No Coming Back (24 page)

And so, irrationally, I bury my brother behind the timber wall of the old bomb shelter, near the stinking septic tank, hoping that the stench will mask his decomposition. My grandfather blew his brains out inside this underground box; his ghost stills lingers, an air of badness that is more than the odor of rust and mold. No one ever comes down here. Only me. My secret is safe, here in the darkness.

In my darkness.

Then, within weeks, I am sentenced and sent to Stillwater, to relive the last moments of my brother’s life every night for years, until I am unable to separate the real memory from the nightmares. Reality blurs, and the first thing I do when I arrive at the house on Prescott is to dig out the hatch, compelled by guilt and a need to check that I haven’t been imagining Aaron’s death all these years.

But the arrival of Kimberly Krauss denies me the truth.

Back in the hospital room, the black smoke inside me is breaking through the surface. With my confession, the floodgates have opened, and a suppressed memory flows to the fore—one I haven’t thought about since I was seven years old. Unrestrained, the darkness bursts through, seething with prickly memories. An unstoppable geyser of repression, an uprush, spiked with the thorns of my past, exploding into my consciousness, as real as the moment they were made:

I am up at Hangman Falls, on a brilliant blue-sky day, with the late afternoon sun pulling rainbows out of the waterfall. I am inside my seven-year-old brain, in the springtime, sitting on a rocky ledge with my feet dangling over the edge. Mere yards away, the
thunderous
wall of water plunges into the ravine below, peppering my skin with a fine cool spray. One by one, I am dropping rocks into the pool below, feeling as stony inside as they are to the touch, wondering what it would be like to tumble over, to go with them, to let go.

“Jake, honey!”

It’s my mother’s voice.

At first I think it’s inside my head, dimmed by the anger rolling around inside of me—an anger fracturing my reflection. Days have passed since she walked out. Days since she abandoned me to the wrath of my father. Days since my world split in half and I sought refuge in darkness. I have spent those days in turmoil, missing her, wanting her, hating her.

When her voice sounds again I realize it’s outside, drowned by the crashing of the falls. I turn to see her clambering up the steep slope, clutching handfuls of roots and undergrowth to prevent her from slithering to the ravine’s edge and plummeting over the drop.

“Jake, come away from there!” Tears streak her flushed cheeks, sweat dampening her shirt. Her breathing is labored from the
arduous
climb. She drops her purse and snatches me from the edge, pulling me out of harm’s way. She stands me on my feet and shakes me, hard. “Jake, I’ve been looking everywhere for you! I was so
worried
, panicking, thinking you were hurt somewhere!” I’m
unresponsive
and so she shakes me some more. “You gave me the fright of my life!”

Then the tears on her cheeks flow red. She stares at me through disbelieving eyes, eyes growing big as eggs as confusion contorts her face.

“Honey?”

I pull my fist from her temple, and with it the rock in my hand. It comes away with skin and hair on it. Blood runs into her eye socket. I smash it against her head again, same place, this time harder, rage feeding adrenaline into my veins, giving me strength beyond my years.

The only thing in my mind is hate. Blood-red hatred. It veils the world in crimson and eclipses the sun.

The rock strikes her skull and something cracks. Her eyes roll back in their sockets and her fingers spring free from my waist. Even as she slumps to the ground I am over her, pounding away with the rock, venting every bit of anger, every bit of hurt she’s put me through, every bit of my father hammered into me. We become covered in hot sticky blood. It sprays up onto my neck, my T-shirt, into my hair. Her hands flap uselessly against the ground, body convulsing. I pound away until my arm hurts and the rock is too heavy to hold. A blood-curdling scream gurgles in her throat, then she’s quiet, still.

I sit there for long moments, panting, pulling bloodied hair from her face as the darkness inside me hardens.

Then I drag her body to Hangman’s Tree. It’s only a few yards away, but it takes nearly all my remaining energy to haul her dead weight to the V formed by two exposed roots, each thicker than my waist. Where they join at the base of the trunk there’s a hole, leading to a hollow, scooped out by some forest creature a long time ago. First, I throw in her purse, then roll her in after it, force her in, stuff in her limbs, push with my feet and every bit of strength I have left. My heart feels fit to burst. Ears ringing. Once she’s inside, I kick soil and loose rocks into the hole after her, filling it completely, stamping at it and packing it down tight.

