by Mira Gibson
As she opened the driver’s side door, the King family portrait, which was resting on the passenger’s seat, caught her eye. Or, more accurately, Maude’s expression did. What had she been so angry about that day? Why couldn’t she bear to stand directly in front of her father? What compelled her to lean away from her mother and scowl? The slant of her posture in the photo conveyed a story. Something must have happened, but Gertrude didn’t have the foggiest idea as to what.
When she lifted the hood and secured it with the hood prop, the tangled mess of wires and grease-slick metal gadgets she saw were so intimidating she didn’t dare breath, much less attempt to locate the problem. She wasn’t sure what she hoped to accomplish staring down at it like a mechanic. Any experience she might have had only qualified her for the most basic fixes—an oil change every four months, a jump start when a cold winter’s morning had stunned the battery, the occasional tire replacement after discovering a nail in its rubber—and of those she remembered only obscure fragments and nothing to join them into a cohesive picture that would shed light on her current predicament.
It crossed her mind to call Dr. Hagstaff, but doing so would make virtually no sense in terms of solving her problem. She thought of Wendy next, who would do her even less good. Then of course her sister popped into her brain. Doris hadn’t known much about cars, but these days no matter what Gertrude was in the midst of, she thought of her—Green jello again, I hope I can walk soon... Did Doris like green jello? And, Well, I peed all by myself, is this a funny accomplishment or a sad one? Even in Roberta’s company, she'd thought of Doris, Remember the time it took us all night to pick the lock on Mom’s liquor cabinet? You watched me chug vodka at six in the morning when we finally busted it loose and we laughed, remember? Was that a good memory or a bad one?
Having forgotten where she’d put her cell, Gertrude scanned her index cards, optimistic she might have jotted down a note to herself about where she'd stashed her phone. She was in the throes of crawling into the backseat when she heard an engine growling from down the road. Spying through the rear windshield, which was so dusty the road and trees beyond it were smears of muted colors, the emanating growl grew louder until a pickup truck came into view.
She raised her hand for it once she’d climbed out. It slowed, tires crunching over weathered asphalt. Banged up and heavily dented, the mist-gray pickup had a metal ram on the grill, she noticed, as it rolled to a stop with the passenger’s side window down.
She snugged her beret down as far as it would go and straightened her spine, but fell into a guarded slouch, folding her arms and feeling suddenly awkward to touch eyes with a man.
Holding his gaze, cornflower came to mind and it took her a breath to place it. Doris had been good with colors, knew every shade on every house they'd driven past. That was the color of his eyes—cornflower—a clear blue that pierced through the sun’s glare and penetrated the dim hovel of his truck, as he shouted, “Hey there,” over the engine’s hum. “Car trouble?”
For fear she might choose the wrong word, she gave him a nod paired with a quick smirk.
“Let me pull around.”
As he maneuvered his Dodge with a three-point turn that pitted his front bumper a foot from hers, Gertrude battled her delayed reaction to encountering the stranger, nerves zinging through her gut for reasons she couldn’t identify. Excitement? Terror? Relief?
There was no reason to be intimidated, though she’d prefer to have her cell phone on her.
He looked like a cowboy dismounting a horse the way he confidently stepped out of his truck, which he'd kept idling. His jeans and boots were basic enough, but his shirt—a Gingham button-down with a purple cast—seemed fancy. As he made his way towards her Audi, he rolled up his sleeves, gaze fixed on the old engine.
She guessed he couldn’t be much older than her, mid-thirties she imagined since his chestnut hair didn’t have a hint of gray. She realized she was hanging back near the rear door of her Audi so she joined him more or less, but kept her distance.
In her head, she practiced saying, it won’t turn over a number of times before stating the fact out loud. When she did, she didn’t falter too badly, but her voice sounded small, not that he noticed. He just said, “Yup.”
After examining God knew what, his finger tracing certain wires to their points of origin, he asked, “Does it crank?” Off her blank stare, he added, “Does it make a sound like it's trying or is it totally dead?”
