Karmic Weather

          “It was me,” he said, shifting from foot to foot in attempt to look guilty. Karen sent him a glare fit for one who had caused several deaths, which made sense, since that was exactly what he’d claimed to have done.

           He had hoped that it wouldn’t come to this—that Karen would never know that the twister had resulted from the sins of someone under her own roof. He’d thought that likely; after all, he and Tristin weren’t the only people in town with “the gift.” But Karen had just happened to pass the shrine mere hours before the tornado, while Blake’s jeep, which, having no car of his own, Tristin had borrowed, sat before it. Thus, she knew that either Tristin or Blake had made the request that had, thanks to recent bad behavior that they’d failed to recognize, resulted in the tornado that had killed twelve, injured twenty, and torn their town to shreds. Good begot good; bad begot bad. Karma with a sledgehammer.

           The heat from her eyes overwhelming him, Blake glanced at Tristin. The teen shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, seemingly trying to commit the carpet’s grain to memory. Though he didn’t look it, he must have felt relieved to escape laying his sins bare for Karen as he’d had to do for Blake. He probably even felt glad, now, that he’d carelessly left the pack of candles, sans one, in Blake’s glove compartment. For Karen would not have analyzed the situation as Blake had. She would have, in her anger and horror, forgotten that she, too, wanted to end the drought that had wrung the life out of their farm. She would not have reminded herself of how it had felt to watch the soil grow as dry as sand; the crops browning, withering, and dropping like Jenga towers; their savings dwindling. She would not have thought about how they’d had to sell Moo Barrymore, Bovine Bridges, and Richard Steer. She would not have recalled the pain bleeding through the chipper inflection of the answers of, “Good, good,” their neighbors gave when asked how they were doing. She had not committed the same mistake a decade ago; Blake had (albeit unbeknownst to her). In fact, that was the reason that he himself had not made an attempt like Tristin’s, or any attempts at all, in that vein since then. Karen would have lambasted Tristin if she knew the truth.

           And she may do even worse to Blake.

That did not, however, give him the right to feel sorry for himself, he knew. He should have told Tristin—should have warned him that, if he intended to use the ability, he had better make sure that he had behaved immaculately in recent months. He should have described to him the sleepless nights, gut-clenching, tears, and shame that plagued him even now, and would plague him for the rest of his days. He should have conveyed the weight that the life he had, inadvertently, ended heaped upon his shoulders. The confession may, as he’d feared, have made Tristin hate him. But it may also have saved twelve innocent lives. Their blood stained his hands, not Tristin’s.

He did, however, wonder what had made Tristin’s pleas backfire in the first place. He couldn’t help thinking that it probably had something to do with Hayleigh: The young woman whom Tristin had dragged into their lives a year ago and, because Karen had insisted that they “be supportive” of Tristin, into their home three months ago.  Who left her soaked towels on the bathroom floor no matter how many times he asked her to put them in the laundry basket. Who regularly interrupted him, Tristin, and Karen. Who claimed to like football but, when they watched a game, spent the whole time complaining that the players spent too much time adjusting clothing she deemed “too small for these fat lards.” Who responded to Karen’s cooking with the likes of, “You barely notice it’s dry when you give it the right amount of catsup,” and, “You know, when my mom makes this, she adds some cinnamon to give it a little more flavor…” Karen declared such deeds “Mickey-Mouse stuff”; Tristin denied their wrongness altogether. But Blake saw the hideousness lurking behind the girl’s designer duds and French manicures, and he had no trouble imagining her coaxing her “boy toy” into sins despicable enough to make this happen. If anyone, she deserved to endure this scrutiny with him.

           Karen speared him with a glare as sharp as an ice pick. “I can’t believe you’d be so stupid.”

           “I thought I did enough good to—“

           “You shouldn’t’ve thought,” she said, the bite in her voice piercing his bones. “You should’ve known before you went and did that. And now people are dead because of it.” She maintained her death-stare for another few moments and then sighed. “I’m gonna have to think about this.”

           His stomach twisted. “Come on, Kare…“

           “Don’t ‘Come on,’ me. You screwed up, big-time, and you have to live with the consequences.”

           Tristin spoke up at last. “Mom, don’t you think you’re being a little harsh?”

           “Don’t butt into this, Tristin. This is between me and your dad.”

           “But—“

           “We’re done here.” She spun on a heel and marched off. Seconds later, their bedroom door slammed.

           Blake froze, tempted to rush after her, knowing that it would prove useless.

           “I’m sorry,” Tristin said, still not looking him in the eye. “I’m sure she’ll get over it.”

           He nodded, seeing no use in arguing, but disagreed. Tristin knew her only as “Mom,” whereas Blake saw, as well, the woman who refused to use the self checkout at the grocery store because it “took jobs from hardworking people”; who argued with her friends when they bought products from big-polluter companies; who hadn’t thought twice about standing up to her boss when she felt he’d mistreated a coworker. It seemed unlikely, if not impossible, that such a woman would stay with someone who’d done what he’d said he’d done. Save for a miracle, his life would end up as thoroughly destroyed as their town.

He couldn’t sit here thinking about it. “Stay with her,” he commanded, heading for the door.

           “Where’re you going?”

           “Don’t worry about it.”

           He left the house, made a beeline for his jeep, climbed in, and started it. He drove, navigating around piles of debris and deep fissures in the roads. It seemed that every other home had crumpled, reduced to puzzle pieces with no hope of fitting together again. Residents with slushy pallors and lost glazes in their eyes wandered about, trying to salvage the unsalvageable. Vehicles crumpled like paper, the dust of their blown windshields sprinkled upon their hoods, sat in their driveways and at their yards’ curbs. The lonely yip of a dog echoed in the heavy air. Heart wrenching, he tried to block it all out. He failed.

           Giving up at last, he returned home. He found Hayleigh’s red Acura in the driveway; she had returned from her friend’s house. Great.

           He entered the house, dropped his keys in the tray in the foyer, and headed for the kitchen. However, when the hushed tones of its inhabitants, Tristin and Hayleigh, reached his ears, he halted. Clearly, they did not want anyone to hear their conversation—a potential eavesdropper’s aphrodisiac. As if maneuvering across a tightrope, he tiptoed to and pressed himself against the wall beside the doorway.

           “You should’ve seen her face, Hay,” Tristin said. “She looked like she wanted to kill him.”

           “Not my fault,” Hayleigh declared.

           “It kinda is. If you hadn’t’ve gone and—“

           “I was just trying to help.”

           “Yeah, well, you certainly did ‘help.’ Helped twelve people into the grave.”

           “What’d you want me to do? You and your dad were too chicken to try it yourselves. Somebody had to give this town a chance.”

            Blake felt as if a tree had fallen on him. He deserved it. He had subjected himself to censure. Freezing out. A slammed door. A possible divorce. And for what?

           For Hayleigh.

           As always, the sun shone for Hayleigh Perri.