Kids.
“Good idea,” I say with an easy nod. “I’ll do that. Thank you.”
I’m about to leave when he speaks up. “Nosy one.”
“Oh?” I turn back.
“He asks a lot of questions.” This does not surprise me.
“What kind of questions?”
“About people and places, things most of us around here would rather forget. Nobody likes to dredge up the past.”
I walk back to the counter. The wood paneled walls are decorated with all manner of fishing gear—poles and nets, lures and reels. There are photographs of outdoorsy looking men, holding up trout and bass, hanging in foggy, crooked frames. I recognize the man behind the counter in one, many years younger looking virile and happy with his big catch.
“Such as?”
“That group we had up there years ago, the doomsday preppers. That mess with the guns and the police. People died. A tragedy.”
He shakes his head, walks around the counter and pours himself some coffee, holds up a foam cup to me and I nod my acceptance just to be cordial, bite back another wave of nausea. I usually have an iron stomach.
“What did he want to know about it?”
He hands me the cup, black. It smells bitter and burnt but I take a sip anyway, just to be polite. Predictably, it’s absolute swill. My stomach lurches.
He sits on the pilled plaid couch that comprises the lobby lounge and I sit in a stiff chair across from him. I’m still waiting for him to answer my question, am about to nudge. Finally, “He wanted to know who lived up there. Did I remember any names? Did I know what happened to the people who left after the incident, were there any children? Did anyone still live in town?”
“What did you tell him?”
He rubs at a knee with his free hand. His knuckles are thick, fingers bent with arthritis.
“That land has been owned by the same family for generations.”
This much I know. It belongs to my family. Well, it belongs to me. Because my family is all gone.
“It’s empty now. But the people up there then were just looking for a different way of life, the old way, you know, where you lived off the land and you only took what you needed.”
My phone keeps vibrating. I glance at it to see a row of texts from Jax.
What is the Motel 8 and what are you doing there?
I feel like I’m going to be interviewed for a true crime podcast when you go missing.
Call me or I’m coming up there after you.
Wren. I’m serious.
I shove the phone in my pocket. Look up to find the old man watching me. I haven’t asked his name and it seems awkward to do so now.
“The land is owned by the Carson family. The other people up there weren’t from around here, so I don’t remember any names. They scattered after the raid. There’s no one left here from that time.”
“How many families were up there?” I ask. I honestly don’t remember who was there. I had a child’s view of the world, utterly myopic, consumed by my own needs, fears, likes and dislikes. I remember other people, but not names. Faces have faded. Even my mother and Jay, I have to dig deep into my memories to recall their eyes, their voices.
“The Carson family and two others, maybe,” he says, rubbing at his chin. “They kept to themselves. They were pretty self-sufficient up there. Not a bad way to live, I suppose. It was the guns that got them in trouble.
“Someone reported them,” the old man said, snapping me back to the moment, the strange motel office. Outside the sky is a startlingly cheerful blue, the green pines sway. “That’s what got the police up there. Then when they tried to search the property, someone started shooting, and the whole thing went haywire. FUBAR they used to say in the military. Fucked up beyond all recognition.”
He points to an installation I hadn’t noticed, up above the mounted television that stands dark. A dark blue uniform in a shadow box, another display of medals, dog tags hanging from a nail.
“Luke Carson, the man who owned the land.” He puts a finger to his temple, makes a slow circle. “War. It makes you crazy if you let it. Sometimes, some men, never come home.”
The man who left never came home, my mother whispered to me on one of the nights she slept in my bed. I thought I could heal him.
“They say he killed his family but it’s hard to believe.”
“You knew him?”
“I knew him when he was a kid. He was a real ray of sunshine, always smiling, always polite. Parents were good people.”
I never knew my grandparents. In some ways, I never knew my father.