Reagan's Ashes

by Jim Heskett

  She gasps. “I knew it. I felt that you were hurting. I could feel it in my bones as soon as it happened. I’m going to heal you too.”

  A little rasp escapes his lips. “What has gotten into you?”

  “Stay there. I’ll come get you.”

  She hangs up the phone, mildly annoyed that he seemed distrustful. The man and woman are still staring, and she gives them a wave before leaping from her chair. Her muscles scream, but she ignores the burning and rushes to the car.

  She starts it up and races out of the parking lot. Broomfield. Spoon. Healing. The course is clear.

  Must drive slowly through Winterpark. Cops are everywhere, lurking, waiting, watching. Past the town, she can speed up again, and she has to pay vigorous attention as she passes cars going up the twisty roads that will lead her back to I-70. She wishes she had time to stop at the many pullouts that overlook the severe mountain peaks slicing the sky. But there’s no time. Spoon. Broomfield. Hospital.

  I-70 eastbound slows her down. Too much traffic. Not as bad as the westbound lanes, though, with the dribble of cars going into the mountains clogging the interstate. Denverites, leaving work early on Friday afternoons to shuttle their families into the touristy mountain towns and escape the city heat. They’ll take the kids zip-lining and through mine tours while the grownups drink high-altitude microbrews and listen to real estate pitches. Not the life Reagan ever pictured for herself, but if it makes them happy, more power to them.

  When she reaches Idaho Springs, just thirty miles from Broomfield, she finds the source of the congestion. A car has stalled on the shoulder, and the cops have closed traffic to a single lane. Past it, she can pick up speed again.

  Healing. Broomfield. Spoon. Dad. Nanita. Grandpa. Healing. Dalton. The Educational Center. Aching knees. Spoon.

  As she exits I-70 and turns onto the road that will lead to her boyfriend, the sun begins to set over the mountains behind her. The sparse clouds dotting the sky turn pink, then purple. Snow still caps the tips of some of the peaks, glistening gold as the sun frames the angles. Sunsets always amaze her.

  The drive to Broomfield takes another thirty minutes. When the Good Samaritan hospital finally appears next to the road, her heart scrambles into her throat, pulsing the energy of the whole universe into one giant rotating siren. Spoon. It’s almost time.

  She races through the hospital’s parking lot to reach Subway. The ticks of the clock begin to slow as she reaches her final destination, the only thing she’s wanted since she left the park those few hours ago. Has it been hours? Seems like only minutes. She glides into a parking spot and gazes through the store window at a set of crutches leaning against a table. He’s there, but facing away from her.

  She leaps from the car and skips to the door. Throws it open.

  “Baby!” she says.

  He turns, and her excitement bleeds to horror when she sees what has happened to his face.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  4:40 pm

  Dalton and Charlie had spent the remainder of their time in the park grumbling at each other. Dalton’s little bitch of a brother barely scraped his leg but whined for most of yesterday as if he’d lost a limb. The cut had already scabbed over.

  When they left the park and entered cell-phone-service area, Dalton called Tyson. As the phone rang, Dalton’s throat turned into the Sahara dessert, which made swallowing difficult. Having to disappoint his old man didn’t lead to warm fuzzy feelings.

  “What did you find out?” Tyson said, right after the call connected. No hello or anything like that.

  Charlie opened the glove box, fished out a fast food napkin, and blew his nose so loudly that Dalton switched the phone to his other ear.

  “We… uh… she didn’t have the money. She did, though, tell us she has a key. She wouldn’t tell me what it’s for—”

  Tyson grunted. “I already know what it’s for. Your grandad told me all about it. For a safety deposit box somewhere in Denver, at one of the banks around here. I just wasn’t sure that she had it with her.”

  Safety deposit box? That made perfect sense and now seemed like the only real possibility. As if uncle Mitch would hide a bunch of money out in the woods. Ridiculous idea.

  “Did you see the actual key?” Tyson said.

