Trail of Crumbs

by Lisa J. Lawrence

  Finally. Welcome to Whitecourt on an official sign. Greta unbuckled her suffocating seat belt and tapped Ash on the shoulder. He opened his eyes immediately. Sleep liar.

  She waved the phone in front of him. “Ash, we’re here. Let’s see where Dad is.”

  Nate pulled off to the side of the road, and all three heads converged on the screen. “It looks like they’re close,” Ash said. He used two fingers to zoom in. “Yes, the second right.”

  A lump hardened in Greta’s throat. It’s now. Nate drove slowly—to the point of torture—to make sure they took the right turn. On either side of them hotels, motels, fast-food and family restaurants. Parking lots full of pickups and semis hauling strange equipment.

  “It’s there. Dad’s truck.” She saw it first, “bobtailing,” as Roger called it—not pulling anything. It looked lonely in the motel parking lot, with only Patty’s junkyard Honda parked nearby.

  Nate pulled into an empty stall by the motel office. The Hideaway Motel.

  “How do you know which room they’re in?” Nate asked. They scanned the row of identical orange-painted doors for a clue. Nothing. Roger had parked his truck off to the side, not close to any door.

  “I’ll go in and ask,” Greta said. No one protested. Ash always let her take on the situations needing a human touch, the same way she let him take on the showdowns with Patty. Their own unspoken strengths.

  She took a deep breath and forced her face to relax before stepping through the door. A woman in her fifties sat behind the front desk, sifting through a stack of papers and receipts. It took Greta only a minute to explain she had come to meet her father, Roger Woods, but he hadn’t said which room he was in. “He owns the big red truck.” Greta pointed vaguely toward the door. Again with the I’m-not-a-psychopath smile.

  The woman sat in front of a computer and moved the mouse around. “Yes, dear. It looks like he’s in room ten.”

  “Thank you.” Greta sighed as she said it, making the woman look up from her screen. “It’s been a long drive. Thanks.” Then she backed out the door before the woman could ask any questions.

  Ash climbed out of Rebus to meet her.

  “Room ten,” she said.

  Nate unrolled his window as they started to walk away. “I’ll wait here!” he called to their backs. Greta barely heard him, her eyes fixed on the silver 10 on the orange paint.

  “What are we going to say to him?” Greta asked. “Why didn’t we talk about this?”

  “What is there to say?” Ash shrugged. “Come home, you moron. Bring the Antichrist if you must.”

  She reached over and clutched his hand. That was happening a lot lately. There was a time he would’ve shaken her off, before everything got so twisted. She let go to pound on the door, filling her lungs and blowing the air out slowly. This will work. It’s got to work.

  A voice from inside, low. They were there. As Ash raised his hand to knock again, the door opened a crack. Roger’s blue eye met theirs. Dad. If it’d been Patty, Gretta might’ve climbed back into Rebus and taken off.

  “Dad.” She said it out loud this time.

  Roger let the door fall open, revealing an unmade bed and some shirts tossed over the back of a chair. The funky odor of weed hit them full on, making Ash and Greta flinch. Roger struggled to form words, something close to terror on his face.

  “No, you’re not hallucinating, Dad,” Ash said. “We’re your children—Ash and Greta. The ones you abandoned in Edmonton.”

  Greta stepped forward to hug him at the same time Patty came out of the bathroom. “What the hell?” she said, striding to the door. “What are you two doing here?”

  “What are you two doing here!” Ash barked, pointing at Roger and Patty.

  Greta grabbed Ash’s arm to rein him in. “Dad, we want you to come home. We can work this out.”

  “No,” Patty whispered, and then she shouted, “No!” She looked at Greta. “You tried to kill me!” Then to Ash. “And you tried to force him to leave me! I’m done with both of you.”

  “Dad.” Greta attempted to block the force of Hurricane Patty. “Can we talk for a minute?”

  Roger blinked, his eyes glassy, unfocused. His face shifted from confusion to anguish. “I’m trying to work some things out with Patty. I’ll be home soon, okay?” He smacked his lips together and swallowed.

  “He will not be home soon,” Patty said, wrenching Roger’s shoulder away from the door and starting to close it. “Now get out of here!”

  “I’ll send you some—” Roger began.

  “No money! You’re on your own!”

