archipelago.

I.

“The little place you store things.” 

Janet opened the passenger door and let herself out. She stood on the gravel and squinted through the sun and smell of dirt in August. 

Franco leaned from the driver seat to open the glove compartment. He pulled out an owner’s manual and a pressure gauge.

“...the other one, Franco...”

He checked the center console under his elbow. There was a Visine bottle sitting on some napkins.

Janet told them to wish her luck but no one said anything. 

She shut the door and headed for a building next to an old wire fence with a bunch of barking dogs behind it. Their boy in the back stretched upright to fight for a view but couldn’t see much.

Leif wasn’t old enough to be out of the car seat but he was old enough to be repeating things and knew when to repeat them. When his mother was out of view he repeated something he’d heard his father say before they made the trip down here. Surprises are selfish, he said.

Lilian looked up from her book to smile and pat the boy’s knee. She hadn’t looked up much from the book over the last four hours. She had been searching it more than reading it. Like she was hunting for a secret message or a mistake. 

The book was heavy and a hardcover. The pages were a mess. Tattered and annotated with someone else's handwriting. 

Most of the pages had notes that would start on the left margin and wrap the bottom and finish on the right. She’d hold it up and out in front of her like a steering wheel to try and read those parts. It made it look like she was driving from the backseat.

On a dreadful stretch of highway she taught Leif how to say the title of the book. The Goo-log, Ark-uh-pelago. The last part was his favorite. It became another thing he started repeating. 

She tried to tell him what it was about. She told him it was about people trapped in a bad place trying to be happy. He nodded then said the title of the book the way she’d taught him.

—

Franco waited in the driver seat. He thought about the highway and driving even though he wasn’t driving and couldn’t see the highway from there.

He thought about how highways do something different to time. How they put you in the past and in your memories and how cruel it is to come back to here and now and find out the world didn’t wait for you. He heard himself say the word stupid in his head.

He thought about Dr. Ken Scott. He saw him only a few days ago. Dr. Scott wants him to just call him Ken. He’d been seeing him for almost eight months but they still have that same conversation. Ken is fine. Just call me Ken. They still have a lot of the same conversations. That’s why he’s still seeing Dr. Scott. 

He thought about changing and what it would be like to change. He thought about asking Dr. Scott if things were changing. He thought about the way they stand in the doorway after a session and the hand he puts on his shoulder.

“Papa, are you crying?” said Leif.

Franco had a long tear running down his face. He wanted to show the boy so he knew where it came from. Franco turned to him in the backseat. He made sure to smile big and stupid like he felt. He held the Visine bottle up and shook it a little. That made the boy laugh. 

–

The inside of that building smelled like piss and concrete. 

Janet walked in and there was a man with a lot of keys leaning on a counter. Behind the counter there was an older woman eating a sandwich and looking at a computer screen. Janet held her phone out toward the man like it was a can of pepper spray. Then she showed the woman. 

“Cleo,” she said. 
“I’m here for Cleo”.

The phone had a picture of a jack russell terrier. The man looked and nodded. Not like he understood but like he heard her. The woman set her sandwich down and poked around at the keyboard. 

The two of them spoke in Spanish. The woman’s voice got quieter. The man got louder. More time passed between each thing they said to one another. Then they weren’t saying anything. 

The two of them didn’t seem to mind the barking and howling and how it seemed to roll into one big bellow in the background. Janet tightened her shoulders and lowered her head with each sharp shriek like each sound was a rock that had been thrown at her.

The man with the keychain waved Janet to follow him down the hallway. They stopped in front of one of the cages and started arguing. 

They talked about terriers and other dog breeds and getting what they paid for. The dog in the cage in front of them just sat there and watched. It wasn’t a jack russell terrier. It was some form of mutt. It’s name wasn’t Cleo. The nametag on the fence read Rupert.

–

Janet thought about calling that dog Cleo but she changed her mind by the time she’d walked him out to the car. 

Rupert hopped in and sat in the middle seat between Leif and Lilian like another child. He was good and calm and everyone seemed to be alright with it. The dog would lick Leif’s hands whenever he stopped rubbing behind his ears. 

They took him to a park nearby. He was fast as hell. They took turns throwing a ball around. Sometimes he’d go get it and bring it back. Other times he would run after it then stand over it without ever picking it up or bringing it back. 

