I stare out the window of my brother Archer’s truck, watching the scenery blur past. My car, along with the meager pile of my other possessions, is in a shipping container en route to Oak Creek. Part of the discharge package from the Space Agency.
That’s what they’re calling it, anyway. Despite news of my breakdown leaking all over the place, the official word is that I resigned after my mission.
They didn’t even have the balls to go public with the information that the research program is being canceled. I assessed the financials, and I still don’t have enough to move forward with my tissue research on my own, not even with my severance.
And so, with no wife, no furniture, and no prospects, I am headed home to Oak Creek. I know I’ve been the main focus of the gossip mill there, but I never can find it in me to care about those things. Heather indicated my aloofness was part of the problem. I don’t care enough about anything when it comes to other people, apparently.
I didn’t call my brother to come fetch me. I’m pretty sure my mother sent him. He showed up as the movers were packing my lab equipment and told me to get in the truck, and so here I am.
We cross into Kentucky and Archer starts singing along with the country music on the radio.
“I hate this type of music,” I state without looking at him.
“Tough shit, Hunter,” Archer says during an instrumental lick. “You find a place to stay yet?”
I shake my head. I thought I’d stay at our parents’ house, which seems a fitting place for a man whose wife left and career exploded.
Archer taps out the rhythm on the steering wheel and says, “I know you haven’t been home in awhile. Dad turned each of our rooms into a different sort of theme. That’s what he calls it. They bring in international students to stay in, like, The Meadow Room and The Obersvatory Room. It’s like fucking Clue with kids from Thailand and Saudi Arabia sitting down for tea with Dad.”
I grunt noncommittally. He grins. “Wanna crash at my place?”
I shrug. “I can buy someplace as soon as that can be arranged.” At the next rest stop, Archer pulls out his phone and makes a call while I’m ordering our lunch. He tells me he found out about a duplex for sale right in town and will get me set up with a realtor. My kid brother is the only accountant in Oak Creek. He knows everyone, knows their business, and manages to remember every single birthday of every Oak Creek resident.
Mom likes to joke that he got all my social skills that I left behind in her womb. I can barely manage to figure out when people are joking.
Today I feel even less like working on it, and Archer shakes his head as I reserve our hotel room using single syllables.
It feels good to drive a car on the vast expanse of highway after spending so long cooped up in a tube with no gravity. Even if I hate the lack of fuel economy in my brother’s beast of a truck, I appreciate the feel of my body in the deep leather seats. He props his feet on the dash while I take my turn, navigating toward eastern Pennsylvania on instinct. Archer looks at me for a long time before saying, “Jesus, Hunter. I’ve been waiting for you to say something.”
I shrug without taking my eyes off the road. “Should have let me know, then. What were you hoping I’d say?”
“I don’t know, man. Small talk! Fuck, dude, what must it have been like for those other space nerds to be up there with you for six whole months.”
“It was fruitful in terms of research outcomes,” I say, then I grit my teeth. “Though not as fruitful as I would have liked.”
He laughs at me. “You going to take Ma up on the job offer?”
I see the exit for our next highway and put on my turn signal, ignoring my brother. Teaching undergraduate biology at Oak Creek College sounds less attractive than bankruptcy. Even if my mother calls me a Distinguished Guest Professor, it still feels very much like what it is: a charity offer for a man who has been blackballed throughout the bioresearch community.
Archer continues to stare at me, and I figure out that he’s still waiting for a response.
“I told her I’d try for a semester,” I say, accelerating onto four-lane road toward home. “Just until I finish a proposal for investors.”