On the Jellicoe Road

I still don’t say anything.

“At the end he saves Becky.” Santangelo tries to help. “Remember? Everyone considered him the coward of the county but he actually wasn’t one.”

“It’s frightening that you’ve put so much analysis into it,” Griggs says.

“It’s not me,” Santangelo says. “You know what fathers with bad taste in music are like.”

Except Griggs doesn’t, and I can tell Santangelo feels like shit for saying it.

“My mum’s boyfriend listens to Cold Chisel,” Griggs says, trying to make Santangelo feel better. “He’s taught my brother all the words to ‘Khe San.’ They sing it all the time.”

Santangelo doesn’t say anything and I can tell he’s angry with himself.

For a while there is silence. Outside, the first cicadas of the season are humming and it’s like there’s no one else in the world but the four of us. It’s Griggs who breaks the silence.

“I loved him, you know,” he says quietly. The admission doesn’t surprise me as much as the fact that he’s speaking about it. “That would probably shock people. But I did. I look exactly like him. Same build, same face. I know every part of my personality that I got from my father. He was a prick, except even pricks don’t deserve to be smashed over the head with a cricket bat.”

“That’s debatable,” Raffy says.

“Do you want to know the worst part?” he asks. I can tell this is so hard for him because he won’t look at us. “Sometimes I forget just how bad he was, so all I can remember is that he’s dead because of me. It’s u

“Other times I’ll wake her in the middle of the night and say, ‘He told me that no one loved us as much as he did.’ And she’ll say, ‘And then he walked around the house holding a gun, threatening to kill us all, because he wanted us to be together forever.’”

Griggs looks up at us. “What happens when she’s not my memory anymore? What happens when she’s not around to tell me about his belt leaving scars across my two-year-old brother’s face or when he whacked her so hard that she lost her hearing for a week? Who’ll be my memory?”

Santangelo doesn’t miss a beat. “I will. Ring me.”

“Same,” Raffy says.

I look at him. I can’t even speak because if I do I know I’ll cry but I smile and he knows what I’m thinking.

“So, getting back to the karaoke thing,” says Griggs, not wanting to deal with too much emotion. “I’d have to go with…” He thinks for a moment. “Guns n’ Roses, ‘Paradise City.’”

“Oh, please,” I say. “I’d rather be the coward of the county.”

“Guns n’ Roses have such skanky hos in their film clips,” Raffy says.

“And the problem being?” Santangelo asks.

It’s after midnight when Griggs takes something out of his pocket and puts it in front of me.

“You dropped them in the Brigadier’s tent.”

I stare at the photos in front of me. I’m not ready for more photos. Not after we’ve been talking about Jonah’s father and unprofound lyrics and skanky hos.

“You can take them home with you,” he says, “and look at them there.”

I still don’t say anything. I want to but I can’t. I want to explain everything that’s going on in my head but I can’t find the words.

“Who are they of?” Raffy asks quietly.

“Just a bunch of kids our age,” Jonah says.

I reach over with a shaking hand and put the pictures face up on the ground between us. So I can introduce them to the original five.

They are everything I imagined and more.

“Ha

“Is that Fitz?” Raffy asks, pointing to the tallest of them.

I nod, swallowing hard. “Who came by on the stolen bike and saved their lives.” My voice cracks, just a bit.

I look at Fitz for a long time. He is as wild as I knew he would be but so cheeky-looking. I almost expect him to leap out of the photograph and tap me on the face.

“I feel like I know him and I don’t know why,” Raffy says.

“He was a Townie,” I say.

Santangelo looks at the photo and then at me, slightly puzzled. “Is he…”

I nod.

“Who?” Raffy asks.

Santangelo holds the photo in his hand and I see a blurry tear that he, embarrassed, quickly dashes away.

“The Hermit,” I say, and I hear a sound come from Raffy but before I react, I see something else. Standing next to him in the picture, with an arm around his neck, is Webb. A smile from ear to ear, a look in his eyes so joyous that a second wave of grief comes over me. To be that boy, I think. To feel whatever he was feeling. It makes me feel sick and overwhelmed at the same time.

“Webb,” I say. “He began the territory wars,” I tell them. “But it was a joke. I mean, his best friends were Cadets and Townies and the only reason the boundaries came about was because they were bored and just wanted to hang out with each other.”

“Who’s that?” Griggs says, pointing.

It’s like my heart stops beating. All because of the person standing at the edge. Tate. Looking up at Webb with a mixture of love and exasperation, as if they are the only two in the world. She is so beautiful that it makes me ache and I can hardly breathe. The others look at me questioningly because there are tears in my eyes and I’m just shaking my head.

“She’s so beautiful,” I whisper.

I look up at them. “See how beautiful she was.”

“Was? Who is she?” Griggs asked, confused by my reaction.

I pick up the photo and study it closely. But her eyes refuse to meet mine because, for her, there was never anyone but Webb.

“Her name’s Tate,” I tell them. “She’s my mother.”

I lie in my bed, still clutching the photos. It’s one in the morning and I know what I have to do. All this time I thought the answers were here. But now I know that Tate took those answers with her and that somehow Ha

When I get to the end of the clearing that leads to the Jellicoe Road, a part of me is not surprised to see Griggs standing there. Even though it’s two in the morning and pitch black, I know it’s Griggs. We stand looking at each other, not able to see much in the darkness, but I can feel his presence.

I ask the inevitable. “What are you doing here?”

“What are you?”

“I asked first.”

“Does it matter who asked first?”

I begin to walk away. “Don’t follow me, Jonah.”

“I’ve got a car,” he calls out after me. “And you’ve got somewhere to go.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I have this amazing ability to read your mind, that’s why.”