Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
FOREST
The overhead LED lights seem to flicker, but maybe I’m just falling asleep. It’s quiet. The only sound coming from the buzzing of the lights. I wonder if there’s another holding room. If so, I‘m praying Tucker refuses to answer any questions they may have. He’ll only make things worse.
The door clicks at first and then swings open as Deputy Ellis enters the room. He pulls out the chair on the other side of the table, the feet screeching over the floor. He slaps a folder on the table, slides me a bottle of water, and smiles.
It’s not like I can drink the water though, no matter how thirsty I am. Not with my hands handcuffed behind the chair, the steel cuffs tight around my wrists.
“Do you want to tell me why you’re running around without identification?”
Well, I can’t tell him I don’t have one of those. I could never prove my identity, so I’ve been riding, as they say, dirty for a decade. I say nothing.
He drums his fingers on the table and clicks his tongue. “You told my colleague that you were Fred Wolfe’s son.”
“I told you his name is Filo Wilde and I am his son.”
“And you’re Forest Wilde,” he says. It’s not a question. It’s an accusation that I’m lying. “There is no record of a man named Forest Wilde, and certainly not one with any relation to Fred.”
“Look,” I huff. “I don’t know what to tell you. There’s clearly a mix-up here.”
He opens the folder, dabs his thumb with his tongue, and sorts through the stack. He grabs two photos and slides them my way. The first one is a picture of my father, a mugshot from ten years prior. The second is a more recent photograph of him.
“This man’s name is Fred Wolfe, and I need to know why you’re driving around in a van that is registered to him.”
I shake my head and sigh. “I told you the truth.”
He looks both ways, putting on a show to make me believe it’s just the two of us. Nobody else is watching or listening. We’re just two pals having a talk. He locks his fingers together and leans over the table. “I just want to know if he’s alive.”
I could take you to his body.
“I don’t know.”
“I know your type.” He leans back with a sideways grin.
“You think all those tattoos make you a hardass. You don’t follow the rules because you think you make them.
Here in Blue Falls, we watch after our own.
” He scoots back and rises to his feet, collects his belongings, and steps to the door.
“The sheriff is on her way. I pray you have answers by the time she arrives.”
Deputy Smith tosses me into a shared cell with Tucker and locks the gate behind me. Standing on this side of the cell, I notice there’s a fresh bump on Smith’s forehead. Once he leaves, I bow my head against the iron bars and close my eyes. It’s going to be a long night.
Tucker clears his throat, a cry for attention that I so wish I could ignore right now. He does it again and I fold, turning to him with a heavy sigh. His lips are flat, the veins in his forehead throbbing. He’s got that look written all over his face that he’s about to kill.
“You look agitated,” I say.
He nods. “I’m not doing fucking well. They shocked the shit out of me.”
“What the fuck did you do that they tased you?” I hold up a hand, changing my mind. “You know what? Don’t answer that. Just please try to be normal until I can figure out a way out of this.”
I turn back around and rest my head on the bars.
“They tried to stick a finger up my ass,” he scowls.
And I can’t help but laugh. The admission steals the air from my lungs.
“You know I don’t do that shit,” he continues. “He said I was talking funny and suspected me of being on drugs. So I grabbed him by the back of the head and smashed his face into the wall.”
It takes a second to comprehend the fact that he assaulted an officer, which has to be a felony. Now, I’m aggravated. I cock my head slowly until the full blunt of my wrath lands on him with a heavy glare.
“So, I said, would someone on drugs be able to do this? And then he shocked the shit out of me. So now tell me, what recourse do I have?”
“None,” I seethe. “I told you to act normal, to say nothing, and you attack one of them?”
He purses his lips and tilts his head, confused. “So, I’m just supposed to let someone kidnap me? Make that make sense.”
I grit my teeth and groan, practically biting my tongue in half trying to hold back. “This is why I didn’t want you coming. You don’t know enough about this world.”
“I know what’s right and I know what’s wrong. And you don’t go around fingering people without permission.”
“Thank you for the lovely PSA on consent, but you have just made this situation so much worse.” I scratch at the stubble growing on my cheek. “Just, please, no more talking.”
He groans and searches the cell. “What is this place, anyway?”
“It’s a jail. It’s where bad people go.” It’s so much more complicated than that, but I don’t have the mental capacity to explain it properly.
Nothing makes sense. At first, I was willing to believe I was wrong, that the man in the photo was not my father.
The van and the truck being registered to this man that goes by the name Fred Wolfe means Fred and Filo are the same person.
What relation could he possibly have with the outside world that they’d search for him when he’s gone?
Down the hall, a door opens and slams shut. Keys jangle as a shadowy figure approaches.
Deputy Smith has returned. He unlocks the gate and holds it open. “You boys are free to go.”
I stand frozen in disbelief. I’ve never been in jail before, but I’m pretty sure there are no grounds to release us given Tucker’s penchant for stupidity.
Tucker whizzes past me, brushing Deputy Smith with his shoulder. “Sorry about the head, buddy.”
Deputy Smith snarls behind Tucker’s back.
I follow Tucker down the hall. There’s a woman, presumably the sheriff, holding the door open.
As I approach, a sourness swells in my gut and my heart stills.
I squint my eyes, trying to get a better look at her, and I freeze in place when I realize I know the sheriff.
“Mom?” I ask, my lip quivering.
As the sun rises in the morning, the ghost of the woman who birthed me drives Tucker and I back to the motel.
She offered me the front seat, but I needed to sit with my thoughts for a while, so I sat in the back with Tucker.
