by Jodi McIsaac
Latasha woke me the next morning, a cup of coffee in her hands. “You’ve got a flight to catch,” she said. “Time to pack.”
I sat on the edge of the bed, clutching the coffee cup to my chest. Latasha sorted through my clothes, searching for something suitable for a midsummer funeral. Given that I worked from home, my wardrobe consisted primarily of jeans and T-shirts in various states of rattiness.
“You’re the best,” I croaked. Latasha had been full of surprises ever since I’d met her in our freshman year of college in Clarkeston. She’d seemed so posh, so confident, that I’d assumed she was on the student council or part of some cringe-inducing sorority. But, as it turned out, she was president of the local chess club and an active member of the robotics society. I was an English major, operating under the illusion that I would become a great journalist one day, traveling the world in search of the stories no one else was telling.
When winter arrived that first year of college, Latasha proudly brought out her hand-knitted Ravenclaw scarf and offered to make me one. I declined. But I was intrigued by this beautiful, brilliant, bizarrely confident girl—so much so that we fell into bed together after an excess of wine just before Christmas break. We went home to our respective families, hungover and confused, and returned two weeks later to an awkward conversation in which both of us confessed we hadn’t really enjoyed the experience.
We’d been best friends ever since.
Latasha continued on her brilliant path after college, earning a graduate degree from MIT and now working as a systems engineer for the NSA. When she first got the job, years ago, I teased her about working for Big Brother. But then Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden happened, and the joke got old—or it just wasn’t funny anymore. Nowadays, she didn’t like to tell people what she did for a living. More often than not they would laugh awkwardly and say, “Well, there’s no need to introduce myself, is there? You probably already know everything about me.”
“It’s not like that,” she would reply, but no one believed her, and you could almost see them edging away, as though she might plant a tracker on them if they got too close. On the rare occasion someone found her job fascinating instead of creepy, they hounded her with questions she wasn’t allowed to answer and tried to impress her with the technical spy knowledge they’d gained from reading cyber-thrillers.
Now, as I watched her pack my clothes, I felt grateful such a person had come into my life.
I roused myself enough to go to the bathroom, take off yesterday’s makeup, and drag a brush through my hair. By this time the coffee was cool enough for me to gulp it, and some of the cobwebs cleared.
I returned to the bedroom with an armload of makeup, shampoo, and my hair dryer. Latasha stood over an already-full suitcase.
“Thank you,” I said. “This feels so . . . surreal.”
“I bet.” Latasha looked down at the suitcase, then up again. “You know, I just wanted to mention . . . I mean, I wasn’t sure if you knew . . .”
“Knew what?” No more surprises, please.
“Did you know Kenneth moved back to Clarkeston?”
Huh. My stomach gave a strange jolt. “No. When?”
“A few months ago. I saw it online. I was going to mention it, but . . .”
“Yeah.” I knew why she hadn’t. Kenneth and I had been close—very close—in college back in Clarkeston. Everyone used to assume we were together, but it wasn’t like that. At least, it wasn’t for me. And then I’d gone and fucked things up. We hadn’t spoken since I’d left Clarkeston.
“Anyway,” Latasha was saying, “you probably won’t even see him. I just thought I should give you a heads-up.”
I took the suitcase from her and started stuffing my toiletries into the outer pockets. “Thanks, but it doesn’t matter. That was another world ago.”
Several hours later I was watching the country pass beneath me and taking shallow breaths of recycled air. I’d changed planes in New York and was on what my dad would have called a “puddle jumper” en route to Clarkeston.
Normally, I loved flying. It had always seemed magical to me that a metal tube could transport you to another part of the world in just a few hours. After college I’d set out to experience what the rest of the world had to offer. I’d waited tables in London and Belfast, backpacked through Germany, and faked an interest in missions so I could stay with friends of my parents’ pastor in Thailand and China. All the while I wrote travel articles, and miraculously even sold a few. Each time I boarded a flight to a new destination, I was filled with a sense of lightness so intense I could have flown there myself. There was adventure ahead and, above all, freedom.
