Chapter 3 #3
The thing is…the thing is…the thing is that it’s not right , for Casey to have acted like that.
It’s not fair . That’s why Will can’t get over it, is ruminating on it angrily as he stomps around shoving M it’s not for any other reason.
It certainly has nothing to do with Casey’s chiseled face, or his well-muscled chest, or his broad, long-fingered hands, or any dreams Will might have had about any of those things!
It’s because Will has a sense of justice and decency, that’s what it is, and Casey’s out here—out here assuming things, about people and events, assuming he knows what he’s talking about when he doesn’t .
Will is the one who knows what he’s talking about!
Will is the one who had to grow up on that farm, up to his eyeballs in other people’s problems and expectations and failings, never an inch of room for him to be himself.
The audacity of Casey to suggest he knew a single thing about it, that’s what’s stuck in Will’s craw. The audacity, and nothing else.
Will spends the next few hours iterating new variations of essentially this same thought, in a dizzying assortment of different configurations.
Casey’s audacity is the problem, until it’s his rudeness, until it’s his stupid smug face, until it’s his audacity again; then it’s righteous indignation on behalf of Will’s father, which admittedly he can’t sustain; then it’s righteous anger on behalf of the town, which feels like it has more of a foothold.
It’s—yes—Will is simply, out of concern for Glenriver , offended that Casey would—would have the audacity , oh, it’s all coming together now—to be so rude about something that will benefit the community!
With his stupid smug face! There it is, the unifying theory of “Why Casey Doesn’t Merit Another Moment of Will’s Thought,” packaged up nice and neatly.
No reason to think about it any further at all.
Unfortunately, by the time Will draws this conclusion, it’s only 4:24 a.m. Groaning, he allows himself to look at his phone for the first time in about sixteen hours; there are an absurd number of missed calls and messages, but they’re nearly all from Selma.
Will, honor bound by a pact of more than a decade that he’s fairly certain Selma doesn’t hold up her end of, dutifully deletes every voicemail left between 11:45 p.m. and 4 a.m. without listening to them.
There are, however, enough of them that he winces, and when he scrolls through the messages, he sees that Selma seems to have played out several stages of grief in a one-sided argument, cycling through anger and bargaining and back to anger and then briefly to depression before landing, grudgingly, on acceptance: The last message says:
Proof of life, please, you incredibly stressful bastard. I will send a Marine if I don’t hear from you by 0800.
Will chews on the inside of his lip, weighing his options, before finally he types:
Hi, I’m alive. Sorry to vanish on you—it’s all kind of a lot.
Not trying to be a stressful bastard; you really don’t have to worry about me.
All under control here. Please don’t send a Marine if by “a Marine,” you mean “your brother, Vaughn,” you know how I feel about Vaughn.
If it’s a different, hotter Marine, though, feel free.
He sends it before he can think better of it, before his treacherous thumbs add something dangerously true, like, I wish I’d asked you to come with me , or, I met this really hot guy, but we became Mortal Enemies before I could figure out if he was flirting with me, do you have a solve for that?
or, Turns out I’m a little more cut up about this whole thing than I expected, ha ha, I know you love being right.
Then he silences his notifications and shoves his phone deep into the pocket of his jeans, and, feeling obliquely as though he’s being chased, picks up the keys to his rental car and quits his hotel for the parking lot.
The lack of sleep has taken a toll. Will drops the keys when he climbs into the car, and dawn hasn’t quite found it in herself to stretch her first rays of weak, wakeful light into the sky.
It’s so dark he has to turn on the overhead light to search for them, not that it helps; it barely casts any light at all, and in the end, Will has to pat around for the keys under the seat, unearthing several receipts the previous driver must have lodged there in the process.
Will starts driving not entirely sure where he’s going, just turns on the radio to the old country station and starts down the road, singing along tunelessly to songs by Garth Brooks and Charlie Daniels he hasn’t heard in years.
He’s not that surprised, though, when between the aggressively and unsettlingly watchful eyes of Catherine Rose, he finds himself zipping past landmarks on the way to Glenriver.
A little part of him has been here on this road all these years, left behind after one drive too many, stretched out thin between the double yellow lane lines.
He’s dreamed the last stretch of the trip, off the highway and down the long, winding road to the bridge, so many times that when he finally reaches it he feels tingly and barely awake, as though any moment he’s going to blink and find himself back in his hotel room, face still half-pressed against his pillow.
As he did yesterday, Will pulls off the road before crossing the Glen River, but unlike yesterday, this time he gets out of the car and walks up to the barrier separating road from riverbank and hops up onto it.
For about ten minutes he sits there, watching the water flow, fast and churning, brown with disturbed sediment, and oddly high for the time of year.
Or, at least, it would have been, once up a time; Will supposes he wouldn’t know anymore.
Maybe this is perfectly normal for October these days.
It’s not as though anyone would have told him if it wasn’t.
