Page 42 of So Far Gone

the lumber mill on Hunters Road and starting the last ten miles of this journey, back to the place where it had all started.

It was a drive that Kinnick could make in his sleep, and he glimpsed, through the trees, familiar old landmarks: listing barns

and abandoned cabins, scraggly cattle and sheep moving toward salt blocks and watering troughs. But as much as he’d lived

in this place the last seven years, he’d also spent much of that time in his head, hiding (behind self-pity and stubbornness) from the

people who needed him. Kinnick glanced over. Asher was asleep again. Bethany was staring out her window. But when they were

a mile from his house, she suddenly turned to her dad. “Weren’t you lonely up here?”

“Not at first, no,” he said. “I was happy to be away from the bullshit, the politics and gossip. The division. All the noise

I mistook for life. But it sneaks up on you. Eventually, the solitude becomes physical, like thirst. I remember, one day,

maybe in my second winter, I started getting this panicky feeling. Like I couldn’t breathe. I used to drive to Springdale

and park outside the tavern. Didn’t even go in. I just sat there and waited for someone to come out. It was like I needed

to just see another human being, to know I wasn’t alone in the world.”

Bethany had a pained look on her face, and he wondered if everything he said from now on would be taken as an affront. ( If you were so lonely , Dad, why didn’t you come and see me ? ) Should he apologize again? Should every sentence that came out of his mouth begin with I’m sorry ?

“Then one day,” he said, “I started going inside the tavern to see people.”

This caused Bethany to smile. “I do understand why you moved up here,” she said.

She glanced in the backseat, perhaps to make sure Asher was still asleep, and lowered her voice: “I get it, too, the urge to run. I can’t tell you how many times.

To just... go. Leave everything behind.

But here’s the thing—in my daydreams? I never arrive anywhere.

There’s never a landing place. And...

turns out... it was not a music festival in Canada. ”

They laughed together.

“Do you think I just haven’t found it yet? Or does it not exist?”

Kinnick sighed. “Boy, I wish I knew.” He wanted to keep talking, to tell her that it was okay to leave Shane, if that’s what

she wanted to do, that he would help her financially and with the kids, whatever she needed, but he wasn’t sure how she would

take that.

Bethany was staring out her window as they passed a makeshift house in the woods, the kind of place Kinnick jokingly called

a Stevens County McMansion, tin-roofed pole building thrown up over a single-wide trailer, all rust and exposed timbers, surrounded

by a dozen wrecked old cars.

“Well,” Bethany said, “whatever my place is... it’s not out here. I can tell you that.” She glanced over at him. “That

woman we saw this morning, Lucy. Was that—”

“Yeah,” Kinnick said. “That was her. Not that it matters now, but back then, when you were fifteen, there wasn’t anything

going on with us. Not yet anyway.”

“Then why keep it secret?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I already knew how I felt about her. Because I hoped something would happen. It was like you’d see right through me if I said something.”

“You loved her.”

It wasn’t a question, but it was the same thing Leah had asked about Joanie. This time Kinnick didn’t hesitate. “I did,” he

said. “Very much, as it turned out. So much that I convinced myself, in my deep self-loathing, that she’d be better off without

me.” He looked over at her again. “I thought that about everyone, for what it’s worth, that you were all better off.”

“And how did we do?” Bethany asked. “Without you?”

He looked over. “You did just fine, Bethany.” He turned the car off Hunters Road and started down the dirt road that led to

his driveway.

“Well.” Bethany straightened up. “I’m trying,” she said, the weariness in her voice breaking him a little.

***

They eased over the culvert, up his driveway, past the creek and the little stand of birch trees, until they could see the

house and outbuildings, the old broken-down pickup. It was strange for Kinnick, seeing his sad little kingdom this way, after

being gone for the first time in years. And to have these other people here, apparently inside his house, with his books and

his thoughts and his half-finished projects—he felt a moment of panic. What had he accomplished up here?

There was a car parked at the end of his driveway, near the back door of his cinder block shack: a fifteen-year-old Ford Focus

with a Jesus fish bumper sticker and a Covenant College parking pass on the back windshield.

“They must be in the house,” Kinnick said.

“You don’t lock your door?”

“There’s no one out here but me and some raccoons. And they can’t reach the doorknob.”

