Wildwood

7. Nineteen

NineteenI stand in the express checkout aisle at the grocery store, wondering if the cashier can smell the sickeningly sweet scent of barbeque sauce clinging to my clothes and my hair.

“Coconut pancakes, I’m guessing?” she asks, scanning the shredded coconut, the Bisquick pancake mix, and a bottle of whip cream. “I’ve never thought to make them with coconut.”

“Family tradition.”

“I’ll have to try that some time,” she says, and I manage a tight smile as I hand her the cash. I’m pretty sure it smells like Smokey’s, too.

I bag my groceries and head home. The sun has already sunk behind the trees. I’d hoped to be with mom before dark, but Smokey’s had been busy today, and another server had called out sick.

The house is dark as night. I tip toe into the kitchen and set out the ingredients and the griddle. Then I climb on a chair and take the smoke detector off the ceiling. For added measure, I remove all the smoke detectors on the first floor. Tomorrow, my mom will cook coconut pancakes, and nothing will go wrong.

I c***k my mom’s door open, making sure she’s home. She’s fast asleep. Lately, her days seem to be divided into fourths. She sleeps part of the night and part of the day. She spends most morning in the back yard, regardless of the weather. She spends the middle of the night roaming the house, tracing a clockwise pattern around the first floor. Sometimes I lie awake at night and try to track her feather-light footsteps as she moves from room to room, wondering what she’s looking for.

I find myself tip-toeing to the living room, sitting in his favorite chair, wrapped in his tattered gray quilt, staring at the last picture ever taken of my father. It sits on the mantle in a plain silver frame that I’ve never liked. I take down the frame and pull off the back, removing the picture. Then I take it to my room and curl up with his blue plaid shirt I stole the day Mom made a blanket out of them.

His picture shakes so hard in my hand I’m afraid I’ll tear it. I put it down on the bedside table, but it feels too far away, so I pick it up again. I don’t tremble as hard if I don’t look at it. Tonight, for the first time in almost a year, the ghost of him feels like it’s everywhere. I saw him all day at the restaurant, and again at a stop light on the way to the store. I ball his shirt in my fist and press it against my mouth to keep from crying. Mom will be up soon, and I don’t want to her to hear me.

The moon passes across the width of my window. Mom hasn’t started walking. Something’s wrong. I creep to the top of the stairs. The bottom floor is dark. The steps creak under my weight. I expect her to round a corner at any moment, and I wonder if she’ll even notice I’m here.

I peek down her hall. Her door is closed. I open it. Her bed is empty, and the window is open. She’s in the yard in a night gown, her whole being turned silver by the moon. She’s holding a shovel, digging a huge hole where the tulip once grew. There’s a mound of dirt behind it. She steps into the hole, and disappears up to her thighs. She climbs back out, walks the perimeter, and continues to shovel.

Despair seeps through me. Mom’s had a run of bad days lately, but this is the strangest thing she’s done in a long time. I wonder if she’s been seeing the psychic again. I’ve started scanning the phone bill each month for commercial phone numbers, but haven’t seen any. I expected the spectrum of her moods to consolidate, when really, it’s only widened. A few of her good days have nearly bordered who she was before Dad vanished. But her bad days have only intensified with time.

I start to call out to her through the window, when clouds pass over the moon, snuffing out the faint light. The darkness around her begins to thicken and crackle. She doesn’t look up, doesn’t notice the static glow or the fizzing sound.

I hold my breath. Silver fissures spider web across the black. Still, she doesn’t acknowledge them. Are they real? Is any of it? Is my mother really standing outside in a slip of a gown during the first frost of fall, digging a hole big enough to fit a body? Or am I imagining all of it? Is she sound asleep in her bed or pacing the house, and I can’t see her? What if… what if I’m not watching her lose her mind? What if it’s me?

I reach for her bed and run my hand over the comforter. It’s flat and cool. I turn back to the window. The cyclone of shadows has vanished, the dark blanket of night returned. Mom goes still. Her head swivels in my direction, and I duck out of sight.

I hurry from her room, easing her door shut behind me, and then continue down the hall, and into the kitchen. The clock on the stove reads three in the morning. I lean on the counter, gripping the edge to keep my hands from trembling. Nausea churns so hard in my stomach I can barely breathe or swallow. What is happening to me? I can barely remember who I was on this day last year. She’s a stranger now. What had I wanted back then? Where did I think I would be today? All I can remember is promising Mom I’d come home.

No matter how hard I try to stop it, my mind replays the ride to the ridge, shows me the iridescent rainbow shimmering across the valley, and the flash of blue. Even now, my voice trumpets in my ears. A wave of guilt strikes me center, and I nearly gag. I need proof. I need to know if she sees the shadows, if she reads them the way she reads the sunrise.

I slip through the back door and step out onto the lawn, which is icy and brittle under my bare feet. The mound of dirt she’d made is gone. She must’ve refilled the hole. I walk to the side, waiting to feel the soft loose place of freshly turned earth, but I can’t find it. I crisscross the yard until I’m dizzy. There’s no break in the terrain.