“It has a trying noise.”
Even she hadn’t thought that sounded right so his puzzled glimpse, eyes wincing as he held her gaze, perhaps attempting to decipher her odd wording, was justifiable.
“I might be able to help,” he said plainly, though he seemed to be taking in the whole of her as if she didn’t add up—the beret, the bizarre almost English cadence (trying?), the brown stain left from her facial bruise. There was no worse time to be introduced to someone new. “Gertrude, right? Inman? The woman who drove into the lake?”
She hoped that wasn’t how people were referring to her, but she confirmed it.
“Glad you’re okay,” he added as though he could tell he'd struck a nerve. Returning his attention to the engine, he started rattling off a few ideas. “Could be a bad starter or if we’re lucky just some mild corrosion on the ground cables or maybe the connecting cables. Can’t tell one way or the other by looking at it. Why don’t you start her up so I can hear what we’re dealing with?”
“Ah, sure.” She turned then impulsively mentioned, “My friends call me Gerty.”
As a smile formed at one corner of his mouth and he raised a single brow at her, she forced the door open and ducked into the car. Once settled behind the wheel, she concentrated, taking her time. Press the brake pedal. She did. Press the clutch. With it down, the gear shifter in neutral, and the emergency braked pitched up, which she checked three times to make certain—the last thing she needed was to be known as the woman who’d driven into the lake and then ran some poor bastard over—Gertrude turned the key and let the engine squeal for a good long while.
“Okay! That’s enough now!”
Pulling the key out and edging out of the Audi, she asked, “What do you think?”
“It’s not the battery. Let me get my brushes and clean up the corrosion. Worst case scenario, I’ll give you a tow to Larry’s Auto. You ever go to Larry's?”
She couldn’t remember a single trip to the mechanic.
“What did you say your name was?”
He shuffled towards her with his hand out, saying, “Ah sorry, Jake Livingston. I live just down the road next to the King’s.” After shaking hands—warm, strong, like a lion’s paw, but gentle, she thought, touching him—Jake started for his truck’s cab where he pulled a toolbox from the floor and returned.
Kneeling with his toolbox in the dirt and sorting through what appeared to be a nest of odds and ends hiding a few recognizable tools—a screwdriver, wrench, hammer—Jake asked, “So what brings you out this way?”
“Ah, just got turned around.”
He found a stiff bristle brush and a rag scrap, and began untwisting a particular engine cable. When it sprang free, he ran the brush over the input, really working loose the build up of soot and debris.
“A car this old, you ought to stick to the main roads if you can help it. You were lucky I came along when I did. Not too many homes out this way.”
“Thanks,” she said quickly, since doing so had slipped her mind. “I’m really happy.”
He paused to glance at her.
“I mean I’m really thankful.” She stilled. That wasn’t right.
“No problem,” he said, getting back to it.
It was a moment before she blurted out, “Grateful.”
He smiled, but she could tell he felt bad for her.
After attaching the cable, he freed the next and cleaned it in the same manner. It was hard to tell if it was her duty to keep some sort of conversation going. Her ability to read oth
ers, to sense their feelings, execute basic social graces was as mysterious as the engine he was fixing and probably just as broken.
Also, she was becoming preoccupied with an eerie feeling she’d met him before or that they’d talked, but she couldn’t place it. Wouldn’t he have mentioned if they had, refreshed her memory? She’d been getting a fair amount of déjà vu ever since the accident, which Dr. Hagstaff had explained was a mild symptom of misaligned brain synapsis. When they misfired, her surroundings, what she saw, smelled, touched, tasted—mistakenly stirred either her short or long-term memory, so that she felt as though she was reliving something that in fact, she never had. It would work itself out, he’d told her. But though she trusted him, at times she’d acted in strange ways to shake the feeling, singing loudly, throwing her meal tray against the wall, lying face up on the cool tiles of her hospital room and staring at the ceiling, at the dreary acrylic panels, cloudy and ruddy, which defused the fluorescent lights they covered. I haven’t done this before. There’s no way I’ve done this before. I would remember. Wouldn’t I?
