Hitchers

by Will McIntosh

  “She told me to say she was counting on you.” I struggled to find words that would burrow into Grandma’s conscience. “That she loved you and trusted you. She begged you to tell the truth.” I knew I was out on a limb, but if I was wrong, what did I have to lose?

  A tear dropped from the corner of Grandma’s eye and vanished into the creases in her cheeks. She turned her head away, covered her face like a child playing peek-a-boo.

  My heart rate doubled. I wasn’t wrong. “It’s time, Grandma. You’ve carried it long enough,” I said.

  “What are you—” Mom started, but I motioned her to silence. We waited.

  Finally, Grandma let her hands drop. Her entire face was quivering. “I was the one who had to tell you about poor Kayleigh. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” She looked at my mom. “I dialed your number and put the phone to his mouth. I told him he had to do it—he had to tell you, but he jerked his head away and whispered,”‘I wasn’t there. Do you understand me? I wasn’t there.’”

  Mom was shaking her head slowly, her mouth open. She wasn’t following.

  “He made me lie, because he was afraid you’d never forgive him.”

  “Forgive him for what?” Mom asked.

  I wanted to jump in and save Grandma from having to say it, but it had to come from her.

  “He...” She trailed off, her voice trembling.

  In the kitchen, Aunt Julia’s cuckoo clock went off. We waited through six utterly incongruous cuckoos.

  “He was at the pier that night. With Kayleigh.”

  Mom leapt to her feet. “What?”

  I leaned toward Grandma, my heart thumping. “It was his idea to go. Wasn’t it?”

  Grandma nodded.

  I knew it. I could almost hear him. Come on, get your suit on. We’re going back to the pier.

  All this time, he let me think it was my fault. I’d spent twenty years carrying his guilt for him.

  My heart was racing so fast the corners of my vision went grey; for a moment I thought I was going to pass out. I’d come so close to never knowing.

  I came back to myself to find Mom in my face, trembling with rage. “You son of a bitch.” She grabbed the front of my shirt and shook me. “Get out here. I want to hear it from you. I want you to look me in the eye and tell me why my daughter is dead.” She slapped my face. It felt marvelous, because I knew it was meant for him. “And now you’re going to take my son?” Mom lifted my hand, examined it, saw that it wasn’t trembling and let it drop. I wanted her to hit me again, wanted her to curl up her fist and punch me in the eye. I didn’t care that I was the one who was feeling it; he was in there watching. The lying bastard. Give him one for Kayleigh. Better yet, go get a knife from the kitchen.

  A blush of triumph washed through me. You want to play, old man? I’m not twelve any more. I almost wanted him to come out now; I wanted to watch him face the truth. I felt light as a cork bobbing on water. Like an airship that snapped its tethers and was rising into the blue sky. I felt as strong as The Hulk.

  Then I realized why.

  You can feel it, Grandpa had said. I felt him go when we were in the water, and I felt him come back.

  I couldn’t be sure, yet somehow I was.

  “Jesus, he’s gone,” I whispered. I looked at my mother.

  She studied me for a moment, then nodded, as if Grandpa needed her permission to go. “Good.” She sniffed, wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

  Then she seemed to fully grasp what it meant. She laughed, and grabbed my head and pulled it to her. I put my arms around her waist and squeezed.

  We stayed like that for a long moment. When Mom finally let go, she turned to face Grandma, who lifted her chin, her eyes glassy but free of tears. “What good would it have done to tell you once he was gone? All it would’ve done is cause more pain.”

  “That wasn’t for you to decide,” Mom said. “Jesus, can’t you see that?”

  Unable to hold eye contact with Mom, Grandma looked toward the TV, which was off. Nothing good on.

  We waited for some response from her, but none came. I could understand why Mom was angry at Grandma, but I wasn’t sure what I felt. I was too relieved to care. Maybe later I’d hate her for it, or more likely pity her, but suddenly my entire future was stretched in front of me. There was no need to say goodbye to my friends, my family.

