Page 13 of Gone Before Goodbye

“Except,” Maggie says, “you don’t work off feelings.”

No reply.

When Maggie sees her nephew step out of the house, she hits the red disconnect icon and drops the phone in her pocket. Cole pops on a huge smile when he sees his aunt. It’s been a tough year for thekid—too much death, divorce, and debt for a fifteen-year-old boy—but Cole always manages a smile for his aunt and his mother. Maggie doesn’t know whether the smiles are authentic or not. She suspects not. Cole is so damn kind and perceptive, Maggie suspects that he sees the stress his mother and aunt are under and does his utter best not to add to it.

“Hey, Aunt Maggie.”

She gives Cole a hey back. He starts a gangly, endearing trudge toward her. It tweaks her heart, the humanness of his sputtering movements, his youth and vulnerability.

“How’s Mom?” Maggie asks.

His face falls. “She’s at the kitchen table again.”

“It’ll be okay,” Maggie tells him. Then: “She’ll be okay.”

“Your being here, with us—I know it’s not your responsibility—”

“It’s my responsibility,” Maggie says.

Cole nods, forces the smile back onto his face. The honk of a horn draws their attention. A car pulls up with a bunch of teens hanging out the windows. They call to Cole, who looks an apology at her, but Maggie smiles and waves him off.

“Go,” she says.

“You sure?”

“I got this.”

Cole does the gangly trudge toward the car, though this time with more speed. Maggie watches, glad for this bit of normalcy. Her nephew deserves this. The back door opens and swallows him whole.

When the car vanishes down the road, she takes out her phone and calls Vipers. She hears the ringing of the retro black payphone in the corner of the bar with a sign readingOUT OF ORDERso no patrons use it. This is Porkchop’s version of a Batphone. Her father-in-law,

Porkchop—yes, that’s what everyone, even his son, calls him—

redefines old school. He doesn’t own a mobile phone or computer. For that matter he doesn’t own a house or car or television. Porkchoponce told her, “All I own is a motorcycle and the open road,” and when she made a face, he shrugged and said, “I read that on a matchbook in some biker bar in Sturgis.”

When the phone is picked up, a woman speaks. She sounds somehow both young and like she’s seen it all. “Vipers for Bikers.”

Maggie can hear the customary background racket of the biker bar. “Bat Out of Hell” is on the jukebox, one of Porkchop’s favorites, Meatloaf right now rocking that when the night is over, he’ll be gone, gone, gone. Maggie and Marc played the song at their wedding, she and Marc and Porkchop and Sharon standing in a circle on the dance floor, shouting every lyric at the top of their lungs until Marc pulled her close and the world vanished and the song softened for a moment and Marc sang along that she’s the only thing in this whole world that’s pure and good and right. And then they stared at each other until the song picked back up again and she’s reminded that Meatloaf is really singing about their last night together and the stanza ends with him screaming, “We’ll both be so alone.”

“Is Porkchop there?”

“No.”

Maggie can see the scene—that jukebox in the corner, the sawdust on the floor, the collection of neon beer signs, the heady smell of worn leather, diesel fuel, and testosterone.

“Can I leave a message for him?”

“Depends. You one of his old ladies?”

“Old ladies,” Maggie repeats. “Did Porkchop tell you to say that?”

“Yeah.”

The man never changes.

“Tell him it’s Maggie.”

The woman doesn’t bother with an “Okay” or “I will.” She just hangs up.