Catherine McKenzie - Hidden

“Right,” I said, taking a sip of my drink. “You too.”

“Sorry, did I steal your thunder?”

“No. Forget it.”

“Damn.”

I looked at him. His tie was askew and for some reason he looked younger than me. Or younger than I felt.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Stealing your thunder was kind of the whole point.”

“Is that right?”

He laughed. “Jeff, Jeff, when did you get so serious? I came over to apologize. I thought I was doing you a favor. I remember how much you hate public speaking, but when I saw your face I realized…anyway, sorry.”

I sipped my drink, trying to figure out if he was being genuine. It made me feel empty that I couldn’t tell anymore.

“Do you really mean that?” I asked lamely.

He cocked an eyebrow. “And everyone always said you were the smart one.”

“No one ever said that about me. You’re the one they said that about.”

“Then why do you have all this?” He waved his hand around. “How’d you get so fucking lucky?”

I rested my hands on the bar. “I ask myself that all the time.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I do.”

“See you around, brother.”

He started to leave and I grabbed his arm. “Don’t do that.”

He shrugged me off. “I can do what I want. Whatever I have, I have that.”

“Why’d you come home, Tim? Just tell me.”

“You know Claire’s not doing well, right? You at least know that?”

My heart started to pump. “Don’t tell me about my wife.”

“But you asked me to,” he said, and then he walked away.

It’s only when he’s sitting across from me in the den, holding the plastic bag full of Jeff’s effects, that I realize the police officer is Marc Duggard, a guy who was a few years ahead of me at Springfield Prep. The fact that I never realized who he was the day Jeff died underscores how out of it I was. At least now, it only takes me five minutes to recognize someone I was in school with for a decade. A baby step of progress.

“Sorry to have to do this, Claire,” he says. “But we have to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s. You understand.”

“Yes,” I say mechanically.

“I’ll need you to sign this form,” he says, handing me a release form in triplicate.

I sign the copies, and then he sits there, staring at me, as though I might hold the answers he’s presumably here to give me.

“We’ve concluded our investigation,” he says eventually.

“There was an investigation?”

“Standard procedure with vehicular homicide.”

“Yes, of course. I remember.”

More echoes of my past life. They’d have to make sure the driver wasn’t drunk, or high, or reckless. But careless was okay. Careless was just a part of life.

“We’ve concluded it was an accident,” he says. “With the sun in her eyes, and Jeff walking into the street suddenly like that, well, it could’ve happened to anybody.”

I’ve always hated that expression. It didn’t happen to anybody. It happened to Jeff.

“What’s her name?” I ask.

“Pardon?”

“The driver. Do I know her?”

“She’s from out of town. Passing through. Terrible luck. Terrible luck for everyone. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you…”

“What?”

“She’s still here. In the hospital, actually.”

“Was she hurt?”

“No…a mental hold. It’s common in these types of cases…well, you can imagine, I guess.”

“I guess.”

He slaps his hands on his thighs. “I should be going.”

“Okay.”

I shift in my seat and the plastic bag slips around in my lap, tinkling. Is it Jeff’s keys? Loose change? Am I ever going to be able to open it?

Marc stands and pauses. He seems to be expecting me to thank him, for Jeff’s effects, for the information about the woman who killed him, such as it is. Instead, I give him back the thousand-mile stare he’s been giving me.

He holds it for a moment. “I’m real sorry about all this, Claire.”

“Yes.”

“I can see myself out.”

I nod but rise anyway. Out in the hall, there’s a line waiting for the bathroom. Tish is at the head of it. She looks like she wants to say something to me but before I can ask her what it is, Tim’s at my side, leading me to the back of the house.

We come to an abrupt stop in the solarium that overlooks the backyard.

“Wait here,” he says, as if I had anywhere else to go, then takes the plastic bag from my hands and places it on the counter.

He leaves the room and I’m alone. Seth’s yellow rain jacket is hanging by its hood over Jeff’s larger red one. Their baseball gloves are resting on the bench, a mud-caked baseball half slipping out of Seth’s newer glove. When was the last time they played catch? Was it this year, during a thaw? Or have the gloves been sitting there all winter, waiting, waiting, waiting?