  Although that wasn’t completely true. I went to the window, pulled back the thick curtain and looked at Lorena waiting in the Maserati. Or was it Summer? No, through the blur of the rain-streaked windshield I could see her putting on lipstick, clutching it with two hands to steady the shaking. It was Lorena.

  I turned back to Mom. “I have to go. I have to help Summer. And Lorena. I’ll call you soon.”

  Mom hugged me. “I’m sorry,” she said in my ear.

  I pulled back to look at her. “For what?”

  “I always blamed you.”

  A lump rose in my throat, thinking of what was left of Kayleigh with her wafer-thin sneakers, still talking about her red bike.

  “It was still partly my fault,” I said

  Mom squeezed my arms, shook me slightly. “No, it wasn’t. You were just a kid.”

  It’s never that easy, though. That I was a kid wouldn’t bring Kayleigh back. There are no do-overs. At least, there aren’t supposed to be.

  The screen door gave a cheap aluminum screech as it closed behind me. Lorena looked up, smiled hopefully with Summer’s mouth.

  “What did you find out?”

  I found out that hitchers can’t leave even if they want to, if in their heart of hearts they want to stay. But if they lose that desire, they slip away like they were buttered.

  I thought I knew how to free Summer.

  I slid into the driver’s seat.

  “Well?” Lorena said.

  I considered lying. Would it hurt Summer’s chances if Lorena knew how I had overcome Grandpa? Would she see that the conversation I was having with her was an attempt to send her back as well?

  I’d never lied to Lorena, and my instincts were that now wasn’t the time to start. The truth I needed to speak, if I could muster the strength to speak it, was bad enough without preceding it with lies.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Lorena asked.

  I clasped my hands behind my neck, pulled my elbows together. “I’m struggling with something. I don’t know how to say it.”

  Lorena smiled uneasily, her eyebrows knitted. “Okay.”

  For a moment I was back on that riverbank, holding Lorena’s body, her shoes smoking, her eyes open and empty. How could I possibly do this?

  I took a deep, shaky breath. “Grandpa is gone.”

  Lorena inhaled excitedly, leaping forward in her seat. “Oh God, Finn. That’s...” She pressed her palms against her face, shook her head. “I can’t believe it.” She grabbed my hands and squeezed them. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m positive.”

  Lorena threw her head back, shook her fists and howled with joy. I gently grasped one of her wrists. She stopped. “What’s the matter? Why aren’t you happy?”

  Was she imagining we would pick up where we left off on the canoe trip, that I could look into Summer’s eyes and see only Lorena, as if Summer had never existed?

  “Because it’s not just about me.” I pointed at her heart. “Summer is in there, hanging on for dear life. She has a daughter. She has dreams, and plans. She’s courageous. Kind down to her bones.” Lorena was shaking her head, forming her answer. “Summer doesn’t deserve what’s happening to her.”

  Lorena pressed a hand to her chest. “I’m not trying to take that away. I can’t help—” She stopped. She studied my face. I turned and watched my mother and Grandma through Aunt Julia’s window.

  “Why didn’t I see it before?” Lorena said, studying my profile. “How could I have missed it?” She touched the side of my face. “You’re in love with her.”

  I cupped my hand over my mouth, stared at the grit wor
ked into the creases in the leather steering wheel. I was relieved that she had said it, so I didn’t have to. I knew I would never forgive myself for admitting this to Lorena. But if I denied it and Summer was dumped into Deadland, I would also never forgive myself, and Summer would die.

  Lorena’s voice got low, almost inaudible, like she was talking to herself. “I did see it; of course I did. I just didn’t want to admit it. The way you look at her, the lingering eye contact. You used to look at me that way, now I only see it when I’m behind her eyes. When I’m here you’re looking everywhere but at me.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn’t find words.

  “Look at me,” Lorena croaked.

  I swallowed thickly, turned to Lorena. It hurt.

  “You’re in love with her.” Lorena’s eyes squeezed closed. “I can’t believe it. I’ve lost you.”

  I wanted to rush in and fill her with assurances that I still loved her, that I didn’t deserve her, that I never deserved her.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  She took a gasping breath, tried to get hold of herself. “I don’t understand. What happened?”