But this flight was going in the wrong direction. My chest tightened, as though bricks were being laid one by one on top of my rib cage. Invisible bars descended around me, landing with an ominous thud.
I closed my eyes and focused on my breath, as shallow as it was, and told myself I was being ridiculous. This wasn’t forever. I wasn’t returning to my younger self, to all those years of turmoil and confusion and anger. I was a grown woman, going home for a short visit. And then I would be able to leave.
My thoughts drifted to Kenneth. What was he doing back in Clarkeston? Last I’d heard he was in Boston, having finally achieved his dream of becoming a doctor. He’d been collateral damage; another casualty of my need to escape. If I saw him, what would I say?
“Not a fan of flying?” my seatmate asked sympathetically.
I opened my eyes to look at her. She had a kind face, like someone’s grandmother. Her hair was set in an old-lady perm and dyed a very unnatural shade of red. Her cheeks were wrinkled and covered in blush, and she wore a straight orange skirt with a matching blazer over a yellow blouse. It was like sitting next to someone on fire. She patted my hand, which was still gripping the armrest.
“Not really,” I lied, giving her a swift smile and then turning to look out the window.
“It’s very safe, you know,” she told me. “Much safer than driving a car, or even going for a walk, they say.”
I nodded and reached under the seat in front of me for my book.
“That’s a good idea.” She nodded approvingly. “Distract yourself. What is it you’re reading?”
I showed her the cover of Justin Cronin’s The Passage.
“Goodness, that’s a big one,” she said. “What’s it about?”
“Um . . . vampires. Sort of.”
She frowned at this. “I never did understand the whole vampire fascination. But my granddaughters are all Edward this and Jacob that. Is it that sort of thing?”
“Not really.”
“I would hope not, at your age. I’ve just been to visit them, and they’re growing up too fast. Are you headed to home or away from it?”
Wasn’t that the question? “I grew up in Clarkeston. I live in Seattle now.”
“Ah, visiting family, then?”
I pressed my lips together. “Kind of.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I see. The complicated kind. Have you been back recently?”
“Not really.” I opened my book again as a signal to end the conversation, but she plowed onward.
“Do you have children of your own?”
“No.”
“They are both a blessing and a curse,” she said, nodding sagely. “Who did you say you were visiting?”
Perhaps brutal honestly would do the trick. “I’m going to bury my parents. They were murdered yesterday.” I held her eyes for a little longer than was socially acceptable.
Her wrinkled mouth formed a little “O.” Then she placed her hand on my arm, gripping it tightly when I flinched and tried to move it away. “You poor thing,” she whispered. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” I said, twisting my arm so that it released from her grasp. “They were shot by a friend, I think. I’ll find out more once I’m home.” At least, I hoped I would. I couldn’t figure it out. Why would an old friend have killed them in cold blood
? I’d met Terry a few times. He and his wife had come over to play cribbage with my parents. He’d seemed as normal as the rest of them.
My seatmate looked scandalized. “You don’t say? One of those folks who’s gone sick in the head, do you think?”
“Who?”
She tutted. “Insane, we used to call it. I know it’s not the politically correct term anymore, but I call it like I see it.”
“Do you mean . . . mental health problems?”
“It wasn’t like this in my day. ‘Depression’ was no excuse for not doing a hard day’s work and looking after your family.” She huffed loudly. “It’s probably all these cell-phone waves. Or parents who don’t give their children the right kind of discipline, if you catch my meaning. An entire generation raised on computers, with both parents working—well, it’s not hard to see why things have started to break down.”
I stared at her incredulously, completely at a loss for words, but she seemed to take my silence as agreement.
“Anyway, as you said, you’ll find out more once you’re home. But don’t be surprised if it turns out to be one of these ‘mental health problems,’ as you call it. You see more and more of it these days. Do you have siblings?”
