|
Break In
In the north end of Seattle, Charlotte
caught a cab and it didn’t take the driver long to find the address.The few residential streets were long and
weaving, intersecting each other again and again, and an afternoon fog had
rolled in off the ocean, bringing a chill to the already damp air.
The small, well-kept bungalow was on
Forest Hill and backed onto a ravine.The driver asked if she needed a pickup, but Charlotte said no, and
slowly counted out her changed before stepping onto the sidewalk.
She didn’t want to cry, and she wished
she was back at the motel with Lori, watching the movie channel, eating
delivered pizza and not yet missing Whistler.It was her own fault.There was
no one else to blame, not a God who had a plan, not a mother who chose to
leave, nor an absent sister who finally turned up and shared.It was not possible to blame anyone.People didn’t grow used to being lonely,
they grew tired of it.Right from the
beginning her parents showed her lonely, her mother’s unhappiness every night
at the vacant kitchen table.
The house looked empty, and the
neighbourhood had gone to work.Charlotte didn’t want to leave without knowing, but she wasn’t ready to
knock on the door.The air smelled like
cedar chips, the ones her aunt used every autumn in the rose garden.Slowly and without purpose she walked across
the sidewalk, up the driveway and took the few steps to the door.All the lights were off and the place was
silent.She reached for the doorknob
and turned, but it was locked, so after a deep breath she rang the bell.The only sound that came from inside was the
hollow ringing of the doorbell, and it joined a barking dog down the street and
the horn of a ship pulling into the harbour.
Charlotte knew this was it.She wouldn’t be returning if she didn’t
learn anything now.There was a narrow
path leading around the house, and she took it to the backyard where the sliding
glass door was also locked.Her nerves
started getting the better of her, and she was about to leave when she saw the
kitchen window open ajar, and all fear vanished.Her mother had lost the right to privacy; she had questions to
answer, and guilt to share.If she
hadn’t left, Charlotte’s father would still be alive, things would’ve changed,
all their lives would be different.She
had no rights.
Charlotte’s fear turned to anger, and
in the damp, chilly air she pulled the patio table over to the window and
climbed up.It was easy to slip her
thin arm in and turn the handle. She
didn’t worry about alarms or attack dogs.She was her mother’s daughter, and on one could argue that.
Feet first, she climbed through the
open window and landed on a spotless counter.The kitchen was clean and there was no sign of anyone living there, but
for a lion-shaped magnet on the fridge.The walls were yellow.Jillian
hated yellow.It was a gaudy colour,
she once told Charlotte when they were shopping.
Charlotte fell to the linoleum floor,
and walked over to the fridge.There
was no indication of where the magnet came from.A few years before Jillian left their house in Oshawa, she took
her two daughters to the Toronto Zoo and had a breakdown in the parking
lot.Charlotte had been sitting in the
back, and remembered tugging at her sister’s sleeve asking what was wrong.Liz didn’t know; she was only twelve.Jillian sobbed.She cried out that she hated them all, and sobbed through her
words.
Charlotte starting crying herself, and
Liz shed tears of fright.A man walking
by tapped the window and asked if everything was okay.They must have been a sight, the three of
them.Jillian snapped yes, and started
the car.The man peered into the
backseat, and Charlotte shrunk from embarrassment.
Charlotte wouldn’t come back.There was no way around it.She crossed the beige, linoleum floor.
It was just
after five when she returned to the motel, but instead of going back to the
room, she wandered to the phone booth outside the café and dialed Vince and
Jake’s Whistler number.Whoever picked
up the phone would be the one she was calling.
After a couple rings, Vince
answered.“Charlotte?”
“Yeah.”
“Where you girls at now?”
“Still in Seattle.Lori got sick and we had to stop for a
couple days.”
“Tough break.”
“Yeah.”
Dead air filled the lines as Charlotte
played with the phone cord and watched the afternoon waitress through the
dirt-splashed window.The small group
at her table was taking its time ordering, and the waitress tapped her pad
patiently.“Well, I guess I
just called to say hi.Lori’s sleeping,
so I got not much else to do.”
“You’re lucky you caught me.I was just on my way out the door.”
“I’ll let you go.”
“No, it’s fine.I mean I’m glad you caught me.It makes it seem like you’re closer than you
are.”Vince cleared his throat.“Jake’s not home.”
“That’s fine.”
“I’ll be seeing you soon.I’m sure of it.”
“Yeah.Say hi to your brother for me.”
“Okay.”There was a pause.“Charlotte?”
