Banished forever.
Yeah, that was like a knife in the breastbone and I was struggling to breathe again.
Were my emotions apparent? God, I hoped not. Over the years, I’d mastered (or so I thought) hiding my feelings, putting on a constant happy face, no matter what shit was going on in my life. I was always the happy person at work, the one with the positive attitude and bright outlook. Inside might have been utter turmoil but the world would never know.
Now, though, pulled from my year of numbness, I didn’t know if my talent at hiding shit was working or if I was rusty. I forced myself to swallow and breathe before answering him. “Yeah, I do. We used to hang out together.” I used to love you. I wanted to be your girl. I wanted to lose my virginity, my heart and soul, my everything to you and your love. I wanted to give myself to you freely.
“Hmm.” He nodded and shrugged and turned his eyes back to the road. Cold again. His answer, or lack thereof, told me all I really needed to know, and that was that he either didn’t remember…or I hadn’t been anywhere near as important to him, even if he’d had a little crush on me for a few months that school year.
It was something I’d have to come to terms with, but I’d been good lately at not absorbing anymore. I’d been going through the motions, not feeling much of anything for a while, and now was as good a time as any to close the door to a chapter of my life that had been open for far too long.
Before I mirrored his action of looking away, I couldn’t help the glance at his left hand. He didn’t have a wedding band on his ring finger, either, but—unlike me—he didn’t have a dent where his had been. The rut on my finger was just like the emotional luggage I’d been pretending not to carry. The numbness? I knew deep down that all that was was a refusal to acknowledge the profound sadness I felt—that, and also a horrible shame that part of me felt relief. I could say that it was because I was glad my husband was no longer suffering, but the truth of the matter was there was more to it than that. It had been a rough life, and I didn’t blame him, but he’d been the reason. The last few had been the hardest, because, as his illness had progressed, so had the treatments for the disease—the time it took, the money it cost, the emotional wear and tear had taken their toll on me. Yes, I was relieved that he was no longer in pain, but the selfish part of me—the part that now felt guilty—was relieved to no longer have that obligation, that responsibility, that…burden.
And it made me feel like a shitty human being to admit it to myself.
It was far easier to be numb, to remain numb, and to shut myself off from the world.
For a few moments that afternoon, I’d awakened to the possibility that my soul hadn’t drowned in that anhedonia, but knowing the cold hard truth about Kevin Savage—that I was a nobody to him—made me glad that I could turn it back on.
I could let my emotions go back to sleep just like I could force my body to keep waking up daily—if only because it was expected. I’d been doing it long enough now that I knew I could continue.
At last, we turned onto a dirt road, signaling that we were maybe twenty minutes away from my aunt’s house. It seemed like Larry knew the way to go, for now, at any rate, so I wasn’t going to give him directions until he either needed them or asked. He’d been right, though. There wasn’t any of the chaos we’d witnessed in Winchester—since we’d started taking back roads, it had been relatively calm.
My emotions hadn’t felt that way so much, because even though I wasn’t feeling fear, I’d been feeling the gamut in regard to the passenger beside me.
I chose, though, to look out the side window. As we continued to rise in elevation, we saw patches of snow that hadn’t melted in places where the sun hardly touched, thanks to the mountainside and tall pine trees. We passed by large farms and fields and meadows in the valley, but we were moving higher and higher, and I was glad I’d brought my coat. The skies were growing darker, promising snow sometime soon. We’d have to check on my aunt and then, with reassurance that she was all right, head back home before the storm blanketed the land with cold powder.
When we got to the place where the road forked, Larry slowed. I was familiar with the drive because I’d often gone to visit my aunt this way—when I’d wanted a peaceful quiet drive through the mountains. The main way was a two-lane highway with a lot of traffic, whereas the back way meant we’d see three cars the whole time—if we were lucky. Larry turned his head slightly toward the middle of the truck and I said, “Left.” He nodded and turned the wheel, heading the way I’d advised.
Ordinarily, I found this drive enjoyable and relaxing, but I was anything but calm or relaxed. I was uncomfortable next to my former classmate and crush, but I was also worried out of my mind about all my loved ones. I tried to focus on the fact that I would be seeing my aunt very soon and could at least allay my fears about her. My kids, though? My parents? Even my brother and his family? I would just have to keep my stomach from devouring itself in worry until I could do something about it…and that would be the next problem to solve, but first I had to focus on the immediate—getting to my aunt and helping her with whatever it was that had caused her to call me.
Chapter Seventeen
“Got the Life” – Korn
WE’D DRIVEN OVER the quiet pass on the lonely dirt road dwarfed by tall evergreens uneventfully and, once on the other side, had continued our journey toward my aunt’s house. One small homestead after another (or large one, in some cases) passed by and I ticked them off in my brain, knowing that each one was a figurative step closer to Aunt Lou.
The closer we got, the more my stomach knotted up. It was a vague feeling that I couldn’t describe, but something felt wrong. I had to see her to assure myself that things were okay.
We turned onto the road leading to her house—a private driveway a quarter of a mile long that would take us behind another hill—and Larry’s truck sputtered.
And then the engine quit.
