Reagan's Ashes

by Jim Heskett

  Contents

  Copyright

  Tonahutu Map

  MONDAY

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  TUESDAY

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  WEDNESDAY

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THURSDAY

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  FRIDAY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  SATURDAY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Note to Readers

  Reagan’s Ashes

  by

  Jim Heskett

  Copyright © 2015 by Jim Heskett

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Published by Royal Arch Books

  Www.RoyalArchBooks.com

  Cover Design by Kit Foster

  Please consider leaving a review once you have finished this book, and sign up for my mailing list to get notified of new releases, plus receive a free ebook collection of short stories.

  Monday

  CHAPTER ONE

  11:00 am

  Reagan Darby swept a hand along the silky surface of an empty coffin. Dad’s memorial service left her as hollow and pointless as the just-for-show container before her. Mitchell Darby’s actual remains dwelled in a small cardboard box, his ash and bone fragments waiting to be transferred into the urn he’d owned for years.

  Reagan should have been on a trip to New Orleans with her boyfriend. Instead she was in Denver at a memorial service for a man who’d been exactly twice her age when he died. He took care of his body, as far as she knew. Made no sense. Wasn’t right to go out this way.

  Mitchell Darby was now hidden away in a box on a shelf. Reagan Darby stood before a shell of a thing, not an actual thing. Schrödinger's coffin.

  She peeked at Spoon, her fair-haired Australian boyfriend, as he sat among the onlookers in wooden pews. The pair of crutches resting next to him clashed with his charcoal-colored suit. He offered her a feeble smile, and while she appreciated the effort, she couldn’t muster one in return.

  Spoon’s smile reminded her of Dad’s smile. She could never see that again. In time, the memory of the smile would fade, and that’s what twisted the vice grip of grief in her stomach.

  The lid of the casket remained closed to hide the emptiness. Why was it even here? What was the point of all of this? All these people with faces pulled toward the floor, tears streaking reddened cheeks as they mourned a wooden box.

  Orange began to flare as the anger built up inside her. Empty box. Just an empty box. He deserved better than an empty box.

  Before rage overtook her, she fled from the raised platform, down the carpeted steps and through the aisles. Heads turned to watch her flight. She escaped out the front door, a gust of stark Colorado air stinging her nostrils. After living in Texas the last few years, she’d become ill-adjusted to both the altitude and abject dryness of her home state.

  She slid onto the steps, staring at her hands. Lightheadedness spotted the world for several seconds until she reminded herself to breathe. Her face felt slick with tears.

  With one hand extended, she practiced opening and closing the fingers, accepting and rejecting. Accepting and rejecting.

  The door opened behind her. Spoon eased into a sit, thrusting his injured knee forward and laying it across the steps. He rested his crutches next to him, then put an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him, feeling his solid body pressing back against her. He didn’t give any ground, and she needed that right now. The comfort of stability.

  “I used to get so excited about coming home,” she said. “Not so much anymore. There’s a reception at my dad and stepmom’s house after this, then we can change our New Orleans flight to tomorrow. You can still make your interview.”

  “Do you reckon we should wait on that? I can call the recruiter and tell them now’s not the right time.”

  She considered the next few days spent in Denver, visiting old friends. They would goad her into smiling, mourn with her, fill the minutes with awkward silence and offer her beer and weed to console her. “I think he would want us to go. Not wallow in it here, surrounded by all this gloom.”

  He sighed. “We can talk about New Orleans later. Do you want to have a chat about what happened back in there?”

  “That wasn’t him in that box.” She adjusted her dress and pulled her hair back. “Forty-eight is too young for a heart attack, but maybe it’s better this way, you know, how he went, instead of all slow and shriveled in a hospital bed or unable to move half his face from a stroke. I wouldn’t want to remember him that way.”

  He kept silent, only leaned close and kissed her temple. Nothing he could have said would have made her feel better. Still, she felt grateful to have him sit with her, not offering advice or trying to fix her pain.

  Then she considered his question. How must she have appeared to everyone else, fleeing like a woman on fire? “Okay, I shouldn’t have run out. But I’m not going to have an episode, if that’s what that look is for.”

  He averted his eyes.

  “I’m just…” she almost said sad, but that wasn’t the correct word. Empty would be better, but that also didn’t cover it. She approximated a smile and considered trying to reassure him. But any promises about her state were only lies, and she didn’t want to do that to him. “We can go back in now.”

  Reagan and Spoon stood together, and she helped him place the crutches under his armpits.

  With each step toward the building, it seemed to move further away. She kept flashing on Dad’s face and their last goodbye, six months ago at the Denver Airport. He’d smiled, but with misty eyes because she was leaving for Texas yet again.

