Kimberly McCreight - The Scattering

Then he squeezed my arm in a way that should have been warm, but felt creepy. And what loss? My mom? He’d seen my dad so many times since then, hadn’t he?

“What a dick that guy is,” Rachel said when Vince had gone. “I know he lost his daughter and all, but I bet he was a dick way before that.”

“He’s a minister now,” I said. “Or something like that.”

“He can still be a jerk.”

“Is there anybody here that you do like?” I asked, even though I couldn’t argue with her assessment of Vince.

She smiled. “You.”

BY THE TIME my dad finally leaves—after much hemming and hawing and him saying that he’s worried about me, and me saying he doesn’t need to be, and lots and lots of details about where he’ll leave his itinerary—it is almost 9:40 a.m. I try Jasper again, but once again the call rings and rings before finally heading to voice mail.

My stomach has officially started to churn.

I move fast through the rest of what’s in the box, turning to the evidence bags. Luckily, there isn’t much that survived the fire, which is why we never received anything in the way of personal effects. Nothing my dad had wanted, anyway. The things in the evidence bags must have been thrown from the car when it hit the guardrail. A set of headphones I imagine tangled in a nearby tree. There’s one of my mom’s blue clogs, too. I always hated those shoes. I’d been trying to convince her to throw them out instead of getting them fixed again. The force it must have taken to rip the shoe off her foot and hurl it away from the car. What was she doing wearing clogs in the middle of winter anyway? I lift the shoe, only a tiny bit. But as soon as my hands are on it, I know it’s a mistake. Don’t touch the shoe . It will make you cry. When I drop it, there is an odd, hollow thump.

I move the plastic bags around until my hand lands on what’s under the shoe. Smooth and hard and kind of flat inside its bag. When I pull it from the very bottom of the box, it’s a bottle. An empty vodka bottle. A small one, the kind you’d hide in your purse, or even in a big-pocketed jacket.

“Your dad says that it would have been out of character for her to have been drinking in the car,” Detective Oshiro says from the doorway.

My cheeks burn. “How about fucking impossible?”

I look down. I shouldn’t be swearing at a police officer, not like that. But Detective Oshiro is unfazed.

“It’s possible that it was on the road where she had the accident and got mixed with—well, the scene was chaotic. There were no fingerprints on it.”

But I can tell he is only saying that to make me feel better. Or not to make me feel worse. I squeeze the cool glass tighter as I peer at the label. Vodka? There is no way. My mom only drank wine and only occasionally. Cassie’s dad, Vince, and vodka? Definitely. Even Karen, Cassie’s mom, liked her martinis. My mom? Never.

“It wasn’t hers,” I say, but it only makes me feel worse.

“Yes, that’s possible,” Detective Oshiro says.

I turn and look straight at him. The wave of sympathy that greets me when our eyes meet unleashes tears. I blink and look down before they can make their way out. Was my mother somebody entirely different from who I believed her to be? Maybe she was lying to me about much more than me being an Outlier.

“It’s not hers,” I say again.

This time when I look up, the tears are streaming down my cheeks. But I no longer care. And Detective Oshiro looks right at me and lies, just the way I need him to.

“I’m sure you’re right, Wylie. I’m sure you’re right.”

OUTSIDE THE POLICE STATION, I pull out my phone and try Jasper. I’m losing count of how many times I’ve called. It just rings and rings. At least his house isn’t far, a three-minute walk, but a million miles away from the fancy shops and restaurants of downtown Newton.

“Jasper,” I say when his voice mail finally picks up. “This isn’t funny anymore. Where the hell are you? I need to talk to you.”

I shove my phone back in my pocket, hating how completely and totally true those words feel. As I make my way up Crescent Hill Road—one block down and over from the station—the sun is warm on my face and the air smells of cut grass. I’m almost hot in my jeans and T-shirt. It’s the first day it seems like summer. And I want so much for that to feel good, but the vodka bottle is lodged too deep in my stomach, right next to all my unreturned calls to Jasper.

When I round the corner onto Main Street, I close my eyes so that I don’t have to see Holy Cow, the ice cream shop where Cassie used to work. The one where she met Quentin for the first time. There are some things I will never again be able to bear, like the sight of Holy Cow, or the smell of strawberries, which reminds me too much of the lip gloss Cassie always used to wear.

I set my eyes instead on Gallagher’s Deli up ahead. It’s one of the few not-so-nice places in town—dusty with cramped aisles that smell faintly of cat pee. I’ve only been in there once to buy cigarettes with Cassie during the week and a half she smoked. I can still remember how the smell seemed to cling to me for hours afterward. Gallagher’s means that I am almost there.

To ease the pain in my feet, I slide them back a little in my vicious, toe-gouging yellow flip-flops. I never would have put them on if I had known that I was going to have to walk so far. I dial Jasper’s number one more time, but this time the call goes straight to voice mail. Like he’s turned it off, or his phone has died between this and my last call.

I can’t wait anymore to speak to him before going to his house. No matter what I promised.

I HAVEN’T SEEN Jasper’s house much in the light of day. His mother is always on night shifts, so that’s when Jasper has me over. This is not a coincidence. Jasper’s mother blames me for everything that happened in Maine. He hasn’t said that outright, but there have been clues.

“It doesn’t have a face,” Jasper had said once about his house, sounding sad. “Most houses have the windows on either side and the door in the middle. Like it’s a person looking at you or something. The way mine is, it’s like the front is just … empty.”

He’s right, and it is depressing. I start up the concrete area that is part driveway, part “front yard.” Jasper’s brother’s Jeep is parked there and, as usual, seeing it makes the hairs on my arms lift. When the police went looking for it, the car was right there at the gas station where we’d left it, the starter purposely ripped out by Doug. Looking at it now is like seeing a ghost. Cassie’s ghost. I wrap my arms around myself and shudder hard. Luckily, I know Jasper’s brother is out of town visiting his “girlfriend,” which Jasper is pretty sure is code for buying pot. I’m relieved that at least I won’t have to deal with him. I have met Jasper’s brother and—like Jasper said—he is bigger than Jasper and also a total asshole.

I climb the rickety steps to the narrow porch, hold myself tight as I knock. The door sounds hollow beneath my hand. I wait. Nothing. Check the time. Ten a.m. exactly. I knock again, harder this time, then lean back to look in the window for signs of life.

My face is pressed to the glass when the door swings open.

“Can I help you?” a woman snaps.

I jerk back and turn. Jasper’s mom is glaring at me. At least I’m assuming it’s her. Her short black hair is pulled back in a low, no-nonsense ponytail. Her skin has a grayish undertone and she has puffy bags under her eyes. Still, you can see how she might have been quite beautiful once. How she still could be if she got some rest. She’s wearing green hospital scrubs and has her nurse’s ID badge looped around her neck.