He let the truck roll a little and pulled it to the side of the little one-vehicle drive but he muttered, “Goddammit.” Vera looked over at him but said nothing. “I knew we were pushing it. Ran out of gas.”
His wife at last spoke up. “So now what?”
I couldn’t think of an easy solution, but as I started talking, one came to me. “You guys can wait here if you want. After I make sure Aunt Lou is okay, I could ask her if I could borrow her car and we could drive to Chipeta Springs and get some gas.” I looked between Vera and Larry. “That work?”
I didn’t expect Savage to join the conversation, but he did. “What if something’s wrong, though? What if you need help with her?”
I definitely hadn’t expected anything resembling kindness to come from him, and he certainly hadn’t said it kindly…but that was what it was. I shrugged, because I was afraid to admit that I might need assistance. I’d been fiercely independent for so long and yet needed to rely on others so much that I wondered if there would ever be a day I wouldn’t have to ask…and yet here I was, needing it again. The worst problem was that, because of his frosty reception, I was reluctant to ask him.
I just wanted Larry to get his goddamned ass out of the truck so we all could get out too. I needed to leave, needed some fresh air. I didn’t want to continue having to deal with the discomfort of having a lost crush go warm and cold on me constantly. And I needed to see my aunt.
I glanced at Savage, acknowledging what he’d said, but then I shook my head as if telling him I had no answer. He looked at Larry and said, “I’ll go with her.”
Vera frowned. “Maybe we should all go.” She turned slightly to look at me. “How far is it?”
“Not far at all. It’s a bit of a hike—mostly uphill—but it’s not too far off.”
Within minutes, we were all four walking up the road toward my aunt’s mountain home. I could tell I was no longer used to that altitude, nor was I used to working my body like that. Yes, we were only walking, but we were walking up a bit of a grade, and it was a dirt
road that could have stood a little maintenance. I found myself sucking down more air than I would have on a normal walk, and after a few minutes, all our gaits slowed.
It was getting colder, and I pulled my coat closer to my body, pulling up the zipper and shoving my hands in the pockets. The storm was rolling in, the skies turning grayer and darker, and the wind had picked up and began nipping at my cheeks. Somehow, we remained in our original configuration, with Larry and Vera in front on the left and right respectively, with Kevin behind Larry and me behind Vera. Larry didn’t know what my aunt’s house looked like, but he understood, like they all did, that this road belonged to her exclusively. I was worried, and I would be the one knocking on the door since Aunt Lou didn’t know any of these people, but I didn’t mind Larry continuing to lead the way.
Walking in the woods, though, up a hill and through evergreen trees, reminded me of another time I’d been with the man walking beside me—that fateful night, the night I’d blown any chance of ever getting to know him better. Where it had happened had been more than thirty miles away in warmer climes, and it had been a lifetime ago…but it had felt much like this in one particular regard. I was speechless, had no words to say to this man. Again, he’d left me mute. That night thirty years ago had been because I was in young love and my inexperience and the thrill had left me dumb. Today, it was because of that past that I had no idea what to say.
Once more, Savage had stricken me silent.
* * *
Sometime later, we neared my aunt’s house. If they’d asked me before getting out of the truck, I wouldn’t have known it would have taken so long or been as tiring as it had turned out to be. A few flakes of snow were beginning to fall as I saw my Aunt Lou’s house in the distance.
I’d seen this house hundreds of times before—it was a three-story rustic-looking home (although only two stories were visible to the eye), modest in comparison to houses in the surrounding area, but beautiful inside and out. It sat halfway up the mountain in a small clearing but nestled by evergreens all around. I had many fond memories of my aunt’s home, from playing in the nearby woods as a child to helping my aunt with her garden and chopping wood more recently.
As we got closer, I saw that the house was dark, and I began to panic. Even though it was mid-afternoon, it had grown quite dark out, and she should have turned her lights on…unless she couldn’t. Thus, my worry ramped up again, and I picked up my pace, almost jogging the rest of the way up the slight grade until the ground leveled out. I didn’t know if my three companions were keeping up with me or just maintaining the pace they’d been moving before, nor did I care. I had to see my aunt.
When I got to the door, I rapped on it. “Aunt Lou?” I knocked several more times and then reminded myself that Lou was older now, and if she was busy in the back of the house, it might take her some time to get to the door.
But, damn it, I couldn’t shake that worried feeling, the one turning my insides to liquid, and I knocked again.
I couldn’t remember if Lou kept a key outside the door, but I turned the doorknob on a whim, and it responded, moving to the right. I continued pushing then until I opened the door. I peeked my head inside. “Aunt Lou?” My voice wasn’t tentative. I didn’t want to frighten her, but I wanted to make sure she could hear me.
At first, I walked slowly into the living room. The overcast skies made it harder to see but, as my eyes adjusted, I was able to tell she wasn’t in there, so I made my way into the kitchen. The light afforded by the big windows made it easy to realize she wasn’t there, either, so I walked through the dining room and then down the hall. The bathroom door was open and I looked inside. Not there.
Panic gripped me again, but I forced myself to keep it together. I went into the bedroom and found no Aunt Lou.