  Inside the building, two dozen people in various hues of black and gray populated the lobby. They ate finger foods and chatted in forlorn tones. Eyes trained on her, and she felt their judgment burrow into her skin.

  Her cousin Dalton sauntered toward them, hands in his pockets and a smirk across his gaunt face. He looked almost grown up in his black jacket and khakis. Probably the nicest outfit in his wardrobe.

  “What’s up, cuz? How you holding up?”

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  Dalton flicked a chin toward Spoon. “This the boyfriend? Didn’t get a chance to say hi before.”

  Spoon offered his hand. “How are you going? I’m Spoon.”

  Dalton extended his bony arm, the cuffed sleeve of his sh
irt riding up to expose his tattoos. “What kind of name is Spoon?”

  “It’s a nickname. What kind of name is Dalton?”

  Dalton chuckled and elbowed Reagan in the ribs. “Nice. I like this one. I’m guessing by the crazy accent that you’re British or something?”

  “I’m from Melbourne,” Spoon said.

  Dalton cocked his head. “Mel-bun?”

  “Yeah,” Spoon said. “That’s in Australia.”

  Across the room, Reagan’s stepmother Anne was leaning against a window, shards of light making her black dress sparkle. She held a flask in one hand and a stack of stapled papers in the other. She flicked through them, her mouth dropping open by increasing degrees with each page turn.

  Anne slipped the flask into her purse and strode across the room, her eyes locked on Reagan. The look of disbelief morphed into anger as Anne waved the papers in front of her stepdaughter’s face. “The attorney dropped this off.”

  “What is it?” Reagan said.

  Anne sneered. “Just an official record of the nothing we have now.” She snatched an envelope from her purse and pushed it into Reagan’s stomach. “The attorney gave me this too. It’s for you.”

  Reagan opened the envelope and unfolded the paper inside, and her eyes jumped to Dad’s handwritten signature at the bottom of the typed note. She read from the words Dearest Reagan at the top. The letter requested she carry Dad’s ashes into Rocky Mountain National Park and release them into Lake Nanita.

  “What kind of sick person picks out his own urn?” Anne said before spinning on her heels, returning to her spot next to the window, and disappearing back into her flask.

  Even in mourning, Anne could still be quite a bitch.

  Reagan’s eyes unfocused as the words swam on the page. Taking Dad’s ashes into the park they both loved to say goodbye seemed like something she should do, but also seemed like there might not be enough tissues in the world to handle all the sobbing that would come with it. She might have to start buying Kleenex stock.

  Dalton snatched the letter out of Reagan’s hand and scanned it, mouthing the words as he read. “You’re going camping?”

  Reagan and Spoon both looked at his crutches and the brace covering his knee.

  Spoon’s lips parted as his eyebrows crept up his forehead.

  Looking from the letter to Spoon and back, she knew what she had to do. Despite the burden, doing this would make it okay. This letter held the path to closing the empty casket. “It’s okay. I can do this alone. I should do this alone.”

  “What about New Orleans?” Spoon said. “I thought you still wanted to go.”

  “If you need to go, go on without me. I have to stay and do this.”

  A buzzing sound. Dalton slinked away from the circle to squint at his phone, then he shot a glance at Reagan. He cupped a hand around the illuminated screen, shielding it from her. Dalton had a secret.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  ***

  11:15 am

  Dalton Darby exited the stuffy funeral parlor and rounded the corner toward a blue Chevy Tahoe idling beside the curb. His pulse quickened as the passenger-side window rolled down. A mist of cigarette smoke billowed, spread, then evaporated into the air.

  When Dalton looked through the open window, he didn’t recognize the driver. But he knew the heavyset passenger with the banana-shaped scar under his right eye. He wore dark sunglasses, his face still and expressionless.

  The large man sucked in a deep breath. “They get the will?”

  Dalton fumbled in his pocket for a pack of smokes. As he lit one, the anticipation soothed his nerves before he even had a chance to inhale. “Anne just-about shit herself. I didn’t get to see the will, but she made it sound like there’s no inheritance.”

  The man grunted, which sent a shudder through Dalton.

  “Your uncle always was a slippery bastard. I’m not all that surprised he’d play it this way, but I can deal with that. Anything else?”

  “No, not really,” Dalton said. Then his head twitched when he remembered the envelope. “He did leave a letter for her, though.”

  The man rotated toward Dalton, making the leather on the seat squeak. He took off his sunglasses. “Reagan?”

  Dalton nodded.

  “Did you see this letter?”

  “Uncle Mitch wants her to take his ashes into Rocky Mountain and dump them in some lake.”

  The man sat back, leaning against the headrest and narrowing his eyes at the roof of the truck. He fingered the wiry goatee protruding from his chin. “Slippery bastard. It’s on the trail somewhere and he’s stashed it, thinking we won’t realize he’s sending her out there to get it.”

