Good Morning, Bellingham by Marina Raydun
Series n/a; standalone
Genre Literary Fiction
Publisher Independent
Publication Date September 9, 2019
When Peta goes missing, a two-decade old secret threatens to
rip at the seams and come out in the open.
Relationships are tested as one dysfunctional family comes
together in search of their daughter, sister, and wife.
What they find instead will change each one of them forever.
Enjoy this excerpt and come back on 1/18/2020 for my thoughts on the book!
GOOD MORNING, BELLINGHAM
A Standalone Novel
© 2020 Marina Raydun
Excerpt
Monday: October 1st
Sioux
She does not get off the 4:05 train. I wait. And I wait. A
long time I wait. My teeth chatter from the harsh autumn breeze. My eyes burn
from the fine dust it picks up, but I wait. My knees are locked, my feet are
cemented to the platform, my throat is getting uncomfortably tight. I blink and
I swallow. I check my phone and reread her messages. And I wait.
I wait for the next one—the 5:05. And then the 6:05. I crane
my neck and look up and down the tracks more often than logically necessary,
intensifying the headache that had taken root in my temples when my sister
hadn’t gotten off at 4:05. But nothing. She’s not there. She’s not here.
And so, committed to my spot, I vow to wait for hours. To stand there like a
school girl waiting for her pick-up when everyone but the teacher had already
gone home for the day. I should know what that feels like from
experience—mostly you feel silly to have ever expected any better.
I watch as the sun begins to set now. It’s growing colder
and emptier by the minute, but I keep waiting. My clothes, still mostly
hand-me-downs from my sister’s high school days, aren’t doing the job. I
eventually must button up my denim jacket and stuff my fisted palms into its wasteful
pockets. I continue to wait in remote comfort. I’m patient. Or stubborn. This
doesn’t feel like a choice.
Fewer people disembark off the 7:05. Fewer still at 8:05.
That’s when I fold and call Peter.
“She definitely left,” he tells me between carefully spaced
breaths. “She’s not here at any rate. She texted me on her way out, that’s all
I know. Maybe she missed the train? Was— I thought she— she was supposed to
arrive hours ago?” He sounds vaguely irritated. Busy. I hear Gwenny cooing in
the background. She is yet to say her first words, but she sure is babbling up
a storm from what I understand. Or is it called jargoning? I call Peta every
day and so I hear Gwenny in the background every day. So I know. I imagine
Peter now, phone wedged between his ear and his shoulder, swaying over his
daughter seated in her playpen surrounded by a plush family of Winnie the Pooh
characters—her favorite. He must’ve just gotten home, I remind myself. He’d
have to go to bed within minutes in order to be up in only seven hours for
work. I should not have worried him. I want to kick myself.
It’s 8:30 and I haven’t eaten since noon when I’d grabbed a yogurt
after psych with Gael. Well, I also had a cup of coffee before I got here, but
that’s it. This is against protocol. I’m getting lightheaded and turning my
head to look up and down the platform every few minutes sure doesn’t help. I
call Gael. He’s in organic bio lab, I think. But I need a juice, a Snickers,
something. I can’t afford to step away in search of a vending machine for fear
of missing seeing Peta finally disembark one of these trains. The film forming
before my eyes is obstructing my vision as it is.
“Something must’ve happened,” I tell Gael. I’m not sure why
I say this, but now that the words are out my voice box has tightened and
become strained when I wasn’t paying attention. This feeling is all too
familiar. This is exactly what my throat did that dreadful morning when Peta
called to tell me that Harry died. Obviously, it naturally follows, something
dreadful must’ve happened to her now. Otherwise I wouldn’t feel what I’m
feeling. I wouldn’t have said what I said. It may not be rational but there it
is. She wouldn’t leave me standing here in the cold, darkening night. She was
so excited when she called to tell me she’s coming. Just yesterday! She
wouldn’t just leave me hanging now and not pick up the phone or answer my
myriad text messages. No, that would never happen.
Great, now I’m thinking about Harry, which isn’t helpful.
The day Harry died, to be more specific. I don’t remember much else about him,
to be honest. It seems so long ago now, though it wasn’t really. Not
objectively. I was just about to take my SATs when my phone rang with the news.
Of course, once I was brought up to speed, I had to reschedule. While my mind
was at once crystal clear with the adrenaline of the information shocking my
system, my entire body went numb and began to pulse, lightly, within seconds. I
simply couldn’t hold my number 2 pencil, it was that simple. I had to
reschedule. It was a no brainer to leave. Perhaps it was a blessing in
disguise—the timing of it all, not the fact of the matter of his untimely passing,
obviously. As a result, I got to retake the test and wound up scoring in the 97th
percentile. Though Harry unlikely knew what the SATs were, I imagined him
smiling down at me when I finally received my score, clicking open the e-mail
with my heart heavy and my stomach soft. He did have the goofiest smile, all
four teeth visible, from what I remember. There are no pictures.
Well, there are no SATs now, but I do have midterms next
week. I’d have to get extensions from my professors, I catch myself thinking.
If she never disembarks, that is. I hate myself for thinking any of this and
screw my eyes shut against the sun descending further, practically invisible on
the horizon. I want to smack my forehead to stop. I almost do, but it wouldn’t
help. The logistics aren’t important, I lament, pointlessly, already having
buried her. This would be considered eerily prophetic if I weren’t so prone to
overdramatizing uncertainties on a daily basis. Mommy can tell you. Or Gael. Or
Peta.
The clock tower ticks mutely, as if mocking me with its
pronouncement of time—9:05. My throat begins to hurt now.
“Is Peter sure she left?” Gael ventures, finally at my side
with a mason jar of cooling mate.
And then I finally cry.
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About the author:
MARINA RAYDUN’s published works of fiction include a
compilation of novellas One Year in Berlin/Foreign Bride, a suspense novel entitled
Joe After Maya, and a two-part series, Effortless. Born in the former Soviet
Union, Marina grew up in Brooklyn, NY. She holds a J.D. from New York Law
School and a B.A. in history from Pace University. She is an avid music fan, a
cat lover, and an enthusiastic learner of American Sign Language. Whenever she
is not writing, Marina enjoys spending time with her family, catching up on
Netflix, and baking.
