Before He Finds Her Read online

  Now, at 1:30 a.m., Ramsey carried the trays of hamburger patties out to the garage refrigerator. He drove to the 24-hour Exxon station for another twenty-pound bag of ice.

  He wouldn’t try to sleep tonight.

  Last night hadn’t gone well. Allie clicked off her light and they kissed and he tried to imagine that it was long ago with the jagged scar still fresh on his thigh. Allie had just moved into his apartment over the laundromat with the dryer-exhaust smell and the squeaking bed that made them laugh. But none of it would stay fixed in his mind.

  They fumbled awhile in the dark, he and Allie, until he slid her hand away and said, Babe, I’m sorry. He explained that his back hurt from all those hours on the road. He went to the kitchen for a heat pack, and when he returned he told Allie he was going to try the trundle bed for a while, see if the hard mattress might help.

  When he returned home tonight from the gas station with the bag of ice, rather than go upstairs he wiped down the kitchen counters and scrubbed the downstairs bathroom, because that was the one the guests would be using. At 4 a.m. he sat in the living room with his guitar and a pair of headphones, closed his eyes, and started to run through some of the songs in the set. He soon abandoned those for his all-time favorites. Zeppelin, the Stones, the Allman Brothers, Skynyrd, Hendrix, the Who, the Doors, the Dead. It was nothing less than the soundtrack to his whole life he was strumming, everything electric and tinged with blue.

  He felt his breathing slow and his muscles relax, similar to how his body responded to being on the road these past few months. When he was behind the wheel, all the human struggles—wives and husbands, rich and poor—faded away, leaving only the soothing sounds of a well-tuned engine and wide tires rolling over a hot highway.

  He’d always enjoyed driving, but since learning about the orbital axis his life in that truck had come to feel important, like he and the truck were a drop of the earth’s blood moving along a wide vein to deliver vital nutrients. Didn’t matter if it was pallets of Campbell’s soup or Huffy bikes or Gap jeans. He and the rig, he sensed, were part of a system larger than himself, much larger than the company he worked for. Used to work for. These past couple of months, he found himself requesting longer hauls from the fleet manager. He hadn’t been a true over-the-road driver since buying his own truck. The company treated him well, and for years he had it good—fairly regular stops, no-touch freight, usually stayed east of the Mississippi. Nearly always home for his mandatory thirty-four-off.

  But when he started requesting longer hauls and more territory, the fleet manager was more than happy to oblige—isn’t often an experienced driver requests less predictable routes—and sometime in the past few weeks Ramsey had started getting creative with the log book. Started driving for sixteen, seventeen hours, watching the road the way an NFL quarterback watches the field—hyperalert and able to see everything before it happens. Wet roads and wind gusts and weavers and tailgaters and narrow lanes and deer and none of it raised his pulse. And all this without a single illegal substance. The brief naps in his berth felt like the most restful sleep of his life.

  No question, the orbital axis was having an effect on him. As the days and weeks passed and July became August and then September, Ramsey had begun to feel an electrical charge in the air all the time, as if a thunderstorm were always imminent, even under a blue sky. And yet he knew that this charge wasn’t electricity at all, but rather the tug of galactic forces beginning to nudge everything into place, including him.

  He was glad he hadn’t sold the truck back in June. That’d been his first instinct.

  “What would you do instead?” Allie asked when he ran the idea by her.

  “Why would I need to do anything?” he replied. With no reason to make money anymore, he could stay at home. He could jam with Rusted Wheels and hang out with the kid. And his presence in town would keep Magruder away, without anyone ever having to bring it up or admit to a damn thing. Ramsey could pretend like he never knew—he would give her that gift—and he and Allie could face the end together, man and wife.

  But she wanted him to keep working. And—there was no denying this—the road was tugging at him, hard.

