Diner in BW (Credit: thegiftedones on DeviantArt)
Now Playing: “The Mighty Rio Grande” – This Will Destroy You
The last thing I needed this morning was to have my truck die. Allison and I were planning on picking up Martin and getting breakfast at the Siding, this awesome restaurant at Union Station. It, like the station, is an Art Deco masterpiece celebrating the town’s history as a musical haven, and how that was partially due to the railroads carrying the period equivalent of bards.
Or that was the plan until my truck died this morning. So, Allison borrowed her mom’s car to take us and I begrudgingly sat in the backseat, muttering under my breath and stewing in my frustration all morning. Then I return home to talk to dad about how royally fucked we are. I know we don’t have the money to replace it.
I don’t have the experience to repair my truck. And it’s incredibly annoying. Dad’s been listening to me rant while he’s baking a cake to give to Reilly and Justin to celebrate their engagement. Dad likes to have timing that knocks you off kilter; make you think he’s not going to make a big deal out of something only to hit you with an epic surprise just after you think it’s no big deal. My dad’s making her a Smith Island Cake, this Maryland delicacy my mom brought back from one of her tours when we were kids. He hates making it but knows that Reilly really likes it. Since we stopped getting as many when mom stopped touring quite as far, dad thought he’d surprise my sister.
“I guess I have to talk to Martin about the truck. Fuck me,” I sigh and plop into one of the kitchen chairs so hard it sends it skidding a good five inches away from the table and almost tips over. Dad starts chuckling at me, having witnessed my little almost disaster out of the corner of his eye.
“Case, I don’t think Miracle Martin can fix that truck. It lasted way longer than your grandfather or I ever thought it would. Maybe it’s time to let it go. Besides, I think I can do you one better on replacing it.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“Come with me.” He stops work, washes his hands, and gestures for me to follow him. Down the hall, up the stairs. The wood creaks slightly as we ascend. The smell of sea air meets me when I walk into my parents’ room. Dad likes to keep the window cracked. Despite mom being gone for half a decade, it hasn’t changed all that much from when she still lived here. The dresser still has the same photos she put up when I was a freshman in high school, and some of her clothes still hang in her closet.
Dad reaches up into said closet and pulls down a shoebox.
“This is all stuff of your mom’s that you ought to have.”
His voice contains a bitterness I’ve never heard from him before. Content to mull that in the background, I sit down on the edge of his bed and open the box. In it is a collection of trinkets from her days on the road. I’ll sort through most of it later, but the black journal teases me the most. I set the box down on the bed and crack open the book while dad keeps rummaging in the closet.
This is mom’s touring history. Notes she wrote on the road, several iterations of lyrics, ticket stubs, receipts, and contact information. That all could be very useful in my search for her. This rolodex extends as late as seven years ago and goes all across the country. This could be very useful.
“Did you know about what’s in here?” I ask excitedly.
Dad turns around with a guitar case. “What?”
“All the contact information in here? All the names and dates and places? This is like her entire touring history right in here!”
Dad’s face darkens. I can’t tell him what I’ve been up to. The hope may kill him, and the disappointment definitely would.
“Yeah, well, the past is the past. And this crap gathering dust isn’t doing either of us any good.” He sets the guitar case down on the bed. I set the book aside for now and focus on the case. I run my hands over it gently, smearing the dust which I proceed to wipe on my pants. Dad gives me a scowl and tosses me a dust rag. I clean the rest of the guitar case more diligently. Dad smiles and gives me a thumbs up.
“Open it,” he bids me. The latches unclick as I hit the releases, and I pull it open. Inside rests mom’s ruby red 1986 Rickenbacker 330.
“No. Fucking. Way.”
“She’d want you to have it, and I know you’ll play it.”
I crush my dad into a hug. He hugs back without a second of hesitation. When the hug breaks up, he tosses me an impish grin and a wink.
“Thank you, dad. Really.”
