NEVER TURN BACK
A NOVEL
CHRISTOPHER SWANN
For three storytellers gone too soon: To my grandfather, Henry Conkle, for sharing with me his love of narrative and English literature; To my father, David Swann, for all of his stories that are now family legend; And to Jim Barton, my friend and colleague, for teaching the power and enchantment of storytelling to so many students, including my youngest son.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Second novels are rumored to be difficult to write. I’m here to confirm that rumor is true. Writing a book is rarely easy, but this one was a bear. I hope you enjoy it.
Many thanks to my agent Peter Steinberg at Foundry Literary + Media for his unwavering support and for believing in me. Jenny Chen at Crooked Lane Books has championed this book from the get-go; not only did she see the heart of the story I was trying to tell, but she also helped me discover the best way to construct that story. She and the rest of the folks at Crooked Lane are outstanding, and I’m so grateful to them.
I’m also so very grateful to Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School for celebrating and supporting me in my second career as an author, as well as allowing me the opportunity to continue in my first career as a teacher. To my students, who push me and challenge me to be a better teacher and who never cease to amaze, embarrass, and delight me—thank you, and it will all be on the test.
There are too many authors for me to thank properly, and I fear I’ll inadvertently leave someone out, but the following deserve my special thanks for their encouragement, advice, and friendship: Brian Panowich, Jami Attenberg, Emily Carpenter, Patti Callahan Henry, Jonathan Evison, Ben Loory, Joshilyn Jackson, J. T. Ellison, Caroline Leavitt, Ed Tarkington, Morgan Babst, Daren Wang, Tim Johnston, Susan Rebecca White, Emily Giffin, Lynn Cullen, Julia Franks, Mira Jacob, Hank Early, Mary Laura Philpott, Marsha Cornelius, Linda Sands, Jason Sheffield, Wiley Cash, Dunn Neugebauer, Sheryl Bryant Parbhoo, Clifford Brooks, David Abrams, David Williams, Marilyn Baron, Zachary Steele, Rob Aiken, George Weinstein, Roger Johns, Anna Schachner, Robyn McCord O’Brien, Soniah Kamal, Carmen Deedy, Scott Gould, Elizabeth Colton, Amanda Kyle Williams (RIP), Georgia Lee, T. M. Brown, Angie Gallion, and Julia McDermott.
Thank you to Robin Hoklotubbe, Kelly Moore, Karin Glendenning, and all other librarians who promote authors and their books and reading in general; to Joy Pope, Kate Whitman, Alison Law, and all the other folks who tirelessly support the Atlanta literary scene; to Susan Rapoport, the wind beneath my wings; and to Gary Parkes, Jake Reiss, Nora Ketron, Frank Reiss, Kelly Justice, Doug Robinson, Niki Coffman, Justin Souther, Charlie Lovett, and indie bookstores everywhere (go to www.indiebound.org to find and order books from your local independent bookstore).
And finally, and most of all, to my number-one promoter, my editor-in-chief, the mother of our two incredible boys, and my best friend—to my wife, Kathy Ferrell-Swann. You were right. And I love you.
PART I
What’s done cannot be undone.
—Lady Macbeth, Macbeth (5.1.68)
CHAPTER ONE
I’m at a traffic light downtown on Peachtree Street at eight AM on a Friday, the sky far too blue and sunny, and as I sit in my Corolla in last night’s clothes, waiting for the light to change, the headache buried in my skull sends out a single red tendril. I need coffee and a shower and a handful of Advil. To distract myself, I think about Marisa, the woman I met yesterday at the English teachers’ conference and drank with at the hotel bar, the woman with whom I spent the night. But now the headache is unfurling behind my forehead and I just want to get home and climb into bed and sleep for twelve hours.
At the thought, as if sleep is a key that unlocks the vault of my memory, I can hear my mother quoting Robert Frost: “ ‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep, / But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep, / And miles to go before I sleep.’ ” That was one of her favorite quotes, reflecting her extraordinary commitment to my father, no matter how difficult that commitment became. My father had a rather different take on the issue. Once, after he had returned from Iraq, I complained to him about a promise that a schoolmate had broken, and he gave me a lopsided smile. “The best way to keep your word is not to give it,” he told me. Which, even then, I knew was a pretty cynical thing for a father to say to his thirteen-year-old son.
