Bryan Gruley: The Skeleton Box

But, unlike nineteen years before, when the town sank into an extended sulk following our state title loss to the Pipefitters, Starvation’s leaders realized that great teams don’t come along every year, and they decided to brag about the moment to everyone on Michigan’s main north-south freeway.

I was as happy as anyone about that.

Which may be why my mother decided, without letting me know, that she was going to attend the posting ceremony. She’d said nothing about it when we met for breakfast that morning at Audrey’s. She had tea and wheat toast. I had blueberry pancakes and ham. We didn’t talk about anything important, except my reminding her that we were supposed to meet with her lawyer that afternoon to discuss her testimony in the trial of Father Reilly.

“Yes, yes,” she said, annoyed. “Lawyers and more lawyers.”

“I’ll pick you up after the sign ceremony,” I said.

“Fine. My tea is too weak.”

I’ll never know what she was thinking. She took a wrong turn off of Route 816, a road she had traveled maybe ten thousand times, and wound up atop Dead Sledder Mile, driving away from I-75 instead of toward it.

Later, Darlene and I would try to explain to ourselves how Mom had gotten off track. We agreed that she was tired, having just taken over Mrs. B’s Meals on Wheels routes. But she’d also been withdrawn and quiet for weeks. Despite our efforts to get her out for euchre or a boat ride or anything, she’d sit for hours at the front window of her house, staring at the lake. We knew why. She was blaming herself for the death of one friend and the estrangement of the other. Trying to persuade her otherwise seemed only to sink her deeper into despair, as if the effort to soothe her proved that she was right, that she had failed two women she had loved, and who had loved her.

Dead Sledder’s coiling descent wasn’t as treacherous in the spring, but a morning shower had made the asphalt slippery. Mom probably felt the car slide left at the turn halfway down the hill and overcompensated to the right. She wound up in the ravine beyond the opposite road shoulder, her Buick crumpled against an oak. When I arrived at the scene, police officers were moving around in the twin halos of her headlamps glowing in the shadows of the trees. I smelled gasoline and oil. Darlene stopped me at the shoulder and told me I couldn’t go down. I tried to fight past her but finally fell to my knees, wailing, No, this can’t be happening.

A few days later, Dingus called me to his office. He sat behind his desk, I sat in my usual chair facing him. “You’re not a thin-skinned guy, so I’m just going to tell you how it is,” the sheriff said. “We hired two different mechanics to look your mom’s vehicle over from stem to stern. It could have used tires but otherwise was in fine condition.”

“She was going to testify,” I said. “You don’t think that they-somebody-could… I mean, she could have nailed Reilly to a cross.”

“Maybe,” Dingus said. “But these aren’t stupid people.”

“Have you ruled out suicide?”

“Well,” the sheriff said, “you never can rule it out, really, not when there’s one person dead and no witnesses. But I wouldn’t-”

“So, no, you haven’t ruled it out?”

“We cannot rule it out, Gus, no, but I wouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

Darlene had saved some of her mother’s ashes from her funeral. We scattered those along with some of Mom’s on the lake at sunset on June 20, the longest day of the year. We sprinkled the rest of Mom’s ashes on the graves of my father and Louise Campbell.

The rosary Sister Cordelia had given her hung from my truck’s rear-view mirror.

Now Darlene tore the envelope open. She took out the paper inside and unfolded it.

She looked at me. “When did you know?”

“I had an inkling when I first heard my mom traveled to a spelling bee. I just didn’t want to admit it. But I was damn near certain when Gallagher said what he said about the birthday cake, how Cordelia treated Mom special.”

Darlene handed me the birth certificate. It had been filed in Sanilac County on May 31, 1933. It was for Beatrice Clare. The space for her last name was left blank. Her mother was listed as Mary Gallesero. The father’s name had been typed over enough times that it was illegible.

“How does that make you feel, Gussy?” Darlene said.

“How do you think? It makes my skin crawl to think Nilus was, you know.”

“Your grandfather. And Whistler, too.”

“Yeah. My half uncle? Jesus. No wonder Mom-”

“Don’t. Your mother loved you more than anything in the world.”

I didn’t say it. Instead I looked across the lake. The sunlight was almost gone. I felt Darlene’s knuckles soft on my cheek.

“Your grandmother was beautiful and kind,” she said. “And Bea loved her. Just think: Grandma Nonny.”

An elderly couple passed in a canoe, their paddles dipping soundlessly into the silver water.

“I wonder if Mom knew,” I said.

“That Nonny was her mother?”

“Yeah.”

“At some point, she must have. It’s almost like she was keeping a secret from herself. Then when her memory problems started, it wasn’t as easy. She couldn’t remember what she wasn’t supposed to remember.”

“Something like that.” I leaned my elbows on my knees. “She was right, though.”

“About what?”

“She told me, ‘The truth will not set you free.’”

“Does that hurt you?”

“That the truth doesn’t set you free?”

“No. That your mother kept things from you.”

I smiled despite myself. “After all my years in the newspaper business, you’d think I’d have learned that the truth usually turns out to be bullshit.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” I leaned back on the swing. “Do you think you would have left, Darl?”

“Left where?”

“Here. If D’Alessio had lasted and it turned out he beat Dingus in the election.”

“I’m here now,” she said. “We’re here now. And I’m thinking, I don’t know, maybe I’ll even run for sheriff.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You should. Dingus has had his day.”

We sat there, still and content, feeling the night breeze, watching the tree line etched against the sky disappear in the blackness.

Darlene snuggled into me. “Can I tell you a secret?” she said.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope. Do you know when I first fell in love with you?”

I grinned. “The night I played that amazing game against Grand Rapids in the regional final?”

“No, idiot.”

“Sorry. When?”

“It was this one morning when we were kids. A school morning. I’d gotten up late and just got out of the shower. My hair was a mess, and I stood on my porch trying to fix it while the bus waited. You were standing out by the bus, and I kept waiting for you to yell at me, ‘Get going, Darlene,’ like you usually did. But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You remember?”

“I do.”

“Come on.”

“You were wearing that white parka with the fake fur on the hood. Fats and Blinky were barking their asses off.”

“That could have been any day.”

“But it wasn’t.” I set a hand on her thigh and squeezed. “So, you keep secrets too, huh?”

“I just told you, so it’s not a secret anymore.”

“Uh-huh. Apparently, I’m attracted to people like you.”

She pressed a toe to the ground and pushed so that the swing began to rock.

“Lucky me,” she said.