Fragmented (29 page)

Jerret lugged my suitcase from the platform to their station wagon, refusing to use the wheels as if they were an affront to his manhood. I was in charge of the balloons, although I didn’t know how they’d ever fit in their car in the first place. The backseat and the way back trunk had always served as overflow storage for the record store, and it was nothing short of a miracle that I was able to squeeze in among the LPs and EPs along with the half a dozen balloons.

The music was already on when we arrived at their house a few minutes later. I didn’t recognize the band or singer, but it was all blues guitar and the heavy plucking of an upright bass.

“We cleared all the records out of your old room, so you’ll have a place to sleep this weekend,” Olive said.

“Well,
most
of the records,” Jerret admitted.

“I thought I told you to clean out Harper’s room!” Olive chided.

“I did. But then we got another shipment yesterday, and the office at the store was full, and I had no other place to put them,” my uncle stated sheepishly.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” I interjected before the conversation could spiral into a full-blown argument. “I could even sleep on the couch. I’m not picky.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Olive admonished, raising her voice.

“I’ll go move those boxes,” Jerret said.

“I’ll help,” I said, scampering behind him.

My old room contained nothing that had ever really belonged to me. All of the furniture had already been there when I’d first moved in more than a dozen years ago. The only thing that remained were a few marks on the walls where the paint had been pulled away from posters I’d put up and replaced over the years.

The one thing I remembered the most fondly about living with Jerret and Olive was that the music never stopped. I fell asleep that night to B.B. King and woke up to Nina Simone. Olive was dancing in the kitchen, cooking up bacon and scrambled eggs when I padded out of my bedroom. Hot coffee perfumed the air and I poured myself a cup.

“Morning, Harpoon,” she grinned. She slid a plate of crispy bacon and fluffy eggs in front of me. Milk was her secret ingredient. It made the eggs practically melt on my tongue. “How’d you sleep?”

“Really good.” It was true. With everything that had been happening, it surprised me that I’d slept so soundly in my old bedroom. But perhaps the familiarity of my settings had contributed to my easy night.

“Where’s Uncle Jerret?”

“Record store.”

“On Thanksgiving Day?”

“The store’s closed, but he’s got some inventory to take care of before Black Friday.”

“He does Black Friday?” I snorted.

“It’s actually a lot of fun. He hires some local bands and a couple of bartenders, and they jam out all day. We should stop by later.”

I pushed the eggs around on my plate with my fork. “I should probably visit my mom.”

Olive’s dancing stopped. “Shit. You’re right.” She flashed me a broad smile. “You’re a good daughter, Harp.”

“Let’s not get carried away.”

I finished my breakfast and washed my dishes. Olive insisted she had Thanksgiving dinner under control, so I took the bus to my uncle’s record store downtown. My uncle was a purist. When other stores had diversified their inventory to include DVDs and CDs, he had remained committed to only selling records. The only thing you could buy in his store that wasn’t on vinyl was the gumballs in the dusty crank machines.

The plastic flip sign said the store was closed, but I could see my uncle sitting at a listening station near the front of the store. I knocked on the glass-paneled door and it noisily rattled from the impact. Jerret was wearing headphones, so I waved in the window until he saw me. His head jerked up at my erratic movements, and he hopped to his feet to let me in.

“Hey stranger, come on in.”

I breathed in the scent of musty cardboard. It was the kind of smell that got stuck in your nostrils for days afterwards.

“Olive wouldn’t let me help with dinner,” I said, “so I thought maybe you might need some help.”

“I was getting ready for tomorrow, but I got distracted. You’ve gotta listen to this.”

He removed a record from the player he’d been using and transferred it to the machine connected to the store’s main sound system.

“Jack Black,” he said, over the screeching guitar. “You can only get this on vinyl. If more artists do this, maybe I can finally afford to take Olive on a honeymoon.”

“You guys never had a honeymoon?” I gaped.

“I always planned to, but time got away from us. The shop has never made a lot of money, and Olive’s freelance design work is temperamental.”

I thought about the large amount of money my father had bequeathed to me. It wasn’t in my possession yet, but after Alan Belair filed a few more forms, it would be available in my savings account.

“My dad died.” The word “dad” felt strange on my tongue.

“He did? When?”

“Last May. I didn’t find out until about a week ago though.”

“I’m sorry, Harp. Running off on your wife and kids is about the shadiest thing a man can do, but death is never easy.”

“I don’t remember anything about him. Shouldn’t I? He is … he
was
my father.”

“You were really little,” Jerret reasoned. “Couldn’t have been more than five or six.”

“Do you remember him?”

Jerret’s eyebrows crept up his forehead, and he released a deep breath. “Some. Your mom and I weren’t the closest,” he excused. “I suppose I was the annoying little brother always trying to impress her friends who I had crushes on.”

“Do you know how they met, or what he did for a living, or if I have grandparents I don’t know about?” I felt my composure slipping. “Did he play sports? Did he go to college?” My eyes dampened and hot, wet tears dribbled down my cheeks. “What kind of cologne did he wear? Was he tall? Did he have a kind smile?” I tried to keep talking, keep asking questions, because the moment I stopped, I knew the tears would fall without end.

Uncle Jerret’s face was battling his own emotional assault. His features went from unease to worry to fear to concern. The hug took me by surprise.

“He died. My dad died. Shouldn’t I remember
something
about him? Shouldn’t I
feel
something for him?”

Jerret’s arms tightened around me. He didn’t say anything because there was nothing to say. I was inconsolable until I ran out of tears. The body-shaking sobs eventually calmed to rattling sniffles, and I pried myself out of Jerret’s bear hug.