  “Uh, no, but she said she had it.”

  “She has it, and you don’t. What the hell were you doing out there for four days?”

  Dalton tried to speak, but only a sputter came out.

  “Are you talking to him right now?” Charlie said.

  Dalton cradled the phone between his ear and shoulder so he could free up a hand to smack Charlie on the arm. Then he held a finger to his lips, giving his little brother the death-stare.

  “What do you want me to do?” Dalton said.

  “Get your ass back here. I’m in Broomfield, in the parking lot of the Good Samaritan hospital off 287. West end of the parking lot. I’m watching the boyfriend lick his wounds at a sandwich shop, so she’ll come around looking for him eventually.”

  “Spoon. His name is Spoon,” Dalton said.

  “I know what his goddamned name is,” Tyson said, and then the phone beeped when the call ended.

  “What’s going on?” Charlie said.

  “He’s onto the boyfriend. We have to meet him in Broomfield so we can follow them when they leave. Those clueless idiots will lead us right to the money.”

  Charlie’s face fell as he stared at the dashboard. Breaths whistled through his nose. “Take me back to my apartment.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? He wants us to meet him.”

  His brother looked at him, tears in his eyes. “I don’t want to do this. I never agreed to do anything that would hurt Reagan. You twisted the truth around and made it seem like all of this was okay, but it’s not.”

  “Grow up.”

  “You pulled a knife on her, Dalton.”

  Dalton slapped the dashboard. “Because it’s what he wants. She may be our cousin, but he’s our dad. If you’re going to claim family, he’s higher up the chain.”

  Charlie looked away, out the window. “Take me home. I’m sorry that I punched you out on the trail, but I don’t want to be a part of all this stuff anymore.”

  Dalton squeezed the steering wheel until his hands ached. “Fine.”

  The detour to return Charlie home took him twenty minutes out of his way to the Denver suburb of Westminster, and Dalton didn’t say a word to his brother for the rest of the trip. Dalton hated this shitty neighborhood. Full of thugs. After pulling into a parking space in front of the apartment, Dalton popped the trunk but left the engine running.

  Charlie looked at him, desperate sorrow in his eyes. Dalton didn’t care because the whiny bitch had brought this on himself. Dalton waved the back of his hand toward his brother, flicking him away with a single gesture. No teary goodbyes, please.

  Charlie hefted his backpack from the trunk, stepped aside, then Dalton squealed the tires as he slammed on the gas.

  Now alone, he started to worry about seeing his dad for the first time since after uncle Mitch’s funeral. Dalton had a definite goal and he failed. He didn’t know anything that Tyson didn’t know and had nothing useful to provide. He’d have to do something monumental to atone.

  Every mile closer to the hospital was another hitch in his anxiety level. He drove too fast, took the turns too sharply. When he pulled into the hospital, his stomach lurched and he had to pull over and open the door. He didn’t puke, but he spent a couple minutes waiting and spitting the excess saliva pooling at the back of his mouth. Eventually, the feeling subsided and he started searching the parking lot for Tyson.

  He was going to have to do better. Try harder. Be more cunning. Never again would he disappoint the old man like this again. He spotted the blue truck in a corner spot, under the shade of a massive tree. As he pulled into the empty spot next to it, they both rolled their windows down.

  Tyson sat in the driver’s seat, which was
odd. He usually had a driver. Country music twanged from the truck’s speakers. “What took you so long?”

  “I had to take Charlie home. He didn’t want to come.”

  Tyson mused on this for a second, then nodded. “Okay, that’s fine. He’d probably get in the way, anyway.”

  “Dad, if you’d give me a chance, I can explain what—”

  “I don’t want your goddamn explanations. I gave you one job. One job. Whatever you were doing out there in the woods for the last four days, it doesn’t matter now. All I want to know now is: how far are you willing to go to make this right?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  7:30 pm

  Reagan lets the door to Subway close behind her. Spoon’s face is battered and bruised, plastered with cuts that have colored his face black and blue and yellow and red, as if he’s wearing makeup applied by a kindergartner. One of his eyes is swollen shut.

