The Scattering. Kimberly McCreight
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I HAVEN’T SEEN Jasper’s house much in the light of day. His mother is always on night shifts, so that’s when Jasper has me over. This is not a coincidence. Jasper’s mother blames me for everything that happened in Maine. He hasn’t said that outright, but there have been clues.
“It doesn’t have a face,” Jasper had said once about his house, sounding sad. “Most houses have the windows on either side and the door in the middle. Like it’s a person looking at you or something. The way mine is, it’s like the front is just … empty.”
He’s right, and it is depressing. I start up the concrete area that is part driveway, part “front yard.” Jasper’s brother’s Jeep is parked there and, as usual, seeing it makes the hairs on my arms lift. When the police went looking for it, the car was right there at the gas station where we’d left it, the starter purposely ripped out by Doug. Looking at it now is like seeing a ghost. Cassie’s ghost. I wrap my arms around myself and shudder hard. Luckily, I know Jasper’s brother is out of town visiting his “girlfriend,” which Jasper is pretty sure is code for buying pot. I’m relieved that at least I won’t have to deal with him. I have met Jasper’s brother and—like Jasper said—he is bigger than Jasper and also a total asshole.
I climb the rickety steps to the narrow porch, hold myself tight as I knock. The door sounds hollow beneath my hand. I wait. Nothing. Check the time. Ten a.m. exactly. I knock again, harder this time, then lean back to look in the window for signs of life.
My face is pressed to the glass when the door swings open.
“Can I help you?” a woman snaps.
I jerk back and turn. Jasper’s mom is glaring at me. At least I’m assuming it’s her. Her short black hair is pulled back in a low, no-nonsense ponytail. Her skin has a grayish undertone and she has puffy bags under her eyes. Still, you can see how she might have been quite beautiful once. How she still could be if she got some rest. She’s wearing green hospital scrubs and has her nurse’s ID badge looped around her neck.
“Sorry,” I say. Opening with an apology seems wise. “Is Jasper here?”
“Good Lord,” she huffs, but mildly. Like she’s too tired to even care. “That kid will be a picked-over carcass, and one of you girls will still be coming around, trying to drag him home.”
“He was expecting me.” My voice rises at the end like a question. But instead of that making me sound sweet and polite, it kind of makes me sound like a stalker.
“Well then, I guess he changed his mind,” she says, face pinched. Then her eyes shoot up to my hair. A headband is the only thing that makes my hacked hair look okay, even now. I jammed an elastic one in my pocket on the way out of the house, but it’s too late for that. Her eyebrows draw tight. “Yes, well, I can’t tell you why he’s not here because I haven’t seen him. But Jasper’s been changing his mind a lot lately.”
And then I feel it—even without her looking at me—the full weight of her heartbreak. She isn’t angry at Jasper, or hoping to get rich off of him playing professional hockey. She isn’t worried about money. She’s afraid she is going to lose her son. That something awful is going to happen to him.
And Jasper has absolutely no idea she feels this way. It makes me so sad for the both of them.
“Are you sure he’s not here?” I ask.
“Jesus, you are a persistent thing.” She looks me up and down. And then I feel a momentary twinge of pity. She knows what desperation feels like. “Come on in if you want. I am going to take my shoes off, but you can go look for him yourself if you think I’m hiding him.”
I step inside the dim entryway with its two sagging armchairs and worn wooden bench against the wall. Jasper’s mom winces as she sits down to take off her shoes. It isn’t until then that it occurs to me: she just got home from work. She is not just up from being asleep after a double shift like Jasper said. He lied to keep me away. And now he is gone.
“Can I look in his room?”
“Will it make you go away?” she asks. I nod. “Then go ahead, but be quick.”
She flaps a hand in the direction of Jasper’s room, though I already know where it is.
THE LIGHTS IN Jasper’s room are off, but the curtains are open. Twin bed, dark comforter, a desk and some bookshelves along one wall. As usual, it is freakishly neat, the bed made with military precision. Full of promise, but tinged with sadness—like everything about Jasper. I’m still surveying how tidy everything is when something on Jasper’s nightstand catches my eye. As I get closer, I can see that it’s a stack of clipped-together envelopes, each already torn open. I look over my shoulder before picking them up. Jasper’s mom said I could come in his room to check for him. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t an invitation to rummage through his things.
There’s no return address on the envelopes, only Jasper’s name and address printed on the label. When I pull out the note inside the top envelope, I recognize Cassie’s curly script right away.
My eyes move to the top. There’s no “dear” anybody, only a date. And only days before the camp. And the lined paper is ragged at the side as though it’s been torn from something. Some sick asshole has been sending Jasper excerpts from Cassie’s diary? There’s so many of them, too. Jasper has been getting bits and pieces of Cassie’s journal ever since we got back from Maine, probably convincing himself more and more that he was the reason she got mixed up with Quentin in the first place. No wonder he’s been getting worse.
Then I see one more envelope, this one on the floor. Dropped there or maybe it slid from the stack. I pick it up. Postmarked yesterday. I slide the page out.
I swallow hard. Poor Jasper. The thing he was most afraid of—that he drove Cassie to Quentin and drinking and all of it—written right there, in Cassie’s own words.
I COME BACK out into the foyer, holding the stack of envelopes.
“I didn’t say you could take anything.” Jasper’s mom glances at me.
“Do you have any idea where Jasper might have gone?” I press on. “I think he might be really upset.”
“I have no goddamn idea where he is!” She shouts, so loud I flinch. But then she hangs her head and bites down on her lip hard—guilt and sadness. That’s all. The anger is just easier. I wonder what I would think if I couldn’t read her so well, if I were Jasper. “I don’t know why you’re here or what you want with my son. But Jasper is not in any condition to be anyone’s boyfriend.”
“I’m a friend, that’s all,” I say. “A friend who’s worried about him.” Though for the first time, that feels like a lot less than the truth.
“Maybe he went for a walk,” she says, motioning toward the door. Her voice is quiet now, unsteady. “He does that these days. A lot. He likes to go to the Bernham Bridge to watch for canoes. We used to do that when he was little.”
Bridge. Bridge. Bridge. It’s the most awful alarm ringing in my brain. A bridge you can jump from? I do not want it to stick in my head the way it does, but it already has. My heart is racing as I clutch Cassie’s letters tight in my hand and head for the door.
“I’ll go look for him,” I say. “But I also think you should call the police.”
“The police?” Worried still, yes, but also suspicious. “The last thing Jasper needs is trouble with the police. We’ve had enough of that with his brother.”
“I know, but—all I can say is that I have a really bad feeling. Like he could be in danger. We were talking on the phone last night and—”
“Danger? What