Greylock

“So, what is all this? I accept that there can be an afterlife.” An assumption right now he felt comfortable making. “But how are we supposed to know? What religion, what dogma is the lucky ticket?”

Tim was bitter, the unspoken question “Why him?”. He knew he had made mistakes. He had paid for them already and continued to every single day. Did these mistakes exclude him from heaven? He would just disappear, dissolve into nothingness, forgotten in the eternity of ever moving time? The very thought made him feel empty inside. He had never much believed in an afterlife, thought death would be a long sleep. In truth the idea of waking up again and again and again and again for eternity left him cold.

But, a place with those he loved? New experiences stacking on top of old memories, building into an existence that was better and more vibrant as each day passed. He wanted that. He wanted that very much. Was what he had done really so bad that he would lose that? Apparently so.

“You have one life. One. And you have to live it right. You have to love with all your heart. You have to treat other people well.” She smiled at some memory here. “You can’t be shitty.”

She laughed and looked at him to let him know that she was being serious despite her humour.

“People know what is right and wrong. They just know. Don’t you?” Here Rachel looked right at him and he wished she hadn’t.

“Yes…yeah. I know what’s right.” She nodded at his agreeance.

“Loopholes don’t work with God. He’s a tight dude.”

This apparently closed the topic for Rachel as she began to concentrate intently on weaving them past a block of cars that was moving much too slow for her.

It was just as well she dropped the topic. It was what he expected, already knew. He could remember just about every time he had done something he knew was wrong in his life. Most vividly his recent transgressions.

“Where we going?” Rachel had been driving vaguely south while he digested but had reached the point she needed a destination to keep going in the right direction.

“Big Bend National Park, Texas.” Tim told her after a moment to pull up the info.

“What?” She laughed, seemingly incredulous.

“Big Bend National Park. What’s the problem? The park has a large border with Mexico. We can walk right through.” He didn’t exactly have a lot of solid info to build these plans on.

“Walk through what? The fucking trees?” She was laughing hard now, eyes actually tearing. “This isn’t a fucking Lord of the Rings adventure!”

Tim let Rachel compose herself.

“O.K. What then?” He was feeling pretty petulant, he liked the idea of walking through a forest. And Lord of the Rings.

“Texas is fine, just look for the largest border crossing there.”

“El Paso.” Easy enough.

“Sounds good.” She seemed to mull it over. “We just need to make a stop along the way.”

“Where?” Tim figured he had a fifty/fifty chance of an answer.

“Nowhere.” He was glad he would have played the under. “It’s on the way, will take five minutes, tops.”

He had no reason to argue with this. He was fairly curious where she wanted to stop. Probably somewhere else that meant something to her, a good reason for him not to pry too much. Rachel cut off any chance of following up by picking up their conversation from earlier.

“How do people know?” She laughed, soulless and mean. “Life is fucking beautiful.”

Tim could tell that Rachel was working herself up now. He would be sorry he had brought this up, except he hadn’t.

“You’ve loved before. I know you have or you wouldn’t be here.” She met his gaze, eyes not asking for agreeance as much as an ally. “And you still do.”

The final nail in the coffin. He still did love. And always would. It would be so much easier not to. He had tried. Something in him kept rising from the ashes.

“Exactly!” She was triumphant at the look on his face, smug. “Nothing is as strong as that.”

This wasn’t exactly the closure to the topic that Tim would have liked, but he was more then happy to let the matter drop. He’d been actually questioning Rachel today and it was dawning on him that she didn’t actually know anything. She had a destination and a lot of feelings. Her “feelings” had been flawless so far though, which Tim took as confirmation that she was probably legit as far as being his guide in this. For all that, she was just as lost as him.

After some fairly awkward silence they stumbled onto talking about baseball. She was a Mets fan, zero surprise there, and he had grown up deep in Red Sox country. He didn’t really have a particular fondness for baseball but he followed it enough to know what was going on. They talked about ’86 and them both hating the Yankees. Stories about days their families had spent at ballparks that they tried to keep vague. For both their sakes.

Tim hadn’t looked at his phone or the center console in a while, so he was surprised when it started to look slightly less bright outside. He looked towards the sun and sure enough it was beginning its descent towards the earth in the West. Damn if they hadn’t spent an entire morning talking about baseball.

Tim also had no idea where they were. Rachel noticed his momentary confusion.

“Just noticed it’s getting late chatty Cathy?” She actually smiled as she said this, the afternoon light seeming to soften her features. “Find us a hotel.”

Tim started to do just that as she pulled over. They sat just past a driveway that was parallel to the lawn of a small house. Light sensors (Tim hoped) caused two faux burnished lamps on either side of the front door to glow.

“Do that after.” She had just asked him to do “that”. “We’re here, you’re coming.”

Tim sighed and slid the phone into his pocket, hurrying to get out of the car at the same time as Rachel. He had no doubt she’d go in without him. Then stay inside until he worked up the courage to knock on a complete stranger’s door all alone. No thanks.

Tim realized that he wouldn’t need to rush after all as he got out of the car. Rachel had gone around the car and was rummaging around in the back. She shortly popped up holding a small amber jar like a trophy.

“Berkshires honey! Best in the world!” The jar did indeed seem to hold honey. Tim wondered where the hell that was from. Had she had it since before she had met him?

“I doubt that’s true.” He had no idea if that statement was true.

“Ready?” It was a challenge, but he was.

“Yup.” He had not expected the stop to be at an actual person’s house, which in consideration was a relatively minor curve ball in relation to the rest of his last seventy-two hours.

Rachel walked up the path towards the door, seeming a bit hesitant for all her bravado. She turned to face him suddenly, intense and angry.

“Don’t do anything stupid!” Hissed between clenched teeth as if he had just done something.

Tim was taken aback at this sudden hostility, causing him to hesitate as Rachel turned and knocked on the door. Afterwards, Tim just couldn’t shake the question from his head: Had she been passing the door at the exact moment that Rachel knocked, or actually been standing there waiting for them? He could never decide which it probably was…or which was worse.