HICKEY

by Cora Brent

  Bran was passed out on the couch.

  “What is it?” he grumbled when the noise broke through his drunken haze.

  Later we would hear that the fire started inside when some of the vagrants who took refuge from the freezing temperatures in the abandoned building tried burning old books to keep warm. One succumbed to the smoke, dying before emergency crews called up from all over the county were able to reach him.

  Over the years I would dream of that night often. I dreamed of standing in the freezing cold beside my husband and trying to understand how anything born of blazing heat could thrive in the icy air. The old factory that had been such a crucial factor in the town’s fate was disintegrating before our eyes. It would never reopen. By the morning there would be only a charred reminder that it ever existed.

  Bran got sick from all the shit he drank and vomited off the rickety balcony. I wanted to comfort him and then bury my face in his broad chest until we both stopped shivering. But he flinched at my touch and whispered something that I didn’t hear.

  And now in my dreams, the fire is always burning and the sirens are always howling and there is always an invisible barrier separating me from Bran.

  Maybe I dreamed of that night so often because we were so lost to each other in that moment. I think part of me knew it was an omen of things to come.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Branson

  I was one of the only people who went to Eddie Heal’s funeral after he died in the Hickeyville factory fire.

  I didn’t explain to Cecily where I was going when I drove to the Methodist church twenty miles away. Eddie had been cremated so there wouldn’t be a burial, which was a relief. I hated visiting the cemetery and seeing the grim granite reminder of my brother’s short life.

  “Where were you?” she asked curiously when I returned.

  “Just went for a drive,” I said, choosing not describe the terrible feeling of watching a man’s life boiled down to a few words muttered in the company of a handful of mourners.

  The fire had gotten a lot of publicity and Eddie was a well known figure around town. My own father had even graduated high school with him. I thought there’d be more people at his funeral service but there was just me, the pastor, two worn out looking guys who looked like they came from the streets themselves and Eddie’s sister, who’d driven out from Pittsburgh. Cecily probably would have come with me if I’d asked but we hadn’t spoken much since the night of the fire.

  I shrugged out of my jacket and tossed it on the couch, noticing Cess’s critical glance. She hated when I left my crap around the apartment. The place was tiny and got cluttered up easily.

  “You going to work?” I asked, an obvious question since she wore her white peasant blouse and long colorful skirt that were the uniform at Berto’s.

  “Yes,” she said, standing in front of the mirror and twisting her long hair up in a bun.

  When I leaned over to retrieve my jacket from the couch my hand bumped into a hard corner. A large sketchpad had been tucked between the cushions, half hidden. I glanced over at Cecily but she was still messing with her hair so I picked up the sketchpad and flipped it open.

  “You drew this?” I asked. A dumb question. Who the hell else around here would have drawn a picture of me sitting on the edge of our bed looking miserable?

  Cecily was there in a flash, snatching it away from me. “It’s nothing.”

  “It’s me.”

  She looked nervous, as if she’d been caught drawing me with horns and a pitchfork. “It didn’t start out being you,” she said in a defensive tone.

  “It’s good,” I told her. It was good. It also looked a little too accurate, like she’d sucked my mood into her pencil and poured it out on the paper.

  Cecily blushed and hugged the sketchpad to her chest. I would have liked to see what else she was drawing these days but she didn’t seem inclined to share.

  “I have to go to work,” she said crisply.

  Before I had time to think twice I crossed the room and cupped her face in my hands. Her eyes widened in surprise but she didn’t pull away when my mouth crashed against hers. I kissed her hard. I kissed her like she belonged to me. My hands moved from her face and down her body, over the flare of her hips and then inside the waistband of her skirt. Cess moaned into my mouth and wrapped her arms around me, arching her body so I could get closer.

  The sketchpad landed on the floor with a thud and suddenly her eyes snapped open. She blinked at me, almost like she was surprised to see that I was the one touching her.

  “I need to go,” she whispered.