“But wait, there’s more!” he says in an excellent Billy Mays impression which never fails to make me laugh. He rummages around in the box some more and holds up a set of keys. Their idiosyncratic jingle brings memories of winter mornings being driven to school back with a vengeance.
Mom’s Challenger.
“You’re kidding me.”
“She sure as hell ain’t driving it,” Dad’s voice turns bitter again, but shakes it off. He heads for the door and gestures for me to come with.
Both of us bound down the stairs, and into the garage. In dramatic fashion, dad pulls the cover off the car. Slightly dusty, the purple paint shines even in the dim bulb that illuminates our garage. The car will probably need a bit of work, but this is like a piece of my past come back to life now. I run my hand along the front fender, thinking about how many summertime family drives were taken in this car. Mom said the gas mileage made longer drives impractical, hence the crossover we got while Reilly and I were in elementary school. But this is a cool car befitting of a rockstar.
“Are you sure?” I question dad.
“Absolutely. For bouncing around the neighborhood, this is perfect. But I think you’ll have to call Miracle Martin to help you get it fixed up.” His grin turns cheesy.
“You love that nickname, don’t you?”
He shrugs. “What can I say? I’m a simple man.”
I shake my head and wave him off jokingly as I pull my phone out to tell Martin the good news. I have a text waiting from my Uncle Derek in Philadelphia asking me to call him. Dad has returned to the house, and I step outside into the driveway. The call connects.
“Hey Kid,” my uncle does his best Harrison Ford impression, which is to say, not very accurate.
“What’s up?”
“We just heard about Reilly’s engagement. She called us this morning to give us a heads up about coming up to Massachusetts for the wedding. Obviously, we have no problem coming and all, but I wanted to know whether you heard anything from your mom.”
“No, I haven’t. Why, have you?”
“Casey, the only things I get from my sister are cryptic letters with no return addresses every now and then. I hardly read them these days. This isn’t how family acts.”
Derek was maybe hit the hardest by my mom’s disappearance. They were close and talked on the phone almost every day. He’s been bitter about her for a long time, and it’s been a while since I’ve actually seen my mom’s family because of that.
“Do you think anything in those letters could point to where she is now?” I ask while my mind returns to the black book left upstairs.
“I’m honestly not sure. I can send them to you.”
A clue this juicy cannot be risked. I have to find some other way. Perhaps a visit to Philly is in order.
“Don’t worry about it. I have an idea, but I have to work it a bit. I’ll let you know.”
“All right, stay safe kid. Love you.”
“Love you too, Uncle Derek. Bye.”
Now Playing: “Queen of Peace” – Florence + The Machine
The call disconnects, but my mind comes alive. Then Reilly pulls up, necessitating a dramatic change in mood. In the week since Reilly got engaged, Allison almost kissed me, and Jordan found out my whole situation, I’ve made a couple of decisions. One, my search for mom must remain an absolute secret. I don’t want Allison and Martin knowing because I cannot have my father or sister finding out I’m doing this. Not until I bring her home. The second decision is that I need to talk to someone about Allison and her implications in my life, and right now, that’s Reilly.
“Hey dude,” I greet her warmly.
“What’s dad up to?”
I shrug and make up a somewhat convincing story about starting sourdough for the bakery this week, and that he’s in another dad rock groove and asked not to be disturbed. Next, I decide to tease her about not having a very friendly greeting to get her into a back and forth instead of insisting on seeing dad. Then I make up an excuse that I was planning on going to the diner rather than hang at the house. She says it’s a good picks, and offers to drive. A quick little combo, and my sister is whisking me away for milkshakes and sandwiches. Dad’s secret cake remains a secret, and my sister and I get some quality time together; the kind we have sorely been lacking as of late.
