Chapter 11 - Ethan
Ethan
I almost feel like I might pass out.
Or throw up.
Because I can’t believe I have done something so stupid. So incredibly stupid and neglectful. I take in a couple of deep breaths. I start trying to name animals in my head, because I can’t lose control right now.
Shane is saying something, but I’m not listening to him.
I turn around in the seat to look behind me, trying to find a way out of here.
We have to get off this snowy interstate.
We have to go back! Then I see one of those signs in the median, a sign that says Authorized Vehicles Only, indicating there’s a little roadway that cuts through.
I don’t even turn the signal on, I just turn down it, a little too swiftly, causing Shane to shift against the passenger door and cars to honk their horns.
“Ethan, you can’t drive down here,” he says.
“We’ve got to go back and get him!” And I’d gladly take whatever ticket a cop gave me. How could I have done this? What would my parents think if I told them I’d left my brother’s ashes at a fucking rest stop Denny’s?
My brain whirls with the disbelief and the shame. The frustration and fear swirls around and around in my head, trying to find somewhere to land. And then it finds a spot sitting right beside me.
“If you weren’t being an asshole and starting a fight with me, I wouldn’t have left him,” I snap at Shane.
“Are you serious? You wanted to take it in!”
Traffic going northbound isn’t much better, but a nice motorist lets me squeeze into the left lane.
“Everett is not an it. Help me look for the exit.”
Traffic is crawling. I run my fingers through my hair and honk the horn a couple times, even though I know it’s not going to do any good.
“Take it easy, Ethan.” Shane places a tentative hand on my shoulder, and I shake it off. “It’s not like they’re going to throw the urn away. I’m sure they have like a lost and found or something.”
I look over at him. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Shane purses his lips. “You’ve got to calm down. We’ll get him back.”
I can’t believe this is happening. None of this. The absurdity of all of it. Of sitting here in a fucking blizzard, stuck in a car with Shane Carraway, chasing after my dead brother’s ashes. How is this my reality now? How is any of this actually fucking happening?
Traffic crawls to a stop again, brake lights everywhere. I slam a hand down on the steering wheel. “Fuck it! Fuck!” I hit the steering wheel over and over.
“Ethan, take it easy.” Shane reaches for me again, but I smack his hand away.
I look around. There’s an eighteen-wheeler in front of us. An SUV to the side and a minivan behind us. Snow is coming down and traffic is at a dead stop.
There’s only one thing to do now.
I pull up the hood on my coat. I put on my gloves. I grab the map. I open the door and hop out of the car. I turn to look at Shane’s open mouth. “Meet me there.”
“What?” he shouts. “Ethan—”
I slam the door shut and begin trudging through the snow.
Sideways snow smacks me in the face as I walk past the eighteen-wheeler. Behind me, I hear a car door slam, then crunching snow getting closer.
There’s hands on my shoulders.
“Ethan!” The hands turn me around and Shane’s eyes are full of fury. “Are you crazy? It’s freezing and pouring snow. Come on.” He tugs on my arm to get me to go with him.
I don’t budge. “I’ve gotta go back!”
“Dammit, Ethan!” He grabs my gloved hand, and I stumble forward in the snow, nearly falling on my face.
“Let go of me!” I shake my hand out of his, and turn around, but he grabs me again.
He’s stronger than me, just like he used to be, but I still try to fight him off as he hooks his elbow through mine and starts to drag me backward.
I stubbornly pull forward. We probably look insane to the people sitting in their cars right now, and I’m betting all those observers are on Shane’s side, trying to drag the crazy guy back to the car to keep him from freezing into an icicle in this blizzard.
We have a little tug of war for a couple of minutes, but inevitably Shane wins.
He practically drags me through the snow, back to the Blazer and pushes me into the passenger seat, slamming the door almost on my foot.
He gets in the driver’s side, buckles himself in, and turns to me.
His face is red, and his hair is wet from the snow.
“Stay right there,” he growls. “I mean it, Ethan.” He locks the doors.
For a second, we’re back in high school and Shane is my protector.
My hero. The one that always knew what to do, where to go, and what to say.
My admiration of him often intermingled with my crush, which inevitably led me to get my heart broken.
There’s no reason to admire him now. He’s only in this car with me because Everett’s dead, and I’m the idiot that left him behind.
“Shut the fuck up,” I shout at him. “What if something happens to him? What if they accidentally throw him in the trash?”
“They’re not going to do that!”
“You don’t know that!”
“Neither do you!”
“Fuck you!”
“Fuck you!”
I fight for a response, but all the fight drains out of me. I slump back against the seat, feeling myself crumble like brittle paper. Tears pour down my cheeks before I can stop them.
Shane reaches over to put his hand on my shoulder. “Ethan, I’m sorry.”
“I can’t do this,” I choke out. “I can’t. I can’t do it.”
Shane’s hand squeezes my shoulder.
