He Started It

We don’t talk about the desert this time. We’re all too busy looking at our phones.

I check up on Cooper and then scan through my e-mails, looking for any updates on the job cuts at work. I have an e-mail from Sandra, who says there are so many rumors flying around it’s impossible to know who will be cut next. I starting typing an e-mail back, thanking her for trying to keep me in the loop, when Eddie’s voice makes me jump.

‘What the hell.’

I look up. He has just opened the back of the car, and the lid to the hidden compartment is open.

Inside, the wooden box. Grandpa’s ashes are back.

If you could bring someone back to life by staring hard enough, Grandpa would be with us again. That’s how long and hard we stare at that box.

‘Impossible,’ Eddie says.

No. Not for Nikki. I already know she was here last night because of the phone.

‘Convenient,’ Portia says.

Eddie turns to me. ‘Felix left last night. You think he might’ve done it?’

This is the single worst thought Eddie has ever had. ‘Why the hell would Felix take the ashes and then put them back?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe you married a psycho?’

‘He’s not a psycho.’ He’s just dead. He couldn’t have done this.

Portia steps between us. ‘Has to be the guys from Alabama. They’re still messing with us.’

‘Either that or it’s one of us,’ Eddie says.

We all look at one another until one of us breaks. It’s me, because you can’t stand around and do nothing forever. Eventually you have to get on with it.

‘Are we going to stare at those ashes all day?’ I ask.

Eddie and Portia exchange a look that clearly says, She’s being a bitch because her husband left.

I can work with that.

Eddie closes the back compartment and we load our bags in. We all managed to roll our bags down the path, except Eddie. As far as I can tell, none of the wheels broke, either. He shuts the back just as Portia says, ‘Shotgun.’

Shotgun?

She climbs right into the seat next to Eddie, ignoring the fact that we now have two empty rows in the back. Plenty of room to stretch out and sleep, just as she’s been doing the whole trip. Now all of a sudden she wants to be in the front.

I sit in my usual seat, right behind Eddie and now Portia. It doesn’t feel right at all.

There’s nothing in southeastern Oregon. I don’t mean that in a sarcastic way, either. It’s true. Once you hit I-95 South, there’s a whole lot of nothing until you hit the Nevada border. A beautiful drive, to be sure, but at this point I’ve had my fill of scenery.

Last time, it was the most tedious drive in the world because all I could think about was finding Nikki. She had money to travel and stay in a motel. Nikki had stolen all the cash from Grandpa’s wallet.

‘She could’ve taken a bus,’ Grandpa said. ‘Tickets are cheap.’

Nikki would do that. She was smart enough to figure out that a bus was her best option to get to the desert. Assuming she hadn’t called our parents. She might have, since she had been talking about it not long ago.

But would she?

I spent a lot of time thinking about that in the car because it distracted me – for a minute – from blaming myself. I never admitted it was my fault to anyone, certainly not Grandpa or Eddie. They might have tied me up, too.

It was when we were in the woods. That part was Grandpa’s fault. He sent me with Nikki so she could pee. Would it have been inappropriate for him to go with her? Yes. Eddie, too. I bet Grandpa considered all of that, especially because of what Nikki had accused him of doing with Portia. So he sent me.

By then, we had finished eating and had just started on our cocoa. Nikki’s hands were tied up again.

‘Beth, don’t you dare untie her,’ Grandpa said.

As soon as we got into the woods, Nikki told me to do exactly that. ‘I’m not going to run,’ she said. ‘I just want to pull down my own pants.’

Made sense to me. And she didn’t run. She even told me how to retie the knot exactly like Grandpa had done. ‘Just not so tight. Look at those marks.’

True. She had red marks on both wrists from the rope digging into them. I left her enough room to wriggle around a little. I also took my time, because I wanted to talk to her alone. I had finally worked up the courage to tell her that I knew.

‘You’re pregnant, aren’t you?’ I said.

She stared at me, eyes wide, in a genuine state of shock.

‘I saw the test in your bag,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t snooping, I swear. I was just looking for your Discman because Portia was scared and …’ The words came out in a rush as I tried to explain, tried to not make her mad. ‘I just saw it.’

She took a deep breath, recovering from the shock, and she said the last words I ever heard from her.

‘Don’t. Fucking. Tell. Anyone.’

When we came out of the woods, Grandpa looked at the knot to confirm it was the same. By then, I was starting to feel sleepy. Now I know it was from the pain pills. Back then, I just thought it was because the day had been so long. I bet the pills are what made Grandpa not check close enough. He only looked at the knot; he didn’t check how tight or loose it was.

Though, to be fair, Nikki did a good job of selling it. She grimaced when she moved, like the rope hurt.

It never occurred to me that she would leave. She just disappeared and never returned with help.

I’ve wondered if that was her plan. Maybe she wanted to find a police officer or call our parents or even find a park ranger. But then something happened. Maybe she was hit by a car or kidnapped into a sex-trafficking ring. Maybe she fell and hit her head and ended up with amnesia.

But no, none of that happened.

She’s still out here.

Back then, I didn’t know that. I had no idea what happened to her. As we drove through Oregon, I was worried about her, upset she had left, and I wanted to make sure she was safe. When Grandpa pulled off the road and into a motel, I lost it.

‘You can’t stop,’ I said. ‘We have to go to the desert.’

‘I can’t drive anymore,’ Grandpa said.

‘But you have to!’ I felt tears in my eyes, falling down my cheeks. They came so fast they surprised me.

‘Oh God,’ Eddie said, shaking his head at me. I could feel his disappointment and I didn’t care. ‘She ran away, okay? Nikki always runs away. She can’t deal with life at all.’

Grandpa had apparently decided Eddie was right, because he decided to stop.

Portia was curled up in a ball, next to me on the seat. She had sniffled and cried her way through Oregon, still feeling bad about sprinkling that powder on our cocoa. But not bad enough to hate her sister. ‘I miss Nikki,’ she whispered.

‘We should keep going,’ I said. ‘Or call the police.’

‘Nikki can’t move any faster than us,’ Grandpa said. ‘If she took a bus, she’ll move even slower. We’ll probably beat her to the desert.’

Normally, I’d look to Nikki for confirmation of a statement like that. Without her, I had to make my own choice. She wouldn’t be able to fly to the desert, I knew that. So it made sense that she’d be on a bus. Would a bus drive through the night? I didn’t know, couldn’t know. And I also couldn’t drive.