Jeff Abbott: Distant Blood

Sister framed her lips in a familiar combative stance when her eyes widened and I saw Candace gesturing to her from the kitchen. “Just a sec,” she muttered to me, and retreated to the roiling steam to consult with her partner.

“That girl is just never going to cotton to me.” Bob Don twirled his spoon in the creamy pudding. Disappointment curdled his normally kind features into a frown.

“Sure she will. If I can get along with Gretchen, you can get along with my sister.” I tapped my finger against the back of his hand. I don't touch Bob Don often (and no, I don't know why) and he brightened with a smile.

“Well, son, I'm glad to hear you and Gretchen are mending fences.”

“Yes. It's been much easier since we cleared the minefields away.” I stuck a spoonful of pudding and cookie into my mouth, not really wanting to discuss Bob Don's wife Gretchen. I'd made as much peace as possible with that woman, all for Bob Don's sake. He had the easier reconciliation to make; after all, Sister wasn't a crazily mean bitch. Tidying up my discord with Gretchen required the patience of a saint, which I fortunately have. Usually. Okay, occasionally. At least during leap years.

Sister returned to the table, toying with her blonde pony-tail and smiling like the grin had been pasted on with fancy glue. She sat down next to Bob Don and squeezed his arm in affection. I tried not to choke on my pudding.

“I think this reunion idea is just wonderful,” Sister purred. “Bob Don, of course you should get Jordan to go. Far be it from me to suggest otherwise. And Jordy, it's just absolutely necessary that you bond with your Goertz kin-folk. After all, they're your people, too.”

“Are y'all nipping cooking sherry back there?” I craned my neck for a better view into the kitchen. Candace ducked out of sight, presumably to go flour a chicken for frying. I suspected my butt'd been dusted as well. I narrowed my gaze at Sister, who replied with a cherubic smile. (The last angel to sport that grin was Lucifer immediately before he took the down elevator.)

“Jordy, your hypersuspicious mind is certainly one of your least attractive assets.” Sister sniffed. She patted Bob Don's arm. “I know that I've not always been-entirely kind to you, Bob Don. I'm sorry. I'm gonna work on that.”

He patted her arm back and gave her his warm smile. “I appreciate that, Arlene. After all, we're all family now.”

“And it's so important for us to keep that truth foremost in our minds,” Sister concurred. She sounded like a United Nations ambassador working the floor.

“I believe I've had enough sugar for today,” I said, clunking my spoon in my scraped-clean pudding bowl. I'd hoped for a summit between Sister and Bob Don, but this smacked of backdoor diplomacy.

“So when do you leave?” Sister asked brightly.

“Not soon enough for you, apparently,” I teased. “Would you like to go pack my bags for me?”

“One just can't ignore opportunities like this, Jordy,” Sister said, then coughed with a sidelong glance at Bob Don. “I mean-a chance to meet your long-lost family.”

“Or a chance to escape from your currently existing relatives,” I parried. Sister has never advocated sudden mood swings. I, of course, relegated her attempt at detente with Bob Don to consideration of my long-wounded feelings.

More fool I.

The first letter arrived in early June. it lay nestled, like a snake in high grass, among the inevitable bills, a long, funny letter from my college roommate now living in Nashville, and a men's-health magazine brimming with advice I gleefully ignore. I thought at first it was just a card of some sort, noting only the Corpus Christi postmark and wondering who the hell did I know down on the coast.

I sat at the kitchen table, still laughing from my friend's letter, and pulled the card out of the envelope. I dropped it immediately when I saw the blood.

A dried X of crimson gore splattered the front, obscuring a cartoon cat's knowing leer. The envelope fell nervelessly from my hands. My stomach churned.

I gulped a couple of long, steadying breaths, then retrieved a pair of scissors from the kitchen drawer. Using them, I pried the card open-the paper resisted for a moment, because the blood gummed the edges closed. Redness lined the missive, like the dark signature of the devil. I saw first the preprinted salutation on the card: THINKING ONLY OF YOU. A scarlet spatter scored the wish. On the other side of the card, letters cut from a magazine spelled out a cheerless message:

STAY AWAY BASTARD

YOU'RE NOT WANTED

DON'T MAKE ME PROVE IT

I sat for a long while, breathing through my mouth, reading the hateful words again. Cursive, dainty letters formed the PROVE and they looked incongruous in the hurtful context. Bile rose in my throat, along with a hard, burning anger. I balled my hand into a fist.

Stay away bastard.

The phone rang, jarring me out of my reverie. I scooped the receiver up with a shaking hand. “Hello?” My own voice sounded dank and rheumy, as if I'd just surfaced from some deep darkness.

“Hey, son, how you?” Bob Don's voice revved along, probably fresh from having closed a sweet deal on a fine preowned vehicle. “Hadn't talked to you in a couple of days and I missed you. What's up?”

I swallowed hard during his flurry of words. My heart pounded in my chest, and when I spoke, my voice cracked on my first assurance that I was well. “Doing fine. How are you?”

He regaled me with a funny story about one of his salesmen that normally would have had me laughing com-panionably. Instead I forced a weak titter. He asked about Mama and I answered I'd been out to the horse farm and she was well. The dance of words, meaningless to me at the moment, continued until I could stand it no more.

“Bob Don, let me ask you a question. Did you tell the rest of your family about my coming to this reunion next month?”

“Oh, sure, son. I weren't hardly gonna surprise them with you and make everybody uncomfortable. I told Uncle Mutt I was bringing you, and my sister Sass, and I'm sure they've informed the rest of the folks. You're big news to the Goertzes. Everybody's real eager to meet you.”

“I see.” I stared at the blood-smirched card. Someone had not taken the news of my arrival kindly.

“That's all right, isn't it?” Bob Don sounded concerned. “Son?”

“Yes, of course it is. I just wondered.”

“Well, I'm so looking forward to the reunion. I can't wait to show off my boy.”

Pleasure and pride laced his voice, and I smiled despite myself. I glanced back on the obscenity on the kitchen table. “I'm looking forward to meeting them, Bob Don.”

We made small talk for a while, and he invited Candace and me to dinner the following Friday night. I hung up the phone and turned back toward the table.

I resisted the urge to destroy the card. I got my camera, snapped a couple of pictures of the perverse mail, and carefully slid the card into a plastic Baggie. Telling Bob Don would upset him no end, and I felt furious at the idea of being warned off the reunion by someone so cowardly they veiled their hate in blood and anonymous threats. I stored the card carefully in an antique wooden box in my room, loath to eye it again. I stared down at the shut box and imagined the evil on the other side made the carved lid tremble, ever so slightly.

I wondered who might hate me so, sight unseen.

Two weeks later, rich hickory smoke perfumed the air as Bob Don flipped steaks on his backyard grill. Gretchen had flown on her broom to Brenham to visit her aunt and Can-dace was having dinner with her folks. We were bache-loring dinner together, but I had scant appetite for blood-rare steak and a loaded, buttery baked potato, fluffed with salt and pepper. My secret admirer had mailed me good wishes again.