2019-07-02 - Mum Calling
On her first good ride of the year, Sutton's phone rings just as she's idling her brother's vintage Triumph on the outskirts of Gray Harbor. She fields a call from her Mum, and asks about this Addington business that's been bugging her.
IC Date: 2019-07-02
OOC Date: 2019-05-06
Location: Gray Harbor/Outskirts of Gray Harbor
Related Scenes: 2019-07-02 - Living is a Luxury
Plot: None
Scene Number: 520
Outskirts of Gray Harbor
Forest nestles up against the edges of Gray Harbor, hugging close to the two-lane road headed out of town, a narrow, gravel-strewn shoulder all that separates blacktop from needle-strewn underbrush. Along this lonely stretch, thick stands of western hemlock are interspersed with an occasional cluster of Sitka spruce, confers presenting a united front along the boundaries of the town.
Though there are a few residences this far out, it’s mostly untouched by the industry of the settlers, and here is where some of the oldest trees in the region can be found, left like a bulwark to stand against everything outside of Gray Harbor. A few small walking paths, partially reclaimed by the forest, lead out from here, spaced quite far apart. The most well-traversed is the old access to the town’s original cemetery, a lonely stretch of plots, covering at least eight acres, seeded with turn of the century loggers, their families, and others. Few follow the long, wending walking path to visit those grounds, but the trailhead can be spotted just past the town’s historic, hand-hewn WELCOME sign.
With the retreat of the sun behind the horizon, evening shadows lay thicker here, clustered up against the base of the trees and up under the heaviest branches, deepening all colors. The forest seems to crowd the edges of Gray Harbor, the way opened for dark-dwelling things to come out. There’s an occasional skitter of something behind the trees in this gloaming.
This summer evening is warm rather than hot. A few stray clouds dance across an otherwise clear sky, chased by light breezes.
Sometime around seven, after a long, long first shift back on the ambulance service, Sutton is zipped up into a leather jacket, riding leathers over her cargo pants, blowing past the speed limit down the road leading back into Gray Harbor, after a twenty minute ride outside the city limits.
She's just returning to town when she slows, engine downshifting as she comes to a stop near the Welcome to Gray Harbor sign. The Triumph's purr is a little junky to her ears, but it's been sitting most of the spring, due to all the rain. And some unfortunately timed abuses of alcohol leading her to skipping the couple of really nice days previous to this one.
While she's sitting there thinking about what might be hiding in the trees at night, the phone in her thigh pocket begins to vibrate and ring. She pulls off her helmet and dangles it from the handlebar. She'd normally ignore it, but the pattern is a family tone, and so she reaches to shut off the engine and slip the phone out of her pocket.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah?" The amused voice on the other end of the line repeats. "Is that how you say hello to your loving mother?" The accent is decidedly English.
"Yeah." Sutton smirks.
She glances up, attention shifting to the tree line even as she speaks. She had to Google wolf attacks in Washington after that time her Lyft ran off the road after the bar one night. Sitting here in the open, in the dark, surrounded by so much forest makes the back of her neck tingle, and not in a fun way. She's a seasoned camper, and this never used to happen anywhere else. "What's up, Mum?"
"You sound distracted, love. Is this a bad time? I know you were going back on shift today, and, well..."
Sutton waits her out, not usually one to fall for the silence trick, one of the favorites in the Sutton parental handbook.
"We were worried about you. After last month, and that call, well, sweetheart, you were very inebriated. Dad and I want to be sure you feeling better."
"Yes, mum. I drank my feelings into submission for three and a half weeks and today went well. We didn't lose a patient. None of my body parts gave out. Nothing malfunctioned. No red lights were blown." Mostly because no one let her drive the rig. "And, you'll be pleased to know, I chatted with a coworker and neither of us yelled once."
Sutton turns to look across to the line of trees on the opposite side of the road, and nearly falls off the Triumph when the flash of a pair of yellow eyes shine back at her.
She must have made a sound, because her mother replies, "What is it, Sutton?" See? Everyone, including her mother, calls her Sutton.
The eyes resolve themselves into fireflies in the next blink, six seconds later flashing about a foot apart, uneven in their height this time. She blows out a slow breath. "Nothing, mum. Just thought I saw a really big spider." She doesn't miss a beat.
"You were about to say something about my dismissive humor and then ask me if my coworker is potential baby-raising material. The answer is no, she's far too cheerful for me, and she's taken. There will be no grandbabies this year. Please do not ask until I'm at least 35."
"That wasn't at all what I was going to say, cheeky." There's a brief pause. "Though you could get a move on in that department." The last is mutted.