They left Asher asleep in the backseat and opened their car doors, stepping out into the dusty driveway. A gust of wind rustled

the leafy birch trees, making a sound like distant shorebreak. “This parent stuff—” Bethany laughed uneasily. “My God.”

Kinnick wanted to agree but wasn’t sure he had the standing.

The front door of the little gray house opened, and Leah came out onto the porch, dressed in the same jeans and peplum top

as the day before. “Mom?” Her voice quavered and she covered her mouth.

“Leah! What are you doing here?”

“We didn’t know where else to go.” Leah descended the steps, ran to her mother, and fell into Bethany’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” Bethany said into Leah’s hair. “I’m sorry I left you, baby.”

So, Kinnick thought, that’s how you apologized for leaving.

“Did you get to hear my dad’s band play your song?” Leah pulled back and looked up in her mother’s face.

“I did.”

“And—”

“And it was pretty great.”

“Oh, Mom,” Leah said. “I’m so glad!”

David Gallen Jr. emerged onto the porch then. He was short and slight, in rumpled khakis and a baby-blue button shirt, his

white-blond hair already beginning to recede on his long forehead. He stood with his hands in his pockets, shoulders slumped,

squinting through round glasses. If not for his thin hair, he might have passed for thirteen or fourteen himself, Kinnick

thought.

“What are you guys doing up here?” Bethany asked again.

“Do you know what his parents want to do to him?” Leah asked.

“Yeah,” said Bethany, “we heard.”

“What did they tell you?” Davy asked.

“Well—” Bethany looked over at Kinnick, who nodded. Yes, she should tell the poor kid. “Your parents said they think you might

be... gay?”

“Unbelievable,” Davy said. “They told you that? What, are they just going around telling everyone? Is it in the church bulletin?

‘Sunday prayer service starts at nine. Also, David Jr. might be gay!’”

“Of course not,” Bethany said. “They’re just concerned, that’s all.”

“He’s not gay,” Leah said confidently.

Bethany paused a moment, then looked down at her daughter.

Kinnick had what he assumed must be the same thought as Bethany just then: Wait, how does Leah know that . And wait, what did they do inside his house last night. And, just, generally: Wait.

“Oh, Leah,” Bethany said, “you guys didn’t—” She didn’t finish the thought.

“What? No!” Leah looked disgusted. “Gross. Why are parents so obsessed with sex all the time? We kissed is all.”

“And I liked it!” Davy said triumphantly.

Kinnick briefly wondered if there was an even more remote place he could move to next time.

Still on the porch, Davy folded his arms. “What did my parents say exactly ?”

Bethany looked over at Kinnick again, who could do nothing but shrug. He felt like he’d dropped out of 300-level parenting,

and this was some PhD stuff.

“Well, you should talk to them about it, but they told me that maybe there were some images on your computer?”

“I was looking into bodybuilding!”

“And they overheard you saying you had feelings for a boy at school. A boy who might be gay?”

“Marsh! I said I loved Marsh! Everyone loves Marsh. Marsh is hilarious!”

“And Marsh is bi,” Leah said, “not gay.”

“Yeah,” Davy said, “Marsh is bi!”

“What’s bi?”

They all turned. Asher was climbing out of the backseat of the Outback.

Leah screamed, “Would you shut up, Asher!”

Davy was still interrogating Bethany. “Wait, so you’re telling me my mom thought I was gay because of muscle photos on my

computer and because I said I loved a friend at school?”

“Well,” Bethany said, “she said something about knowing that you were gay since you were six—”

“Seriously? I don’t believe this.” Davy put his hands on his head. “That happened, like, three times, total! I mean, what six-year-old doesn’t wonder what he looks like in a dress?” For some reason, he looked at Asher when he said this.

“Oh, I’m nine,” Asher said.

“And even if I were a cross-dresser, which I’m not, that’s not even a signifier of sexuality!” Davy was working up quite a

case. “It’s like they’re stuck in the 1980s.”

“What’s a cross-dresser?” Asher asked.

“Asher!” Leah yelled again.

Bethany shot another glance to her father, looking for more help, perhaps calling on his parental seniority, but Rhys had

nothing to offer in this situation except a change of venue. “Look. Why don’t we go inside and talk about this?”

“Not with him!” Leah pointed at her little brother.

Asher was stunned. “What did I do?”