by Chris Raven
“So, you decided to do them a favor getting them rid of her, too?”
“No, stupid. I did it to you. You just had to see how you looked at her. You were stupefied with her and she would have broken your heart, or she would have got you in trouble. She looked like she was the kind of girl who would end up being a loose woman and I didn’t want you to lose yourself too.”
I deny with my head, unable to believe what I am hearing, trying to convince myself that I must be living in a nightmare. What I have in front of me cannot be my mother, who cared for me when I was sick, the one who tucked me in the evenings, the one who sang to me and read me stories, which comforted me when I was afraid of monsters... The monster was her.
“I’m sorry, but you have lost me anyway.” It hurts me to utter every word as if the air coming down my throat was impregnated with splinters. “I’m not your son anymore. I’m not your son since you made those decisions. Forget every talk, every hug, and every kiss because they’re not yours.”
“I did it to save you.” She again protested.
“Get used to the idea that your son died that summer because you won’t see me again.”
Without letting her utter a single word more, I leave the room. My sister tries to stand in my way and to ask me for explanations. I push her aside without even looking at her and, before riding my bike, I stir Brad’s hair as a farewell. Without even seeing the road through the curtain of tears that covers my eyes, I go to the only place I have left in the world: Eloise’s house.
XVIII
“Are you going to talk to the police?” Eloise asks me when I feel calmer.
“No. What would I tell them? That my father, threatened by an evil spirit and driven by my mother, was guilty of the murders? Would they believe me? Would it help in any way the victims’ families to tell them that?
“I don’t know, but that’s not the reason you don’t want to tell it.”
“Of course not. The reason is that I love her, even if she’s a monster. I would like to rip her out of my mind, that she would have never existed, to be able to erase every hug, every kiss, every caress, every beautiful memory... She disgusts me, and I know she should be the person I hate the most in this world...”
“But she’s still your mother.”
I duck the head and thrust my look on my feet, while I notice how thick are the drops that fall from my eyes. I don’t even have the strength to keep crying. I feel exhausted, like an old man...
“What am I going to do now, Eloise? How am I going to get on with my life after this?”
“Starting from scratch, leaving everything behind. I know it looks awful now, but time will help you.”
“Fantastic. Time will help me.” I’m sorry to be so sarcastic, but I feel so much anger inside me that I have to let it out slowly if I don’t want to explode. “And in the meantime? What the hell can I do until time helps me?”
“To begin with, you still have to end what you came here to do. Your mission is not over.”
I don’t understand Eloise’s words. I don’t know what else she wants from me. Dunning has died trying to end all this, and I’ve lost my father and mother. It can’t be that it’s not over yet. There’s no strength inside me to do anything else.
“Have we failed? Is Tekarihoga still free?” I ask, terrified.
“No, it’s not that. The curse is over forever. As I told you, when I finished the incineration of Dunning, I came here to contact the spirits to see if everything went well.”
“And did you get it?”
“Yes, I managed to speak with a spirit, but it was someone I didn’t expect to meet again.” Eloise takes my hand and squeezes it with affection. “I was talking to Anne.”
“It can’t be. I’ve got her father to forgive her and release her spirit with the other children. Why is she still here?”
“That’s what I asked her, and she sent me a vision. There were two kids inside that car you got out there. I think they were her and you. You were driving on a wide road with no curves and, at the back, it was visible a bright sea and such a blue sky that it shone.”
I raise my head, I cross my eyes with Eloise’s and I smile at her. I know what Anne wants, what’s her last matter pending on Earth.
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Eloise squeezes my hand as if it hurt to let me go.
“Yes, I have a pending trip to California.”
“And then?”
“I think I’ll go back to Burlington. Even if I don’t have a family, I still have a job there.”
“Will you ever come back?”
“Of course... You will have me here on the 4th of July, on Thanksgiving, at Christmas... As long as you want, of course.”
“Of course. You’ll always have a family here.”
“And can I call you Aunt Eloise?”
“No kidding. I intend to let the witches of the chorus sit gossiping for months about who is the handsome young man who visits me.”
An hour later, after collecting all my stuff, loading the car and giving Eloise a hug that leaves her breathless, I’m already on the road. I find it incredible to be doing this. I know that if I stand five minutes to consider that I’m going to cross the country from side to side on a three-thousand-mile trip, I would realize how ridiculous the idea is. It doesn’t make sense, but emotionally I feel like I’m in the right place doing what I should do.
The original idea was to follow Route 66 to Los Angeles, but that road no longer exists. It didn’t even exist when Anne and I planned it, so many years ago. The most mythical road in America was gradually being replaced by interstate highways and the villages that lived there were languishing until they disappeared. Now everything is faster and less authentic. I hope that this substitute will serve Anne.
I’ve come out very late from Swanton and it’s getting dark. I decide to spend the night in a service area near a place called Fort Drum. I stop the car and I take from the back seat a bag with some supplies that Eloise gave me before I left. When I open it, between packets of biscuits and sandwiches wrapped in transparent film, I find a white envelope in which the words “From your Aunt Eloise” are written. It’s full of hundred-dollar bills. I can’t believe it. There’s two thousand dollars in cash. For a second, I consider returning to Swanton and give it back, but I have advanced more than a hundred miles, I know she was not going to accept it and I really need it. With this money I will be able to get to Los Angeles and come back, occasionally rest at some roadside motel and even, if I manage it well, have some money saved to start my solo life in Burlington.