  It had only been two years since I last saw Lorena, but when you reach into Deadland, two years becomes two hundred. The memory of love can last a lifetime, but actually loving someone who was dead—who is dead? That’s something else entirely.

  “You died,” I said. “We had our chance, and we blew it. We let you get killed.”

  She nodded slowly, wiped her cheek, the back of her hand coming away slick. “So are you saying if we can’t help what’s happening, you don’t want to be with me? You want a divorce?”

  “We’re not married,” I said as gently as I could. I put my hand over hers. “You died, Lorena.”

  She drew her hand away, set it on her lap. “I forget sometimes.” The rain got harder, pelting the windshield. I half-expected it to turn to hail. I watched it make tracks down the windshield.

  It occurred to me that Summer was hearing all this. I’d momentarily forgotten. I wondered what she was thinking, whether she had feelings for me, and if I’d ever know.

  “You always said you weren’t good enough for me, always insisted you loved me more than I loved you,” Lorena said. “But it wasn’t true; I always loved you more than you loved me.”

  “Loved. Not love. Don’t you see? And I did love you, with all my heart.”

  There was a pink envelope, the kind that held a greeting card, wedged between Lorena’s thigh and Summer’s purse. I hadn’t noticed it before. Now she slid it into the purse.

  “What’s that?” I asked, though I already knew. Lorena was always giving me I Love You cards—the kind that show couples walking on the beach holding hands.

  “Did you really love me once?” Lorena asked, ignoring my question.

  Was it a mistake to admit I had? Did I have to pummel Lorena the way Mom and I had pummeled Grandpa before he finally lost his grip?

  I imagined Lorena, blowing away in Deadland, alone with her thoughts, without even memories of someone who loved her for comfort.

  I started to cry. I’d been doing my best, trying to stay strong, taking deep, slow breaths. But this was too much. This was Lorena, my wife. “Of course I did,” I said.

  She pondered for a moment. “But then I died. And now you love her.”

  Was that unfair? At that point I couldn’t say.

  Eventually I stopped crying, and we sat frozen for a long time, both of us staring through the windshield. Grandma sat stiffly in the living room. Mom was nowhere to be seen. The rain let up, settling into a soft drizzle.

  It must have been twenty minutes later when Lorena finally spoke.

  “I don’t belong here,” she whispered. “My sister won’t talk to me. My own mother is terrified of me. My husband loves someone else. I’m dead to everyone.”

  I sat there wishing Grandpa would come back and take my place so I wouldn’t have to endure the howling sadness tearing through me.

  “I don’t belong here,” Lorena whispered again.

  The trembling in her hands stopped, then started again, then stopped. She covered her ears as if against the boom of some terrific explosion, then turned to me.

  “I feel so strange. Like there’s a hole inside me.”

  “Summer?”

  She nodded.

  “She’s gone,” I said. “That’s what you’re feeling.”

  Summer’s face scrunched up and she started to cry. I leaned over to console her; she pressed her face into my shoulder and cried harder. I’d like to think a small part of her crying was sadness for Lorena, but I didn’t ask.

  CHAPTER 43

  What does a four-panel finale to a life’s work look like? It was harder than I thought, I realized, as I tapped my sharpened pencil on the desk.

  I had gone through half a dozen ideas and discarded them all. Pay tribute to Thomas Darby, the strip’s creator? Even now I didn’t have it in me to do that. Not sincerely.

  A note of explanation to my readers, who would be disappointed? My agent and the syndicate certainly were. Some sort of tribute to those readers? I couldn’t think of a way to do it without being wincingly schmaltzy.

  The Bill Watterson route, where the characters move on, but on a happy, hopeful note? That in no way reflected the truth behind the strip, the emotional tug-of-war between my grandfather and me, both before his death and after.

  I had mixed emotions about the strip. The success I’d found with it would likely always be the high point in my professional life. For better or worse, I would always be remembered for Wolfie, would always be connected to Toy Shop. At the same time, Grandpa had been right: I had no right to take it. I had violated a man’s dying wish, and I’d gotten caught. I was probably the first person in history who could honestly say that. But even if Grandpa had stayed dead, I had no right.

