“He’s long gone,” Bryce agreed, and something in her heart twisted a little, but she forced the feeling away and asked, “So, did you two have fun?”
***
Michelle was having her breakfast smoke when Bryce stepped into the sunlit kitchen an hour later, her body and hair thoroughly scrubbed in the motel shower…all the better to erase any traces of his cut-grass scent. Too bad a memory couldn’t be likewise treated…
“Morning,” she mumbled to her mother without looking too hard, opening the fridge in the vain hope that something edible might have materialized since the night before last. No luck. She winced at the sight of the beer and settled for a cigarette too. Damn it, one more thing she needed to quit doing, but it was tough. She dared any of those kindly Planned Parenthood nurses or high school counselors to live with Michelle and not smoke.
“Your bus leaves today,” Michelle said in a completely normal voice, the way someone would announce that it had started sprinkling outside. In the vacuum of silence that followed, Bryce stood in the chill of the open refridgerator, not sure whether to pitch the biggest fit her mother had ever seen or simply walk out of the room. She settled for the simple walk away. After all, Michelle couldn’t make her go. When it came down to it, Michelle was smaller than her, and Wade’s mother would surely take her in for a little while. Torrie liked her, thought she was good for her son. But the thought of living in the Thompsons’ basement with Wade and having him expect sex on a nightly basis made her stomach instantly nauseous. She didn’t want anyone else touching her ever again…
Michelle had followed her, trailing smoke, and Bryce did her best to ignore her mother even as Michelle plopped down on the twin bed in the tiny space Bryce claimed as her own. The bedspread was an afghan Trish’s mother had made for her, white with yellow flowers and edged in thick fringe; Bryce was certain her mother would have had no clue where the beloved blanket had come from, nor cared. She fought the urge to shove Michelle off the bed and pretended to be preoccupied with choosing an outfit from her two-by-two closet.
“Elizabeth, you are going up there, goddamn it,” Michelle said. Bryce chose not to reply, but Michelle carried on as though she didn’t notice anyway. Her voice was too loud in the stuffy room. “Wilder wants you to be there, and wants to meet you again. I told him you would be there. One of us needs to be there. I can’t, Bryce, not yet. Maybe not ever. Do you understand?”
Fury rose in her throat, hot and with claws. But she swallowed it away like always and throttled the emotion in her voice down to a second-gear level.
“I don’t understand any of this, Mother,” she said, purposely emphasizing the word, which felt raw and unnatural on her tongue. “You tell me nothing.”
Michelle had the grace to look slightly ashamed, and smoked mutely for a few moments. When she finally pulled the cigarette, a stupid skinny long one, from her lips, she said, “Because it wouldn’t make you feel any better about your life, believe me. None of it really matters now, anyway. I hated Lydia. I ran away from them years ago. But you know that.”
Bryce leaped off the high dive and sat down beside her mother, giving up the pretense of rummaging in her closet. “Mom, I don’t know anything. I don’t even know what state these people live in.”
“They live in Minnesota,” Michelle said, her eyes shifting up and to the left, as though seeing a picture there in the air above their seated forms. “In Rose Lake, where I grew up.” Bryce nodded and tried to look encouraging. This was more than she had ever heard in nearly 21 years. “Daniel Sternhagen was my father’s name. I grew up on a farm.” Michelle drew deeply on her smoke, looking away. But to Bryce’s amazement, she continued seconds later, silvery puffs wisping out of her mouth with each new word. “My mother died when I was little, in a car accident. Dad remarried years later.”
“That would be Lydia?”
“Yes,” in a whisper. “She was our housekeeper. She made our lives hell after he married her.”
Something else occurred to Bryce then, and she asked softly, “Why is our name Mitchell?”
Michelle turned watery eyes to her daughter. “That’s the town where my money ran out on the way here. I decided it was as good a name as any.”
What the hell? Bryce felt dizzy, as though her insides were drifting away from her. Too much in too little time. She was still reeling from last night, from being held and touched like that…she gulped a little, startling herself, and Michelle’s gaze sharpened momentarily and came back to her daughter’s face.
“Where’ve you been all night?” she asked.
“Amy’s birthday, remember?”
“Oh…yeah, you told me.”