“Come with me,” Tim says from behind me. He reaches over my shoulder and pushes open the creaky screen door. The sound of a million summers.

We go outside. It’s late afternoon, the sun is low, and the air is heavy with the smell of impending rain. He directs me toward the rusting swing set tucked into the corner of the lot. Jeff spent hours assembling it, cursing, sweating, even slicing his hand open, resulting in a long wait in the emergency room. But when it was finished (slightly off-kilter, the swings always listing to the left) and he revealed it to six-year-old Seth, all the stress and toil were worth the expression of pure joy on his face. Jeff hoisted him into the seat, and Seth swung and swung, too high for my liking. Later, he and his friends scampered up the slide, dangled from the crossbeam. For a while I always knew where to find him, but then he grew, and the swing didn’t, and Seth moved on to other things.

I used to find Jeff out here sometimes a few years ago, and again lately, stuffed into a swing, his arms wrapped around the metal chains, staring off into space.

Tim sits in a swing and motions for me to sit in the other. The stiff rubber gives under my adult weight, cutting into the backs of my thighs, reminding me of the scratchy dress I’m still wearing. The itch of grief.

Tim’s swing creaks back and forth, screaming for oil. Last year’s leaves are gathered under our feet, rotting into earth. A chore we never got to.

“You want some?” Tim asks as the grainy smell of alcohol hits me. He’s holding out a fifth of something dark, wiping his mouth with the back of his other hand.

“I’ve been looking for that.”

“How could you be? I brought it with me.”

“No, I mean something like that. All the alcohol seems to be missing.”

“I noticed.”

“My mother,” I say, and he nods in agreement.

He passes the container to me and I take a swig. Jim Beam, I realize as soon as it hits my throat. An old flavor, full of memories.

“That’s awful.”

“It was the only thing I could find at my parents’ house.”

“You think they keep it to dissuade guests from drinking?”

“Maybe.”

“Sometimes I think it wouldn’t take much to turn this town into the one in Footloose.” I take another burning swallow. “Anyway. Thanks.”

“Wasn’t that town called Bomont?”

“It’s not about the name, doofus.”

“Put a girl in a swing and suddenly she’s using terms like ‘doofus.’ ”

“If the swing fits.”

I twist the creaking, rusting chains, like I used to do as a child. I twirl and twirl and twirl—and release! I’m twirling in the opposite direction. The world blurs, my brain goes dizzy and feels loose in my skull.

“What did he want?” Tim asks when I come to rest.

“Who? Marc Duggard?”

“The one and only.”

“To give me Jeff’s effects, and to tell me that they’ve closed their investigation. Accident. Unavoidable. ‘One of those things.’ Did you know the woman who did it is in the hospital?”

“Was she injured?”

“They’re worried she’s going to kill herself.”

“Maybe they shouldn’t try to stop her.”

“Tim!”

“What? You don’t think she should pay for what she did?”

“What’s it going to change?”

“That’s a weird thing for you to say. Whatever happened to ‘light ’em up’?”

“Did I ever say that?”

His feet push at the ground. He sways slowly. “Many times.”

“That was a long time ago. Another lifetime.”

“We only have one lifetime.”

“Right.”

“Do you know who she is?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. Someone from out of town.”

I look down at my own feet. I raise my toes up and try to dig them into the mud, but the ground won’t give.

“Are you going to forgive her?” he says.

“I can’t think about that right now. I’m still trying to forgive myself.”

“What does that mean?”

I look at him. His face is flushed from the alcohol and the cold breeze.

“Do I have to say it?”

He holds my gaze for a minute, then takes another drink.

“It’s not the same thing, Claire. It never was.”

“How can you be so sure?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he gives a big push backward, leaving the ground, arcing through the air, then jumps from the swing, landing gracefully on the ground, sticking the landing like a gymnast.

He stands in front of me, blocking the wind. And now, for the first time, the day feels warmer than it is.

When I get back inside, I decide it’s time to finally get out of these clothes. And the thought of climbing into bed, pulling the covers over my head, over this day, is there too.