The Last Bridge Read Online Free Page A

picked up deli platters and beer in case people stopped by afterward. He asked me to go with him, as he was planning on taking a drive around town to see how much it had changed. I told him I needed to rest. I put on my coat, grabbed a pack of cigarettes, and headed down toward the lake.
    We called the huge pond on our property “the lake.” I think we did it because it irritated Dad and Wendy so much. “It’s not a lake,” they’d shout. We knew it wasn’t a lake; in fact, it was barely a pond. As far as I could tell nothing ever lived in it. There were no ducks, no fish, no beavers, just algae and cloudy water. During the hot days of summer, Jared and my mother would go in to cool off. I never waded in; I didn’t like the feel of the mud squishing between my toes. I also didn’t know how to swim and was deathly afraid of drowning. I did like to sit at the edge and stare out onto the vast horizon of our property.
    Now, looking out, I was struck by how familiar everything felt. Like the house, the yard was an extension of my mother. It was filled with her touches, from the long clothesline that ran the width of the driveway to the carefully pruned rosebushes along the back of the house. This mother, the one who gardened and tended and threw outdoor parties for us when we were kids, was the one I wanted to remember. This was the twenty-six-year-old woman whowore capri pants with a matching halter top that she copied from a picture she saw in a magazine. “I made this for your party,” she said days before I celebrated my fifth birthday in high Rucker style. “We’ll invite everyone from your class, so no one feels left out,” she said from behind her sewing machine. And we did. When the day arrived, she moved around the yard giving out prizes to all of my friends from school. “This one is for you.” She squatted down to be eye level with my playmates. “Thank you, Mrs. Rucker,” they replied as my mother smiled a beautiful, brilliant, happy-to-be-alive smile that made everyone giggle. She made everything for that party, from the decorations down to the cake we decorated together. We covered it with strawberries and good wishes for me. She even made me a crown so I could be a princess for the day. At the end of the party, we stood together on the front porch holding hands and waving good-bye to everyone. She lifted me into her arms and hugged me. I could feel her warm breath on my neck tickling me. She smelled of coffee and cigarettes and White Shoulders perfume. “I love you,” I whispered in her ear. It was the last time I said it. We laughed as she sang, “You smell like a monkey, and you act like one too,” into my ear. She was my good mother. She was not the woman who closed the bedroom door when my father went roaming. Not the one who let me go and never tried to find me. Not the one lying half-faced and naked on a metal slab.
    He isn’t who you think he is …
.
    It was getting dark and a cold wind was rolling up the hill. I could see the lights in the house come on and Willard’s car in the drive. I got up and brushed the cold mud from my pants, feeling the chill and desperately craving a drink.
    I snuck to my car without getting their attention. I saw Wendy through the kitchen window as I pulled out of the driveway. Her hands were covered in Mom’s Playtex Living gloves as she scrubbed down the windowsill while Willard pulled masking tape off the cupboards. Apparently the cleanup that was done did not meet with her approval.
    I headed out Connor’s Road to Walt’s Tavern. I figured it was far enough out of town that I wouldn’t run into anyone I used to know. Just to be safe, though, I took a booth in the back and sat with my back to the door. After several beers I was beginning to feel the numbness I had been longing for all day.
    “So … what brings you to these parts?” a ratty-haired fool of a man asked, as he leaned his stinking face into mine.
    “Get the fuck away from me,” I