“No, no, nothing like that,” Will says quickly, shaking his head as if to chase the thought away. As he passes beneath what does, indeed, appear to be the counterpart to the first weird eye he saw, he reminds himself that Ohio is a bizarre place, and, also, that they were talking about something else. “Just, uh, really odd billboards out here. But I was saying, it can’t have been that long ago that we met, Sel, because you were, what, twenty-three then? And you are now twenty-nine, so?—”
“When I met you in that barbefore recorded time began,” Selma says, cutting Will off by way of drowning him out, “you had four shots of tequila, and then, totally unprompted, you told me that Ohio was the world’s armpit and you’d never go back even if someone offered you the unlikely sum of ‘ten bajillion dollars.’”
“Why do you rememberthat,” Will complains,as he flips a brief middle finger at a Mercedes that cuts in front of him, “but never what time I tell you to meet me for lunch?”
“Well, itwasthe very first thing you ever said to me,” Selma says, in tones that ride the line between sarcastic and sentimental. “So I suppose it made an impression. And I don’t forget what time you tell me for lunch, Will; I just don’t show up at that time unless I feel like it.”
“Faaaaantastic,” Will mutters. “Why did I call you, again?” Then his mouth drops open slightly as he passes yet another wildly strange billboard; this one features the rest of the face that goes with the eyes, though only the face, and shot from very close up. In the white space on either side of the woman’s head are the wordsNeed to close? Call Catherine Rose. But there’s no phone number listed, Will notices. Not even a website.
“I think it was a cry forhelp,” Selma snaps, pulling him back to the conversation. “Because I can’t think why else you’d dial me up, tell me you’re halfway to your hometown, and then refuse to explain!Whyare you going toOhio, Will!”
“Oh,” Will says, his mouth going suddenly dry as the purpose of this phone call circles back to the forefront of his mind. “Did I, uh…did I not mention, last month, that my—my dad died?”
There’s a sharp, sucked-in breath on the other end of the line, and then a long pause. Eventually, tightly, Selma says, “You know, it must have slipped your mind. I sort of think I’dremembersomething like that.”
Will winces out at the highway. “We weren’t…close, or anything. I hadn’t talked to him in?—”
“Oh, shut up, you don’t need to tell me your tragic backstory,” Selma snaps. “Iamstill your best friend, even if you don’t bother to keep me informed about the mostbasic—” She cuts herself off, takes another breath, and then, in a tone thatsounds quite carefully modulated, says, “Sorry. I just mean—you should have told me, that’s all. Are you, like…okay?”
“Oh, sure,” says Will, who’s actually had the sneaking suspicion for some years that maybe he’sneverbeen okay, at least not in the way most people are, and never will be, either. But his voice is breezy as he adds, “It’s not like it changes anything about the relationship, right? He didn’t speak to me before; he doesn’t speak to me now. It’s just a…detail adjustment.”
“A detail adjustment.” Selma’s voice is flat. “And what stage of grief is that, do you think?”
“Realism?” Will shrugs, even though there’s no one else in the car to see it. “Look, it’s not—it doesn’t have to be a whole thing. I didn’t call you to cry or anything. Bill was alive, and now he’s dead, and my life will carry on more or less like it did before; case closed.”
“You know, I loved being an only child,” Selma says, in the tones of fond reminiscence. “I used to think about it all the time, how glad I was my parents didn’t make me suffer some snot-nosed little brat. Now I wonder if you might be cosmic punishment for my hubris. My universe-assigned little brother.”
“I am, again,older than you,” Will points out, not that it will matter. He knows that really, she’s doing this to avoid saying something like,Will, your emotional constipation makes me want to rip out all my hair and then yours, and he appreciates her containing it.
“So you’re going back for the funeral, then?” Selma says. “A little late, isn’t it, if he died last month?”
“Oh, no, I…wasn’t invited to the funeral,” Will admits, wincing a little on the lie. Or, well, it’s—it’s notquitea lie. But it’s not quite the truth, either.
