Kimberly McCreight - The Scattering

“Secret research?” Fear surely shows on my face.

My dad grimaces, then holds up his hands. “I just mean, in the way everything the military does is secret. They’ve been looking into how to use emotional perception in combat for decades,” he says. “They haven’t succeeded, but I’m sure they’re not thrilled about competition, or about not being able to control the flow of information.”

My dad’s phone pings then with a text. I feel worry jolt through him as he looks down at the screen.

“What is it?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”

“No, no, nothing—it’s not about the research,” he says.

He hands me his phone. I look down at the text: Accident file for Hope Lang will be available for review at 9 a.m. today. Sincerely, Detective Oshiro.

I have to read the message three times before I fully understand its meaning, like it’s coming out of nowhere, even though I am the one who has called Detective Oshiro pretty much every day since I got back from Maine, asking to see my mom’s accident file. I feel surprisingly foolish, too, now that I have gotten what I wanted. It’s because of what Quentin said—that my mom’s death wasn’t an accident—that I got so obsessed. It’s not as if anything else that Quentin claimed up at the camp turned out to be true, but knowing that hasn’t loosened my grip. Even my dad admitted that he had considered the possibility that my mom’s death hadn’t been an accident, though he backpedaled hard as soon as he could tell I was fixating.

“I am only going to say this once, Wylie.” My dad’s voice is quiet and firm. “And I am saying this as your father, but also as a psychologist and because I don’t want to see you hurt any more than you already have been. Looking in your mom’s accident file could be extremely traumatic for you. Extremely. There might be photographs or details that are far more upsetting than you can possibly anticipate.”

It is true that I have thought a lot more about getting my hands on the file than about what it would be like to actually look in it. It seemed so unlikely I ever would. Detective Oshiro had said that he needed clearance, higher-up approval, permission. Case closed or not, they didn’t ordinarily have the families of victims coming by to rifle through their files.

Jasper. I want to talk to him about this. Maybe I need to, the way the thought of him just popped into my head. He has listened to me go on and on about my mom’s accident ever since we got back from the camp. He gets how much I have wanted to look in that file. But he will also understand how not sure I feel about finally getting what I want. Jasper’s single best quality, I have learned, is his ability not to judge. But it’s not as if I can have that conversation in front of my dad.

“If I can’t handle it,” I say. Because I can’t show doubt, not to my dad. “I’ll stop.”

My dad’s shoulders sag. “Okay,” he says quietly as he turns around, head hanging low as he starts to clean up the dishes.

“Dad,” I begin, though I don’t even know what it is I want to say. “If you don’t want me to go …” I can’t even get myself to fully make the offer though. I’m too afraid he might take me up on it.

Instead, he turns to look at me. He crosses his arms and presses his mouth tight. All I feel now is love, his love for me—so pure and simple and complete. And for the first time ever—being able to feel that so clearly—I am grateful for being an Outlier.

“Well, you shouldn’t go down there on an empty stomach,” he says, motioning to my plate. “Eat something and I’ll drive you.” He looks at his watch. “It’s not long until nine.”

I look up at the little clock over the stove: 8:34 a.m. I’ll try to call Jasper on the way, see if I can come earlier if I finish up with the file before ten. It’s not the same as talking to him now, but it’s something. The station isn’t far from his house. If I can’t reach him, I’ll go to his house at ten a.m. like we agreed.

And maybe after we’re done gluing his loose pieces back into place, we can spend a little time on mine.

“Can we just go, um, now?” I ask.

My dad nods slowly.

“Yes,” he says finally and with some effort. “We can go now.”

THE POLICE STATION IN THE center of downtown Newton is a tidy redbrick and white stone cube on a block next to several other municipal buildings and a bunch of trees. I’ve never had a reason to be inside. Even after the camp, they drove us straight home, then the agents arrived. But looking at the building from the outside now, it looks a lot like a brick version of the Seneca police station—if the Seneca police station had taken up the entire building.

But once we’re inside, any similarities disappear. The Newton station is much larger and more modern, not to mention busier than the one in Seneca. It’s actually way busier than I would have imagined. With the low crime rate in Newton, I can’t imagine why so many people are at the police station.

There are a dozen desks lined up in a large room behind a railing to the left. At a tall desk in front sits a tired-looking uniformed officer doing intake. He has thinning gray hair and rumpled eyes and he is dismissively sorting people into a second set of lines: complaints to be filed, summonses to be paid. It all seems seriously bureaucratic and super boring.

My dad and I take our places at the back of the line, and I listen as people register their complaints. One man’s apartment was broken into, a woman’s car was vandalized. And on and on. It’s 9:05 a.m. by the time we are next in line. I called Jasper twice on our way to the police station and he didn’t answer. And now, not only do I want to talk to him, but I’ve also got a bad feeling about him not answering.

“Yes. Hello!?!” It takes me a minute to realize that the officer behind the tall desk is finally talking to us.

“Wylie?” My dad puts a concerned hand on my arm. He’s taken my hesitation as a sign. “You don’t need to do this.”

“Yeah. I do,” I say, meeting my dad’s stare as firmly as I can.

Reluctantly, he nods and we step forward. “We’re here to see Detective Oshiro,” my dad says. “We have an appointment.”

“Wait over there.” The old guy points toward the railing in front of the desks without looking up at us, then picks up the phone.

We aren’t waiting long when I see Detective Oshiro heading our way. I’ve only met him once, and I’d forgotten how tall and imposing he is. Broad shoulders, crisply pressed shirt, and fashionable tie. Good-looking and young. Not too young, but younger than my dad. And way younger than the rumpled old detective I had in mind before he turned up on our steps the day after the accident.

That day, Detective Oshiro was calm and kind and exceedingly competent. Firm, too, in laying out the facts of my mom’s accident. That it was an accident. He never wavered on that—there was nothing to lead investigators to suspect otherwise. It was simply the way the car had impacted the railing in the area of the gas tank that had caused it to burst into flames. There was no evidence of foul play.

“There is something you should know, Wylie,” my dad says suddenly. His voice is rushed and tight, like this is his very last chance to make something right. “They think your mom had been drinking the night of the accident. She was upset and I take responsibility for that,” he says. “Anyway, it doesn’t change anything. I just didn’t want you to be surprised if you saw some mention of it in the file.”

“Drinking?” He actually feels relieved confessing this. Me? I’m furious. “What the hell are you talking about?”