“Yeah?”
“Nothing.Give us another call sometime soon.”
Charlotte went back to the room where
Lori was fast asleep.She climbed into
the other bed and tried to do the same, but time ticked by, and she lay awake
for six hours until the restlessness finally got to her.Perhaps a bath would ease her tight
muscles.She sat on the edge of the
tub, wondering how many strange feet had stepped in it, not caring that they
had.It’d been a day of greater
concerns.
The next morning Lori and Charlotte
were on the road by seven.The sky was
overcast, but the air was mild and the highway was empty, and both were happy
to be at it once again.They went along
in silence, listening to the radio with their windows down and the fresh, salty
air moving through the car.They passed
through Seattle and Lori asked Charlotte to grab her a water bottle from the
back.
“Yeah, sure,” Charlotte said.“You just let me know what you need.”She was happy to be in the passenger seat
again, in charge of searching, fetching and reading the map.She was moving away from that city where her
fingerprints merged with her mother’s the day before.
“Did you have a good time in Seattle,
yesterday?I forgot to ask,” Lori said.
“Yeah.I’m glad we’re on the move again.I called Vince and Jake yesterday, when you were sleeping.”
Lori drained half the water bottle in
one gulp.She passed it back to
Charlotte and asked, “Did you find that friend of yours?”
“Sort of.”
“How’s that?”
The words were stuck in Charlotte’s
throat, and she looked out the open window.
Lori glanced at her and turned off the
radio.“You can tell me, or not, it’s
up to you.”
Charlotte stared at the passing
fields.She would have to tell
everything if she started, and it seemed possible there, on a highway, in a
place far from home.She wasn’t in Oshawa
anymore where truth was jarred and placed on high shelves, out of reach.Perhaps a train rattling through the
backyard had knocked it free now and then, but that was as close as a person
got in the motor city.The struggles
that silenced people were everywhere.
Charlotte spoke about the mother that
disappeared years earlier, about the sister that only told her now where she
was, about the plan never executed because the house was empty.Lori listened unwearyingly as they pulled up
to a drive-through window for lunch, and continued listening when they crossed
the state border into Oregon.In time,
Charlotte grew tired.She sipped on her
warm milkshake, relieved and free from the weight of her own lies.
“What happened yesterday?” Lori
asked.“You just went to her house, and
she wasn’t there?”
“I climbed through a window in the back
and looked around.”Charlotte reached
into her purse and pulled out a book.“This was in her nightstand.It’s a journal, but I haven’t read it yet.”She flipped through the pages.“She didn’t write very much, just a paragraph here and there for twenty
years.”Charlotte looked over at Lori,
but there was no judgment in her face, so she glanced back down at the sparse
entries and ran her fingers across the words.“I know I shouldn’t have, but she owes me something.”
“I think people owe others a lot less
than what’s placed upon them.But I
suppose if there was ever a case,” she motioned to the diary Charlotte held
carefully in her lap, “the least you earned is that.”
“Have you ever stolen something?”
Charlotte asked.
“Yeah.I suppose technically.The last
time I drove down here I stopped to visit some friends in Semiahmoo.It was a long time ago,” Lori said.
“What happens if we run out of money?”
“We’ll stay with some people I know
just outside San Francisco.You’ll like
it there.”The sun was falling and
there was maybe only an hour before full darkness hit.“We’ll go for another couple hours then look
for a place for the night?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“It was a long time ago,” Lori said
again.
“What’s that?”
“When I was last here.I always meant to move back, but it’s taken
me years.I’m real glad you came along
for the ride.”
“Me too.”
Lori reached down and flipped the radio
to an oldies station.“Met some guy
that trip,” she said.“Doesn’t it
always start that way?I wonder, do
their stories always start with I met
some girl?”
Charlotte shrugged her shoulders.
“Yeah, I don’t know either.What happened between you and Jake?”
“God, I don’t know.”
“Was it tough to say goodbye?You two were tight.”
“I didn’t tell him.”
“What?”
“He wasn’t home, so I asked his brother
to let him know.”
“You told Vince and not Jake?”
Charlotte didn’t answer.
“Just disappeared.”
“No.I called.”
Lori looked back out on the
highway.“Maybe a story for tomorrow.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Andrea Rudy has an MA in creative writing, and her short stories have appeared in various journals including The Berkeley
Fiction Review, A Room of One's Own, and FRONT. She was also in the 2003 edition of the anthology, Coming Attractions.
Email: Andrea Rudy
Return to Table of Contents
|