CHAPTER EIGHT

DANE

I clean up the kitchen. I was going to anyhow. I’m an asshole, not a slob.

I stand at the countertop putting it all together, looking upstairs to where Haley is putting down her son.

It’s starting to add up: not much food in the house, a baby but no father, a dead-end job cleaning motel rooms, which may or may not exist anymore. Clearly, Haley’s struggling to make ends meet and here I am, the city-slicker, barging in like I own the place.

You’re a fucking dick is what you are.

It’s a hard truth, but it is the truth.

I exhale and push off the counter. I still want her, bad, but this Dane-first routine’s going to get me nowhere.

I look upstairs again.

Fuck this.

“I’m heading out,” I call up.

No response.

I grab a coat Haley loaned me, her father’s. I saw the medals upstairs. He was a vet. From what I gather, he served, came back to Merit and never left. Given what I’ve seen, maybe I can understand why. War has a habit of making you wish for home that much more.

Unless you don’t have one.

I head out into the cold, surveying the streets.

The phrase ‘winter wonderland’ comes to mind, just without the wonder…

Everything’s frozen solid, and what’s not frozen is covered in a fresh deposit of snow. At this rate the streets will be completely impassable within a few days.

This is why I like California. It’s as far away from this kind of weather as possible… and other things.

I grew up in a mirror image of this town—same shitty conditions, buildings… everything. I never wanted to return to that kind of place again, where dreams go to die, but here I am, the world and its infinite wisdom keeping me locked down here for what? For punishment?

I look up to the sky. “Well, consider me punished.”

The sooner I can leave Merit-slash-fucking-Fargo and get back to actual sunshine, the better for everyone.

I step into the sole grocery store in town, again a complete clone of the one I used to steal candy from back home when we were teens. Mr. McAdams, the poor bastard who owned it, hated our guts. Of all the people in that town, I’m pretty sure he was happiest to see me go.

I select a cart and walk down the aisles aimlessly, the coat giving me the appearance of a well-to-do bum, not that we’re in Milan here.

I either eat out or order in when I’m on the road, so I’ve really got no clue what to get. I grab a bit of everything, tossing it into the cart and moving on. I add a variety of meats, until I realize the freezer won’t work if the power goes out.

Milk, cereal, juice… but things get a whole lot more complex when I hit the baby food section. It’s a nightmare of bright colors and smiling little faces, labels touting vitamins and fiber, alpha-this and omega-that. I’m way out of my depth. Show me a shelf of gins and I’ll select you a winner any day of the week, but this hell?

Fuck it. I grab a bunch of different jars and add them to the groaning cart.

At least we’re not going to starve, I think.

I pick up a pack of condoms on the way to the cashier for good measure.

I’m waiting in line to be checked out when I notice the woman behind me basically craning around my shoulder to get a look at my face.

“Yes,” she says, pointing at me, “I thought I recognized you.”

Here we go again.

“You were in the air show, right?” she asks.

“Something like that,” I reply, none too enthusiastically.

“Guess you’re stuck here with everyone else, huh?”

Someone give this woman a medal. “Guess I am.”

“Where you staying?”

I debate whether or not to tell her, but I don’t imagine any harm can come from it. “With Haley Walker.”

The woman sighs knowingly. “Huh. Well, that’s about right.”

I spin to face her. “What does that mean?”

The woman waves it off. “Oh, nothing. A girl gets knocked up by her ‘boyfriend,’ if you could call him that, before he up and took off… You’d think she would have learnt from her mother’s mistakes, but that’s the way it goes, ain’t it?”

What I should do is tell this bitty to STFU and mind her own business, but I don’t want to draw attention, to myself or Haley.

I endure the small-town gossip, but I don’t acknowledge it by adding anything more than “Guess so” before turning to face the cashier, a spindly teenager who looks like she’d rather pull her own teeth out than be stuck behind that register.

If anything, I’m getting the impression Merit doesn’t think very highly of Haley, which is a touch confusing given how hard she has it. Then again, these sorts of places are usually nothing but cesspools of judgement, people with too much time on their hands to do anything else but talk shit.

As soon as the groceries are bagged, I hustle the fuck out of there. I don’t want to endure another second of that collective depression party.

Fucking small towns. Everyone thinks they’re in this wholesome mash-up of ’50s TV Americana, but it’s everything I remember. Nothing changes.

I almost feel sorry Haley has to live here.

Almost.