Promises of Home (19 page)

That afternoon, we completed Trey’s funeral arrangements. Mark and Sister agreed with Truda Shiva’s that a double funeral for Clevey and Trey would be appropriate. Hart said he would speak to Nola; he thought she would agree. Sister told Hart to tell Nola she could pick out the burial suit; we would select the coffin. Hart left with Scott. Sister excused herself and I could hear her up in Mama’s room, opening and slamming drawers. Looking for letters. I didn’t join in her search. I watched Mama’s serene face as she watched the beginnings of another rainstorm patter on the grassy yard and wondered how she could have truly exchanged letters with Trey. Why would she? And why wouldn’t she have told Sister?

A thought made my mouth go dry. What if she
had
told Sister? The only one who could say that Mama definitely hadn’t told Sister was Mama herself, and she was in no condition to remember. What if Sister had known all along where Trey was? What he was doing, where he was living?
She said she didn’t know—but was she being entirely honest?

That didn’t make sense. What reason would she have for pretending now that she hadn’t known? I couldn’t think of one; but then, I couldn’t think of a reason for her to have that shiner.

Sister found nothing in her search. Candace ran home for a while, and Clo left to tend to her own family. Mark and I desultorily watched part of the Cowboys game. They stomped their opponents, taking away any distraction for us. Junebug, who’d gone back to the station after Steven bolted, called to tell me that they hadn’t made much progress on the case. He sounded tired. He didn’t ask to speak to Sister, but he asked me how she and Mark were doing.

“They’re fine, Junebug. And how are you?”

“I wish everyone would quit worrying so damn much about me. I’m perfectly all right, just tired. Hey, I found some old pictures last night in my daddy’s scrapbook,” Junebug said. His father (the same SOB who’d christened his son with an insectoid nickname) had fancied himself a photographer and endlessly annoyed you at any social gathering by sticking a lens down your gullet. “There’s a couple of real funny photos of you and Trey. Remember at Ed’s twenty-first birthday party, we all got tight and nearly decapitated each other swinging at that stupid pinata his mama got him?”

I remembered. I’d nailed Trey in the shoulder. Blindfolded with a soft cotton bandanna and with a six-pack in me, he was lucky I hadn’t brained him. He’d wrested the stick from me and swatted me hard on the ass. We’d gotten into a wrestling match that ended when Davis finally whacked the pinata and the damn thing dumped pounds of candy on us. Try to keep fighting when a bunch of squealing, pretty girls fall on you, grabbing sweets out of your hair and face.

“Oh, and one of you and Clevey and Trey when you went fishing with Daddy and me on Lake Bonaparte. You didn’t catch squat. You ought to see all the fish on Trey’s
line. Man, that boy could fish. You never had the patience for it, Jordy.”

I didn’t want to remember. “I gotta go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

I hung up. I saw Candace look up from a magazine. Mama snored softly in her chair, Mark had retired to his room; Sister had taken to bed, claiming a bad headache. All of us straying to our separate little compartments, except for Candace.

“Junebug.” I shrugged toward the phone. “He likes to jabber.”

“So he does.” Her voice was strangely low. “How you feeling?”

I kept from making a face. “Fine, I’m fine.” I smiled and stuck my hands in my jeans pockets. “But I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed. You don’t have to stay over.”

“I know. But I’ll stay in the guest room, if you don’t mind. Arlene might need me.”

Arlene.
She was staying for my sister, not for me. I blinked. I loved this woman. But I was conscious of how I’d been pushing her away, shutting her out from all the confusion I felt about Trey’s death. That wasn’t fair to her. I knew it. She wanted to help me, wanted me to need her now. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know why.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I said. It sounded empty, even to me.

“Sleep well, babe.”

I wished her a good night and went to my room. I lay facedown on the bed, breathing in the scent of clean sheets and the smell of rain that pervaded the old house.

