The Herd(65)
The train thundered along its track, jolting suddenly and sending both of our shoulders swaying. But she kept her eyes on me and, after a second, my insides did something complicated. I’d thought it would make me feel better, winning the fight, landing a true burn. Instead I just felt sick.
“Well, that escalated quickly,” I said feebly. The second that followed contained this whole shimmering alternate timeline where Hana cracked a smile and pulled me into a hug and said something smart and soothing about how stressed we both were, how racked with grief, and let’s try it again and find a way forward.
The vision faded as the intercom crackled: “South Station, South Station, this is the last and final stop, all passengers must depart.”
“If you’re so independent,” Hana hissed, “find somewhere else to stay tonight.” Then she stood and reached over me, yanking down her suitcase with such ferociousness, it almost clocked me in the head.
* * *
—
The snow was lighter here, and actually pretty, an idyllic scene like those porcelain winter villages old ladies set up in their living rooms. Orange-brick churches with spindly spires and immaculate parks and fat streetlamps all stamped with quivering towers of snow. I admired it with a kind of Dickensian sullenness, feeling unwanted and pitiful as I stood behind Hana, looking out over the parking lot. She’d huffed off of the train and out of the terminal without so much as a look back, and I’d trailed her here, darting around people and tripping over suitcases to keep up. Now she was sighing impatiently and calling someone over and over, presumably Mikki, who’d gotten into town a few hours ago and was supposed to pick us up. Hana flung her arm in the air—“I’m waving, can you see me?” and finally I tapped her arm and pointed toward Mikki on the opposite end of the pickup zone. Hana spotted her and took off.
Usually Angry Hana was exasperated and lively, rolling her eyes and muttering, You’ve got to be kidding me. This was worse. Quieter, more controlled. We finally, mercifully, all made it inside the car, and Mikki and Hana chatted in the front: This was the Walshes’ car, yeah it was nice of them to invite us, they seemed to be doing okay, keeping it together. Hana ignored me so completely, so aggressively, that Mikki followed suit.
I tried to find a hotel for the night, halfheartedly, but since it was Christmas Eve Eve, most places were fully booked or astronomically expensive. Hopefully the house would be big enough for Hana and me to avoid each other inside. And she’d have to be nice to me in front of the Walshes, I figured. The last thing she’d subject them to was our own familial strife.
I texted Ted: “You with your fam this evening?”
Warmth spilled across my torso as I saw he was typing right back. “Glad you’re coming. Heading over to the Walshes’ now to snow-blow their driveway.”
Knee-jerk, my brain whipped up a joke (Does this make you the blowjob guy?), and then I felt a sickening punch. Eleanor is dead. None of your stupid wisecracks matter.
We rolled through the eerie white streets as Christmas jazz leaked from the speakers. A few final turns and Mikki turned into a driveway. Here it was, the Walshes’ grand eighteenth-century home, now squatting on the corner of a street with smaller, newer Colonial houses spreading out in all directions. It was like something out of a novel: a perfectly symmetrical mustard-yellow Georgian with an odd stubby roof, orderly white trim, and huge, stark shutters flanking the seeming millions of windows. A portico stuck out over the front door like a snout, and beneath it Ted was clearing off the front porch. Everything was frosted in a dollop of snow.
As Mikki killed the engine and we gathered our things, I went over my mental checklist: tracking down the photo album. Meeting Cameron, perhaps asking a few pointed questions about his feelings toward Eleanor, his activity on secret Facebook groups. Seeing Ted, getting one of his long, healing hugs. Hana may be furious and the book might be fucked, but those were feelings I pushed down the road, onto the snow-covered lanes that stretched to the left and right of us.
CHAPTER 18
Hana
MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 12:50 P.M.
I could feel Katie smiling in the backseat, I could feel it without looking, as if the corners of her mouth were disturbing the air inside the car, shaking up the molecules. I was so angry the anger was blinding, something I had to keep blinking through, like a blindfold somehow yanked on from beneath my skin. We passed the Corrigans’ white mansion, and while the columned home was dark, light spilled out from the cottage in the backyard. Cameron’s domain, the old carriage house. A half block down, we pulled into the Walshes’ driveway, snow crackling under the tires, and Ted stopped snow-blowing and waved cheerily. Ted, the reason the Herd lacked security-cam footage from Monday, December 16. I hated him in that moment.
Gary and Karen appeared in the door: “Come in, we can’t have you freezing to death out there.” We stamped our boots on the welcome mat and hoisted our suitcases into the foyer. I breathed deeply—a faint cedar smell, that woody tang of historic homes.
Pleasantries were even more awful than expected: The Walshes had crinkled bags under their eyes, sadness wafting off them in waves, and yet they welcomed us bravely, took our coats, offered us cider. They’d set out sandwich fixings in the kitchen, but none of us ate anything. In my torso, I felt a deep, internal ache, more like exhaustion than hunger.