The twin memories of my parents are like a pair of blades scissoring my heart, and I’m grateful to be distracted by the light changing. I’m a dozen cars back from the light, so I take a moment to close my eyes and picture an actual steel vault, the door massive and open. I’m holding an old shoebox, stuffed near to overflowing, a thick rubber band securing the lid, and I place the shoebox into the vault, push the door shut with a loud clang, and spin the wheel, locking it. Then I open my eyes and drive forward, through the intersection and on to home.
* * *
MY HOUSE NEAR Chastain Park is less than ten minutes from the school where I teach but over half an hour from downtown, even going against traffic. Halfway home I pull into a Starbucks drive-through, another willing victim of globalization and convenience, and order a large latte and a croissant. I suck down the latte and manage to get croissant flakes all over myself and the interior of my Corolla, but I don’t run into a lamppost or another vehicle, which I take as a win.
I live in a two-bedroom cottage tucked behind a much larger and more imposing house owned by Tony and Gene, who rent the cottage to me. Built a year before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the cottage has cedar-shingle siding, dusky blue shutters, and three concrete front steps leading up to a covered concrete porch the size of a postage stamp. There are garages in Chastain larger than my home. But the neighborhood is a suburban enclave of trees and lazy, winding streets anchored by a huge public park, complete with a golf course and sports fields. My house is within ten minutes of work, a Korean dry cleaners, a neighborhood Publix, a Target, and several decent bars and restaurants, all without having to get on Atlanta’s nightmarish interstates.
By the time I get home, Tony, one of my landlords, is crouching in the flower bed on his front lawn. He’s wearing an enormous straw hat the color of a ripe avocado, and he waves at me as I turn into my driveway, which runs along the edge of his lot. Sometimes he and his partner Gene bake me chocolate chip cookies or invite me to watch movies in their in-home basement theater, which has reclining leather seats, a wine fridge, and a sound system you could hear on the moon. Tony runs some sort of IT consulting business from home, and Gene is a real estate agent who drives a new Mercedes every year. Last summer they got married and threw a post-wedding bash for all their friends and neighbors that would make Gatsby’s soirées look like a five-year-old’s birthday party. Robert Frost wrote that good fences make good neighbors, but so do kindness and empathy. I don’t always return those in kind, and today I don’t stop and make small talk like I should because I’m dirty, slightly hungover, and more than a little embarrassed that Tony is seeing me coming home after a late night, but I’m lucky to have such nice neighbors, and I need to let them know it.
I make my way slowly up the pine-shrouded driveway in my Corolla, the asphalt buckled by tree roots so that I dip and pitch my way to the end. Brown pine needles blanket the asphalt and even the roof of the cottage. Need to get up there with a leaf blower, I think, and I take undue pride in the observation, as if I were acting like a responsible adult rather than slinking away from a one-night stand and skipping the final day of a conference my employer paid for. Nothing worthwhile happens on the last day of a three-day conference, especially not on a Friday when everyone is itching to get home for the weekend, but that doesn’t keep me from feeling guilty. Then comes a memory like an echo: wet lips, a hungry mouth, a gasp followed by a t
hroaty chuckle, Marisa’s dark hair playing across my face as she rose above me. Even hungover as I am, for a moment I feel desire slowly stirring. But overlaying this is a worn yet familiar sense of sadness. This is not the first time I have hooked up with a stranger at a conference. I’ve found it’s easier than maintaining an actual relationship. Better to make a quick exit than a prolonged good-bye. Or so I tell myself.
I walk up the steps, reaching for my house keys. Wilson is inside whining at the door. “Hold on, boy,” I say, trying to get the key in the lock. My dog is housebroken, and Tony and Gene said they would let him out yesterday—I make a mental note to get them a bottle of wine—but I know Wilson must be hungry at least.
