Peter identified Sylvia’s body on Saturday, August 27, 1966. Corbin had been right that night in the woods: it wasn’t easy, but Peter did it, and then it was done. They only needed him to view her from the neck up. Her face was surprisingly unblemished in spite of the way she had died. Actually, he thought she looked almost peaceful. But he could see the shape of her wasn’t what it should be under the rest of the white sheet. Things were missing, her topography misshapen. He didn’t want to imagine what it might look like, but he knew there would be many sleepless nights ahead where he wouldn’t be able to turn away from the temptation to torture himself.
After he left the morgue, he stopped at the little ice cream shop near Big Bath called The Junction and ordered a chocolate milkshake and a hot dog. It felt like something of a last meal. He ate it out front at a picnic table and listened to how quiet the world seemed… how empty. Occasionally he heard a loon call out, but that was all. The giant wave of despair that had been building on the horizon had finally crashed and rolled through, churning things up for a horrifying moment, and now the water had begun to draw back and glass over calm again. But everything had been disturbed, and when things finally settled back to near where they had once been, they would be different. And there would be another wave, Peter knew. And another after that.
For the entire half hour that he sat there in the beating sun, considering this and drinking his milkshake, he didn’t see a single other person besides the pimply kid slinging milkshakes and pork products. It seemed a touch odd that on a hot summer day no one would be hanging around an oasis like an ice cream stand. But Peter thought he understood why. The town was still trying to comprehend what had happened at Our Savior Lutheran Church. The religious, as they were wont to do, focused most intently on the why and found ways to craft comfort there. Almost everyone in Gilchrist, in one way or another, had been affected. Some had lost family members, and some had lost friends. Many had lost both. But everyone had lost at least an acquaintance. In a town as small as Gilchrist, death casts a wide net.
Most were still referring to it as “the accident” and were speculating that it was probably the fault of a defective boiler, and thank God there weren’t children in the preschool when it happened. That was a true miracle, by God! But others, those who couldn’t understand why a heating boiler would be on in the summer at all, were starting to talk about suspicious things. The smell of bananas was one such topic, which, according to the man who ran the hardware store and who used to mine coal in Pennsylvania, was what dynamite smelled like.
Corbin had filled him in on these little pieces of gossip. But Peter didn’t care about any of it. His wife was dead regardless of what had caused the explosion. And no matter what the police finally uncovered as the true reason, he knew what had really caused it. The same thing that would cause it again, in Gilchrist and probably elsewhere.
He finished his milkshake, sat a little longer, then left. When he returned to Shady Cove, he sat at the kitchen table, looking through to the bedroom where his wife’s clothes were still piled on the bed, from when he had fallen asleep with them… with her.
He remained there until the sun set. And then he sat a little longer.
5
After identifying Sylvia’s body, Peter stayed three more days at Shady Cove before deciding it was time to go. There was nothing left for him there. His last days were spent sitting down at the little dock, feet hanging over the side, staring out at the water and trying to figure out how best to tell Sylvia’s family that she was dead. At the very least, he needed to do that. It was the right thing to do.
He thought about calling Sylvia’s mother, but he and Ruth had never gotten along, and he knew the news would not be rationally received coming from him. Sylvia’s mother was the type to interpret such an act as some sort of malicious attack, as if Peter had called her for no reason other than to destroy her life. He hated to admit it, but there was a faint bittersweetness that came with knowing that Sylvia’s death would sever his familial obligation to his in-laws once and for all. A final gift from his wife, Peter thought, finding a morbid beauty in the notion, silly as it was.
In the end, he decided the best option was to call Sylvia’s sister. And so on Wednesday morning, exactly one week after his wife had died, he reached outside of his purgatory place and made the call that would finalize her death. He told Evelyn what had happened as best he could. There had been an accident—a freak accident—and Sylvia had been one of the unlucky victims. He had come to hate the term “unlucky,” especially after his time in Gilchrist.
Evelyn had been justifiably upset, and once she had calmed down, she apologized for any blame she seemed to have cast on him. She was just upset, okay? Upset. In shock. But Peter said he understood and not to worry. After a moment of silence, Evelyn offered to shoulder the responsibility of telling her mother. Then she said she would be up there that evening to help figure out where to begin with setting the arrangements. Peter gave her the address and the phone number, and then it was over.
After Peter hung up the phone, he found a scrap of paper on the kitchen counter. He sat down and stared at the blank page, the wooden pen Leo had given him poised above the paper. He had been staring at the scrap of paper for at least a half hour when a knock came at the screen door.
“Are you leaving now?” a small voice asked him. It took him a moment to recognize it was Kevin’s voice… and another moment to realize he had heard it in his head.
Another voice spoke for real: “Hello? Peter? It’s Laura… Dooley? You liked my meatloaf, remember?”
“Just a second.” Peter went to the door to find Laura standing outside with Kevin right beside her.
The boy was still wearing the oversized Red Sox cap. Kevin tilted his head back and waved with a big goofy smile.
“Hey guys,” Peter said, and opened the door. “Come in, come in.”
“I told you he didn’t go yet, Mommy,” Kevin said.
“I’m still here,” Peter said.
