Shiloh
The next morning, Taylor was jarred awake by the sound of a phone ringing. It sounded unfamiliar, and it took him a moment to realize why. As he struggled to wake and remember where the phone was in this room, the previous day came flooding back to him and his stomach turned at the recollection of what might have happened to his brother.
He pulled the phone from its stand on the dresser. “Hello?”
“Taylor, honey?” Diana said. “How are you this morning?”
“I’ve been better,” he replied honestly.
“Of course. I think we all have. Listen, the police called and said they’d like you to come by and answer a few questions, whenever you have the time today.”
Taylor cleared his throat. He’d been afraid of this. “Okay. I can do that, I think.”
“I know it won’t be easy, and you probably don’t have anything to tell them anyway. Just do what you can, okay?” Diana said, her voice full of sympathy, almost to the point of pity.
“I’ll try,” Taylor replied honestly, then said his goodbyes.
He took his sweet time showering and getting dressed, knowing that every single step brought him closer to the police station. He’d spent far too much time there the previous year, when the police just couldn’t accept suicide as an answer. They’d never explicitly said they suspected Taylor of any wrong-doing, but he could see it in their eyes every time he had occasion to speak to one of the detectives. Nothing about this latest trip to the police station excited him, but he knew he had to do it.
After several hours of procrastinating, Taylor finally found himself at the police station, steeling his nerves to walk through the door and face his fears. Trying to hide the fact that he was trembling, Taylor walked up to the front desk and cleared his throat to get the officer’s attention.
“Excuse me?” Taylor started. “I’m um, Taylor Hanson. I was told the police wanted to speak to me about… my brother.”
“Just a moment,” the officer replied, then picked up the phone on her desk and pressed a button. “He’s here, do you want me to send him in?”
Taylor shuffled his feet.
Replacing the phone, she motioned down a short hallway. “Just go on down there, there’s a little room where Detective Davies will meet with you.”
Taylor recognized the name. One of the same detectives who had spoken to him following Charlotte’s death. He was at least one of the nicer ones, but it didn’t help the nervous feeling in Taylor’s stomach as he shuffled down the hallway. He remembered the waiting room well. It wasn’t like being locked up and interrogated, but it wasn’t exactly friendly either. Just a small table, water cooler and a few metal chairs. Davies was already standing at the water cooler filling a cup when Taylor walked in.
“Mr. Hanson. Glad you could make it down here today,” Davies said, holding out the Styrofoam cup.
Taylor accepted the water and took a small sip, waiting for the detective to start.
“Have a seat,” he said, and pulled two of them over, side by side. “I don’t think this will take too long, we just want to make sure there’s nothing else you can tell us that your parents haven’t.”
“I really don’t think I can help very much,” Taylor said.
“That’s all right, any little bit will do. Now, when was the last time you saw or spoke to your brother Zachary?”
Taylor wanted to correct him. Zac, not Zachary. But he didn’t. “Umm, it’s been a few months. He called me at Christmas, but I haven’t seen him since I moved to Chicago.”
“And you came back because he was missing?”
“No, I hadn’t heard that yet,” Taylor replied. “I don’t really watch the news anymore, and I didn’t answer the phone when they called to tell me. I just had a feeling something was wrong.”
“Any particular reason?” the detective asked, one eyebrow raised.
“There was a letter from Zac. A couple weeks ago. I didn’t open it, though,” Taylor briefly considered not explaining the rest, but he knew he should. “We weren’t exactly on good terms when I left. I think he only called at Christmas because Mom told him to.”
Davies began scribbling down a few notes at this and Taylor instantly regretted telling him the truth. “Why weren’t you on good terms?”
“Things just got strained. Charlotte… he was really close to her best friend too, and it just made things weird between us all. I think Shiloh blamed me and Zac took her side.”
The detective nodded. “Do you still have the letter?”
Taylor remembered packing it in his laptop case. “Yeah. It’s at my house.”
“It may help us figure out whether he left on his own or if there was some foul play involved. Of course, if he left on his own, there truly isn’t much more we can.”
Taylor nodded. “I’ll bring it in as soon as I can.”
“That would be greatly appreciated,” detective Davies said, standing up and closing his notebook. “And if you remember anything else that you think might help us determine Zac’s state of mind or anything else…”
“I’ll be right in, I know,” Taylor said, then regretted cutting the detective off.
“Of course,” he replied, his tone softening a little. “We’re terribly sorry to put you and your family through this again.”
Taylor nodded, not sure what else to say. That seemed to be enough, as the detective gave him a curt handshake and left Taylor alone to collect himself. He finished the cup of water, and took his trembling footsteps back out of the building.
On the drive home, he contemplated the letter. He was partially angry with himself for telling the detective about it. If it contained something that incriminated him, though he didn’t see how it could, then he’d just damned himself again. On the other hand, if he had just read the damn thing, maybe it would have prevented Zac’s leaving in the first place. Maybe, somehow, that letter could have offered him a chance to atone for all the things he thought he’d done to drive Charlotte to the brink.
He had to read the letter. He absolutely had to. And whatever it said, he had damned himself to showing the police. He could only hope it helped.
He pulled into the driveway of his house, but could not find the energy or will to walk in the door. He sat and stared at the garage door, not even opening it to pull his car in. After several minutes, he collapsed against the steering wheel, banging his head against it repeatedly.
A knock at the car’s window made him jump and he looked up to see a familiar face staring down at him. He rolled the window down in disbelief.
“Shiloh?”
She nodded, as he knew she would. Of course it was her, but Taylor had no idea why Charlotte’s best friend was standing in his driveway.
“I didn’t know you were back.”