  Ash stuck his foot in the door as Patty slammed it, Roger just a shadow in the background now. Patty kicked at Ash’s toes, then stamped his boot with the heel of her bare foot. “Get out of here! You’re not wanted!”

  “Ash.” Greta touched his hand. “Ash.” She squeezed his icy fingers tightly. “Let it go.”

  He blocked her out, trying to wedge the door open, his eyes focused on the outline of Roger.

  “Ash.” She shook his hand, pinching tighter. “Ash.”

  At once he pulled his foot back, and the door banged shut. They stared at it, the silver 10 against the orange. The deadbolt clicked on the other side.

  Then she felt it—the weight of desperation, three hours of hope and fear, the sting of every one of Patty’s words. You’re not wanted. The pathetic shadow of their father. It mingled in a cloud and lowered over her. She swayed, surprised to feel tears on her cheeks. Her legs too heavy to move.

  “What a waste.” Ash swore and kicked the white stucco wall. He pounded a fist against their window. “What a bloody waste!” He turned and saw Greta, eyes still fixed on the orange door.

  “C’mon. Let’s get out of here. If those are parents, who needs them? They suck. You suck!” he screamed at their closed door. “Let’s go.” He took her hand this time, like she was a two-year-old, and led her back to the car.

  Nate’s face was ghost white. “I’m sorry,” he said, standing outside the car as they approached. “I wasn’t sure if I should do something.”

  Ash shook his head and moved the seat for Greta to climb in. “Can I drive?” he asked Nate.

  Nate looked a little distressed. “Uh, sure. You know about the speed thing, right?”

  Ash snatched the key from Nate’s barely extended hand and slid into the driver’s seat as if it were his own car. Nate climbed in on the passenger’s side and buckled his seat belt. Ash started Rebus, wrenched it into reverse and peeled out of the parking lot, rubber spinning on ice.

  “Whoa. A little slower,” Nate said.

  Ash signaled left and cut in front of oncoming traffic. Nate clutched the handhold on the door. The rear side of the Welcome to Whitecourt sign sprung up on their left.

  “I think it’s just sixty here,” Nate said. He leaned over Ash to check the speedometer. “You’re going at least eighty.”

  “You want to know the irony?” Ash’s voice filled the whole car, drowning out the vibration of the steering wheel. “Before, Dad would’ve freaked out if he’d caught us smoking weed. Oh, no! My precious babies are becoming addicts! They’ll be selling their bodies for a fix in less than a month!” He floored the gas pedal.

  Nate’s other hand gripped the bottom of his seat. Greta swayed in the back—no seat belt on.

  “Higher than a kite, and he still can’t stand up to her!” Ash swerved into the other lane to pass, cutting too close as he moved back. The car behind them honked; Ash unrolled the window and waved the finger.

  “And what is this?” He gestured to two cars in front of them, side by side in the fast and slow lanes, going the same speed. He moved behind the one in the fast lane, gunning closer. “Move it, asshole!”

  “Back off,” Nate yelped.

  The car signaled right and started crossing over to the slow lane. Ash swerved around it, hitting the rumble strips on the shoulder of the road before jerking back. Rebus’s rear swayed, searching for traction, and then
gripped the road again. They shot forward. Greta stopped breathing at all, everything moving in slow motion.

  The whole car trembled, ripping past other vehicles.

  “Pull over, now!” Nate shouted.

  Ash snapped his head to the side to look at him, as if he suddenly remembered Nate was there. Their speed faltered.

  “This is my car, and I want you to pull over!” Pink blotches covered Nate’s paste-white face. He pointed to a roadside turnout ahead. “Right here! You hear me?”

  Ash pursed his lips, cocked his head to the side and gunned it. The vibration swallowed every other sound as they sped toward the turnout. He took the exit fast and jammed his foot on the brake. The world swirled around them, beautiful.

  This is how I die.

  On Rebus’s bald tires, the car ripped in a circle and a half before coming to a stop. They all sucked in a collective breath, now facing the highway they’d just left. Greta hugged the back of Nate’s seat, her cheek pressed against the headrest. The gearshift clunked as Ash shifted it into Park. He turned the key toward him. Rebus shuddered and fell silent. The only sound was Nate panting like a dog.

  Ash closed his eyes and swallowed. He pulled the key from the ignition and offered it to Nate, his hand trembling. “I’m sorry.”

  Nate paused, then snatched the key away.