  Chances were that I wouldn’t die in Aunt Julia’s living room, in which case I would never have the chance to tell Grandpa that Toy Shop had crossed over into Deadland, if a bit later than he’d wished. Hopefully Grandpa was finding it easier to let go of this world, and would be long gone by the time I crossed over in any case.

  Toy Shop was crossing over into Deadland. The thought sparked an idea. What better ending for a strip that was so intimately tied to that world?

  It was dark, but it felt right. Some hitchers were here to stay, and we were going to have to learn to live with them. We were also going to have to come to terms with Deadland. While the TV newscasters had been racing around asking the dead a series of disconnected stream-of-consciousness questions, Amy Harmon, a New York Times journalist, had focused on one issue: the nature of Deadland. Her meticulous account, “Where We Go When We Die,” had hit the newsstands and Internet yesterday, and caused a worldwide furor. Many were decrying it a pile of lies, but the shrillness and panic in the tone of these naysayers was telling. Even they seemed to understand that there was no stifling this new order. The uncertainty of life after death had always terrorized us, now it was replaced by a new terror—the certainty of it, of what it was.

  What better way to cope with fear than to laugh at it?

  I put up my materials, grabbed my keys, and headed out to the Maserati. It looked absurdly out of place in the parking lot of Summit Pointe, my new home in Decatur, just east of the city.

  The Maserati leapt out of the parking space as soon as I touched the pedal. It occurred to me that Mick would look more natural in this sort of car than 1. I would have given it to him, if not for Lorena. There were yellow roses set on the dash. I wasn’t sure she could see them—I still wasn’t clear how closely things in the real world translated in Deadland—but I hoped she could.

  From my new place it was only a ten-minute-drive to Summer’s apartment. The Maserati seemed even more absurd in her complex, surrounded by rusting Grand Marquises and trucks propped on blocks.

  I rang the bell; inside I heard the pathetic buzzing thunk that reminded me the bell
didn’t work. I rapped on the door.

  Summer was wearing black jeans and a bright tie-dyed t-shirt sporting Elvis’s face.

  “Hey,” she said, pushing the screen door open to let me in.

  Suddenly I was nervous. Until now I’d always had a reason for calling.

  She sat on the couch, propped one foot on the coffee table. “I’ve got to go to my new job in a half hour, but I’m glad you stopped by. I was going to call you. How are you?”

  “I’m good. Mostly I’ve spent the past two days on the couch. Being lashed to a piling for four hours can be tiring.”

  She shook her head, laughed.

  “What?”

  “I still can’t believe you did that. I wish I could have seen the look on Grampie’s face in that moment when he first came out.”

  “Oh, he was pissed.”

  “I imagine he’s still pissed.”

  I laughed, but it came out as more of a pained grunt. I wasn’t sure I could ever go to Aunt Julia’s house again, knowing he was right there, probably on Julia’s couch, staring at the oil painting of Julia’s late, beloved Chihuahua Petey that hung on the opposite wall.

  Summer sprung up, headed for the kitchen. “You want anything? I need some water. I’m nervous about this new job.”

  “You’ll be great. Plus Mick will have told everyone about the role you played in saving him, so they’ll all love you from the start.”

  “I guess. How’s the rescue effort going?”

  “Okay.” I waggled my hand. “I thought I’d be spending most of my time trying to help people dump their hitchers, but a lot of the time they’ve got me coaching other volunteers. I don’t know how many we’ll be able to save. Time’s ticking.”

  “I feel guilty that I haven’t stepped up to volunteer.”

  “Nah. You put in your time with the dead. You’ve earned a little respite.” It was strange. Summer was acting like she hadn’t heard me tell Lorena that I was in love with her. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting. A passionate embrace in the doorway? Summer and her daughter on my doorstep, suitcases in hand? To me it felt like my confession was a big, honking presence in the room. At the same time, as I sat there, I knew down to my bones that it was true, I was in love with her. I wanted to know if she felt the same, but didn’t know how to ask.