Part 5: Obscured by Clouds and Shadows

Sometimes I doubt these words. Everything is biased, and despite my best efforts for objectivity, what remains is tinted by the lens of the author. Being the author, I am not free from scrutiny, even if it is my own.

As I think back to the Ambassador, Laura Spencer and the cast of characters which riddle this narrative, it is often hard to separate dreams from memory. The two converge and meld in the recesses of the past, each becoming more indistinguishable with time. But is it my past or a constructed one -- a coping mechanism to hide the truth from myself? Maybe the theater was just a dream, and the field where Laura disappeared was just a random deviation or hallucination. Perhaps I dropped my cellphone earlier which could have been a coincidence. I accept coincidences, not fate. Fate is a word I distrust. Being fated means you have no control and what will happen was designed to happen and will continue to happen again and again and again. You are powerless with fate, but a victim to circumstance with coincidence.

If you want any truth from this narrative, be wary it is subjective and a victim of coincidence. And what little truth which does remain is merely variations of a fading memory.

---

The next morning I needed to get out of the house. Every thought returned to that address: 515 County Road 300 North. It was imbedded in my mind as though I was tonguing an infected sore. Since returning home the previous night, I had kept the Ambassador's handwritten note on my nightstand. I slept restlessly, and would wake up finding my eyes fixed on it. The next morning was no different. Without provocation and at odd intervals, my eyes seemed drawn to it. It was something about those numbers which sparked a vague sense of déjà vu. Had I been there before?

The morning started with a plague of online searches, but my efforts brought no result -- just a grid of country roads intersected with farm land. I brought up a variety of angles, but Google has yet to accurately map this part of the Rust Belt. I sat in front of the computer until my eyes begin to strain and the bridge of my nose was rubbed raw.

Maybe it was monomania or cabin fever which landed me in Slate's Diner, but I remember the steam of the coffee rising towards the tiled ceiling. I don't remember what possessed me to bring the Ambassador's note, but I rubbed its edges as I surveyed the diner.

At 1 p.m. Slate's is vacant spare for two servers who seem more anxious to leave than to serve. One can't help but to feel like they've entered the past after walking through the diner's double doors: images of coal stained faces, former beauty queens in Cadillacs and portraits of Canada geese gliding above the misty wetlands. Slate's is a microcosm of Mulberry.

When does your hometown become a memory instead of a location? Even though I've been back for less than a week, each former haunt is a shade of the past, painted with a veneer so rich it reflects only decadent memories -- the laugh of a former lover on a country road as she tilts her head back towards the stars or 5 a.m. dive to eggs, coffee and cigarettes at Slate's. Each memory rolls like a torrent and for the first time since I had returned, I smiled.

"Doing alright sweetie?"

"Excuse me?"

"Do you need a refill or anything?"

One of the servers faced me from behind the bar. Vanessa. I remember that day she wore a handwritten name tag and the crudely drawn hearts which flanked the script.

"No, I'm fine."

Afterwards, I immediately returned my attention to the Ambassador's note. My hope was it would detour Vanessa from further inquiries.

"I've never seen you here before," she said.

"I haven't been here in many years."

"Are you from out of town?"

"Sort of."

Confused, she tilted her head to the side.

"I grew up here."

"So this is your hometown."

"It doesn't feel like it anymore."

Vanessa walked through the turnstile which separated the counter from the grill and took the seat next to me.

"It's slow this time of day," she remarked.

"I can see that."

"I'm not bothering you am I?"

Hoosier hospitality is painfully encroaching, yet sincere.

"No, not at all."

As the chef cleaned the grill, the sizzle of water against the iron cut through the silence. Vanessa tapped two fingers against the bar to the beat of Three Blind Mice - her ring finger which bore a dulled silver band, would accent every other note.

"Why don't you feel like Mulberry isn't your hometown anymore?"

"I don't know," I lied.

"I'm sure you have your reasons."

"I've been gone too long. I'm a stranger. The friends I had no longer live here, and besides my parents...I don't know, I feel like I don't belong. It's strange. I've felt this way ever since I came into town, and I've had this feeling that I'm imposter."

"Why don't you leave?"

"I might have, but something came up."

Instinctively, I glanced once more towards the Ambassador's note.

"What do you keep looking at?"

"Part of the reason I am staying," and I push the note towards her.

"Mrs. Spencer?"

"Huh?"

"The address on the card...it's Mrs. Spencer's."

For the first moment all morning everything came in focus.

"Mrs. Spencer...," I repeated.

"Yes," continued Vanessa, "I grew up close to her house. We lived at 101 County Road 300 North and she was our closest neighbor." After a pause she added, "I was really close with Laura until... well, I'm sure you know about it."

"I'm sorry."

"Is that why you are going to see her?"

"Yes, I am working a paper about the case. Do you think she would be willing to talk with me, or is it too painful for her?"

"Not at all. She loves talking about Laura, in fact that is mostly all she talks about anymore. She lives by herself -- Mr. Spencer passed away last year. I make sure to make a trip to see her once a month, but every time I'm there, all we speak of is Laura."

Smiling, I asked Vanessa to write the directions to the Spencer's house. Before I left, Vanessa said, "If you have time, I would like to be interviewed for the paper you are writing about Laura."

"Sure...how can I get a hold of you?"

Underneath her directions, Vanessa wrote her number and flanked it, like her name tag, with hearts. I promised her I would speak with her soon and left.

The directions she gave me routed me towards the country, but instead of the wilderness, harvested fields of corn and soybeans filled the horizon. The yellow stalks hardened in the ground and jutted out from all angles. Besides the aluminum silos which rested at the edge of the property lines, the fields rose like waves and a feeling a separation came over me. To live here, you have to be removed.

I drove past the dented steel mailbox which bore the numbers 515 and pressed hard against the brakes. I then realized my mistake. The gravel caused my car fishtail and I felt the rear of the vehicle merge towards the ditch which ran parallel to both sides of the road. I banked a hard left which only sent my car around towards the opposite ditch. I remembered everything going silent for a moment before I felt the impact of the crash.