The dog fell asleep in the car. He kicked and whimpered and shook a little. Leif was worried about that. The boy sounded like he was about to cry. Janet told him he’d be alright. She told him he’d be alright and that that’s just how dogs dream sometimes. The boy looked at his sister and eventually relaxed when she told him that was true.

–

Franco drove with the radio low. The station had people talking but it was too quiet to hear what they were saying. The kids slept. 

Janet was thinking about sleeping too. She was having those thoughts that come in right before you might sleep. 

She thought about the night before they got in the car to come here. The hot shower. Franco laying on their bed and staring up at the ceiling fan. How it was dark and how she couldn’t tell if he was watching it spin or if he was sleeping. How she backed into the corner of the room that she always changed her clothes in so no one would see her naked. 

She thought about their stop at her parents’ place on the drive over. How her mother pumped her arms while she walked and how that made her look like she was always running in slow motion or stepping on broken glass. How her father told Lilian that journalism would be automated. Then told her she should become a nurse because they know how to take care of people and men like to be taken care of. She thought about the magnet on their fridge, the one and only thing on their fridge. Something they got over twenty years ago after rounding up on some receipt for a toy drive.

She thought about the vacant lot about twenty miles past her parents place. How she screamed at Franco to pull over. How she kicked the door open and wanted to puke but couldn’t. How she lost a shoe and limped on one foot. The for-sale sign she leaned up against. How Franco followed behind her with the shoe like it might fix things if she’d let him put it back on.
 
She thought about her LinkedIn profile and her little picture. The headline text right next to it with what she said about herself. She thought about changing what she said about herself. 

She fell asleep.

—

Franco pulled into a rest stop fifty miles outside Twin Falls, Idaho. The sun was gone but there was still some light. There was only one other car there but once they’d parked it drove off. 

The kids were still out. Janet was too. Franco touched her shoulder anyway. After he touched it again she shook her head no. 

He took Rupert out to the grass beyond the restrooms in front of a treeline. The dog followed him like he was in trouble or just didn’t know what else to do. Franco talked to the dog but the dog never said anything.

Rupert looked alright but he wanted to see if he could make it happy. The dog didn’t look like he was happy. Franco was thinking that. He took the leash off like you might do with a dog you trust and one that trusts you. 

Rupert trotted around that field and stopped a few times to look back at him. Franco waved. Then he started to smile at the whole thing. 

He thought about his family in the car. What they might think and say about all this. How good it was going. Franco thought about being a good family with a good dog. He kept on smiling about that. 

Rupert saw something then sprinted down the game trail at the edge of the treeline. 

Franco could hear some bushes rustle back in the woods. Then he heard nothing. He went down into that trail after him. He said the dog’s name a few times. Then he said it louder. He was hearing little things between the echoes but then those went away and it was just some wind going through the trees.

Franco ran deeper down into the woods. He lost his footing and fell down a hill he’d been fighting. It was a slow and dumb fall. The kind that should have never happened. He got up and kept running then he fell again. He clipped his head on a tree branch. The cut wasn’t bad but he bled with fast blood from all the running and worrying. 

He woke Janet without stirring the kids. The blood made it easier somehow. Less like he was losing and more like he was Santiago without the marlin. 

They walked beside one another on the way back to the woods. It almost looked like they were walking together. At first Janet was saying Franco’s name. Then she was clenching her teeth and saying it. 

When they got far enough away from the car and the kids they started yelling out to Rupert together. After a few minutes of that Janet went back to saying Franco’s name. Then she was yelling it like it was her husband lost out there in the woods.

Franco looked at the ground and touched the gauze he’d taped over his eyebrow. They talked about the kids. Then the dog. Then divorce. Then they talked about the kids again. You’re waking them up and telling them everything. Janet’s teeth were clenched when she said that.

“Fine” said Franco.

“Fine?” 
“This is fine?”

“I never said that.” 

“You never say anything.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

No one said anything. No one woke up the kids. Franco used his turn signals when he pulled out of the rest stop and drove the speed limit. 

They rode for about twenty miles until Lilian woke. She asked some questions then she started screaming. Then Leif woke. His cries reared up like a sleepy siren. 

Franco turned the car around while the kids screamed and Janet said somethings no one could hear and no one tried to listen to. Both Lilian and Leif started banging on the back of the driver seat. 

Franco yelled and pointed into the rearview mirror then pointed at the gauze over his eye.

