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  She found Ken’s suitcase of charms leaning against the wall by the apartment door. She opened it and fingered his creations, impressed again by his craftsmanship. But she was not a thief, and besides, he had already given her a piece of jewelry. She looked around for something he wouldn’t miss.

  She opened a closet door and found a stack of books by naturalists and back-to-the-landers. Certainly, he would notice if any of these went missing.

  She walked back to the kitchen, where she leafed through a notebook that sat on the counter between greasy crumpled paper and the remnants of late-night fried cheese purchases, but she couldn’t find anything written clearly enough to read. The shape of the scrawling was poem-like, but the letters were illegible.

  Ken grunted from the other room and Paloma looked at him through the doorway. He rolled over onto his stomach, belched, and went back to sleep.

  A letter, in an envelope addressed but not yet sealed, fell from between the pages of the notebook, and Paloma bent to rescue it from the grime below. With another glance at the dozing Ken, she removed it and unfolded the paper.

  Dear Mom, it read, in handwriting much neater than what he’d used for his poetry. Hope all is well on the farm. Prague is wonderful, everything I wanted, but I miss our mountains. Making lots of great friends and working hard on my poetry. Jewelry biz is tough. Not making as much as I’d hoped. If you can manage another loan, I’d appreciate it. Sending you one of my charms.

  Paloma tucked the letter back into the envelope and got dressed, further convinced this had been a one-night encounter. She had met so many people here who were wise beyond their years. Idealistic or not, she had no need for a grown man who wrote home to his mother for an allowance.

  She had just reached the apartment’s door when Ken rolled onto his side and then sat up.

  “Are you leaving?” he asked.

  “I’ve got to get to work.”

  “Thanks, Paloma. Thanks for sharing your beauty.”

  Paloma blushed and said goodbye, then made her way down the dusty staircase and out to the street. As she hurried toward the metro station, it began to drizzle, and she let the rain wash away the night as the petrichor filled her nostrils. She didn’t need Ken’s kind of optimism. She needed this.

  Paloma thought about things she liked: the scent of new rain on dusty streets, the parts of Prague still unoccupied by its most recent, opportunistically optimistic invaders—the Prague that was sweet and musty in its sad beauty.

  Now, in bed alone at the farm, she thought of what she’d liked about Ken: his ever-buoyant idealism, the sense that emanated from his body of work to be done—that doing that work, if he ever managed to do it, would create the world she’d been waiting for. Ken had been sure he knew Paloma, and though she had never opened her heart fully to him, she now missed his confidence, however misguided. At least with Ken she could pretend to be knowable and known.

  Paloma curled into a ball and held her legs, feeling a strange reversal of their first night together. Whereas then, they’d been completely naked and vulnerable, their bodies close and their minds far apart, here, with Paloma in the fetal position and Ken no longer present in the physical plane, Paloma felt an intimacy with him she had only glimpsed at brief moments during his life. They had shared so much in spite of their emotional distance.

  “It’s all right, it’s all right,” Paloma repeated to herself as if soothing a child, not sure to whom she spoke.

  Cassidy

  Cassidy let Noeli guide her to their rideshare, into the airport terminal, and to the kiosk where she checked them in. Occasionally Cassidy nodded in agreement or understanding, but mostly, she stayed still and silent, relieved to be freed of the burden of thinking.

  She followed Noeli through security and counted the number of people ahead of them in line—twenty-four people with baseball caps and camera bags, saris and suits. She followed her to the gate and counted the number of seats—eighty-five. There were three cups on the rim of the trash can, two from Starbucks and one that still had boba in the bottom. The newsstand across the hall featured twelve magazines out front, celebrities and brides smiling from their covers.

  She followed Noeli onto the plane. They took twenty-one steps to their seats, past a teenager in pajamas and an old woman muttering the rosary.

  Cassidy found herself deeply, sincerely interested in these numbers and facts. There were thirty-four drinks on the tray on the flight home after her dad died, about half of them coffee. She was gathering data. It was cold, scientific research.