“All right. Let’s hope that did the trick,” said Jake, stepping away from the car as he wiped his stained fingers on the rag scrap, which did little to remove the grease. “Want to give it a try?”
As soon as she got in her car, feet pressing the pedals, she turned the key and grimaced at the sustained whine. But just when she was about to give up, the engine turned and her Audi maintained a healthy idle.
“Beautiful,” he shouted over the slam of the hood he had eased down. Rounding to her door, which she’d left open, he said, “I’d get her over to my guy Larry as soon as you can. Have him check it out in case anything else is hanging on by a thread.”
“Yes, okay.” She was smiling, but it caused a dull ache in her left cheek.
Jake’s gaze drifted over her index cards and when she glanced up at him, his cornflower-blue eyes rounded slightly, just enough to make her uncomfortable. But he played it off, shutting her door, which immediately shifted his attention. It wouldn’t hold in the frame. Rather it bounced out. He tried again, but they both could tell it wasn’t settled.
“Man alive. I’m afraid to try again,” he laughed.
“It’s okay,” she said quickly, taking command of the door. She’d been getting a feel for its quirks and held it open by a few inches then slammed it hard, which did the trick.
He smiled at her through her open window, but his eyes said deathtrap. If her last trip into the lake hadn’t killed her, this vehicle certainly would.
Working the gear shifter into its tender Reverse spot, she said, “Thanks again!” But he jutted his chin at the passenger’s seat.
“You know them?”
“Ah,” she glanced at the King’s family portrait. “No.”
He worked his mouth into a frown. “Their oldest, Roberta...” Trailing off a beat, Jake's brows floated up as if to indicate the iceberg mass of which she’d only seen the tip. “I don’t know about that one. Pure trouble and not the innocent kind every teenaged girl tries on for size.”
Intrigued, she asked, “Do you know her?”
He exhaled a long breath then snorted a strange laugh. “No, and I figure best to keep it that way.” Angling his gaze on her as if probing for the real reason she’d come out this way, he added, “I suggest you do the same. Steer clear.”
“No one’s the same after a tragedy,” said Gertrude, defending Roberta or more likely herself.
For a moment, he searched her eyes, his expression softening into a parting smirk. “True enough.” Then he tapped her hood and took a few swaggering steps backwards. “You take care now and don’t forget to swing by Larry’s Auto Shop.”
After giving him an acknowledging nod, she reversed away from his pickup then cautiously swung a U-turn, driving off and trying not to spy him in her rearview.
Moulton Street, its asphalt, salt and sun faded, was smooth as her Audi puttered away from Jake Livingston. Though the air—rich and crisp with the scent of Balsam fir—was comforting, the gusts coming through her open window were rattling her index cards like a Joker in a bicycle wheel flapping against the spokes so she cranked her window up, all the while debating her return to the DCYF.
She needed to type up her case notes and scan them into the system, but the thought of working in her cubicle with the office sounds swarming around her head—phones ringing, fax machines blaring dial tones, coworkers cursing about their reports not feeding through the printer fast enough, the frenetic buzz of the environment, pent up stress, released anger, deadlines missed—wasn't at all appealing and her aversion became overpowering. She couldn’t go back there. Not right now. Later, she told herself, later today around four when it quieted down, she'd return.
If her biggest regret in life was not being able to save her sister, her second biggest regret was having missed Doris’ funeral. At the time, she’d been immobilized in her hospital bed, two pins in her left hip, her cheek swollen to such an the extent she couldn’t crack her eyelid open—a vessel lost in an angry sea, anchored only to a row of machines monitoring how closely she drifted towards death.
