a story but you can’t use certain words. Except in this case, the list of forbidden words seemed to be half the English language.
Kevin caught my eye and gave me a “this is really weird” look. I was glad to have an ally there, however briefly.
The conversation inevitably turned to him, and when it did he was swept up in the euphoria of people talking about how great he was and how bright his future was.
But there really is only so much you can say about Kevin, even if you say it all twice. When we had each eaten our fill of cookies, my mom put her hand on my knee and gave me that sad smile again, the one that made me sad, too. And angry.
“We’d better get going,” she said, almost a whisper.
I nodded, determined not to make it easier on her.
“Kevin, help your sister get her bags from the car,” she said.
Aunt Trudy looked on with a crooked half smile, like it was cute. Like she didn’t have the slightest idea how awful this was for me.
Kevin and I went out to the car, but when we got out there, instead of opening the trunk, he leaned against it. “So, I guess this kind of sucks, huh?”
I rolled my eyes. “You think?”
“She seems nice.”
“Sure.”
He punched me in the shoulder, a little too hard for a “cheer up” punch, but then he said, “Cheer up. We’ll be back in a couple weeks. And this time next year, I’ll be gone. Then you can have Mom all to yourself.”
He saw something in my expression that made him laugh. “That’s right,” he said. “You think it’s been easy having everything focused on me while you’re flying under the radar, doing whatever the hell it is you’re doing? Well, soon, it’s going to be just you and Mom.”
“Crap.” This hadn’t actually occurred to me.
He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Ah, I’m just messing with you.” He turned and started opening the trunk. “You’ll be fine.” Then he stopped and looked over his shoulder. “But you do need to be more careful about hanging out with weirdos like Del freaking Grainger.”
NINETEEN
Aunt Trudy and I stood on the porch and watched my mom and Kevin drive away. Then she turned to me and said softly, “It’s going to be okay. You know that, right?”
The way she said it made me believe her, and that made me more suspicious than anything else. I nodded and she smiled.
“What say we put your stuff up in your room?”
“Okay.”
We grabbed my bags and I followed her down a long hallway. “That’s my room,” she said, pointing at the doorway to our left. It was spacious and nice, with pale lavender walls and wood flooring and furniture. “You’re in here,” she said, leading me up a half flight of steps and through an open doorway. We stepped into a large, airy room with bookcases, a vaulted ceiling, a skylight, and sliding glass doors that opened onto a deck set about ten feet off the ground. In the yard below, there were half a dozen garden patches; a few were covered with hay, the others were planted with tomatoes, peppers, and greens. Some looked fresh and green, while some were browning and leggy and definitely past their prime. The yard was surrounded by dense brush and trees.
“Wow,” I said, before I could stop myself.
“You like it? Oh, good.” She put the bags down and looked around appreciatively. “I love this room.”
We stood there for a moment.
“Okay, kiddo, I’ll go get dinner started and let you get settled in.” She smiled sympathetically. “Unfortunately, I’ll be working a lot this weekend. Not much of a host, I’m afraid. I need to set up an exhibit, so I’ll be leaving at seven tomorrow and won’t be home until around midnight. I’ll be gone a few hours on Sunday, too. But the rest of the time I’ll be here.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. I mean, about the weekend.” I tried to keep the relief and excitement out of my voice. I’d been trying to figure how I would get out of there to search for Del, wondering if I should just run or try to be sneaky about it. I knew the clock was still ticking, but this changed things. If I waited until she went to work, I could just walk out the front door.
“Will you be okay on your own for a bit?” Aunt Trudy asked.
“Oh, sure,” I said. “I have a lot of homework to do.” That was true. Not that I was going to do it. Del would be proud, I thought, and it occurred to me that he was turning out to be a bad influence even when he wasn’t around.
“Okay. Well, you do your thing, and I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”
I looked at the books on the shelves and pulled out a few. Some Tolkien, and one of the later Rot & Ruin books. I opened The Hobbit, which was an old favorite, but a few chapters in I found I couldn’t remember who was who or what was going on. Worse, I realized I no longer cared.
I could feel the minutes ticking by. Even with Del getting farther and farther away from me, I could also feel my head getting heavy. The events of the past couple days seemed to break over me like a wave. I fought to stay awake, trying to force my brain to come up with a plan of action.
I failed on both accounts.
It was dark when I awoke to Aunt Trudy tapping on the door.
“Dinner’s ready, okay, kiddo?”
It took a moment to remember where I was. Then it all came back to me. “Okay, I’ll be out in a second,” I called.
Dinner was vegetables over rice and a salad. I was still full of cookies, but it smelled good.
Aunt Trudy looked at me over the table with a sympathetic smile. “You okay?”
