The Memory of Us

by Lisa Sorbe

  So, no.

  It’s either all or nothing.

  My father’s funeral was standing room only.

  Way back when, before our family was broken beyond repair, we lived our lives in the open, attending every trivial festival, block party, and holiday ceremony our little town put on. My mother volunteered for practically every committee, and many of my childhood memories include working events rather than attending them. The Everhart name was well-known in the Wolf Lake community, and upon hearing of my dad’s death, the whole town came out, clogging the little church where the service was being held.

  Samuel Everhart was the head of operations at the Walton-Ryan Paper Mill, back before going paperless was even a thought, and those years when the operation was under his supervision, business was good. His company title and the favorable way he dealt with all that needed dealing with at the mill gave him the cred needed for town council, and my dad sat in one of those coveted seats for six years before a myocardial infarction forced him off this plane of existence and into another. After that, Albert Butterworth took his chair, and though he got the job done, he was never as well liked as my dad.

  My mother’s funeral was slightly more diminished in attendance if only because, in the twenty years since her husband’s passing, she dropped her altruistic commitments and, aside from work, kept her interaction with society to a bare minimum. But she had a history, a legacy, and those that remembered her contributions filled the pews out of respect for the woman she was, not for the one she’d become.

  Mike and I receded from the rush of life after my father passed, as well. Even so, his funeral was filled to the brim, too, the pews bulging with students he never spoke to and teachers who never taught him and townspeople who cried into their tissues because someone so young had needlessly died in such a reckless way. His memorial was more of a horse-and-pony show, teenagers wagging their tongues in gossip and adults looking down their noses and lamenting over the state of the country’s youth.

  I planned and executed Mike’s funeral alone, my mother having finally fallen into the void that had already been yawning beneath her for years. Which is how I know exactly what it takes to submerge a body into the ground, how to pack it away like an old relic we’re too afraid to let go of. At sixteen, I went through the burial process from start to finish, from picking a burial vault to a casket, to a gravestone and, finally, to the suit in which Mike would be buried. There were vendors to pay and the newspaper announcement to make, something which the mortician Mr. Hucklebee, a kind man with a kind face, graciously assisted me with. But it all seemed rather pointless; Mike was already gone. And wherever he was—if he was anywhere at all—he certainly didn’t need his body anymore. Why go through the fuss?

  As much as I thought I was fine at the time, identifying my brother’s body and browsing vaults and caskets and funeral attire at sixteen, I’m not so sure I was. To this day, I can’t watch a horror movie where zombies rise from their graves, using clawed fingers to pull themselves from the soiled remains of their coffins without giving whoever I’m watching it with a stern lecture that that could never happen in real life, what with the solid congruency of the casket and the way it’s sealed in a burial vault that no one—not even the living dead—could break out of.

  Sometimes, though, I can’t help but wonder about my own death. As an attorney, I’ve had a will since I was twenty-five, stating matter-of-factly that I wish to be cremated, with no memorial service following the flame. I don’t need a bunch of people mourning my passing, claiming they love me just as much in death as they did in life.

  I don’t need anyone making a fuss over me.

  Of course, if I keep going the way I am, I doubt it will even be an issue.

  What happens to us when we become adults?

  As kids, we recklessly tear into adventure, damn the consequences.

  As grown-ups, we hem and haw over our decisions, considering potential outcomes from every possible angle, how things could go wrong, rarely how they could go right.

  I guess some people just expect the fall. Wait for it, as if it’s inevitable, something they can’t avoid no matter what they do.

  And I’m not sure what type of person I am. Do I expect the fall, wait for the drop? Or do I charge ahead, regardless of the consequences?

  I used to be so certain of who I was, in where I was going.

  But now? Now I’m not so sure.

  In life, one could say that that I’m strong. That I rise and grind, plow ahead regardless of setbacks or losses. That I tear through the day, the months, and the years with purpose. One foot in front of the other, so to speak, minute after minute…until it all finally comes to an end.

