Page 22 of Last Light

“Yeah. If you’re feelin’ okay.” Travis is leaning over me. I can see him in the light of the campfire. He’s still not wearing a shirt.

“I feel fine.” I clumsily crawl out of the sleeping bag and plant myself on the rock where he’s been sitting. There’s a half-drunk bottle of water on the ground that he must have been sipping, so I reach down to take a few swallows of it, trying to wake up completely.

He walks off into the dark. To pee, I guess. Then he returns and lowers himself onto the sleeping bag, placing his shotgun and knife within reaching distance before he unzips the bag and lays the top fold loosely across himself.

I assume he doesn’t want to be zipped in so that he can jump quickly to his feet if necessary.

“Poke at the fire every now and then so it don’t go out.” He puts his head on the same towel I was using for a pillow. “I never sleep deep, so I’ll wake up right away if there’s trouble.”

“Okay. I’ll be fine. Get some sleep.”

We don’t say anything else. Travis closes his eyes. His breathing evens out in less than a minute, and I’m pretty sure he’s already asleep.

The night is long, with nothing but Travis’s steady breathing and my own thoughts to keep me company.

I find myself watching him as he sleeps.

He’s got a scar on his neck—about an inch long, slashing down from his left ear. His hair dried with a few kinks and a cowlick at the front of his part.

One of his arms is resting on top of the sleeping bag, and the hair on his forearm glows in the light of the fire.

He doesn’t snore, but he breathes loudly. It’s oddly reassuring.

My grandparents bought me a four-year-old car for my sixteenth birthday. It had a bad transmission, so I had to bring it in to Travis’s garage semiregularly for repairs as well as for normal maintenance.

As I sit in the silence of the night, I try to remember every detail I can about my interactions with Travis back then.

I never thought much about him at all. I knew he was married. I never saw him as good-looking or interesting. I didn’t like the smell of smoke that always wafted around him.

He was just a man who fixed my car, no more noteworthy to me than the butcher in the local grocery store or the guys who picked up our trash.

The small office next to his garage was always messy, the desk covered with paperwork that looked years old. He always had a thermos of coffee. And a Virginia Tech ball cap propped on a shelf. I remember a framed photo of an infant next to it.

His daughter, Grace, I assume.

One time I went to pick up my car, he was on the phone. He made an apologetic gesture at me as he finished the conversation.

I’m not sure why I remember what he said to the caller. It wasn’t all that interesting to me back then. But I recall most of his words as I sit on a rock in the middle of the woods with him sleeping at my feet.

I gotta go, Cheryl. ... Yeah. ... Yeah. I know. ... We can talk about it tonight. ... I said I was sorry. ... I know that, but you’re the one who ain’t happy. ... I can’t do anythin’ about that.

He turned his back to me as he finished his conversation, walking to the far corner of the office. I was still able to hear him, however.

That’s not true. ... I never did anythin’ like— ... Cheryl, stop. I can’t go into all this here. I got a customer.

He hung up after that. I passed him the check my grandpa had given me to pay him, and then I drove away in my car. I never thought a thing about the conversation again.

Never in my wildest dreams did I believe I’d be sitting so close to that same man. That I’d listen to him sleep. That I’d wonder about his underwear.

That he’d be all I had left in the world.

I realize now that he was probably fighting with his wife on that phone call. Her name was Cheryl. He mentioned it yesterday. I still don’t know anything about her, but he obviously still loves her.

His fear for her safety is the only real emotion I’ve seen in him—other than over the loss of his daughter.

I sit on the rock without moving for a couple of hours, finishing the bottle of water that Travis started. Eventually I have to get up to pee.

When I come back, Travis is still sleeping, but he’s tossing slightly like he has unconsciously sensed something’s different.

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