MONO ISSUE 1 PDF FLIPBOOK - Flipbook - Page 39
DIANE
by Michael Summerleigh
HE WOKE UP in a cheap motel, for a minute or two not at all sure where he was, until he
remembered the web feed he’d kept alive for the better part of ten years...the sudden horrible
tightness in his chest…and then the frantic thrashing around in his closet… finding the passport…
finding Grafton on a Google map…throwing some stuff into an overnight bag and simply driving…
Customs a blur…some child in a uniform.
“…Why am I visiting the United States? Because I feel like it. Because I was born here and I can
come back any time I want to for no reason at all.”
“Sir if you’re going to be combative I’m going to have to ask you—”
“I’m not being combative. I’m an American citizen with a valid American passport, and it doesn’t
matter why I’m visiting the States because legally you can’t deny me entry to the country where I
was born. I don’t need a reason to be doing this. If you have reason to believe I may be involved in
something illegal, then just have me detained over there where you’ve parked your car...but
otherwise please just let me get on with my day, I’ve got a long drive in front of me.”
And then hours and hours on the interstates south from the border…and then the motel…when he
realised he was only a half hour from where he needed to be the next day….and finally…someplace
where he could just sit down in a corner and weep.
***
He didn’t own a suit or a sports jacket. Any time in the past when they had been at all necessary,
he’d found one in the same place he’d found his jeans and denim shirts…thrift stores…and once
worn they went back into the donation bins. His boots were over thirty years old and ready to finally
fall apart the same way he was falling apart…old enough to feel it…more than old enough to not give
a shit anymore.
He got out of bed and flung the sheet and comforter back in the general direction of the pillow…got
dressed…left his room key on the night-stand…shouldered his pack and stepped out into a
spectacular sunny day in early summer. There was a magnolia tree at the end of the parking lot of
the motel and lilacs going mad with purple and pink and lavender and smelling so good it was insult
to the hurt in his heart. Not for the first time he heard the faint echo of a beautiful girl’s laughter. He
unlocked his car and rolled down the windows put his head down where there was no chance of
anybody seeing him and wept some more. After a while he double-checked the time and the GPS
app on his phone….made sure he knew where was going and pulled slowly out of the motel parking
lot on his way to get there. Kept to secondary roads because the traffic on the major highways was
more than he wanted to deal with.
When he got to the cemetery he had to ask three people for directions to where it was he wanted
to go…got there and realised there was an hour time difference, he was more than two hours early
instead of just one, and nothing nowhere but a hole in the ground… waiting.
He didn’t know anyone, didn’t recognise anyone except maybe one face he had known a long time
ago...her younger sister. He stayed well back from the empty place in the ground, sank down
beneath an ancient oak tree three feet around lifting its leaves up into the light for another year. He
couldn’t seem to keep himself from crying; anytime there was time to stop and think, she would
creep up behind him and tear another hole in his heart.
Dozens of people began to arrive, milling around on the hillside like lost sheep, everyone dressed
in black like they’d forgotten an entire life had been lived, which now, more than ever, was in need of
celebration. And because he’d all but stalked her once (he realised he could find every small thing
about her), he recognised him when he finally did arrive…the long black limousine trailing in his
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