after leaving the store. The doc and Worley were able to contact enough people to spread the word to others, and nobody answered any questions from the Strange Men. I consider the people they would have spoken to, knowing some are less skilled as actors than others. I worry that the Strange Men will run into Griggs or any of his deputies, but by the grace of God (a phrase that I can’t use anymore without basking in irony) they never come into contact. Griggs and the Strange Men are people I do not want meeting.
So members of the town rally behind us, and I wait for a snake in the grass to show his face and hiss little secrets, but it doesn’t happen. After leaving the station, the Strange Men disappear.
By five that afternoon, the phone lines began to buzz with more whispers that fan the gossip wildfire. Most are rational, or so I’m told. Most just wonder what Cal has done to attract the attention of the Strange Men. Most believe Cal to be some dashing bank robber, or an international jewel thief. Okay, most don’t actually believe that; that theory comes directly to me from one Matilda Bajko, a kooky old bat who sighs when she says Cal’s name as she explains breathlessly in my ear over the phone about how she believes he’s on the run from Interpol. I don’t have the heart to tell her that I don’t think Cal even knows what Interpol is. Let alone how to steal anything.
But there are those who whisper different things. A strange light in the sky? they say. A meteor no one had seen? they conspire. Men in black suits coming out of nowhere and leaving just as mysteriously? Why, it’s obvious! How could they have not seen it before! Aliens have landed in Roseland! But why are they asking about Cal? This stumped the conspirators until Gerald Roche, a retired banker and admitted sci-fi enthusiast, decided Cal had seen something he wasn’t supposed to see and was on the run and the government was trying to hunt him down.
Regardless, everyone agrees, it’s exciting. It’s mysterious. It feels like secrets and if there is one thing a small town always has, it’s secrets.
Strange days, indeed.
I resist the urge to drive straight home after I close the shop to see if Cal is there
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