111. Fixed

I’m heading to the only place that Uncle Robert could have gone. Wondering why he didn’t go there a week or a month or a year ago.

I wonder why he no longer drives the motorcycle he got in order to escape. Or why he left his cabin with all his music and T-shirts behind.

He wanted to escape, but the wind whipping around makes me think that maybe it’s not Solitary he’s wanting to escape.

Maybe it’s the guy he used to be.

A hundred songs that I never would have discovered play in my head as I wonder if the track list for Uncle Robert has changed. What happened, and why?

A girl.

Maybe.

I turn a corner.

Maybe it’s because of her.

I turn another corner.

Maybe it’s because of Heidi.

Maybe it’s because he turned a corner one day somewhere and came across someone who changed his life.

I can understand.

And now he’s trying to finally deal with the situation in his own way.

Like you did, right?

Like I tried.

I head down the street to Pastor Marsh’s, thinking of Jocelyn.

Waiting too long.

I race down, thinking of Lily.

Not knowing enough.

I hold my breath as I approach and see the silver Nissan Xterra and know I’m right, and I can’t help thinking of Kelsey.

Holding on to hope that she’s far away.

My head is spinning and I’m feeling heavy and I don’t want to go in there. ’Cause the thing is that I’ve arrived in time and I know enough and I still carry hope in my back pocket.

But will it matter?

Uncle Robert, what are you going to do?

If he kills Marsh, will I be punished in some awful way?

I open the door and hear shouting and cursing.

Uncle Robert is saying stuff that doesn’t quite fit or make sense. He’s using a name I’ve never heard. Not Marsh, but something else. I don’t get it.

Jerry Turner? Who is Jerry Turner?

Then I see them: Uncle Robert with his gun aimed at Marsh. The pastor looks composed and silent standing there by the table.

“Hello, Chris,” he says with a grin.

Robert turns around and doesn’t seem to believe that I’m standing there.

“Stay out of this,” he tells me.

“Don’t,” I tell him.

“Don’t what? Aim a gun at this monster? I know what you’ve done.” He hurls more curses at Marsh.

Marsh moves a little closer, and Robert tells him to stop. Bringing his hands up, Marsh seems to find all of this … amusing.

Yet even as he smiles, I see his eyes seem to have grown dimmer. Thinner.

Why am I nervous, when Uncle Robert is the one holding the gun?

“You disappoint me,” Marsh says.

“You’re a sick freak, that’s what you are.”

“The Bible says marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”

“Shut up.” Uncle Robert’s hand shakes as he holds the gun.

“I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of their ways.”

“Told you to shut your mouth.”

“What?” Marsh asks. “Don’t want little nephew to hear about the uncle’s indiscretions?”

“Where is she?”

“Secrets and lies. That’s the only thing that goes on in this town. Secrets. And lies.”

The way he says those last few words makes my skin crawl.

“Heidi!”

“She’s somewhere meeting you,” Marsh says. “She doesn’t know that her supposed one true love—this loser stuck in the past, stuck in the memory of his long-lost parents—she doesn’t know that the man she thinks she should be with is really a dead man.”

“Where is she?” Uncle Robert moves closer, pointing the gun at Marsh’s head.

“Meeting you to run away. That’s what your note said, right? Only, well, she thinks you’re meeting her by the old barn. But no. Not today. She’ll come back home and find out what happened to you, and then once I pick her up off the ground I’ll have my way with her like I always have.”

Marsh laughs, and I hear a click. Then another click and another and another.

The gun is a toy gun.

No. Not a toy gun. There are just no bullets.

Or something’s not right.

Marsh keeps laughing.

“What’d you do?” Robert says.

“I fixed it. Just like I fix things. Like my parents. Like your silly stupid cabin. And like that silly stupid wife you’re in love with.”

Uncle Robert starts to rush at the pastor, but Marsh moves like a snake over to a drawer and opens it. Now the pastor is holding a gun too

no not again not now

and he’s smiling and forcing Uncle Robert to back up.

“Do you remember when you first met Heidi?” Marsh asks. “When you wanted her more than anything in this life? Or the next?”

Uncle Robert curses and glares at Pastor Marsh. I can tell he’s unafraid.

“So tell me, Robert. Tell me something. Tell me before I wipe the floor with the messy bloody body that is yours. Will you stand by her now? Will you walk through the fire?”

Marsh grits his teeth and looks like some deranged animal. The gun goes off once and twice and again.

I close my eyes and scream. Because I know I’m next.

I’m still screaming when my eyes open.

I’m holding my hands over my head, and I’m kneeling on the floor only feet away from Uncle Robert.

Marsh looks at me.

Uncle Robert is dead.

I’m trying not to look at him, but I can’t help it. I’m crying and screaming, and Marsh comes over to me and sticks the gun to my temple.

“You ignorant little mouse. What are you trying to do? Huh?”

He rams the hot barrel into my forehead.

“All of you Kinners are the same. Stupid. Just dumb. Dumb dumb. And I’d get rid of you all, every one, if I didn’t know better. But I do know better, Chris. I know well.”

He shoves me back and then tells me to get up.

“You’re going to go back home, and you’re going to do nothing. You’re going to say nothing. You’re just going to wait until the clock strikes the right time, and you’ll show up to your great-grandfather’s ceremony, where you’ll renounce God and be given the gift. The magic, the key—whatever it might be. You’re going to play the part, you got that?”

Marsh wipes away spit from his lips.

“I’ll tell you why you should get it. Because of sweet and darling little sunflower. Your little friend. Nobody is going to know that she didn’t arrive in Columbia this weekend. Until, of course, it’s too late. Until, of course, you make sure that she’s fine. Right?”

“What’d you do …” is all I can come up with.

I feel like someone trying to talk at the end of a marathon.

“You do what I tell you to do and you’ll be fine. Do you understand? I killed your fool of an uncle just because I felt like it, and your little Kelsey can be next.”

I wipe my eyes and cheeks. I’m terrified.

“Go on, little boy. Look at you. So young and so scared. After all this … you’re still just a little boy. It’s pathetic.”

I start to say something but a haunting, raging “Go!” sends me on my way.

I get on my bike and take off down the road as tears stream sideways off my face.

That’s when I see the Mercedes SUV drive past with the movie star hidden behind shades at the wheel.

I know one more thing.

I won’t be the only one here bleeding with tears.