When I get the door open, my miniature dachshund is dancing on the carpet. Usually he almost bowls me over as he runs out the front door to relieve himself on the front lawn. Today he barks at me, twice, then turns and runs to the back of the house, into the tiny hall that separates the two bedrooms. The one on the left is officially the guest bedroom but has no bed and is essentially a storage closet. Wilson turns right, into my bedroom, his paws scrabbling on the hardwood floor. He yips excitedly.
“Wilson!” I call. The last thing I need is for him to pee all over my room. I drop my workbag and follow him. “Wilson, come!”
I walk through the doorway of my bedroom and come to a dead stop. Wilson is prancing around at the foot of my bed like he’s just treed a squirrel. A woman is lying on top of the covers, looking up at the ceiling, her hands clasped over her stomach. Marisa, I think, and I am startled and excited and freaked out all at once. Immediately I realize it’s not Marisa. This woman is wearing jeans and has bare, filthy feet, and her short hair is a shade of magenta that doesn’t exist anywhere in nature.
“You named your dog Wilson?” she says, still looking at the ceiling.
Wilson glances up at the bed, then back to me, a low whine in his throat. I reach down and rub his ears and get a rapid licking from a tiny, rough tongue in response. “Good boy,” I say.
She sits up on her elbows to face me. “You did not name him after the volleyball in Cast Away,” she says.
“Tom Hanks got an Oscar nomination for that,” I say, still rubbing Wilson’s ears.
She laughs. “Jesus, that’s pathetic.”
I sigh and straighten up. “Good to see you too, Susannah.”
“Suzie,” she says. With that, Susannah hops off the bed. She’s wearing a tight black T-shirt with the words Get Up the Yard slashed in white across the front. “Got anything to eat?” she says. “I’m starving.”
“And apparently shoeless.”
“My feet hurt. Plus I stepped in dog shit when I took Wilson outside for you. You’re welcome.”
“Where’ve you been, Susannah?”
“It’s Suzie,” she says. “Seriously, I’m fucking dying of hunger over here.”
* * *
DON’T GET ME wrong, I’m glad to see my sister. It’s just that her sudden reappearances can be jarring. She operates on her own timetable, rarely calls or emails, and disappears for months at a time, so seeing Susannah in the flesh is really the only confirmation I ever get that she’s even alive.
Whenever I would complain about something Susannah had done, like taking my books from my bedroom without asking or eating the last pack of peanut butter crackers in the pantry, Mom would commiserate, but she always ended those talks the same way. “I know it’s hard having a little sister,” she would say in her Irish lilt. “But she’s your little sister, Ethan. She’s the only one you’ve got.”
This was a refrain both of my parents often used to impress upon me the importance of being Susannah’s big brother, the unique role I was to play in her life. But once she was old enough to ride a tricycle, Susannah came to feel insulted by the idea that she could possibly need me to protect her. I was inclined to agree. People who messed with Susannah were more likely to need me to protect them from her. When I was twelve and Susannah was nine, a budding bully in our neighborhood named Jake called my curly-haired sister Brillo Head. The next day, Jake was riding his bike, a red Diamondback Octane, when the brakes failed to work and he crashed into a utility pole, breaking his forearm and collarbone. When Jake’s little brother Tommy told the rest of us on the cul-de-sac about Jake’s accident, I looked at Susannah. She gave me a ghost of a smile only I could see. More chilling than that smile was the pair of needle-nose pliers I found sitting on my dresser that evening, the perfect tool for snipping a brake line on a bike. I put the pliers back where they belonged, in the toolbox in our garage, but said nothing, partly because I couldn’t prove anything but also because I didn’t want to upset Mom and Dad—Mom because she would cry, Dad because I didn’t know how he would react.
A year after the bike incident, we were orphans.
* * *
SUSANNAH EATS A cheese-and-mushroom omelet and three pieces of toast. I settle for a glass of orange juice and more coffee. Afterward we sit on my front steps in the warm late morning and sip coffee as we watch Wilson explore the yard and chase chipmunks.
“Gotta love Atlanta,” Susannah says. “Middle of January and it’s like sixty degrees outside.”
