Mel mutters something to Jared, who guffaws, hiding his mouth behind his drink. They circled the truck for ten minutes before sitting down to eat, discussing the engine, the contours. I hear Mel tell him she misses seeing trucks in Manhattan. I always assumed she was being ironic when she said things like that. Apparently not. The whole thing leaves me testy.
Mom piles my plate high. I have forgotten that Mom is a bang-up cook, when she wants to be. It helps that most of this has been assembled with unspeakable amounts of lard. I’m careful with the chicken, still shaky with cutlery. I think of the solid month of my life it took me to relearn how to use a fork: the grip, the trajectory to the mouth. How much food I spilled. No one else would really relate if I tried to tell that story. It would just sound strange, and sad. No, I am a spectator here, a spectator to my own family, like I’ve always been. Kent’s head is bent; he chews affably. Mom says something low to him. He pats her on the thigh. Shauna rolls her eyes. She lifts her phone to flick off an angry text. “Put it away,” Mom says without looking at her. She does.
Mel catches my eye. Wiggles her eyebrows at me.
I look out the window onto the ridge, which extends into a deep drop of rocks and pines and underbrush before leveling out slightly farther down to the place where Shauna’s house stands. To where Teddy’s house used to be. I see a bare patch where our trampoline stood on the lawn, the grass there yellow and thin. Suddenly I remember Honus Caudill sitting in the back of his van, cleaning supplies at his feet. His eyes on me. The feel of him looking at me a sensation like being flayed open, organs exposed to the air.
Something happens. I leave my body—not floating this time, like during the stroke, with that deliciously airless vantage point over my head. This is a slow leak, a gradual darkening. Sound warps and cottons. The floor begins to shift. My heart speeds.
We should not be here. This is why I stayed away for four years; I knew, on the furry, subconscious level, that there was something here waiting to swallow me. I can feel the base of my spine curl in self-protection, an animal warning against the electricity of this place. How silly it is to assume that what we’re dealing with is not something that will, in turn, deal with us.
You need to move away from whatever is here for you, I think to myself. Not toward it.
My chest constricts. A dark point in the middle of my vision spreads, grows deeper, more velvet. I can’t draw a deep enough breath. The sounds around me begin to fade.
I drop my fork, make a small choking noise.
My mother looks to me sharply. Yells, “Sharon Kay.”
“Huh?”
Everyone is staring at me. It’s gone quiet.
“Are you all right.”
“Yeah.” I blink, take a few shaky breaths. Try to get my eyes to refocus. I pound my chest weakly. “Just—went down the wrong way. I’m fine.”
“You look funny.”
I go to Mel, trying to measure my breathing. She swipes her chin. Drool. I wipe.
“Just starin off into nothin,” Britney whispers.
Mom gives her a dirty look. “Hush,” she says, and moves toward me. Reaches for my forehead. Feels.
Mel starts to get up. “You okay?” she says, low. “Want me to call Dr. Weston? I can.” She grabs her phone, flecked with corn bits. My family stares at her; she’s gone from good old boy to authority figure in three seconds.
“Don’t,” I say. “I’m okay. Really.”
“Sure?”
“Yes.”
She purses her lips, not totally sold. “Okay. But I can do it anytime if you change your mind.”
I look at everyone. They’re gaping at me. No one is eating. “I’m okay,” I tell them. “For God’s sake, let’s please eat. Okay?”
Mom stares at me for a moment until she sits back, satisfied. “Everybody eat,” she commands. And we do.
—
The dishes are cleared. Mom hauls out the pie and Bud Light. Everybody takes one, save for Mel and Jared. Britney wrings her hands when she sees me crack one open. “I’m allowed to drink,” I say. “One’s fine.”
“Leave her alone,” Jared calls from outside. He and Mel have gone to talk cars again; he’s offered to show her some pre-Nixon Chevy skeleton down in the ravine. I step carefully onto the porch after them.
Kent’s there, looking out on the ridge. He nods at me. There’s a pipe in his hand, an old carved cherrywood job. A sweet, toasted smell drifts from the bowl. “The pie was great,” I tell him.
He nods. “Glad you enjoyed it.”
I turn to step off the porch when he says, “I watched your all’s movie last night.”
“You did?”
“It was real good,” he says slowly. Turns the bowl of his pipe, taps at it. “Gives you a lot to think over.”
“Thanks, Kent.”
“You do all the drawings yourself? You and Mel?”
“We do. Well, we use a software program to help, but yeah, it’s mostly just us.”
He nods. “That is something. Lot of hard work, sounds like.”
This is the most Kent has ever said to me directly. “It makes it better if you like what you do,” I say.
“I reckon you’re right. Good to have you all here.” He steps back into the house.
I find Jared and Mel down in the weeds, smoking. They look up at me. “She looks all right,” Jared says to her.
“I’m standing right the fuck here,” I say. “Why does everyone keep doing that?”