I nodded. “Tired, I guess.”
“You’ve been through a lot the last few days.”
I let out a soft laugh. I sure had.
“Your mom told me what happened with the police,” she said, spooning rice onto my plate. “That must have been scary. It was brave what you did, staying behind and saving that cop.”
I nodded and put some rice and veggies in my mouth. “This is really good,” I said, sounding more surprised than I had intended.
“I grew it all out back,” she said. “Except the rice and the ginger.”
“That’s pretty cool,” I said. “But . . . this is all so weird.”
“What, the ginger?”
“No,” I said, smiling in spite of myself. “Being out in the zurbs. I mean, it seems nice around here—your garden and all the trees and stuff. But some parts are a mess. It’s weird how the zurbs got the way they are.”
She nodd
ed. “It’s very, very weird. It’s amazing how quickly the world can change. How things can fall apart.” She sat back. “What do they tell you about it in school?”
“The basics, I guess. The flu pandemic and the energy shortages.”
“A lot of it was the weather, too.”
“Yeah. The storms, right?”
She nodded. “They got so bad, the old-fashioned power lines couldn’t hold up. And in the winter, with the ice and snow . . . People would lose electricity for days, weeks, months even. I remember one winter, they rebuilt the power lines three times, but they kept coming down, again and again. That summer they rebuilt and reinforced it all, and we got this early snowstorm, a blizzard, the day before Halloween—it was a fluke even for now, and it just took out everything. It was spooky, no lights at all except for all these candlelit jack-o’-lanterns in the snow. I think that was the tipping point, you know? When people first started really abandoning the zurbs. Some of the small towns managed to survive by building solar arrays and wind farms and stuff. And some set up coal wells and gas drills, even though they were illegal, and even though they knew it was making things worse.”
“My friend Del’s dad did that for a while. Building illegal coal wells out in the sticks, before he became a cop.”
“Nice,” she said sarcastically, shaking her head. I thought about Stan, dragging Del along with him as he went out building those things, knowing they were illegal, knowing how bad they were for the environment. “Anyway, some places got by okay, out there on their own. Others just . . . didn’t.”
She looked at my face and must have seen something there, because she immediately changed the subject. “So, how about Kevin? That must be exciting, that he’s going to be a big college basketball star.”
I made an effort to nod. She was sweet, trying to stay away from anything controversial, trying to make this easy for me. But the last thing I wanted to talk about was Kevin, and I was tired of answering questions. I had a few questions of my own. And I was still mad enough at my mom that I felt bold enough to ask them.
“So how come you and my mom aren’t closer?”
I had to give her credit, she didn’t look shocked or jump down my throat or anything. She just bit the inside of her cheek, and after a few seconds, she said, “We used to be. When you were little.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know, Jimi. Families are weird.”
I almost laughed, but I stayed quiet instead, waiting for her to continue. She wasn’t getting off that easy.
She took a deep breath. “Did you know you have another aunt?”
“Excuse me?”
She nodded. “You’re named after her, actually.”
This time, I did laugh. “I’m named after some weird old Irish saint.”
“Your aunt Dymphna is named after a weird old Irish saint. You’re named after your aunt—my sister. She didn’t like the name any more than you do. Her friends called her Dee.”
For a moment I thought maybe Aunt Trudy was crazy after all. But the look on her face was serious. And very sane.
“Are you kidding me? How come I never knew about her?” My smoldering anger at my mom flared up again, hot and bright.
Aunt Trudy paused again, like she was trying to decide how much to tell. “It’s a long story. And stupid really—just one of those family arguments that people never got over. . . . Dee was the oldest. She was a brilliant academic, I can’t even remember how many degrees she had, but more important to her, she was an activist, always going to protests about the environment and things like that, hanging out with people my parents—your grandparents—didn’t approve of. She moved away.” She glanced up at me and then down at the table. “Far away. And it broke your grandparents’ hearts.”
“Where did she move?”
She paused. “All over. China, India. Europe. She especially loved Ireland, in spite of how she felt about her name. Anyway, our parents hated the fact that she traveled so much, and frankly, a lot of the choices she was making. That meant your father was angry at her, too. He loved your grandparents. I mean, we all did, but he was especially protective of them. Personally, I felt like, if that’s where Dee’s path lay, she had to follow it. Maybe I was wrong, but that’s how it seemed to me. Your grandma was already sick, but when Dee . . . left . . . for good . . . it took the fight out of her, out of both of them. She got worse and worse. Then when your granddad died unexpectedly, it was too much for your grandma.”
Aunt Trudy shook her head, her eyes welling with tears. “It was a bad time. Dymphna couldn’t make it back for your grandmother’s funeral. Your father was furious at her, and at me, too. At the world. He was in so much pain. The whole family fell apart. Your mother tried to smooth things between him and me, but it was too soon.”