Laura and her son stepped inside Shady Cove. “Well, we don’t want to keep you. I just wanted to see how you were doing. Give you my condolences in person. That’s the right thing to do.”
“You heard about what happened, I guess,” Peter said, and stuffed his hands in his pockets.
“I’m so sorry,” Laura said.
“It’s okay,” Peter said, then corrected himself. “I mean thank you. I don’t know why I always say that.”
“I did the same thing when his father passed. It’s normal, I think. ‘It’s okay’ really just means ‘I’m okay.’ You’re not saying it’s okay that they died. That’d just be weird,” Laura said, and laughed.
“I never thought about it like that,” Peter said. “I’m okay, then. How’s that?”
But he knew he wasn’t.
“Better,” Laura said.
“Better,” Kevin parroted.
“You guys want something cold to drink?” Peter started toward the kitchen. “I don’t have anything made, but—”
“You have tea?” Laura went past him and opened a cabinet next to the refrigerator.
“I do,” Peter said. “It should be there.”
“Ice?”
“Yes again.”
“I’ll make us some iced tea, then. Sound good?” Laura pulled down the box of Lipton and a bag of sugar.
“I won’t refuse a glass if you make it,” Peter said.
“I like when she makes icy tea,” Kevin said.
“Okay, sport. Icy tea it is.”
After Laura made the iced tea, they all went and sat out on the deck for an hour or two and just enjoyed the blue-skied afternoon, slowly finishing off the pitcher, each glass a little more watered down than the last. Kevin had brought two toy bulldozers and spent most of the time pretending to level a section of the garden. He said he was building a headquarters for his troops. Nobody spoke a whole lot, and Peter liked that. Mostly he wanted to be left alone, but he enjoyed sharing his solitud
e for a little while. It was okay.
But when the iced tea was gone, their visit was over, and Peter thought he was ready to leave, too. He picked up the empty pitcher, and Laura grabbed the glasses. Then they went back inside.
“Come on, buddy. Let’s say goodbye,” Laura said to Kevin, who was still building his headquarters.
Kevin reluctantly picked up his dozers and followed her inside. He was quieter than usual. He seemed sad about something, and Peter thought he knew what.
“Are we going?” he asked, looking down at his feet.
“We’re going, sweetie. I think we’ve bothered Peter long enough.” She looked at Peter and smiled.
“Nonsense,” he said, flicking the brim of Kevin’s hat. “It’s been a pleasure.” Kevin didn’t look up, so Peter dropped to a knee. “Take care of your mom, sport. And remember, take care of that hat, too. It’s one of my favorites, and I might have to come back for it someday… if I can.”
Kevin jumped forward and wrapped his arms around him. “I’ll stay in touch. Maybe I’ll even come visit you,” he whispered—or maybe Peter had heard it in his head; he couldn’t be sure. He pulled away and looked at Peter. “Are you sure you have to leave now?”
Peter nodded. “I think so.”
“You miss them, don’t you?”
“Yeah, sport. Yeah, I do.”
“Okay,” Kevin said, and hugged him again. “Be careful.”
“I will. I promise.”
Peter stood and thanked Laura for coming and keeping him company for a couple hours. He said it was a fine way to spend his last day there. She gave him a hug. Then they left, and he was alone once more.
He took a seat at the table and looked at the blank scrap of paper again. He hadn’t written anything yet, but he knew what he needed to do. He picked up the pen, found the right four words, and wrote them down.
After leaving the note on the counter and securing it under a glass saltshaker, Peter wandered down to the dock for the last time. It really was a beautiful place. But it reminded him of a poisonous flower—pretty at a distance, dangerous to anyone who got too close. And deadly to those who touched it… or let it touch them.
He stood on the edge of the dock, toes hanging off, and closed his eyes. The wind breathed slowly across the water. The sweet smell of fresh-cut grass drifted by. The people of Gilchrist were already getting on with their lives, putting tragedy behind them. They were doing it how they did it best—by ignoring. It was their gift and their curse. That was life, though. One long, sharp, double-edged sword. If you weren’t careful, it would cut. And sometimes, what the hell, it cuts you anyway.
Angling his face up to the sun, Peter conjured thoughts of his son and of his wife. He had so many good memories of them, enough to last a lifetime. And memories, he knew, were such wonderful, powerful things. They lived on, existing long after the shutter of life opens and closes and the cosmic camera grabs its picture. They were just waiting to be seen.
Chapter Seventeen
EPILOGUE / A NEW START
On the Friday before Labor Day, Corbin turned down Lakeman’s Lane for the last time. Grace sat beside him in the passenger’s seat. Her leg was wrapped in a hard cast, and the bruises on her face had all but faded. She had been staring sideways out the window since leaving the house… since leaving the pump shed, if he wanted to be honest with himself. He hoped she would be okay, but he had no idea. The external stuff would heal, and that, he knew how to handle. But the internal stuff? He really could’ve used Meryl’s help in that area. He missed her a lot, and he knew Grace did, too. He would be there for her, though. That was all he knew how to do—be there.
