My novel “The Memory of My Shadow” is now available in print, ebook, and audiobook format. If you live in the U.S., become an annual paid subscriber and I’ll send you a signed copy FREE.
“Departures” is a supernatural thriller and love story published as a serial novel with new episodes dropping every Tuesday morning. Anyone can read or listen for free. Paid subscribers gain early access to new episodes. Watch the trailer or visit the table of contents to browse all the published episodes.
Previously…
In the last episode, Wild visited his dying sister, Abigail in her final hours. At long last, he was able to share the burden of his condition and they reflected on the day many years earlier when he was there to support her during her miscarriage. Abby’s dying wish was for Wild to take care of her daughter, Millie.
On March 30, 1989, Wild’s thirty-second birthday, the card from his father arrived right on time, by special courier as it always did. The girl down at the box office called early and told him he should come pick it up. Wild did and then unceremoniously shoved the envelope in his backpack before heading out to the street.
The sky was a bright, cornflower blue and a warm wind hinted that the unusually long winter had finally relented. June had big plans for him today. She asked him to pack an overnight bag and to be ready to go at ten-thirty. It was all very mysterious, but Wild had easily adjusted to being a passenger, all too happy to allow June to steer. She was far better equipped than he was to manage his complicated life and the confounding circumstances of their relationship.
She pulled up to the corner of Ponce and Peachtree with the sunroof open and Tears for Fears blaring. When Wild got in, June lowered the volume, turned to him and smiled her mischievous smile, raising an eyebrow for added effect.
“Happy Birthday! Are you ready to have some fun?”
“Oh, is that what we’re going to do for a change? No trips to the retirement home or exposure therapy at the mall?”
“Not today, my love. Just you and me and the open road.”
This was a relief to Wild. While he appreciated June’s tireless curiosity and need to not just figure things out, but to solve them, he was happy she was planning to take a break from her favorite project. She cranked the music back up, whipped the car around, and caught green lights up until the onramp to the interstate. They were headed north.
“Can I ask where we’re going?” he shouted.
“No!” She smiled and wisps of her auburn hair danced around her face as she deftly merged the Accord into the modest flow of mid-morning traffic headed out of the city.
They drove for an hour and a half talking very little except to negotiate which cassette to pop in next, which was something Wild appreciated. He had never been so comfortable with anyone that they could just be together for long stretches without words. They left the interstate for a two-lane highway and climbed into the mountains, eventually turning off onto a narrow local road that curved and banked through the forest. The green of new leaves after a cold, wet winter was so delicate, almost effervescent in the noonday sun. Near the top of the mountain, June turned off onto a little dirt track marked only by a rusting mailbox with a bluebird painted on the side. When she cut the engine, they were parked in front of a tiny A-frame cabin with a few missing shingles and peeling paint. It sat atop a ridge that looked out across the Blue Ridge Mountains.
“Here we are,” she said, popping her door open. “The McGowen summer estate. I hope you won’t get lost. I know you’re not used to such extravagant digs.”
He hated when she made reference to his family’s money, but he understood some part of her was always trying to make sense of it.
“This is amazing,” he said, meaning it as he looked at the view and stretched. “How long have your parents had this place?”
“We’ve been coming up here since I was four or five. The property belonged to my grandfather. Come on, grab the cooler out of the trunk and I’ll go open the place up.”
As advertised from the outside, the cabin was cramped with only a single loft bedroom and one bathroom. It was stuffy and hot and smelled musty. June kept apologizing and Wild could feel her embarrassment that this romantic getaway was not going to be what she had pictured. He wondered if she had ever brought another guy here. June quickly shoved all the cold things into the old avocado-green refrigerator. Then, she grabbed a bottle of wine and a couple of plastic cups and instructed Wild to retrieve a well-loved quilt from the back of the couch. He followed her outside and they walked over into a small patch of open field that was part of the property.
Wild unfolded the quilt and with the help of the wind, spread it out over the tall grass, flattening a postage stamp of a bed with a view of the fast-moving clouds. June slipped off her sandals and Wild admired her feet, the pronounced curve of her arches, the slender toes she flexed as she stretched out, stiffening and relaxing her legs like a cat.
