The Last Answer, Part 6
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As Karl’s house receded behind me, my thoughts accosted me like angry wasps. His response only added to the confusion and apprehension I had come to him with. Over and over, my mind replayed his words as he ushered me to the door.
“Be careful, Eli. Life can only be lived in sequence.”
Then, like a coffin lid, the door closed between us, and that was it. Now, trying to understand his warning felt like striking a broken flashlight.
“Hey!” Midge’s voice came from up ahead. I braced myself. She was angry about something.
I squinted to make her out through the sweat greasing my eyelids and continued walking silently along the road toward her. Whatever it was, she would get it out without any encouragement.
“Where the frick have you been??” she shouted as I drew near.
“Language,” I said, hoping sarcasm would lighten her mood. Wiping my eyes, I looked around for someone who might have overheard, but there was no one.
“I’m not kidding, Eli.” Midge’s arms were stiff as if she were about to launch at me.
“Midge, would you calm down? I was over at Karl’s. What’s got you so riled?” I tried stepping past her.
“No — stop,” she said, inserting herself into my path. You know what I mean. You keep disappearing.” Her crossed arms now complimented her glare, and I knew she wouldn’t let this go soon.
“What are you talking about, Midge?” I said, feigning ignorance.
“I know you’ve been going out at night.” Her eyes, full of accusation, seemed determined to follow me to the ends of the earth.
I felt a slight panic, like the moment before an atomic bomb touches dirt.
“With the way you sleep? I doubt it,” I said with a laugh.
Her gaze softened suddenly, and she looked away. “I haven’t been sleeping very much lately. Not since…”
I didn’t have to ask what she was referring to. I allowed the silence to grow, unsure how to respond.
Finally, she looked back at me and asked, “What happened to you in there? You never told me…”
“I told you. Nothing happened. I just fainted. No big deal.” My tone was confident, but I couldn’t seem to look at her directly.
“That’s bull,” she whispered, sounding more sad than angry.
I watched her and wondered if her little “almost” swears made her feel more like an adult.
“Whatever,” she said, recovering herself. “That’s not why I was trying to find you. Something’s wrong with Mom.”
A thunderclap in my chest. “What do you mean?”
“She’s gone more than usual, and when she is home, she’s acting weird.”
“Weird, how?”
“Well, she’s always staring at stuff that’s not there….and crying. Do you think it’s about Dad?”
“Is she smoking again?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. I haven’t smelled any smoke. But either way, I’m worried about her, Eli. I tried talking to her today, and she acted like I wasn’t even in the room.”
I was trying to focus on her words, yet the memory of my visit with Karl danced like an iridescent fishing lure.
Silence fell as beads of sweat began to ski the creases on either side of my nose. The sun was no longer directly overhead, but the tallest things in town were telephone poles, which didn’t offer much shade.
“Where is she now?” I asked, wiping my face with the bottom of my shirt.
“Before I started looking for you, she walked into the desert and was just standin’ there.”
“Just standing? She wasn’t looking for anything? Like that dog, maybe?”
“That dog is long gone, Eli,” she said, her words markedly devoid of sentimentality. And then, jerking her head in the direction of the house, said, “Come on.”
Neither of us spoke on the way. My overloaded mind had become as instructive as a dial tone.
More houses appeared on either side of the worn and simmering asphalt, each unique in how it marked the relentless passage of time. Fences were wooden or chain-link, roofs patched or tarped, and windows opaque or shattered. Sometimes, faces appeared in those windows, like long-forgotten mannequins begging for sentience. The only people our age, Josiah, Timothy, and Rachel, were on the other side of town, probably at Bible Camp.
“You still glad we didn’t go to Bible Camp this year?” I said abruptly.
“Yeah. You?” she replied, eyes fixed on the telephone pole, conspicuously askew at the end of our driveway.
“Yeah,” I said, quickening my pace until I was alongside her. I nodded toward the wood-paneled and badly rusted station wagon sitting humbly in the driveway. “She hasn’t left, at least,”
As we neared the porch, I darted ahead of Midge and up the steps. “Mom?” I called as I pushed the front door open.
No answer.
I moved from room to room with Midge at my heels. A strange fear began simmering in my gut — like the feeling I get when I think about alien abductions for too long.
I pushed open the backdoor and stepped back into the falling sun’s watchful eye. Standing in the backyard, I surveyed the horizon for any trace of her silhouette. My gaze was met only by scattered rocks, desert willows, and acacia trees, stolidly withholding anything they might’ve known.
I turned behind me to Midge, panic-stricken, but the freshly minted fear in her expression reminded me to appear brave.
“Follow me,” I said, striding ahead into the desert with all the confidence of a fool.
She did as I asked without hesitation.
After about ten minutes, I wondered if I should’ve been looking for tracks, but I batted the idea away. The important thing now was to keep moving and keep looking. I had to let Midge see I had everything under control.
We plodded along for another half hour before I realized I knew exactly where I was going. I had taken a different route, but the destination seemed predetermined by a silent, invisible, and overwhelming force — the same mysterious force I had been at war with for weeks. The realization stopped me in my tracks. I couldn’t help feeling like I had been tricked.
“We’re not going back there, are we?” said a small voice behind me.
A gentle, cooling breeze passed over us as if announcing the evening’s imminence.
Parting my lips to speak, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I swallowed painfully and asked, “How long has she been acting strange?” I turned to face her.
Midge used a dirty hand to bridge her eyes from the sun. “I don’t know. A few weeks, maybe? Why?”
I turned and kept walking.
“Eli, why do you wanna know?” she called after me.
I kept walking, barely hearing her.
“Eli!” she yelled before cutting off my progress and grabbing my arms. “What is going on?”
“I don’t know!” I yelled. “I’m trying to figure that out. Now, would you let go of me?” I tried to shake free, but she clung to me like a dog to a rope.
“No! If you know something, you better tell me, or I swear…” Her eyes were wild now, as if she was about to grab one of the stones near her feet and bludgeon me to death with it. I had never seen her like this.
“I don’t know anything!” I shouted, realizing my facade was beginning to erode. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know, Midge, so would you let it go already?” Hot tears bubbled in my eyes for the second time today, and my fear became anger. “Now, get the hell outta my way!” I growled and forced my way past her.
“Eli, stop. I’m not going back there,” she called, although I could still hear her hurrying behind me.
“Then don’t! Go back home and hide in your bed. I’ll find her myself.”
The only response was her footsteps echoing mine.
I saw a vision of the two of us lost in the desert tonight, surrounded by darkness, bit by a rattlesnake, or both. I could see the headlines, “Two Kids Lost in Desert While Looking for Their Mother Who Was Probably Just…”
Probably just…what? Where the hell is she?
She had no friends except Ms. Cathy, but it had been a long time since I’d seen her around.
Had she walked to the store? I had never seen her leave without taking the station wagon.
Then I saw her — like a friendly ghost, a shadow against the deep orange and white of the dying sun. She sat facing the horizon atop the ridge above us, as majestic as a statute, as if the hill’s only purpose was to be her seat. I stopped in my tracks, marveling like a pilgrim at the end of his journey.
“Is that her?” Midge asked as though watching a sleeping baby. “What is she looking at?”
I knew my answer, but I couldn’t speak it. Maybe it’s the two large stones leaning on each other in the valley below her.
My chest tightened as if cubes of ice were stuck in transition.
