Chapter One
‘Hey Jack, you got a minute?’
I’d just pulled into my driveway after the gym when a text lit up the dash. I killed the engine and reached for my phone on the charger.
Terri.
‘Sure. Calling now,’ I speedily typed back.
The line clicked.
“Er. Hey.”
“Hey, Terri. You ok?”
“I’m good. Yeah. I’m good. Thanks for calling.”
“No problem.” I leaned back against the seat. “Okay… what’s up? What broke?” We are kinda close, but my sister doesn’t often call for a chat, so I figured best to just get to the point.
She laughed. “You know me way too well, Jack. We had a storm last night. Like, full-on lightning, thunder, the whole deal.”
“I saw it on the news. Looked pretty wild.”
“Wild doesn’t even cover it. It was seriously biblical.”
“So what’d it take out? Dan’s away, right? You two alright?”
“Yeah, he’s somewhere in the Middle East. Saudi? Oman? Dubai? I lose track. But we’re fine, we’re fine.”
“So what’s the damage?”
“Well.” Her voice dipped. “You know the flat roof over the kitchen?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s leaking. Or something is. Water started pouring in through the light fixtures.” Her voice trembled, betraying more worry than she wanted to show.
“Ah, shiiit.”
“Exactly.” She exhaled. “I shut the power off to the kitchen, so we’re okay for now. But everyone around here’s dealing with storm damage. Earliest I can get anyone out is Wednesday. And that’s if I’m lucky. Some folks got hit a lot worse than we did, so we’re kind of at the bottom of the list.”
“Shit.” I said for the second time.
“Yeah. Look, Harriet and I can live on takeout for a few days, that’s not the issue. But they’re calling for more rain, and if it gets worse…” She trailed off. I could picture her chewing at her thumbnail, like she used to when we were kids. “…and, Dan’s gonna lose it. You know…”
Terri’s husband is larger than life, the guy you want at a cookout. The man of the moment. But the flip side is a semi-psychotic, angry husband. I recalled him ripping into a UPS guy because some package was damaged. It was nasty and difficult to watch.
Terri never told me specifics, but she was always quieter in his shadow. It wasn’t hard to imagine he acted the same at home with her and Harriet.
“…I honestly don’t even want to tell him yet,” Terri said quietly, her tone turning small and fearful. “He’ll just start calling people and making it a whole thing, and I’ll be the one who gets it.” Her voice shook slightly, and I could almost hear her holding her breath.
I checked the time. Just after ten. She was up in Milwaukee. I was down in Lafayette. Not a short hop, but not impossible.
“All right,” I said. “I don’t know how much I can fix, but I can be there around two. That work?”
“Only if you didn’t have plans. I feel bad asking.”
“Terri. I was gonna play nine in the cold weather and drink a couple of beers at the club. That’s it. Nothing I can’t miss.” I smiled, even though she couldn’t see it. “Honestly, I’d love to see you both; it’s been too long anyway. A trip is way overdue.”
“You’re the best, Jack. Seriously.”
“Let me at least look at it before you start handing out trophies.”
She laughed, softer this time.
And with that, ten minutes later I’d tossed some clothes in a duffle, filled up a travel mug with coffee, and hit the road for Brew City.
I crossed the state line just after one-thirty, the sky was that particular washed-out Midwestern blue that looks innocent until it decides different. Milwaukee rose up in pieces. Water tower. Church steeple. That squat beige mall that had somehow survived every economic mood swing since 1998.
Before I knew it, I was past Mitchell field and easing the SUV off the highway and into the neighborhoods I used to know by muscle memory.
The streets felt narrower than they had in my head. Or maybe the SUV was wider than the old station wagon my Pops used to pilot like a naval vessel. I rolled past houses that ushered me through, each one seemingly wary of the outsider. Streets with overgrown trees, their branches arcing over the road, unloved by locals, ignored by the city.
This was the good part of town. Still was, technically. The lawns were trimmed and neat. Mailboxes stood upright and obedient. But there were hairline cracks now to those who knew, like me, what used to be.
On the corner where Mr. Feldman’s hardware store had stood for years, there was a minimalist coffee shop with industrial light fixtures and a name that sounded like it had been generated by an app. Next to it, a boutique pet bakery. I blinked at that one.
A pet bakery. What?
I slowed at a light and glanced toward where there used to be a video rental store. Videos? Hah. Friday nights, Terri and I would loiter by the horror section pretending not to. Pops forcing us to more family-friendly titles. That building was now a vape shop, its windows plastered in neon flavors.
Time did not request permission to transform worlds. Mine included.
I suddenly felt an urge to make a tiny detour. A few blocks down was what used to be our spot. The pizza joint. No sign of it now. In its place stood a glossy bank branch with tinted windows and landscaping that tried too hard not to look formulaic. Trees and shrubs selected by a consultant to calm customers, not for their beauty.
Back then it had been called Lynda’s. I’d swear to that, even if history and age has started to blur the edges. Rough inside. Vinyl booths patched with duct tape. A Pac-Man machine that ate quarters as quickly as it munched the dots on the screen. The kind of place where the steam from the kitchen mixes with the voices of the cooks, spilling freely across the customers like a mist and nobody cared.
It had been the best pizza in town.
Pops would let us each have a Coke in those red plastic tumblers. Terri and I squabbled about which slice was biggest until she got distracted by the promise of ice cream. Those nights felt enormous at the time. Endless. Permanent. Nothing is.
Now the whole thing had been paved over and turned into a checking account.
I looked away and drove on.
There were storefronts I didn’t recognize at all. A Pilates studio where there used to be a carpet warehouse. Carpets. Hah. A boarded-up storefront two doors down from what had once been a bustling deli that sold pastrami so thick it weighed you down. The deli was gone. The building next to it wore plywood like a blindfold.
I felt a flicker of something that I couldn’t quite call sadness. More like disorientation. As if I’d stepped into a slightly off-brand version of my own childhood. Never go back, they say.
How long had it been?
I’d told myself I visited enough. Holidays. The occasional weekend. But the evidence was lining the streets in front of me. Businesses born and buried. Trees matured. Paint faded and redone in different shades. Whole chapters written while I’d been busy writing my own elsewhere. What had I written? Anything of note? Anything?
I passed the park where I’d broken my wrist at thirteen, trying to impress a girl whose name I couldn’t remember. I flexed my wrist, feeling where the injury still creaks. The basketball courts were resurfaced. The old chain nets were gone. Everything looked tidier. Less dangerous. Less alive.
I turned onto the final stretch, the road bending gently uphill. The houses grew larger again, retreating from the street behind wide lawns and cautious landscaping. This was more familiar. Less had changed. Thicker shrubs, larger trees, but familiar. I felt my chest tighten before I could stop it.
There it was.
The house.
Cream siding. Black shutters. The big oak in the front yard still standing guard, though its trunk looked thicker, older, as if it had grown with the additional secrets it now kept. I wondered if Terri and my initials were still visible. Carved with a pen knife stolen from Pops’ workshop in our hasty, youthful script.
The driveway curved just the same, the concrete faintly cracked in a line I remembered lifting off the seat to ride over.
I slowed, then eased in.
For a moment I just sat there, engine ticking as it cooled.
This place held birthday parties and slammed doors. Snow angels and shouted arguments. Mom’s laugh drifting out of the kitchen window. Pops’ silence filling rooms when things went wrong. The silence is what I remembered most. At the end. The silence.
And now it was Terri’s.
I rested my hands on the wheel, staring at the front door, half-expecting it to open on an earlier version of us.
Instead, the house stood still. Daring me to approach.