  In Pittsburgh, finally, Cassidy’s brain now numb from sheer exhaustion, Noeli retrieved their luggage from the rotating metal carousel and, stumbling under the weight of twin duffels, led them to the car rental desk, where a family of four was ahead of them, twin boys hanging off of their mother’s legs while their father signed paperwork. Cassidy saw she had several messages from MannyBoy27 and a couple other guys on the site, but she couldn’t fathom responding.

  “I truly am sorry, sweetheart,” the man at the desk said to Cassidy once the family had gotten their keys, and it took a moment to register that he was speaking to her. His accent clicked in her ears like a familiar command to a well-trained dog, and yet she couldn’t help but hear the sounds from Noeli’s perspective. “Ah troolee aym sahr-eh.” She repeated the sounds in her head until they lost their meaning. Ah troolee aym sahr-eh. Aah troooolee aim. It was close to a minute before she realized both the man and her friend were staring at her, waiting for her to reply. Noeli shifted her weight from foot to foot and finally set the bags on the floor.

  “Thank you,” Cassidy said.

  The car was quiet in a way that made it feel like they were underwater. Noeli turned the radio all the way down and neither she nor Cassidy spoke. They were high above the road in the massive full-sized SUV, and Cassidy could feel them hurtling ahead. The heater kept the car at a cozy seventy-six degrees, making it easy to forget the forty-eight-degree temperature outside. The trees gave it away—their branches were thin and spindly, the leaves already gone. Though signs warned that “Bridge Ices Before Road,” the pavement was dark and dry. Cassidy struggled to remove her hoodie from under her seat belt and was struck by a sudden, intense wave of fear.

  “D-don’t,” she stammered, and Noeli glanced at her in alarm. “If you see a deer, don’t swerve,” she added breathlessly. “They jump out sometimes. Especially now, around hunting season. Just brake. Don’t swerve.”

  “Okay.” Noeli held the steering wheel competently, but Cassidy saw her adjust her grip, wriggle her shoulders to get comfortable again. She looked so small and out of place in this huge vehicle, surrounded not by the endless freeway, but by mountains, dark and close as a sweater. Cassidy watched the glowing mile markers zip by, one after another. She couldn’t undo it. She couldn’t turn back. It was already done. It had already happened.

  Cassidy focused on her breathing, concentrating on the air going into her nostrils. It didn’t seem to be reaching her lungs. Was there something wrong? Was she breathing wrong? She tried to slow her breaths, to bring a sense of fullness to her chest. The air seemed to go out the back of her throat. Outside, the trees whipped past. Cassidy’s fingers began to tingle, then her hands and arms. She clenched her hands and flexed them, but the tingling remained. She was having a panic attack. She didn’t want to have a panic attack. She didn’t want her body to feel like this. She didn’t want to do this.

  A sign towered above the road like a specter: “Wild and Wonderful.” Cassidy stared as they approached, lifting her head to watch as they passed under. “Welcome to West Virginia,” Noeli’s phone announced. Cassidy was happy they had changed it back from “West Virginia: Open for Business,” but her happiness felt distant, like she was witnessing it on someone else’s face.

  “Thank you, pocket robot,” Noeli said jovially.

  The hills changed immediately afte
r passing the sign and the familiar surroundings comforted her for a moment before appearing to close in further. She was here. They were drawing closer to it all—to people who knew her, to the absence of her father. Her breath only reached her nose now. She felt dizzy and restless. She thought she might scream.

  “Can we stop?”

  “Right now? Are you okay?”

  “I think I’m having a panic attack.”

  Saying the words aloud brought her anxiety to full force. She pant-cried with each breath, every part of her body buzzing with oxygen.

  “Oh shit. Take a deep breath,” Noeli said.

  “I am,” Cassidy tried. “I’m trying. I don’t think I’m breathing right.”

  “Okay. It’s okay. I’m right here.”

  “Please stop,” Cassidy said. “Stop the car.” She felt trapped—headlights approached behind them, slowing for a moment before moving to the left to pass. The ragged shoulder dropped sharply to the right before climbing again to a dark wooded hill.

