We're in Trouble (21 page)

Brad and Mel spent all the next day celebrating: walking around downtown Chicago, talking about the place they'd get, the life they'd have.

They went to the shore in the afternoon. For early October the weather was obscenely beautiful: warm, almost summery, with a terrific breeze blowing in off the lake. Everyone
in Chicago was out there with them, it seemed, and to Brad they all looked like he felt; stunned by good luck. For a long time they walked on the beach, and after that they sat on a bench outside the planetarium—a place Mel loved—looking at the whitecaps rolling ahead of the wind.

Mel kept talking about the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, her white face tilted toward the sunshine. She told him again about the fishing cabin she used to go visit—about how, when she was there alone, in weather like this, it was maybe the prettiest place she'd ever seen.

I wish I'd never been there with Shithead, she said, as they walked off the pier.

You and me both, he said.

I wish I'd gone with
you
, she told him. You know? Like I wish I could just empty out my memories. Replace him with you. I'd have been so
happy.

She slid her arm around his middle.

We'd have fun up there, she said. Just the two of us. We're never
alone
here.

Brad watched the people making way for them—the sidewalks were so busy the two of them barely had room to walk like this, and if anyone paid any attention to them, in their happiness, it was only to be annoyed, to mutter
Watch it.

And that was when—that was how—the idea came to him. It
swooped
in, like no idea ever had, except maybe the one that had come to him the night before, when he woke Mel up and told her he wanted to live with her.

He grabbed her arm and said, So let's go be alone.

What? she said. Go where?

That cabin.

She gave him a look. Yeah, okay. Except it's like a couple hundred miles from here. At least.

I mean it, Brad said, walking backward in front of her.

She laughed at him. It's not like the L goes there. But hey, if we start walking
now
—

Mel, he said. I really want to see it. I want to be alone with you.

She screwed up her face at him, half amused, half understanding. You're starting to worry me, buddy. You okay?

Just like that, the courage was there for him.

Mel, he said. I'm so in love with you I can barely fucking
think.

He wished he could take a picture of the look on her face.

You
love
me?

Yeah, he said. I love you, Mel.

She ran at him and squeezed him until he was sure she was hurting her arms.

He said, I love you and I want to live with you, and I want to
do
something—I don't know—something kind of nuts. Something
with
you. So why not? Let's go see your cabin.

Okay, she said. He thought she might be sniffling. That's great, really, but you know, we need a
car.
Which neither one of us has.

We'll take Lou's truck.

You really want to go back to jail, don't you?

No, he said. Look—I happen to know that truck's not exactly legal. Lou's not going to report the damn thing gone. And fuck him anyway.

Mel looked at him, appraising.

We've got the weekend, he said. We can both call in sick
on Monday. My PO just called—he won't try again till, like, next Thursday . . .

He knew he had her. He knew her—she
wanted
this. And she wanted him to ask her to do it, had
been
wanting it. Watching her face now—her smile spreading, her thoughts moving beneath and behind it—was like watching her tear open a present.

She said, This is so fucking crazy.

But you want to do it anyway.

She grinned and reached for him. You know I do, she said.

Brad trudges along the road toward the truck, his eyes mostly on his boots. The plow has left the road covered by a thin crust of snow, so white in the sunshine that his eyes water; not only is it slick, but his feet are numb enough that he'll stumble if he's not careful. And everything around him is so bright he can barely look at it: the hills are a dazzling white, the sky a blue as pure as paint. The sun gleams overhead; after a while Brad even starts to sweat under his clothes. From the trees come sudden thumps and hisses: snow falling in wads and sheets from the branches of the pines. He's thirstier than he can ever remember being. As he walks he scoops handfuls of snow into his mouth, swirling them down into tiny swallows of water.

And he keeps thinking: Mel died. I'm alone.

Before long he passes the truck, and even though he's looking for it, he's relieved that it's hard to spot: just a truck-shaped
clump of snow down in the pines, next to the other cabin. Certainly the plow driver didn't notice it: a waist-high wall of snow blocks the drive.

Digging the truck out will be a lot of work. Better to think of that later.

For now Brad slogs on toward the gas station, trying to think of what he'll say there.

He should, he knows, go up to the cashier and admit everything. End all this. He should say: My girlfriend's dead back in one of the cabins. He should tell them his name, Mel's name. Let the official gears start turning.

But he told her he'd leave her. She made him promise.

Brad cries now, as he walks; no one is around to care, but still he covers his eyes, pinches his nose. Promised
what
? Mel tricked him. He didn't know what she was planning. When he promised her he thought they could both make it. And he'd been right. He'd been
right.
All Mel had to do was fucking believe him. To trust him.

So why had she brought her fucking pills with her?

He'd trusted
her
. He'd been alone in her room before—at any time he could have flushed those pills down the toilet. He'd thought about it, but he never had. He knew Mel had been testing him, when she showed them off. Seeing what he'd do, what he'd say. Whether she ever admitted it to herself or not, that's exactly what she'd done, and he'd passed. She trusted him, and so he trusted her, not to be stupid, to try and be happy—

And she brought them
here.