The following days are a succession of miles and miles of road, city after city, all different, but all the same. The states are passing one after another: New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri... I try to drive as many hours as possible every day, but the straight roads and the heat of the last days of August get me drowsy. I try to beat the desire to sleep by tuning into the radio old American rock hits that I sing in a loud voice, but even so, sometimes the monotonous landscape hypnotizes me, it makes me enter in a kind of trance. In those occasions, I see her in the copilot’s seat. Sometimes she’s the girl I saw in the dream, with her long legs resting on the dashboard. She sings the ballads that sound on the radio as she follows the rhythm by tapping her hands on her thighs. Other times she is the girl I met, taking her head out of the window and letting the wind to shake even more her hair. I never see her clearly. When I buck up and turn to her, she disappears, but I know it’s more than a dream. I feel her presence continually. I know she is with me on this trip, that what I’m doing makes sense.
Miles and states continue to go by, one after the other: Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona... Immense and endless tracts of land. However, my spirit in these days of absolute solitude does not decay. On the contrary, I’m finding myself getting better, stronger, less sad... Being so many hours alone with myself helps me think, to reflect on everything that has happened, to realize that at every moment I did the bes
t I could have done and that there is nothing I can blame myself for. It seems that not only time will help me heal my wounds. The distance also seems a good ally.
The morning I finally leave Arizona and I intern in California is beautiful and sunny. I feel very encouraged. I am already reaching the end of my path and Anne seems more present than ever. I seem to hear her voice singing all the songs on the radio and the car is impregnated with her aroma of jasmine and peach. However, when I finally go past the sign of the city of Los Angeles, I am overwhelmed by a sudden melancholy. This is over. I’m going to say goodbye to her forever.
I park the car by the beach. The sun shines high in the sky and the ride is full of blonde women skating, but I don’t even look at them. I extend my hand and feel her cold contact. Even if I can’t see her, I know she’s by my side, we’ve made it together. Holding hands, we run through the sand to the sea.
When the water comes to my waist, I feel that her contact is lost. A gentle breeze caresses my face and I notice her icy kiss on my cheek. As I return to shore, I feel strange. I expected to find myself more lonely, sadder, and on the contrary, I feel my chest about to burst about something very similar to euphoria. She’s gone forever, but now she’s free and she’s at peace. Somehow, I know now that she will always be with me, but that she will no longer be the phantom that tormented me, the bitterness that kept me from continuing with my life, the perpetual yearning... Now she’s my angel and she’ll take care of me from up there.
I sit on the shore, letting the sun caress me. Luckily, I carried the tobacco in my shirt pocket and it was not wet, so I turn on a cigarette and I smoke it looking at that immense sea, ignoring the people who watch me and murmur about the nutcase that has gotten in the water with jeans and sneakers.
I don’t care. Nothing’s going to spoil this moment. I feel that I am at peace, that at last everything is fine... For the first time in my life, I am free of all my ghosts. Now I can be happy.
Burlington, September 2016
I
I parked the Impala on Bank Street in front of the bookstore. It is very early still and, although there is light inside, the closed sign is hung at the door. I will come in for a while to tell Mr. Rutherford that I have returned and that I can get back to work tomorrow. Then I’ll spend the rest of the day trying to find a place to live. Fortunately, being a university city and being in September, all walls, canopies, and streetlights are wallpapered with ads of shared-floors and rooms for rent. It will be a matter of making several visits to find a place that can afford, but that is not what worries me now. I have something more important to do.
I cross the road and enter in her cafeteria. Fortunately, Debbie is the only waitress and there’s no one queuing at this hour. I approach her, I rest my arms on the bar to mark my biceps, I throw a deep look at her and, with my most seductive voice, I say:
“Give me a coffee alone, doll. Black as night and burning like hell.”
She opens her eyes a lot and looks at me as if tentacles just came out from me. I feel that I blush immediately, and I pray to be swallowed by the earth. So many miles to get here and I didn’t take five minutes to think about how ridiculous the scene was going to be.
“Sorry, it’s a joke. I’ve always wanted to say that phrase, but I don’t even like black coffee. What I really want is...”
“... a latte macchiato with extra sugar to take away.” She stops me.
“Do you remember what I take?”
“How could I forget what the prettiest smile in the city asks for?”
She turns around to serve my coffee, but she can’t stop me from noticing that she’s blushing. I feel something new inside me, something I’ve never felt before. I think it’s courage, wanting to fight for what I really care about. Taking advantage that she is not looking at me and that I am not so ashamed, I dare ask the question.
“Would you like to go out with me someday for a cup of coffee?”
She does not answer right away. She’s finishing up my coffee and writing in the plastic glass. I guess it will be the typical motivating message that they dedicate to all their clients, something like “Smile” or “Have a happy day”. When she finishes, she turns to me and deposits the glass on the bar:
“As you will understand, when I leave here, the last thing I want in the world is to have coffee.” Even though she is smiling, I feel all my hopes fade away. “But I love the movies.”
A couple has approached the bar and Debbie runs to serve them. I take my glass of coffee and look at the message. It’s her phone number. I leave a couple of dollars on the bar and I say goodbye with a hand gesture. Debbie winks at me and throws me a smile that lights up the whole place.
When I go out on the street, I look up, intrigued by the absence of light. The sky is covered with huge and paunchy black clouds. They seem as heavy as for not being able to stay in the air much longer.
As if they had been waiting that someone looked at them to begin the show, they start to release their load: big and cold drops that hit hard on the roofs, on the cars’ roofs and against the wastebaskets, causing the roar of a thousand drums that are mingled with the shouts, between cheerful and surprised, of passers-by. They all run for shelter, but I see smiles on many faces. The drought is over.
I stop in the middle of the street, with the face turned to the sky and with my arms across, welcoming the rain. I receive it as a blessing: clean water that will help me to erase the bad memories. I’m starting a new life today.
Chris Raven
Burlington, May 20th, 2017
