By J.D. Strunk

When he finally pulled up in his rusting Ford F-150—gray three-door with a navy stripe peeling off, black fumes spoiling the virginal spring air—she had been waiting for over an hour. She spent the entirety of that time on the high school steps, watching the parking lot slowly empty, first of students, then teachers, until finally the landscaped campus had taken on the ghostly calm of a cemetery. 

Upon seeing her uncle’s truck, the girl’s face tightened into an unconscious grimace. She approached the vehicle and climbed into the passenger seat, where she was met with the familiar scent of weed, plus something sweeter, like nail polish remover, but not. When he asked her if she was okay, she gave a noncommittal shrug, then proceeded to play with the button to the glove box. Over and over the compartment lid fell open, only to be closed a second later by her Sharpie-stained fingers. She had stayed after school to work on signs for the upcoming pep rally—an event she had absolutely no interest in attending. But being on the committee allowed her to delay going home for another two hours, twice a week. A perk. 

It wasn’t until the sixth opening of the glove box that she noticed there was a gun inside—near the back, under a pair of work gloves. The gun was a 9mm, though she didn’t know that, and the number would have meant nothing to her. Still, she was shocked to find it. Her uncle made no comment—perhaps not noticing she’d seen it, or having forgotten it was there. She considered asking about it, but no question came to mind.

“Where’s your mom?” her uncle asked her as they entered the highway.

“Dunno.”

“Your dad?”

She looked out the window. “Home, I imagine.”

“But you don’t want to go there,” he said. A statement.

“You’re always late,” she said, looking over at him. “I was waiting for an hour.”

“But do I come?”

“Eventually.”

“How often?”

“Always,” she admitted.

“Always,” he repeated, a hint of pride coloring the words.

They pulled onto her mom’s street: Decaying Craftsmans; lawns more dirt than grass.

“Maybe I’ll buy you a car,” he said. “Would probably save me some money, in the long run.”

“I don’t have a license.”

“You’d get one, is my thinking.”

“Think less,” she said.

“What were you working on? At school?”

“Pep rally posters.”

“Didn’t know you cared. About pep.”

She smirked. “I’m not going. I just help with the posters.”

“I see.”

He pulled into her mother’s drive. She hopped out, pulling her bulging bookbag after her. “Thanks,” she said.

“Any time,” he said, lighting a cigarette for the drive home. He never smoked with her in the truck, though she wouldn’t have minded, really—even if it did make your clothes smell like smoke. He smelled like smoke. She didn’t mind.

~

A week later, she was awoken by the tipping of a metal trash can in the alleyway. A shadow passed before her bedroom window. Her heart revved.

I heard a sound, she texted her uncle.

Where’s your mom?

Dunno

I’m coming.

An hour later, there was a knock on the door.

“A fucking hour?” she said.

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“If they had broken in, I’d be dead.”

“You could always talk to them. Then they’d leave you alone.”

“Funny.”

They watched an episode of Friends, despite it being past midnight on a school night. She was chilly, and he gave her his hoodie—the front emblazoned with the state college he left after two semesters. (Her father had finished.) Later, he slept on the couch—she heard the TV going long into the evening. But it wasn’t annoying. It was comforting, knowing he was there. For the first time in a long time, she slept soundly.

The next morning her uncle was gone, and her mother was in her bed, fully clothed. She thought about waking her, saying hello before heading to school. But she didn’t. 

~

Two months later, dressed in a baggy black dress, she gazed upon her uncle’s waxy face where it lay in the box, hands over chest. She looked for a bullet wound, but his entire head looked unblemished. Was that the work of the coroner? Did they rebuild, as well as beautify? She wasn’t sure.

Her father was there. He didn’t cry.

After the service, she got in her mom’s car. But they didn’t head home.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Your uncle’s.”

They drove for twenty minutes. She looked at her phone for a time, and then at the fields—green shoots of corn in perfect rows, creating optical illusions as they drove past. 

Another ten minutes passed.

“This far?” she asked.

“This far.”

“He never let me visit,” she said.

“I know.”

They drove in silence. 

“I married the wrong brother,” her mother said abruptly, and not for the first time.

“Then I wouldn’t exist,” she said—her customary retort.

“Well…” said her mother.

After fifty minutes, her mother pulled off the highway. They drove down a dirt road flanked by RVs, pulled up next to a beat-up Winnebago with a black and orange “For Sale” sign in the window. In front of the RV was the aging pickup truck she had gotten into so many times before. Though she had just seen her uncle’s immobile body not an hour before, it was only now that she felt his absence—felt it tightening her chest, closing her throat. It was overwhelming. How could an absence be so overwhelming?

“The truck is yours,” her mother said, placing a hand on her daughter’s knee. “He left it to you.”

“I don’t have a license,” she said. Still, she accepted the keys from her mother. 

“Follow me home,” said her mother.

“And what if I get pulled over?”

Her mother pulled a pack of American Spirits from her purse, lit one in the car. “Stay close,” she said, blowing smoke toward the ceiling. “I’ll go slow.”