  She walks to him, cradles his face in her hands. “Oh baby, who did this to you?”

  He smiles at her through his injuries.

  She wraps her arms around him, and the joy and sorrow and excitement wash over her. She’s been dreaming of touching him for days. Her skin warms, and she wants to touch all of him. The pink of passion almost outweighs the yellow of confusion, but it’s competing with a dozen other feelings wriggling and swirling through her head.

  One of the Subway workers behind the counter clears her throat. “Are you guys gonna order something?”

  Reagan wants to lash out at them for interrupting this moment… what should have been the most romantic and spectacular moment, but one marred by their petty comments.

  “Let’s go,” he says. “I’ll explain in the car.”

  They exit the restaurant and she leads him to the car, helping him take every step. His crutches gingerly click against the ground as his face contorts in pain.

  She helps him into the car and rushes to the driver’s side. “Baby, what happened? Do we need to go into the hospital? Have you already been?”

  He shakes his head. “No, we need to get out of here. I don’t know where they are, but I reckon they could be looking for us or waiting for us somewhere. We need to find somewhere to hide.”

  “Why? What’s going on? Who did this to you?”

  His eyes flood with dread. “Do you have an uncle named Tyson?”

  She nods, and his face falls. “Him,” he says. “Your uncle did this to me.”

  Uncle Tyson? Doesn’t seem real, but there’s nothing but conviction in Spoon’s eyes.

  “Why haven’t you ever mentioned him before?” he says.

  “I don’t know, he hasn’t been a part of my life for years now. Different when I was a little kid, you know, before I found out how he makes his money. He sells drugs, I don’t even know what else he gets into. None of my business.”

  Spoon sighs. “I’m sorry that you had to find out like this. He’s looking for some money he thinks your dad hid away.” He points at the ignition. “Please, sweetheart. Start the car. We need to get out of here.”

  She snaps out of her daze and turns the key. She backs out of their parking space and heads for the highway, mind racing, filing new information, firing synapses. Axon to dendrite to form new memories and slip them into the appropriate folder.

  “He thinks your dad had a safety deposit box.”

  Reagan nods. “He does. I have the key. I don’t know where it is, though.”

  “You have the key?”

  “Yes,” she says. “It’s for the center we’re going to build. The money is, I mean. I’ve already worked it out and talked to many great teachers. It’s all a part of the plan… my dad must have known about the center, and the money is a gift from the universe, through him.”

  His forehead wrinkles. “What are you talking about?”

  “I wasn’t sure at first, but I understood it when I saw the moose with her calf. Mother and child, teacher and student. It all became clear right then.”

  “Are you feeling okay?”

  “I’ve never seen things this clearly before,” she says. “All of the suffering we’ve been through, it’s all supposed to happen. My dad dying, Dalton doing what he did, my uncle, all of it.”

  She explains the last four days in the park, finding the key, reading the note, spreading the ashes. Spoon’s expression grows increasingly hesitant as she skips from one topic to another. She keeps thinking he’ll turn around and start understanding, but it doesn’t happen. He only looks concerned.

  He, in turn, explains about Anne’s attempts to divert him from Tyson, about meeting her grandfather and his revelations about the safety deposit box. The amount of information threatens to overwhelm her, but she tries to look at each thing individually, as a holistic component of a greater truth.

  He looks out the window. “Where are we going?”

  “Motel.”

  “I can’t afford that,” he says, wringing his hands together. “There’s something I didn’t tell you yet. I lost my job the other day.”

  She laughs because she could have predicted the universe placing this piece of the puzzle directly before them. “This is perfect. This is meant to be. I’ll quit my job too, and we can start the center. I don’t have a name picked yet, but I have a dozen options I’m working through. Everything is falling into place. Couldn’t be more perfect.”

  “Reagan, you’re scaring me.”

