Dearly Departing by Geoff North (book reader for pc txt) 📕

to turn off his data on the plane. Hopefully he would talk to other travelers until then. Idiot likes shooting his mouth off to people he barely knows.

Delbert watched the young man slip out between the big sliding doors in front of the terminal. Something funny about that kid… Looked higher than a kite. He couldn’t remember that much about him from the barbeque. He never smiled. Didn’t talk all that much, either. How had someone as outgoing and personable as Dawn Wallace ended up with someone like that?

He reached again for his cell phone. It wouldn’t hurt to check in with Ray one last time. The phone made a single weak vibration as he tried to turn it on. The screen remained black. “Well, shit,” he muttered. “When’s the last time I charged this thing?” Dooley shoved the phone away and shuffled along another four feet in the line. He would call his friend once he was good and settled at Marta’s. He was almost certain nothing could go wrong in that short amount of time.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 7

 

1979

“No fair,” Alicia shouted at her two oldest brothers. “Why are the teams always split like that? It’s always me and Raymond against you and Bruce.”

David yanked on one of her ponytails. “Because, little sister, that’s just the way things are. If you and Bone-Head want to play hide and seek, then you have to play by the rules already in place. The two oldest versus the two dumbest… I mean the two youngest.”

She swatted his hand away. “Don’t call him Bone-Head. I hate that name.”

Raymond was sitting a few feet away in the grass. His older brothers were sitting in the swings, rocking back and forth slowly, taunting Alicia even further.

“He doesn’t mind being called Bone-Head, do you Ray?” This came from Bruce. He was only a year and a half older than Raymond, but a sudden burst of growth in the last few months made him look more like fourteen-year-old David. They were both tall for their age, long and gangly like unruly weeds. Raymond was still small and generally pudgy all over.

“I don’t like it when you call me Ray. My name’s Raymond.”

“My name’s Raymond.” Bruce imitated back in a voice that sounded more like Alicia. “Maybe we should just stick with Bone-Head, so the little baby doesn’t start crying.”

“Call me whatever you want, just don’t call me late for supper.” Bruce and David stared at him with twin sneers on their faces. Either the old joke they’d heard their father say about a million times was that bad, or it was still above the older boys’ curly brown heads. “Are we going to play or not?”

Bruce and David hopped out of the canvas swings in unison. “Okay, let’s get this over with,” the oldest brother said. “Me and Bruce hide first. You two close your eyes and count to thirty.”

“Still no fair!” Alicia pouted. “You two always get to hide first. Why can’t me and Raymond find a spot?”

“Me and Bruce are getting a little old for this dumb game,” David countered. “If we’re going to play at all, then we’re playing by our rules… got it?”

If Alicia’s bottom lip pouted out any more, it would’ve enveloped her chin entirely.

“That’s more like it,” David said. “Now close your eyes and start counting. If you can’t figure out what comes after ten, let Bone-Head take over.”

Alicia’s eyes were already shut tight. She stuck her tongue out in silent response.

Raymond only shut his eyes half-way and watched the boys saunter off out of the backyard to the south. Through the trees and towards the old slough. There’s lots of big rocks picked off the fields there for them to hide in. He didn’t consider peeking cheating. David and Bruce always made the game harder than it had to be. The general rule of hide and seek was to hide in an area that was possible to seek, at least for a pair of kids under the age of eleven. The farm was big, it encompassed an entire section of arable land, small forests, and sitting sloughs of water. To someone like Alicia, it probably seemed endless. Raymond had no qualms evening the odds a little.

“Thirty!” Alicia announced. Her eyes popped open and she looked at Raymond expectantly. He suspected the little girl knew his secret, but she never let on. If you never actually came out and accused someone of cheating, there wasn’t an issue. “Which way’d they go?”

Raymond pointed to the trees beyond the back yard and set out. Alicia jogged along behind him. “Awww, you know what Mom always says… never let the house out of your sight.”

“Do you want to find them or not?”

Alicia nodded sullenly, and they began winding their way through the trees. There was a scattering of small foot paths to choose from, almost indiscernible trails laid down through the spring, summer, and autumn months. Raymond stuck to the widest and most trodden, the shortest line through the shelterbelt of poplar and spruce.

“Ouch!” Alicia shouted as a small branch—no more than a twig actually—snapped back from Raymond’s passing and swatted her across the forehead. “Watch what you’re doing!”

“Keep your hands in front of your face,” he muttered back.

Raymond stopped short of the barbwire separating the last bit of brush from the wheat field. The wire was rusted orange and older than the two children combined. It was the final remnants of an enclosure to keep horses or cattle, perhaps both, pastured within. Raymond pulled up on the bottom strand of flaking metal to allow Alicia room to crawl under. He saw the fine pink strip over her eyes where the branch had struck and felt pride towards the girl for not crying. Raymond knew it must have been hard having three older brothers to