  Ash gripped the steering wheel with both hands, his head drooping forward. “Damn him!” He beat his palm against the wheel. Then he opened the door and leaped out, falling against the hood of the car, scrambling to get his feet under him. Rebus rocked, convulsed.

  “Hey!” Nate shouted, fumbling with his seat belt.

  Ash strode to the outer edge of the rest stop, where pines rimmed the clear space. Combat boots flailing, he kicked a garbage can once, twice. It rolled on its side, spilling fast-food garbage into the snow. Greta could see the dent from where she sat, her nails squeezing half moons into her palms. The back of Nate’s seat held her head upright. Another car pulled in behind them, idled for a second and then turned back to the highway.

  Ash stopped and looked skyward, as if waiting for something. His breath billowed around him, like he’d just run a marathon. His black jacket slipped off his shoulders and his boot laces hung loose. Unraveling.

  Nate opened his door and walked around to the driver’s seat, leaving the passenger door hanging open. Any warmth was whisked away in one gust. A minute passed. Ash raked his hands through his hair and stumbled back to them. The whole car shuddered as he dropped into his seat—the heaviest person in the world.

  Ash exhaled, expelling the last sliver of light in him. “He’s dead to me.” They waited for more. “Let’s go.”

  Nate turned the key, and Rebus started—loyal, forgiving. They drove eighty on the highway, hazard lights blinking.

  For the next hour Greta watched Ash absorb the weight of every particle around him. Rebus tilted lower on Ash’s side—subtle but discernable. Greta buckled her seat belt to keep from sliding toward him, falling into his black hole. Dark matter. Nonluminous. This time Ash’s head did loll from side to side with the movement of the car. It was as if he’d come back from the rest stop, buckled his seat belt and ceased to live.

  Nate said, “I need to stop for gas,” and Ash’s long arm held out thirty dollars across the canyon of space between them.

  They pulled into an Esso station in a hamlet called Gunn. When he got out to pump the gas, Greta and Ash sat in silence, not wanting to think past that moment. Heading home to a dark question mark.

  Nate paid for the gas and climbed back in. “Here,” he said, tossing a jumbo package of licorice into Ash’s lap. “I only had five bucks left, so I got us something to share.”

  Greta saw Ash cock his head in her direction, ever so slightly.

  “It’s cold in here.” Greta dragged her blanket into Ash’s storage room and flopped onto a pile of discarded clothes lying on the floor beside his mattress. “Do you want me to light the oven?”

  Ash lifted his head and then dropped it back on the pillow. He lay on top of the blankets, as if he had fallen on that very spot and was waiting for the earth to drift over him. She touched the bare skin of his arm. A cadaver.

  “Ash, move. At least cover yourself.” She tugged at the blanket under his body. He didn’t shift to help her. She took half of her blanket and covered him with it.

  This was worse, Ash like this. Worse than Patty and Roger high in an orange-painted dump in Whitecourt, driving around in his red truck, trying to forget two rocks left behind. Worse than the vibration of their slamming door still buzzing through her. Worse than the three-hour drive home in a barely heated Volvo. Worse than their thin “thank you” to Nate after nearly crashing his car, and the way he still managed to look sad for them at the end of it all. What was wrong with them? Here you go—we’ll pay you fifty bucks to nearly die.

  The cold. She’d felt it for so long now—hard to know when it even started. Something deep inside her clenched tight and trembled. Her toes, fingers aching numb for hours now. Her shoulders hunched up near her ears. She thought of the shower—at least fifteen good minutes of hot water before it would taper to a disappointing lukewarm. But then the frigid air would sting her the second her foot touched the bath mat, when the steam dissipated. Unbearable.

  A weak whistle in the vents signaled the heat kicking in—the actual heat from the furnace. It couldn’t touch her now; she was too far gone. Her body started shaking, accentuated by Ash’s dead stillness. He didn’t say anything, and she was grateful. She fell asleep curled up on his dirty laundry.

  Ash was already awake when she opened her eyes. Greta could always tell when he wasn’t sleeping. He lay on his back, watching the hint of morning through the open storage-room door. She twisted onto her back too, hiking the blanket up under her chin. The air attacked her exposed knee before she pulled it in.

  Ash laced his fingers behind his head. “How come you don’t seem that upset about Dad leaving?”