  In love, though? In love, I know I’m weak. I know it.

  And that just doesn’t bode well. At all. Because what I’m starting to realize is that you can’t have a life without love, because life is love. Or, getting even pickier, maybe love is life.

  Either way you dice it, it all boils down to this.

  I’m not as strong as I thought I was.

  The first time we attempted to spend the night at the old Clapper house, I was exhilarated. The threat of what might lurk in a long-abandoned residence never entered my young mind. I didn’t think about the scores of rodents and insects (and every sort of creepy crawly thing in between) that could be nesting in the floorboards, the walls, the rafters in the ceiling. I didn’t stop and consider that there might be squatters living in the dank and dark rooms, making their beds on molding carpet and swilling whiskey or shooting drugs into their veins. Nor did I worry about rotting wood or falling beams or weak floors.

  And the fact that the entire town thought the place was haunted, that some of the residents swore they saw spectral lights flickering in the windows at night, illuminating the ghostly silhouettes of shrouded figures long after the Clapper family abandoned it back in the late 1930’s? Well… All of that just made the whole thing even more enticing.

  So, no. I didn’t care about any of those things back then, when I was eleven and my childish optimism was yet untouched by the darkness to come. I was just a girl yearning for a life that was less humdrum and far more remarkable than the one I had.

  But I care about all of those things now.

  “This is a bad idea.”

  I stare at the list in my hand, the paper trembling not from nerves but from the jolt of West’s truck as it hits a pothole.

  “It’s not a bad idea,” West counters for what seems the hundredth time since we decided to knock spend the night in a haunted house off the list a few days ago.

  I persist. “It’s irresponsible.”

  “It’s not irresponsible.”

  I peer out the window, craning my neck to look farther ahead. “And you’re sure the place is still standing?”

  “In a sense.”

  “In a sense?” I repeat, my voice a squeak.

  West is having fun with this, my trepidation, and it’s like our roles are reversed. Whereas, years ago, he was the wary one, now I am. In fact, if we pulled up to the old place and found it collapsed in on itself, nothing but a pile of rubble and ruin, I wouldn’t be disappointed.

  My type-A personality would just have to deal with it.

  I blow out a breath and settle back in my seat. “This is a bad idea.”

  Casper barks from the backseat, as if to agree.

  “Casper thinks you’re overreacting,” West says, shooting a smirk my way.

  “Whatever. Casper totally agrees with me.” I turn in my seat and reach back, scratching him under his chin. “Don’t you, sweet boy? Huh?”

  Casper’s grumble of assent is practically a purr, and he flicks his tongue out, swiping it against my hand before I pull it away.

  I arch a brow at West and gloat. “See?”

  West rolls his eyes like a twelve-year old girl and presses down hard on the accelerator, causing me to jerk back in my seat.

  “Asshole,” I mutter. Then, “Casper is
tough though, right? I mean, he can stand up to a threat and everything, can’t he?” I cast my gaze back at the dog, my uncertainty reflecting in my words, and he returns my stare with a dopey look. In my presence, at least, he’s never been more than a big slobbery goofball. A few days ago, before West returned from his business trip, I saw Cas run from a chattering squirrel, scuttlebutting across the yard like his tail end was on fire.

  West confirms my suspicion with an amused snort. “Nah. Cas is way more of a lover than a fighter.”

  I sink back in my seat, defeated. Welp, this is it. Tonight I’m either going to get taken down by a thug who’s high on meth or plummet to my death through a soft spot in the warped floorboards.

  And let’s not forget about the evil spirits rumored to reside at the old place, intent on destroying any living thing that comes calling.

  Because, you know, there’s always that possibility.

  I purse my lips together, use my best cross-examination voice. “Are you aware,” I ask, lifting my chin and sitting up straight, “that a child went missing around here? We were in kindergarten, and the boy was only three years ahead of us in school.”

