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I chew my pen for a second, lost in thought, and glance up to survey the gymnasium. Brandon and one of his buddies look a little gray, but they’re with it enough to tease each other about the “little prick” the nurse had warned them was “coming.” The jokes only devolve from there; I roll my eyes, happy to return to lines of newsprint rather than rows of cots.
The June 16 issue of the Henley Hometown Headlines looks like David Swinton was managing a migraine, massive blood loss, and an oxygen bubble to the brain all at the same time. The margins are uneven, the print is crooked, and the photos were pulled out of the developing mix too early. But, given that a one-man operation was covering Henley’s only recorded murder right after the destruction of most of the town, followed by a flash flood and the tragic death of every resident of the county pound, I’m sure that David was just doing the best he could under the circumstances.
All Accounted For in Tornado Aftermath
June 16, 1994
By David Swinton
Although it’s been a rough few days for Henley by all accounts, we’re happy to report that the remaining two townspeople are no longer missing. Johnny Aldridge, 7, was located with his estranged father, who had neglected to let the mother know he’d picked him up for a surprise fishing trip before the tornado struck. Margie Hemming, 82, a long-time sufferer of dementia, was found by a local couple in the state park.
“She doesn’t know what happened,” her daughter, Betsy, says. “We were driving her home from the hospital, and she just kept asking me where we were. I tried to tell her this was Henley, but she said, ‘No, no, it’s not.’”
Admittedly, all our brains are addled these days. With the discovery of the body of a local man, Randall Boggs, in his home late yesterday evening, rumors are whirling and tensions are high—much like the waters of the creeks, rivers, and streams, which have leaped their boundaries in the onslaught of—
Someone is at the table, and I raise my head, aware that something in the article isn’t quite right. And I don’t just mean syntax.
“How’s it going?” MacKenzie asks. “Mind if I join you?”
I make a noncommittal noise in my throat as she plops down next to me and scan the article again. Margie and Betsy Hemming . . . maybe that’s what had caught my eye. I shuffle through the papers in my backpack, pulling out all the issues of the Henley Headlines that I’d printed, highlighting some of the finer points. But the name Hemming isn’t there, and I have to flip the spreadsheet of blood donors back over to the top when Nathans approaches.
“You can probably ask Mrs. St. John to call a few more,” she tells me, taking a look at the half-empty cots behind her. “But maybe only five or six. The Childress boy is going to need a minute to recover.”
“That little prick was too much for him,” his buddy says as he slides past the table.
I leave MacKenzie at the table and ask St. John to send the next wave, then return to my seat, still pensive. I can feel my thoughts cycling. Something about that June 16 article has my attention, but I don’t know what it is yet. I’ve been here before, waiting for a tiny detail or an errant thought to come full circle and present itself to me clearly. This usually happens around three in the morning, or, in the very memorable moment of my first kiss, when Brett Johnson had leaned in and I’d suddenly blurted, “decollate!”
He’d pulled back immediately and asked if something was wrong, to which I said, “No, I was writing an essay about the guillotine as a method of execution earlier and I was using the word decapitate so much that I was trying to find a different way to say the same thing. I knew there was a synonym, but I couldn’t come up with it. And then you called, and my mind kept looking for the answer, and it just popped up. Anyway . . .”
I’d then pursed my lips and closed my eyes, only to open them a second later to see Brett putting on his shoes and making awkward observations about how late it was getting.
Having a brain like a terrier—it’ll dig until it dies rather than give up the quarry—can really be a damper on my social life. But it also means that I can relax until it retrieves the answer and brings it back to the forefront of my mind. I just have to summon the patience to wait that long.
“Hemming, Hemming, Hemming,” I mutter to myself, an echo of Mom repeating Bailey Foxglove’s name last night.
“We’re not even on the G’s yet,” MacKenzie says skeptically as she consults the donor sheet.
“That’s not—” I begin, but my phone goes off with another text from Bristal, responding to what I’d sent earlier.
I can’t come down and score a donut. I got OSS for hijacking the intercom.
That’s right, I forgot Bristal won’t be gracing us with her presence for three days because of that little stunt. But that doesn’t mean she can’t make herself useful.
Something is bothering me, I text back.
Don’t worry. I think you’re still technically a virgin if it was just a blow job.
I take a picture of the front page of the June 16 issue and text it to Bristal.
This pinged something in my brain, but I can’t figure out what. Maybe you’ll have better luck.
I send MacKenzie to call for the next group of donors, and she’s not even back from the office yet when I get a response from Bristal.
Hemming. Betsy Hemming. She was the one on the newsreel right before Dover, said she hoped her demented mother would be able to find her way home. Looks like old Margie managed it.
“Right,” I say, chewing my lip. It’s a good observation and explains why my mind had locked on to the last name, but wheels are still spinning, and I know that’s not the full explanation.
“Lydia!” Nathans shouts my name just as a freshman over at the doughnut table does a face-plant into the muffin tower. I rush over, MacKenzie at my heels, and we roll her onto her back, picking pieces of blueberry crumble out of her hair.