When we pull into the parking lot of the motel, Bash’s truck is still parked outside, covered in half a foot of snow.
I jump out of the cruiser without saying a word and rush into room seventeen. All of our stuff is packed away neatly in our bags. My mom comes in first, followed by Tucker.
“Are you going to say something?” she asks.
I place my hands on my hips with my back facing her, and let out a sigh. Tucker moves past me and turns to perch his back against the wall beside the bathroom. He crosses his arms and nods, letting me know he has my back. That was never a question, though.
“I couldn’t live in that world,” she says quietly. “So, I left.”
I grit my teeth and turn around. “You left me.”
She stares not at me, but right on through me. Unable to look me in the eye. “I had no choice,” she says. “What was done couldn’t be changed. I couldn’t show up here with a son without a birth certificate. To the rest of the world, you don’t exist. None of you who were born on that mountain do.”
“That’s fine with me,” Tucker scoffs. “This world is awful with jails, and fast-food restaurants, and elementary schools.”
I can’t even respond to the absurdities coming out of Tucker’s mouth. I take a measured step towards my mother and stop. “I ran away for ten years.”
“I know.” She nods. “Your father prayed every day that you would come back.”
Unfuckingbelievable. “He never went on retreats, did he? Every time he left, he was coming home to you. What did you do when he stopped coming down that mountain?”
“I knew he was dead a few days after he was buried underneath the manor.”
Is there a phone service in the Wilds I don’t know about? “How?”
“Bash,” she says matter-of-factly, as if I should know the answer. When it becomes apparent this is new information to me, she straightens herself out. “Look, he doesn’t tell me everything that goes on up there. All I know is about your father’s sickness and eventual passing.”
Sickness? I’m sensing Bash left out the part that my father was stabbed to death in his sleep.
“Everything else,” she continues, “it’s better if I’m left in the dark.”
“Bash knew this whole time, and he said nothing?” Anger simmers deep within, cracking open like a volcano.
It’s another piece of a puzzle I don’t have a reference for.
I don’t know what it’s going to look like when it’s finished, but the pieces are clicking together.
Of course Bash had to have known. He manned the wall and went on supply runs.
He’d know every time one of the vehicles would come up missing.
“How many other people knew? How many people watched me suffer all that time, thinking you were dead? Do you have any idea how long I cried in my room?”
“Nobody ever leaves the Wilds.” There’s a haunted overture in the way the words roll off her tongue. “I had to become a ghost, but even out here, I’m tethered to it. I’m the law that keeps that place hidden and safe. I arrange transport for all the goods, and I’m assuming that’s why you’re here.”
“Bash was supposed to pick up the load, but judging by the empty truck outside, I’m assuming that never happened.”
She shakes her head. “I haven’t seen him since the last time.”
“We have to find him.”
“No…” She attempts to grab my hand, but her touch is rebuffed. “You need to go home.”
“I agree with your mother,” Tucker sneers while continuing to watch her like a hawk.
“I just found out you’re alive and Bash is missing,” I scowl. “I’m not a kid anymore, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“Listen to her, Forest,” Tucker demands sternly.
I point a finger in the air. “Stay out of this, Tuck.”
He lets out a defeated, disappointed sigh.
“It’s too dangerous for you to be out here right now,” she says in a well-practiced mom voice.
The tone stirs echoes in my mind—the way she used to talk to me softly as if I were a sensitive, fragile flower.
The way the sound of her voice used to comfort me when I was scared or overwhelmed.
“I told Bash this the last time he came down. They think your father is missing and you’re driving around in evidence that suggests you have something to do with the crime.
I’m going to switch the plates into my name in a few months.
Until then, it’s best to just stay put. I have a mess to clean up.
Don’t worry about Bash. I’ll look for him. ”
She’s right. We can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous. There’s so much shit to unpack that I can’t make sense of it right now. What I do know is that I’m torn in the grey area between sadness and rage, two competing forces clashing, stirring a tornado within.
“I don’t know if I’m ever going to see you again in this life,” I say, my voice cracking. My eyes strain at the corners, tightening to contain the tears that are about to break. “So before I go, I need to get this off my chest. I don’t like you very much. In fact, I think I hate you.”
She nods in understanding and lets out a pitiful, “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry is something you say when you bump into someone with a grocery cart. Sorry is an apology for showing up ten minutes late to work. It does not absolve you of the guilt of what you did. And I certainly don’t have to forgive you. I don’t and I won’t.”
She shows the first hint of emotion, her lips parting and closing as she tries to find the right words. “I couldn’t take you with me.”
Unfortunately for her, there are no right words to say. “Please stop talking.”
“Fred, Filo, your father… You were his only kid, and he needed someone to carry on the legacy.”
“I was your kid too!” I scream, pointing at myself first and then at her.
“I can’t change things,” she sings a sad song, but the melody fall on deaf ears. “I can’t take it back.”
“It looks to me like you got the best of both worlds.” I shrug with feigned apathy. I’d hate for her to know the truth, for her to know that I’m breaking inside. “I hope your decisions were worth it.”
“I went through your stuff before I came down to the station. Got it all tidied up for you to leave.” She looks to the ceiling and breathes, admitting defeat. Then, her glistening green eyes are on me again. “If you ever seek truth, you’ll find the answers there.”
I scratch at the back of my head with my head bowed as she turns to leave. I don’t watch her go. I just listen to the door opening and closing. And just like that, she’s gone again. Somehow, I pray the memory of her being alive will fade from my memory like so many other things have over the years.