more about Clary in my pinky finger than he does in his whole body.
My gaze gets hung up on the corners of white papers sticking out of a copper-colored toolbox. You’d think my father was a hoarder, but that’s not the whole truth. He’s just really passionate about a few areas of his life. Cleaning and filing important papers are not among them.
My “Shit, you’re going to be really late,” internal alarm goes off. Without even looking at what the papers are, I pull them out of the box, shake them off, and avoid the cloud of dust that poofs up as I run back into the house to shut and lock the front door.
My shoes kick up the dirt of the front walkway. By the time I get to my bike, it’s covered in a thin layer of sand. I’ve lived on the outskirts of Clary, Arizona my whole life. I know about dust and heat and desert. Trust me. I shove the paperwork into my book bag, throw it over my shoulder, and then pull my bike upright from where I left it in a heap a few feet away from the front door of my childhood home. I give the rustic exterior a quick glance before I ride back into town.
The familiar sorrow hits me, but at the same time, I know I made the right decision. I can live out in the desert as a hermit like my father—or even worse than my father because at least he had me—or I can live in the dorms at Saint Clary’s and actually try to have a life other than weekend excursions into the Superstitions searching for my father and our family’s legacy.
I chose the latter because...well, I’m not sure it needs any explanation. One is a life, the other isn’t. Every day my father remains missing is cracking my resolve a little further. Lately, I’ve been wondering if I’m ever going to find him at all.
The barren roadway into town is littered with a few prickly cacti, lots and lots of brown, and the occasional rambling shed that masquerades as a home. Ahead of me, the town of Clary opens up, backdropped by the jagged, burnt copper tint of breccia that makes up the Superstitions. It’s the same kind of mountain faces that are famous in the Visit Arizona brochures, but this isn’t a tourist destination for me. I’ve lived here my whole life. I’ve lived and breathed the dry air. I know the ranges like the back of my hand, like my family before me. The only thing I don’t know also happens to be my family’s greatest shame.
The wind picks up. A storm cloud rolls in from the west because of-fucking-course it would choose to rain on the first day of school when I’m late and don’t have the family truck. We don’t get much rain here, and because of that, whenever we do, it’s never good timing.
I pedal faster. I swear I can almost see the ornate ironwork of Saint Clary’s front gate as I come around the bend in the road that goes from no signs of life to life. It’s like some pimpled teenager decided to put a village here in a game of Minecraft, except it isn’t that at all. As with other towns near the mountains, Clary originated because of the gold rush. They needed a home base to venture out from, and soon, once the mining veins were found, they started bringing back the gold that built Clary to what it is today. Don’t be fooled. It’s not some thriving metropolis. In fact, it’s only slightly more populated than a ghost town, but it’s claim to fame is my family treasure.
You’d think that would make me popular somehow. A local celebrity, perhaps. Wrong. My family is pretty much the punchline of all Clary jokes. We’re the town’s outcasts. The laughingstock of generations of Clary residents.
With the wrought iron in sight, I slow my bike. Just as I’m about to make the turn onto campus, a silver Audi screeches past me, its brakes slamming to make the turn. As if by some cosmic joke, the clouds darken at the same time, turning the whole scene into a horror movie. Before the first tentative splat of a raindrop falls, a deluge of water hits me square in the chest, followed by cackling laughter.
I blink. My wet shirt clings to me, and I come to a wavering stop against the brick pillar