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waiting for me. Ever since the Strange Men left the store, my phone has been ringing off the hook. It isn’t until dusk that Mom starts calling me, but I let it go to voice mail, which I ignore. Her questions are going to be harder to dodge. I know she’s going to be waiting up for me no matter how late I drive in, but there’s something gnawing at the edge of my brain, something that has been there ever since this morning when Nina mentioned my father by name.
I need to see him, to be near him even if he’s just mostly bones.
So instead of continuing straight toward home, and instead of turning right to mile marker seventy-seven and the river beyond, I turn left, heading toward a lost hill that never was. Autopilot takes over, like I’m being directed to this place by something that I can no longer find the strength to believe in.
It is here, now, that I fall back to my darkest hour.
this is the hour we collide
It rained the day my father died. The kind of rain that starts early, and the
clouds are so heavy you know the cloud cover is going to stick around all day. The kind of day you wake up only to want to pull the covers over your head and sink back into sleep.
The alarm went off early, predawn light entering the room. I looked out the window and saw through the rain that my dad’s truck was already gone. I was surprised at that. It seemed too early for him to go meet up with his friends already, but since I didn’t know what they were doing in Eugene, I guess I didn’t give it much thought. He would be back, he’d told me, at some point that afternoon.
I opened the store that morning, knowing it would be quiet unless the rain let up. That was okay with me—I still had history and algebra to catch up on. I started the coffee machine. I put the pastries in the display cases. I turned on the lights.
And it continued to rain.
Abe came in and shot the breeze with me for an hour. He showed me how to find the value of X when I only knew Y. He drank a cup of coffee and then headed out. The rain hurt his joints, he said. The cold too. Such an oddly cold day for May. He was going to go home and use a heating pad on his knees. I smiled and waved to him as he left.
Rosie brought me soup around eleven. Chicken noodle, freshly made. She smiled and then made the mad dash back to the diner.
Around one, I heard the wail of sirens in the far-off distance.
It was two when a deputy’s car pulled into the station. It sat outside in one of the three parking spaces for a moment. I could see the deputy moving around inside. Dominguez, I think it was, talking into the CB. Eventually, he backed out, his lights started to spin, and he took off.
It was raining harder at three that afternoon, like a wall of water.
Then it was four. And then 4:17 happened. I will remember that exact time for the rest of my life. It was 4:17 when my mom pulled into the station. The lights from her SUV filled the store. They switched off, and for a moment the afterimage danced along my vision. Then my eyes cleared, and I saw my mother through the rain, still sitting in the SUV. I couldn’t make out her face clearly through the rain sluicing down the windshield. I sat there and waited. Maybe she’s on the phone, I thought. She’d gotten a hands-free headset she seemed to be in love with. I couldn’t see clearly to know if her lips were moving or not. So I waited.
And waited. Five minutes. Then ten. I became worried at 4:27. At 4:29, the car door opened slowly. As if it wasn’t raining. As if it was a beautiful day and she had all the time in the world. As if nothing else mattered.
Her foot came out first and touched the pavement of the parking lot. She let it rest there for a moment, and I saw her press down on it, as if testing her leg to make sure it could hold her. Her other foot came down. She reached up to grab the top of the door and used it to pull herself up. I thought she was sick. I thought she was drunk. I thought I should go to her. I needed to help her. She was my mother and she was obviously not well. Something was wrong.
But I couldn’t move. Something stopped me. I don’t know what it was, but try as I might, I could not move.
She took another tentative step forward, and then closed the door behind her. Her head was bowed, her blonde hair hanging wet around her face, almost like a veil. She took another step and almost stumbled, her right leg seeming to buckle. She caught herself on the side of the car before she fell.
And still I could not move. Still it rained.
The florescent lights buzzed overhead. One began to flicker, snapping on and off rapidly. The tips of my fingers tingled at my sides. My head ached. My heart was sore. It hurt because I was watching my mother falter in the rain and I could do nothing to stop it. As she took another step toward me, I was sure something awful was coming. She took another
step.
I could lock the door, I thought. I could beat her there and lock the door. Keep her out of here. Keep her from bringing in the rain and the clouds. I’m dry here. I’m warm. Sure, the light above looks like it’s dying, and the buzzing noise is driving me insane, but I’m dry in here. I’m safe. She’s my mother. I love her. I love her completely, but she’s going to bring the rain inside.
She reached the door, and for one moment, one single heartbeat, her eyes met mine and I took a step back. The skin around her eyes was swollen, her cheeks puffy. The whites of her eyes were bloodshot in vibrant red lines. Her lips trembled. I saw all of this in one second. A second, really. Just one moment for me to see it all.
She opened the door.
The bell rang overhead.
A blast of air, wet and moist and smelling like deep earth, rolled over me like a wave.
“Benji,” she said, her voice raw and cracked.
“Mom? What’s wrong?”
