Upgrade(43)

A tangle of silver hair spilled over the seat, and the head rested in the crook of the right arm. The only visible skin was the hand, where I saw evidence of slippage and dark wells where blood and liquefied internal matter had settled.

The face was hidden under the splay of hair.

In the passenger-seat floorboard, I saw an empty syringe and an empty glass bottle. I used the Garmin to roll it over so I could see the label.

“Morphine,” I said.

I looked at the body again—there was something so peaceful and desperate in its final repose. For the moment, I had forgotten why we’d come here. I was outside of myself, purely in the moment. I wondered what state of mind a person would have to be in to drive into the middle of nowhere and inject a lethal dose of morphine into their veins.

Reaching down, I carefully swept the hair back from the face.

The skin was desiccated, deep purple, and split in places, as if it had undergone periods of freezing and thawing. The eyes were closed, the blued lips parted.

A necklace hung from the neck, draping over the white vinyl seat.

I leaned in to see the pendant hanging from it.

It was a platinum double helix—the structure of DNA.

I see wrapping paper scattered around the tree. I’m opening my new Lego set. Max is lying on the couch, already weary from the early stages of the illness that will take his life next year. Kara is trying out her new tablet, and there’s the warm, sweet smell of the scones Mom made every Christmas morning baking in the oven. I hear Mom say, “Oh, Haz, it’s beautiful,” and I watch her lifting a necklace with a double helix pendant out of a small, burgundy box.

“I had it custom-made by a jeweler in Philadelphia,” my father says. “Here, let me.” And then he comes around behind her and delicately lifts it over her head and fastens the clasp as my mother holds her hair off her neck.

I staggered back from the truck.

Mouth running dry.

I pointed into the cab.

Croaked, “I think it’s Mom.”

Kara leaned into the cab, examined the corpse’s face.

“How can you tell?”

“The necklace.”

I watched the recognition hit.

Watched Kara brace against the tidal wave of emotion, watched it tear through her defenses, her face flashing through confusion, horror, anger, heartbreak, shock.

I walked a little ways into the woods.

The wind chilled the tears on my face.

I sat down on the forest floor in a patch of sun.

Behind me, Kara scream-shouted at the corpse, “Fuck you!”

I broke down.

My mother was dead.

Again.



* * *



—

When I finally struggled back onto my feet, the light had changed. The sun was higher. Kara was sitting on the ground, leaning back against the wheel of the pickup truck, staring into nothing.

I walked over, eased down across from her.

There were tear streaks across her face.

Anger radiating off her.

I didn’t say anything.

She finally looked at me.

Holding back tears.

Chin trembling.

“What kind of person does this to their children?”

“What should we do with her?” I asked. “Notify someone? Bury her?”

“Who do you think gives a fuck that Miriam Ramsay is dead? Again. And if you think I’m going to spend all day putting her in the ground…I say we forget this ever happened. Go back to Santa Fe—we still have the hotel room—and get wasted. Fuck this day. Fuck every single part of it.”

“I’m on board with that,” I said, “but there is one thing.” Kara looked at me. I held up the Garmin. “According to this, we’re still 1,250 feet from our destination.”

Kara took the Garmin from me and stared at it.

She said, “Isn’t it obvious this is what we were supposed to find?”

“Maybe. But we’ve come this far. What’s another quarter mile?”

I gave her a hand and helped her onto her feet, then we trudged up the hillside.

I felt weak.

Every step was arduous.

Between the adrenaline rush of finding the body and the emotional crash of realizing who it was, I had nothing left.

We passed into a small glade.

The woods grew dense on the other side.

A darker, cooler forest of spruce trees.

We were climbing into snow.

The Garmin vibrated in my hand. I looked down at the screen.

You have arrived at your destination.

“Says we’re here,” I said.

I looked up and around. The woods on our destination grid were unremarkable. Engelmann spruce, a few boulders, a crust of old snow on everything. The trees grew too closely together for sunlight to reach the forest floor.

It was impossible to tell exactly where we were in relation to the 36°33′45″N, 106°13′04″W grid.

I set the Garmin on the ground to mark the perimeter.

Kara looked at me.

I said, “GPS is only accurate to within five meters, so we should expand our canvassing to a ninety-six by one hundred seventeen–foot square.”

“I’ll start over here.”

She headed off through the trees.

I started walking.

Slow, methodical steps crunching in the snow.