  Much to my dismay, West nods.

  Damn, I thought maybe I could scare him. Still, I press on. “His body was found barely a mile from the Clapper property, if I remember correctly. Authorities speculated, however, that the foul play may have occurred in the house.” I study West out of the corner of my eye. “The house.”

  “Yep, I remember the rumors.”

  I frown. He’s not responding the way I hoped. “They aren’t rumors. They’re fact.”

  “You were aware of all this back then, Laney. And you were still gun-ho to break and enter.” He smiles, biting back a laugh. “I remember you had this old New Kids on the Block sleeping bag, and you tucked that thing under your arm and marched right up the porch steps.” His shoulders are shaking hard now, and the laugh explodes from him with such force that the momentum washes away even my dour expression. “Then Officer Sorenson turns up, angry as hell, and instead of going quietly, you argue with him. Argue! Like we had the right to be there or something.” West slides his eyes my way, the laughter softening on his lips. “Thinking back on it, I can see why you became an attorney. Though,” he muses, turning his attention back to the road, “I always thought you’d end up a writer.”

  I smile at the memory. Oh, how I’d hated Officer Sorenson that night. Even now, I can feel the fiery frustration I felt then, sense the phantom pressure of his meaty hand on my shoulder as he steered us toward his cruiser, our heads bowed, our adventure thwarted. I’d had big plans for that night; during the bike ride there I was certain that something magical was going to happen, something profound and mystical and unexplainable and that maybe, just maybe, I might even be able to turn it into a book.

  I was constantly looking for inspiration, searching for my creativity, a quality I craved but one that always seemed to elude me, if only because I could never slow my mind down long enough to cultivate it.

  Striving, striving, striving. Even back then, I was always one step ahead of the moment, never content with letting things come to me. I craved control at a young age, became obsessed with it as I grew older.

  But I can’t control this moment now, because West is already pulling off onto a dirt road. He parks the truck behind a patchy grove of trees, where it’s well hidden from the old street that dead ends at the Clapper house. When I look at him quizzically, he explains, “We probably don’t want to advertise that we’re there. At least,” he amends, “not in a truck with my company logo splashed across the door.”

  He winks at me and then hops down from the cab, pushing the seat forward so Casper can stumble not-so-graciously after him.

  I step out, my sneakered feet immediately landing in grass that hits my shins. “So we’re like, what? About a mile away?”

  “Just half,” comes West’s voice from somewhere around the tailgate.

  I sigh, not having expected to hike it in, but totally understand why it’s a smart move. But having the vehicle so far away makes me nervous, and the caterpillar that cocooned itself right under my ribcage back when we were planning this little adventure now breaks free and takes flight, my stomach swooning with its movement. With the safety of the truck so far away, where will we retreat? How will we make a quick getaway if things become too hot to handle in there?

  And that thought alone makes me wonder…

  Am I more afraid of spending the night in a sleeping bag next to West than I am of any of the other terrors that could be lurking in the old house?

  I slap at my neck, squashing a mosquito the size of Casper into a slimy pulp.

  Okay, so maybe it’s not the size of a Labrador Retriever, but it’s pretty damn big. I’d forgotten how bad the mosquitos can get up here, swarming your sweaty skin when you’re out walking under the blazing sun, the humidity wrapping around you like a damp blanket you can’t shake off. Most of the time you can’t even sense the bloodsucker’s spindly little legs scurrying across your skin until you feel the pinch of its bite.

  I trudge along next to West, who’s humming some old Tom Petty song under his breath, and slap at another insect on my arm.

  “I hate mosquitos,” I mumble.

  West stops humming long enough to answer me. “Who doesn’t?”

  Who doesn’t indeed?

  “It can’t be much farther, can it?” I’m not at all winded, but the day is hot and the breeze is warm, and the backpack I’m carrying is digging more and more into the soft skin of my shoulders with each step.

