Page 11 of A Sea of Unspoken Things
I forced my attention to the new photographs that had been added to the wall, finding Johnny’s face among them. Instantly, a sinking feeling pulled in my gut. He was sitting in one of the booths by the window with an arm stretched over the back of the seat. He had a look on his face like someone had just called his name, his head half-turned and eyebrows just slightly raised. The photo couldn’t be more than three, maybe five years old, but the picture of the young version of him I had in my mind was flickering in and out of that image. To me, Johnny would always be the eighteen-year-old kid jumping from the cliffs at Trentham Gorge as I held my breath, watching from below. I don’t know if I ever let that breath go.
I scanned the room around me until I found the booth that was in the photo. It was empty now, but as soon as I turned my head, I hadthe faintest sense that I could see him from the corner of my eye. I shivered as Johnny’s presence slowly leaked into the muggy atmosphere of the diner. The more it intensified, the more certain I was that I hadn’t imagined it back at the cabin, and it was more than the thread of connection we’d always had. This was stronger—a palpable thing in the air. When a distinct shadow formed in my periphery, I instinctively turned my head back to the booth, where I was convinced Johnny would suddenly appear. But there was nothing.
Sadie set the cup and saucer down in front of me, snapping me back from the avalanche of thoughts tumbling through my mind. I looked up to find her studying my face.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked.
I set my fingers on the edge of the saucer, still half-distracted by that shadow in my peripheral vision. “No, thanks.”
Sadie moved as if to leave, but she hesitated. “I know there’s not really anything to say, James, but I’m sorry about Johnny.” Her voice was low now. Careful. Like saying my brother’s name out loud was a spell that could wake the dead.
“Thanks,” I managed.
Back in San Francisco, this was the part when the aura of feigned normalcy would typically be broken. The moment when someone heard about the death of my brother and the stilted grief descended between me and the world. But it was so much worse here in Six Rivers, where people had actually known Johnny. And not just the smiling, handsome man in the photo that hung on the wall. This town knew his shadows, too.
A bowl of sugar came down in front of me, followed by a tiny ceramic pitcher of cream, before Sadie’s attention finally turned to a man waiting at the register. I curled my cold hands around the mug, hoping it would calm the trembling I could still feel in my fingers.
“Ben, can you grab another crate of those cups?” Sadie called out to the young man sweeping along the back row of tables as she absently punched the keys of the register. When he didn’t look up, she tugged the rag from her apron again, tossing it at him.
He flinched as it hit his shoulder, pulling an earbud out of his ear as he looked up. “Huh?”
“Cups.” She motioned toward the empty shelf, and he answered with a nod before he leaned the broom against the wall. Then he was disappearing through the swinging door at the back.
“Can’t take those things out of his ears for three seconds,” Sadie muttered to the man at the register, half laughing.
She finished ringing him up, listening as he made a comment about the incoming weather, and I glanced around the diner, noting that people were dressed in warmer layers than I was. Hats and coats were hung from the pegs beside the door, and the temperature had already dropped several degrees in the time since I’d arrived. I’d forgotten how quickly the weather turned in winter, how suddenly, almost violently, the forest succumbed to the bone-deep cold. That wouldn’t bode well for the incomplete job I’d done packing. I was pretty sure I’d brought exactly one sweater and was wearing my only jacket.
The swinging door to the back pushed open again, and the young man reappeared with a crate of steaming white porcelain mugs balanced against his hips. He slid them onto the counter and started stacking them.
“This is my son, Ben.” Sadie was talking to me now.
The boy glanced over his shoulder, only half looking at us with a distracted expression that made his face appear blank. He was a handsome kid, with his mother’s blue eyes, but he was at least six inches taller than her. Lanky in a way that reminded me a little of how Johnny looked at that age. But what age was that? This kid looked maybe seventeen or eighteen years old, and that math made me look at him a little more closely. Sadie would have been, what? Nineteen when she had him? Twenty?
That sinking feeling was tugging deep in my stomach again, and I immediately shot a look toward Sadie’s left hand. If she was married, she wasn’t wearing a ring. But the kid could have been from an old relationship, too. I tried to dismiss the possibility that he could beJohnny’s. He and Sadie had been involved for a long time before I left, even if they weren’t exclusive or consistent. When we did talk, Johnny didn’t say much about his personal life, but if he’d had a kid, he would have told me. Wouldn’t he?
A dozen images flashed through my mind like a flip book as I studied Ben’s face. I could see my brother up on the cliffs at the gorge. Moving like a shadow in the darkroom. Standing in the trees with a smear of blood at his brow.
Before that last memory could fully unfold, I shoved it back down.
“Ben, this is James,” Sadie said. “Johnny’s sister.”
The kid’s hands stilled on the mugs, his eyes finally focusing on me. “Oh.” He stood there stiffly, looking from his mom’s face back to mine.
I couldn’t tell if there was something behind that look. Two women down the counter also discreetly leaned forward, catching my gaze, and I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it or if the whole diner quieted just a little.
“Nice to meet you.” I saved the kid from the awkward moment, giving him a smile.
Sadie pushed the drawer of the cash register closed. “He’s a senior over at the high school. Video games for brains but manages to earn a few bucks here when he can be bothered.” Sadie glanced at her watch and looked up at him. “Aren’t you going to be late?”
Ben snapped out of his trance, finally pulling his gaze from me. “Oh, shit. Yeah.”
“I’ll finish that. Get out of here.” Sadie jerked her chin toward the door, holding out a hand.
He untied his apron and balled it up, giving it to her. “Thanks.”
She watched him round the counter and clumsily pull on a jacket. Then he was pushing out onto the street. “No such thing as a day off for some of us.”
“Yeah, Micah told me you bought the place,” I said.