He forces himself to take big breaths. To think. He
knows
Mel. He knows her better than anybody. She would say herself that nothing she ever did was simple. The pills probably went
with her everywhere. Some people carried guns or rabbits' feet, or wore crucifixes, just in case of trouble. Mel carried her pills.

And—in her own sick way—she'd been right. The worst kind of trouble
had
come. Maybe she'd known that for people like her, like Brad, something would have to go wrong, sooner or later. Maybe, deep inside, she hadn't been surprised by any of their fuckups. He remembered the way she looked when the smoke was filling the cabin—how calmly she said,
It would be quicker.
Mel knew what sort of shape they were in a long time before he did.

Brad's walking faster and faster, slipping every now and then in the compacted snow.

But she'd been
wrong.
The sun had come out.

But she couldn't have known that, could she? All she had to go on was what Brad told her—which was that in the morning he was going for help. She had to make a guess—just like he did—about how well that idea would turn out. They both sat in that same cold room, thinking over the odds, and they both came to the only decisions they could.

And hadn't they made the same decision? If the sun hadn't come up—if Brad was making this same trip right into the teeth of the storm, through knee-deep unplowed snow, in that wind and cold—what would his chances be? He'd wanted to go only because he
might
save Mel. Even if that meant dying. Because he couldn't bear to sit still anymore and do nothing.

How was Mel's choice any different? She did what she could stand, and she did it because she loved him.

Brad sits in a snowbank and puts his face in his hands.

But how can he do what she wants him to? How can he leave her?

He tries to see the guy behind the counter at the gas station. Or a policeman. He tries to see himself opening his mouth, letting lies pour out.

The best story he could tell anyone wouldn't be words at all, but a picture. One he doesn't have. It would show him and Mel, lying close together, his arm around her, his chin on top of her skull, both of them quiet and still and connected, with all the things they did in their lives tucked in between them. And they wouldn't be in a cabin; they'd be eighty years old, under a thick quilt in a big house on a sunny beach, and nobody would find them but the children they didn't have, and nobody would truly be sorry about them dying like they did, because anyone who knew them would know they were
supposed
to go this way; that they loved each other so much that if one of them died first, the other couldn't stand to live a single second more.

He should never have lit the other candle last night. He should have opened up the door and taken off his clothes. He should have held on to Mel and just let it happen. But he didn't. He couldn't.

He's such a fucking coward.

It's now—shuddering, melted snow soaking into his clothes, snot running down his chin—that Brad hears a vehicle coming. He stands and wipes his eyes and sees a splotch of red far down the road: the plow. It's heading back up the other side of the road, grumbling and scratching, snow piled in front of it like a breaking wave.

He should wait until it's the last second and then jump out in front of it. Mel's dead and alone in the cabin and here he is, alive. He's a stupid fuckup who's going to die sooner or later—what did Mel think she was saving him for, anyway?
What's he going to do? What could he ever fucking do without her?

He wades off the side of the road into the deep snow, into the trees. The plow rolls closer, loud and alive and healthy. Brad leans against a pine. He should get it over with, right now.

The plow roars by, and Brad crouches low, his face against the wet bark, and shuts his eyes, until the noise of the plow's engine fades almost to nothing.

B
Y THE TIME
he reaches the gas station he's gone cold inside. He's been squinting against the snow so long that, inside the shop, all he can see are waves of color, the silhouettes of shelves and racks and the man behind the counter. He smells cooking meat, and his stomach squeezes so hard he almost cries out.

He goes to the restroom and waits until his vision comes back, then looks at himself: he's red-eyed, drawn, his skin gray where it's not filthy. He drinks handful after handful of water from the sink, then scrubs his face, wets and ties back his hair.

In the shop he buys a hot dog, a pair of sunglasses, thin gloves, and prepays for a gallon of gas, in a small plastic can. The man behind the counter is thick, wearing a hunting cap, and never takes his eyes off Brad. Can he see Brad's hands shaking? A radio behind the counter is playing twangy country music, and Brad wants to stare at it; music is the strangest thing he can imagine, right now.

Out of gas? the man asks, still staring.

Yeah, Brad says.

Where at?

Back on 35, Brad tells him. I let it go too long.

Where you in from?

The man's eyes have narrowed; it's not a friendly question. But Brad's practiced this part.

He says, I was up at NMU all weekend with friends. Got stuck in with the snow. I was in a hurry to get home, so I didn't even look at the gas gauge. Brad tries a laugh, and it sounds so crazy he winces.

The man counts out his change, working his lips. That was one hell of a blow, he says. Ain't seen anything like that before. Hey—you need a ride back to your car?

Nah, Brad says, swallowing fear. Don't trouble yourself.

The man looks relieved, nods to himself.

