What You Leave Behind

by Katoff, Jessica

  The girls step out of the cold and into the dim back hall of the shop, maneuvering around boxes of inventory and an array of housekeeping items. Harper leads the way, more than familiar with the layout of the place, and winds them around a stack of boxes and into Sly’s office. It’s a homey and inviting space, with dark woods, pastel paint, and a plush-looking chaise in the corner. Harper looks over the room carefully to see if anything has changed. When her gaze slides to Sly, she’s the same impeccable woman she’s always been with the same flawless taste. The only thing different in the whole room is the soft, sad look in her eyes.

  “So, I suppose you’ve heard about Liam,” Sly says from the doorway, motioning for the pair of them to sit on the tufted chaise lounge—the only seating in the room aside from the desk chair. Harper hesitates, knowing full well how uncomfortable the chaise is from many of Liam’s breaks spent tangled up with him upon it, but Sly’s words have her distracted and she clumsily drops onto the sofa.

  “What do you mean?” Clare says, less thrown by the words, as she sits much more delicately beside Harper. “What about him?”

  “Oh,” Sly says, looking flustered. “I had—I assumed that’s why you’d come.”

  “I want to talk to him and I—” Harper fidgets with her hands in her lap as Sly sits across from them and levels her gaze on her, nods slowly as if encouraging her to continue. “I figured you might be able to tell me how I can do that.”

  “If you wait a day or two, you can do it right here in Ashland. Dan went to go get him.”

  “Dan went to what?” Harper sputters.

  “Get Liam,” Sly repeats. “He left for Arizona last night.”

  “Can you—where is—”

  “Could you possibly give us a phone number or an address? I wouldn’t want you to betray your own son, but I think given the circumstances, it would be the right thing to do,” Clare translates, reaching over and taking Harper’s hand. “We’ll drive through the night, if we have to,” she says more to Harper than to Sly. “Just tell us where to point the headlights.”

  “It isn’t a betrayal. They’re already on their way back, though, and I don’t know where exactly, so I can’t give you an address, but I know they’re breaking up the drive, stopping somewhere in California for the night, so point them south. And try calling Dan’s cell, if you’d like. He’ll be able to help you much more than I can.”

  Sly looks genuinely distraught by having to deliver the news of her son’s homecoming, and she watches Harper carefully all the while. There is nothing about the girl that sits before her that resembles the Harper she once knew. When she saw her at the butcher shop, it was from afar and very briefly, but she got a hint of it then. Every part of Harper looked more angular than it was before, and her waist seemed narrower than she remembered it being. Her red hair lacked its usual luster and her brown eyes had their warmth removed. She looked distant and cold, hollow. And now, Sly notices the how on edge she seems. Harper was always sure of herself and her words, always composed and eloquent and never hesitant to speak—something she got from Hilary, and now it’s as if her mouth is narrating her racing thoughts without restriction and no part of her is at ease. It saddens Sly deeply to know that her son did this to her, changed her so drastically—and not for the better.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Barnes,” Clare says, standing and drawing Harper to her feet as well, as Sly nods warmly. “We appreciate it.”

  “Harper?” Sly asks softly before they reach the door, and Harper turns slowly at the sound of her voice. She stands and moves to them, taking both of Harper’s hands within her own, her thumbs rubbing over the backs of them. Her mouth turns up in a sad half-smile, one so similar to Liam’s, and as she leans forward, as if to tell Harper a secret, her ink black hair falls into her eyes, but she doesn’t release Harper’s hands to brush it away. “I hope you know that we—Dan and I—we don’t approve of what he’s done.”

  “That means a lot,” Harper replies softly, her throat swelling with emotion.

  “I’m sorry,” Sly says, letting Harper’s hands fall just as Harper tugs them away at her words. “On his behalf and on my own. I thought we raised him better than that.”