I wiped my eyes and face, embarrassed by my outburst, but thankful I hadn’t bothered with mascara that morning. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”

My tears had left a wet spot on his grey button up, and I couldn’t stop staring at the visual evidence of my emotions. The tears on his shirt would dry, however, and only the memory would remain.

When Jerret and I returned to the house we were greeted with the warm smells of a Thanksgiving dinner that was nearly complete. My mouth began to water as we walked through the house to the kitchen and the scents became stronger and more delicious smelling.

The kitchen table was already set with three plates and place settings. A small cooked turkey sat on a wooden cutting board in the center of the table and was surrounded by casserole dishes filled with mashed potatoes, collard greens, and stuffing.

Olive sashayed her way around us, carrying a plate of corn muffins, fresh from the oven. I reached for one, but she slapped my hand away.

“Go wash up you two. Dinner’s almost ready.”

By the time I came back to the kitchen after washing my hands and changing into a nicer shirt, jellied cranberries and corn soufflé had joined the other fixings on the table.

“Jesus, Olive,” I said, standing and admiring the tablescape. “You went all out.”

My aunt snuck behind me and ruffled my hair, something no one had done since I was little. The familiarity of the touch almost re-awakened my tears from the record store, but I took a deep breath and regained control of my fragile emotions.

“Well don’t just stand there,” she chastised. “Dig in before it gets cold.”

Plates were pilled high with everything the table had to offer, and a bottle of red wine was uncorked for the occasion. I took an extra serving of Olive’s corn muffins and contemplated shoving another one in my pocket for later. The meal itself had made the trip to Memphis worthwhile.

After the last of the dinner dishes had been cleared and cleaned and the pumpkin pie had been dug into, we sat around the kitchen table playing a card game I’d only ever played with Jerret and Olive. I was partially convinced they’d made up the game themselves. The beer cans had been opened and the cards had been dealt.

We sat quietly examining our respective hands until Olive broke the silence. “Still planning on seeing your mom tomorrow?”

I nodded, eyes on my cards. “I’m nervous to see her again,” I admitted.

“It’s okay to be anxious,” Olive reassured me.

“Shouldn’t it get easier though?” I posed. “It’s not like this is new for me.”

“Don’t worry so much.” Jerret awkwardly patted the top of my hand. “You’re a good kid, Harpoon.”

“She’s not a kid anymore,” Olive censured.

“Says you. But to me she’ll always be that wide-eyed, gapped tooth kid we took in.”

Olive snorted. “Lord, I almost forgot about those teeth.”

“Hey, those were my baby teeth,” I defended. “The real ones came in fine.”

“Praise Jesus for small miracles,” Jerret winked. “You’d never find a husband with a grill like that.”

“Maybe I don’t want a husband,” I shot back.

“Speaking of which, are you dating anyone these days?” Olive jumped in.

“Yeah, kinda.” I squirmed in my chair, preparing for the battery of personal questions that were sure to follow. I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.

“How can you ‘kind of’ be dating someone?” Jerret asked.

“We were dating, but now we’re fighting, so I don’t know what that means.”

“Why are you fighting?” Olive pressed.

“Because we had a disagreement.”

My aunt laughed at my response. “I guess some things never change.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

“Don’t play dumb, Harper,” she said, shaking her head. “You’ve always had your secrets.”

“It’s not a secret,” I said glumly. The S-word had followed me to Memphis. “We fought about something dumb, that’s all.”

“Hey, are we playing cards here, or are you two going to keep gabbing?” Jerret looked uncomfortable by the back and forth.

“We’re playing cards,” Olive said. She looked in my direction and something in her eyes told me this wasn’t the last I’d heard of this conversation.
When I finally retired to my old bedroom for the night, I checked my phone, which had remained silent since I’d left Chicago for Memphis. On one hand, I should have been thankful that the harassing texts had stopped; with August Moreland in custody, I hadn’t heard from Ruby, which gave me more hope that she and my stalker were one and the same. But the silence from Raleigh made me physically ill that I’d ruined things between us.

I lay in bed and fiddled with the functions on my smart phone to pull up my text message history. Most recently I had a group message with Kelley, Lauren, and Maia wishing everyone a nice holiday weekend. There were unanswered texts to Damien. He was avoiding me—that much was clear. I would have to make a point to visit him before I left since he and Sandra were making no attempt to return any of my calls or texts.

I pulled up my last text conversation with Raleigh. Her flight to Boston would have arrived early on Wednesday, and by now she would be enjoying the long weekend with her family. I wondered what family traditions she had—if they had a small immediate family dinner or if was a giant affair filled with cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles. I had only ever seen those kinds of meals on television or in the movies. Even when my parents had been together, we hadn’t ever visited with extended family beyond Jerret and Olive.

I pressed my thumb against the call function before I could psyche myself out. The phone rang twice.

“Hello?”

I wasn’t expecting her to actually answer the phone, so when I heard her voice and not her recorded voicemail, it took a long moment for me to find my voice.

“Harper?”

“Yeah, I'm here,” I said, clearing my throat. “Sorry. Hi.”

“Hi.”

Just a simple syllable from her had my heart fluttering.

“How are you?” I asked.

“I’m good, thanks. You?”

“I’m good.”

“That’s good,” she replied.

How we’d ended our last interaction hung over us like a dense cloud. I was excited that we were actually speaking to each other, but we might as well have been talking about the weather.

“How’s your Thanksgiving?” I asked. I stretched out on the twin bed, and my feet hung off the end.