by Amy Lloyd
He returned an hour later, his cheeks red from the cold. ‘I got you something,’ he said, grinning.
‘You didn’t have to,’ Sam said, confused by the change in temperament, wondering if he was OK or if this was some kind of psychological break.
‘Close your eyes and open your hands. Come on!’
Sam did as she was told. ‘Den, is everything OK?’ She felt the weight of something in her palms, warm from his grip.
‘Open them,’ he said.
She looked at the object, something luminous green and plastic. It looked like a lighter but bigger. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s an electronic cigarette!’
Sam laughed. ‘I don’t—’
‘I know you’ve been smoking, I smell it sometimes, and these are like cigarettes but instead of smoke it’s vapour.’
‘I know what vaping is, Den.’
‘It’s chocolate flavour! It smells better. Try it!’
Sam put it to her lips, feeling ridiculous, thinking of the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland.
‘Oh my God.’ She coughed. ‘It’s disgusting.’
Dennis’s smile dropped. ‘But it smells so good.’
‘You try it,’ she said, handing it to him. He inhaled and his face twisted in disgust.
‘It’s stinging my mouth!’
‘How about I just don’t smoke?’ Sam asked. Dennis tossed the e-cig into the wastepaper basket.
‘The smell,’ Dennis said. Sam started to say she knew but he stopped her. ‘I guess it reminds me of my dad. I just hate it.’
She understood then, and she didn’t want to be the person who reminded him of that.
They went down as far as the hotel bar to meet again with Nick. There was no getting around the trip they would need to take to Red River.
‘First we need to deal with my father,’ Dennis said. ‘Then we’ll have to arrange some kind of funeral, I guess. And we can’t just leave the house there like that. People will gut it if we don’t get there first. Like vultures.’
‘How long will all this take?’ Sam asked.
‘A few days? A week?’ Dennis said. ‘We don’t want to miss the premiere.’
Nick arrived, shaking the snow off his coat. ‘When it rains it pours, hey, guys? Dennis, I’m really sorry to hear about your father.’
‘It’s fine,’ Dennis said, and he laid out the plans to visit Red River and be back in time for the series premiere.
Nick sucked in the air through his teeth. ‘Not sure it’s going to be quite that simple, to be honest. I’ve been speaking to Jackson and we both agree it’s best if you don’t come to the premiere, what with everything that’s happening right now. And with your father? Might be best if you lay low. You don’t want to look like you don’t care about his passing.’
‘But I don’t,’ Dennis said. ‘And he isn’t dead yet. That’s what I’m saying, I need to go all the way there to sign the papers.’
‘But you see what I mean, about how people might think it’s a little cold if you just continue as normal, even though the guy was a bit of a, you know …’
‘Asshole,’ Dennis said. ‘It’s my premiere. I should be there.’
‘We have to think about what’s best long term. For you and the series. Listen.’ Nick leaned across the table and held Dennis’s wrist. ‘Why don’t you take some time off and let me worry about your public image for now?’
Red River
Twenty-one
Lionel was in a private room, with bandages wrapped around his head like the Invisible Man. There were tubes coming from his nostrils and neck, and a pump forcing his chest to inflate and deflate with a gentle wheeze and beep. The nurses closed the door behind them while Sam and Dennis stood hand in hand and stared at the body in front of them. Sam turned away, feeling suddenly queasy. She’d hated Lionel. But now she felt a sense of guilt, standing near him as he lay completely helpless, not even able to breathe for himself. What had driven him to this, she wondered. Why now? Was it Dennis’s release? Could a father hate his son so much? She imagined the darkness of those last moments, Lionel alone holding the gun. She hoped Dennis was right when he said that Lionel had probably been drunk, that he didn’t understand what he was doing.
‘How long do we have to stay here?’ Dennis asked. ‘I’m so bored. Hungry. We should eat before we drive to the house. Is there anywhere good nearby?’
‘I’ll find out,’ Sam said, though they hadn’t passed anywhere Dennis would eat on the drive from the airport. As they left behind each diner and drive-through Sam became hungrier, her stomach growling and cramping. They’d eaten breakfast on the plane, arrived mid-morning and driven straight to the hospital, hoping they could sign the paperwork and be on their way in time for lunch.