He kept his eyes on the tarped-over boxes he had piled in the bed of his truck as he navigated the landscape of potholes in the road. He had packed everything they would need to start a life someplace new. Someplace away from Gilchrist. He had made up his mind a week ago after thinking about Barbara Osterman. He had been thinking about her a lot, actually, after what happened with Ricky. But one night the connection just clicked in his head. For as long as Barbara and Nate Osterman had been an item, there had been abuse. Corbin had been called out to their house at least a dozen times, and each time, he tried to offer her help. She never wanted it, though. Corbin was subtle at first, but toward the end, around the same time she had her accident on the stairs, he had directly told her he would help her if she wanted to leave Nate. But she’d refused. She said Nate loved her, and that he had just lost his temper and that he really wasn’t all that bad once you got to know him—all the normal stuff abused people convince themselves of to defend their abusers. And Corbin understood it. He didn’t like it, but he understood it. Once a person gets used to something, even if it’s a bad thing, they can learn to love it, get comfortable with it.
And that, Corbin came to realize at his wife’s funeral, was Gilchrist. He had lived in this town for so long he hadn’t noticed how bad, or bizarre, things had gotten. It had become a one-sided relationship. The town took and it took, but it never gave a thing back except heartache and suffering. So it was time to move on. In his eyes, Gilchrist had soured and become too dangerous. And something told him if he didn’t leave, then there would be no hope for his daughter. Somehow this place would use it against her. The same way it had caught Ricky young and used him.
Corbin pulled into Shady Cove’s driveway and parked next to Peter’s car. The layer of pine needles on the windshield made him uneasy.
“He must still be here,” he said. “Want me to leave it running so you can listen to the radio?”
“Okay,” Grace said, staring out at Big Bath.
Corbin went to touch her shoulder, but decided against it. “I just want to say goodbye. I hardly know the guy, but it feels like the right thing to do. He lost his wife in the church. And he… Well, I’ll just be a minute.”
He got out of the truck and left it running. He made his way down the beaten path to the door. It was open, except for the screen slammer that stayed shut under the tension of a spring. He knocked. “Peter? You home? It’s Corbin.”
No answer.
He opened the screen door and went in. “Peter?”
Still no answer. He kept expecting him to pop his head out from a doorway at any moment, but that never happened.
He continued up the hall and looked in each bedroom. The pile of clothes was still on the bed. A suitcase in the corner. Water cups on the nightstands. It looked how it had the last time he had been there. But no Peter.
He turned around and went into the kitchen, where he spied a piece of paper sitting on the counter. He lifted the saltshaker and slid the note toward him.
I’ve decided to go. That’s all it said. Four words. It seemed like an obvious statement, but something about it felt deeper. Corbin went to the sink and looked out through the window at the dock. He thought maybe he would see Peter sitting down there. It was empty. But he did see something sitting on the railing. A little black square.
He went outside through the sliding door and down the little side path that led to the dock. Corbin opened the wallet sitting on the railing. Peter’s license was the first thing that greeted him. Peter Martell, Concord, Massachusetts…
A loon called out somewhere across Big Bath.
Corbin took a seat on the little bench on the dock and dropped the wallet beside him. He looked out over the water. The sky was growing dark over the trees to the west, and a cold wind was starting to batter the leaves around him and turn them silvery. Thunderstorms were rolling in. And from the sound of the deep rumbles in the distance, it was going to be a real doozy—an end-of-season whopper.
Corbin glanced up at Shady Cove. Its windows scowled back at him like disapproving eyes. He had never seen a place seem so empty. He shifted his gaze to his truck. Grace was fixing her hair in the side-view mirror, tucking strands behind her ears.
A big fat raindrop came down and smacked him right in the forehead, running down into his eye. He knuckled it out. Then an
other landed on his knee, and the dock began to turn spotted.
“Take care, pal. I owe you one,” he said, and headed back up to his truck.
When he got in, Grace looked at him. “You find him?”
“No, he wasn’t here,” he said. “Put the window up. It’s starting to rain.”
Grace did. Then she slid over and rested her head on her father’s shoulder. “Can we go now?”
“Yeah, baby,” Corbin said. “We’re going.”
He put the truck in reverse and backed out of Shady Cove’s driveway. When he reached the end of Lakeman’s Lane, he went right. He drove until he reached the highway. And from there he headed north, away from Gilchrist.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christian Galacar grew up in Ipswich, Massachusetts, a small suburb north of Boston. He attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he received a BBA degree in Finance. Although interested in writing fiction from a young age, it wasn't until 2012 that he decided to pursue it as a career. Gilchrist is his second novel.
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Or reach out through email at [email protected].
OTHER WORKS
NOVELS
Cicada Spring
SHORT STORIES
Finding Nebraska
Whiskey Devil
Blackwater: Two Stories
Or see them all in one place at his Amazon Author Page
ONE LAST THING
So you’ve made it this far. Congratulations! You’re awesome and I already think you deserve a lifetime without ever having to visit the DMV again. Unless, of course, you like that sort of thing, in which case I cannot help you. All I ask is that you take a moment to write an honest review. The power of your opinion is greater than you may know and helps bring my work to the attention of others. Thank you for any consideration you give this, dear reader, and I hope you continue to read what I write.
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