Everett
O’Leary,New York was fucking impossible to getto.
I mean, on the one hand it was as easy as answering the phone to hear my mother crying like the end-times were upon us. It had been a hard year, and in that terror-struck half minute where my body was locked down and my mind was already flailing in anticipatory grief for whatever new tragedy she was about to share, I’d been easypickings.
“Grandpa Hen needs your help, Ev,” she’d sobbed, and without sparing a single second to thinkwhyhe might need help or exactlywhatthat help would require, without remembering that Grandpa Hen and I had a relationship that was approximately as cordial as an armed nuclear standoff, I’dagreed.
“Of course,” I’d vowed, like a fucking idiot. “Anything!” Anything to avert another tragedy, anything to avoid anotherloss.
As it turned out,anythingmeant me packing up my shit and moving my ass to the backend of nowheresville for an entire academicyear. It meant me fast-tracking a transitional certificate to teach art to kids who might not be aware that the earth wasn’t flat. It meant living with my homophobic throwback of a grandfather, who’d managed to break his leg in three places like the overachiever he was, in The Town That TimeForgot.
Thatwas a tragedy and a loss rightthere.
But despite the hassles of packing and saying temporary goodbyes, of putting our… I mean,my… condo up for rent, the preparations for my departure were still easier than the fucking driveitself.
Route 222 between Camden and O’Leary was a serpentine hosebeast, and I was pretty sure it was trying to killme.
“Fuck!” I breathed, trying to ease my Yaris around yet another hairpin turn that had popped up out ofnowhere.
I imagined the road had started out as a footpath through the forest, snaking around rivers and ponds, trees and property lines. No doubt it had been perfectly adequate for taking your cow to market, and I’d bet the endless waves of trees were justlovelyin the daytime. But trying to drive a tiny Toyota,in the dark, around turns so tight it felt like the road was doubling back on itself, I started to feel like the stupid trees were watching and giggling. Like O’Leary didn’t want me to come any more than I wanted to go. Too bad it was too late to turnback.
“Leave early,” my mom had told me yesterday at my goodbye party. She’d been on the verge of tears, per usual, and giving me the helpless, anxious look that was pretty much her standard these days — the one that made it seem like she was visibly restraining herself from trying to pick me up like a toddler, even though I was nearly thirty and outweighed her by at least twenty-five pounds. “Don’t take chances, Ev,” she’dbegged.
Pfft.As if,I’d assured her. The Ev who took chances had died along with my husband Adrian last year. These days, I was self-reliant and responsible. I took care of my own shit, always. You could find my picture in the dictionary next tocompetent.See also:risk-averse.
But then, after everyone else had gone home — after my friends and relatives had gone back to their own houses, and families, and lives — I’d looked at the empty walls and the packed suitcases waiting in the spare bedroom, and… well, I’d lost myshit.
Everyone had said, “Wait a year, Ev.” and, “Don’t make any life-changing decisions in those first grueling months, when grief is fresh and your mind is clouded.” And since I was Everett Maior, Rule Follower these days, that’s exactly what I’ddone.
I’d lived in our condo, which Adrian had decorated in the rustic, urban style he’d loved — a style I’d teasingly calledPottery Barn Puked,just to piss him off so I could make it up to him later. I made the bed every morning, because Adrian used to be fastidious about it, putting every fussy throw pillow into place in a way that would have made himproud.
I’d carved my own pumpkins into works of jack-o-lantern art, remembering how impressed Adrian used to be by my skill. Then I’d gone out and bought the giant Costco bags of candy we used to pretend were for trick-or-treaters even though there were no kids in our complex, and systematically eaten every piece of it. I'd made myself so sick, I hadn't been able to touch sweetssince.
I’d hung Adrian’s stocking next to mine last Christmas, on the fussy ceramic hangers he loved, though I was still convinced that Daphne, our resident feline shithead, was going to pull them down and shatter them like ceramic shrapnel bombs. I waited for the Christmas spirit to overtake me. (I was stillwaiting.)
I’d plantedpansiesin the window boxes in April, for God’s sake, even though I thought they were the most disgustingly simple, chipper flowers in existence, because they were hardy enough to survive a cold snap, and Adrian had always insisted on having the first flowers in the neighborhood. I was determined to keep things up tostandard.
I’d been as patient as I possibly could be, and I’d waited for time to work its healing magic. But seeing the essential parts of my life —ourlife — packed into a couple of suitcases, three boxes, and a cat carrier, while I prepared to move to New York without him, had called bullshit on this whole experiment. I didn’t feel any closer to okay now than I had at his funeral. My grief wasn’t a work in progress, but a permanent topographicalchange.
So I’d dealt with this realization the way any responsible, risk-averse adult would. I’d drunk myself blind on Adrian’saguardiente.
By the time I’d pulled my sorry ass out of bed this morning, showered, and located Daphne at the top of the bedroom closet — seriously, she wassucha shithead — it had been afternoon; hardlyearly,but the couple renting the place from me were moving in tonight, so there was no way to delay. Besides, I’d been pretty sure I’d rather die than greet Grandpa Hen for the first time in decades with an apology for not arriving Sunday night, asexpected.
I hadn’t meant it literally, though. And driving down the road through the darkening, late-August twilight, I realized I’d rather have faced off with a disappointed Henry Lattimer, because this road wasspooky-deserted.
There was no traffic in either direction – not a headlight to be seen. Plus, those crazy technological advances I’d been used to back in Massachusetts, likestreetlights, seemed not to have made it to Backwards-land, New York. There had been nothing on either side of the car for miles but relentless trees and unmarked dirtpaths.
“The upside here, Daph, is that we can’t get lost,” I remarked to the cat, who’d finally stopped protesting her imprisonment in the carrier about half an hour before. She ignored me, which was par for thecourse.
I rubbed my damp palms on the legs of my khaki shorts one at a time and stared at the miniscule amount of road illuminated by my headlights. I fucking hated driving in the dark. There was a reason I’d been the navigator any time Adrian and I had gone on a roadtrip.
“The bad news, though, is that a tree branch could fall on us at any time. Or we could crash through the brush and our remains won’t be found for a decade orlonger.”
Daphne didn’t dignify this with a response, which was probably what Ideserved.
Realistically, I couldn’t be more than a mile out of town. I remembered that much from my weeks of summer imprisonment in O’Leary as a kid. Soon, the road would open into a wide field, and not long after that came the fork where Route 222 continued on toward Rushton, and Weaver Street headed right toward O’Leary. It wouldn’t take more than twominutes.
But a lot could change in twominutes.