  Harper wants to tell her, “It’s okay,” and, “Thank you,” and that she appreciates her kindness and all those other niceties, but the words don’t come as her mouth falls open. Though Sly means well and Harper knows she truly cares for her, she can’t find it in herself to indulge anyone who can bring themselves to apologize on Liam’s behalf. Liam hasn’t even apologized on Liam’s behalf, and as Harper realizes this, she decides that an apology is what she is after—the final piece she needs. She needs to hear it from the source, from him. She needs him to see what he’s done to her and she needs to see remorse in his eyes. Sly’s blues might mirror Liam’s but they aren’t the same, and none of the answers Harper is searching for can be found there.

  Without another word, Harper turns to leave, dropping her key to Barnes Drug and Beauty just inside the entryway as she heads out into the night.

  The rain is unrelenting and it makes the drive slow-going, turning Harper’s gently rumbling truck into a rocking cradle and the pattering of raindrops into a lullaby. As Clare drives, Harper sleeps soundly. She fought Clare on doing the driving, but Clare knows how little she slept, given the timeline of events Harper relayed regarding the night prior, and the keys were easy to pry from Harper’s tired grasp. Ten miles south of Ashland, Harper stops fighting it off and falls into a deep slumber and Clare pulls a hand from the wheel to pat herself on the back.

  It’s a straight shot down I-5 into California and as Clare crosses the state line, she wonders if she’s driving along the same path Liam took out of town. Out of Ashland, it’s either I-5 north or south, if you’re going anywhere far, and given that he ended up in Arizona, Clare is willing to bet this is the way. She wonders what it was like for him—leaving. Was he so consumed by emotion that he had to pull into the rest stop and wretch onto the ground beside his car? Did the thin white lines disappear behind his tears? Did he even look back at the night in his rearview as he left so much destruction in his wake?

  The miles pass in darkness and with them the minutes turn to hours. Mindlessly, she lets the road disappear beneath the chassis of the truck, weaves through curves and drives by endless stretches of land, miles of nothing. The further she drives into the night, the less certain she is of where they are and where they’re going. When she comes to an exit after so much of nowhere, she veers off the highway to fill their nearly empty gas task and grab coffee, unsure if the truck will make it much farther.

  At the loss of motion, Harper awakens, squinting against the fluorescent overhead lights of the gas station, and Clare apologizes, tells her to go back to sleep, but once she’s awake, she’s awake, so she climbs out of the truck and trails behind Clare. While Clare pays for the gas, Harper makes them coffee from the stale pots over by the bathrooms. It isn’t delicious or sanitary, she thinks, but it’s all the coffee they’ve got, and if she and Clare are going to drive through the night, they’re going to need it.

  Out by the truck, Harper extends a cup to Clare, but seeing her hands busy with the fuel pump, sets it atop the cab.

  “Thanks,” Clare says, watching the numbers on the pump tick by. Over her shoulder, she glimpses Harper leaning against the front quarter panel of the truck, her phone in her hand. Clare knows she’s likely checking in with Hilary, as they were instructed to when they stopped by the house to inform her of the journey and get Harper clothes of her own. But there’s a call she needs to make and Clare struggles with whether or not to remind her—though she’s certain Harper couldn’t forget, if she wanted to. “Hey,” she says lightly, returning the pump to its base and turning toward Harper. She pulls her cup from the top of the cab and takes one long sip before regret sinks in. Still, she swallows it down, being the prime example of doing things one doesn’t want to do, and says, “Want to maybe get in touch with Dan and figure o
ut where we’re going while we’re stopped? I can call him, if you—”

  “That would make sense, huh?”

  “Probably. I mean, we’re coming up on Sacramento—a good third of the way through California,” Clare notes motioning toward the highway. “And I’d hate to, like, drive right past them, if they’re coming the other way, you know?”

  Clare watches as Harper wanders off to make the call, but doesn’t follow. As helpful as Clare has been, has wanted to be, she knows Harper needs to do the next part of this alone. She has to be the one to call Dan. She has to decide whether or not they continue on to wherever Dan directs them, if Dan directs them. She has to walk into whatever hotel or rest stop or bar or diner they agree to meet at with her head held high. She has to bare her soul to Liam. Clare will support her through all of this, of course, but she can’t do it for her. Feeling helpless, she climbs into the cab and starts the truck, the high beams shining on the spot where Harper wanders along the edge of the property with one boot toeing designs in the gravel.

