The Bargaining (36 page)

But I see it.

Even though it's still dark when I finally pull away from the house in April's jeep the next day, I reason that five a.m. is officially morning time, and if April were awake, I'm sure she would agree.

The radio would normally be blaring, but my mind is already too cluttered with the sound of Miller's frantic rambling from the day before, and images of crows and ­sprinkled
ashes from a dead forest. In the few hours of sleep I did manage to cobble together, Miller's voice hovered over the surface of my consciousness.

“It's all going to be better once I make it right.”

I'm crossing onto WA-16 in half the time it would normally take me to get from Seattle to Point Finney, and I slow as soon as I reach the exit I swore I'd never take again. Only now do I understand that despite my hurrying to get here, I'm in no way ready to see whatever it is I think I'm going to find.

I slow to a stop at the gas station, its lights still on even though the sun has begun to push through the clouds. The massive expanse of concrete yawns before me as I open the jeep's door and emerge to hear what I already knew I would.

The melody that I couldn't place all summer, the tune that emanated from ancient throats, that chimed in the background of Miller's call yesterday.

The melody that I can now place.

That tinny jingle piping from the speakers above the metal awning covering the gas pumps. And when I reluctantly lift my eyes to the entrance of the convenience store, the boy with the cardboard sign is nowhere to be found.

I approach the fork in the road slowly. The choice at my right will take me into the North Woods to desperate trees that may or may not still be standing. I slow to a stop
while my heart struggles to keep pace with the engine. With each acceleration, my pulse takes a cue, so I cut the wheel to the left and tell my heart it's okay. We'll get this over with soon.

I pull into the shared dirt lot between Ripp's and Scoot's. At six thirty in the morning on a Saturday, Ripp's should be open, but it's not. In fact, I'm the only one in the parking lot, the jeep's engine rippling the sudden quiet of its surroundings. I pull to the far corner of Ripp's, angling toward the entrance but positioning far enough back to snug the car into a space that allows me to see into three windows of Scoot's, all of which are unshaded even though the
CLOSED
sign faces out.

I turn to Ripp's windows, looking for the posted hours, thinking but not believing that maybe he'd changed his weekend hours since I was here last. To my right in the passenger seat, Linda sits patiently where I left her after seeing Mr. Jakes yesterday. I use her now to zoom in on the hours stenciled on the glass door of Ripp's, which still claim the café opens at six every morning.

And then a sign above the door catches my eye.

Hastily written on a piece of white notebook paper torn from its spiral binding, the squared-off lines of a fat Magic Marker explain where Ripp and presumably others are.

Shane Michael Rawson

Age 15

4'7'' 97 lbs.

Help us find Shane, last seen 9/14/14 at the Gas 'N Drive off Exit 122. Search party meets at 6:00 a.m. in front of Point Finney Public Library. Call Ripp's cell to meet up: 253-555-8812. Any information, call the Sheriff ASAP!

Taped below the description is a glossy Polaroid, the kind of picture taken in institutions that still keep Polaroid cameras around. I recognize him, but he looks different without his khaki jacket camouflaging him against the wall behind him. His hair—closely cropped and standing in tiny, shocked stubble on top of his head—frames a thin face and a smile that looks like it had second thoughts right before the shutter snapped. His ears are massive. His eyes pierce the lens, challenging it to a fight. But his shoulders sag on a neck that looks too thin to hold such a heavy weight, and that's how I know that Shane Michael Rawson was once someone's ­problem.

The faint sound of a screen door bending on its hinge pulls my attention from the handmade sign on Ripp's door and toward Scoot's. There, standing in the dawn light at the
front of the alley leading to the trash cans and the back of Miller's family store is a boy who isn't a boy anymore.

There is nothing about his body that indicates his age, but his face betrays the years his body refuses to confess, years that surpass Miller's age, but not by much. A patchy layer of stubble spots his jawline and cheeks and upper lip. His hair is a little too long, smoothed back by a thick-toothed comb but with some areas unattended to, like he just woke up from a hard, unmoving sleep. Like he woke up with a struggle. A flannel jacket I recognize as Miller's fits loosely around his body, and I remember with a piercing clarity the way the lining felt against the wet of my skin in Miller's car.

He folds a worn purple cap tightly in his hands. Unfurling it, he slides it over his fiery, unforgiving hair. And now the picture is complete, the portrait I watched take shape all summer.

