Chapter Forty-Nine. Ingrid
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
INGRID
I march across the road that leads into the trailer park just outside Anhalt, the loose gravel shifting under my feet.
Late-afternoon sun slants behind me, but it carries no warmth.
The air bites, and I can see my breath in faint puffs.
I tug the collar of my jacket higher, but the wind cuts through.
It rattles a loose sheet of tin on one of the trailers.
Bare branches clatter together above, like dry bones clicking in the rising gusts.
My shadow stretches ahead on the rocks, as if I am led by a darker side of myself.
I think about the time Izzy and I stood face-to-face with Ben and dared him to tell us apart, a fifty-fifty chance of creating his own doom.
About all the dinners Ben had at our house, how he and Izzy would lay around on the sofa, legs tangled up together beneath a blanket on lazy Saturdays.
About the time Dad helped Ben fix the transmission on his truck, Dad standing on the bumper with a dowel, muscling the serpentine belt back into place.
The time I third-wheeled it to the movie theater with Ben and Izzy to watch The Sixth Sense, how we got dipped cones at Dairy Queen afterward and teased Ben that he needed a haircut.
How he plucked an eyelash off Izzy’s cheek and held it out to her on his fingertip, asked her to make a wish.
How I never heard one single word from him after she disappeared.
I spot Ben’s rusty old truck, parked in front of a trailer with a set of rotted-out wooden steps and a dirty screen door.
This wasn’t planned. After I’d helped Mom to bed so she could take a nap, I went out to find her a body pillow, something more comfortable for when she’s lying on her side and the nausea returns.
But before I made it to the Target in San Marcos, that trilling of the bells radiated from my purse, my ridiculous spontaneity alarm.
What do you want, Ingrid? It gave me permission to be reckless.
So I jerked the wheel hard, U-turning in the middle of traffic, and slammed the accelerator.
Oncoming drivers laid on their horns, but they parted all the same.
What I’ve really been wanting for my entire adult life is to confront Ben Sherman. To get answers.
I see an empty Wonder Bread bag in the high grass and weeds along the edge of the trailer.
I notice a white five-gallon bucket at the bottom of the stairs, filled with empty beer cans.
One step wobbles, like it’s holding on by a single nail, as I make my way up.
The screen door screeches as I swing it open.
I make a fist and slam it against the front door.
It’s more solid than I expected. I shift my keys in my other hand, wedge them like claws between my fingers.
But there’s no answer. I continue to pound.
Then my own shadow is swallowed by another. One much larger than mine. The air shifts, cold against my skin. I turn. And there he is. Ben Sherman, close enough to touch.