  West looks at me and smirks, like he’s in on some joke that I’m not aware of. He’s also sporting a backpack, and swinging from his hands is a cooler packed with sub sandwiches and drinks.

  “What’s up with you?” I ask, the unease about tonight’s venture tripling in an instant. “You’re certainly more jolly than the last time we attempted this.”

  “And you,” he says, quickening his pace, “are dragging ass.” His long legs move him up the road at twice the speed mine can carry me, and I have to jog to catch up. When he rounds a corner in the bend, I curse, hitch my backpack up higher, and scurry after him.

  And then stop short.

  The Clapper house, at least from the way I remember it, was an old broken-down Victorian mansion with a crumbling porch, broken windows, and dilapidated roof that housed who knew how many bats and birds and other creatures of the night.

  But now…

  The entire structure has been renovated, from the tip of the widow’s peak (that before would have guaranteed tragedy to anyone who stepped on it) to the wrap-around porch (that now looks sturdy enough to weather the weight of an eight-hundred-pound moose). The wood, once silvered with age, has been painted a soft gray, and the pillars and trim are a contrasting white that accentuate the black shutters flanking the shiny windows. A humble sign, simply stating Adrift Bed & Breakfast sits at the edge of the expansive yard, just to the right of the inn’s long driveway.

  I glance at West, who’s looking rather proud of himself. “You knew?”

  “Of course I knew. Do you really think I’d have let us step even one foot in the place if it still looked the way it did back then?” He rubs his chin and winks at me. “That’d be a little irresponsible, don’t you think?”

  “But you…you said… I mean, you made it seem like we were going to go through with it! You even made us walk…” I shake my head and give his shoulder a light nudge. “You’re an ass.” I fold my arms over my chest and frown at the house. “So, what? We’re gonna stay here, then? In a quaint little B&B like some couple on a romantic getaway?”

  “Not exactly,” West says, his lips twitching as he holds back an amused smile. “We’re going to go in there and pretend we’re ghost hunters. And that you,” he points at me, his eyes twinkling, “are writing a book about haunted inns of the Midwest.”

  My mouth drops.

  But then…

  �
�Not ghost hunters, “ I say, getting into the role. “Paranormal investigators.”

  West cocks a brow.

  “It sounds more professional.”

  A ghost of excitement flits through my middle, rises into my chest. A sense of freedom washes over me; I feel like a kid again, where anything is possible and I can be anyone I want to be.

  And right now, a ghost hunter—er, paranormal investigator—sounds pretty damn fun.

  West asked me to homecoming our sophomore year.

  It was right after Mike died, and I figured he only asked out of pity.

  And I accepted, if only to feel normal again.

  I found a dress on the rack of a second-hand store in downtown Wolf Lake, the material a beautiful burgundy velvet that hit the floor and hugged my blossoming curves. It had a smooth silhouette, cap sleeves, and a bateau neckline that I topped off with a single strand pearl choker that I dug out of my mother’s jewelry box. I darkened my eyes with a smoky shadow, swiped a nude stain over my lips, and rolled my hair into a French twist using a cheap plastic clip that looked more expensive than it was.

  Nerves wracked me as I waited for him to ring the doorbell that night, the silence of the house reminding me of how empty it was. There was no father around to give West “the talk”. Nor, any longer, was there an older brother to pick up the slack. My mother was already asleep in her room, too weary to face the evening after a long morning of faking normalcy at the bank. So there was only me, and as the sun sank below the horizon and the shadows crept out from the corners, I was left alone to pace the silent living room, twisting my hands together so I wouldn’t pull out my hair.

  It wasn’t that I was nervous to be with West. While I knew this wasn’t a real date, it was still a date-like scenario, and the thought of even being on a fake date with him had my stomach wound up in knots. We’d barely talked all summer…and maybe only once or twice since the schoolyear started. He hadn’t yet become a stranger to me, but it was like I could sense that what we had—everything we’d been to each other over the years—was coming to an end.