Her parents had gone ahead with the arrangements or so Dr. Hagstaff had explained. They hadn’t told her in person. They hadn’t written or called, except to contact her doctor—Please send her our regards—her mother had said through Dr. Hagstaff and that was before the certified letter. The man had looked grim, barely able to touch eyes with her. He’d knotted up a Kleenex in his hands, the box in his lap, so distraught for Gertrude that he’d forgotten to offer her a tissue.
She’d done what she could to sit upright in her bed, watching him, feeling things she couldn’t identify, not precisely, a vague emptiness taking root. She hadn't felt numb, not entirely and not thoroughly shattered, but hurt, despairing perhaps, though at the time she hadn't been able to recall a name for it.
Had her parents always been that cold and hateful? She hadn’t been able to recollect their typical demeanor towards her beyond a few slanted memories.
Often during her recovery she’d asked Dr. Hagstaff why she was able to easily remember her work, her years with the DCYF, her months with Doris living at her house on the lake, but the bulk of her upbringing was gone almost as completely as the accident itself and the strange evening leading up to it.
He hadn’t seemed to have a concrete answer, though he mentioned it was possible at this time only memories that served her to function were necessary. He’d tried to make his tone confident and knowledgeable to instill her trust, but his expression had worked against him. He was as equally mystified as her.
Gertrude wasn't paying attention as she drove through the center of Laconia, but even before she snapped out of her heart sinking reverie, she knew she was heading towards the Union Cemetery on Academy Street where her sister had been buried.
After parking in the small lot and then enduring a distinct and fearful twinge that if she turned her car off it might not start again, she bucked up, pulled the key out of the ignition, and grabbed her laptop satchel from the trunk. Walking towards a stone archway that marked the entrance of the cemetery, she glanced at the grassy plots, carefully chosen headstones, and mausoleums.
The peacefulness was striking, as she padded over the grass, noting the names on each headstone. It was warm and the air was still. She didn’t hear a bird chirp or a chipmunk rustling. When she glanced at the sky, the popcorn clouds were motionless against the blue. It was as though time had stopped and all living things didn’t dare appear in this sacred place.
She didn’t have to wander too far before she found her sister’s name.
Was that a headstone?
Gertrude stared at a granite slab, which looked more like a rock fallen from the side of a mountain than a proper headstone. Arched along its top edge was her sister’s name, Doris Inman. The bottom edge noted her birth and death years, omitting the specific dates, and between the two was the imprint of a heart.
It looked famil
iar and at first she blamed her recurring déjà vu, until she recalled her dog. Nervous to live alone when she’d moved into her house over a decade ago, Gertrude had adopted an old black lab from the locate shelter. Old Rusty had been a sweet, lumbering dope, nearly deaf and not at all equipped to defend her home against intruders, but she had always loved him. After he died, she’d bought a memorial marker and buried him in her backyard.
Her parents had done the same for her sister.
And the great emptiness she’d suffered that day when Dr. Hagstaff had forgotten to hand her a Kleenex, returned.
They had been cold and hateful, hadn’t they?
They'd bought a pet marker for her sister.
Marsha and Albert Inman, What have you done?
Chapter Five
The shed was nestled between a haphazard row of saplings and a cluster of Birches—triplets sharing the same roots. Quinton Avery's eyes were still adjusting to the hazy morning dusk, as he walked, careful not to trip over debris and loose rocks that littered his path. The shed’s brown siding looked black and its pitched roof was lost in darkness, but the orange door was clear as day.
He didn’t like having to get up so early and he liked walking out to the shed even less. It was spooky. Fog rose up from the earth and he could smell the lake through the trees. If he hadn’t stayed up so late playing Call of Duty on his Xbox—fiercely smashing his thumbs over the controller, twisting and jerking his shoulders to force every move, hissing yes! on every kill and groaning at missed opportunities, all the while absorbed in the incredible glow of his flat screen—then peeling himself out of bed at 5:15 am wouldn’t have felt like such a chore.
The orange door creaked faintly when he pulled it open. It took a moment to swat his hand around for the dangling string, but he found it, yanked it quick and the naked bulb overhead flickered on, illuminating the interior but not by much.