My parents are going to wonder where I am, she said. I have people expecting me.
Good—let them wonder and expect.
He looked at her for a while longer until she had to make him stop.
Can I at least clean up in here? She asked. It’s a pigstye.
He laughed. Sure. Do what you need to. Make yourself at home—you’ll be here for a while. And don’t even try to leave. It’ll be worse for you if you do.
He sat down as the girl made a racket stacking pots and pans on the floor, filling the sink, and scraping plates into the trash. At least she was occupied.
What would he do with her? It had been a stupid idea, he knew that now and wished he’d just let her go. But he’d gotten scared and thought of prison, and when he thought of prison he flew off in all directions, not knowing where he was going until something stopped him. He’d had a dog as a child, a dog he’d called Goldy or Brownie or some name like a color. When the dog saw a gun, it would go crazy—it would go in circles and whine, its head close to the ground. He was like that dog, made so stupid at the thought of prison that he couldn’t think and ended up doing idiot things like this that could really land him in prison. Kidnapping. Jesus Christ.
Of course, this wasn’t much worse than what he had already done in robbing the general store.
That was different, though. The Richardsons were in on it, and that meant that he’d get away with it. All he needed was enough money to get him out of town, get him an apartment in Keno and a job, and he wouldn’t have to do stupid shit like this anymore.
But the girl, what would he do with her?
She lifted a soapy knife from the sink, long and serrated. He watched her wash it carefully, run it under the tap, and place it in the drainer blade-down, as his mother had taught him to do, to keep anyone from getting cut on accident.
The answer to his problem came easily. He hardly had to plan anything, didn’t have to play it cool or lead her on like he thought he would. Connie wasn’t the tough girl she’d seemed to be in the woods with all of her kicking and shouting and talk. In the end, she was like all the other high school girls he’d managed to get into his trailer, though younger—he wished it wasn’t like that, but it was what it was.
He watched her as she cleaned the kitchen. She seemed restless, probably afraid to sit down, afraid what he’d do next. Did she think he was some kind of sex pervert? That he’d jump on her as soon as she stood still?
She was a pretty girl. He couldn’t help but notice it.
After she wiped her hands on the one clean dishtowel he had, which was really a torn piece of a tattered bath towel, and looked around the room for something else to do, he motioned to her.
Come sit down here and let me tell you why I made you come here.
Connie wasn’t usually trusting, but she liked something about James. He made her think of her uncles, men who were quiet with their affections but would surprise her sometime with an impromptu hug or gentle hair tug. Washing the dishes had calmed her; she wasn’t afraid anymore. If he were going to kill her or do something serious, then he would have done so already. She was wary, but not afraid.
She sat by him on the sofa, keeping at least a foot of space between them.
I’m sorry I had to do this to you, he said. He looked down at his hands, which he laced and unlaced. He didn’t meet her eye but stared down like an embarrassed child who could not meet the eye of a parent who had caught them in a lie. He glanced up at her and then moved his eyes quickly back down: she was watching, her eyes wide.
I was afraid of what you might say. I’ve been in jail before. You can’t imagine what it’s like there. I got beat up almost everyday. By the cops. By other guys. I got this scar. He pointed to a thin white line from the underside of his chin up to his earlobe. It was true—he had gotten this scar in prison. He’d gotten it from a guard, who had forced his face into the floor of his cell while he was fighting with another inmate over something. He couldn’t remember what—prison was like that, full of petty arguments that mattered in that small, confined place but outside it dissolved like so much smoke.
She didn’t say anything, but her face softened. Her mouth relaxed.
I was afraid you’d tell, he said. The sheriff, that fucker, has it in for me. I’d be back there for longer this time. I couldn’t let that happen.
I wouldn’t tattle on nobody, she said. You didn’t need to
say nothing.
He shook his head. I couldn’t know that until I knew you better. Now I do, and I know that’s true.
She nodded. He spoke to her as though she was an adult, and though the bruises on her arm still hurt, she felt sorry for him. He wasn’t that different from anyone else.
12
Colleen lived in a double-wide almost hidden by the trees and bushes around it. The siding was streaked and dirty and branches pressed against the walls, blocking light from the windows. There was no yard, really, but a place where the road wasn’t and the driveway wasn’t. A peeling sticker on screen door said
No Solicitations
. Before the door, a dreamcatcher, leather-wrapped and intricate, swung lightly. Emily reached up and touched the feathers that hung from it.
When Emily knocked, Colleen came to the door, saw Emily, and nodded.
Come inside.
The air in the house was hot and still, the windows shut, but no air conditioner going. Though an overhead light was on, Emily could barely make out the outlines of photographs on the walls and furniture. A dusty glass globe covered the bulb, eating away at the light. The couch, covered with a crocheted blanket, lay like a sleeping animal, shapeless and hot. Inside, another dreamcatcher hung, this one with a chunk of jet woven in the web.
Colleen told her to sit on the couch, and Emily felt itchy even before the fabric touched her skin. Colleen left and Emily heard the sounds of water beating against metal. She’d put a kettle on.
She came back and sat down on the couch next to Emily.
These dreamcatchers are beautiful, Emily said.
Colleen looked up. These are real ones, she said. Not that crap over at the store in Keno. My momma was half Chippewa. She gave us these before she died. I change the feathers.
Emily nodded. I didn’t know you would believe in things like this. Like dreamcatchers, Emily said.
Why not?
Because of Pastor Richardson. All that witchcraft stuff he
was saying.
Ha. Pastor Richardson doesn’t know everything.
Emily nodded.
I knew you’d come over here eventually, Colleen said, mercifully cutting Emily’s attempts at small talk short.
What do you mean?