‘What do you want?’ Sam asked, trying not to see Lionel in her peripheral vision.
‘Find somewhere healthy.’
Sam googled ‘restaurant, healthy’. ‘There’s a vegan cafe about—’
‘No. Healthy and meat. I’m hungry, I need something real.’ Dennis walked to the machines and peered around the back, looking at all the different wires and workings. He poked the plastic IV bag dangling from the top of a pole and watched it wobble back and forth. ‘Shall we go now? I don’t really see the point of this.’
‘Den … I know you didn’t get along, but you want to look like you care, you know? Let’s stay five minutes more.’
‘Fine.’
He paced the room. Sam looked at the way the bed covers lay flat where Lionel’s legs should be and shuddered. He must have lost his other leg, she thought, before he … Sam turned to the window and watched the people smoking in the parking lot. Now she wanted to leave, too.
After another few minutes they walked back out to the nurses’ station and nodded sadly when asked if they were ready. A male nurse handed Dennis a clipboard with legal forms to sign. Dennis printed his name and signed with a slash of the pen, at which point a doctor shook his hand and led them both back to the room to switch off the machines. The beeping and wheezing stopped and plunged them into silence. The doctor shifted his stethoscope around his neck, put the ear tips into place and the diaphragm against Lionel’s barrel chest, now still. The doctor looked at his watch, his head turned away from them. After a while he turned to them and nodded. Dennis shook his hand again, composed, and the doctor left them alone. After fifteen minutes, they left.
The nearest healthy restaurant was forty minutes away. Dennis ate a protein bar and clutched his stomach. The satnav directed them the wrong way, forcing them to loop back, and sent Dennis into a dark and cruel mood.
‘You’re hangry,’ Sam said.
‘What?’
‘Hangry. It’s when you get angry when you’re hungry.’
‘Hangry,’ Dennis repeated. Sam mused on the neologisms that had passed him by (hangry, mansplaining, clickbait, YOLO, fleek, manspreading, virtue signalling) and felt bad, again, for her occasional lack of patience. While he had been away the world had changed and there was a whole new language to accompany it.
By the time they reached the restaurant they were both hangry and Sam was relieved to get a table straight away. The restaurant was almost entirely open plan, the kitchen clean and quiet behind the counter, and every table had a wheatgrass centrepiece, a pot with fresh leaves shooting straight up. The menu was the kind of bland, clean-eating food that pissed Sam off. She was starving, she wanted grease: burgers and fries and onion rings. Since Dennis had got a nutritionist they barely ate together, Sam opting for salt-beef sandwiches and oversized slices of pizza and everything else she knew she shouldn’t have.
Here, Dennis was in his element. He ordered steak and poached eggs, plus several sides of mixed greens, roasted sweet potato and a bowl of steamed brown rice.
‘And I’ll have … the steak and the quinoa salad,’ Sam said hesitantly. Dennis snorted and exchanged a smirk with the waiter, who coughed away a laugh and took their menus. ‘What? What?’
&n
bsp; ‘It’s pronounced keen-wah,’ Dennis said, shaking his head. ‘Not kwin-o-ah! You’re so funny!’ Sam’s cheeks flamed as she waited for him to calm down but he kept laughing, taking his glasses off to wipe tears away.
‘It’s not that funny,’ Sam whispered. ‘It’s not that fucking funny! Stop it!’ She was talking louder now and customers were turning to look at them, smiling uncertainly at a joke they wanted to be a part of. ‘Weren’t you on Death Row like five minutes ago?’ she shouted suddenly. ‘When did you turn into such a snob?’ Dennis’s laughter died instantly and the whole restaurant fell quiet. He cleaned his glasses on his shirt and put them back on, turning away from her. The waiter returned with a jug of iced water and Sam’s juice.
On the way out the young man who’d served them stopped them in the parking lot and held open a copy of Men’s Health. Inside there were half a dozen pictures of Dennis, muscles hard, holding himself in planks and push-ups, frozen mid-air in a jump squat. The title read ‘Bodyweight Workouts You Can Do in a Death Row Cell … Or a Hotel Room’ above a short interview. For a while Dennis didn’t say anything and flicked through the pages, reading the pull quotes and smiling.