As I moved back to the living room, I saw Larry, Vera, and Kevin just inside the doorway from outside but moved to the stairs. It was up there that Aunt Lou had a sewing room and three other bedrooms, as well as attic storage and another bathroom. I didn’t expect her up there and began to worry that maybe she was outside. She might have also been in one of the outbuildings or the garage—or maybe she’d left, coming to find me or to go to a neighbor’s or even the hospital. My mind was going wild, considering every damn possibility there was, and my nerves were going to remain in that elevated state until I found her.
At the top of the stairs, I called for her again. “Aunt Lou?” There was no answer, and so I decided to take each room methodically, just to rule them out before moving outside. I could see out a window up there and noticed that the snow was falling in earnest now—giant white flakes that would blanket the earth in no time.
The first room on the left was a guest bedroom. The door was closed, so I pushed the door open and breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn’t in there. I don’t know why it felt like a weight had lifted, but it had. When I turned to the right to move inside the sewing room, though, my heart sunk, because there was my Aunt Lou in the wooden chair she usually had pulled up to the sewing machine when she was working on a quilt or other fabric craft, but the chair was nowhere near the machine. Her fingers gripped the handset of a phone, but her other digits had formed a fist around her sweater, and they seemed frozen in place.
Everything about Lou seemed frozen.
Even in the semi-darkness of the room, her skin seemed too pale, almost as though the snow falling outside were casting a blue hue over her features. Her eyes were closed, her chin resting on her chest, so that her face looked peaceful while her arms did not. It made me, in my heightened state, feel confused.
Something inside me knew what had happened, though, and my legs seemed to continue moving of their own accord until I stood in front of her. I dropped to my knees as I faced her and touched the hand that held the phone. Her skin shouldn’t have been that cold, and that was what made the first tear fall.
“Oh, God. Aunt Lou…” I started weeping, unable to stop myself. It was as though all the grief I’d been holding inside found a tiny crack and streamed through it, and I had no way to contain it. The tears poured down my face and I let my head fall on her knee as incoherent sobs rushed out of my mouth.
I can’t take it anymore. I can’t lose anyone else. I just can’t.
Aunt Lou had been a lifeline of sorts. She was someone who needed me but didn’t rely upon or depend on me for everything. She appreciated my help and company, but her need for me wasn’t life or death. Instead, it was a pleasantry, and I could choose when. It wasn’t a heavy burden, and helping Aunt Lou seemed to fill the void a little.
I’d grown accustomed to that heavy burden—caring for my sick husband, working nonstop, doing what my kids needed me to do, from making dinner to washing laundry to attending parent-teacher conferences. Then, suddenly, they were all gone—my spouse, my kids, all but one job, and I felt lost. It was like those women who stay in abusive relationships because they don’t know how not to be in one.
I didn’t know how to be free.
Chapter Eighteen
Past
“Foolin’” – Def Leppard
THE SUMMER AFTER graduation flew by quickly as I prepared for my first year at college. I continued working part-time, saving up some money but spending a lot of it on clothes and cassette tapes of my favorite bands. I hung out with friends, too, but my heart was still hooked on Kevin Savage.
I saw him once or twice while “cruising Main,” an old behavior passed down to us from our parents. We’d drive up and down Main Street and park in front of shops and other businesses that had closed earlier in the evening to talk with friends or meet new people and find out where the real action was.
I saw Kevin several times, but he was hanging with a bad crowd…the kids who did drugs and got in trouble. And even though I was a so-called good girl, I would have jumped out of whatever car I’d been riding in in an instant if he’d only asked.
I was lonely and sad, and that was why I got a little friendly with another boy in
the backseat of said boy’s car later that summer. I wanted to be kissed and held and warmed up, and I had fun. I didn’t lose my virginity that night and the guy didn’t even try running around the bases (probably because of my reputation as a good girl), but it was enough to make me think I could let the idea of Kevin go.
While I kissed the other boy, he had my full attention, but the next day, my mind was still on the boy I’d always consider my first love…even if it was never reciprocated.
And he was still in my dreams as I lay on the uncomfortable twin bed in my dorm room at the college far away from home. I couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing—how his last year in high school was, if he was still hanging with a bad crowd, if he ever thought of me.
I was pretty sure he didn’t…but it didn’t stop me from thinking about him.
Chapter Nineteen
Present
“Get Out Alive” – Three Days Grace
I DON’T KNOW how long I hunched over my aunt’s lap on the cool wooden floor of her sewing room, but after sometime, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Why I thought it was Kevin’s hand on me, I don’t know, because it was a slight hand, and when I turned my head to express my gratitude for the unexpected compassion, I saw it was Vera.
Vera and I had never gotten to know each other very well, and she was the kind of person I knew would never become a close friend, but in the short time since we’d left Winchester, I’d grown to like her. She seemed sweet in her own way, and I certainly felt warmth from her.
I felt empty now, though, as if my heart would never be able to repair itself again.
I sat there for a long time until I heard footsteps coming up the stairs once more. Larry began talking quietly to Vera. A few moments later, she was kneeling beside me. “Nina?”
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