You want to ask me the details. I figured you’d find out what happened eventually, or at least the paper’s version of it, if you didn’t know it already, Colleen said. Do you know already? About what happened to your mother?
She went missing. I know that much. I found that in the papers.
Missing. Not sure that’s what I’d call it.
That’s all I know. Emily kept her lips tight. Colleen was almost smiling, pleased with herself. Emily told herself not to get offended, not to be upset. She needed what Colleen knew.
The papers said she was missing for two days. That she didn’t remember anything that happened. That’s all I know, Emily said.
Colleen shook her head. Things weren’t the same then. The papers didn’t say everything. You had to be careful.
The kettle screamed from the kitchen. Colleen went to the kitchen and came back with a cup of black tea in a cracked mug, the tag hanging from a string down the edge of the cup. She’d filled the tea with milk, which dulled it to the color of hospital walls.
So, Emily asked, do you know what happened to her, what happened really?
I only know what Frannie told me all those years ago, Colleen said. And you couldn’t trust Frannie to say things outright. You had to read between the lines
Colleen looked at Emily. No offense to your people, she said, but with Frannie, you never knew where she stood.
13
He had only to listen to her, to offer, and she took, and she was soon leaning toward him, laughing, every last bit of tension released from her body. She liked to drink hard liquor already, something rare with girls her age. She took her whisky straight from a paper cup and only sqeezed her eyes shut hard as it went down and made a sucking sound between her teeth. He couldn’t help but be impressed.
My mom drinks it, she said. I’ve been sneaking it for years. It helps me sleep. Helps me stop thinking.
She told him about school and the girls she didn’t like and how her parents made her wash dishes when she came home every night and how her parents and brothers and sisters were nothing like her.
They don’t care what they do, you know? They don’t care about anything, she told him. They wake up, they clean and cook or go to school, they come home, they drink or play cards, then they go to sleep and do it all over again. It makes me sad to see them. I don’t mean sad like I cry. I mean that it makes me wonder why they bother at all.
At this point, she was drunk, and James watched her speak without interrupting. She was a sweet kid—loud, full of those petty concerns that girls had (boyfriends, parents not understanding, all of that), but there was something James liked about her. He wished he could trust her, that he could just let her go right now and not do what he had to. She was changeable, her moods going from beaming to dark as she spoke about her mother and lowered her eyebrows and made the surface of her face small. As she talked, and as he gave her more sips of whiskey, a little at the time so she wouldn’t fall asleep or throw up or grow suspicious, he grew more unsure of what he was about to do. But it didn’t matter, he told himself, as he watched her bow mouth moving. He had to do it. It wasn’t like he was going to kill her or anything. It was nothing she wouldn’t get over. Part of him wanted to, of course. She was pretty, well developed for a girl her age, nobody he would kick out of bed anyway. The more he drank, the more he both admired her and wanted her and wished he didn’t have to do what he was about to do.
You’re lucky you’re not in school anymore, she said. And you’re lucky you’re not a girl.
Oh yeah? Why’s that?
Because girls are mean to other girls, not like boys. Some girls say I’m a slut, that I sleep with people. But I don’t. She looked at him intensely, her eyebrows draw together. I’ve never done that before.
He nodded, pouring her more whiskey so he’d have an excuse to look away.
He handed her the cup. She smiled.
Later, after he had told her more about prison (true, but exaggerated) and about his own childhood in Heartshorne (mostly true, if edited—not to exaggerate, but to minimize), he said it was late. She should come to the bedroom and go to sleep.
I can’t, she said. He had taken her hand and she’d let him, but she pulled away when he said bedroom. I’ll sleep out here.
You can’t sleep out here, he said, touching her hand again. You take the bedroom.
Once she got there, it wasn’t difficult. She was already red-faced, nervous. He kisssed her and he felt her buckle. It was almost audible, like a piece of board breaking. She required only slightly more petting, more talk.
Afterwards, she cried and said she was sorry, she didn’t do this kind of thing usually, it’s only that she was so tired. He comforted her until she fell asleep, and when she did, he left the bed and went to the kitchen.
The light of the refrigerator lit up his body in the dark kitchen—he hadn’t bothered to dress. A strand of Connie’s hair was stuck to his inner arm. He picked it off and let it drift to the floor. He took out a beer and sat on the couch.
You’re a bastard, he told himself aloud. You should go to prison. She’s young—too young, almost a child.
He finished his beer and took another and finished it. He drank until he was ready to sleep and could feel nothing but warmth and the pleasant, dragging numbness of the beer.
He was a bastard, but he’d survive, and he wouldn’t go to prison again. That was what mattered.
She woke alone in the bed in only her underclothes. Her head hurt—it felt as though her skull had shrunk and could no longer hold what was inside it. She ached between her legs and the muscles of her inner things had been stretched. She ached everywhere.
She hoped that he had left, that she wouldn’t have to see him, but she soon heard him rustling in the kitchen. She pressed her face into the pillow.
It was right that she hurt and was sick. She should be. What would Billy think? She had practically climbed into bed with him.
He’d been so kind. She couldn’t remember exactly how it had happened. First they were talking, he was giving her only small amounts of alcohol, very small, and then she’d been in the bed, rolling around. He’d ripped one of the buttons off of her shirt in haste and she had laughed. What if I’m pregnant? She imagined herself showing up at school each day, her stomach growing gradually too big for her clothes, everyone speaking about her behind her back. But that wouldn’t happen—her mother would pull her out of school and keep her home until the baby was born. Then no more school. She’d work at the laundromat like Kelly Sigler, a woman who had just turned 18 and had a four-year-old daughter. She looked older than her age, pinched and miserable, dragging her dirty child around the laundromat as she collected the coins from the traps and peeled the lint from the dryers.