once called me, and that’s what I felt like. Totally alive, and totally alone. My only companion at that moment was my younger self, the one who tipped Chet down that well. I imagined she was there with me. We locked eyes, not needing to speak to each other. We understood that survival was everything. It was the meaning of life. And to take another life was, in many ways, the greatest expression of what it meant to be alive. I blinked, and my younger self disappeared. She came back into me, and together we drove to New York City.
I was back in Shepaug by ten in the morning. I had driven the truck into the city, cruising around the Lower East Side till I found a place to park not too far from a subway station. It was a litter-choked block filled with shuttered shops. It was nearly dawn but loud music blasted from a parked car half a block away. I parked under a flickering streetlamp. I had worn gloves the entire night so there were no prints to wipe off, but I did it anyway, using a small towel that I found in the truck’s glove compartment. After wiping everything down, I spread the towel out and draped it over the soiled passenger seat, then I gathered any paperwork that had Brad’s name on it in the truck and took it with me. There was a nearby trash bin and I pushed the papers down into the stew of pizza crusts and coffee cups. Then I dropped the keys to the truck on the pavement next to the driver’s side, where they would catch the light. I hoped that the person who first spotted the dropped keys would not be some do-gooder who would alert the authorities. I was counting on the likelihood that the truck would be in several pieces in a chop shop by the time the sun came up.
I took the subway to Grand Central, bought a ticket on the Metro-North Commuter Rail to Shepaug. It was an hour wait and I drank coffee and ate a greasy doughnut, and watched as the station slowly filled with early-morning commuters. I managed to doze a little on the train ride to my hometown, and woke up shivering from the cold that had gotten into my bones from the long sleepless night. From Shepaug station I walked the three miles to Monk’s House, staying on a trail that skirted an unused portion of rail line. I hadn’t lived in Shepaug for close to ten years, but I didn’t want to risk getting spotted by someone I knew.
When my mother opened the door to me, a large mug of coffee in her hand, she said, “Darling, there you are,” and for a brief moment I wondered if I’d told her I’d be there, before realizing that she was covering for herself in case she’d forgotten about a visit from me.
“Were you expecting me?” I asked, walking into the house.
“No. Was I? He’s not coming today, is he?”
The he she was referring to was my father, who was moving back to America and back into Monk’s House. I’d arranged it over my last trip to London. Long story short: my father needed to live with someone who would look after him in his fragile mental state, and my mother needed money to pay her bills. I’d brokered a deal, and had no idea if it would work or not, but it was at least worth a try, or that was what I was telling myself.
“This weekend, Mum,” I said, making my way to the coffeepot in the kitchen.
“What are you doing here, and what are you wearing? You look like a cat burglar.”
Over coffee I told my mother that I had been traveling for work, picking up college archival material, first in Maine, then in New York City. I told her that I’d left my car in Maine and flown from Portland down to New York City but that I missed my flight back. I told her I’d decided to come out to Shepaug, see my mother, maybe get a ride up to Maine to get my car. It was a ludicrous story, I know, but my mother, for all her supposed instinct, was incredibly gullible, for the simple reason that she wasn’t interested enough in other people’s stories to properly process them.
“I don’t know, Lily, I have my pottery group today . . .”