“A brother,” I croaked out, having found my voice.
She sighed loudly. “Well, that’s good. He can take care of you.”
I actually smiled at her. It wasn’t a happy smile, although the thought of my brother taking care of me would have been amusing before today. I smiled because I pitied her and her narrow, fearful worldview. And because if I didn’t smile, I would disintegrate in the seat beside her and have to endure her “comfort” for the next several hours.
“My brother is mentally ill,” I said. “So I’m the one who will be taking care of him.”
I was almost finished with my book by the time we began our descent.
The pressure in my ears grew, along with the pressure in my chest. It was like breathing through a thick blanket. I tried to keep reading, but Cronin’s monsters could no longer distract me from what lay ahead. The problem was, I had no idea what lay ahead.
I looked out the window at the tops of the trees. It was hard to believe we were nearing any sort of civilization; from our vantage point up in the air, we might have entered the Mesozoic Era, when the world was little more than foliage. Clarkeston wasn’t one of those iconic Maine fishing villages you see on postcards. It was a midsized college town near the Canadian border, about two hours inland. When Wes and I were kids our parents would take us to the coast on summer weekends, to play in salt water and sand dunes and swaying grasses on rocky beaches. Maybe that’s why I loved Seattle—it reminded me of home, without reminding me of home.
Too soon, the jarring rumble of asphalt beneath our seats signaled that the trip in the magic tube was over. I had been transported to another world.
The rickety stairs leading down to the tarmac creaked as I descended, as though they might give up the ghost at any moment. Every time I came home I was amazed how rural it felt—the weeds growing out of cracks in the runway; the tiny, one-gate airport surrounded by forest; the John Deere hats and fanny packs on the passengers around me. I peeled off my sweater in the July heat, wondering if Latasha had packed mosquito spray.
I’ll just borrow some from Mom. Then my heart contracted and I stopped cold just outside the terminal entrance. Shit. I moved to the side to let a family go in ahead of me and texted Latasha.
Arrived. About to meet my uncle.
She texted back right away. Take care of yourself. Keep me posted.
The terminal was exactly as I remembered it. Large windows lined one wall, where people could watch the planes and wait for their friends and families to arrive. There was one small carousel for luggage. A backlit billboard advertising the town’s oldest hotel stood behind it. Against one wall was a rack of tourist brochures and postcards. It was small, quaint, and quiet, just like the people here.
“Are you going to be okay, dear?” My seatmate from the plane had appeared beside me. She had clearly gotten over the shock of hearing about my brother. “Is someone here to meet you?”
“My uncle is coming, thank you,” I said. I took a bottle of water out of my bag, wishing for something stronger.
“You know, if you grew up here, then you probably know my husband,” she said, indicating the stout, gray-haired man who was walking toward us, blowing his nose into a large beige handkerchief.
I did a double take. “Mr. Sweeney?”
“Hello, hello,” he said, looking at me curiously after kissing his wife.
“This is probably one of your old students, Richard,” the woman said. “Though I suppose you can’t remember them all.”
“Yeah, I took English 201 and 301 with you,” I said. He held out his hand, having stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket, and I shook it. “Clare Campbell.”
“Clare . . . Clare . . .” he muttered. “Yes, of course. Very bright. Wanted to be a writer. How did that work out?”
“Well, I’m a copywriter now,” I said. “So . . . it sort of worked out.”
“Clare’s parents were murdered yesterday,” the woman said to her husband in a scandalized whisper. “The poor dear has just come home.”
“Oh, of course. I heard about your parents. Tragic,” Mr. Sweeney said. He pulled out his handkerchief again. At first I thought he was going to offer it to me for my nonexistent tears, but then he bent over in a coughing fit so severe flecks of spittle flew everywhere—including onto my face.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Here, would you like this?” I offered him the water bottle.