Reilly drives with the windows down even in the middle of October. She says the scent of the ocean carried on the winds keeps her head clear while driving. I think she needs help on other avenues lately as well. Our conversation is stilted and distracted. It’s only when we’re comfortable in a booth at the diner, with a Cuban for me and a Reuben for my sister on their way that we can relax.
“So, I am sorry that it took me a week to get around to this, but I am focused on you one hundred percent right now. What’s up with Allison?” Reilly interlocks her fingers and leans forward with an intense stare with which I’m all too familiar. My sister is a born problem solver, and for that I love her dearly. I just don’t know how to let her help solve problems I don’t want her to know about.
I look at her for a moment, trying to come up with a response that’s satisfactory and yet still fulfills my true desires. I want to tell her that Allison isn’t important, that I’m bringing mom home for the wedding, that Uncle Derek just gave me an idea as to how to find her, and that it’s all coming together.
The words won’t come out. The idea of giving Reilly hope on that level only for me to fall short, as I so often do, would kill me. Like it or not, I’ll have to bear this cross on my own. Which means I have to come up with something about Allison to give her.
What do I feel about Allison? In the last week, we’ve tactlessly avoided talking about anything serious. Conversations are inane and surface level. We both know we’re hurting, but neither one of us can help the other heal. Not without confronting that moment on Sentinel’s Point, and what it means, and what we would look like as something, and how we get past five years of growth apart. For both of us, it’s easier to pretend like nothing ever happened. And it isn’t easy at all, in fact, it fucking sucks.
“I honestly don’t know. Did you have any clue she crushed on me back in the day?”
Reilly snorts. “Duh. That girl has been in love with you since she first wandered over to our front door with her parents and said hi. I am a little shocked she was so bold to try and kiss you.”
“Yeah,” I look out the window and lose my focus staring at the cracked taillight of a blue Volkswagen in the parking lot. I muster the wherewithal to sip my strawberry milkshake in an attempt to explain my lack of response. I finally turn back to my sister. “What does it say about me that I got mad at her?”
“Why were you mad at her?”
Reilly’s good at getting down to brass tacks like that.
“For bringing this up as soon as she gets back in town. For telling me she has a crush on me while I’m dating someone else. For not giving me much choice in the matter.”
Reilly clicks her tongue, grins, and leans back. “You’re mad at Jordan.”
“I am not!”
“Yes you are. You’re mad at Jordan for not being Allison, and now that the real deal is back and she wants you, you’re mad at Jordan. And mad at yourself.”
It’s true, I am mad at myself. I overreacted with Allison, and I dislike that I was that obnoxious. But mad at Jordan for not being Allison? What the hell is my sister even talking about?
“I’m mad at Allison for leaving. I’m mad at her for not giving me a heads up or anything that she was coming home, just dropping in and expecting to pick back up where we left off.”
“See, that I believe! Ten points for Casey!” Reilly snaps and points at me, as though I had just scored on her gameshow. I roll my eyes.
“What’s your take on all of it? Just, your initial thoughts.”
“I think you need time to sort it all out. You shouldn’t be rushing to any conclusions or dramatic dynamic shifts. But stop being mad at her for the choices you’re refusing to make too.”
I don’t like what my sister’s implying with that last bit. But I like less the idea that I’m keeping this morning’s big secret from her entirely. “Well, that isn’t everything,” I admit, taking a deep breath before steeling myself, “Dad gave me some of mom’s things. Her notebook with a ton of song lyrics and stuff, her Rickenbacker, and the car.”
“Oh hell yeah, when you and Martin restore the car, you have to take me out in it.”
I love Reilly. She’ll always be herself. Yet, the pain behind her eyes gives all of her true feelings away. She wants mom back so desperately. She’s just as angry at mom as I am. Right now, picking at this wound will do neither of us any good. Instead, I summon all of my willpower to keep digging into this Allison thing. It’ll offer a solid distraction for both of us.
I hope my sister knows not only how much I love her, but the ways in which I do as well.
Ark of the Lost Angels 
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