David Bell - Never Come Back

“Do you mean bourgeois?”

“I guess so.” He fumbled around in the glove compartment, reaching across me with his long right arm while he steered the car with his left hand. “We’ll be there in about forty-five minutes.”

“Is that all?”

The car swerved. “Shit,” he said.

“Do you want my help?”

“Got it,” he said. He held a shiny CD, which he slipped into the car’s player. “Driving music.”

I looked out the window. We were on a two-lane road passing through harvested cornfields. In the dying light I could see that everything had been hacked to the roots. A thin band of red glowed along the horizon, but the sky was darkening above. My hands were folded in my lap. I balled my right fist up inside my cupped left hand. I felt nervous and twitchy.

“You like this song?” Neal asked.

“What?”

He pointed to the radio. “The song? You like it?”

I hadn’t been paying attention, so I listened. It sounded slightly familiar. A man sang a slightly poppy, slightly country song in a twangy voice.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” I said.

“Fine? Fine? That’s Glen fucking Campbell you’re listening to. Glen fucking Campbell.”

“It sounds good.”

“Sheesh, Teach. You need an education. You don’t know Ohio. You don’t know music. What are you learning in graduate school?” He must have sensed my anxiety. “You know, this woman’s probably not dangerous. Most people aren’t. And her record says she isn’t. It’ll be fine.”

“Thanks.”

“When we get there, I think it’s best just to play it straight. Just go up to the door and tell her who you are. None of this sneaking around shit. Like you said, you have a legit reason for showing up.”

“And you’ll be right there, so that will help.”

“Negative, Teach.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t go to the door with you,” he said. “A dude—a tall dude—showing up and asking questions? Too intimidating. Best to keep it woman to woman. I’ll be around. I’ll have your back.”

I let out a long breath. Neal’s presence brought me comfort, but I had imagined him being right next to me, not waiting in the car. My fears ran deeper than simply the physical. Deeper and, yes, scarier.

Neal must have understood. He asked, “What are you really worried about, Teach?”

I stared out the window. “I guess I’m just scared of what I might find out.”

On the outskirts of Reston Point, we turned onto a county road, one that took us west. The sky was fully dark by now. A few stars and a sliver of moon shone above, and at the horizon line I saw the scattered lights of the town. A cluster of bright yellow globes indicated a factory of some kind, and past that the dimmer lights of the downtown. If Elizabeth Yarbrough was really my sister, if we really shared blood and a relationship to Mom, then what was her life like here in Reston Point? Where did she work? What did she do? Was there a damn thing we shared in common besides the woman who gave birth to us?

Neal made a couple of turns, and we ended up in a working-class neighborhood. The houses were small and close together. In the glow of the streetlights, I saw yards full of cars, and people lounging on their small porches smoking and drinking beer from bottles. Neal’s car stood out, and the eyes followed us as we passed.

“It’s right up here,” Neal said.

He made a last turn onto a side street. The sign read CAMELOT LANE, and I wondered whether anyone saw the irony. He slowed the car halfway down the street. He checked his phone, then looked up at the house numbers.

“That’s it,” he said, pointing to the right.

The house looked the same as all the others. It was white and compact. The yard looked well maintained. There were no cars in the driveway. A dim porch light illuminated the house number.

“It doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” I said. I hoped no one was.

“No, Teach—look.” Neal pointed again. “See that glow back there?”

I followed the line of his finger to a window at the back. The blinds were closed, but the glow from a television leaked around the edges. Someone was there, watching TV.

“Shit,” I said.

“This is what you’ve been looking for,” Neal said. “Take out your phone.”

I did.

“Make sure it’s ready to call my number. If you have any trouble, just hit the call button. I’ll come running. Okay? I’ll be right out here.”

I took a deep breath and opened the door.

I stepped onto the porch. A light wind blew down the street, cool and crisp. It raised goose bumps on my arms and neck, but beneath my clothes I felt hot and clammy. A trickle of sweat ran between my shoulder blades. I lifted my hand and rang the bell.

I waited. I turned and looked back at Neal. I saw the outline of his black SUV in the fading light, but I couldn’t see him. I turned to ring the bell again, but before I could, I heard the lock turn on the other side of the door. I swallowed hard again and waited. I felt like an unprepared actor caught in the glow of the stage lights, except my stage light was a grimy little bulb on somebody’s porch, the globe filled with the summer’s dead bugs.

The door opened, and there she was. If time travel existed, I would have sworn I had gone back twenty years, to the time captured in photos of my childhood. Before me stood a replica of my mother from that time. A little rougher around the edges certainly, a little more worn by whatever life had thrown at her, but a nearly exact version of my mother. I stepped back, so far I almost fell off the porch. I kept my eyes locked on that face. My doubts and questions faded. This woman was certainly related to me. She had to be my half sister.

The woman— Elizabeth Yarbrough —raised her hand to her mouth when she saw me. Even though I was just partially illuminated by the porch light, and even though I hadn’t showered all day and had woken up from my nap only an hour earlier and must have looked something like a homeless person, she seemed to understand who I was as well. She probably saw the same ghost in my face that I saw in hers.

She pushed the screen door open, but didn’t speak right away. I wondered whether she would shoo me away, send me packing because I had violated her privacy. But when she spoke, her voice carried a welcoming tone. “Come in,” she said. “Come in.”

So I shook myself out of the past and moved forward. I stepped into the small living room. A thick odor hung in the air, as though something greasy had been cooked recently. The blinds were all closed, the walls painted dark green. The furniture looked heavy and stained, and children’s toys were scattered around the room; I had to look where I stepped.

“Do you have children?” I asked.

Children. My nieces or nephews. More relatives. Who knew how many people I didn’t know about?

“I do,” Beth said. “But these belong to my grandchildren.”

“Wow,” I said. “Grandchildren.”

“I’m quite a bit older than you,” she said. “A different generation, really.”

I didn’t know what to say.

Beth didn’t offer me a chair or anything. She stared at me from across the room. Her feet were bare, and she wore tight jeans and a loose sweater. She was thin, like Mom and like me. Her hair was colored somewhere between red and brown, with a hint of gray showing at the roots. She folded her arms across her chest and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“I always knew we’d meet,” she said. “I hoped we’d meet. Mom wanted—”

She stopped herself.

Mom . My mom. Before that day I had heard only one other person call my mother by that name. Would I now have to get used to sharing that word with someone else?