‘When did this come out?’ he asked, signing a full-page black-and-white photograph of himself.
‘Only yesterday. I subscribe anyway so I get them right away.’ The man seemed nervous, Sam thought, as she watched Dennis flick through the pictures again in silence.
She lightly placed a hand on his bicep. ‘We should probably go.’
‘See you around,’ Dennis said, reluctantly handing the magazine back.
The road turned uneven beneath the wheels and they bounced in a pothole. Dennis told Sam that they needed to pick up some essentials from the store, so they drove to the main street and parked in front of the hardware store.
They looked up and down the street, saw the general store with a sign for the Tribune outside and headed in that direction. There was no one around, just an old German Shepherd dog that lumbered up to them panting in the mid-afternoon heat, a red neckerchief tied around its collar. ‘It’s a ghost town,’ Dennis said. He pushed open the door, the bell ringing as he did so.
The back wall was full of magazines, the top shelf all the lurid colours of porno, half obscured by a plastic plank laid over them.
‘I didn’t think anywhere even sold those any more!’ Sam said, laughing.
‘What?’
‘Those!’ Sam pointed upwards.
‘They’ve always sold those here,’ Dennis muttered.
‘But who buys porn any more? With the internet?’
‘How should I know?’
‘I’m just saying … why are you getting so wound up? I thought it was funny, how old-fashioned this place is.’
‘Can I help you?’
Sam jumped. The man stood so close behind her she felt his breath on her hair. ‘We’re just looking,’ she said.
‘We’re about to close for the day, so if you don’t mind seeing yourselves out?’ He held his hand towards the door. Sam checked the time on her phone and saw it was three forty-three.
Dennis folded his arms across his chest and smiled at the man. ‘I want to buy my magazine and get our groceries. Isn’t that OK?’ Dennis stood half a foot taller than the old man. The light coming in from the window behind him made him like a shadow, stretched long in the afternoon sun, featureless and dark.
‘We haven’t got what you’re looking for. You might want to try someplace out of town.’
‘You sure you don’t have this month’s issue of Men’s Health? It’s a good one, I’m in it.’ He flashed his teeth.
‘Don’t sell that stuff ’round here. Now, I’m afraid we’re closing. Have a nice day.’ As the man turned to walk away Dennis took a long step forward.
‘We’ve got every right to shop here and anywhere we want,’ Dennis said.
‘As much as I’ve got the right not to serve anyone I want in my store.’
‘Let’s just leave it, let’s go,’ Sam pleaded. Outside the dog stood with its paws against the glass.
‘Dennis, we don’t want trouble and we don’t want you ’round to cause it. We were all sad to hear about your father but you need to sell that land and get on out of town. There’s no place for you here.’
From behind the counter they heard a scuffling that made them turn. A woman came out of the back room, leaving the door open behind her. In her hand was a small revolver, shining silver. ‘Everything OK, Bill?’ she asked.
‘Come on, please, please, let’s go. It doesn’t matter.’ Sam started to move towards the door. She thought about leaving Dennis there and wondered if she would feel guilty if he was shot. She had never wanted anything as badly as she wanted to get out of that store.
‘Fine. Fine,’ Dennis said. His hands were at his waist, fingers spread. ‘Be seeing you around, Bill.’
Sam jumped as the dog brushed against her calves and skittered over the wood floor, and felt the warmth of the sun on her cheeks as she walked out into the suffocating air. Behind her Dennis was laughing.
‘No wonder these little stores are heading for extinction,’ he said, slamming the car door so hard that Sam felt it in her eardrum. For a moment she sat still in the driver’s seat, closed her eyes and tried to keep her hands from trembling in her lap. ‘Well?’ Dennis said after a while, ‘Walmart?’
Twenty-two
Sam was OK on the empty roads leading out of Red River but when they came to the traffic that surrounded the megastores and strip malls outside of town she felt overwhelmed by all the colours and movement. She started to panic, the world blurring behind tears that she tried to hide from her husband.
Once they’d parked, Sam went to the Walmart restroom to gather herself and came back to find Dennis missing. After several stressful minutes pacing the aisles she found him in the home section, throwing pillows and blankets into two shopping carts.
‘What’s all this?’ she asked.