Bryce dared to reach out to touch her mother’s shoulder, bare and chilly under her fingertips. She hated how Michelle always seemed to be wearing sleeveless shirts, ones that displayed the rigid pink lines of desperation and terror that marked her pale skin.
“Why don’t we both go to this thing?” she heard herself suggesting. “I’ll go with you. Your brother said he would pay for us, we’ll tell Connie we need a week off. We can go together and you can, I don’t know, put stuff behind you.”
Michelle stared into Bryce’s eyes, looking for an instant like a child who wanted comfort, who believed that Bryce might be right. But in the next instant the look was gone, and the absent, boozing mother whom Bryce had always known came back into her bloodshot eyes.
“No, Bryce. I won’t go there again. But you will. I already paid for your ticket.”
***
It was 4:05 in the afternoon, and Bryce was sitting in the cab of Wade’s truck, staring with dry, dry eyes at the traffic whipping along I-35, heading north and south and making her feel crazier than she already did. The air was even more dusty than normal beneath a sky that spoke of an evening thunderstorm, low and sullen and the gray of an old aluminum pan.
“Call me when you get there, okay, babe?” Wade asked again, and she looked over at him, the hazel eyes and dark-blond hair, the sunburned nose she had looked at a million times since the summer she turned 16 and he had come into Leo’s after work for a beer, told her she had a great ass and eyes to die for. She had been as blown away by those words as any other 16-year-old with limited experience, and had been on her knees that very weekend, learning how to properly give head to a man who at 21 seemed worldly and sexy: he could buy beer, had his own truck, and was something to brag about to her friends. And for a few seconds of their relationship, he made her feel really special. Like she was more than just Michelle Mitchell’s illegitimate daughter who wore hand-me-downs from Trish’s big sisters Tammy and Tina.
“I will,” she told him. He gripped her left thigh lightly and squeezed, his way of sympathizing.
“Be careful on the bus,” he added a moment later, after her gaze had wandered back to the four-lane in search of something.
“I will, Wade, I promise,” she told him, attempting a smile, and he shook his head.
“Michelle needs a shrink,” he offered helpfully, and then nodded at the bus pulling into the station. “Here you go.”
Wade pulled her bag from the bed of the truck and shouldered it through the small crowd that had gathered for the bus with its sign reading ‘St. Louis’ in the upper windshield. Bryce bit down hard on her bottom lip, her bravado abruptly failing her; she felt unfairly abandoned by her friends, who had been due for work this Sunday afternoon and were therefore unavailable to see her off. It was only a week, Trish reminded her, not unkindly. “Think of it as a vacation,” her best friend had told her on the phone around 1:00.
Wade hugged her hard, kissed her forehead and then her lips with a small smacking sound.
“I’ll see you on Thursday,” he said, and she nodded, then climbed onto the bus and found a seat on the opposite side. She didn’t want to see if he waited around for the bus to pull away or not.
Chapter Three
Interstate 35N – Monday, June 19, 1995
She woke around midnight, mouth
dry as cotton, startled by the press of darkness against her windowpane. The rain must have startled her from sleep; the roof of the bus was under fire from the noise and she sat up, her neck aching, glancing nervously around the dim interior. It wasn’t crowded, thankfully; Bryce had the entire seat to herself, and she pulled her old blue hooded sweatshirt more firmly around her freezing shoulders.
She hadn’t known what to pack and hadn’t brought much as a result. An outfit for the funeral seemed the most important, and she had stuffed a jean skirt and dark blue blouse with tiny buttons into her ancient duffle, along with a pair of white sandals. She was currently wearing old jeans and flip-flops, her hair in a tight ponytail, and to her horror, she realized her period had started a few days early, joining her here on this Godforsaken Greyhound in the middle of the night in a rainstorm. She tipped her forehead against the cold smoothness of the glass, wondering what state they were driving through right now, how long it would take to get to Minnesota, a place in her mind that seemed glacial, something like Alaska, where sled dogs transported people to and fro. She knew that was ridiculous, though probably it was colder there than Oklahoma, at least. She had thrown in two sweatshirts just in case, one old t-shirt, cut-offs and an extra pair of jeans, which left barely enough room for a toothbrush, make-up bag and her pajamas. No tampons, nor had she a sympathy card for Daniel Sternhagen, her very own grandfather.