“I thought I could do it, but I’m fucking this up.” I smack my head against the head rest. “I’m. Fucking. This. Up.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I fucking left my brother’s ashes at a Denny’s.” I angrily wipe the tears from my face. I try to get a hold of myself. “I can’t do this. I can’t.”
After a moment or so, Shane says, “No. No, you can’t.”
I shift my eyes over to him.
“But I’m here with you, Ethan. You can’t do this. But we can do this.”
The sincerity on his face makes my heart swell with gratitude. If this were five years ago, and none of that shit ever happened, I’d hug him tight right now, hold him close to me, and thank him, and thank the gods a million times that he’s here.
But I don’t reach out to him. It’s still sore. Even though he’s familiar, he still feels like a stranger.
The rest of the evening sort of goes by in a daze.
The storm is insane. The snow keeps coming down and everything around us is a cold white blur.
Shane manages to get us off the highway and into a motel parking lot.
I protest at first, argue with him that we need to go back, but it’s snowing too hard, and the traffic is too thick.
I’m panicked. Are we really going to leave Ev’s ashes there all night?
It makes me feel sick. My parents would be so angry with me. So disappointed.
We’re lucky to get a room because lots of other people stuck on the interstate have the same idea that we did.
The guy at the front desk is frazzled and tells us there’s only a couple of rooms left.
Shane ushers me inside one with an overnight bag.
He gets out an old phone book, makes some phone calls, and finally gets a hold of the Denny’s.
I’m surprised there’s still someone there to answer the phone.
I can sort of hear the lady through the receiver talking to Shane.
I hear her mention something about a safe. I grab the phone from Shane’s hands.
“Don’t put him in a safe,” I panic into the phone. “Please don’t lock my brother’s ashes up somewhere dark.”
“Ethan,” Shane whispers, trying to take the phone back.
“Oh,” the older woman’s voice comes over the line. “I’m—I’m sorry, I—”
“Isn’t there anywhere else you can put them? Like by a window?”
“Yes, yes, there just happens to be a window in the office. I can put the urn on the sill. Is that all right with you?” Her voice is gentle and patient, like a grandmother. A flood of relief washes over me.
“Or,” she says, “if you’d prefer, I can take them home with me.”
I don’t know what to say for a moment.
“I’ve got a big window,” she says gently. “A bay window, where I keep all my ferns. Would that be better for you?”
I conjure up an image in my mind of a warm house with crocheted afghans over chairs and a teapot boiling. It’s way better than a cold, dark restaurant would be.
“Okay, yeah,” I agree. “Just please don’t lock him up somewhere dark.”
“I won’t. I promise you. I was just getting ready to leave, and I don’t live far, so your brother will be in good hands.”
This lady is a complete stranger to me, has absolutely no reason at all to help me, but somehow I believe her. “Okay. Thank you.”
Her voice is solemn. “I’m very sorry for your loss, sweetie.”
My throat gets tight, and my vision blurs with tears.
“When my nephew passed, we took his ashes to the Grand Canyon. Don’t know how I’d feel if some stranger had them.”
“I didn’t mean to leave him.” Tears pour down my face.
“Oh, I know, sweetie. It’s all right.” She pauses. “They’ll be safe with me. I’m Juanita. When you make it back, I’ll be here. I’ll keep him safe until then. Okay?”
“Thank you.” My voice is hoarse. I feel Shane’s hand on my shoulder.
“You want my address and phone number? Just in case?”
“Sure.” I scramble around for a pad of paper and a pen and take down the details.
“All right,” she says. “I need to get going now. I’ll see you soon, Ethan.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
She hangs up.
I put my face in my hands. Everett wasn’t afraid of much, but he couldn’t stand the dark.
He kept a night-light in his room all the way up until he went to college, and he’d keep the TV on during sleepovers.
It wasn’t something he ever commented on.
He never outright admitted he was afraid.
But I guess it’s one of those things that only a brother can know.
Shane’s arm slips around me. “She’s a nice lady, huh?”
I think I’m going to lose it if I haven’t already lost it. I can’t believe this is happening. This has to be a nightmare. The entire last month has to be some kind of nightmare. I feel like I might have another panic attack.
“Remember Ev loved unexpected stuff like this,” Shane says softly.
I don’t want him close to me or his arm around me, but it is comforting. I hate that it is.
“He’d be laughing about this,” Shane says. “Not at you, but the whole thing, you know? He’d treat it like an adventure. Staying overnight at some random lady’s house.”
I cringe again at the thought of what’s left of my brother left behind in a restaurant and now being transported to a stranger’s home. But if it was actually him, alive Everett, he’d probably be laughing about it, asking the lady about her life, and enjoying it like an adventure.
I keep forgetting he was always braver than me.
And I’m proving it even now as I crumble into Shane’s arms and let him give me a hug, a big Shane hug, that I haven’t had in years, and didn’t realize I’d missed until now.