Catherine McKenzie - Hidden

“You want to call the wedding off?” I said, my throat closing in panic.

She looked me straight in the eye. “No. I don’t.”

“You think I do?”

“I think you need to figure out if you can live with this. With me. The person I was and the person I am now. You go figure that out and let me know.”

I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach, but there was anger there too. So out the door I went to spend a miserable night at my own apartment, a place I barely spent any time in anymore, a place that no longer felt like home.

In the morning I crawled back to Claire’s, begged her forgiveness, and, when she gave it, buried my jealousy of Tim deep within.

Besides, I told myself, it’s not like he’s actually going to show.

He did, of course. Not that he returned the reply card. Instead, he sent a cryptic email to my mother, which she decoded as his arrival time in Springfield two days before the ceremony.

I knew for sure by then that my take on his silence, his absence, wasn’t paranoia. It was all connected. But what I didn’t know was whether he was coming home to try to do something about it or to accept it.

I watched him closely in those first twenty-four hours after his arrival, looking for signs that might point the way. He looked older, tanned, and less restless. Australia agreed with him, I thought, as we sat across from each other at my parents’ dinner table, as we had all our lives, eating lemon chicken, because Thursday was lemon chicken night, rain or shine.

He’d kissed Claire briefly on the cheek when we arrived and told her she looked well. Claire’s face was like glass, reflecting back the expression of whomever she was speaking to. When she looked at Tim, the few times I caught her looking, she seemed calm, impassive, and slightly distracted; a woman having dinner with her in-laws a few days before her wedding.

After dinner, Tim cornered me in the living room, passing me a Scotch glass with an inch of liquid in it, neat.

“So, brother, have you been properly feted?”

“Feted?”

“I’m talking bachelor party. Has it occurred, or will you be in need of sleep and half drunk on your wedding day?”

I smiled, remembering the weekend with my college buddies, the golf, the drinks, and the drinks after that. “It’s been taken care of.”

“Good. Sorry I missed it.”

“No worries.”

It was his turn to smile. “That sounds like home.”

“Home is Australia now?”

“That’s right. For now. Maybe for always. We’ll see.” He paused to take a sip of his drink. “You should…come visit sometime.”

“Sure, we’d like that.”

If he flinched, it was only a tick of the clock. He glanced around the room. “This place looks the same as always.”

“Nothing ever changes in Springfield.”

“A few things do. One or two.”

“Right. Sure.”

We stood there sipping our drinks in silence, both of us probably wishing the women would reappear and fill the room with chatter.

“Where did Dad get off to?” Tim asked eventually.

“Lodge meeting, I think.”

“Of course. Lemon chicken and lodge night. He inducted you yet?”

“Me? No, no. Never.”

“Never say never, brother.”

I didn’t like this new way he had of calling me “brother,” like he needed to remind himself of who I was. Or maybe he was reminding me.

“I guess. What about you? Any thoughts of settling down?”

He laughed. “You sound like Mom.”

“No one’s ever said that before. No one special?”

“Nothing on the horizon at present. All the good girls seem to be taken.”

I sipped my drink. “Mmm.”

Silence crept over us again and I thought about refilling my glass.

“What do you say to a private celebration?” Tim said.

“What? You and me?”

“You got anything better to do?”

“No. I’m just…forget it.” I put my glass down. “Where’d you want to go?”

“Hurley’s maybe?”

“Sure. Let me tell Claire.”

He nodded thoughtfully and twenty minutes later found us ensconced at the local bar. Tim ordered two rounds of shots, which proved to be the right amount of lubrication to wash away the years. As the drinks disappeared down our throats, we talked about safe subjects: remember-whens from our childhood.

When last call sounded we were both cut, and for my part, I was feeling more warmly about Tim than I had in years. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed him, my goddamn older brother, the man I always wanted to be when I grew up.

Tim seemed to feel the same as he slapped me on the back and suggested we walk the long way round to our parents’ house. I agreed, and as we stumbled home, we passed the edge of the Woods, its thick trees silhouetted against the sky.

“Man,” I said, “I haven’t been in there in ages.”

“Do you remember all those times we played…what was it again?”

“You Can’t Get There from Here.”

“Right, right. Say, let’s do it.”

“What, now?”

“Sure.”

“But we don’t have any flashlights.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick ring of keys. A silver cylinder hung from it. He flicked a switch and a bright beam of light pooled around our feet.

“This’ll do, won’t it?”

“Aren’t you the Boy Scout.”

He held up his hand in the three-fingered salute. “With merit badges and everything. You game?”

I hesitated for a moment, but why not? The night seemed to be all about memories, and these were good ones.

“Okay. Who’s spotter?”

“We’ll flip for it.” He pulled out a quarter, getting ready to toss it. “Call it.”

“Tails.”

“Interesting choice.”

He launched the quarter into the air and we watched it flip upward, twinkling in the street light, disappearing into the dark, then reappearing in slow motion to land in the palm of his hand. He slapped his palm against the top of his other hand.

“You sure about your choice?”

“I’m sure.”

He unveiled the coin. It was heads.

“Do you think the old bell’s still there?” he asked.