“I swear,” I murmur, turning in a circle. I clamp my hands on both sides of my head as a buzz grows in my ears. “This doesn’t make any sense.” Had I imagined it? Has a year of nearly sleepless nights caught up with me?

Confusion swirls inside my skull. I hurry into the house and traipse down the hall, leaving a trail of dirty foot prints. I reach up to knock on her door, when the sound of her sobbing comes through the wood. All thoughts of what I saw outside vanish. This conversation will happen – it must – but it can wait one more day.

“Momma? Are you okay?”

“Just leave me be, Tanzy.” Her voice is thick and blubbery.

“I brought stuff for coconut pancakes,” I say. “We can make them together.”

“Not today.”

Grief pricks my heart. “But, it’s tradition.”

“To hell with tradition. It couldn’t keep any of you safe.” She lets out a jagged sob.

“Safe from what?” I press my ear against the door.

“From… from… from the darkness in the world, Tanzy. From all of it.”

“Please, mom. Let’s make the pancakes. And we can go to Wildwood, just like me and Dad did every year. I can take you to the ridge. We can just walk, we won’t ride. He was so happy up there, Mom. Maybe, maybe you’ll feel it. Maybe you’ll feel him.” I rest my forehead on her door. My fingers wrap around the handle, testing it. She didn’t lock it. I slowly turn it, easing the door open. Mom is sitting on her bed, a bottle of bourbon in her hand.

“Where did you get that?” I ask, alarmed. I’d poured out all the bottles I could find after the psychic’s first and only visit.

“That’s not your business.” She stands up, and sways to the side.

“This is my business! I help pay bills! I put food in the kitchen. I have given up everything for you! College, riding, Wildwood. Everything! I am trying to help you but I can’t do that if you won’t help yourself!”

“Help me? It should have been you that day! Don’t you get that? It should have been you in that river!”

I stumble away from her, my ears ringing, my heart shuddering in my chest.

“How could you… how could you say that?” I whisper. “How could you say that to me?”

“Tanzy, no.” Her face sags and her mouth hangs open. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then how else did you mean it?” I ask, gasping.

“I meant… I meant…”

My heart quakes in my chest. I spin on my heels and run for the door, grabbing the keys on my way out. She’s still shouting my name when I fling open the front door. I jump in Dad’s truck. I can’t drive away fast enough.

Sheets of rain collide with the windshield. Between the rain, the dark, the pops of lightning, and the halo from the headlights, I can barely see the front of the truck. I don’t even know where I’m going, just somewhere that isn’t home. I grip the steering wheel. My mind spins. My breathing sounds far away.

Memories from the last year fill the narrow cab; Mom ranting, pacing, blind to my presence; the first time I noticed the bills were past due; and the electricity was two days away from being turned off; Mom staring out the window, her silence louder than her screams; watching the tulip’s roots shrivel and the slender stem wither; the time I found Mom’s wedding dress, still stained with dirt, stuffed in the fireplace, the hundreds of dinners I’ve eaten alone, the fifteen seconds of dread I feel between exiting my truck and reaching the front door of the house every time I come home.

“I can’t do it anymore!” Tears streak down my face. The turn for Wildwood appears. I wait for the customary nudge of guilt, which has stalled my truck twenty feet from here more times than I can count, but it doesn’t come. I steer down Wildwood’s driveway, my mind becoming quieter the closer I am to the parking lot. With a start, I realize I’ve pulled into Dad’s old parking spot. I lean against the chair and inhale. I feel his presence more here already than I have anywhere else in the past year.

I hop out of the truck and jog to the doorway, only now realizing I’m still in my pajamas. I pluck the spare key from the garage door track, and unlock Dana’s office, where her farm jacket will be waiting on the back of her desk chair, the way Dad’s used to. It’s a tradition I’m glad she kept, especially tonight.

I shrug on her jacket, pull on a spare ball cap hanging off her bulletin board, grab a couple brushes out of the basket for lesson supplies, and head to Harbor’s stall. Her head is sticking over the Dutch door, as if she knows I’m here. She whinnies when she sees me.

“Hey girl.” Emotion squeezes my throat. I’ve only seen her twice in a year and she’s not holding it against me. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” New tears come, flooding my eyes. I drop the brushes, let myself into her stall, and sob into her neck. She nuzzles my hair and my sides. Her warm breath works to thaw my heart, still frozen by my mother’s words. I have given up so much to be by her side, including Harbor, but it wasn’t enough. She wishes the river had taken me instead of Dad.

It should’ve been you.

I sob, sinking to my knees. Maybe I should’ve left for college. Maybe without me around she would’ve found more peace. I have never considered she saw Dad’s accident as some kind of choice, an either or. Teague spooked. Dad could’ve jumped off. He didn’t.

“Why didn’t you just jump off?” I whisper.