  Across the lot, Harper spells her name in the dirt, and waits with held breath as the phone rings in her ear. One, then two, then three, and by the fourth, she has to take in some air. Dan answers, her breath catches in her throat, and it all becomes so real—if all goes to plan, she will soon see Liam.

  “Harper, hello,” Dan says and waits for her to reply, but she doesn’t, can’t.

  He and Liam have always sounded so much alike—eyes and hair from his mother, voice and height from his father, the rest an amalgam of both—and the sound of him throws her into silence. If she hadn’t talked to Liam for so many years and learned his every inflection and intonation, she might have mistaken Dan for him.

  “Are you alright? Harper?” he repeats. “Say something.”

  “I’m here.”

  “Are you alright?” he asks, once more.

  “Yes, I’m—” Harper can’t bring herself to finish the sentence, knowing fine is a lie at the moment. Overall, is she fine? Sure, most days. Now? No. She sits upon the curb and stares into the shadow of the night as she tries to catch her breath. “I’m in—I’m near Sacramento. I have to see him, Dan. I’ll drive straight through, if I have to.”

  “Now isn’t the best time,” Dan tells her and his tone is clipped, giving too much away by saying next to nothing. “When I get him back to Ashland, if you still want to—”

  “With all due respect, sir,” Harper says, and though it’s firm, it feels odd coming from her mouth, not having called him anything but his name in nearly a decade. “I don’t really care about timing. Lord knows he didn’t, when he—” Dan doesn’t fill in her silence, and she knows she’s won. She didn’t think it would be so easy. “This can’t wait. Where are you?”

  “Not terribly far from you. I think we’re only an hour or so away—Manteca, exit 461, a little south of Stockton.”

  “Exit 461.” Harper cradles her head in her hands, pins her phone between her cheek and shoulder, and takes deep, steadying breaths. The time has come, and nearer than she imagined. While she knows she’s ready, she knows it will still hurt to face him. It will likely always hurt, though, she thinks, so it might as well be now. “Well,” Harper says as she checks her watch and finds they’re rounding one in the morning. “I know it’s late, but I’d like to do this tonight.”

  “I’ll need to ask him if—”

  “Why? Because he consulted me on his decision to leave? No, I’m sorry, he doesn’t get a say here.”

  Dan doesn’t put up a fight, though he feels slightly disloyal to his son for not doing so, and he gives her the address to their hotel. They part without the pleasantries that used to pass between them, and Harper’s hands shake as she shoves her phone into the pocket of her jeans. Before she stalks back to the truck, she thinks of calling Austin, but can’t bring herself to do it. It would hurt him too much to know where she is, who she has sought out, no matter the reasons, and she’s already hurt him enough, more than she ever should have.

  As Clare drives on, Harper tries to fit the words together in her head, but they won’t come, and by the time they turn left onto Atherton Street and begin to near the hotel, all she can think to do is slap him and leave. That won’t do, though—won’t bring her the closure she needs, and she knows it. For another hour, parked in the far corner of the hotel’s lot, she sits in the truck, with Clare silently beside her, as she tries to conjure up words, tries to string them together to tell him how badly he’s hurt her. With nothing more than fractions of thoughts in her arsenal, and the clock on her dashboard reflecting three o’clock in the morning, she shakes her head and gets out of the truck.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Clare asks for something like the tenth time, before Harper shuts the door.

  “No, I’ll—I’ll be okay.” She smiles uncomfortably. “Besides, if I kill him, I’m going to need a getaway car. Pull around front and keep her running.”

  Hesitantly, Harper raps her knuckles against the door to room 412 and waits with hitching breaths and shaking hands. The seconds drag on, and the hair on the back of her neck stands on end when she hears a rustling behind the wooden barrier. When the heavy latch unlocks, a chill runs through her, and then Liam pulls open the door. All of the air leaves her lungs at once and too much blood rushes to her head and she white-knuckles the doorframe to steady herself.