  Now, as he played the guitar through headphones in his silent house, he allowed himself to consider his own childhood, all those regrets, and yet he could chart exactly how his rough start had led to Allie, and how their love had led him to a respectable job, to their home in a good neighborhood, and, of course, to Meg. He imagined their daughter all grown up. He saw her as a school principal, doling out punishments to kids like Ramsey. He couldn’t help smiling at the thought.

  It was sad, of course, that the future he imagined would never come to pass, but not overly sad. The orbital axis gave him perspective. Made him see that we were all just small animals on a small planet in a huge universe, not cold but impersonal. Matter-of-fact. A planet forms and then it dies, end of story. And the closer the end came, the more Ramsey felt resigned to it, the way in a movie, when the screen goes black and you know the credits are about to roll, you become resigned to the ending even if it isn’t the ending you might have chosen.

  At 6:15 a.m., a time when fishermen and truckers readied their vessels, Ramsey removed his headphones, laid the guitar on the sofa, and went upstairs. First he entered Meg’s bedroom, a risky maneuver because if she woke up now, with the birds already chirping outside, she would be up for the day. He stood over her crib. Recently, she’d started sleeping with a thin pillow. But she never wanted any stuffed animals in there or even a blanket, preferring instead to face each night alone. She was asleep on her stomach, her face toward the wall, and Ramsey watched her body’s gentle rise and fall. He could easily watch her for the next hour, but he pulled himself away, slipping back into the hallway and toward the master bedroom.

  He’d told Allie that he would be up late, not to wait up, but it looked as if she had waited—for a while, anyway: The candle on the bedside table was burned down to the base. The TV remote lay on the bed not far from her hand. Twenty-eight years old, and she still slept on her belly, same as the kid, a fist curled under her chin.

  Standing over her—she was so, so pretty—he wanted to wake her, to lie wordlessly beside her at the beginning of their last day together. But the curtains were open, and the light would wake her soon enough. How incredible, he thought, moving toward the window and looking out above the rooftops across the way, that this morning looked exactly like every other. There was no way to see those eight other planets dragging themselves mindlessly into position. But they were. He could already feel it, the inevitability.

  He considered frying up some eggs and serving Allie breakfast in bed. He did that sometimes on her birthday and on their anniversary. She was going to die tonight. They all were. That was an unfortunate given, a scientific certainty, but in the meantime he could bring her eggs. Then he changed his mind. Let her sleep. Anyway, his remaining tasks wouldn’t take care of themselves: propane to buy at the grocery store, and horseshoes. He still needed to pick up the kegs from the liquor store. And Eric would be here soon to help him build the backyard stage.

  The list seemed to grow even as it shrank, but he’d get it all done. The party would be a success, and the band would play better than it ever had, and because of Ramsey Miller the overall goodwill on the planet would have been increased by some small but measurable amount. And when the gig was done—the last chord played, the amps silenced—he would clutch his family tight, and knowing he’d led a fuller life than he ever could have imagined, he would welcome the earth’s own spectacular finale.

  8

  September 25, 2006

  For ten glorious miles, the road trip was as Melanie imagined: windows down, adrenaline pumping, radio remarkably static-free as she wound around hills and through forest, crisp morning air mixing with the smell of mint tea steaming in the cup holder. If there was a better feeling than being behind the wheel, chugging along an open road on a sunny morning, she couldn’t imagine wh
at it would be. For ten miles her troubles were forgotten even as she was driving toward them.

  But as she approached the county line, she rounded a sharp curve and became the next in an eternal line of cars with their brake lights on. A full minute at a dead stop. Then she began creeping along so slowly that she might as well have been walking to New Jersey. When the radio station began to crackle, she shut it off, and in the stillness there was time to consider where she was going and why, and to think about how easy it would be to turn the car around, to find Phillip and tell him that, yes, squirrels were damn scary creatures, and let’s just hunker down in your bedroom and never leave.

  But what would that solve? She’d still be living in hiding, in fear.

  Yes, but you’d still be living, she thought.

  Trouble ain’t nothin to fear—it’ll find you there, it’ll find you here.