“I’m bleeding!”
“I am fucking bleeding!”

He screamed that a few more times until the kids stopped banging on his seat. 

—

The rest stop was busier than it had been when they left. They asked a few people about the dog. One woman put her palm to her chest and told them that she was sorry. They went back down the game trail. 

Franco couldn’t make up his mind if he’d even wanted to find the dog. If that would make anything better. Then he decided he didn’t want to. He felt bad about thinking that and touched the gauze over his eye. 

When it was too dark to see and there wasn’t anything else to do they wandered back to the car from the field. A few people were staring at them. Leif was crying in a way they hadn’t heard  before. Harsh stutters with a soft rhythm. Franco waved at the staring people and said thank you before they had the chance to say anything.

Franco drove them to a Cracker Barrel off the highway. They sat in a crescent booth. Leif screamed at the waitress when she asked about the kids menus. They ordered a few things but nobody ate. 

—

Lilian wouldn’t get back in the car. 

She stood in the parking lot breathing hard through her nose. Hard enough to hear it. She pointed her finger at her father. A lot like the way he did earlier when he screamed and told them he was bleeding.

Lilian shoved into him. She recovered herself to get a running start and do it again. The parking lot was full and busy. A few cars drove around and the outline of people in those cars were looking out at us. A mini van parked behind them waiting for the spot they were in. It idled with its turn signal on.

Lily took off for the highway on foot. Franco and Janet took turns yelling out to her. They ended up getting in the car to go after her. That mini van with the turn signal ended up taking their spot.

—

They gave her some space. 

Lilian walked along the shoulder with her arms crossed. The headlights behind her made her shadow big and tall. Janet had turned the hazard lights on for Franco. 

“Goth lesbian?... what in the hell is wrong with you?” said Janet.
“She is none of those things”

“You wouldn’t know the first thing about her,” said Franco.

“Go fuck yourself…”
“At least I make an effort.”

“Effort?”

Franco got hot and red and yelled about dumb ideas and distractions, and driving a thousand miles for a dumb dog. 

Janet brought up the effort again. She cried and yelled and pointed out to their daughter in the headlights. Then she brought up his brother and the book sitting in the backseat. The one with the notes that his brother had written. She yelled about knowing people and caring about people. Then she brought up the effort again. 

Franco hit the brakes and reached to the back to grab that big heavy book his daughter had been reading. He threw it out the window. 

The highway patrol showed up. Blues and reds from the siren beat on Lily’s wet face as she walked to wherever she had planned on going. For a minute both cars were following her in single file like she was leading them somewhere. She laughed about that.

II.

The place they booked looked like a cheap idea with a roof and a driveway. 

The houses looked the same. In any direction there were miles of desert then some more of Idaho and those houses. Franco parked in front. Our family brought their baggage in. No one said anything.

The place had furniture where you’d expect it to be and pictures on the walls. The pictures were of places and not people. The kids had their own room. 

The boy’s room had a tent set up with a sleeping bag inside and a lantern outside. Leif grabbed the lantern and climbed in the tent and zipped it shut.

The girl’s room had pink walls and a mirror door closet. Lilian sat at the foot of the bed and looked at herself. When she was done she opened the closet. There were empty hangers on the right side and a few things pushed to the corner on the left. Things that you only wear once or twice and don’t need anymore but you’d think of every now and then. 

The master bedroom was at the end of the hallway. Janet went in and shut the door. 

The living room had a coffee table and two floral couches. Franco put his bags on one and sat on the other. 

—

Janet had a feeling she was forgetting something so she went back out to the car. She opened the trunk then looked through the backseats. She heard a woman trying to get her attention. 

An older woman stood on the sidewalk beside her with a plate of cookies under a plastic wrap. She smiled and said her name was April.

Janet told April she liked her name and April made a joke about being one of the only three months you can name people after. 

“What’s the third?” said Janet.

“August” said April.
“But I’ve never met an August…”

“I don’t think I have either.”

April asked if Janet was her new neighbor. Janet ended up telling her about AirBnB and comparing it to a hotel and a bed and breakfast and then just told her it was a short-term rental. 

Janet told her about Spokane and how our family lives there and drove from there and was heading back. 

April told her about her sister that had lived in Spokane. She told Janet her sister had a kid with her husband then moved to South Carolina to be closer to his family after someone fell ill. Then they divorced but she never ended up moving back.