Then I breathe.

It’s like the hole never existed.

It’s like she never existed.

Seconds later, I am scrabbling up the steep side of the waterfall, puffing and panting, programmed fingers hooking into cracks in the sheer rock face. I scramble over boulders, through thickets, scratched and clawed at, scraped, cut, and bruised. I rush out onto the grassy meadow sloping down to the picturesque lake. Sunshine sparkles on blue water. I don’t stop running until I am at the muddy shoreline, breathing hard, with blood dripping from my hands.

Then I stand there, motionless, eyes closed, ramming the memory down into the abyss, making sure every trace of it is covered with black smoke, until it is not only invisible, it is undetectable.

It’s like it never happened.

The memory completely concealed from my seven-year-old consciousness.

And I grow from child to man, through that difficult metamorphosis, oblivious to the fact I killed my own mother.

I open tearful eyes and I’m back in the dimly lit hospital room with my father, my palm sweaty against his cool fingers. More sweat streaming down my sides, stinging at my wound, and my heart beating out a death dirge behind my ribs.

I glance toward the door, fearing the doctor has returned and glimpsed the horror that lurks within my darkness, glimpsed my own demon that possessed me in the past and lay hidden, until now. But I am alone with my ghosts and the rotting husk of my father.

I killed my mother.

The realization is earthshattering, horrifying. It’s as though the recollection belongs to somebody else, alien, planted in my brain to ruin my cherished memories of us together.

But half of me has always known I killed her, the half that lives within my darkness. Terrible memories repressed and smothered in smoke. Hidden when I was a boy, hidden from my own conscious mind, like my mother’s dead body in its tangled grave.

I realize, with fear and anguish knotting up my insides, that there is no coming back from what I’ve done.

I murdered my mother.

Through pulsating eyes I gaze at the unanimated face of my father, at the plastic breathing tube wedged within the slash of his mouth. The edges of my vision are dark, ghostly. Not sure if it’s in my head or if demons surround me, waiting to pounce. My shirt is damp, sticking to my ribs. I mop sweat from my brow with the cuff of my coat.

“I’m not asking for your forgiveness,” I tell him as I reach for the power switch on the medical ventilator. “I just wish things could have been different. In a perverse kind of way I thought with Aaron out of the picture it would change how you felt about me, him not being there. But it didn’t. It just gave you reason to hate me even more.” I squeeze his limp hand one last time. “Goodbye, dad.”

Then I flip the switch and walk away, trailing spots of blood all the way through the hospital and out into the snow.

Epilogue

Most people think they’re in the driver’s seat, in complete control of their direction, their destiny. But we’re all passengers of life. Some of us lean on the gas and race down the fast lane, living for the blur. Some of us trundle along in first gear and never get to feel the rush. Most of us are glued to the center line, going along for the ride. Sooner or later it’s our stop and we all get off. Life carries on down the road without us. For a while those still engaged in the journey keep our memory alive. But they, too, have their own destinations, their own points to disembark. And eventually nobody remembers.

The drive up to the lake is the longest journey of my short life. The sun is yet to rise and the nighttime canvas is still painted with stars, but the quicksilver moon has slipped behind the hills, its icy glow silhouetting saw-toothed trees.

Inside the Bronco, the blowers are on full heat, fans rattling, but it’s wasted on me. I don’t feel it; I am as cool as a corpse.

I pass Meeks’s dead Mustang and keep going.

Surprisingly, my head isn’t heavy with guilt. My thoughts are light, in keeping with my lightheadedness. Buoyant memories of happier times abound—long summer days, out here on the edge of the great outdoors, when I was a boy, free from my father’s reins, exploring, conquering, imagining a life so very different than my own.

It seems closer than it is, within touching distance—as though the farther I drive, the deeper back in time I go.

After another mile I leave the highway altogether, following the switchback road as it winds its way up and over the hillside. Then I take the circuitous lake road, heading in the opposite direction from the smoldering remnants of Krauss Outfitters. This trail is out of bounds for the snowplows. No other vehicles have traveled this route all winter. The Bronco bucks and kicks through the deep snow, churning its way around the edge of the lake. Limply, I cling to the wheel, rolling with the bumps.