Taylor nodded, finding himself unable to say anything. He wondered if he should tell her about Zac. Judging by the tearstains and smudged makeup, and the fact that she looked like she might have been wearing the same oversized sweatshirt for a few days, he figured she already knew.
“So, I guess we’re neighbors now,” she said tersely, nodding toward the apartment building next door. Taylor realized it must have been her car he saw parked there earlier. “I thought you had sold this place.”
“No, I couldn’t,” he replied, finally opening his car door and stepping out. “I just couldn’t. Too many memories to live here, but too many to let it go…”
He trailed off as he looked down at Shiloh’s body. She looked different somehow, though he wasn’t quite sure what it was that had changed. She looked defeated and deflated, yet the sweatshirt seemed distinctly tighter across her chest and stomach. Taylor realized he was staring.
“Stop gaping, Taylor. Go on and ask, even though you already know the answer.”
“Are you…”
“Pregnant? Of course I am. Did you think I just got fat while you were gone?” Shiloh snapped.
“No, I just wasn’t…” Taylor didn’t know how to finish that statement. ‘”Who’s the father? Zac?”
“No.”
There was a definitiveness to her statement. It was a denial, but it was an answer too. Taylor knew what it meant, although he wanted to deny it. Shaking his head, he backed away from her and toward the door to his house.
“You can’t ignore me forever!” Shiloh called out. “You’ll have to get used to seeing me, you know. I live next door. Can you live with that, Taylor? Or will you just run off to Chicago again and pretend this didn’t happen?”
Taylor spun around. “Shut up. Just shut up.”
“So you are going to deny it?”
“No,” Taylor shook his head. “But I’m damn sure not going to yell about it on the lawn while my brother’s missing and I’ll probably be the first suspect, if history feels like repeating itself. So if you’re determined to talk about this, come inside.”
Taylor turned his back to Shiloh and walked into the house, not even looking to see if Shiloh had followed him. He headed straight for the kitchen and poured himself a drink from the bottle he’d left out the night before. It was still early in the day, but it seemed the perfect time to start drinking. He grabbed a sandwich from one of the trays in the refrigerator, just so he’d feel a little more responsible about his drinking habits and perhaps not be violently ill from drinking on an empty stomach. When he turned back around, Shiloh had pulled up a seat at the kitchen table.
Taylor sat down next to her and for a while, they only stared at each other. He had always thought Shiloh was odd; her nickname “Shy” had always struck him as highly funny, given how little it suited her. She was just so loud and brash compared to Charlotte, and he never really understood their friendship, or the friendship-slash-relationship she’d had with Zac. He couldn’t deny that she had a certain charm, though, and she was certainly pretty. Yet he could not for the life of him remember what she was claiming they had done. Still, he’d spent so much of the first months after Charlotte’s death in a fog; it was possible, he supposed, that he just had no memory of it.
“Did you invite me in just to stare or what?”
Taylor sighed. “Do you want a sandwich or anything? I don’t have much, just some stuff Mom gave me when I went over to hear the news about…”
“About Zac,” she finished for him.
“Yeah,” Taylor said with a small nod. “Do you have any idea… had you talked to him?”
“No. We haven’t talked for months… I mean, he could do the math, you know? I tried to lie to him, but he figured out soon enough that he wasn’t the one to blame.”
“Blame?” Taylor repeated, not quite sure he followed.
“For this!” she said, pointing to her stomach. “You think I wanted this? I mean, I was willing to try to have a normal life with Zac, but he wasn’t exactly having it. Can’t say that I blame him for that. I didn’t tell him it was yours though, so don’t worry about that.”
“Did you tell the cops? I think they might find that slightly relevant, given the situation. And for that matter, why the hell didn’t you tell me?” Taylor asked.
“You ran off!” Shiloh screeched, jumping out of her chair and leaning over the table. “You ran off and I figured you wanted nothing to do with me, and definitely not this kid. For once in my life, I decided to keep my mouth shut about something. Figured I had a better shot at a normal life if I kept it a secret.”
“But when did we…? Shiloh, I’m sorry, but I don’t remember,” Taylor admitted.
Her shoulders slumped. “And that’s another reason why I didn’t tell you. You were drunk. I was drunk. It took me a long time to convince myself I hadn’t imagined it and I didn’t know if you would even believe me.”
“When?”
“Seven months ago. Just a few days before you left. I guess you had already planned it all out even before…” she trailed off. “Can I use your bathroom? I’m not feeling very well.”
Taylor nodded. “Third door on the right.”
As he watched her walk out of the room, he contemplated what she’d said. It made a kind of logic, Taylor had to admit. If he was drunk, then maybe he had erased the memory of it entirely. He had to find Zac’s letter now, and read it. What if Zac had figured it all out? What if Zac was mad at him? His worries about the letter somehow implicating him seemed to be coming true.
Shiloh was gone for several minutes, and Taylor finally decided to go check on her. He rapped gently on the bathroom door and called out her name.
“Shiloh? Are you all right?”
“I’m okay,” she said softly. “Just a minute.”
Taylor stepped back from the door to wait. “Okay. Just checking.”
A few seconds later, the door slid open and Shiloh stepped out, looking very pale. She kept her eyes down as she stood against the opposite wall, silently imploring Taylor to speak.
“I’m really sorry I ran off, Shy,” Taylor said. “I had no idea. If I had… well, I’m back here now. I knew there was a reason for me to come back. I’ve gotta make this right, with you and with Zac.”
“But what if he’s dead, Tay? What if he killed himself because of me… or because of us…”
Taylor flung himself forward and pulled her into a tight hug. “He can’t be. I won’t believe it. We’ve had too much taken from us. It’s not gonna happen again.”
Even as he spoke the words, he didn’t truly believe them. The confidence in his voice was entirely fake, but he had to force himself to say it so that maybe he could begin to believe.