  Greta always assumed she didn’t have to explain with Ash. So disappointing, the times he proved her wrong. “You mean because I didn’t nearly cause a five-car pileup and kick over a garbage can?”

  Ash didn’t respond.

  “To be honest, I’m kind of in shock.” What would happen the moment they left the storage room?

  They let the silence sit.

  “But I’m not surprised,” Greta said. She felt Ash’s head snap in her direction. “Deep down, it’s what I thought would happen after I heard them talking.” Her stomach growled. Every part of her felt achy and hollow. “Even if I hadn’t heard them talking.”

  “We’ve lost them both,” Ash said. Greta knew he didn’t mean Patty. His words laid her flat. There was no way they’d ever climb out of the storage-room pit now.

  “Yes.”

  Ash became so still, even breathing didn’t move his body. How does he do that? Minutes passed.

  “What do we do now?” Greta asked. She knew Ash was waiting for her to say it first.

  His breath started again. “I guess we…get up. We go to school.”

  “Really?”

  “Won’t it be a red flag if we don’t? They’ll start calling home. Send social workers or something.”

  “They’ll call us at home to tell us we weren’t at school?”

  “You know what I mean,” he said. “We don’t want any more problems.”

  Was this Ash speaking? He climbed out of bed, disturbing her pocket of warmth. Greta scrambled to cover the breach in the blanket. He turned his back to her and pulled his T-shirt off, picking a clean one from the shelf. Through the dim sunlight, she saw the old scar on his shoulder blade from a tree house nail. His jeans were wrinkled from sleeping in them, hanging low on his skinny hips.

  Greta scoffed. “I think school is the least of our worries.”

  Ash pulled on the new shirt and tugged the silver chain hanging from the lightbulb. She winced, even though the wattage was pathetic. “Get up, Greta.�
�

  She pushed herself to her elbows, indignant. Then she saw his face, his jaw clenched but green eyes calm.

  “From this point on, I look out for you, and you look out for me,” Ash said. “Until Aunt Lori gets back from Arizona, we only have each other.”

  Ash was right—there were no other relatives in the picture. Roger’s parents had died when Greta and Ash were three, and their mother’s parents ran yoga retreats in Mexico. They couldn’t stand Roger when Diana was still alive, and now Ash and Greta were lucky to get the occasional Christmas card in the mail. Greta didn’t even know how to reach them.

  She flopped back onto the dirty laundry. School. Ash didn’t know what it cost her, going there every day. She wanted him to know without her saying the words out loud. What relief, what terror that would be. And since Patty wasn’t there to get annoyed about Greta being home during the day, or Roger to show mediocre interest in test scores, there was no reason anymore. Cut the whole thing loose and float away.

  “There’s one day left in the term. We get up. We go. Then we write our exams. And we keep going until we’re done with that school and all of this.” He motioned to the storage room around him, but Greta knew what he meant. This—this substandard life. The glint of anger returned to his eyes, and his chest puffed tighter against his shirt. “Get up, Greta. Please.”

  She reached out for him to pull her up. “Fine,” she said, shaking his hand away the second her feet were under her. “I’ll go, but you have to stick with me. Where do you go anyway? You want me to come and then can’t get away fast enough.”

  Ash dropped his head. “I guess I always thought you were better off without me dragging you down. You stand a better chance of making friends on your own.”

  “Well,” she said, furious at the tremor in her voice, “you can see how well that’s working for me.” Tell him.

  Ash still didn’t look up. “Yeah. Okay. Sorry.”

  She nodded, even though he couldn’t see it. “You light the oven. I’m taking a shower.” She stepped through the door.

  FIVE

  “We should apologize to him,” Ash said, his shoulder against Greta’s on the bus. The front door swiveled open for a new passenger, letting in a gust of frigid air. Greta turned her head away from a couple making out near the front of the bus, focusing on Ash’s face instead. She zeroed in on a few strands of hair against his temple. Brown, dark, brunette, chocolate. She mentally listed off all the possible words for their coloring. Eyelashes: jet-black, inky, coal colored. Methodically Greta named every adjective she could think of, sucking in a breath to stave off that dizzy carsick feeling. Ash narrowed his eyes and watched her face. What did he just say? Right. Apologize. To? She looked around, still avoiding the front, like the one needing the apology was sitting beside them. Nate. Yes, Nate. Relief at being able to find the thread of conversation.