The Journey Prize Stories 24 by Various Read Free Book Online

somewhat.
    Paul gave their surname and the man said it was all right. He opened the gates and waved them through. Paul nodded and drove on.
    “Doesn’t take much to get in or out of here,” Matthew said.
    “That’s ’cause people don’t care about this part of the place. It’s that one there they’re worried about.”
    Paul cocked his thumb toward the passenger side of the car and Matthew looked out of his window. A fork in the road ran toward another set of gates, solid metal doors sealed fast between barricades that stood twenty feet tall with razor wire fixed between spikes at the top. The building that they had seen from the road sat far away behind the barrier. The car followed the gentle curve of the road until they were driving away from the structure. Now they saw another one ahead. It was older and made of limestone and red brick, with dozens of its windows shut except for a few on the lower level beside the main entryway. There were no gates and no guards. They pulled right up to the front steps and Paul put the car in park, but he left it running.
    “Can you park here?” Matthew said.
    Paul just sat there for a moment and then he took a deep breath before opening his door.
    “Hey,” Matthew said.
    Paul turned. “You stay here in the car. If somebody tells you to move then move it.”
    “I’m coming in there with you. We’re gonna get him together.”
    “It’s not like that in there. It won’t make it any better. I been in before so I’ll go get him. The sooner we get him outta there and on the road the easier it’ll be.”
    “What the fuck are you talkin’ about?” Matthew said. “I want to go in there and get him with you.”
    “Why the hell would you want to do that?”
    “What?”
    “Listen to me. Stay here. I’ve seen him in there before. You haven’t. He’ll remember it that way. Just you being here with him in the car, not in there. It won’t make it any better for you to go in.”
    “What the fuck you mean, ‘any better?’ ”
    “It won’t make it any better for him.”
    Paul got out of the car and stood there with the door open. He stared up at the building and then looked west toward the seemingly endless waters. He swore then and shut the door and leaned down so he could see in through the open window on the driver’s side. Matthew kept looking at him, but he didn’t say anything else. Paul nodded. He slapped the edge of the window with his palm and then stood up and walked around the car and started to walk up the stone entryway steps.
    “Tell him I’m waiting out in the car,” Matthew called out.
    “Okay,” Paul said, but he didn’t look back.
    When he came back down the steps a few minutes later Matthew was sitting in the backseat. Paul was carrying a small suitcase with their father right behind him at his shoulder. He had gone nearly all gray, though his hair still grew thick and his dark eyes were the same as Paul’s, as were his small ears and slender nose and the shape of his chin as well as the narrow shoulders, the wiry arms and legs. If he weren’t so much shorter than Paul the future would have seemed utterly foretold. Matthew got out of the car and looked at Paul as he went by to put the suitcase in the trunk.
    “Hey Dad.”
    “Hello son.”
    Matthew smiled crookedly and went over to put his arms around him, the man’s chin pushing against his shoulder. His father seemed not to know what to do at first, but soon enough those aged, familiar arms rose and held fast and then he was patting his son’s back with his worn-out hands.
    They drove with the sun sinking into the jack-pine forest to the west. Paul was still behind the wheel. Matthew sat in the back seat and he could see his father’s eyes in the passenger-side mirror and he had never seen their reflection in that mirror before. The three of them had never been in a car at once without their father as the driver. The old man stared out of his window at the fading day and must have seen