Elin Hilderbrand - Summer People

Marcus stood up and studied the dresser in front of the door. “You’re crazy, you know that?” He moved the dresser with enormous ease and stepped out into the hallway. “You need to put your shit into perspective. You wouldn’t know a problem if one bit you in the ass.” He sounded truly pissed and Winnie groped for words to reel him back in, but then she told herself she didn’t care what he thought. Marcus was the person who was supposed to understand . Okay, maybe Beth wasn’t a murderer but that didn’t mean Winnie’s feelings weren’t hurt.

“You know what you are?” Winnie said. “You’re self-absorbed.”

“ I’m self-absorbed?” Marcus said. “Sister, look in the mirror.”

“Fuck you,” Winnie flung out. “I wish I hadn’t told you.”

“I wish you hadn’t told me either,” Marcus said. “Because I used to respect you. I used to think you had a decent heart.”

“I do have a decent heart,” she said. “And this is a real problem.”

“Don’t get me going,” Marcus said. “If you want to hear about real problems, I’ll tell you sometime. But what I’m hearing now is you judging something you don’t understand. You need to talk to your mother.”

“I told you, I’m never talking to her again,” Winnie said.

“Well, then,” Marcus said. “It sounds like you’ve made up your mind.”

“I can’t believe you’re being such a hypocrite, ” she hissed. “You don’t talk to Constance.”

“This isn’t about me,” Marcus said.

Winnie was so furious-here was Marcus making her feel like the bad guy!-that she slammed the door, but it bounced back in her face. Marcus walked down the hall to his room without another word. Winnie closed the door as best she could and moved the dresser in front of it. Then she flopped face-first on her bed. She didn’t understand. That much was true. She didn’t understand anything anymore.

The plan was scheduled for one in the morning, to be completed by three. Garrett had read that these were the hours that the average person-one who went to sleep at ten-thirty and woke at seven-slept most soundly. Before one A.M. a person was in light REM sleep, and after three the average person woke at least once to use the bathroom. Garrett sounded convincing on this point and Winnie conceded. After all, she didn’t want to get caught. She found it impossible to fall asleep, and thus lay awake in a state of fearful agitation, replaying her conversation with Marcus. After she skipped dinner, she thought he might realize that she was depressed and come up to check on her, but he didn’t. On top of everything else she had to deal with, now she and Marcus were fighting.

At exactly one o’clock there was the lightest of taps on her door. Winnie stood up. Her body felt tingly and numb; she was shaking. She pulled on a pair of jeans and picked up her flip-flops; they would be too noisy to wear down the stairs. When she opened the door, she found Garrett standing there with a strange, peaceful expression on his face. He, too, was wearing jeans, and his Danforth wind breaker. He held the urn in both his hands.

They slipped downstairs. The house made noises, but these didn’t phase Winnie. She was used to being awake in the middle of the night because of Marcus, and had learned that the house creaked, as though complaining about growing older. There was a little bit of light cast through the living room windows by the stars and a crescent moon. Garrett eased open the front door.

Winnie said, “I think I’m going to eat something.”

Garrett whipped around. “What?”

“I’m hungry.”

“Tough.”

“Tough for you.” Winnie went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. There were always leftovers when Beth cooked, the remnants of dinner, all wrapped up: BBQ ribs, Beth’s macaroni salad, and three buttermilk biscuits. Winnie had smelled the biscuits baking earlier.

“I’m taking the biscuits,” she said.

Garrett narrowed his eyes. “You went three months without eating and now you can’t wait two hours for biscuits?”

“No,” she said. “I can’t. And they have to be warm.”

“What?”

“Or the butter won’t melt.” She put the plate of biscuits in the microwave and set it for one minute. Every time she pressed a button there was a loud, electronic beep. Garrett lowered himself gingerly into a kitchen chair, the urn in his lap.

“I can’t believe you,” he said. “Do you want to get caught?”

Winnie didn’t answer. She watched her biscuits, bathed in light, as they circled around inside the microwave. She took the butter dish from the fridge. Maybe she did want to get caught. Maybe she did want her mother to come down and find them both there, with the urn.

The microwave beeped five loud times to let her know the biscuits were finished. Garrett said, “I’ll wait for you in the driveway.” Winnie got a knife from the drawer, sliced open the hot biscuits, and put a pat of butter inside each one. Then she wrapped them in plastic; she could eat them on the way. But she needed a drink. She opened the fridge again and took out a Coke. Popped it open right there in the kitchen; it sounded like a cap gun. Winnie waited, willing her mother out of sleep. If you wake up, you can say good-bye! But there were no stirrings from upstairs. Whatever Garrett read about human sleep patterns must have been correct.

She walked out to the driveway carrying her snack. She took a swill of her Coke, then followed Garrett to the car.

The hardest part had been deciding where. Winnie wanted to scatter the ashes right off the deck-that way their father’s remains would become one with their property, one with Horizon. Garrett disagreed; he wanted to really hurt their mother by scattering the ashes somewhere she would never think of. After they’d bandied about several possibilities-the cornfields of Bart-lett Farm, the marshes around Miacomet Pond, the Easy Street boat basin-Garrett claimed he had the perfect place in mind. But they needed the car. Winnie was going to drive because technically Garrett was still grounded from the car. Winnie was nervous about driving in the dark but Garrett said he’d be right there in the passenger seat, helping. It would be easier, he said, without so many cars on the road.

They climbed in the Rover, just barely clicking their doors shut. Winnie held the keys. They felt foreign in her hand and Winnie was reminded of the only time she ever smoked a cigarette and she wasn’t sure how to hold it. She wiggled the key into the ignition and took a breath. This was the biggest risk: that Beth would hear the car. But, as Garrett pointed out, even if she did hear it, it would be too late. They’d be gone and she would have no way to follow them.

Winnie backed out of the driveway. Garrett peered through the windshield at the house and Winnie nervously glanced at her mother’s bedroom window. Nothing. Winnie pulled onto the dirt road, and when she was a safe distance from the house, she switched on the headlights.

Garrett leaned back in his seat, the urn in his lap. “Home free,” he said.

“Now will you please tell me where we’re going?” Winnie said. She resented the fact that Garrett got to choose their father’s final resting place. Winnie had also suggested scattering the ashes into the ocean-maybe because she was a swimmer, and felt more at home in the water than she did on dry land. But Garrett protested. No way, he’d said. Not the water. He’d referred to the map on his bedroom wall. Dad will end up in Portugal. Or the Canary Islands.

“We’re going to Quidnet,” Garrett said.