My past is an abusive relationship, one that didn’t fit into some textbook diagnosis. I know what it does to me. The pain it causes. To someone else, it would seem so easy. Move on. Build a new life atop the ashes and never look back. Even I know that is the best thing I could hope for. That knowledge, however, is no better than a dream. No better than a wish. Because I keep going back. Thinking the impossible. That it will be different this time. It will be better.
Though my truck doesn’t slow, time does. I am back in my father’s study. Marci Simmons’s kind face watches me. Her eyes pull at the truth. They hint at some miracle, if only I speak. If only I trust.
Would I have told her? If I knew then how it would all turn out? I don’t know. But I don’t think so. But why? I wonder. I feared what he would do, certainly. That wasn’t it, though. The real reason feels like a stone forcing its way up my throat. It was her. I just wanted my mom to come home. And I wanted it to be different. I prayed for it, in my own way. And I couldn’t do anything to risk that chance, no matter how unlikely it may seem.
“What are you doing?” Lauren says, her voice strangely emotionless.
My foot presses the pedal down. The truck lurches forward. I hit the next turn, leaving my childhood home behind. I hear the siren, maybe sirens now. They sound close. But it doesn’t matter. I’m here. I’ve led them here. I picture the police reporting back to my brother. Telling him where I brought them. Where I gave them the slip. I can almost see his eyes narrowing. His thin lips going flat and hard as the first hints take hold. He can be the one who has to remember. The one living in the past for a change. Because that’s where I need him to be. I did what I had to do. And now I can go.
We pass the Richardsons’. Then the Chungs’. Between the next two houses, I jump the curb, careening into their side yards. Lauren’s hands slam into the roof of the truck. She screams, curses, as we are thrown up and down. The truck’s tires kick up grass and mud as I race toward a line of oak trees.
“Oh, God!” Lauren moans, covering her eyes, expecting a fiery end.
Then I am passing between two thick trunks. The ground hardens, smooths, and I slow down, finding the two ruts of an old emergency access road, one that I used to ride my bike on as a child. It leads through a thin slice of woods before joining a paved one-lane road. The truck lurches one last time as I pop up onto the asphalt. After that, it’s easy. I just follow the lane back behind my neighborhood until it comes out of the trees and runs parallel to the entrance. From there, I merge onto the highway and leave the police behind.
FINALLY, LAUREN HAS nothing to say. She stares out the window as I head north, away from the cabin again. When I turn on the radio, I have to find the local news station. I probably should have preset it before all this, but I didn’t think of that. Once I find it, it doesn’t take long for the reporter to mention Lauren’s name.
This morning a young staffer working for Andrew Brennan’s gubernatorial campaign went missing after leaving the YMCA on Pennsylvania Avenue. Her car was later found a few blocks away, allegedly abandoned by the prime suspect in the case. Police are asking everyone to be on the lookout for a white late-model Ford pickup with damage on the driver’s side. It was last seen in the Pike Creek area, near Woodside Acres, Brennan’s childhood neighborhood. The authorities ask that you contact them immediately if you see the truck. But do not try to—
I cut it off. I feel Lauren’s eyes on me.
“You’re done,” she says.
I look at her. At this point, I don’t even want to slow down because I think she might try to jump from the truck again. A part of me just wants to tell her the truth. Maybe that would convince her to stop trying to escape. But maybe it wouldn’t. She knows Drew. She knows him well. His claws are probably in deep. I could tell her the truth and she’d still take his side. I have no doubt of that.
At the same time, I need her ignorance. It is my final weapon. The last step in the plan. I just need to get there without letting the police catch up with us. And there’s no way I’m going to be able to do that in my truck. Not anymore. So I pull out my phone and send a text.
Is the car in place?
Once again, Lauren looks over my shoulder.
“Who’s that to?” she asks.
I look at the screen. The text is to a cell that is not in my contacts, so no name appears. I wonder, for just a second, if she might recognize the number. But that probably doesn’t matter, anyway.