“Only one way to find out.”

We walked into the Woods, our eyes quickly adjusting to the darkness. The half-full moon was enough to light the well-worn path. After a few minutes we came to a large, distinctive rock, our usual starting place. I sat on its cool surface.

“Give me five minutes,” Tim said.

I nodded and he started off down the path. I checked my watch for the time: 2:12.

The rules of You Can’t Get There from Here are simple. It has to be played at night. Spotters are placed in the woods with flashlights. The Crawlers have to try to get past them without being lit up, to reach a bell that hangs from a tree a half a mile ahead. The first person to ring the bell is the winner.

To be a good Crawler you need patience, silence, and a willingness to become one with the wet, boggy ground. To be a good Spotter you need good night vision and a sense of direction that allows you to hear past the disorienting sounds of movement in the dark. We all had our moments of glory growing up, but Tim was always the best, especially at spotting.

Two seventeen. Regretting the suit I’d considered appropriate for what I thought this night would be, I lowered myself to the moist ground about ten feet left of the path. My plan, such as it was, was to go in a semicircle around the path to arrive at the bell—assuming it was still hanging from the tree where we left it ten years ago—and hopefully avoid Tim.

Within a few minutes, I was soaked through to the skin. My nostrils were full of the smell of decomposing leaves. I moved slowly, stopping often to listen to the sound of my own breathing, willing my ears to reach out into the dark and identify the other sounds. Was that Tim, an animal, or an old tree shifting in the night?

I checked my watch, cupping my hand over its face to hide the light.

Two thirty-two. I was half hoping my slowness and the amount of alcohol we’d consumed would lull Tim into a slumber.

I should’ve known better. Within seconds of the numbers fading back to darkness I was enveloped in light.

“Got you, brother,” Tim said, way closer than I expected. And why was the light so fucking bright?

I flopped onto my back to find Tim standing over me, shining the flashlight in my eyes. All I could see was his outline against the sky, like an actor in the floodlights. He looked enormous, a bear of a man, though I couldn’t see his face well enough to tell if he’d become fully Yeti.

“Will you shut that goddamn thing off?”

“Not until you say it.”

“Say what?”

“You know what.”

“Jesus Christ, Tim. Who cares? You won. Enough. Help me up.”

I held out my hand and the light snapped off. But instead of giving me his hand, Tim was on top of me, pinning me to the ground like he had so many times before, when he wanted to beat on me or teach me a lesson.

“Say it,” he said. I could feel his hot, malty breath against my face.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Say it,” he repeated, and pressed my arms deeper into the mud.

I could feel the back of me becoming as wet as the front, and I was starting to get pissed off.

“Jesus, fuck, fine. You can’t get there from here.”

“Too bloody right you can’t.” He gave me a final push, then released me and stood up. “You shouldn’t even be trying to.”

I opened my mouth to answer him but stopped when I heard him walk away. I knew it would be fruitless to call after him, that he was content to leave me there and let me find my own way home.

So I lay there like that, watching the moon, trying to make sense of it all.

Just me and the creaking dark.

When we get home from the funeral, the house is already thick with people. It feels like the whole town’s here, though of course that isn’t possible. The whole town did send food; everyone’s hands and mouths are full of something. They seem to have forgotten to send alcohol, though. A vital omission.

I wander through the house, being stopped and hugged every few seconds, like a repeat episode of The Day Jeff Died. I think this show should be canceled. It’s always been a terrible show.

I nod and thank and agree. I’m becoming inured to hearing Jeff’s name in connection with his death. At least, I hope I am.

I have an awkward discussion with Art Davies, all mumbled words and expressions of guilt.

“Maybe Jeff was distracted because he felt so bad about firing me,” he says. “Maybe—”

“No. Don’t put that on yourself, okay?”

Don’t put that thought on me, I want to say. I don’t want to think about whether Jeff’s death was avoidable, who’s to blame. I don’t want to feel the emotions that would come with those kinds of thoughts. I’m already feeling too much, and too little.

“But—” he says.

Art’s wife tugs at his elbow. “This isn’t the time, Art. Come on, let’s go.”

He sighs and mumbles an apology and then they are gone.

The friends whose calls I haven’t been returning surround me, a buzz of protectiveness. But their sorrow is more than I want to feel too, and so I don’t really listen, don’t really say anything, don’t really feel anything.

At some point, Seth tugs at the sleeve of my scratchy dress.

“Yes, honey?”

“Was it…okay what I read?”

I turn to him. He looks small and embarrassed in his jacket and tie.

“Of course it was. It was perfect.”

He stubs his toe at the floor. “It wasn’t…cheating?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like at school. How you have to do your own work?”

“Darling, of course it’s not like that. Think about the minister. He was reading something someone else wrote, right?”

“But that’s his job.”

“I don’t think it’s so different. I’m really proud of you…that you were able to get up and speak. It was…more than I could do.”

“Don’t feel bad, Mom. Dad would understand.”

I pull him against me, hoping he’s right but still feeling disappointed in myself. His bones feel small, not quite sturdy enough to shoulder this present life.

“I hope so.”

I release him. He rubs his cheek where it connected with my dress.