The truth is, a month ago Will received a call from an unfamiliar number. He’d answered it, even though he doesn’t usually answer calls from unknown numbers; the voice on the other end had been unknown, too, one Will could swear he’dnever heard before. It was deep and male and hesitant as it said, “Uh, hello, is this—is this William Robertson?”
“Speaking,” Will said, cautious. “But if this is a spam call, I should warn you, I’m not interested and I don’t want it and you’re wasting your time with this number.”
“Uh, no,” the caller said, and cleared his throat. “Not spam. It’s—uh—look, sorry, I’m. I’m calling to tell you your father is dead. That’s probably not the best way to do that, but I’m not…I’m not an expert at, uh…at telling people their fathers are dead?” A pause. Then: “Uh, I’m…very sorry.”
Will was silent for a moment, less out of grief than surprise; it didn’t quite seempossible. Though he was more intimately aware of the impermanence of life than most, he’d realized in that moment that part of himreally thoughtBill would be storming around the farm forever, searching for something with which to find fault. That’s why he’d said: “Sorry—you mean—Bill? Bill Robertson? Is dead?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” The voice, for some reason, had started to sound a little annoyed; Will had found that quite irritating. After all, it washisfather who’d died. And he’d been even more annoyed when, dryly, the voice had added, “I guess I figured you probably already knew his name.”
“I was only checking you had the right person,” he’d snapped back, nettled. “It would be silly to get down to mourning my father if you were calling to report the death of aGregRobertson, wouldn’t it? Not that I have so much mourning to do; he isn’t much of a father. Or…God. Wasn’t much of one, I guess.” Briefly, Will had felt the floor give out under him, the wrongness of that sentence skittering up his spine and chilling him stone-cold. Then he gathered himself enough to add, tightly, “Thanks for telling me he’s dead—good to know. Was there anything else?”
At this, the voice had taken on a note of disgust. “You don’twant to know what happened? Or about the funeral arrangements? Or anything?Seriously?He was your father!”
And this, unfortunately, had been a step too far for Will. Perhaps it was a little glimmer of grief remaining for an old man he himself had lost more than fifteen years before; perhaps it was the audacity ofthisman, whoever he was, to say this to Will at this moment. He’d lost control of his temper; he’d snapped, “Who evenareyou? You’re right that he wasmyfather, so I thinkIget to decide how I feel about him dying, thank youverymuch! In fact, you might say I’m theonlyperson who does, since I don’t have any siblings and my aunts and uncles are dead, and the last funeral I went to was my mother’s! Where, by the way, my father demonstrated for what must have been the thousandth time that he wouldn’t spit on me if I was on fire, so! I don’t actually care about your opinions, whoever you are, and you can bury him yourself if it means that much to you. Goodbye.” And then, furiously, he’d hung up.
It had taken Will some time to cool down, but he had, over the course of several days, begun to feel rather badly about the whole incident. After all, it was probably some hospital worker, who in all likelihood simply had the misfortune of being there for Bill’s…well, for whatever had managed to take him down, in the end. A rage-induced heart attack remains Will’s best guess, and probably one triggered by something that most other people wouldn’t be remotely bothered by.
Regardless, it wasn’t the person on the phone’s fault that Bill wasn’t ever exactly Father of the Year, and, guiltily, Will had tried to call back and apologize. But the number had been disconnected, and so he’d shoved the incident to the back of his mind and tried to forget about it.
Not interested in explaining all this to Selma now, Will says, “Anyway, honestly, after my mom’s funeral, I wouldn’t have gone even if they had invited me. I was planning to just roll on with my life, but…”
“But?” Selma’s tone has a dangerous note of foreboding in it; nevertheless, Will has no choice but to forge ahead.
“Well,” he hazards, grimacing dramatically and tightening his grip on the steering wheel for fortitude, “it turns out that, um…I may have…uh…inherited the farm? After all?”