He looked at me as though I had just offered him a bottle of rat poison. “What’s the meaning of this?” he spat, backing away. His eyes, congenial and warm just a moment before, narrowed into sharp slits.
“It’s just . . . for your cough . . .” I said, confused.
I was saved by a gruff voice behind me. “Hey there, Clare Bear.” It was Rob, with the same salt-and-pepper hair, beard, and moustache he’d always worn, along with the little wire glasses he’d had since I could remember. He was maybe a little thicker around the middle, and his hair was a little thinner, but other than that he was the same old Rob, my mother’s big brother. He was wearing blue jeans and a red button-down plaid shirt. Without any more preliminaries, he wrapped me in a bear hug.
Rob knew a thing or two about grief. He’d lived just across the train tracks from us when we were growing up, raising his daughter on his own after my aunt Karen died of cancer. Tracey and I were the same age, and we had counted her as our third sibling. Then Tracey died in an accident—a fall in one of the outbuildings, what we called the hen pen. Wes had been the one to find her, broken on the concrete floor. He’d become obsessed with her memory. Our parents had moved us into town the next year, and Rob had followed a few years later. He threw himself into his work at the car dealership until he retired last year.
“You’ll be okay, then, dear?” Mrs. Sweeney asked.
“Yes, thank you.”
She patted me on the cheek before I could move out of reach. Mr. Sweeney stood behind her, still glaring at me, twisting his handkerchief as though trying to tear it to pieces.
“Thanks for coming,” I said to Rob. “How are you?”
“It’s been a shitty day,” he answered. Now that I looked closer, I could see signs of aging and stress that hadn’t been there before—or that I hadn’t noticed. Deep wrinkles framed his eyes, and his cheeks sagged. His skin looked thin and papery. “But who cares about me? How you holdin’ up?”
I shrugged. What was I supposed to say? Fine? Horrible? Scared out of my wits? I settled on “Fine.”
“Yeah, me too,” he said sarcastically. We were silent for a moment, watching the luggage carousel move in its perpetual circle as passengers gathered around it with their friends and families.
“Did you talk to Wes?” I asked. “How’d he take the news? I tried calling him before I
boarded the plane, but there was no answer.”
“He didn’t take it too well. Not surprising. While I was there they came and got him—said they needed to do some more tests before he was released. That’s probably why he couldn’t take your call.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“I don’t think Jesus is on our side.”
In another world, I would have said, “Don’t let Mom and Dad hear you say that.” Rob had been as religious as the rest of our family for most of his life, but the loss of his wife and daughter had taken its toll. He was the one relative I could be myself around.
I tried and failed to suppress a yawn. My head felt as though it had been injected with quicksand. My thoughts, which had been racing all day, had slowed to a crawl. You’re slower than cold molasses, my mother used to say.
Rob put his arm around me. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”
I nodded. “I want to see Wes.”
“Not tonight. Visiting hours are over. I told them we’d be back in the morning. I’m guessing you’ll want to go to your parents’ home eventually, but I’m not letting you sleep there on your own tonight. You can come home with me. We’ll figure out which end is up in the morning.”
“Can we get pizza?” Rob’s idea of gourmet was to order delivery from Pizza Hut rather than throwing a frozen pie in the oven.
“It’s being delivered in half an hour,” he said, squeezing my shoulders.
The ride in Rob’s rust-colored old pickup was mostly silent. The truck reminded me painfully of my dad’s pickup, the one I’d learned to drive in. Same worn-out seats and sweaty-man smell. There was even a cassette player in the dash. I gazed out the window at the turn-of-the-century clapboard houses and huge lots—such a contrast to the tony townhomes and postage-stamp yards of Seattle. There was just so much space here. So why did I feel so trapped?
“How are things in Seattle treating you?” Rob said, breaking the silence.
“They’re great. Work is steady, but I passed off my active contracts to another copywriter I know. I won’t have to do any work while I’m here.”
