Four kids, one in a wheelchair, walking the shoulder of the interstate drew the attention of passing motorists. Semis slowed. Young, bright-eyed muscle cars rubbernecked and then revved off. Half a mile from our exit, a lady in a black Lexus two-seater pulled off and suggested one of us ride with her to a nearby service station. She was insistent, even after Caroline said, “We’ve already called AAA.” With her high ponytail and hot pink yoga outfit, she didn’t appear dangerous. Still, we looked at each other like none of us were sure if stranger danger was still a thing, but perhaps it was. “If only serial killers wore uniforms,” Becky whispered laughingly in my ear. I shushed her, highly doubting Lexus Two-Seater was a serial killer, but Simon hadn’t looked evil either. Accepting the ride meant we’d have to split into two groups, and I wasn’t comfortable with that. Her Lexus zipped onto the highway and two bumper stickers stated her loud and proud second-amendment rights.
Rudy wheeled out in front and spun in wild circles, making a passing motorist honk with delight. “Boy, that was close!” he said, completely animated.
Becky, who had never hitched in her life, said, “Man, I remember when hitchin’ used to be safe.”
I threw in, “Watch out for those yoga moms,” and cocked a fake handgun.
“You guys go on and laugh, but that’s how all the horror movies start.” Caroline almost pulled off her seriousness, but a smile crept in at the last moment. And then we were all doubled over laughing again.
Considering Dolly went kaput and we were huffing I-95 in eighty-nine-degree weather, we were in remarkably good moods. The conversation turned not to Dolly’s malfunction or the cost to fix her or even the long, muggy walk, but to the déjà vu we experienced in the aftermath.
“Why does déjà vu happen?” Becky asked.
Rudy’s hands paused on the wheels. With all the traffic, holding a conversation was difficult, and his voice often matched pitch with the rumblings of large trucks. We came in closer. He said, “I don’t know about why, but if déjà vu is feeling like you’ve lived through something in the past, what do you call that sensation when you’re sure you’ve already lived through something in the future?”
“Premonition,” I said.
Becky said, “I’m not sure that happens to me.”
Caroline tsked. “Oh, sure it does. Say you’re driving and you think I shouldn’t take Miller Lane home. You take Lakewood instead and wind up at your house in time to watch Law and Order, believing you dodged some cosmic bullet.”
“But there’s no way to know if that’s true or not,” Becky argued.
“There is if you take Miller Lane and life goes sideways,” Caroline said.
“But who does that?”
I shrugged at Becky. “Lots of people.”
Caroline seemed intent to prove her point. She darted directly in front of Rudy and dropped onto his lap. “Rudy, list three things you knew were going to happen before they happened.”
Rudy popped a wheelie and then used the forward movement to dump Caroline out of his chair onto the grass. The cousins poked at each other, and he acquiesced. “I knew Victor was going to tell me his girlfriend was pregnant with Deuce. And . . . the day I won the Bob Reid Journalism Award, I felt like something good was going to happen even though I didn’t know what. I can’t think of a third.” He smoothed the leather across his palms. “Oh, wait, yeah. Remember when Jane and I lived over on Calderon?” he was asking Caroline, who nodded. “I took a bag of my favorite stuff to school the day the house burned and it wasn’t even show-and-tell day. Something told me to take them.”
“Something? Or someone?” I asked.
He responded, “Are we getting religious?”
“I don’t know. Are we?”
Becky shooed us forward with a loose wave of her hand. “How did a question about déjà vu turn into whether there’s an official puppet master of the universe?”
Caroline answered, “Because for us to have premonitions of a future event, there has to be someone bigger who exists outside of time who already knows what will occur.”
Becky’s Why? was all over her face, but she didn’t ask.
“Knows that it will, preknowledge? Or forces his will to be done, predestined?” Rudy said.
I liked these questions. They were mildly threatening and simultaneously harmless. My insides inched around like worms, but exploring philosophical mysteries added context. And it certainly improved our moods. I said, “We’re really wondering: Is everything orchestrated? Was Stacy always going to get pregnant? Were we always going to take this non–road trip road trip? Was Dolly destined to break down?”
Which left Becky to ask the unasked question. “Was Simon Westwood always going to blow your bus? And if so, did any of you sense it was coming?”
“We’re not talking about him!” Caroline snapped, her tone back to I’ll shave you in your sleep status. She moved the headband round and round her head.
“But we are, Cuz. He’s here whether we name him or not.”
“No. He’s in a million pieces in an unmarked grave in Bath because his dad doesn’t want vandals pissing on him. And I, for one, am happy to blame the puppet master. God, if that’s what you want to call Him.”
Rudy cut her off with his chair. “Because it’s easier than blaming Simon?”
“No, douchebag. Because it’s easier than blaming myself.”
I curbed us far off the interstate. Sheer walls of white granite and limestone rose thirty feet like we were at the base of a mountain. A metal net covered the facing to prevent rockslides. “Caroline,” I said. “Did you know Simon was going to blow Bus Twenty-One?”
“Did I have a premonition?” she asked.
“Did you know?”
She backed farther into the rocks, her fingers twisting through the chicken wire barrier. “Would I have gotten on if I did?”
I followed her. Weeds stabbed at my legs. “Maybe so,” I said. “I think you’re into destructive things, and Simon might have been one of them.”
She pitched into me like a limp doll and laid her forehead against my breastbone. From this view, I saw the thin scars left from the razor covering her skull. She took one deep breath, and I considered what I should do with my hands. Hold her head? Wrap her up? In the end, I lifted her face, held her jaws with my thumbs, and looked inside her. “Caroline, why did you stay with him?”
We must have been a sight. Traffic slowed. Life slowed too.
“Why do you stay with Chan?” she asked. “Because you love him, or because you can’t get away?”
“Because I love him.”
“Well.” She sighed, her gaze refusing to meet my eyes. “Congrats on your perfect life.”
Caroline’s knees bent and I worried she might collapse and knock us to the ground. But her toes grew into the cement and though she wavered, she did not fall. I wrapped my arms around her slight frame. “This was never your fault,” I whispered.
“This was always my fault,” she whispered back.