The public rest area sleeps under a heavy blanket of woolly snow. Equally spaced humps formed by picnic tables. Going slow, I thread the Bronco through and bring it to a stop a few yards back from the edge of the lake, so that the headlights spear out across the frozen surface.

The hole that swallowed Tolstoy’s truck is invisible, either with distance or because it’s already iced over. Like many of the lakes hereabouts, this one is deep, might as well be bottomless; it’s unlikely anyone will ever find the vehicle or its owner.

I slide a hand into my waistband. It comes away covered in dark blood, cool to the touch, tacky. I have no idea how much of it has oozed out of the bullet holes, front and back. The leather underneath me is pooled with it. I’m not worried by the discovery. Strangely, there is no panic, no pain. Just a surreal sense of calm and acceptance.

“Jake!”

I look through the windshield to see my mother standing on the snowy shoreline, illuminated in the bright headlights. A childlike giddiness spreads through my chest. She’s how I remember her: early thirties, with long mahogany hair and porcelain skin.

With adult eyes I can appreciate her timeless beauty, her soft feminine figure, her mesmerizing smile. I can see why both my fathers fell in love with her. She is angelic. Hypnotic.

She waves a hand: “
Jake, be with us!”

Standing at her side are my brother and my father, both of them lit internally, like those life-sized Christmas characters people put out on their front lawns during the holidays. Aaron is young again, no more than ten or eleven, a big grin splitting his wide face. He looks genuinely thrilled to see me, eager, his excitement infectious. My father is my age, strong again, powerful. I have no sensation of fear at the sight of him. He is smiling, broad and wholesome. It’s the first time in my life it’s ever been directed at me.

He waves a hand: “
Jake, come join us!”

Obediently, I open the door and slide out. The air is frigid, but the cold doesn’t dare touch my skin. My footfalls are light, leaving no prints in the snow as I descend to the shore. No droplets of blood trailing behind. I am a moth, drawn to their light.

In my wake, a dying leviathan bellows at the night. A glance over my shoulder shows me the Bronco is spluttering, juddering, lights dimming as the tank runs dry.

Inside, a man is slumped behind the wheel. He has the appearance of a thug: an unshaven face, mashed up and slack, pale and lifeless. He looks like someone I once knew, but I can’t quite place him.

“Jake!”

My gaze returns to my glowing family. Their arms are opened wide, their pull magnetic, inescapable. Happy eyes rimmed with tears of joy. My giddiness is overwhelming. I sink into their warm embrace, light banishing dark. My boyhood fracture sealing within. Both halves rushing together, eliminating the abyss and vanquishing the black smoke forever.

It is the first time we are united as a family.

And I am a child again, wanted, loved.

Home, at last.

Acknowledgments

The year taken to write this novel was both the best year and the worst year of my life. After being engaged to Lynn for fifteen years, I finally won her hand in marriage on a sunny beach in Florida. And after almost a quarter century of joy and happiness, I lost my son, Jason, suddenly and devastatingly. Throughout the highs and the lows, my family has been my unwavering support, my life, my love, and I am truly blessed to be surrounded by such heavenly hearts.

Thank you Gemma and Sam, and Rebecca and Ruben, my lovely daughters and sons-in-law, for outshining the sun with your brilliance and your warmth. And thank you Lynn, my dearest wife, for making me the happiest man alive, even in my darkest hours, and there were many. You make me greater than the sum of my parts.

Without you, this novel would not exist.

Writing can be a solitary process, but where would any writer be without those able to see beyond the words?

With this in mind, my sincerest thanks go to: Mary
Endersbe
of Minnesota, who proofread the first draft, kindly ironing out my kinks and setting me straight; to my eagle-eyed editor,
Charlotte
Herscher, for her illuminating editorial insights; and to
Emilie
Marneur
, Senior Editor at Thomas & Mercer, for having the vision to suggest I write this novel in the first place. You guys are
awesome
!

And last, but by no means least, thank you, the Reader, for reading my story.

Keith Houghton, March 2015