I head back in and take a seat on the couch, unsettled, prickled by his words, or more to the point, those of my aunt’s.
My father loves people to a fault. He loved Wilson up until he became the embodiment of a stoner, and then unfortunately much harder things that eventually sucked him down to the grave. My mind rewinds time right up until a week before Wilson was gone. He and my father argued over everything. You couldn’t hear your own damn thoughts over their nightly howls. My father loved him to a fault, but not through it.
Rachel bounces through my mind—the last week of her life was quite different, wrapped up in murmurs, in heated closed door arguments between my parents. My father was highly disappointed in something she had done. Those were the only words I was able to decipher, the only ones that time has never erased. My father didn’t shed a tear at either of their funerals. He was stoic, strong, looking straight ahead, nose to the wind. When one of my uncles suggested he was a pillar of strength for the family, my mother scoffed. I never forgot that. But he shed rivers at Aston’s funeral. Gone too soon, my son, my son, he cried out in agony late into the night. I was the stoic one then, the one in shock, the one numb from the world and everything going on in it because I had inadvertently removed my only remaining sibling from the planet.
A conversation we had weeks before the move comes crashing back to me. “I won’t tolerate any misgivings from anyone in this family, including you. Straighten up or I’ll straighten you out. Excise the sin from your body, son. The wages of sin is death.” It’s true. My father holds me to a higher standard because all of his other perfect children are dead. Perfect. That word circles around in my mind like a boomerang. Wilson was captain of the debate team, had his acceptance letter from Harvard. He was perfect until he wasn’t. Rachel. She seemed perfect to me. Liked the boys a little too much, but she was beautiful and they gave her all the attention she craved—the attention my father was never able to give her.
And then there was Mom. She wasn’t his biggest fan, but she was tolerant. I miss her. I miss that cheap honeysuckle perfume she used to douse herself with. I miss that silk scarf she pinched around the neck a little too tight. I miss that orange lipstick, her Irish heritage that she wore like a badge for the world to see. I miss every damn thing about her.
“You know what?” I pull myself off the sofa. “I think I’m going to head out and take a little drive.”
“You want company?”
“No. Allison is sleeping. Stay here in the event we need you. I won’t be gone long.” I head into the kitchen and pluck both my keys and my father’s off the counter.
I’m going to see my mother, touch her things, bury my face in that silk scarf of hers, and weep like a pussy.
I speed out into the dark and the fog retracts with each step I take, revealing the hardness of nature lying underneath.
When is this cruel world going to open up and reveal where in the hell my daughter is?
* * *
Kemp Drive is situated on the border between the proverbial right and wrong side of the tracks. If you had any sort of wealth at all, you would consider this an unfortunate neighborhood to have grown up in. If you were enmeshed in generations of poverty, you would think this was a step up in the world.
My father’s house, the house I spent my childhood scheming to get out of, sits back from the road, distant enough from the neighbors to let you feel as if you’re in your own little hemisphere. I park far enough away so that I can admire it in its haunting entirety once I get out of the car. A two-story bungalow with clapboard siding painted army green, brown trim that my mother hated and wanted badly to paint white. It looks gapingly large, enormous even in this strangled light. It crops up like a shadowed demon expanding its wings against the velvet background, the fog licking at its crevices.
I head up the porch as the wood groans and creaks beneath my feet like a greeting from a decrepit old friend.
“Long time no see,” I mutter, fumbling for the key. The door glides open without too much assistance as if the house itself were welcoming me inside. I flick on the lights, and just like that, I’m transported back fifteen years into my childhood. Same no-nonsense Shaker furniture, matching plaid sofas, an oval mirror hanging over the fireplace—the watchful eye of the Price home.
My father handed me my rifle with a grunt. “Don’t look down the barrel.” He winked at me as if it were a dare, but I took it with glee and bolted for Aston. Of course, I glanced down into the dark hole of the barrel when neither one of them was looking. It was practically command once you asked me not to do it.
“Let’s get out the damn door!” I circled my older brother like a gnat he couldn’t get rid of. Our father was the true barrier that day, insisting we take a pipe cleaner to those old shotguns we were hauling around.
“Watch that mouth of yours or the old man will take it right off your face.” Aston shoved a bristled brush into the barrel of his gun, which sat in various stages of deconstruction across the dining room table. He shot a frown up at our father before reverting to me. “Clean your damn gun, would you?” He gave a little wink my way. Aston was three years older than me, already well past puberty, headed into that man body my mother promised us we’d own one day.
It was deer season and my mother loved it when we brought home a kill. We ate venison through every winter I can remember, or at least up until that one.
“Will do!” I cocked the rifle to check the barrel and Aston stepped right in front of me. I can still see that final moment in my mind like some well-choreographed ballet, a comedy of horrific errors.
One powerful blast, the unexpected blowback knocking me to the floor. I glanced up and thought what the hell is that mess on the wall. Dad is going to kill us.
“Dad is going to kill us,” I whisper as I make my way slowly to the dining room. The wall is pristine, covered in wallpaper, a repeating pattern of birds, blues and greens. What was once a den of horror has since been transformed into a Zen-like station.
My mother hated this room after it was done. We never ate dinner in there again.
I head upstairs, startled to note the wall of family pictures my mother proudly displayed throughout the years has been dismantled. In its place are the sparse pictures of Allison, Reagan, and me. A few of my father posing with his gold clubs, one of him on a deep-sea fishing trip he once took.
Odd. But it must be depressing to look at all of the faces that have passed each and every day. I wish I knew he was having such a tough time. I flick the light on in the master bedroom, a simple room, white bedding, rocker in the corner, a nightstand, and a lamp. My mother used to heap a basket of her knitting needles in the corner, and she had the occasional magazine lying around. Her latest fiction read would be in hardback form right next to her side of the bed. I make my way to the closet, a walk-in that my brothers, sister, and I would use as our clubhouse growing up, and flick on the light.
My heart drops. The entire left side of the closet has up and vanished.
My mother died a year ago. Of course, she didn’t need any of those things anymore, but didn’t he? I stagger over to the dresser and pull open drawer after drawer, but all I come up with are men’s socks, my father’s underwear, an entire drawer dedicated to baseball hats.