  I pulled her toward me. “Why?” I whispered back.

  She licked her lips and backed away, tucking in her shirt. “Because it’s time,” she said. “I’ll be late for work.”

  I released her with a sigh. If Cecily was determined to shut me out like this then I couldn’t stop her. I watched her grab her coat and her purse, thinking that if she’d just look my way again I’d know what to say. She snatched up the sketchpad from the floor.

  “Cecily,” I said when she reached the door.

  She stopped and looked at me. Her lip gloss was smeared and her face was flushed. “What?”

  I sat on the arm of the sofa. “Why’d the hell did you just give up after your dad left? You’re smart, you’re talented. You would have had other options. Why didn’t you try harder?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “Why didn’t you? You could have gone to college even without football. And I know damn well your knee’s healthy enough to do something besides hang out in your dad’s dealership all day. So why didn’t you try, Branson?”

  We didn’t have answers to each other’s questions. After a moment of heavy silence Cecily left.

  At that point I was a in a shitty mood and wanted to take the edge off. I still had some beers, along with half a bottle of wine that I’d claimed when someone abandoned it in the fridge at work. As I popped it open I heard Cecily’s voice warning me that I ought to know better, given what had happened to Caden. I stared at the bottle in my hand for a moment and it occurred to me that she was right. Drinking alone didn’t have a single useful purpose. I didn’t even like being wasted. But I tipped it to my lips anyway, determined to get shit-faced tonight so I could avoid thinking about my brother, my wife, and everything else that sucked.

  I wandered into the bedroom and stared at the painting of the Grand Canyon that hung over the bed. It seemed like an imaginary place, or as remote as the dark side of the moon. We’d never get there. We were stuck here.

  My head was starting to feel weird from sucking back too much booze too quickly. I stripped down to my boxers and stretched out on the bed to ride out the buzz.

  I wished I was somewhere else, maybe inserted in the middle of one of those sunny photos in the Army brochure. Anywhere but here, lying alone in a cold bed and trying not to puke. And Cecily deserved so much better than this, better than serving taco plates and seeing her talent ebb away with the years, like my mother had. Cecily deserved the chance to get out of here.

  I must have dozed off for a while because I jerked awake when I heard my name.

  “Bran.”

  The voice was soft, hushed, and awful close to my ear. I opened my eyes and saw a beautiful face hovering above me. It just wasn’t the face I wanted to see.

  “Kayla,” I groaned, sitting up. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

  Kayla wasn’t wearing her customary nightclub clothes with a face full of makeup. She wore sweat pants and an old Hickeyville High sweatshirt. I didn’t invite her to sit on my bed but she did.

  “Your door was unlocked,” she said. She nodded at the bottles on the nightstand. “Did you drink all those?”

  “Yeah, like a fucking idiot,” I grumbled and then grimaced. “Fuck, I’m gonna be sick.”

  “Here.” Kayla scrambled to seize the small wastebasket that sat on the far side of the nightstand. She barely got the thi
ng positioned under my head before I spewed six beers and half a wine bottle into it. By the time I was done I was sweating and Kayla was rubbing my back but at least I didn’t feel like I was going to die.

  “God damn, I can’t do this anymore,” I muttered, easing back onto the bed as Kayla moved the wastebasket to the floor.

  “You mean you and Cecily?” Kayla asked breathlessly as she slid beside me.

  I closed my eyes. “No, I mean drinking like a fucking pig.”

  “Oh.” She sounded disappointed. I felt her nails gently brushing across my chest.

  “What do you want, Kayla?” I asked in a hard tone, remembering that my stepsister had no business being in my bed.

  She let out a shaky breath. “I just feel so shitty and I needed to talk to someone. I had this huge fight with my mom. She’s been pissed at me ever since I got kicked out of school. She says I’m ungrateful after everything she and your dad have done for me. Fuck, I guess she’s right.” I heard her swallow hard and realized was struggling not to cry. “And it’s over between me and Becker. He can’t stand me. No one can. I hate how everyone hates me. Even though I’ve earned it.”