Wild hadn’t been out of the city in so long he had forgotten how entrancing the quiet could be. There was only the sound of the wind in the trees which gave him a chill. It was still early Spring in the mountains. When he lay down beside June, the four walls of grass blocked the wind, and the sun warmed the old quilt like a heating pad.
“This is cozy,” he said and added, a little too formally, “Thank you for bringing me here.”
“I’m sorry. It’s not how I imagined it would be. I don’t know what I was thinking. The place was much bigger in my childhood brain…”
“Stop. It’s perfect. All I really wanted for my birthday was to be with you.”
“You’re sweet, but this is janky. We could have gone somewhere really nice. You could afford that, right? I should have suggested we go somewhere exotic.”
“June, do you want to get the money conversation out of the way? It comes up so much. I’d like to get past it.”
“I’m sorry, it’s just… weird. There’s so much weird with us, with this...”
“We’re not weird. I’m weird. I bring the weird to this party. My great, great, great grandfather made a lot of money by exploiting a lot of people and all these years later, the Thorne family legacy is simply to diversify, keep it out of the ditch, and live off the compounding interest.”
“How much money are we talking?”
“More than is reasonable.”
“Okay, well let’s get specific. How about just you?”
“To be honest, I don’t know. I live off a trust. Once a month a deposit’s made into my account and because I don’t really spend it on anything, it just grows, kind of like this looming thing that embarrasses me and makes me feel really guilty. I don’t like thinking about.”
“Oh, the torment,” June said, putting a wrist to her forehead for dramatic effect.
“Yeah, this is why I don’t talk about it.”
“I’m sorry, you know I’m kidding.” She turned and gave him the full power of her green eyes. Any seed of resentment her comment might have planted was uprooted immediately. “Do your parents even acknowledge your birthday?”
“Does a card count? They don’t block the day like a national holiday and hold a festival like your folks.”
“Really, a card?” she said.
“Yeah, it came this morning. I haven’t opened it.”
“Where is it?”
“In my backpack.”
Before he could even ask where she was going, June was up and jogging back to the cabin. She returned a moment later with her hands behind her back.
“Okay, time to open your presents,” she said, studying the envelope. “Is this your mom’s handwriting?”
“Ha, no. That’s either my dad’s assistant’s handwriting or his trophy wife’s. Here, let’s get this over with.”
Wild tore the envelope open and pulled out the greeting card. It was the standard issue found in any grocery store with some soft-focus photo of a father and his small son in silhouette holding fishing poles. He opened it, glanced at the inside before tossing it on the quilt between them. June picked it up and read the inscription inside.
“‘Best wishes, son. Hope this is the year you come back from your fishing trip. Dad.’ Wow, that’s um…”
“Touching? Heartfelt?”
“Cold, that’s the word that came to mind,” she said. “What’s the fishing trip?”
“That’s the little joke he makes about me with anyone who asks. That boy’s gone fishin’ and he ain’t comin’ back.”
Wild wished he hadn’t told her about the card. He typically left them for a few days to lessen the sting he felt reading them on the day. June produced a small package, neatly wrapped and bound with a ribbon. She set it between them.
“Open it.”
Wild took his time, enjoying her frustration with his exaggerated care. He opened the box to find a handmade silver bracelet that looked Native American. It had an intricate inlay of turquoise that, upon closer examination revealed the face of an owl.
“It’s really beautiful, June. I love it.”
“Put it on so I can see if it fits.”
“It’s perfect,” he said, modeling it for her. “But you spent too much on this. All I wanted was to be with you.”
“It wasn’t that much.” She looked down, embarrassed. “Besides, what else is money good for? I’m so glad you like it.”
“I wish everyone saw things the way you do.”
“Stick with me, Mr. Death, I can show you how to spend the money.”
“Really, that’s your love name for me now?”
Wild took a big sip of wine and admired the bracelet.
“Seriously,” she said. “Just like your premonitions, the money could be used for good. You just have to see it differently.”