Around 11:00 the next morning, under a clear blue sky, she bought tampons with her stash of 75 dollars, hating to spend almost five of it on gas station issue. She was stiff and angry, an anger that swelled from her belly and into her throat, anger that had helped her feet keep moving when she switched buses in Des Moines, Iowa with tissues stuffed between her legs because she’d been forced to improvise on the bus. Either that or bleed through her jeans. A small part of her took a moment to breathe a sigh of primal relief at the realization that she was not indeed pregnant despite occasionally forgetting to take her pill and performing mutiple unprotected acts of indiscretion with a total stranger. Jesus, Bryce.
“How much farther to Rose Lake?” she asked the gas station attendant. She knew they were in Minnesota as of 9:00 a.m.
“‘Bout two hours,” he replied, a zit-faced teenage boy who grinned widely at her as he rang up her Kotex and a Snickers bar. “It’s pretty there,” he went on, and Bryce tried to appear mildly interested. “Lots of camping.”
“Great, thanks,” she told him, grabbing her things and stuffing them into her purse.
The bus was even more empty than the one in which she’d left Oklahoma yesterday; most everyone had unloaded at the huge, dingy Minneapolis station, and Bryce tried to doze against her balled-up sweatshirt but found herself distracted by the view flashing by out the window. The congestion of the city had been left behind, revealing forests of Christmas trees and tempting, glimmering patches of lake after lake, which glinted blue promises at her sweaty skin. The air was humid and warm, but scented by the sharp green tang of pine needles. Bryce redid her ponytail at least 20 times as the afternoon flashed past her window, hating to admit how nervous she was to meet her relatives…a word she used in the loosest of terms. She felt no connection to these people, the Sternhagens. All she felt was resentment, and the desire for a few answers. Even two or three answers. Why does my mother slit her wrists? Why have you never come to find us?
Just when she thought she couldn’t handle being alone with her thoughts for another moment, the bus was wheezing and sighing into a right-hand turn. Bryce read the wooden sign with a hint of surprise: Sternhagen’s Pull Inn. Beneath that, in smaller letters: No Vacancy. The ‘No’ was a wooden block that could be removed. The bus lumbered onto a gravel road bordered on either side by towering pine trees. She sat up straight and cleared her throat, swished her hair, wished she had been able to shower and pop some Midol. At the very least smoke a quick cig, but there was no chance in hell of that right now.
Bryce felt a renewed surge of hatred for her mother as the bus groaned and came to a halt outside what appeared to be the main office of a campground. More trees circled a clearing occupied by a squatty wooden building with shingles for siding; people were milling about in swimsuits, towels slung around their hips, and two big dogs stood at attention, barking excitedly at the bus. As she climbed from her seat, her belly tight and aching with cramps, Bryce heard someone call, “Hey, she’s here!”
The bus driver had climbed down to excavate her bag from under the bus and was outside already as she emerged into full sunlight, squinting, unsure what to expect. Certainly not the redheaded woman who ran, literally ran, from within the wooden building and wrapped her arms around Bryce with no compunctions whatsoever. Bryce, reeling from the contact, could do nothing but allow herself to be hugged.
“Would you look at her,” the woman said moments later, holding Bryce out at arm’s length, her face split by a wide grin. “Honey, I haven’t seen you in 18 years, but I’d’ve recognized you anywhere.” She was freckled and sunburned, a dark blue bandana tied over her hair, which hung in a long braid down her back. She was pretty the way women in soap commercials were, healthy-looking, with no discernible make-up. And though she was much older than Bryce recalled, the woman’s face did indeed register in her memory.
“Hi, Erica,” she said, and cleared her throat after hearing the gravel in her voice.
“Hello, sweetheart. We’ve been so excited all day, waiting for the damn bus to get here. Come and meet your cousins.” Erica was a no-nonsense woman, Bryce could already tell. There was no awkward talk from her about where Michelle was, and for that moment Bryce was incredibly grateful.
Two girls were hanging out by the wide double doors, busy shushing the dogs, and Bryce’s heart pounded harder for a moment, but they both smiled with apparent delight and she relaxed a few degrees.