‘For while we’re staying here. I don’t think there’ll be any spare stuff. Where are the inflatable mattresses?’
‘We’re staying in the house?’ Sam tried to keep her voice light but it came out shrill with anxiety.
‘What’s wrong? It’s only for a couple of weeks. Besides, I thought you were sick of living in hotels.’
Sam didn’t know how to respond. She remembered what it was like in that house, the smell of illness and rot. She wondered where Lionel had shot himself, whether they had people who cleaned it up or if the floor would be stained with the contents of his skull.
‘It’s kind of … messy there,’ she said. She felt embarrassed, as if she were criticising him somehow, even though he hadn’t been to the house in twenty years.
‘It was always messy,’ he said, turning back to the shelves.
‘No, I mean … it smells weird and …’ She didn’t know how to ask about his father’s suicide without sounding offensive.
‘And …?’
‘Nothing,’ she said.
‘We’ll clean up a little. It’ll be fine. We’ll be gone before you know it.’
Sam already felt the same itchy unease she’d felt the first time she went to the house, but she wanted to be supportive, even if she couldn’t understand why he would want to go back there. Maybe, she thought, he’s in denial. Sam bet as soon as they arrived he’d want to got to a hotel. He didn’t realise, yet, how bad it was.
‘Can you cook?’ Dennis asked her, swinging the shopping carts around and pushing one to her.
‘What?’ Sam was hardly paying attention, daydreaming of the hotel she hoped they’d be staying in that night.
‘Cook. Can you?’
‘I suppose,’ she said. ‘I mean, basically, yes.’
‘You’re not filling me with confidence here,’ he said, laughing.
‘You know what I mean,’ she said, pushing him playfully. ‘I’m no Gordon Ramsay but—’
‘Who?’ he asked.
Sam linked her ar
m through his and talked about Gordon Ramsay as he filled the shopping cart with food. Would they have to throw all this out when they got to the hotel? She told herself it didn’t matter. For now, she was happy that they weren’t arguing. If he wanted to believe that they would stay in the house that night, she would let him.
The house was surrounded by more mess than there had been the last time she was there. In the short time that the house had sat empty, unguarded, the peeling white walls had been sprayed with red words: ‘MURDERER’, ‘CHILD KILLER’. Dennis retrieved the house keys from the hospital-issued bag full of his father’s effects and walked towards the house. Sam lingered by the car.
‘We’ll paint over that tomorrow,’ Dennis called back to her, pointing at the wall. Sam shifted her weight and rubbed her bare arms. The house gave her goosebumps. After a couple of trips to and from the house, Dennis stopped to ask Sam if she was going to help at all. She nodded, taking a carrier bag in each hand, and walked as far as the porch before placing them down by the steps and the rickety, makeshift disabled ramp that bent under her foot as she tested it.
‘OK,’ Dennis sighed. ‘What is it now?’
‘I don’t know what it’s like inside. Like … where he died.’
‘What?’
‘Where he died.’
‘Oh,’ Dennis said softening his voice. He smiled and took her hand. ‘You mean where he shot himself? Over there.’ He pointed to a metal shed with a rusted door to the side of the property. Spider webs stretched across the corners, shivering in the breeze.
‘Really?’ Sam asked, clutching his hand.
‘Yeah, really. I guess because that’s where Mom did it? Maybe it was sentimental, maybe he didn’t want to make a mess inside, who knows?’ Sam stared over at the garage, so old and ramshackle it looked as though it might collapse with a push of a finger. ‘Feel better?’ Sam nodded limply. ‘You want me to carry you over the threshold? I guess that’s something we never did.’
‘No! No, I’m too heavy!’
Dennis rolled his eyes. ‘You’re not too heavy. Come on.’ She made to run away but he had a hand around her wrist before she could go. Giggling, she attempted to pull away while he reeled her in, hand over hand up her arm, before flipping her legs out from under her and carrying her into the house. She didn’t feel heavy. She felt the way she had always wanted to, like those girls who were always cold, or else fainting in afternoon heat, delicate and vulnerable. Sam laughed honestly, a noise she hadn’t heard in so long that she didn’t recognise it. It was a loud, goose-honk laugh that echoed in the miles of woods that separated them from the rest of the world.