  I moved a few inches away from her but forced my voice to be gentle. “I don’t hate you, Kayla.”

  She let out a sigh. “You’re a good guy, Bran. I’m sorry that I said you weren’t. I just really need a friend. Can we be friends?”

  I yawned. “Sure. We’re friends.”

  She didn’t leave the bed but at least she stopped touching me. I heard the creak of the mattress springs and wondered if she was making herself comfortable on Cecily’s pillow.

  “I’ve always loved you, Bran.”

  I frowned, trying to focus. “I love Cecily.”

  “I know. I just wanted to tell you anyway. Is it okay if I lay down here, just for a few minutes?”

  My head was pounding. I just wanted some sleep.

  If I could sleep then I wouldn’t touch a bottle again anytime soon.

  If I could sleep then I might be able to figure out what the hell I ought to do next.

  “Yeah, whatever, just a few minutes,” I said as I rolled over.

  I didn’t see Cecily’s face when she walked through the door and discovered Kayla in our bed. Yet I’ve imagined it a thousand times, the look of shocked betrayal that must have been there before the anger.

  She may not have believed me even if I had denied fucking around with Kayla. I didn’t deny it though. I’d been searching for solutions and the universe gave me an ugly one.

  Cecily was loyal and she was stubborn. Despite our problems she would feel obligated to muddle through at my side and I couldn’t have her doing that. People squandered years that way. Decades even. I loved Cecily more than anything and I couldn’t live with the idea that her connection to me was now holding her back.

  When she told me she was leaving Hickeyville I knew I’d done the right thing. It had to be the right thing. That was why it hurt so much.

  “Now you can go to art school, Cess,” I said as she packed her bags and refused to look at me.

  “It makes no difference,” she whispered, still facing away.

  Then Antha knocked on the door. She’d come to help Cecily pack. Neither of them wanted my assistance carrying Cecily’s belongings to the car that her mother was giving her.

  I went outside to the backyard and stood on an old brick retaining wall that once fenced in my mother’s rose garden. When Caden and I were small we used to play Army Rangers out here, pretending to parachute from the low brick wall to the ground. I crossed my arms over my chest, bracing against the icy wind that whipped around. From this vantage point I could see the charred ruins of the old factory. The area would have to be razed completely. Perhaps someday something else would be built there. Or perhaps not.

  A flash of white in the dirt of the forgotten rose garden caught my eye. I bent over and scooped it up, recognizing right away that it was one of the flint shards that Caden and I had collected on one of our long ago family camping trips. I must have dropped it out here a decade ago, maybe more. The day I met Cecily I’d given her a rock like this. I doubted she remembered.

  A car door slammed and I looked up to see that Antha and Cecily were standing beside the rundown Toyota. Antha leaned over and whispered something to Cecily, who nodded her head. Antha squeezed her friend’s arm and then ducked into the car after glancing in my direction.

  Cecily was staring at me. I couldn’t see her expression but every nerve in my body begged me to run to her, scoop her up in my arms, carry her upstairs, confess my undying devotion. I hated that she was leaving thinking the worst of me. But I knew she might not leave at all if she found out that I hadn’t laid a finger on Kayla Watts. She would feel like she had to stay if I told her how much I loved her.

  Yes, she would stay and wear herself out at one crappy job after another while we tried to figure out how not to blame each other for the world we were missing out on.

  The day my brother died I thought my chest would crack in two from the heartbreak. This was a different kind of agony but it was agony nonetheless. It killed me to watch the girl I loved lower her head, get into that car and drive away. But even as I watched her taillights fade I felt hope. Cess would find a way to make her dreams come true. I had that kind of faith in her.

  I stood there on the brick wall until my hands started to feel numb, then I dropped the piece of flint back into the frozen dirt and slowly walked back up to the empty apartment.