  A lyric from one of the songs her uncle played on his acoustic guitar. Maybe once or twice a year, he fetched it from the back of his bedroom closet and wiped off the strings with a rag and messed around with a few songs. When he did, it was always music from a long time ago. Bands Melanie knew by name, but not bands she knew. They were from before her aunt and uncle’s time, too, but Wayne explained to Melanie that he was an old soul. Melanie figured she must be an old soul, too, because she liked the songs he played, and the way he played them—as if he went someplace deep into the songs and was inviting Melanie and Kendra to go there with him. For a man who played so rarely, he was really good—anyone could see that. There was this guy who played the guitar on the quad sometimes at college, and his fingers strained to make the chords and his voice strained to sing the melody. Her uncle’s hands were always relaxed, and his voice found the melody the way water finds the low ground. And although he sang other people’s words, the words themselves mattered less than the feeling behind them. But he had to be in the right mood. And even then, after twenty or thirty minutes of song, the guitar went back into its case, which went back into the closet for another long hibernation.

  After nearly an hour on the road, the two eastbound lanes merged into one. An enormous pine tree had fallen across the road and taken down a power line with it. One at a time, cars from both directions crept onto the grass along the eastbound shoulder and squeezed by the mess.

  Some three hours later, she approached Baltimore. By then she’d eaten all the snacks she had with her, the tea was long gone, she was desperate to pee, and her driving leg was throbbing. Her reward, after a quick restroom break and more fuel for herself and the car, was several hours of white-knuckled driving on I-95. She couldn’t get over how wide the highway was and how many vehicles traveled on it, and how fast everyone was going, and how recklessly: cars darting between lanes, eighteen--wheelers cutting her off, motorcycles roaring past, weaving as if they weren’t particularly interested in remaining alive. There were a million radio stations to choose from, but she couldn’t imagine listening to music while navigating this sort of highway. She clutched the wheel, kept her foot on the gas and her eyes on the road ahead, reminding herself not to become distracted by all the billboards and all the cars entering and exiting the highway, by the approaching Philadelphia skyline, by the stretches of oil refineries and power plants, all soot and smokestacks that looked as if they belonged in a movie about the end of the world.

  The Rand McNally road atlas took her as far as Monmouth County, New Jersey, Exit 105 on the Garden State Parkway. By the time she rolled down the window to pay the toll collector, she felt exhausted from the trip. After a few miles of car dealerships and strip malls and impatient drivers, the speed limit dropped—to thirty-five, then twenty-five—and traffic thinned. Sidewalks and trees lined the road.

  When she passed the WELCOME TO SILVER BAY sign, she half expected the town to look familiar, though of course it didn’t. Shore Dry Cleaning was on her left. Luigi’s Pizza was on her right. Had she ever eaten there? Was it even around back then? She passed a couple of brick office buildings, a number of homes, then a two-block stretch of shops and restaurants before coming upon a yellow hotel on her left called the Sandpiper. One hotel seemed as good as another, so she parked her car in the lot and went inside.

  “I need a room to sleep in, please,” she said to the man behind the counter. He was older, at least sixty.

  “Two queens or a king?” he asked.

  His question sounded surreal, until she figured out he meant the beds.

  “Oh, it’s just me,” she said, and immediately regretted saying this. Kind faces could be deceiving. People did horrible things. She considered telling him that someone might be joining her later.

  “I’ll need to see a credit card for incidentals,” he said. When she frowned at him, he added, “In case you order a movie, or make any long-distance calls.”

  She had planned to sign the guest registry under a false name, like the people were always doing in Hardy Boys novels. Nobody in Silver Bay would know the name Melanie Denison, but she didn’t want there to be any way to trace her having come here.

  “No, that won’t be necessary,” she said. “I’ll be paying with cash.”

  “I understand,” the man said, “but it’s our policy.”

  She bit her lip and dug into her wallet for her debit card and handed it to the man, who swiped it and told her that her room was down the hallway on the first floor. He handed her a plastic room key and her debit card—but not before taking a good long look at it.