As if summoned, Miller joins Danny at the top of the alley—an orphan and his traded sibling—and they find me parked in the farthest corner of Ripp's, my camera angled in their direction. Their matching green eyes and burnt hair catch a sudden ray of sunlight, one brave stroke of the sun clawing its way from behind overlapping clouds. But the clouds win, snuffing the light before it's had a chance to catch, and Miller turns his brother around toward the
store. The bell follows them inside, and the
CLOSED
sign slaps the glass of the window.

I sit in the dirt parking lot for several more minutes, Linda fixed to the same location, her lens searching for whatever it is she thinks I want her to capture.

When I finally lower her and return her to the seat beside me, I leave her confused. I haven't let her blink on a single image. And as I drive away, I imagine the blur of color her shutter would close around if only I would hold her up to the rear window.

But she would struggle too hard to find a clear image, and I won't do that to her. I'd rather face her forward.

I'd rather see what she can show me ahead.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wrote
The Bargaining
during countless personal transitions. Some were beautiful. Some were dark. All were necessary. And there were a lot of people who guided me down paths and around blind corners.

To my agent, Steven Chudney, thank you as always for your spot-on insights and tireless advocacy. You somehow manage to find that space between where the writing ends and the business begins, and you create a harmonious place for the two to exist. I don't know how you perform such amazing magic, but every author should be so lucky to be the recipient of it. Thank you a million times over to my brilliant editor, Michael Strother, for your passion and enthusiasm for the macabre, and for sharing that with me through our journey. When I doubted myself, you helped me remember why I was writing the story. You helped me remember the seeds and nourish them into the work I hoped to create. My wild and unrestrained gratitude to the entire Simon Pulse team for your continued efforts on this book's behalf: Patrick Price (I hope your bag still smells of coffee!), Mara Anastas, Mary Marotta, Lucille Rettino, Carolyn Swerdloff,
Teresa Ronquillo, Siena Koncsol, Jennifer Romanello, Jodie Hockensmith, Faye Bi, Kelsey Dickson, Christina Pecorale, Danielle Esposito, Rio Cortez, Victor Iannone, Kayley Hoffman, and Sara Berko. Great big hugs to Jessica Handelman for once again creating such beautiful cover art and to Hilary Zarycky for a gorgeous interior. Very special thanks to Annette Pollert as well, for your invaluable notes in the early stages. I am so, so grateful.

Writing group. Ah, my beautiful ladies. I have come to rely on you more than ever. Lizzie Brock, Laura Joyce Davis, Nina LaCour, and Teresa K. Miller, together and individually, you make sense of this writing thing each month, reminding me when and what to question, when to celebrate and when to mourn, when to bear my soul and when to bear my teeth. This book wouldn't exist without you, and at the risk of sounding a little dramatic here, I might not exist in my current state. I love you.

Thank you for your continued mentorship and support, Kathryn Reiss.

Mom and Dad, somehow the drive to make you proud has grown in a time when that need should be receding. Maybe it's because you've spoiled me by offering it so fully. Thank you for saying it when it shouldn't be necessary anymore. Nikki, Ella, Hannah, and Payton, your love and support inspire me every
day. Matthew, when we were little and I had nightmares, you taught me how to face down fear, to understand how to find humor in it. You were maybe the first one to teach me that. Aunts, uncles, and cousins, my God, how did I get so lucky? Lizzy-biz, you are my sister. You know that. Grandpa Phil, the loss of you is still fresh, but the joy of you grew over ninety-five beautiful years. Rick, Jan, Bethany, and Sheldon—I get to call you family, which is wholly unearned. I stumbled into another family, and it was such dumb luck I still can't believe it. Thank you for calling me yours.

Simon, you are everything I aspire to be. Your reckless imagination is limitless in its travels. I hope you never find its outer walls, and if you do, I know you'll be strong enough to demolish them. You are wondrous. Benny, you are still walking that edge between what I see and what I think I might see if I would just stop looking so hard. You have a transcendent vision. I suspect you always will.

Matt, thank you for being the one at the end of every dark passage. Thank you for the security in knowing that you'll always be the one at the end. You aren't my light, and you aren't the one who hands me the candle; you're the one who reminds me that it's been in my hand the whole time. And when my hand shakes, you help me hold it steady until the match strikes the box. It will always be you. Always. You are my love.

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.