Hallow Springs

Five

I drove my dented Buick Lacrosse with 150,000 miles on it up a few more on I-77. It sputtered a little bit when I cranked the engine and felt like it could break down any minute but it trudged along. The interior had been stained with coffee and breakfast sandwiches on the way to the office. My gym bag was in the back and no doubt was the source of the putrid smell lingering in the car. I didn't mind because I always drove with the windows down. I didn't care if it blew my hair out of its natural curl – it felt good, feeling the breeze against me. Sometimes I could enjoy it, but this time the gusts of wind pounding against me had lulled me into a trance.

I thought of my father – Greg Graves to most, Daddy to me. He died from lung cancer when I was thirteen. He worked down at the lumber mill and provided a good life for mom and me. She lived on a for some time after he died but after I left Hallow Springs, she started new too. She remarried and followed her new husband down to Florida for retirement. Mary was her name and she was best friend – hell she was my only friend when I got back. I was never really in the inner social circle with the other housewives of Hallow Springs. Mom called me once a week to check on me, I picked up about half the time. She had developed this tone of worry that became annoying fast. It was like a doctor check-up. You focus on getting in and out as quickly and cordially as possible. We couldn't just chat anymore or go see a movie.

I had one older brother, Gus, who now lived in Boone and taught Biology at Appalachian State. He and I had a cordial but distant relationship. We were pretty different all along – he was the academic genius, I was the trouble making Tom Boy. We didn't have many of the same interests, but we didn't have to be buddy-buddy – that wasn't our style but I could depend on him and he could depend on me. When Suzie died, he was one of the few people who didn't smother me in sympathy and I appreciated that. He didn't do so because he was broken by it too and dealing it with himself. Seeing this in him, made me love him even more. He felt some speck of my pain.

I often wondered how my life would be different if Dad was around to see me get married to Sam. I wonder what he would have thought about him. How would he have handled Suzie's murder? Would he have been enough of a crutch for me to get through it? I've thought about him more in the last five years than ever. My therapist thinks it's because I'm a daddy's girl at heart and Suzie's death was so traumatic that I needed that rock in my life. Parents have that ability – to reach you in your most vulnerable state. They can penetrate your defenses better than even your spouse. There are points in life where you are so battered and broken that you revert to being a dependent child in need of their parent's support. It could be financial, it could be physical, but mine was emotional. I crumbled and my dad wasn't there to catch me. I just can't help but wonder how life would be if he was.

I continued to blankly stare at the eighteen-wheeler ahead as I hung in the right lane. Cars flew past me, but I didn't care – I wasn't in a rush to get there. I didn't have to go back to Hallow Springs. I could have told the Chief of Police to screw off, it wouldn't have been the first time I told a superior. Something pulled me though; I could lie and tell myself that I was answering the call of duty like a good agent. But maybe I was fed up with being depressed all the time. Maybe I was tired of being the victim in my own head. Maybe I missed my old life and wondered if there was something in Sam and I that could be repaired. Maybe the only way I could exculpate myself was going back to the scene of the crime.

Part of me knew that this wouldn't' be good for me. By taking on this assignment I would only dig myself a deeper and more depressing hole to live in. When the ex-boyfriend who treated you like shit calls you, you pick up. I don't know why but you can't resist. Maybe you feel like you could fix it. For some reason it's the hope that all can become right that keeps you coming back for more.

After the two-hour drive North, I pulled into town. The sign read Welcome to Hallow Springs Home of the Crimson Raiders.

The highway slowly thinned and slowed into Main Street. The town began to take shape under a November overcast day. An ominous chill rose up in me as I returned. The Strand Theater still stood, although with a couple of crooked letters on its marquis. I came to the corner of 3rd and Main and stopped at the red light. I could see from the sign that St. Jude's still had an 11AM mass – the same mass that my family and I used to attend every Sunday. I could almost see us posing for a picture on the Church brick steps, after Suzie' First Communion. I recoiled from the sight of the Church, I could barely look at it. Ironically, the Lumber Mill was right across the street. Sinners and Saints.

There were two bars in town – The Lumber Mill and The Corner Bar down a few blocks. No one went to both, if you were on the straight and narrow you went to the Corner, the rough necks went to the Mill. Down Main Street were some boutiques and antique shops – a post office and a bank. The town felt the same, like its soul had been living in a time capsule I had just entered. Everything about the town was perfectly preserved for me, like a missing girl's bedroom in her parent's house.

The light flashed green and I rolled forward, careful to not make eye contact with anyone out for a morning stroll. Hallow Springs had a court house down at the central square. A downtown park was right across the street in the center of a traffic circle. Lots of trees provided shade for the kids playing on the playground and their parents watching from park benches. Suzie loved that park, the slide was fast and the swings were high. I circled around, passing the 'Knead It Now' – our on-demand bakery. Mary Pat Greene, the local florist, spruced up a sidewalk display outside of her shop, while a couple exited 'The Main Street Café' next door with to-go coffees. This traffic circle was the center of the town. Each of the four exits extended into a residential area with parks, or a school or a diner. Each arm created a side of the compass – the South side was where the wealthier lived, East and North were the blue collar, middle class and the West side of town was where Father O'Reilly and the cops stayed busy.

I pulled down the West exit and began driving down the drag of Main Street. Everything central to the town retained the charm it once had. It was still the town I had grown up in. I could almost see a younger version of myself walking the streets with Jeremy Wilson, my childhood best friend. We would skip the cracks in the sidewalk and play Peter Pan on the playground – I was always Wendy, he was always Peter.

When we were in Middle School we started going to see movies down at the Strand. We went and saw Titanic four times. I was gushing over DiCaprio and he was gushing over James Cameron. He loved film and began to study it. He wanted to be a cinematographer, so he picked up hobby in photography.

By high school we were sneaking out of the house at night to go drink and smoke under the stadium bleachers. Jeremy and I weren't bad kids, we just enjoyed the occasional thrill. In a mountain town there wasn't much to do, other than hike, fish and cause trouble. My brother Gus mostly kept to himself and his books. So, I was raising cane with Jeremy. We played, fought and stuck up for each other throughout our upbringing – I called him my Brotha-from-anotha'-Motha and he called me his Sista-from-anotha-Mista'.

I pulled into a slanted parking spot in front of a row of shops – a hardware store and a toy store. I got out of the car and lifted my eyes to the Sheriff's station running down the second floor. On the first floor was a stoop with a sign. The couple with to-go coffees caught up to me, turning their head as indiscreetly as possible as they passed. Their expression said everything.

Is that? Could it be? Is she back?

And I glanced back at them with a different expression that answered all of their questions.

You're damn right I'm back.

I flipped my sunglasses back on my head and strode up the stoop. My hand grasped the door handle and flung it open.

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