Back to the Plains

Part 5: The Truth

"When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever

remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

-Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

The ride is longer than Ali expected. It is early afternoon when Josiah calls out that they are around an hour from their destination. Of course, he insisted upon coming along, much to Ali's dismay. She tried to make the trip be Alo and hers to travel, but Josiah saw them leaving. Alo, as well, stayed behind when Hawk saw him preparing the horses. For a while, Hawk led the trio party and Josiah rode alongside her, but Ali remained quiet despite his questions in trying to start a conversation. He eventually switched with Hawk after a quick lunch break. Ali cannot seem to talk to Josiah, for all she sees when she looks at him is the dead man in the riverbank. Hawk is another matter entirely. She finds that she wants to talk to him, but she does not know his language and he does not know hers. Ali can't help but feel that he wants to talk to her as well, but remains quiet. The silence forces Ali's mind to wonder. Staring up into the blue clear sky, she can't help but think to herself and fall back on memories once more.

Ali hated everything about the house after the call came, and though it had only been to inform that Oliver was Missing In Action, it sent chills through the house and the people that lived in it. She hated sitting in her room, hearing the sobs of her mother downstairs, and her father trying to consul his wife. Samuel, Nora, Holly had moved out by that time, each living their lives. Ali resented them, for they were not there when that call came, and they did not come home to wait for news, nor were they there when the two officers knocked on their front door. She had heard the doorbell, and in her foolish hope, she had thought it was Oliver himself. She rushed out of her room and was halfway down the stairs as her father opened the door. It was as if time slowed down in Ali's life. She couldn't hear anything, and she barely registered how her parents reacted. Ali sank to the steps of the stairs, clinging to the railing like it was her only life support. She knew this day would come, long before the call came. She knew it was only a matter of time.

Ali loathed the sounds that ensued for the following days in the house. She felt alone, much more than she had at any other point in her life. She tried to comfort her parents, but they shut out the world. Ali found herself making excuses to leave the house, not wanting to return home, but eventually she would crawl back into bed each night, feeling hollower with each passing day. Holly had fallen into drugs and alcohol by the third day. Nora was with a different man every night after she came back home, to which Ali believed it was Nora's escape from the same feeling she felt, just as Holly found solace in needles and at the bottom of a bottle. Samuel had his rage, for she believed that he felt he failed in protecting his brother and often saw him taking it out on the punching bag in the shop behind the house. Their parents had each other, and her siblings each found an escape, but Ali couldn't find hers.

Until one day, after school, Ali found that she was sitting in a middle pew at the church down the street from her school. She hadn't remembered deciding to go there, but she remembered the feeling of unworthiness as she pulled open the doors. Who was she to ask for help? Her family wasn't entirely religious, though they believed in a way. The only time they attended church was the special services. She always felt that she had to believe, because that is just what people were supposed to do, but as she stared up at the large cross at the front of the sanctuary, for the first time in a long time, Ali didn't feel so alone. She hadn't noticed the pastor sitting in the pew behind her but eventually became aware that someone was in fact with her. Ali was hesitant to talk to him at first, but found when she started she couldn't stop. She thought he would reprimand her for having not truly believed in God, but he didn't.