  A lace curtain in my father’s house twitched and I guessed Kayla had been watching the whole scene unfold but I didn’t care. I wouldn’t have to deal with her much longer. I hadn’t yet broken the news to my family that Cecily wasn’t the only one who was leaving. That morning I’d visited an Army recruiter’s office in Cleveland and I was due to report for Basic Training in a month.

  The apartment was painfully desolate. Every trace of Cecily had been removed, even the picture of the Grand Canyon that hung above the bed. I stared at the empty space, wondering if she’d destroyed the picture. I hoped she hadn’t. I hoped she got to go there someday. I wished I could have taken her.

  The misery was stifling and my first instinct was to get drunk and pass out. I wouldn’t do that though.

  “Your wife left you today,” I said out loud to nobody. “It’s time to grow the fuck up and quit being a selfish jackass.”

  As I stood there in my empty home I wondered if Cecily and I would ever see each other again. I had to believe that we would. The alternative was unbearable.

  Maybe when that day came I’d know how to explain that I didn’t betray her. I didn’t cheat. I didn’t even lie, not exactly.

  I just didn’t tell her the truth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Branson

  My father was sitting alone in the living room when I returned from my drive. The three days I’d been here in Hickeyville helping Nell and my dad had flown by. Tomorrow I’d be returning to Arizona.

  “Did you go out?” my dad asked when I walked in.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Nell let me borrow her car. Didn’t she tell you?”

  He shook his head. “No. Kayla stopped by so it must have slipped her mind. They’re in the kitchen gossiping about babies.”

  As if on cue, laughter echoed from the next room; Nell’s throaty chuckle punctuated by her daughter’s high pitched giggle.

  The other day when Kayla walked in on me mooning around the old apartment we hadn’t talked for long. There was an awkward quality to every word exchanged between us.

  I asked her about her new husband. I remembered him as a decent guy who graduated from high school two years ahead of us. She asked me about Arizona and I answered sparingly, not touching on any complicated topics. The entire time she kept her hand on her slightly swollen belly, rubbing absently. This adult version of Kayla seemed serene and content, nothing like the spiteful, calculating girl she used to be.

  Over the years we never really did
manage to become friends but I didn’t begrudge her the happiness she’d managed to find. If anything, I envied her for it.

  “So where’d you go?” my dad asked. He’d been reading a book, a thick biography of Ulysses S. Grant and he set it in his lap once it was closed. His color was good and he seemed in decent spirits, considering he’d just lost his lower leg. Nell was obviously very capable of caring for him so I shouldn’t feel guilty about leaving tomorrow. But somehow I did.

  I paused over his question, weighing whether I wanted to be honest. “I visited Caden,” I said slowly.

  He didn’t flinch or grimace but his eyes shifted away. “That’s good,” he said quietly. “I never go as much as I ought to.”

  “I didn’t stay long,” I said, taking a seat on the couch.

  Standing beside my brother’s final resting place was a bleak moment that left me wondering what kind of man he’d be today. I roamed around the cemetery for a little while, pausing at the burial sites of my grandparents, my great grandparents, and assorted distant relatives that I knew only from old tinted photographs. It was disconcerting to think about how many members of my family were entombed beneath the yellowing grass.

  My father was staring out the big bay window. “I miss him every day.”

  I winced. “We all do, Dad.”

  He looked at me. “Our world broke the day your brother died, Branson. Our family broke with it.” He sighed and raked a hand through the hair that used to be as dark as mine. “I was unfair to you, pinning all the hope for the future on your shoulders and growing bitter when you wouldn’t do things my way. That’s a hell of a burden for a young man to carry. I convinced myself that when you joined the Army it was a betrayal, a rejection of everything I’d worked so hard to give you. I was wrong. And all this distance that’s been between us ever since, that’s my fault.”

  The old grandfather clock in the corner of the room chimed, signaling the top of the hour. My father watched me expectantly, hopefully, while it finished ringing.