  “The truth is sometimes scary. I’m sure you can put all that aside and trust in me. I know what I’m doing.”

  They park in front of the office of a shabby motel complex. The three-story building borders a single parking lot. Rooms on all three stories face the lot, with outdoor staircases on each end.

  She checks her face in the rearview. Having no makeup on feels liberating, as if there’s no disguise between her and the rest of the world. “I’ll take care of this.”

  Before he can respond, she’s out of the car and walking into the office, flipping her purse over her shoulder. Her knees ache. Her hips are throbbing. But it feels good to have a plan to set in motion. Despite the awful scare she got when she first saw Spoon, the future now looks bright.

  She steps up to the counter, which is so tall she can barely fit her elbows onto its laminated surface. Her finger taps the bell once, and she waits for someone to come out.

  In a minute, an emaciated man shuffles from a back room to take her name and information. She chats with him while filling out the form, and he gives her strange looks as she hands over the cash for the room. Why does everyone keep looking at her this way? Maybe it’s because she pays with one dollar bills, a casualty of waiting tables. Like dancing at a topless bar. She laughs because she’s never drawn that parallel before.

  He says nothing as he records her name and car information. She gives him nothing but fake details, which seems the smart move after all the untrustworthy people she’s met in the last couple of days.

  Room key in hand, she returns to the car.

  “We can’t park here,” he says. “They’ll be looking for us. We need to park somewhere else.”

  She opens his door, helps him out of the car, and presses the key into his palm. “You are absolutely right, baby. You open up our room and I’ll park down the street.”

  As he limps toward the stairs, guilt stabs at her for getting him involved. Destiny or not, seeing him hurt like this is agonizing, and it’s all her fault. She should have insisted he stay in Austin instead of coming to Denver for the memorial service, but they’d planned to travel on to New Orleans the following day. Only four days ago, but so much has changed.

  She’ll find some way to make it up to him.

  Across the street, there’s a gas station, and a spot behind the dumpster that she can fit the car into. She’s proud of herself. This is going to work.

  She crosses the street to the motel, knocks on the door of the room, and when he lets her in, she suddenly realizes she can shower here. Get clean. She hasn’t showered since Tuesday mor
ning, and the idea of washing four days of trail muck off her skin is the most heavenly thing she has ever considered. Shower, make love to Spoon, then they can talk about the key and the note and the next steps to setting everything right.

  Spoon reclines on the bed, wincing as he arranges his knee brace.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” she says, glancing around the room. There are visible water stains on the ceiling, drab art nailed to the walls, an ancient mammoth television bolted to the only dresser in the room. Get what you pay for, and this place is cheap.

  “Wait,” he says, raising an arm. “There’s one thing I haven’t told you yet. Can’t believe I almost forgot about this.”

  She sits on the edge of the bed next to him and places a hand on his thigh. “Go ahead.”

  “Your mum. She’s in town and I met her yesterday.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  8:00 pm

  Dalton still couldn’t get used to seeing Reagan drive uncle Mitch’s Honda. Even though maybe not technically his anymore, still seemed freaky. Uncle Mitch had been a decent guy, and Dalton didn’t like to think about it, not after what he’d seen at the end.

  He had been impulsive and callous to lecture Reagan about Mitch being a degenerate gambler right to her face. Dalton knew that losing his temper was something he needed to work on if he wanted to achieve his career goals. Maybe Tony Soprano and Scarface could flip out and get away with acting all crazy in the movies, but in real life, keeping your head was the key to handling stressful situations. The right path always seemed obvious looking back on it.

  All this introspection almost made him lose Reagan and the Aussie boy as they drove down Highway 287. They turned, and Dalton didn’t approach the turn fast enough, so he had to stop at a red light. He considered jumping the median, but a cop was idling two cars behind him.

  Then he had a brilliant idea. He whipped out his phone and searched the Maps app for nearby hotels. Came up with four within a mile. He texted Tyson, who was supposed to be following him, but had turned off a couple miles back.