She was right about this like she was right about everything he had gotten so twisted up about. In the few months since she came into his life, everything had changed. She made him lean into things rather than run away. Two weeks prior, she had taken him to a retirement home to volunteer and insisted that he touch every person they met. She was a natural interviewer and easily got the old folks talking about their lives. The next week they had returned to surprise a woman named Betty with a bouquet of lilies, a couple of cans of Pabst, and a to-go box of steaming crawfish with a side of red beans and rice. Betty had enjoyed the hell out of those crawfish but not as much as having an audience to regale with her stories of running a juke joint in Baton Rouge when she was young. Wild hadn’t been sure how her passing would be that next day, but he knew in his heart that they had done a good thing. A good thing was a small sandbag piled atop the levee that held back the ocean of woe that lapped against his ankles most days.
They talked and laughed and drank the rest of the wine as the sun worked its way across their small patch of solitude. The bottle between them was like a sundial, its shadow lengthening across the faded red and blue squares of the quilt. Just as the sun was beginning to tuck itself in behind the reaching branches of ash, oak and poplar to the west, June fell asleep. Her snores reminded Wild of a puppy he had when he was eight. He studied her face in the golden light. Her hair splayed on the patchwork quilt glowed like a bed of coals. He moved closer and leaned forward, his nose only inches from her neck. Beneath the fading scent of her perfume and the pungent verbena of her shampoo was the essence of her, a smell that should have been as familiar to him as his own but was exotic and heady– the tang of sweat, a grassy, earthy musk. He held his hand above her cheek, hovering there. He could just do it. Then he would know. He could hold it within him. He could give her this much. She had good genes. She was careful. Maybe they would enjoy decades together. Besides, how much longer could he expect them to go on this way? It was unfair to her. She deserved to be touched, to be held, to be worshiped.
Before he could change his mind or sober up, Wild allowed his fingertips to caress her face, his touch lighter than the flutter of a moth’s wing. For a few seconds, there was nothing and he was flooded with a relief so powerful he could have cried. But then, like the film that touches a scorching hot projector bulb, his brain melted to white and then strobed. He gritted his teeth and tasted the bitterroot bite so familiar and dreaded to him. Stinging hot tears squeezed from his clenched eyes, and he fell back onto the quilt. He struggled to breath and only after his heart had found its rhythm, did he open his eyes and stare up at the twilight sky, surrendering himself.
There, floating in his mind’s eye among the first stars poking through the scrim of twilight was the set of numbers that added up to the end of any life resembling happiness that he had imagined.
He felt June stir beside him, but he didn’t dare turn to look. He closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. He needed time to swallow this poison and to let it work through him until it was neutralized and became a part of him– a cancer that would lay in wait, biding its time until one day when it would, blessedly, pull him under.
« Previous Episode | Table of Contents | Next Episode »
Make a New Friend in the Comments
I’ve witnessed a really cool thing happen as I’ve published two other novels online like this. People who love the story and talk about it in the comments each week discover other likeminded readers and other fantastic writers. Many lasting friendships and collaborations start in the comments section. Share your thought and make a friend.
Want More? Check Out My Other Novels
If you’re enjoying “Departures,” chances are you will also like my two previously published novels. I’ve made the first two episodes of each free for you to preview. If you prefer reading the old fashioned way, you’re in luck because “The Memory of My Shadow” is now available in print, ebook, and audiobook anywhere you purchase books. I give you all the details in this announcement post.
In 2052, Magdalena, a brilliant programmer invents a device for telepathic communication with AI, seeking to decode the mind of her twin, the shooter in a school massacre she alone survived, but when she resurrects his consciousness, she unleashes a malevolence that could destroy her. Fans of the movie “Ex Machina” will love this story.
In the reality show competition for Houze, a revolutionary eco-home, six contestants face a winner-takes-all challenge. Beneath the surface of sustainability, altruism battles greed, turning a hopeful vision into a life and death struggle. Fans of “Nine Perfect Strangers” by Liane Moriarty will love this story.
Want to Help?
For independent authors like me who don’t have the support of a big publisher and marketing team, your enthusiastic support for my work means EVERYTHING. You can help others find my books by liking, commenting on, restacking, and sharing episodes like this one with anyone you know who loves to read.
I know how much competes for your time and attention so I’m so grateful you’ve honored me by sharing a portion of it each week. Thank you. ❤️
Love the Music?
If you love the soundtrack for “Departures” you should check out the work of my friend and collaborator
. All the cool sounds you hear that aren’t guitars are his. You can also find links to my catalog of music here as well as Spotify or anywhere you stream music.
Money Talks