  “I can’t stop right now, Cass. I don’t think it’s safe.”

  “Okay,” Cassidy said. She could do this. She could choose not to panic. It was all in her head. A deeper part of her had already chosen to panic, though. Panicking would get her out of this car, off of this road. Panicking would keep her safe.

  A green sign showed the mileage to different Morgantown exits; the closest, WV University, was two and a quarter miles away.

  “Are you all right till Morgantown?” Noeli asked. Cassidy nodded and focused on the odometer.

  Two miles. Her ears throbbed and she closed her eyes. It was worse, feeling the hills rushing past, unable to see potential danger. She put a hand to her heart to feel it racing. One mile. She scanned the hills for glowing eyes.

  Had her daddy seen them? An image of her father in his Malibu appeared in her mind’s eye. She heard him humming—Bob Dylan, maybe Steve Miller. What had he been listening to? Cassidy would want the people she loved to know exactly what she was listening to. She saw him reach toward the radio. She saw him look up to see a deer. She felt his surprise. She saw him swerve.

  What part of the car hit the deer? What part of the car killed him? Did the hood crumple? Did the car roll? Cassidy saw the metal crush, moving into the space where Ken’s body was supposed to be. She imagined the look of fear on her father’s face as his body was thrown and mangled. Did he know he would die? Was he afraid? How much pain did he feel?

  In college she’d read a theory—time was relative, as we knew. The afterlife, it posited, was a person’s last moment of consciousness experienced eternally. If her father’s last moment was fear and agony, would he experience it for eternity?

  She shook her head and gripped the door handle. No, no, no. Daddy was in the grass and the trees and in Cassidy, just like he had said. But a voice inside Cassidy told her these were just comforting platitudes. But still, she told herself. The body made DMT. That was a fact. Even if the accident was awful, maybe his very last moment was peaceful. She exhaled a full breath, finally, as they exited.

  In Morgantown, WVU kids stalked the streets like zombies, the men in cargo shorts and baseball caps hollering drunkenly at the women who stumbled up the hills in their heels, miniskirts, and tank tops.

  “I thought West Virginia was rural,” Noeli said.

  “This is one of the bigger cities,” Cassidy explained. “This is where I went to college.”

  “Ah.” Noeli pulled to the side of the road and Cassidy watched the debauchery, remembering her time there. She had thought maybe college would be different, that maybe she would make friends and, for once, not be the weird kid. But there had been all the same cliques at WVU and worse, here, Cassidy didn’t even have Simon. These men were no worse than the ones who watched her show, who begged her for tit pics or to tell them in detail what she liked about their cocks. And yet, the tenderness she held for her fans was absent here. She glared at the college men with contempt.

  Feeling was returning to her extremities, but her joints were stiff and sore, her brain wrung out. Noeli asked her phone to direct them to a hotel and when they arrived a few minutes later, Cassidy shuffled into the room, curled up under the plaid duvet, and fell almost immediately into a heavy dreamless sleep.

  She woke to the sound of Noeli splashing water onto her curls and scrunching them over the sink.

  The room was grungier in the light—the forest-green carpet worn from years of visiting university parents’ pacing. The floral wallpaper peeled at the top edges and the scuffed faux-cherry furniture bore multiple cigarette burns.

  Cassidy dressed quickly, shedding the previous day’s travels with her warm slept-in jeans. The new, fresh clothes were a promise—a new start, she told herself. She could do this.

  Noeli turned and smiled silently in affirmation, placed the room key on the nightstand, and walked out to the SUV, hugging her arms in her thin black hoodie as Cassidy followed behind.

  The towns tumbled past—Fairmont, Bridgeport, Nutter Fort. A lone Target on top of a hill. A Huddle House, its sign proclaiming “Pipeliners Welcome.” Huge wooden crosses watching them ominously. The skeletal remains of a burned-out barn.

  Finally they approached Weston. “This is it—exit ninety-nine, but take it slow. It’s a big loop.” Noeli nodded and Cassidy’s stomach dropped as they rounded the swooping ramp.