“Global warming.”
“It’s a lie.”
“Global warming is a lie?”
“Straight-up liberal propaganda.”
“You know, I’ve never understood that,” I say. “The whole global warming conspiracy idea. What would be the point?”
“Political control. People who want to crush capitalism and introduce a world government. There’re documentaries and everything.”
I never know whether Susannah believes what she’s saying or not. I’ve found it’s safer to just listen and try not to start an argument.
“So, where’ve you been?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Around.”
“Around Atlanta?”
“Hell no.” She takes a sip of her coffee. “Nashville. Cleveland for a little while. Saint Louis. Wanted to head out west, maybe Montana.”
“You didn’t?”
She shakes her head. “Didn’t feel right. So I ended up back here.” She speaks as if she has been on a summer road trip. I haven’t talked to her in over a year, haven’t seen her in two.
“You planning on staying for a while?” I ask, trying to sound neutral.
She shrugs. “Don’t know. Maybe. Need to find a job. Your school need a substitute teacher?” When I look at her, she holds a hand up, palm forward. “Relax. Just kidding, Professor. Sheesh.” She takes out her phone and starts tapping at it.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Looking for a hardware store,” she says, still looking at her phone. “You need new locks.”
“Why do I—?” I stare at her. “Did you break into my house? I thought my neighbors let you in!”
She shakes her head. “Got in really late last night, figured you’d be home.” She looks up from her phone. “Speaking of, looks like somebody did the walk of shame this morning.”
“I was at a conference,” I say, feeling my cheeks redden. “There was a get-together last night. I stayed out late and crashed in someone’s hotel room.”
She smiles. “You’re a terrible liar. Relax, I don’t care. And I didn’t break anything. You just have shitty door locks. Oh, there’s an Ace Hardware just down the street. Perfect.” She slides her phone back into her pocket and looks expectantly at me.
* * *
AFTER I TAKE a shower, I walk over to my neighbors’ house to ask Tony if it’s okay for me to replace the front and back door locks at my expense. I tell him my sister’s visiting and she gets anxious about home security. Tony says sure, no problem, come over for a drink later if you want. I beg off, as I have no intention of introducing Susannah to anyone, let alone to Tony and Gene over drinks. Instead I bundle Susannah into my car and we drive to Ace Hardware, where Susannah—who insists that I call her Suzie, which I refuse to do—examines every dead bolt and door lock unti
l she pronounces one brand acceptable. I buy two sets and spend the rest of the afternoon installing the things and doing what passes for my weekend housecleaning while Susannah washes a duffel bag of laundry and plays with Wilson.
Despite the fact that it’s a small house, we manage not to talk a lot to each other during the day, aside from the usual banter and bickering. Susannah is like a rare and edgy bird of prey—say the wrong thing and she’ll either claw you or take wing and vanish. I get the sense that she is tired and might like pretending to be domesticated for a couple of nights, so instead of inviting her to stay, I just assume that she will and don’t bother asking. But I am waiting for the right moment to ask her what’s going on, if she has any plans for the near future, and I figure dinnertime is it—she’ll be more relaxed, less likely to attack or bolt.
Dinner turns out to be pizza from Double Zero, which Susannah orders, has delivered, and pays for with cash, a gesture I appreciate. We eat on the couch, listening to the Lumineers and drinking beer. Wilson lies on the floor, happily exhausted from chasing his rope bone, which Susannah threw for him all afternoon.
Susannah is lying back on the couch, feet on the coffee table, eyes closed. I swear she’s even smiling. “So,” I say, deciding to tiptoe into this particular minefield, “you seen Uncle Gavin lately?”
Susannah snorts. “Fat chance. Thinks I owe him money.”
“You did take his car.”
Her eyes open and she sits up. “I borrowed it, for Christ’s sake! I just needed a ride to Athens to see Dirt Plow. How did I know I’d get pulled over?”
“The police thought it was stolen.”
“Borrowed.” She emphasizes this by poking me in the shoulder.
“Ow.”
“Toughen up, buttercup,” she says. “What about you? You seen him?”
Never Turn Back Page 1