How to Save a Life(81)

Evan came out, wrapped in a towel. I muttered something about him hogging the hot water, and slipped in without meeting his eye. I stood for a long time under the shower spray, pulling myself together.

I trust him. I trust him. I trust Evan with my life.

It was the truth, but the questions I hadn’t been asking him and the oddities I’d brushed aside were now piled up so high, like that Jenga game, where you pull the wrong one—ask the wrong question—and the whole tower comes crashing down.

We dressed and packed up, said goodbye to Mary Ellen and left Franklin, Nebraska. I didn’t demand any answers. The dread had gained weight. It pressed me down and made my jaw heavy. Evan was quiet as well, strangely subdued. I wondered if he felt the same unease, sensed the same unnamed something looming on the horizon.

I expected him to take us north—always north—but he drove Snowball onto 80 West, heading toward Wyoming.

I could ask him why, but knew he couldn’t tell me.

Evan merged on to 26 West, driving across country that was remote and flat. An endless horizon of yellow and green with nothing to break it. We drove three hours in near-total silence, except for Snowball: she made a continual, high-pitched whine, as if she were in pain. When we stopped for gas and food, she stalled flat. Evan filled the tank with gas and the radiator with water. I doubted the car’s ability to take us ten feet, let alone another mile. But she started up with a groan and we were on our way again.

Two more hours of flat, empty land and silence. Then a sign loomed ahead: Chimney Rock National Historical Site.

A mound of pale yellow rock rose some hundred feet in the air, an unusual, narrow jutting peak protruding from the top. The formation looked aptly-named, exactly as if someone had built a chimney on a rock mound. But to me it looked entirely different.

I knew why we were here.

Evan parked the car and I got out, glancing at a park sign. It explained the rock was a national landmark made of sandstone and clay. It had served as a landmark for the trappers and traders making their way on the Oregon Trail.

I didn’t see rock or clay or sandstone or history.

I saw wet sand.

“It’s a drip castle,” I said, as Evan came to stand by me on the grass-swept plateau. “When I was five, my mother took me to Tybee Island. In Georgia. And we made drip castles on the beach.”

He waited. Listening. I held my hand out to him and he took it.

“Instead of making walls and moats, or using buckets, you scoop up a handful of wet sand and let it drip from your fingers. It falls on itself like melted wax. You can make beautiful castles with tall spires.”

I stared at Chimney Rock, the memory barreling at me in full color and light and warmth and sound as I pointed toward the formation.

“The best towers looked like that. Exactly like that. I’d make a mound first and pack it down hard, then I started the spire. It grew higher and higher, without falling over or crumbling under its own weight. My mother…” Tears stung my eyes, blurring the spire in front of us. “My mother laughed and said it was the best she’d ever seen. She said she was proud of me; said I might be an architect or an engineer someday. Maybe a sculptor or artist. Whatever I did, I knew she’d love me for it and be proud...”

My voice caved in. Evan didn’t move.

“I remember,” I said through my sobs. “I remember my mother, Evan. I can remember all of her. Her laugh, her smell. The way she looked right before her lights dimmed and her mood swung low. How that scared me. I remember the joy and relief when her lights came back on and she swung up high again. And I remember she loved me.”

“Of course she did,” Evan said hoarsely.

“I know now… I know she couldn’t stay when she saw what Jasper did to me. It was too much for her. Even if I hadn’t cut myself, if I’d just told her what he did to me, she still would’ve left. Because she wasn’t strong enough to stay.” I touched my scar with trembling fingers. “This wasn’t why. This was only a telling. I’ve been wearing it all my life like a badge of shame. All this time, I blamed and punished myself. But she would’ve left anyway. Jasper killed her, not me. It wasn’t me.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Evan’s voice sounded gruff. The wind snatched his words easily and bore them away across the plateau.

I sniffed. Then a half-laugh, half-sob erupted from me as a tremendous weight slipped off my shoulders. With the burden of the past gone, I could now see our entire journey to this place. Not a haphazard set of coincidences but a plan. First the Blue Whale. Then Joyland. Now Chimney Rock.

The impossibility struck me like a gale of wind. Swaying on weak legs, I turned and stared at Evan. As if truly seeing him for the first time.

My voice shook as I spoke. “You said when we reached the Center, I’d be safe.”

“You will,” Evan said, and I could see by the pain in his eyes he knew what was coming. “You’ll be safe and—”

“You’ll be free,” I finished. “What does that mean, Evan? Tell me the truth. Tell me how you’re doing this. How are you taking me to these exact right places to help me recover those exact right memories? And tell me what’s going to happen at the Center. I know you’ll be free. Free of what?”

He shook his head, his eyes dark. “Don’t do this, Jo. Please. We’re almost there.”