Order, I decided. Just like at the library, I needed to get my thoughts in order. I fetched a legal pad off my desk and began writing. After a few minutes I’d scribbled down a list of questions—some horribly obvious—that I wanted answers to:

That seemed the key to me. He’d been away for six years; he’d sent money to his ex-wife; he’d possibly exchanged letters with my mother. This status quo had been maintained for a long, long while. Even with his injuries, he could have recuperated elsewhere. What suddenly urged him back to a town where he’d be shunned as a cowardly father?

I rubbed my eyes. My head throbbed, pained with memories and with doubts. I contemplated going downstairs to talk with Candace, but I preferred my own company for the moment. I didn’t know what to say to her. I doused the lights and fell into fitful sleep, vaguely hearing the distant roll of thunder as I drifted off.

“Sounds like rain’s coming.” Trey stared up at the star-dotted sky. He propped his booted feet on the cab door of
his battered truck and folded his hands behind his head. I lay next to him, trying to count the stars through a blur of beer.

“Not this instant,” I said. “Too far off. We won’t get rain for a little while.” Glass clinked as he reached for another beer. He sat up and took a deep swig from the long-neck.

“You’ll get a lot of rain in Houston, Jordy. You’ll be walking to classes in knee-deep water. It floods there all the time.” His voice sounded as far away as the thunder did.

“Don’t tell Mama, she’ll buy me waders.” I sat up and opened another beer. The crickets chirped through the night air, sounding their brief trumpets before the approaching storm drowned them out. Whoever said nights in the country are quiet don’t know what they’re talking about. The air felt humid, as languid as a girl’s caress, and in the purplish darkness I could barely see Trey sitting next to me. I could see him tip the bottle to his lips, the moon reflecting off the curve where label ended and glass began.

“You ain’t gonna have no horses to ride in Houston,” he observed.

“No. I’ll have to come back here for that.”

“And you ain’t gonna get cooking as good as your mama’s. I bet that university kitchen don’t make good biscuits and cream gravy on Sunday mornings. Probably give you something nasty, like yogurt.”

“Probably.”

“And Marcia Tatum ain’t gonna be around ’case you get a tad horny.”

I laughed. “No, Marcia won’t be in Houston. ’Course, she’s not too pleased I’m going away, period. I don’t think she’d be granting me her favors even if I stayed.”

“Shit,” Trey scoffed. “Your first weekend back she’ll be as hot for you as you are for her.” He stood and stretched, and walked to the back of the truck. His boot heels made an eerie clang against the metal.

“Face it, Jordan, you ain’t got many reasons to come
back here. Houston’ll suit you real well. You’re smart. There’ll be a lot of new things to hold your attention. You won’t need Mirabeau again.”

“Don’t be stupid. Of course I still need Mirabeau. My family’s here. My friends are here.” I paused. “You’re here, man. You think I’m going to forget about you?”

“For the first time in your life, you’re going to be around a lot of people that are as smart as you are. Or even smarter. The people you meet at Rice are gonna make the rest of us look like dipsticks. Future doctors and lawyers and such.”

“That’s crap, Trey. Quit saying that you’re not smart.”

He laughed and sipped at his beer. “I don’t say I’m not smart. The teachers say I’m not smart.”

“The teachers here are stupid, then.”

“Brave words from the valedictorian. All I’m saying is, go. Go out there and make what you can of yourself. Don’t look back.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” I said uncertainly. I didn’t care for the way this conversation was going. The thunder sounded again, closer, wilder. “Of course I’m coming back home.”

“And do what? What are you going to do with your fancy degree here in Mirabeau, young Mr. Poteet? Be a lawyer in your crazy uncle Bid’s practice? You can’t stand him. Become mayor? You ain’t exactly a politician. Teach at the school? Won’t pay you diddly to clear them big student loans. Or maybe you’ll just end up serving Dr Pepper floats at the Sit-a-Spell.” His voice had grown harsh.

I stared up at him in the darkness. “Why are you doing this?”

“I don’t want you to think that Mirabeau is the whole world, like our numbnut friends do. I don’t want you to waste the chance you got.”

“I’ll come home if I want. I’ll live here if I want.” I stood and the wind surged, making me feel unsteady. Trey seemed an indistinct figure in the night. “Why are you being so shitty to me?” I hollered.