  Dalton stepped forward, placing his hands on the side of the car. He only half-understood what the man was talking about, but wasn’t about to admit it. “Yeah, that’s what I think, too. What do you want me to do?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  7:00 pm

  Reagan arranged backpacking supplies on her old bed while Spoon rested his surgically repaired knee and flipped through her high school senior yearbook. A Tori Amos song wafted from tinny Bluetooth speakers on the nightstand.

  Organize, cry, repeat. The Kleenex box followed her around the room like a puppy.

  Back in Austin, she had an Arc’teryx raincoat, a Big Agnes down sleeping bag, LED Mammut headlamp and a nearly-new ultra-light GoLite tent. Here, she had her father’s dilapidated camping gear and a handful of items she’d left after their last mountain excursion.

  Fortunately, she had her own long underwear and non-cotton layers for the chilly high-altitude nights. What she didn’t have were hiking boots that fit. Dad’s size 13s were so large they might as well have been clown shoes. Just looking at them, and the possibility of slipping her feet into them brought more tears to her weary red eyes. Sleeping in his tent, not so bad. But wearing his boots… somehow, that was ground she couldn’t cross.

  She’d arranged items into categories of emergency gear, clothing, food and cooking gear, and hiking gear. Dad’s hiking poles were in the worst shape, but beat-up poles were a badge of honor. Shiny new poles meant you were a noob who hadn’t put in your miles on the trail.

  Then there was the urn, shaped like a vase, but made from varnished wood. Slippery to the touch like porcelain and about the size of a football. She’d duct-taped it shut with multiple layers… the prospect of her father’s remains spilling inside the backpack stirred the bile in her stomach.

  Spoon said nothing as she took inventory of what would be her sole possessions over the next four days. He occasionally flicked his eyes toward her, over the top of her yearbook, then quickly retreated. Naturally, he acted as if he didn’t want her to go, and he had good reasons.

  She picked up her father’s camp stove and turned it in her hands. “He was too young to have a heart attack.”

  Spoon took in a breath then let it eke out between his lips without saying anything. A few seconds later, he held out the yearbook toward her, his finger pointing to a grainy black and white picture of her dressed as Emily Webb in Our Town. “I didn’t know you did theater.”

  “Just freshman and sophomore year. Too much trouble remembering all those lines. And they were going to do Greater Tuna the next year, which I’ve always thought was a racist play. Not for me.”

  She took a break from organizing and withdrew three pill bottles from her suitcase. She opened them all and took one blue pill, one pink pill, and a tiny yellow pill. He stared at her while she did this. The concern in his eyes burrowed into her as she went into the bathroom to fill a cup with water.

  He propped himself up on the bed, grimacing. “Why do you reckon your mum didn’t come?”

  She knocked back the pills and washed them down with the sink water, then pumped a blob of lotion into her hands and slathered it on her forearms. “Why would she break her streak now?”

  “I don’t see how she could do that to you.”

  He ob
viously meant well, but looking for blame wasn’t helping. Reagan wasn’t mad at her mom for leaving, or for not reaching out when she was going through a rough time after she dropped out of college, or even for not coming to Dad’s service. What was the point of being angry at someone else? All roads eventually ended.

  Spoon sighed, and she saw more hiding behind his eyes; something he didn’t want to say.

  “Whatever you’re thinking, please tell me. I know there’s something wrong.”

  “It’s just you’re going through so much right now. And this trip…”

  “The trip to New Orleans?”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m going to call the company I was going to interview for and tell them it’s going to have to wait.”

  “What will you do instead?”

  “I’m going to stay right here in case you need anything.”

  She smiled. “That’s sweet.”

  “I’m not too keen on parading my bad knee around New Orleans anyway. I was referring to the other trip. I’m trying to say… and I would never give you unsolicited advice, but… I know that, for me, when I’m in times of stress, that it becomes easy for me to think that my way of thinking is absolutely correct, when it’s usually not.”

  She stood in the doorway of the bathroom and wiped a tear from her eye. But she was also smiling at Spoon’s adorable attempt to give her non-advice advice.

  She sat next to him on the bed and laced her fingers through his. He was warm, and his skin felt dry against her freshly-moisturized hands. “I know you love me.”

  “I do,” he said.

  “Baby, I need you to be supportive right now.”

  His mouth dropped open. “Oh, I do support you. I’m not saying you can’t go, but I don’t understand why you have to go out bush-walking right now. Let it sit a few months to have a good think about it, so you can go when you don’t have all the rest of this hanging over you.”

  “It’s the perfect time right now. I don’t have a shift at the restaurant until next week. Besides, this is what he wanted. I owe it to him. Maybe I’m not explaining this all very well?”