The remains

Chapter 81

Caroline and I didn’t say a whole lot on the way back across the river to Rensselaer County. I had assumed we’d drive straight to her house for the small reception she was putting on for those who’d attended the funeral. Instead we took the long way around the backside of Mount Desolation. When she pulled off the main road onto an overgrown two-track, I turned to her.

“Where are you taking us?”

“Closure.” She smiled, as the truck shook and lumbered to and fro. “I can’t think of a better place for it to happen.”

The two-track was hardly even a two-track anymore; it was covered with so much growth. We must have driven two miles before we could go no further. Not without getting the truck caught up on some heavy rocks that blocked the parallel tracks. Obstacles no doubt placed there by Whalen himself.

Caroline got out.

“We walk from here,” she said.

But before she got out, she reached into my purse.

“I’m doing this for you,” she said, her eyes locked onto mine. When she pulled out my old copy of ‘Mockingbird’, I had no idea what she had in store for it. Nor did I ask. I just slipped out, shutting the door behind me. That’s when I saw her reaching into the truck’s cargo bed, where she picked up an old metal gasoline can imprinted with a yellow and black Sunoco logo on its side.

“Let’s go,” she ordered, that same subtle smile painted on her face.

To some of the animals who watched us from their hideaway dens, we must have been some kind of sight. Two grown women, dressed all in black, making their way through the woods, one of them still sporting a heavy cast on her right hand. I almost felt like laughing. Instead I just kept quiet and followed Caroline for the thirty minute walk into the dark woods.

I’d never before come upon the front of the old Whalen house. I’d always approached it from the backside. As we emerged through the woods, I felt that familiar pressure in the stomach; the organ slide in my intestines. My eyes gazed upon the warped and mold-covered roof shingles, the gray-brown siding, the decayed and now completely detached front porch. I eyed the picture window, the glass now shattered and leaving only jagged edges. I imagined that at one time it would have offered a view of a front lawn, two little children playing on it. A boy and a little girl. I imagined a mother looking out the window onto the children, maybe while she dusted the furniture, while a stew or maybe a chicken was cooking in the kitchen.

But then I pictured that boy having grown into a teenager. I pictured him walking into the house late one night, a shotgun in his hand. I saw that boy moving methodically from bedroom to bedroom until his horrific deed was done.

Without a word Caroline stepped onto what was left of the front porch. The gas can and my old novel in hand, she raised her right leg like a woman thirty years younger, and kicked the door in. Proceeding under the plastic police “crime scene” ribbon, she entered into the place and disappeared. Maybe three long minutes later, she reemerged with that old Sunoco gas can in her hand, the metal canister appearing far lighter than it had been before she’d entered the house. Setting the can onto the porch floor, she pulled something from the pocket of her black pants.

A book of matches.

Striking the match, she set the entire book on fire and tossed it into the open front door. Casually, as if she’d only set a bundle of red roses on the porch floor, she picked the can back up and made her way back to me. By the time she reached me the fire was already visible through the open door. Moments after that, the entire first floor caught fire.

It didn’t take long for the whole place to go up in flames. I felt the heat on my face and I eyed the bright orange fire and I felt my hatred and fear melt out of my pores like candle wax.

Taking hold of my hand, Caroline kissed me gently on the cheek, setting an open hand on my belly.

“We should get back to Franny,” she said. “He’ll be worried.”

I turned and never looked back.