Last Bridge : A Novel

by Coyne, Teri

• ISBN13: 9780345507310
• ISBN10: 0345507312
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-07-28
• Publisher: Ballantine Books

Summary

For ten years, Alexandra "Cat" Rucker has been on the run from her past. With an endless supply of bourbon and a series of meaningless jobs, Cat is struggling to forget her Ohio hometown and the rural farmhouse she once called home. But a sudden call from an old neighbor forces Cat to return to the home and family she never intended to see again. It seems that Cat's mother is dead. What Cat finds at the old farmhouse is disturbing and confusing: a suicide note, written on lilac stationery and neatly sealed in a ziplock bag, that reads:Cat, He isn't who you think he is. Mom xxxooo One note, ten wordsone for every year she has been gonecompletely turns Cat's world upside down. Seeking to unravel the mystery of her mother's death, Cat must confront her past to discover who "he" might be: her tyrannical, abusive father, now in a coma after suffering a stroke? Her brother, Jared, named after her mother's true love (who is also her father's best friend)? The town coroner, Andrew Reilly, who seems to have known Cat's mother long before she landed on a slab in his morgue? Or Addison Watkins, Cat's first and only love? The closer Cat gets to the truth, the harder it is for her to repress the memory and the impact of the events that sent her away so many years ago. Taut, gripping, and edgy,The Last Bridgeis an intense novel of family secrets, darkest impulses, and deep-seated love. Teri Coyne has created a stunning tapestry of pain and passion where past and present are seamlessly interwoven to tell a story that sears and warms in equal measure.

Author Biography

TERI COYNE is an alumna of New York University. In addition to writing fiction, Teri performed stand-up comedy for many years and has written several short films. The Last Bridge is her first novel. She lives in New York City.

Excerpts

Chapter One


Two days after my father had a massive stroke my mother shot herself in the head. Her suicide was a shock–not the fact that she killed herself but the way in which she did it. It was odd that my mother chose such a violent end to her own violent life. For someone who had endured years of torture at my father’s hand, I thought she would choose a more quiet way of leaving. Perhaps she would take pills and put herself to bed in a silk nightgown, or she’d walk naked into the ocean at sunset. Instead, she cleaned the house, changed the linens, stuffed the freezer full of food, and blew her head off with my father’s shotgun.

 Ruth Igby, the ugly neighbor down the road, passed the farm several times that weekend and noticed the garage door swinging open. Ruth assumed my mother was at the hospital taking care of my father and took it upon herself to close it. As she got closer to the house she noticed a light was on in the kitchen and thought my mother was home. There was a strong glare coming off the snow that had accumulated into large boulderlike masses against the sides of the house. Ruth couldn’t see anything until she shielded her eyes with her left hand and pressed her face against the side window. What she saw made her fall into the screen door and tear it loose from the top hinge. She grabbed the mesh for balance and ripped it from its frame, leaving it flapping in the wind. 

I didn’ t ask Ruth how she got my number or if she had called the others. I listened to her sedated slur, compliments of the town doctor, Joshua Kramer. “Not your Dr. Kramer,” she said. “His son. Remember Joshy?” 

I didn’t answer. 

“Even in the end your mother didn’t want to make a mess. She taped garbage bags to the walls of the kitchen and covered the stove with a drop cloth. She was always thinking about you kids.” 

“Right,” I said. 

I can’t imagine what my mother was thinking that Thursday afternoon in February as she pulled open the utility drawer and searched for the masking tape. Was she humming or listening to the radio? Was she thinking about Paris? Or heaven? Or her kids? Did she perform her final act the same way she washed the dishes or mashed potatoes? Was it part of her weekly to do’s? Did she scratch “Kill yourself” off the list, between “Call about furnace” and “Buy toilet paper”?

 When I was a little girl I asked my mother what she saw before she fell asleep. I asked in the hope she would say she saw me. She said, “I don’t see anything. I’m too tired.” She was always so goddamned tired. She moved through the chores of her life like she was sleepwalking. It’s no wonder she chose to end her life. What didn’t make sense was the timing. Why would she do it now that she was so close to being released from her life sentence with my father? Maybe that was the problem. Maybe she couldn’t imagine a life without torment. 

I wish I could ask her what she saw before she pulled the trigger. I don’ t need her to say she saw me. I want to know she saw something. That she felt something. And that it felt like freedom. And then, if I could, I would ask her what that felt like. I drove through the night, stopping only to pee or to replenish my stash. I had been driving for ten long hours before I started seeing signs for Wilton. The illuminated exits rolled by like months being torn from my life’s calendar. Ten years had passed since I had seen or spoken to my mother. I only wished it had been that lon

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Excerpted from The Last Bridge: A Novel by Teri Coyne
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