“A friend,” I say.
Her eyes narrow. “Drew?”
I shake my head but don’t say no. She fidgets beside me, muttering. A second later the response comes in.
Yes, but it’s early. Everything ok?
Change in plans, I reply.
Do u need me?
Not yet.
“Where are we going?” Lauren asks.
“I’m getting rid of the truck,” I say.
“Then we’re going to walk away, huh? That sounds like a great idea.”
I shake my head. Although her lip is huge now, her sense of superiority has returned. And I wish it hadn’t. With my teeth grinding together, I just focus on my destination.
“Drew told me that you mess everything up.”
“What, when you were sleeping with him?” I say.
She scoffs. “So what? Why do you care?”
“Patsy doesn’t deserve this.”
“Oh . . .” She laughs. “He told me that, too. I didn’t really believe it, though. I mean, how typical. Being in love with your sister-in-law. But now that I know you better, I can see it. Kind of fits you.”
I just need to get to the office and leave the truck. It’s not far now. But she won’t shut up.
“He said Patsy can’t stand you. She thinks you’re worse than I do. I’m not surprised, though. She’s pretty stuck-up. She thinks because her daddy was someone, she is, too. But she’s never done a goddamn thing.”
“She’s done more than you have.”
Lauren pauses. I feel her getting closer to me.
“You really hate Drew, don’t you? I get it. He can be pretty awful. I’ve seen it. I have.” Her hand comes to rest on the console, inches from my thigh. “I hate him, actually. I was just afraid to tell you that. I was using him. Because all those fat old politicians are like an all boys’ club. I didn’t have a choice. It was the only way in. But I’m there now. They know my work. They know how important it is. I could get a job with any one of them. Bethany calls me all the time.
“Look, maybe we’re on the same team. What if we go to the police and I tell them that he’s been hurting me. And that I came to you for help. Look . . .”
I turn. She pulls up her sleeve and I can see the bruises on her arm. They look like the dark outline of my brother’s hand. Or mine.
“I did that to you,” I say quietly.
“So what?” She laughs. “They won’t know any difference. This could be good. I’ll call Bethany. Get her ready. She can step in. Take over the campaign. Do it for the ladies. Right?”
I don’t say anything. I see the line of squat concrete office buildings up ahead. When I turn into the lot, I roll slowly past a white sign with thick brown lettering. It reads:
SIMMONS PSYCHOLOGY SERVICES
When I see it, I feel strange, like I’m suddenly thrust backwards in time again. Like I am a little kid, barely able to see the sign over the dash of my truck. I slow, pulling lengthwise into a line of open spaces across from the building. There is another sign by the office entrance. I see three plaques with names. The top one is for Marci Simmons, PhD. I picture her thick wool sweater and her long skirt. I see her eyes, large and soft, the way they somehow attracted words like a magnet attracts iron.
As I sit there, staring and fighting the memories that flood back to the surface again, the door to the office opens. The second stretches out to a lifetime of torture until I see a woman, not Marci Simmons, and a teenage boy exit onto the sidewalk. Her eyes are swollen and red. The boy looks like he might have just been run over by a large truck full of raw emotion. They walk toward a black Volvo without saying a word.
The boy is what gets me. He is probably thirteen or fourteen. His clothes look well cared for and expensive. His hair is blond, not dark like mine. But in his eyes, I see it. I see myself.
I am mesmerized. I think about my mother, my father . . . Drew. The years of my childhood. Watching everything decay and die while I knelt on the once pricey carpets watching reruns of Taxi and M*A*S*H.
This kid knows. He’s seen it. I swear he turns and our eyes meet, and I am sitting there looking at my younger self. I try to remember a day back then. Maybe I was here. Maybe I saw Marci. And maybe a man in a beat-up white pickup watched me from behind the glass of his windshield. Maybe our eyes met and I knew, even then, where it would all end up, the full circle that would spiral ever downward. Am I him or is he me? Time is an endless loop, eating its own tail, and we are both stuck in this moment.