  “Enjoy your stay, Ms. Denison. There’s a pool out back.” He shrugged. “It’s a little grimy.” His face brightened again. “If you need anything, be sure to ask.”

  She already had a question. “Where can I get a map of town?”

  He knelt down and reappeared with a photocopy of a hand-drawn map. He pointed to the star and said, “We’re right here.” He tapped his finger against the solid blotch running along the right side of the map, labeled ATLANTIC OCEAN. “If you ever get lost,” he said, “just head east.”

  From the diner two blocks away, she ordered a cheeseburger and French fries to go. She ate in her room with the TV on, changing channels. The Yankees and the Devil Rays were scoreless in the first inning. Casablanca was just beginning. The Skipper hit Gilligan with his hat. This was how you stir-fried pork. A man in a suit told three other men in suits that the antiwar rallies on Wednesday would lead to real change. Race cars roared around a track. The number of channels boggled the mind.

  The sky outside her window began to lose its daytime blue. The sun would set soon, and she was tempted to stay in her room and see exactly how many channels there were. Maybe even watch a movie on HBO. But there was one thing she had to do before the day was out. And according to her map it would be easy to find: zero turns.

  After a couple of miles of driving east along the edges of suburban neighborhoods, the landscape became watery. She crossed several small bridges over marshes, then was back on solid land for another mile or so until the houses became older and larger, and the road abruptly ended. In front of her, a boardwalk ran north to south.

  She got out of her car, stepped onto the boardwalk, and was struck as if by a physical force by the ocean’s enormity, by the sun’s fierce reflection off the water that rose and dipped everywhere, white peaks spilling over themselves all the way to the horizon. No photograph or TV show she’d seen had ever gotten it right. To call the ocean “blue” or “green,” to name a single color, was like defining a living, breathing human being with a single adjective. To call the air “salty” was to ignore all the other smells, the muskier, living ones that, remarkably, didn’t bother her at all—whether it was fish or seaweed or critters dying in their shells.

  A few people, maybe a dozen, were walking along the boardwalk, looking straight ahead, and Melanie wondered how they could not all be staring east. How could their knees not be weak?

  She walked north along the boardwalk a few dozen yards until a gap allowed her to descend to the sand. There, some reptilian part of her
brain knew what to do: She kicked off her shoes and socks, cuffed her pants to mid-calf, and walked across the cool sand toward the water. Back at the hotel the air was calm, but here a strong breeze whipped and snapped her hair, which she brushed away from her face with her hand. She wondered if this could be the same spot where the photograph of her mother was taken.

  Away from the boardwalk, she was alone. The only sounds were the waves, the wind, and the gulls.

  Where water met sand, the ground became rockier and full of black shells and seaweed. She stepped more carefully, bent down, and cupped water in her hands. Tasted the salt, swooshed it around her mouth before spitting it out. When another wave pushed water past her and up over her ankles, she held her ground and her feet got sucked into the wet sand. The sensation was surprising, even a little frightening. And although the shoreline might have looked the same at every scale, she didn’t feel like a fractal any longer, having removed herself from the old pattern. The waves, the gulls, the salt air all went a long way toward erasing any lingering doubt about having come here.

  Behind her, the sun dropped over a thin band of clouds, turning the sky astonishing shades of pink and red and orange. She couldn’t care less. Sunsets put on their gaudy show everywhere. Not this, though: waves smashing onto the shore, and beyond it the water rising and falling and colliding into itself, and still farther the wide, endless stretch to that thin, perfect line where sky and earth meet.

  Her lack of planning was its own strategy. Planning ahead would mean imagining all the potential pitfalls—just the sort of thing that could have her packing her car and returning to Fredonia. So the next day, instead of calling ahead to the hospital, fretting over whether Arthur Goodale was allowed visitors (or, she hesitated to think, whether or not he was even alive), she simply showed up at Monmouth Regional Hospital and hoped for the best.