Headlights(101)

Or maybe it’s so obvious, and I should have been looking there the whole time.

And …

I remember once, Daphne explaining to me. Close family relations can sometimes show up as interchangeable on DNA tests … or something like that.

Is it possible … how did it not occur to me before? Could he be doing this somehow? Would he? How would he not have shown up as a match before?

The only other person who was there that night in the motel who is still living.

Could the hair be his? Could he be a part of this?

“Will you be okay?” Hannah asks. “I’ll be with you.”

I squeeze her hand, lean into her. I kiss the top of her head and rest my chin there, looking out at the snow.

“Maybe it was always meant to be this,” I say. And I know she knows what I mean, I can feel it. Her and me. This. Us, some cosmic fucking wondrous inevitability.

She pulls back and looks up into my eyes. “I’m with you,” she says.

A shadow moves in the bathroom, again.

We both stop. Turn to look at it. Because it’s …

It’s not a shadow.

She’s not.

She is, kind of. But … she’s brighter somehow. More defined.

A woman stands in the bathroom. Sort of. A shadow-person. I know somehow that she’s the same shadow we saw in here last night, but I can see her much more clearly now. Just almost like a person, glowing, moving in the dark. An X-ray image of someone. Or like a body heat signature in night vision goggles. The woman is cleaning the bathroom. And …

The shadows.

The shadows are people. Or … Memories of people? Echoes?

No. Hannah thinks the word, and I know she’s right.

They’re ghosts.

And haven’t I always known? Hasn’t that always been the other piece I wasn’t willing to face? That this is real. Ghosts are real, and I can see them. Maybe Rose was right.

The ghost in this room. The haunted room that inspired the book that my mother carried around every day of her life. The book that inspired my name. Over there, on the shelf, with all his others. I finally let my eyes move to it. All the Stephen King titles.

And the one right in the center of them.

The Shining.

Hannah looks at me, and I don’t know what to say. Hannah, and me, both of us who see these things. Who both can see, or at least feel, whatever the fuck got in here with us last night.

Both of us, who see each other. Fully. Every dark and terrible thing.

Who joined with each other, in two planes, two worlds. Who now can see things clearly after coming together. After sharing our pain and stopping fighting who we are.

The shadows are real. And I don’t know if they’re people now, or if they just were. But … this whole time I fought it. Why have I tried so hard in every part of my life to fight what’s inevitable?

The ghost in the bathroom doesn’t pay us any mind. We’re the visitors here. People come and go, but she stays.

I turn back to Hannah. That connection stretching between us. Radio dials tuning in to the same frequency, Hannah’s thoughts and mine. This, here between us, what it could become.

Daphne’s words at Linger Eatuary echo through my mind, and I get it now. Lying here with Hannah Lawrence, I get it.

I’m gonna hold on to it, hold on to her, with everything I’ve got.

And right now, we’ve got to do the thing I should have done long ago. The thing I’ve been dreading and fighting my whole life.

Because Hannah’s right, and this is what it’s been all along. John Denver living so much of his life to gain acceptance or understanding from his father. All these fathers and sons playing out narratives again and again.

Never even looking into my own eyes because I am so terrified of seeing him.

Of course the things we don’t want are the ones that make us look at ourselves.

I hold Hannah closer, for one more second, the snow falling outside the window. I know, at least, that I won’t be going in alone.

Hannah and me, in this together. Going to Sterling.

To the state prison.

We’re going to see my dad.





V

AVALANCHE





1



I open the duffel bag Josie packed of my things and pull out my old clothes. The clothes I haven’t worn since my parents were still alive. This version of myself too painful to be. The one that, if I’m being honest, I’ve probably always been.

Black jeans, black pearl snap shirt, black cowboy hat and boots, and leather jacket. A brown and black embossed leather belt with a road runner belt buckle on it that Marianne gave to me.

“You look good,” Hannah says in the room, dressed, sitting on the side of the bed.

I clear my throat, feel my face getting hot. She smiles.

The internet is still down, and cell service is spotty. We leave the ghost in the Stephen King Suite. I glance past all the mirrors as we walk down the stairs, pass through the lobby. Until we step back outside into the cold.

We can’t find the Wagoneer in the parking lot, every car snowed in, smothered, white surrounding us. No one else will be able to find it either.

We try different hotel staff vehicles until we find one with the keys inside that isn’t buried. A gray SUV with STANLEY printed on the side. It’s conspicuous, but in the snow maybe it’s not easily read. We throw the bag in. The one with the murder weapon, all the files.