“Because you’re gonna do all the things in life I wish I could. Because you’re the brother I never had.”

Lightning split the sky and I saw the Trey standing before me was not the Trey of our careless eighteenth summer, drinking beer with me on the next-to-the-last night before I left for college. He was the Trey that had died, his face gaunt and drawn and bearded in the momentary white light.

“Then help me! Tell me who killed Clevey! Tell me who killed you!”

“Killed me?” he asked.

“Yes! You’re dead! Who killed you?” I screamed into the wind.

He collapsed against me and my hands felt the warmth of his life’s blood. His voice creaked like a coffin’s lid. “You are. You’re killing me, Jordy.”

A cry caught in my throat as I wrenched up in bed. I slapped the palm of my hand over my mouth and bit my fingers. Nightmare’s sweat adhered the sheets to my body and I kicked them away. They felt like shrouds.

I staggered to the window. Another storm swept over Mirabeau, headed for the Gulf, and the glass felt cool against my palms. What was happening to me? Why did I feel like this world was the dream and those memories with Trey were the reality? I shut my eyes and took a long, sobering breath.

I shrugged into my terrycloth robe and sat again on the bed, listening to the quiet of my house. Many nights Mama was restless in the wandering way Alzheimer’s patients sometimes are, but tonight she was still. I heard the remote ticking of the grandfather clock downstairs, like a colossal heart. Apparently I hadn’t called out; the house’s silence pushed oppressively on my ears.

I hungered for a comfort food. I didn’t want to stay in my bed; it was nothing but a trap full of memories. I remembered all the pies downstairs. My sweet tooth pulsed and I tiptoed down to the kitchen. I turned on all the lights; I didn’t like the dark anymore.

The pies looked tempting: pecan, peach, buttermilk, and apple, but I didn’t want a slice. Only two images from my dream could make me smile; Marcia Tatum and Dr Pepper
floats. Marcia had been my senior-year girlfriend, a buxom, funny, sly-eyed brunette, and she’d served up the best Dr Pepper floats in the world at the old Sit-a-Spell Cafe. Trey had kidded me plenty that I’d had more Dr Pepper floats after school than any other boy in Mirabeau history. He’d follow me to the cafe and chatter at me and Marcia as she made my favorite fountain concoction while I watched her with vast-eyed devotion.

He loved to tease.

I pulled a gallon of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream from the freezer.

Give him an extra scoop now, Marcia,
Trey would say, eyeing Marcia’s own scoops under her bright pink uniform.

I found an icy cold can of sugary, original Dr Pepper in the back of the fridge and popped the top.

Don’t you be skimpy with that Dr Pepper, Marcia. Jordy needs all the sweetness he can get. Don’t you, Jordy?

I pulled the ice-cream scooper out of a drawer and rinsed it with hot water. I found a thick, tall glass in the cabinet and set it on the counter.

Marcia, sugar, you ought to give Jordy a large float but charge him for a small one. Don’t you care none about this poor boy?

Dragging the scooper across the pristine plain of ice cream, I pared free a globe of white sweetness. I jiggled it above the glass and the scoop fell in, leaving a creamy smear along the side. Again, another scoop. A small one to top it. Then the Dr Pepper, the fizz of its pouring the only sound I heard as it frothed above the ice cream. The can felt like a deadweight in my hand.

Ah, that’s his favorite there, Miss Marcia. He likes those floats even better than he likes you or me.

“Jordan?” Candace, standing nearby, watched me.

“I’m making a Dr Pepper float,” I announced, and my voice broke. Candace looked sort of blurry.

“I can see that, honey.” Her voice was cottony soft. “You okay? You’ve spilled it everywhere.”

I glanced down at the kitchen counter; the soda can was empty and my glass sat in a puddle of bubbling brown.

I looked back up at Candace and I could see her heart breaking. “He’s dead.” I heard my voice. “He’s really, really dead. Trey is dead. God!” A sob escaped from me, like air long trapped underwater then bursting to the surface. I felt her arms close around me.