  He does much of the same on the other side of the threshold and her name falls from his chapped lips.

  The sound of him cuts through her. He sounds nothing like the man she knew. His voice is deeper, rough and wrecked along the edges, and it suits the vision of the weathered man who stands before her—someone she only vaguely recognizes when she brings herself to look at him full-on. His olive skin looks pallid and grey, his hair longer than it’s ever been, his clothes are unkempt and he smells of stale liquor, but it’s his hollow blue eyes that show how much he’s changed. At the sight of them, she begins to understand that she’s not the only one who’s been left in ruins by his decision, and she thinks he deserves every bit of destruction he’s brought on himself.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” he marvels, and she has to look away as his mouth curls into something resembling a hopeful smile. It’s too much for her, and she half wonders if he expects her to return the gesture. She won’t, and she wishes she could bring herself to smack that grin clear off his face. He shouldn’t be allowed to smile, to feel joy, especially if she is the cause. “Did you want to come in?”

  “In—in a minute,” she says roughly.

  He returns to the room with a solemn nod, his smile gone, and he lets her have some time in the hallway by herself, leaving the door propped open with the latch flipped between the door and the frame. Minutes pass, and she enters slowly, standing just inside the door to find him seated on one of the disheveled full-size beds—Dan is nowhere in sight. Another minute, and she closes the door behind her, leans back against it as it latches, her gaze still fixed on Liam. She notes the thinness of his frame, the way his hair is greasy and matted, the bloodstains that decorate the lower half of his t-shirt and the stark white gauze that covers where it came from. Another minute, still, and she walks further into the room, takes a seat at the small writing desk in the corner. Dan’s work is splayed across it and she briefly wonders where he could be at three in the morning, but that thought is disrupted when Liam clears his throat.

  “No, you don’t get to speak,” she starts out, interrupting him before he even attempts to speak, as it’s one of the only thoughts left in her head from her preparation in her truck. She’s surprised and impressed by how firmly the words manage to come out. “I drove all of this way because there are things I need to say, more than there are things I need to hear.” She stands and begins to pace as she tries again to right her thoughts into proper sentences, but his eyes on her don’t help at all. She stares at walls, the ceiling, the carpet as she moves, anywhere but back at Liam. With a huffing breath, she b
egins, and the words come slowly, packed with thought and caution. “I—I came here because I need you to know what you did to me by leaving. You—I’m sure you had your reasons. There are probably a lot of them and I’d like to hear them—eventually, I think. They don’t matter right now—don’t matter to me, at this moment, though.” She catches his eye once as she turns and she sees as he nods and what she thinks may be a small trickle of tears glinting in the lamplight. Momentarily, she feels a pang in her chest—she takes no pride in hurting him—but she knows she needs to ignore it, if she’s going to get through this. “I completely shut down, Liam. I shut down until it felt like I was dying without you, because I didn’t want to live without you—didn’t know how to.”

  “I’m so—”

  “No, you don’t get to—it’s my turn.” She takes another gulping breath, feels how shakily it enters her lungs, and then continues, her feet carrying her back and forth across the same ten feet of carpet. “I didn’t eat, couldn’t sleep—Hilary, she tried everything—picking up the pieces that you left behind. I felt like nothing.” She chokes on the word, her voice so heavy with emotion, and takes pause both with her speech and her steps. “Slowly—I came back together, slowly. And I’m still not whole yet, but that’s why I’m here. I came here for closure, Liam. I want—no, I need closure.” She stops pacing and sits down on the bed opposite his. Their feet nearly touch in the space between them and she stares at that middle ground just as she did on the roadside. “I don’t know how to—I don’t know what’ll give me closure, but I need it. I need it because I think about you, but I want him, and I want all of this to be over. I want this to never have happened.”

  “Harper,” he treads carefully with her name, waiting for her to snap his mouth shut again with her words, a look, but she doesn’t. The silence engulfs them, and he waits for her to look up at him before he speaks again. When she does, the tears in her eyes match his own, and he chokes out his first few words. “I—I left—I left, and I shouldn’t have.”