Just Add Salt to the Road by Raven Held (best mystery novels of all time .TXT) 📕

before he could ring the doorbell. His finger was poised over it, and a look of unguarded surprise came upon his face when he saw her. He seemed more defined than the last time she saw him. She did not know why. Perhaps it was because of the deeper tan he had gotten, or the planes of his face having angled more firmly into place, or the way his held his stature as he straightened up and pulled off the hood of his windbreaker.

“I meant to surprise you,” he said. His voice had gotten slightly deeper, rougher.

“You did.” That was all she could manage. She wondered if he could even hear her, for the winds whistled past that moment and stole her words.

“I want to tell you,” he said, after she offered nothing, “You were right.”

“About what?” Something familiar was returning. Words flowed more smoothly out of her throat.

“My mom, me, everything. I still remember, you see. I haven’t forgotten. Not one word of it. And I just thought you should know. You were right – nothing’s changed. It never will.”

“Come inside first.”

He apologised for bringing the rain in, but she ignored that and pulled him to the couch. She waited.

“My mom killed herself.”

She hated herself for simply staring. Say something, she urged herself, but words failed you the more you rejected them – it was a simple equation.

“They said it was depression,” he said. “She had been talking to herself and all. But she’d left a will, left everything to me.”

“Can I get you something to drink?” Her voice was flat, almost cold. She thought then this must be the result of months without human contact. It dulled your senses and empathy. She imagined herself, slowly sucked dry of her essence, until nothing was left but a walking figure, mute and heartless.

“You were right.”

Maybe it was the same for him.

*

In her dream, she was trapped, as usual. But this time she could see what it was that was holding her down, anchoring her legs to the bottom of the viewless lake, green with years of algae growth. She could hear the distant murmur amidst scratchy white noise, persistent and dizzying. It drove a scream from her. There was no chance of blocking it out. She was aware of a throbbing pain in her legs, and found that they were bleeding, the skin torn by the unforgiving grip of metal around her ankles. Red swirls melted into the murky green.

And then she heard it: words, each distinct and slowly taking form, gaining strength and blocking out the white noise.

It’s been a long time. Do I still know you?

I’m sorry it was too late between you and your mother.

What are you doing back here?

What happens now?

You said I was right – I was not.

And slowly, the noise became a rope around her neck. It tightened, inching into a smaller circle, and soon, she found herself choking, her face on the verge of exploding. She tried to scream, but no sound came out.
She only hoped that after she took hold of the string of words around her neck, she could make it in time to the surface.

*

There was nothing written on his face; it was just a smooth, blank slate, illuminated by the weak glow of dawn. That was the face of loss, of helplessness. It was the face worn when you had nothing else to lose, when you had become too tired of hiding.

“Did you know that in Mayan cultures, suicide is believed to lead you to heaven?”

There was nothing else she knew to offer. Knowledge was her crutch, always had been. Ever since he left, it was the only way she knew to brick herself in, and everyone else out.

“Egyptians believe that how you die is as important as how you live, because both will affect your eternal existence,” he said. It came like autopilot from him.

It was easy to reach back to that summer, when everything was lit up in Techni-coloured hues, and the smell of chlorine, salt and the fizzle of soda were the things you brought into your dreams during those long hot nights. That summer was not a phase; it was a lifetime on its own. Maybe that was why she was trying so hard to reach for it now, when she felt the steel grey walls close in on her.

“It wasn’t your fault, Kris.” It is nobody’s fault when Time makes us fools for hope.

“I don’t miss her,” he said. “Is that even normal? I actually want dad back more than I want her.”

She waited.

“Truth is, I never thought there was anything inside her anymore. After dad died, her insides were scrapped clean. So you were right, Ethel. She was gone the day dad was.” A light blink set loose a heavy tear. “What do you suppose makes this day different from last summer – apart from the fact that it’s a lot wetter now and that there are two less people in this world?”

“Last summer, we practically lived on the front porch, Kris. And last year around this time, you were a lot madder at me than you are now.”

“I notice the crack is still there.”

“I don’t even dare to open my window now.”

He shrugged. “So smash it and fix up another one.”

“I’m waiting for it to come around, the day it shatters.”

“That day will take you by surprise, and you’ll be left wondering what just happened.”

She blinked, registering this. “No more Chance?”

He stared at her, and finally, slowly, broke into a smile. “Guess that’s another difference between last summer and now.”

She was starting to see it as a give-and-take situation, a barter system. You traded the sandcastles and popsicles for the stranger sitting before you, the gold-framed photos for loneliness. You also traded the attempts to peel off a stubborn scab, for the lingering ghosts in the backseat that you never had to miss. Loss always gave something back; losing led to gaining. Maybe that was just how people got by.

She slipped her hand into his, and they went out onto the porch, waited for the rain to stop. The air gasped, cool and dripping, and the scent of rebirth settled into the waking world.

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Publication Date: 09-28-2009

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