My stomach drops.
“—Picked him up on Main Street. Seems he was confused, kept insisting there should be a honky-tonk there. He had your number written down in his wallet. I heard you were in town?”
I close my eyes and see, in the darkness behind my eyelids, the old Dusty Chap line-dancing hall. The loud country music, the smell of fries and beer, my mom tush-pushing to Wynonna or Travis Tritt beside me with her cowboy boots and her hair piled high on top of her head in a scrunchie. It was one of the most fun things I would do with my mother before she died. It went out of business years ago, when I was in middle school.
“Yes, I am. I’ll be right there,” I say, wheeling the car around.
—
My father has calmed down by the time I get there and doesn’t seem to understand why he’s sitting in the sheriff’s office at all.
“Shame on you,” he says to Sheriff Kahn, even as I’m trying to wrangle him into the passenger seat. Somehow, he’s lost his cane. “Shame on you, roughing up an old man like that. I wasn’t doing anything but minding my own business, and you come around and talk nonsense about the dancing hall—”
“That place closed, Dad,” I say, shooting Sheriff Kahn an apologetic look.
“I know that, Abigail,” he snaps, sounding, for a second, more like the dad I remember. Don’t talk back to your elders. Watch that filthy mouth of yours. I’m your father and you’ll do what I say. “Closed right after your mother died.”
Back home, I find his cane propped near the door. Who knows how he made it anywhere without it. I suspect one of his neighbors gave him a lift, not realizing how bad my dad has gotten. He slaps my hands away when I try to make him take his medicine, but finally he calms down and lets me put the pills on his tongue myself, sitting there meekly, watery-eyed, as if trapped beneath the thin liver-spotted skin and the stale breath is a child in need of attention. I leave him sleeping and promise to call in the morning.
I am gutted by his need, and by my desire to fix him. I should be relieved. He’s too pathetic now to hate. I never truly planned to confront him. I never really expected to reconcile any of it. Seeing this version of him, I know in my whole body that none of those things will ever even become an option. It is too much.
In the bathroom I wash my hands, splash water on my face, and wash my hands again. I yank open the cabinet, palming a few Valium from a bottle made out to his name. But I’m still too shaky to drive, and when I step outside, the smell of fire reaches me across the distance and touches old memories: lake parties that never included me. Kids dragging coolers and beach towels into the woods. My father hitting me hard and open-palmed across the face the one time I tried to sneak out.
Distantly, I hear the shrieks of laughter and the thud of music. I know that sound. Someone is having a bonfire.
Memories are like fire, and need only a little oxygen to grow. I remember now how I used to see the far-off light of bonfires from just a little farther than my back porch. I remember that sometimes my father would find crumpled beer cans in the woods near the toolshed, how the braver kids would get close enough to pelt the house with empties—just because they could, because it was there—until my father took his rifle and fired blind into the dark.
I was never invited. The bonfires were for the party crowd—for the crowd, period. Still, I would sit outside sometimes and swear that the smoke touched the back of my throat, even from that distance.
Impulsively, I grip my sweater tight and set out across the fields to the forest, and, beyond it, the reservoir—the reservoir, the start of it all—even while yearning for Chicago and the blessed anonymity of the high-rise where I live. I miss being several hundred miles away from my dad, from all this.
The woods are cold and very dark and I instantly regret not bringing a flashlight. The sun will set any minute. But soon I can see the far-off flicker of the bonfire and the silver wink of the reservoir. It was here, in these woods, that Brent kissed me.
Don’t tell anyone, he whispered, touching his thumb to my lower lip. I remember the smell of paint and the noise of crickets.
And then, as I approach the beach, past and present merge. Like shadows silhouetted by the fire, breaking apart and re-forming, the Brent of my memories transforms into real Brent, hailing me from a distance.
“Abby!” He breaks loose from a knot of his friends. I catch Misha’s eye a split-second before she, too, calls up a smile. Then Brent engulfs me in a hug and I lose sight of her. “You are like a surprise from the heavens.”
“You are obviously drunk,” I say, pulling away.
He laughs. “Only a little.” Then: “Seriously, I was just thinking about you.”
As everyone down by the bonfire turns to stare, I recognize various people from high school I’d hoped never to see again. Already, I regret coming. But it’s too late now.
“Meeting of the secret society?” I ask.
“Nothing secret about it,” Brent says, smiling. Today he’s in a polo shirt, khakis, and loafers. He looks like a Ralph Lauren ad made flesh. “I tried to invite you, but you don’t return my calls.”
“Sorry,” I say. “Busy week.”
Brent shrugs as if he knows it’s an excuse. “It doesn’t matter. You came anyway. See? It’s a sign.” He loops an arm around my shoulders. He’s definitely wasted.
“You smell like the beach,” I say, even though what I mean is that he smells like a booze factory.
“I smell great. I just went swimming.”
“In the reservoir? Brave man.”
“It’s one hundred percent safe. You’ll see. Pure as Iceland.” He wheels me around toward the fire and begins piloting me through the crowd. “Come on, city slicker. Let’s get you something to drink. All work and no play never did anybody good.”
If it weren’t for the thinning hairlines and paunch bellies, I might think we’d traveled back in time: I recognize everyone, football and basketball players, cheerleaders and dance squad girls, all of them eyeing me now with a special brand of curiosity and suspicion. I haven’t seen any of them since graduation.
I remember Kaycee painted in school colors, standing and trembling, blinking in the sunlight, as the girls began to fall down like a wave.
She must have been lonely, although it’s funny to think of her that way. She always seemed to have everything, even though, in retrospect, she didn’t have much at all: her mom gone, no money, her dad in his porn shop and spending all weekend at the bar.