Hello! This is the forth installment of the twenty-one chapter debut novel In the Pines by Wells Thompson (that’s me). I’ll be publishing one chapter a week on Substack until it’s all up, so if this is the first one you’re seeing, you can find the previous chapters in the Newsletter backlog. I hope you enjoy the ride! As a note, this chapter is a bit shorter and somewhat unusual in relation to the rest of the book; definitely a product of when this was more of a disconnected series of short stories, but still, I think it adds something to the story.
“How much exactly do you already know about this?” Kayla asked after taking a sip of her coffee.
“Only what I was present for. Only what I saw.”
“Well, that clears up nothing. Is there any way you know how to speak other than in infuriatingly vague nothing-isms?”
The old man smiled and pushed the sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. “I get that a lot. I understand the basics of what was going on, but I don’t believe in the invasion of privacy. For example, I don’t know too much about you before you jumped on that train with Sarah. I don’t know what made you leave your home in the first place.”
“There wasn’t much to leave.” Kayla crossed her arms, she didn’t like thinking backward or dwelling on the past, particularly anytime before she went out on her own.
“So your parents weren’t in the picture.”
“Not really.”
“That’s shameful. I’m sorry.” Kayla didn’t say anything. “When was the last time you were with your family?”
Kayla looked down in silence for a moment and pawed along the frame of the puzzle she was constructing. There were two distinct chunks at the moment, not conjoined, but she could see the coloring shift and sway even in the relatively few pieces she’d assembled. There was something in this that she loved, watching senseless pieces come together into a solemn whole. “The last time I saw him was in a grocery store in Missouri. I didn’t intend to, he was just there. I mean, I knew he lived in the area, I’d seen letters come in from his new house when I was younger, but when I saw him, I don’t know. I froze. I didn’t say anything to him.”
“Do you think—?”
“We aren’t talking about this. Can we move forward or, I don’t know, in any other direction?” Kayla was smiling, but she couldn’t keep her eyes from pleading for mercy.
“I find that when I set out on a path, it’s helpful to remember why I wanted to take the journey in the first place.”
“...Fuck you.”
The old man laughed. “You know I’m right. Besides, it’s for your sake we’re here.”
“Do you want me to say ‘thank you?’” Kayla pulled her legs up and crossed them in her chair.
“I want you to really address what’s happening, take responsibility for the things that are your fault and understand those things that aren’t.” Kayla physically bit her tongue. Taking responsibility was never her strong suit and reflection felt like failure, but she wasn’t in a position to argue, so she just tried to endure. “Well, that was your father, when was the last time you saw your mother?”
Kayla’s jaw trembled a little and she became aware of the air conditioning as her skin pricked up and began to shiver. “I don’t remember the last time I saw her, to be honest.”
“You don’t remember her at all, or just the last instance that you were together?”
“The last time we spoke. I must have been sixteen, but I don’t remember what was said.” Kayla could hear some words echo in her mind, but couldn’t tell if they were real or just what she imagined. Anything could have been said at their last meeting; in the short time that they lived together, just the two of them, her mother never stopped talking. She was always bad about that, talking into the air, but it was so much worse with no one else around to absorb it. “What do you remember, when you think of your mother?”
Kayla put together an unconnected line of edge pieces and set them off to the side. They were purple fading to blue and could have been either a flower or a sunset, she wasn’t sure which. “I think about snow.”
***
“It hasn’t snowed like this since I was a little girl. Smaller than you, much smaller than you, I was just six or seven. You’re a big girl now, you’ll be ten next month. Are you excited? I remember I was, I was so excited. I got to start riding a bike when I was ten. I know you already know how to do that, but you’ll have plenty to look forward to too. Oh, look at that, to too, now we just need a pair of shoes and we can start dancing! Did you know that I used to dance? When I was sixteen I went to competitions, I was damn good too, you’d be amazed. They all were, I could have been big, a stage dancer where everyone would pay to see me. Your mommy could have been famous you know.”
“Why didn’t you?” Kayla’s voice was soft and curious.
“What now?”
“Why didn’t you become famous?” The snow was piling onto the windshield and there was no road left to be seen, just miles of stretched out white with no headlights ahead or behind. It was dark and Donna couldn’t take her eyes off of the road. Even peering intently, she still found herself suddenly on the other side of the freeway, near the barrier, tires rumbling over the treads.