Despite this sour note, it’s peaceful, sitting next to the water.
It puts Will in a reflective state of mind, and then a determined one.
If he wants to know whether or not Casey had any right to say those things to him—more importantly, he wants to know whether or not the town will benefit from the sale of the farm—well, then all he has to do is follow through on Catherine’s suggestion and ask the townspeople .
He’s here, isn’t he? If he thinks about it, that’s probably exactly what he came here today to do. That, and nothing else.
It’s too early, though, to go visiting businesses and knocking on doors—most businesses, anyway.
Abruptly, it occurs to Will that there’s one place he could go, and he finds to his surprise that he’s smiling slightly as he hops off the barrier.
He gets back into his rental car and drives it over the bridge, and it’s only a few minutes down the road to Mike’s Diner.
The original Mike had died some generations back, but the current Mike—the fourth or fifth in a row, Will can’t remember now—keeps the same eye-wateringly early hours as his forefathers.
He’d been in school with Will, a few years older, and once or twice they’d shared the strange confidences of two young men born into names and fates they wouldn’t necessarily have chosen for themselves.
Still, though, Will had congratulated Mike on social media when he’d taken over the diner a few years ago, and when Will walks in this morning, though Mike’s eyes widen briefly behind the counter, the expression settles into a smile as he says, “Will. Good to see you; I was sorry to hear about your old man.”
Will bites back, I wasn’t , thinking mostly of the disgust on Casey’s face and, if he’s honest, hating himself a little for it.
Instead, he says, “Oh, thanks. It—he—well, you know how it is, with family.” He has to forcibly contain a sigh at falling back on this particular chestnut, the sort of Midwestern classic he’s heard trotted out over the years to cover a horrific multitude of sins.
But, as expected, it makes Mike break out in a sympathetic grin, shake his head. “Boy, do I ever. Listen, you take a seat wherever you like, okay? I’ll have someone bring you some coffee—you know what you’re getting?”
For all it’s been more than a decade, Will could still recite the menu at Mike’s Diner after several drinks, long after he’d lost track of saying the alphabet backwards or reeling off all the Latin names for the various species of apple.
It’s not a menu that’s subject to change—classic diner staples, all day breakfast and overstuffed deli sandwiches, an ever-present meatloaf special and a rotating selection of pie.
As a child, Will’s order had always been two eggs and hash browns, because his father had always said he was allowed to order two eggs and hash browns; he’s opening his mouth to ask for it before he remembers that he’s an adult , with his own money and no one’s preferences to cater to but his own, and smiles.
“I will have the Daybreak Special,” Will says, relishing the words as they fall out of his mouth. “With sausage links, and fried eggs, and buttered rye toast, please. And—you guys got pie yet this morning?”
“You know it,” Mike says, his grin a bright, brief slash across his face. “Blackberry today; it’s excellent, if I do say so myself.”
“A slice of pie, too, then,” Will says, with a firm nod. “And a big mug of coffee, whenever you can—I’m not awake enough to eat all that yet.”
Mike laughs, and nods, and waves him off, and Will settles in, after a moment of hesitation, at the booth in the far corner his father always used to choose.
Bill had liked it because it afforded him a view of the whole place, allowed him the chance to people-watch in glowering silence; Will, on the other side of the booth, had only been given the opportunity to watch him.
His stony face had not changed much in eighteen years of observation, becoming more weathered and wearied, perhaps, but never any softer.
Today, he sits in what he still can’t help but think of as Bill’s seat, sips his coffee when a waiter runs it over, and watches Glenriver wake up.
His breakfast, when it comes, is hot and greasy and too much; he eats about half of it, then lingers over the pie, savoring each sweet-tart bite against his tongue, as the diner fills up with people.
There are parents and children, single diners on their harried ways to work, sharply dressed office professionals and people clearly on their way to a more outdoor-oriented job.
Will finds himself flush with a sudden understanding of his father’s distant, vacant stare on those mornings they breakfasted here together—Will has to give it to him, it’s pretty interesting.
Will himself doesn’t think he’d find it more interesting than, for example, his own child, but still, he can see the appeal.
He’d half expected these people would scream on seeing him, or treat him the way Casey did, when he figured out who Will was. But most of them don’t look twice at him, and those who do—the ones who recognize him—mostly blink, and then smile, and nod.
By the time Will has swallowed the last bite of his pie, and left a hearty tip for Mike and his staff, it’s 7:45 a.m. The shops will be open by the time Will makes it over to them, and he feels ready, with a full belly and a few less confrontational encounters, to start asking questions.
He’s going to get to the bottom of this Casey Reeves situation once and for all, and after that, his conscience will be clear, and he can head back to Chicago, as planned.
And, well, sure, when Mike says, “Good to have you back, Will!” Will turns around and replies, “Good to be back, Mike.” Sure, he does that. But it’s just…polite, isn’t it? It doesn’t have to mean anything at all.