Gibraltar, and What Happened There by Rikka Wommack

They were on Gibraltar. They were on Gibraltar and the rock was steaming above them, propelling arcs of cloud up its face and into the sky to let them condense and hang there like a murky halo. The night was clear and starry over Spain, but as soon as they walked across the border and began to climb the stars were blotted out by the cloud. The British bartender below had explained that the rock is some sort of magnet for condensation, so there is almost always a cloud hovering over Gibraltar, even on the clearest days.

They were on top of the rock. They were also eating sandwiches Elizabeth had bought for an unidentifiable amount of money in Spain a couple hours earlier. Jack thought he understood the Euro. Elizabeth had no pretensions. She had resorted to handing over handfuls of colored bills until the person on the other end seemed satisfied. It was a pretty poorly thought out system, but it didn’t really matter― they had enough money for now, and their mother wasn’t stable enough to fight them on anything.

They had decided before they left home two months ago that Gibraltar would be the best place for the ashes. It had been Jack’s idea as they sat on his bed in the basement after the memorial service, Elizabeth still in her heels and flipping through Rolling Stone. Elizabeth did not look up as she refused. “Oh come on. We’ve never even been out of the country before. It needs to be somewhere meaningful to her.”

“What, meaningful like Staunton High? Name me one place around here that’s worthy.” Elizabeth looked up with tight lips but did not respond. She could think of nowhere they had been that would not be overshadowed by regret. In their entire lives and for all their love, they had not found somewhere beautiful for Natalie.

“It’s the ultimate crossroads. You’re in like four places at once. You can swim between Europe and Africa, they’re so close. She’ll be everywhere.”

“No one even knows what Gibraltar is. Some rock or something.”

“That’s why it’s so perfect! That adds to its charm― it’s totally otherworldly. She would have thought it was kickass.”

“What if it’s not perfect when we get there?” They finally had gotten there, and in fact it wasn’t perfect. Everything about Gibraltar was grimy. At this time of night cockroaches were roiling on the dirty streets and crowds of gaunt cats slunk around the corners. It was also far too late for two American kids with backpacks to still be searching for a hostel, which was their cover if anyone were to ask. But at least on that afternoon when they had been in the stifling Ohio heat writing a list of places in the world they had never been and couldn’t spell, Gibraltar had looked to be the best choice. Plus they had already told their mother that would be the place, and they couldn’t go back on her at this point. She wouldn’t have been able to take it. She had been sitting in Natalie’s room in the armchair next to the bed with her hand on the comforter when they told her, as she had sat every day for weeks as soon as their sister had come home from the hospital for the last time. The IVs and monitors had been removed by the nurse when she had offered her deepest condolences and left, but nothing else had been touched. There was still a glass of water next to the bed with the smudge of Natalie’s lips on it. The sheets were still twisted out of place from when Jack had pulled them back and gathered Natalie in his arms, wrapped in her nightgown and a blanket, and cradled her in the front seat of the truck as their mother drove to the funeral home with red-rimmed eyes. Elizabeth had sat behind him, seatbelt unbuckled, with her arms draped around his shoulders and her head limp against the back of his seat as she twisted her fingers through Natalie’s hair.

Two weeks after that they had entered Natalie’s room and taken their mother’s frail hand and explained what they were going to do. It was going to be illegal, but they should be able to do it without getting caught. Oh, and they were going to need money. And to apply for passports. Visas? No, they should be ok without visas, as long as they moved around enough, right? Anyways, it’s what they needed to do, and it’s what Natalie would have wanted. It was finally their chance to travel the world together. Dad would have loved the idea too. Their mother looked at them through her red eyes and nodded. Aunt Rose came out from Albany to stay for awhile to look after her, and slipped a $50 into each of their palms. Even if she didn’t agree with what they were doing she didn’t want them to get hurt. Just for the love of God don’t be stupid. Lord knows their mother couldn’t take much more.

Elizabeth had taken a leave of absence from school, and Jack didn’t even have a job to quit. They had sewn their sister’s ashes in a triple layer of heavy duty Ziplock bags inside Natalie’s beloved Snoopy doll and flown to Europe with it in checked luggage. Budget airlines meant budget security.

From there they had backpacked and trained and fumbled for two months through foreign countries whose road signs they couldn’t read― three years each of high school Latin had disappointingly little relevance in the real world. Natalie had been the only one who had been any good at languages and could have easily maneuvered them through Germany and France at least, probably Spain too. It only took Jack about a week of traveling before he decided it was ok to joke about that, and another week for Elizabeth to stop feeling appalled every time he did it. He started giving questioning little glances towards the backpack whenever someone garbled something foreign at him, sometimes mouthing “Snoopy?” After two months it was still pretty funny. They had gotten pretty good at their subtle humor.