“Because I got to have you instead. One day a man came up to me and said, ‘you can be famous or you can have the best little girl in the world.’ And I chose you. And I’d choose you again and again. You know you mean the world to me right? I don’t know what I’d do without you. I’d probably stop being here at all, just go up in a puff of smoke. Do you remember that trick I showed you with the bowl full of worries? When you wrote down what was bothering you on a piece of paper and we set it on fire in that big flash that went up to the ceiling? Well that’d be mommy, just up in flames.”
They were at least an hour from home at this speed. The freeway wasn’t meant for snow; it wound and dipped as if it was built by drunkards. Arkansas construction was known to be inferior, but in this weather, she may as well have been off road altogether.
“You know, sometime soon, we should go out skiing. Go out to Colorado or Utah and get on a mountain. You should see what snow is all about, not this stuck in the dark kind of snow, but real snow up on the mountain. You can feel it on your face as you’re skiing. Shhh, krrrpt, shhhhh, krrrpt.” She moved her hips slightly, in rhythm. “Wouldn’t that be fun, Kayla? Getting out and going skiing?”
“Why can’t we go skiing here?” Kayla was staring out the window, watching the snow whip by so fast it looked like it was drawing in the air, little downward curves. Donna couldn’t see her in the rearview, but could picture Kayla exactly how she was. Still small, even for ten, she was swallowed by her large down coat that was the only one she would wear in the winter. It had little cats on it and she said it made her feel warm on the inside and out. She was willful like that, and stubborn. Donna knew she’d gotten that from her. When she’d been taken to have her hair cut, she sat down and refused to get up off the floor because she wanted to grow it out forever. Sure enough, it hadn’t been cut in two years now, and the hair nearly touched the back of her knees when she let it down all the way.
“Because there’s not a mountain here. There used to be, back before mommy was even born, up in Dogpatch, but that’s been closed for years. Besides, it hasn’t been cold enough to get snow up there, so there’s no way we could do it now. A lot has changed here since I was a kid. You used to be able to stay outside all day without worry, now you can’t trust anybody anywhere. If I left you alone outside and didn’t watch you, you’d be gone in a minute. Someone would snatch you up in a second and I’d never see you again. Kayla, you know not to answer the door if I’m not there, right?”
“Yes, mom.”
“Good. You promise me you wouldn’t open the door for anybody if someone showed up while I wasn’t there, okay?”
“Okay mom, I promise.”
“Good. You don’t ever answer the door, and you don’t ever leave the house if I’m not there, got it? You’d be gone and no one would ever see you again. It’d be just terrible if something like that happened to you.”
A pink haze broke through the white fog and Donna knew she was passing the strip club on the side of the freeway. She was twenty-two miles out from her house.
“Mom.”
“Yes, dear?”
“Can we stop at Candy’s? I want some candy!”
“It’s not a candy store, baby, it’s…it’s a dollhouse sweetie, where people go and dress up and make all sorts of mistakes.”
“Is it like the one I used to have?”
“No, Kayla, it’s different than that. This dollhouse is just for grownups.”
“Can I go in when I grow up?”
“You don’t want to do that, take mommy’s word for it.”
“You played with dolls?”
“No, honey I was a doll.”
“And people played with you?”
Donna pinched the bridge of her nose and thought about the hole she’d dug herself. The right side of the car started to rumble against the strips and she gently directed the machine left. “It’s a big world and I’ve made a lot of mistakes. You just promise me you won’t ever go into one of those places, okay Kayla?”
“Okay. Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“I know I shouldn’t open the door when you’re not home. But what if you’re not home, but dad’s there? Should I open the door then?” Donna tightened her grip on the wheel and looked in the rearview; it was pure black out the rear window and she couldn’t see Kayla in the backseat, just the fringe of her hair.
“Daddy won’t be home anymore, Kayla.”
“What do you mean?”
“Daddy’s gone, okay, he’s not coming back home and he won’t be around anymore.”
“Why not—?”
“Kayla, I need to watch the road and you’re distracting me, okay? Please be quiet.” Donna watched the road intently and clenched her jaw and tightened her grip on the wheel. She wanted to look back at Kayla, especially when she heard her faint sobbing, but she couldn’t afford to. She had to keep driving, she had to find a way home.
This story is considered a work in progress for legal reasons.
© 2024 Wells Thompson
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.