Laura McHugh - The Weight of Blood

I set my bag down in the bedroom once shared by Birdie’s sons, the room I’d slept in so many times. Birdie had put away all the little knickknacks I once kept on the dresser—the jar of buttons, the yarn-haired doll, the children’s Bible that I’d defaced with crayons—though my favorite pink afghan still lay across the bed. The room was sweltering, and it would only get worse as we sank deeper into the heart of August. I opened the window and looked out on the empty pasture and the hills that rose beyond it. I had nowhere to go and nothing to do. If I got desperate, I could crack open one of Birdie’s musty Reader’s Digest condensed books, but for once I didn’t feel like reading.

The phone rang, and Birdie came to tap at my door. “He’s on your approved phone list,” she said. Great, there was a list. I was surprised there was anyone on it but Dad.

“Is it Ray?” I asked, following Birdie to the living room, where her old-fashioned phone sat tethered to a tiny table in the corner.

Birdie shook her head, positioning herself in the armchair across from me. “It’s that boy.”

I picked up the receiver and sat down on the arm of the sofa. “Hi,” I said.

“Hey.” It was good to hear Daniel’s voice, even if I was mad at him. “Your dad told me where you were.”

“Nice of you to call.” I hoped I sounded aloof.

“I finally got a phone. Sorry.”

“So what do you want?”

“To know how you are, for one. I can’t believe how much I miss you and how much time I spend worrying.”

“That’s your own fault,” I said. “You’re the one who left. And I never asked you to worry about me.”

“I guess you’re mad at me for talking to Carl. I don’t blame you. But I wasn’t trying to get you in trouble, I was trying to help.”

“Hold on,” I said. I looked up at Birdie, who was feigning interest in her yarn basket. “Could you please, please let me talk to him in private for just a minute?” I asked her. “It’s kind of embarrassing fighting in front of you.”

Birdie took her sweet time getting up and walking across the room to the kitchen. She clicked on her little radio, which was set to the gospel station, and shot me a stern glance through the doorway. She’d probably report this to Dad later and see if I was allowed to talk unsupervised. I spoke low enough that I hoped she couldn’t hear me. “Look, I’ll be honest with you. I miss you, too. I wish you were here, but even if you were, there wouldn’t be anything you could do to help. Everything’s a mess.”

“What’s happening?”

I filled him in the best I could, explaining that I didn’t know who killed Cheri, but Crete knew and had lied to me about it. And my dad was involved, which complicated things. I couldn’t tell him what I knew about Sorrel, because Bess had sworn me to secrecy.

Daniel groaned. I envisioned him raking his hand through his hair in that aggravated way of his. “Wait. Back up a minute. I didn’t follow half of that, with you whispering. How did you end up talking to Crete about Cheri? Did you ask him point-blank and expect him to tell you the truth? And how do you know he’s lying if you don’t know what happened?”

“I sneaked into his house to see if I could find anything out about the trailer, and he came home and caught me in his basement. He knew I’d been asking around about Cheri, and he said he wanted to clear some things up with me.”

“You broke in to his house? Are you kidding me? What the hell made you think that was a good idea?”

“I don’t need you to lecture me right now,” I said. “There’s something else.” I peeked at Birdie, who was wiping down the already clean kitchen table. She adjusted the knob on the radio, switching it from gospel to weather. “When I was digging through his papers, I came across something of my mom’s. It looked like a job application, but it had all these weird comments on it about her looks and the fact that she had no family. It felt wrong. I’m wondering if Crete brought her here for the same reason Cheri was in that trailer.”

“Oh… wow.” He was silent for a moment. “Lucy, I’m sorry. I know you’re already mad at me, and I don’t want to make things worse, but don’t you think it’s time to turn this all over to somebody else?”

“I will. I mean, I’m going to talk to Ray. I’m waiting for him to get back to me. He knows somebody with the state police.”

“Why are you waiting? Just make a call and be done with it.”

“It’s my dad,” I said, coiling the phone cord around my finger. “He didn’t really have anything to do with it, and even with the body, he was just trying to send Crete a message. But I’m worried he’ll get locked up, too. I’m trying to figure out how to keep that from happening.”

“I know you don’t feel like he should go to jail, Luce, but Crete and whoever else was responsible, they have to pay for what they did. You can’t spare them to keep your dad safe. You can’t just let them go.”

“Dad doesn’t want me to call the cops.”

“Your dad’s a good guy,” Daniel said. “I know you, though, Luce, and you always want to do the right thing.”

“I want to do my version of the right thing,” I said.

“I’ll be back this weekend. If you want to talk to the cops, then I’ll go with you. I was in the trailer, too. I can back up your claims. Then you can let this go. It’s not up to you to figure it all out. Let someone else handle it.”

It sounded easier when Daniel laid it out. Simple, almost. He couldn’t get here soon enough.

“I’m glad you’re coming,” I said.

“Me, too. We have a lot to talk about.”

After I hung up the phone, reality seeped back in. I knew nothing would be simple after I talked to the police. My dad and uncle could be taken away, the family business destroyed, the Danes forever tarnished. Staying here would be unbearable, and I had nowhere else to go.

I hadn’t told Daniel everything; I hadn’t mentioned the noises in the basement or the locked room. No need to make him worry more than he already was.

I joined Birdie in the kitchen as she got out the flour and lard to make biscuits. “Radio says we’re in for some bad weather the next few days,” she said, wiping sweat off her forehead. “We’re already under a thunderstorm watch. Merle’s getting all antsy, like he does when hail’s coming.”

I was glad she didn’t ask what Daniel and I had talked about. “I was thinking I’d go out looking for gooseberries,” I said. “See if I can get enough for a pie.”

Birdie measured baking powder. “Awful late in the summer for gooseberries.” We both knew I wouldn’t find any, that I just needed a reason to get out of the house. I handed her the salt, pulled milk and eggs from the fridge. “Don’t go far, I guess.” Birdie sighed. “Bucket’s on the porch.”

Merle sat at the back door and watched me cross the pasture. Birdie was probably watching, too, from the kitchen window. I didn’t know her woods as well as I knew my own, so I wandered along the tree line until I found a stone ledge big enough to stretch out on. I stared at the hazy sky, watched two vultures with their white-tipped wings circle slowly, deliberately, waiting for something somewhere to die.

Although I was closer than ever to finding out what had happened to Cheri, I still didn’t know what had become of my mother. I had so many unanswered questions about Crete’s connection to the two of them.

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, the air so thick that I imagined it could drown me. Being outdoors hadn’t calmed my nerves, like I’d thought it would, so I decided to head back to the house. As I sat up, I got the feeling that I was being watched. Ordinarily, I would assume it was an animal, most likely a deer, but I was feeling more jittery than usual. I looked all around and saw nothing. Then Merle’s insistent barks rang out across the field, and I was on my feet, fighting the urge to look behind me. I jogged back to Birdie’s and found Bess sprawled in the grass, searching Merle’s ears for ticks.