Thanks, Brad says.

You take care now, the man says, and before Brad is halfway out the door he turns up his radio to a blare.

T
HREE HOURS LATER
Brad parks the truck outside his and Mel's cabin.

He's sore, trembling—he's had to dig out the truck, scooping snow with his arms, tromping down wheel ruts with his boots. He saw no one until he had the truck out onto the road; then the same yellow Jeep he and Mel had seen two days before rattled by, and the driver tooted his horn. Brad watched it in the rearview mirror until it rounded a curve and was gone.

He could have driven off, back to Chicago, once the truck was running. Left Mel, like she wanted. He told himself to—he sat in the cab, on the newly cleared road, and tried to urge himself on, to take the left turn and go. He didn't have the balls to do himself in—so what else was there to argue?

But he turned right. He drove back to the cabin, amazed at the feeling of driving, of how simple and easy a thing it was. How quickly he was able to make it back to her.

Mel got her goodbye. He wants his, too.

The road is still empty in both directions, but he's parked in the open. He'll have to hurry. Brad opens the door of the truck and wades down the snowy drive—the sun has sunk the morning's thick powder down into wet cement—and up to the cabin door. The thermometer says it's forty degrees.

He takes a breath, preparing himself. He thinks, with a crazy swimming hope, that maybe Mel will be awake. Stranger things have happened. Maybe she'll be sitting on the mattress, waiting to see him, or mad as hell, he doesn't care which—

But everything is as he left it. The room is tight and close and stinks of smoke. The sunshine streaming in has made long wobbly rectangles on the floor, but after sitting in the truck with the heater blasting, the place feels like a refrigerator.

Mel is where he left her; a lump in the quilt, so still and small you might not notice a human shape, if you weren't looking.

Brad walks over to her, the boards creaking under his boots. He touches the quilt, his hand still shaking. It's cool. He presses his hand down until he feels her underneath, hard as stone.

He sits and puts both hands on the blanket, trying to figure out what he's touching He thinks he's got her arm. He strokes it, up and down.

He should at least leave her ID with her. It'll be summer, probably, before anyone comes for her, and there—there won't be much left of her then. He swallows with a dry click at the back of his throat.

Brad forces himself to move, to stretch across the mattress for the purse in Mel's backpack. He digs out her DePaul ID—she's stone-faced in the picture, like she's angry—and drops it next to her on the mattress. He takes her driver's license; in this picture she's smiling. He slips it into his own wallet.

She doesn't have any paper with her, or else he'd leave a note—maybe on the door, where whoever comes in . . .

He stops, sits still, watching the door. Because he
knows
who.

The cabin belongs to Andy's family. And it'll be one of them who finds her, when it's warmer. One of them—maybe Andy, but probably Andy's father—will see Mel's ID. And what will he think?

The obvious: That Mel came here because she loved Andy. Or because she was trying to hurt Andy. Because she gave a shit about Andy.

Brad thinks about this story spreading: about Andy getting a call, about Mel's family getting a call, and Mel's friends. After those phone calls Mel would change, just like that, would become a whole new person. She wouldn't be the girl who told Andrew off, who got her life together. Instead she'd be that sad, sick girl who never got over her first love, the poor little thing who couldn't live without her prince fucking Andrew.

Brad can't let it happen. Not like that.

So he kneels and scoops up Mel—she's twice as heavy as he remembers her—and staggers with her to the door. And even though he falls several times, even though by the time he does it both he and the quilt are covered with snow, he carries her across the drive to the truck, and into the passenger seat. She'll only fit curled to the side, with her head leaning against
the door—it's the best he can do, for now. He buckles her in so she'll stay put.

He runs back inside, one last time, for her things. He's frantic now, his breath coming in pants, scouring the cabin for anything that will reveal who was here.

He leaves the bucket in the bathroom full of their waste.

Let Andy hear about
that.

H
E DRIVES SOUTH.
The truck sloughs the last of its snow when he's finally on the highway and can drive at speed. The main roads are clear, but down side roads, in driveways, Brad can see people digging out their buried cars, clearing downed tree limbs, blowing snow off sidewalks. He stops at another gas station, fills up the truck, keeps driving. More and more cars appear around him.

He tries the radio for a while. The news talks about how this storm is the worst the UP has had in twenty years. People have died. An old man, of a heart attack, shoveling his walk. A teenaged boy, who drove off the road into a tree. Two people whose boat is missing on Lake Superior. A vagrant frozen in a park in Sault Sainte Marie.

He turns the radio off. Every now and again he glances sideways, at Mel wrapped up beside him. He turns the radio back on. He feels no better, either way.

When he crosses the border into Wisconsin, the sun is low and swollen off to the west, and he watches it, feeling numb and stupid—for a long time he can't figure out what day it is. He counts back the hours, and is shocked to find that not even a full twenty-four hours have passed since Mel died.

And all the while, as he drives, he tries to figure out how to do it. How to leave her.