Harbor drops her head to sniff my cheek. I touch her face, and she noses at my fingers. When’s the last time Mom reached out for me? When’s the last time she asked me if I’m okay? I’m not okay.

A clap of close thunder startles Harbor, and she moves into me.

“It’s okay, girl. It’s just a storm,” I murmur. Her nostrils flare. She steps to her stall door and peers out. Footsteps echo down the hall. They’re too slow to be Dana. I glance down where my watch should be, but I’d taken it off before bed. Is it already time to feed? I back against the front wall, and sink down between Harbor’s two hanging water buckets.

A man’s silhouette appears in the opening, backlit by the hall light.

“Is someone in here?” he asks. He bends down. When he straightens up, I see the two brushes I dropped in his hands. “Hey, girl,” he says. I hold my breath, wondering if I’ve been spotted. Instead he reaches in and scratches Harbor behind her ear. She shoves her nose into his chest. I lean forward, disbelieving. Harbor bites everyone but me.

The man’s face shifts, looking into the stall, and we lock eyes.

“What are you doing in here?” he asks, sliding the bolt on the door. Light spills onto his face, revealing two scars that run from his jaw to where his ear connects to the side of his face. Familiarity nips at the base of my neck. Where have I seen this guy before?

“This is my horse.” I jump to my feet.

“I know.” He smiles.

“You know?”

“Everyone knows who you are. And from what I’ve heard, the only people Harbor will let hang out in her stall without trying to kick their teeth in are me and you. I’ve been watching out for her since you’ve been gone. I hope that’s okay.”

“What are you doing here? It’s really late.” I press myself against Harbor’s shoulder.

“The storm is about to get really bad.” He glances down the aisle. “The radar is lit up like the Fourth of July. I couldn’t sleep. I figured I’d rather be here than stare at my ceiling.”

“So you work here?” My shoulders relax.

“I’m Lucas.” He sticks his hand over the barn door. I keep mine where they are. “That’s fair,” he responds, and withdraws his hand.

“Dana lets you come to the barn whenever you feel like it?”

“You’re here, too.” He raises his brow.

“Yeah, but my dad…” I trail off, suddenly overcome. “My dad used to run this place.”

“From what I understand, it’s more like your dad was this place. All I hear is how Wildwood isn’t the same without him.”

“How could it be?” A gust of wind rips through the barn, and blows rain harder against the metal roof. My mind drifts to the river, and I imagine how fast it’s rising.

“Were you planning on grooming her?” he asks, holding out the brushes.

“My tack locker is down the hall. I’ll go get my own stuff in a bit,” I lie. I stay behind the security of the door, wishing Harbor hadn’t taken a liking to this guy. He has to duck to fit inside the door. His eyes are wide-set and almost completely black. His gray shirt is tucked into a pair of jeans and his boots are caked with mud. My gaze travels back to the scars on his face. For some reason, I know if I check his hands I’ll find more. I know I’ve seen him before. But it’s a small town, and Smokey’s is a local favorite. He’s probably been in the diner at least once in the past five months. Maybe he even sat in my section.

“Didn’t you want to get your brushes?” He gestures down the hall toward the line of tack lockers, and then slowly looks back at me. “I’m freaking you out, aren’t I?” he asks. He steps back and lifts his hands. “Say no more. I want to check the radar again, anyway. I’ll sack out in Dana’s office. It won’t be the first night I’ve spent on that crappy futon. You won’t even know I’m here.”

“Thanks.”

“Be seeing you,” he says, and retracts his looming body from the doorway. I replay his words in my head, and recognition jolts through me. Not what he said, but his voice. Are you okay, miss? He was at my graduation.

“Hey, wait!” I blurt. He doesn’t answer. I don’t know why I need to know why he was at graduation. Maybe he was there for a relative, or maybe he’s why Dana needed to drop by Wildwood before lunch. Maybe because it was the first time someone had asked me if I was okay in months. But something inside of me needs to know. “Lucas!” I peer around the door frame and into the barn aisle. He's gone.

I walk out of Harbor’s stall. Dana’s office door is open. I jog down the hall. He’s not there. I head to the parking lot, Except for my truck, the lot is empty. I stop in my tracks. Lucas’s boots had been caked in mud, as if he'd walked straight out of the pasture.

Purple lightning forks across the sky, followed immediately by a c***k of thunder. Two more bolts split the dark in rapid succession. A fourth hits so close, the air crackles in the aftermath. Each time the lightning flashes, the woods light up in silvers and blues, and the shadows dance and leap.

A sharp creak is followed by the bang of wood on wood: someone's stall has just opened hard and fast. I lean forward in time to see Harbor emerge from her open stall. She holds her silver head high, stepping with caution, and then takes off down the aisle at a trot. I must have left her stall door open.

“Harbor,” I hiss at her. “Whoa, girl.” One ear swivels in my direction, and her body curls in consideration. Then her back hoof knocks an overturned bucket, sending it clattering to the side, and she bolts out of the barn.

“Lucas! Harbor’s loose!” I shout over my shoulder and then follow her into the storm.