“The kid’s an adult now,” said April.

April made her take the cookies anyway even though she wasn’t the new neighbor. They laughed about that and told one another goodnight.

—

Franco had a feeling he was forgetting something too so he went back to the car and got in and drove. 

He went out to the highway and drove until he was younger in a memory. Then he thought about all the times he talked about the memory with Dr. Ken Scott. If he was talking about it right and what Dr. Scott might have been thinking and picturing and if Dr. Scott was seeing it the way he did and if any of that mattered.

—

Lilian put on a cheerleading uniform she found in that closet. She sat on the bed in front of the mirror again. Her eyes were swollen and her mouth hung open like it does when you don’t care. She started laughing then laid on her back to look at the ceiling fan.

—

Janet stepped out of the shower and put her face in one of the towels on the counter. It smelled like someone else’s detergent and someone else’s life.

She opened a few drawers and cabinets just to see what was in there but she wasn’t looking for anything. She went into the corner to change her clothes.

—

Lilian sat outfront of Leif’s tent. He wouldn’t say anything but she still said some things and asked him a few questions. She thought that might help. She asked if he was sad or mad or scared. She felt stupid talking to herself. 

Leif turned the lantern off. No other lights were on so that made it all dark. 

She stayed outside the tent for a few minutes and pinched and pulled at little pieces of the carpet like they were leaves of grass. She was still wearing the cheer uniform.

—

Franco pulled the car off on the shoulder of the highway. Cars were going by. Each one that passed made the car shake. Their tires made a hissing sound that faded out into grumbles and then it was quiet until the next one came. He touched the gauze on his head.

—

Janet was in the kitchen eating one of those cookies that April had given her. Lilian walked in and stood in the doorway behind her then asked if dad’s brother had killed himself. 

Janet nodded her head while she was chewing.

“How come we didn’t have a funeral?” said Lilian.

“People are weird about that.”

“Funerals?”

“Suicide.” said Janet.

“Did he believe in God?”

“I don’t know, sweetie.”

Lilian went over to lean on the counter with her mother. She asked Janet if she believed in God. Janet said she thinks so. 

She asked her daughter the same question. Lilian said that she doesn’t know and that people are weird about that. 

“Where’d you get the cookies?”

“The neighbor,” said Janet.

—

Franco found that book he’d thrown out the window. 

He had it open over one knee and pushed his finger around the lines of a page like it were a map of braille. That gauze was coming undone from the way his face was moving. The breeze made it flutter around like a little white flag. 

He couldn’t remember the drive home and didn’t try to. He left the book on the counter then slept hard and dreamless on one of the ugly couches. A few hours later he woke up and saw Janet curled up on the other one beside him.

He tried to remember how that happened but he couldn’t. If she had woken him up and if they talked about anything or fixed anything. He couldn’t go back to sleep so he just laid there and listened to the air conditioning make the noises that it does.

—

The next morning Leif wanted to stop on the bridge before they crossed it so he screamed. We all got out for the boy.

The bridge was an ugly bridge. The highway was loud and dirty. Lilian held her brother’s hand and they walked a couple hundred meters out towards the center on the sidewalk behind the barricade. 

Once they made it out there they looked small again. Both of them had their arms and chins over the railing. They looked down at the long empty space. They pointed at things and took turns looking where the other pointed.

—

About a hundred miles after that Lilian got out of the car to throw away some trash and empty bottles that had been rattling around in the backseat. 

Franco was standing by the pump clicking the handle like you do when you’re close to being done. 

“They’re not going to automate journalism,” said Franco. 

He told his daughter that opinions are important. Especially hers. Lilian nodded her head. She waited until she was back in the car to smile. 

They went home and had a funeral.

—

Lilian picked some flowers and trimmed the stems then put them in a basket. She felt stupid walking around and handing them out. Some people put them on their coats or over their ears. Most people just held onto them. There weren't a lot of people.

—

Janet bought Leif a goldfish. They talked about it then went to the pet store and he picked the one he wanted. He named it Puppy. 

Puppy had a tank up against the wall by the door in his room. It had a soft blue light and a water filter that hummed. Before the boy would sleep he’d turn the light off. While he was still getting used to it he’d get up out of bed and turn the lights back on to check on it. Eventually he got comfortable knowing it was there even if he couldn’t see it.