"Mum. I'm not the one who wants..." Sutton begins with an old argument, but of course this time saying I'm not the one who wanted a big family, so you'll have to call Elias and harass him about it isn't... it just isn't a sentence she's going to finish anytime this year.
Headlights flash through the trees, and a single car makes its way down the road. She and the driver make eye contact as he sails by giving her plenty of room on the shoulder.
"Give Dad my love, would you? I'm riding. I'm out riding, and I should get in before it decides to start to rain again. Or traffic picks up."
There's a moment of silence on the line and then, "Har—"
"Mum."
"Sutton." Her mother begins again. "Please be careful. Promise me."
Sutton nods, though her mother cannot see it. "Yes. I promise." She glances toward the tree line again. It almost seemed as if something moved.
"... I've got to go, but... earlier today, I was talking to someone from work. Does the name Addington mean anything to you? Was there a book a liked as a kid or something. It's been bothering me."
"No... oh. Hang on, love." There's some muffled conversation in the background, her mother presumably consulting her father. It goes on for a while.
Sutton squints at the trees. She blinks away the after-images of those headlights and looks down along the road, using her peripheral vision instead.
"Addington was your stuffed bear. You had it when you were five." Some muffled exchange. "Your father says four, but it was five." There's a smirk evident in her voice. "It's the tatty one you took everywhere and refused to wash. It was aw—" She clears her throat. "Adorable, darling. It was adorable."
"Oh." Sutton shakes her head when her mother catches herself and corrects awful to adorable. "I vaguely remember Eli decapitating my stuffie... and crying for a long time." Vaguely, something about it comes back to her. Yes. Him scissoring off her bear's head and taunting her with it. And her shoving him over and incidentally knocking out one of his front teeth. "Good times."
"That was an expensive dental visit," her mother says, dryly. "I'm glad you've learned to express your frustration in more constructive ways." Like drinking, which you shouldn't do to excess goes unspoken. "Call your father sometime soon, when you're not doing your damndest to become an organ donor."
"Mum."
"Yes, well. Be safe, dear. I'll see if I can find what's left of your bear and send it along, or you can come pick it up and have dinner with us, as we're a short pair of hours away..."
"Yes."
"Good. Oh, your father says it's a family name. Your great great and so on grandmother was an Addington. When you were younger, you thought it sounded posh, and adopted it for your dreadf—" Ahem. "For your delightful stuffie. That family tree project was a nightmare, you little firebug." There's more consultation muffled in the background. "Your father says you should find somewhere safer to live. A murder in your building? I thought you said it was gated."
"I—what?" Sutton forgets all about eyeballing the trees. "How does he even—how do you even know about my building? I haven't seen a report on it. Only the cops and EMS know. I didn't find out until this morning, and..."
"Do you have a spy in this town?" There's a pause. "It is gated. Gates keep crazy in just as well as out. Jesus." Silence.
"Do you. Have a spy. In this town?"
"Darling, I've got to go. My boeuf bourguignon is burning."
"What the fuck is a boof? You don't fucking cook. Mother." Uh oh. Mother. "Who in this town do you know?"
"Be safe, love. We miss you to the moon and back."
There's a rustle then her father's voice: "Come home soon, girl. I love you."
"I love you too." Sutton says, sighing. "Mom isn't really cooking, is she?"
There's a pause, then a soft, gruff voice, "Yes. Send help."
Sutton laughs at her father's desperate plea. The big bad career marine in distress over cooking that is definitely far worse than her own. "Night, Daddy. You know it's never too early to fake a heart attack."
"Night, H—" ... "Night, Sutton. Be safe."
"Always." Sutton hesitates a moment, then terminates the call and tucks her phone back into her thigh pocket. She resettles her helmet and flips the visor down, reaching for the ignition to turn the key, start the Triumph up again, and take off down the road. Around here, it's dark and quiet, just the bike's engine splitting the near-silence.
Behind her, just shy of the Welcome to Gray Harbor sign, something large slips free of the shadows, darts across the road, just as the moon slides behind a cloud, and disappears into the trees on the other side of the road.
Much later, an email pings into her gmail account from her mother, carrying with it an attachment image and a file. The body of the email reads: SORRY. COULDN'T FIND THE REST. The image is nothing but a blurry, dark photo of a teddy bear head. The file is part of a genealogy project one of her aunts did when she was a kid.
A helpful note in the email says, in all caps: AUNTIE ELIZABETH MADE THAT HUGE POSTER FOR EACH OF HER SIBS. NIGHTMARE.
At some point when they were about seven, Sutton and her twin brother lit theirs on fire in an unfortunate incident involving a convex lens and some crayons, but the Addington thing somehow stuck. Poor, poor decapitated bear.
Elias Sutton. What an asshole.
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