“Bryce, these are your cousins Evelyn and Emma,” Erica announced, and the girls came forward and gave her quick hugs, one after the other. Evelyn was older, probably about 14, with beautiful red-gold hair and a mouthful of braces, while Emma, somewhere in the neighborhood of 10, had messy blonde curls, skinned knees, and a shirt tie-dyed with a zillon shades of blue. Evelyn wore cut-offs over a yellow tank suit and both talked a mile a minute, exactly like their mom.
“Bryce, what a cool name!” said Evelyn, reaching to take her bag. “We, like, thought that you were a boy!”
“Yeah!” giggled the littler one, as one of the dogs licked her face madly. “But Daddy said, no, you were a girl like us!”
“These are our dogs,” Evelyn told her. “They pretty much live here at the office in the summer. But our house is just over that hill, up the road.”
Bryce finally found her voice. She couldn’t help but be charmed by the lively chatter. Both girls had eyes the blue of a July sky and couldn’t seem to keep themselves from smiling. “You guys live here?”
“Yes, in the house over the way,” Evelyn explained. For the first time, her face clouded. “Grandpa used to live with us.”
“Our grandpa died,” Emma added, studying Bryce soberly.
Bryce’s her heart sped up again. Inside she was squirming with discomfort, but she managed, “I sure am sorry about that.”
“Daddy said he was your grandpa, too,” Emma said. “How come you never met him?”
Erica, who had been conversing with a middle-aged couple, turned back to her daughters and gave Emma a narrowed eye. “Ev, why don’t you take Bryce up to the house while I get things squared away down here. Riley will be here in just a few minutes, and then Em and I will be right up, k?”
“Okay, Mom,” said the older girl, shouldering the duffle bag and fishing a pair of keys from her pocket before disappearing around the corner of the building.
“Bryce, honey, you make yourself at home, have a shower, whatever you need to do,” Erica told her as Evelyn reappeared driving a green golf cart. “Grab something to drink, a snack, and I’ll make a big supper when we get home.”
“Okay,�
�� she said; there was nothing else to say to this woman. In short order she was a passenger in the golf cart, being driven up a gravel road through what appeared to be an unending pine forest. The sun came through in spikes of light and dagger shadows, courtesy of all those needles. Bryce gripped the edge of the cart with one hand as securely as possible; her cousin was flying along practically in the middle of the road, without seeming to notice.
“So, you guys own a campground?” Bryce asked.
Evelyn took her eyes from the road to answer, but didn’t slow the pace. “Yeah, ever since I can remember. Grandpa sold the farm where Daddy grew up, way back before I was even born, and bought the Pull Inn. We sell for the farmer’s market still, though, ’cause we have an apple orchard, and Mom grows a ton of pumpkins in the fall.”
“That must be fun,” Bryce said, feeling like a flake, but Evelyn went on with enthusiasm.
“Yeah, it’s way fun. We, like, get to swim and camp all summer, and Daddy, Cody, Uncle Matty and Grandpa—well, he used to, I guess—take people on hunting expeditions and snowmobile trips in the winter.”
“Who’re Cody and Uncle Matty?”
“Oh, Cody is Emma’s twin,” Evelyn went on, and Bryce felt kicked in the teeth. She doubted Michelle even knew they existed, her own nieces and nephew. But Evelyn’s next words made her jaw drop. “And Uncle Matty is Daddy’s baby brother. He’s really sweet, he’s almost like our big brother in some ways, me and Cody and Emma’s, ’cause his mom died when he was little, and he and Grandpa have always lived with us.”
“Really?” was all she could manage. Did Michelle—Jesus, Bryce, of course she knows. She just didn’t think it was worth telling you about. Was the evil Lydia his mother? Was that why Michelle had failed to ever mention her youngest sibling? The golf cart hit a huge bump in the gravel, sending them about a foot off the vinyl seat, and Evelyn laughed hysterically, calling out, “Sorry!”
The next moment she was slowing to a crawl, and on the lefthand side of the road a house appeared, with a gravel driveway curving out in welcome. The sprawling two-story structure was sided in a cheerful yellow, with a heavy-duty porch that wound all around the outside. The woods opened up enough for a large yard, where an enormous swing set, two blue picnic tables and a shed shared the space with a garden and around eight millon flowers. Evelyn came to a head-snapping halt, apologized again before hopping deftly out and unloading Bryce’s bag, but Bryce remained where she was, simply taking it all in through wide eyes.
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