Snoopy came with them sightseeing every day, though it took another two weeks before they started including her in the pictures with them. Jack had already swung around and snapped a candid of Elizabeth in sunglasses facing the Coliseum before he noticed that she had pulled Snoopy from her backpack and tucked into her arms.

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“Uh, the picture. I took one. You’re holding Snoopy.” Elizabeth looked down. She was.

“I mean, I think that’s ok, right?… Isn’t it?”

“I mean, family vacation, right?”

Elizabeth agreed. They asked the next passing tourist to take a photo of the three of them, Jack and Elizabeth with their arms around each other and one hand each supporting Snoopy.

“Hah, like the monkey in the French movie, right? Emily, or something? Pretty clever kids, hah hah! Smile big now for Mom!”

It was a little weird the first few times, but they guessed that that was the point.

There was another night in Amsterdam when an Australian puked up his absinthe into the top drawer of the bureau in their room in the hostel and soaked Snoopy’s left leg. He didn’t remember much from the night, but did swear up and down to his friends that Americans had to be the dumbest, most uptight assholes on the planet. A fucking stuffed animal, man. You should have seen them lose it.

#

None of them had ever been farther than Chicago before, but there had been promises. Such promises! Once Natalie had graduated from high school and Jack had found a job there would have been a trip like this one, the three of them cavaliering around the world with Natalie speaking any language she pleased and Jack and Elizabeth being the Grown-Ups and Making Decisions. But that would be the beauty of it! There would be no decisions! Just leaving everything else behind and blazing through the hemispheres with only each other, because they had long ago realized that they were the only people left in their lives worth hanging on to.

But now it was only two of them, there on top of the rock of Gibraltar past midnight. They were eating sandwiches with three unknown currencies in their pockets and the ashes of their dead sister sewn into a stuffed Snoopy, and it was the closest they were ever going to come to being together again.

#

“Aren’t there supposed to be monkeys? I haven’t seen a single one.”

“Well no shit, it’s nighttime. Monkeys sleep too.”

“I know that, I just wanted to see a monkey. Maybe it’s better. I don’t really want to be distracted by hungry monkeys or anything.”

They gazed out at the sea and sky around them.

“So this is Gibraltar then. This is her place.”

“I guess so.”

Silence for a minute.

“It’s been pretty crazy, that we actually did this. And nothing too awful has happened yet. Hasn’t it, Snoopy?” Jack reached around to grab his backpack where Snoopy lay patiently inside. He unslung the draw cord and opened the top, and Elizabeth watched his eyes widen. She watched his hand reach in and remove a wad of rags. Another wad of rags. Most of his clothes were still there. No wallet. No Snoopy.

“Where is she.” Elizabeth didn’t really speak the words, but Jack could hear them in her exhale. He stared at the open mouth of the empty backpack.

“How the fuck did that happen. How the FUCK did you lose her?!”

The screaming began. Jack had been robbed, they’d taken whatever they could grab— it wasn’t his fault. How could it not be his fault? He hadn’t been careful enough! Did she think he wanted this to happen? It was a fluke, whoever did it were total pervs, why would anyone want dirty t-shirts and a stuffed animal? Why not just take the cash and credit cards? When did it happen— Spain? Overnight in the hostel maybe, those German guys next to us were sketchy fuckers. No— no. Had to have been today, when was the last time they opened the bag? Jack had accidentally left it at a café for fifteen minutes when Elizabeth was checking out of the hostel and that gorgeous Latina skank pulled him up by the hand and asked him to buy her a drink across the street. How could he possibly have fallen for that shit. Classic racket. The one fucking girl who’s given him any attention this whole trip and he fucking fell for it. This was everything Aunt Rose had warned them about, except even she hadn’t though it was possible to fuck up that badly. And how was it even possible that Jack not have noticed till now? Elizabeth paced and screamed, and once in awhile kicked a rock at Jack where he lay in a fetal position, gulping air with his head in his hands. Ok― ok. What could they do about it? Go back to Spain and look? Those jackasses obviously knew exactly what they were doing and just wanted to screw with American tourists― their career was fucking people over and making a clean getaway. It’s not like they could tell the US embassy the real reason they absolutely needed their stuffed Snoopy back. The night continued. Elizabeth eventually crumpled to the ground next to Jack and waited for her heaving breaths to slow.

They were on top of Gibraltar, with the cloud hanging low enough that they felt its weight on their chests. Elizabeth lay with her head in the dirt for some time, then opened her eyes. She could see Africa. She could see Europe. There was the inky Atlantic yawning open in front of them, and here at her side lay the brother she still loved. The lights of the cities and the stars over the ocean all glimmered and blurred together as her lashes grew wet in the darkness.

“We failed, Jack,” she said. But my God, she thought, this is beautiful.