  In Buckhannon, downtown felt new. A Taco Bell had sprouted, new murals seemed to have seeped from the old brick buildings, and the old firehouse, where Cassidy was used to seeing volunteer firemen polishing their shining truck, had changed into a Community Bank. A lane-widening project caused traffic that tested Cassidy’s patience even after half a year in Southern California.

  Driving through Buckhannon felt like strolling through her own mind, like the streets were part of her neurostucture. The unexpected changes felt like discovering secrets about herself. She had driven these streets innumerable times, had run down them as a child following the B-U Band during the Strawberry Festival parade, had walked them with Simon after school in the rain and snow. How was it possible they could change without her knowledge?

  After a man in a pickup truck slowed and waved them along on a left-hand turn, things returned to their trusty stagnant selves. A right at the sagging red house and there was Grandma Jane’s place—blue-gray, two-stories, over one hundred years old, on the left. Noeli parked the SUV, and they both leapt the two feet to the cracked sidewalk, then climbed two wooden steps, holding on to the black iron rail. Noeli stood behind Cassidy, hands in hoodie pockets, on the small square porch as she reached for the old mechanical doorbell. As she pressed it, the doorbell swung off of its screw and dangled from its left side. A rectangular button jangled a bell on the other side of the door.

  There was no sound from within the house. After a beat, Cassidy took her own keys from the front side pocket of her duffel bag and found her grandma’s, labeled GJ in fading Sharpie.

  Unlocking the door and poking her head inside, Cassidy was met with the familiar smell of must and Avon face cream. “Grandma Jane?” she called. No answer. She stepped into the house, Noeli behind her. The brown brick linoleum creaked underfoot. Cassidy peeked up the stairs on the left, which were carpeted with matted orange shag and darkened by years of cat fur from a cat who had passed away half a decade before. On the right, the living room, piled on all sides with books, was otherwise empty.

  “Grandma Jane?” she called again, and walked down the hall into the dining room. As usual, the round leafed table was too covered in books, newspapers, and catalogs for use, as were the glider, the floral couch, the coffee table, and the writing desk. In the kitchen, counters were packed with cans of soup and vegetables, piles of clean CorningWare plates, and linens hand-embroidered with mismatched colors and patterns.

  Where was Grandma Jane? She rarely left the house, save for Women’s Club and Hospital Au
xiliary meetings, and this emptiness felt different from a temporary outing. It was colder, Cassidy realized. Grandma Jane always kept the house stifling hot—the old wall heater working tirelessly to maintain a comfortable eighty-something degrees, but now there was a chill. Someone had turned the heat down.

  “Could you call your mom?” Noeli asked. Cassidy suddenly felt self-conscious about the smell of stale cat pee and the piles of junk in every corner.

  She looked at her phone. “I seriously have no service.”

  “Me neither.” Noeli shook her phone and held it above her head.

  Cassidy laughed. “I can use the landline,” she said, suddenly remembering that they existed. She walked to her grandmother’s elegant gold-and-white rotary phone and lifted the handle. When she realized she couldn’t remember her mom’s number, she scrolled through her contacts list to find it, suppressing how disturbed this made her feel. Grandma Jane probably remembered it and she had dementia.

  Paloma answered on the first ring. “Hello?” She had pulled herself together since the day before and now sounded like her usual no-bullshit self.

  “Where’s Grandma Jane? We’re at her house.”

  “Oh, uh,” Paloma stuttered, caught off guard. “She, um. She’s staying somewhere else right now.”

  Cassidy crinkled her forehead. “Where is she staying?”

  Paloma cleared her throat. “Well, hello to you, too, Cassidy. Your father and I agreed it would be best for your grandmother if she had more intensive care.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “She’s at Serenity Care Home.”

  “You weren’t going to tell me this?”

  “Well, we were,” Paloma started. “But then all this with your father.”

  “All this?” Cassidy scoffed. Her mother was already talking about it like it was some inconvenience her dad had caused. She probably couldn’t wait to get out of this town. She was probably glad this had happened.