Tears rolled down her face, and I realized my face was wet, too.
“In time, we would have gotten past it, but I got a job in San Diego. Then your dad got sick, and he died, too.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “Your mother was devastated. We all were.”
She grabbed a few tissues and handed the box to me. When we’d blown our noses and wiped our eyes, she went on.
“Your mom and I have always exchanged Christmas cards, but that was about it.” She reached across the table to squeeze my hand. “She always included a photo of you and Kevin.”
I was having a hard time taking it all in. “Where’s Dymphna now?”
Aunt Trudy shook her head. “She was in Ireland, last we heard from her. But she stopped keeping in touch after your dad died.”
We were quiet for a moment, Aunt Trudy overwhelmed by memories and me by revelations. Then she gently clapped her hands together. “Anyway, last year, I was offered a job running an art gallery here in Philadelphia, and I took it. And I’m really glad to be so much closer to you and Kevin and your mom. I hope we can all work on seeing each other more often. Even after your stay here is over.”
We spent the next few minutes in a comfortable silence, finishing our food. When dinner was over, Aunt Trudy asked if I wanted to watch a movie or eat some ice cream.
“No, I’m good,” I told her as I helped her clear the table. “I’ll probably just do some homework and go to bed.” Even after my nap, I was still tired, but mostly I just wanted to be alone to think about things.
“Okay, kiddo,” she said. “Well, if I don’t see you before tomorrow, there’s plenty of food in the fridge, and the Levline is just a couple blocks away.” She handed me a Levpass. “Your mom left you this, so you can get around if I’m not here.”
“Thanks,” I said, slipping it into my pocket.
“Will you be okay?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Will I see you before I go?”
“If you’re leaving at seven, I don’t think so.” I gave her a smile and said good night, then I went upstairs before she could ask any more questions.
Back in my room, I flopped on the bed, clothes and all, turned off the light, and closed my eyes. My head was spinning from everything Aunt Trudy had told me, on top of everything else. I concentrated on the present and visualized myself not just finding Del, but saving him. I pictured him grateful, and maybe, finally, happy.
TWENTY
I woke with a start in darkness and looked at the clock. It was eleven thirty. The wind was blowing the trees around. I felt vulnerable, alone in a strange room, an unfamiliar house, outside the city.
I heard a loud creak and froze. It sounded like floorboards. I told myself it was Aunt Trudy, but she was snoring in her room. I told myself it was just the unfamiliar house settling, but I knew it wasn’t.
I jumped when I heard it again. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Moonlight poured through the sliding doors leading to the deck, illuminating the middle of the bedroom floor. The only place to hide was behind the drapes hanging bunched on either side of them. I leaped out of bed, halfway across the room, and wrapped myself in the fabric. My heart pounded as I p
eeked at the doorknob, waiting for it to start turning in the darkness. Seconds ticked by, and I had almost transitioned from terrified to sheepish when something tapped the glass right behind my head.
I spun and fell, taking the drapes and their hardware down with me in a helpless, tangled heap. The figure on the deck outside was huge, its shadow fully engulfing me on the floor. I was about to scream when the figure lifted a finger to its lips.
It was Rex.
The relief I felt was mixed with more than a little anger that he had damn near caused me to pee myself. I flailed my way out of the mass of fabric and slid open the door.
“Hi,” he said.
“You scared the crap out of me,” I said in a terse whisper. I paused for a moment, tilting my head back to confirm that Aunt Trudy was still snoring. “How did you find me?” I demanded.
“I said I would.”
“Yeah, but how?”
“Because I’m good like that. Listen. I got a lead on your friend.” He was trying to whisper, his voice rumbling in his chest.
“Oh my God. You found Del? Is he okay?”
“I don’t know. They said he’s at a house in a place called Tyson’s Point.”
“Where’s Tyson’s Point?” I asked.
“In the zurbs. A few miles farther out.”
“Can we go there? Right now?”
He nodded, then motioned with his head for me to follow him. He leaned back and flipped over the railing. I ran out onto the deck and looked down at him, standing there in the darkness looking up at me.
“I can’t do that,” I said, keeping my voice down.
“I’ll catch you.”
I didn’t want to be difficult, but I was totally not doing that. Instead, I put on my jacket and hiking boots and climbed over the railing. It was so dark I couldn’t see the ground below me. It seemed far away. Too far. I couldn’t will my hands to let go.
I lowered myself as far as I could, but my feet were still dangling. I hung there, trying to let go, and after a few seconds I felt Rex’s hands on my waist—large and strong—and a firm but gentle pressure as he took my weight.
