Mattie turned away, then pulled a yellow cloth from the box and arranged it on the east altar.
“Is there anything else you need me to do, Mama? I told Isabelle I’d be home around two o’clock,” he said, glancing down at his wrist even though his sleeve hid the face of his watch.
“You’re coming tonight for Lulu, aren’t you?” she said.
Pink didn’t want anything to do with whatever corny shindig his mother had in mind for poor, dead Lulu’s spirit. He told her Isabelle didn’t like him gone at night, that he needed to be there for his wife.
“Lulu was like a grandmother to you,” she said. “She loved you, watched after you . . . protected you.” His mama’s eyes grew so hard he thought they were going to crack under the stare. “Lulu—” She stopped as if to consider what she was about to say. “Lulu did things for you that you didn’t even know about.”
“Maybe if I knew all these wonderful things she did for me, I’d feel different,” Pink said, his breath hanging in the frosty air, the sound of his own words repugnant to him. He tried to apologize, but she gave him her back and hurried toward the house. Before she’d turned away, her expression flashed anger first, then hurt. It was the hurt that bothered Pink the most.
*****
The look his mama had given Pink as she’d left the circle still burned in his head. He hated arguing with her and hadn’t intended on saying mean things, but the truth was, he was embarrassed she carried on the way she did, lighting candles, chanting out in front of trees and God, cutting circles in the air with her sacred knife, talking about deities, names he’d never heard and couldn’t pronounce. The knife had a special name too, but he couldn’t remember what it was. It had a sharp, curved blade that looked like it might be handy for cleaning squirrels or trimming carpet. Once he’d suggested that very thing while rolling it over in his fingers. It was the closest he’d ever come to being slapped by his mama. “Don’t ever touch that, Pink!” she’d yelled, snatching it from him and marching off to the spare bedroom she used as her sacred space. He’d peeked in there on occasion and was surprised by how unremarkable it was. The glass trinket case at the 74 Truck Stop was more interesting.
Pink turned onto Howdershoot Road and thought about stopping at the office. Not that there was anything to do there, but it beat going home and dealing with Isabelle. He glanced at the dash clock and figured Isabelle was probably worn out from anger and waiting and most likely had fallen asleep. Over the past twelve years anger and waiting seemed to be at the heart of her diet, the food that propelled her forward, like jet fuel to a 727. Now with her unidentifiable illness costing him hundreds of dollars a month in diagnosis technology (he figured he’d probably paid for one of those MRI machines over the past four years), Isabelle could only endure an hour or so of anger and waiting before it sapped her strength and put her flat on her back.
He wondered if Claire was still at the house, or if she’d crawled home, soggy-eyed and filled with remorse, to Kenny. What Claire saw in Kenny, Pink could never figure out.
Snow melted in the driveway, the rectangular bare spot where his Suburban had been parked overnight completely dry, with sprigs of green grass struggling up through the gravel. The argument he’d had with his mama rumbled through his brain. It was her hurt he couldn’t cleanse from his mind.
Claire was painting her nails at the kitchen table when he walked in. He heard the sizzle of something cooking on the stove, the smell of fried chicken layered with the pungent stink of lacquer. Claire looked up. “Where have you been all day?”
“Don’t start. And why do you have to do that in here?” He glanced at her spread fingers. “It ruins half the pleasure of having fried chicken.”
She waved him off then screwed on the lid of the red bottle with her thumb and ring finger.
“Isabelle sleeping?” he asked.
Claire nodded, getting up to turn the chicken.
“Just you and me for dinner, huh?”
Claire smiled at him and, for a moment, he didn’t trust her kindness, but it seemed sincere. She’d never smiled at him like that before.
“I rented a movie to watch with dinner,” she said, pulling a tin of rolls from the oven. “It’s that one with George Clooney, the one about the big storm. I’ve never seen it, have you?”
Pink sat at the table. “I don’t know who George Clooney is, but if you like it, I’ll watch it.”
“How was your day?” she said, smiling over her shoulder at him.
“Fine. I helped Emerson load a dead guy in somebody’s pickup today. The top of his head looked like a barbecue grill.”
Claire spun from the stove, her face twisted painfully. Her smile returned slowly, the one Pink was uncomfortable with. “You’re kidding, right?” she said.
“No. Fool shot his brains out. His wife found him out on the deck this morning, frozen. Loudon and Elmer couldn’t get up the hill so I—”
“Stop, Pink! I don’t want to hear anymore of this. Let’s just eat and watch the damn movie.”
Chapter 25
“Your sister’s here,” the nurse said, her vague shape moving away as the silhouette of someone else passed through the bright doorway. The dusty, blue light of evening had settled over the room like smoke, leaving everything bleary. Michelle tried to push herself up from the bed, her arms as heavy and useless as damp laundry. She wanted to snap on a light, flush the fatigue from her head and her bones, but she could hardly move.
“Don’t get up, sweetie.”
Michelle recognized the voice, still unable to focus. Darcy touched her hand.
“Where am I, Darcy?” Michelle knew she was in a hospital, but had no idea where, Ardenwood or Atlanta, or how long she’d been there. She remembered the police officer talking to her in the car, asking if she was warm enough, turning up the heat, the police radio bleating serious sounds and garbled sentences. She even recalled the sun reflecting off the metal letters of the hospital sign on the side of the building. That was her last memory. Everything had gone black at that point, and she’d been swimming in her pool at home, the water cool and too blue, the sun soothing and steady, dependable and shadow free. But all the other houses had disappeared. Even the stockade fence Cliff had built was gone, nothing but pool and sky, as if they were reflections of each other, the pool expanding as she pulled herself forward through the water, her body cutting a path toward the horizon.
“Ardenwood, Michelle. I left Atlanta as soon as the sheriff called.”
“What day is it?”
“Sunday. Sunday night.”
Michelle remembered Cliff, his body solid and unmoving, caked and powdered with snow. “My God, Darcy.” Michelle couldn’t stop the tears. Darcy placed her hand on Michelle’s forehead, brushing back her hair.