“You okay, Mama?” Pink said.
“Yes, yes. Please shovel the circle for me, Pink.”
Pink strolled to the back door and tested his way down the hill through the snow, using the shovel and broom like walking sticks to keep his footing. The snow was deep, and Pink wasn’t even sure he could find the ceremonial circle—the fresh powder was disorienting—until he tripped over the stones marking its edge.
His mama’s rituals were a mystery, and Pink didn’t really buy into this sacred circle business, but there was something about her, about what she did, that was powerful. He was certain of that. She’d prepared tinctures and elixirs for folks over the years, and sure enough, eventually they’d heal. Everything from asthma to worms. She had shown him how to prepare “Melissa” when Isabelle was down with stomach flu, but he’d grown impatient when she told him to grind the herbs between his palms. “Can’t we just use the coffee grinder?” he’d asked. To release the most potential from the herbs, she’d told him, it was important to “connect” with them and meditate on what you were doing. The day they were to prepare the “Melissa,” she’d had him arrive at five in the morning on a Thursday. “We have to start preparing it immediately after sunrise,” she’d told him. The day of the week, as well as the hour, were crucial to the tincture’s potency and success in treating ailments. When she’d explained about planetary influences and salt level charts, he’d felt his brain go numb, then headed for her refrigerator to find something to eat. That was the last time she’d asked him to help.
After Pink shoveled the perimeter of the circle, he swept the last of the snow out with the broom, down to grass. He removed the snow beneath the arched trellis that served as the entrance to the circle, then cleared a path back up to his mama’s house. By the time he reached her back porch, sweat soaked his jacket. His shirt, undershirt, and undershorts were drenched. He hated working this hard. If he was going to sweat, he wanted it to be for a good reason. Pink suddenly pictured Claire’s breasts tolling like bells as she rocked on top of him in the front seat of his Suburban. If Kenny had known how amenable and horny his little game of bridge-jumping had made Claire, he’d no doubt perfect hundreds of new death threats.
“Thank you, Pink,” Mattie said, appearing at the back door. “Would you help me carry these things down?” She set a clay chimenea on the deck, along with a box filled with gold and red silk scarves.
“How about some breakfast first?” Pink said, leaning the shovel and broom against the railing.
“Isabelle called,” Mattie said. “She sounded angry. What’d you do?”
“Nothing. You have any eggs and ham steak going to waste in that refrigerator of yours?”
“Come in and warm up. I’ll fix you something.”
Pink threw himself in a kitchen chair as Mattie bent over to fish a frying pan from the bottom cabinet. Pink could tell she was crying, even though she was trying to hide it. His stomach had been growling since seven that morning, and he didn’t want to sidetrack her from cooking the ham and eggs by asking what was wrong, but he did anyway, hoping it wasn’t about Isabelle or Claire.
“I miss her so much,” his mama said, directing her gaze toward the living room, toward Lulu’s ashes sitting on the coffee table. “She was like a grandmother to you and a mother to me. And a best friend.”
Those were the last words Mattie spoke before turning away to cook his breakfast. Pink was thankful for the silent interlude; it gave him time to think about Claire. Over the past few years it had grown harder to remember how Isabelle had been before she took sick, how beautiful she’d been, how funny, how affectionate, how strong. He’d fantasized about coming home from the office and finding Isabelle dead, so he and Claire could take up together after she dumped Kenny. Then he and Claire could move somewhere new. A fresh start. Folks did it all the time, though not many from Ardenwood seemed to. The fantasy floated him, gave him prospects, even though being with Claire wouldn’t be a swim in the punch bowl either. But Claire was simpler, not nearly as bright as Isabelle. He’d be able to sneak a lot past Claire.
Mattie rattled a plate from the cabinet and swept the ham and eggs onto it with her spatula. “Do you want coffee, sweetheart?” she asked, twisting toward him. He nodded, speechless at the sudden and unexpected kindness in her voice. She was like an ebbing tide, one second gruff, the next pleasant. She set the plate and coffee in front of him. After practically dropping the fork, knife, and ketchup bottle on the table next to Pink, Mattie dropped into the chair. She let out a sigh and deflated like a balloon with a fast leak. She wiped her eyes as she glanced across at him. “I’m sorry I was so cross with you this morning, Pink. Lulu’s death is hitting me hard.” She shifted her eyes toward the living room and shook her head. “And Emerson. How could he put Lulu in such an awful thing? I told him I’d pay for everything and he puts her ashes in a plastic box the color of rubber dog poop. I don’t understand it.” Pink speared a fat piece of ham and slid it past his lips, not about to confess that the box was his idea.
“Did you have trouble getting up the road,” she asked, turning the bottom of her apron in her fingers.
“Not a bit,” he said, chewing a mouthful of food.
“What took you so long? Isabelle said you left the house over two hours ago.”
“Gave Loudon a lift up the hill. Some feller shot himself, and Loudon and Elmer—”
“Shot himself? Like a hunting accident? Is he all right?”
“Blew his own dang head off. Don’t think it was no accident.”
Mattie recoiled, covering her mouth, and Pink heard a feeble whimper squeeze from her throat, not much more than a squeak.
“It was them folks from Atlanta that bought my cabin,” Pink told her.
“The man whose wife ran off and got lost in the woods a few weeks back?”
“How’d you know about that?” Pink asked.
“Loudon told me. Pink, that’s awful. Was she there when it happened? Is she okay?”
“She found the body. She’s a little loony herself, so I’m not sure it fully registered in that cobweb brain of hers.”
“That’s an awful thing to say, Pink. She was probably in shock.”
Maybe she was, he thought. He’d never seen anyone in shock, didn’t really know what that meant. He forked the scrambled eggs until the tines were covered. Mattie’s head was shaking of its own free will, Pink thought, her eyes roaming the floor.
“Why do you think she’s not right in the head?” Mattie finally said. “Do you know her?”
Pink referred to Michelle as Mrs. Stage when he told about her coming to his office, about how she’d lied about wanting to sell the cabin so she could talk with him, about her husband coming up from Atlanta to take her back. As soon as he finished, he could tell by his mama’s vexed expression that he shouldn’t have said a word.