Laura McHugh - The Weight of Blood

He heard a loud crash and ran back into the house. On his way up the stairs, he heard another crash, then a moment of silence before Mama started screaming. He flung open the bedroom door and saw her straddling the windowsill, half in, half out, waving her arms as a bat flapped around the room. He guessed that the crash he’d heard was Mama kicking out the screen, and the bat must have flown in as Mama tried to get out. If she jumped, it would be Crete’s fault, because he was supposed to be watching her.

Please, Mama , he said. Come back in . He grabbed her nightgown and pulled till she fell to the floor, cussing him. The bat flew back out into the darkness, and Crete closed the window. He tried to help Mama up, but she swatted at him.

I ought to throw you out that window, she sneered. You’re just like me, something wrong in that head of yours. I’d be doing you a favor.

Her words burned into him. He wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t come to stop her, if she had gone ahead and jumped.

Get out , she hissed, pulling herself to a squatting position and lurching toward him. Get out!

He backed to the doorway, and without warning, she slammed the door in his face. Blood spurted out of his nose. He went back outside and sat on the porch swing with toilet paper stuffed in his nostrils, listening, but nothing fell from the upstairs window into the bushes.

When Daddy got home, he handed a sobbing Carl over to Crete and thumped up the stairs to check on Mama. Daddy didn’t want Carl to see her, not until he took her back to the doctor in Springfield and got her fixed up with some pills. Heaven forbid Carl learned the truth about anything that might upset him. They had to tell him pretty lies about Mama and Santa and the Easter Bunny. Carl loved their mother because he didn’t really know her. It was different for Crete. He wasn’t sure that he could ever look at Mama again without seeing the meanness he knew was inside her.

Carl settled down when Crete took him, snuggling his sweaty head against his big brother’s neck. Crete took Carl’s stuffed bear out of his hands and, with little ceremony, drop-kicked it off the porch. Carl’s face quivered on the verge of a sob, so Crete set him down roughly on the swing and retrieved the bear before the crybaby could bawl loud enough to bring Daddy back down and get him in trouble. He would be in enough trouble when Daddy saw the busted screen. But Carl didn’t cry. Crete handed him the bear, and his little brother gave it an awkward punch, knocking it to the ground. Carl sniffled and looked up at Crete with a wan smile. Crete held out his arms and let Carl climb back onto his lap and rocked him in the swing long after the boy fell asleep, swatting away any mosquitoes that dared land on his brother.

Decades had passed since the night Mama broke his nose. He’d looked out for Carl all these years, and his little brother had stuck by him, even when the only thing tethering them was blood. Crete trusted Carl more than anyone else, which was not to say that he trusted him completely; Carl’s weakness—not of character but of constitution—could be a liability. Carl didn’t know everything, for example, about the girls. He knew Crete was invested in some sort of escort business, but the true nature and extent of the operation would have turned his delicate stomach. Crete hadn’t set out to hide it. He figured his brother would find out sooner or later, and then, as with most questionable things Crete did, Carl would manage to ignore it. Carl was good at blinding himself to what he didn’t want to see, especially where his brother was concerned.

But then Carl had gone and gotten involved with Lila. And Lucy had come along. Crete didn’t want Carl to know what he had done, because it might be the one thing his little brother couldn’t overlook. He didn’t dare work any of the girls in Henbane after that (Emory was to blame for the whole Cheri mess, proving again that it was a bad idea to traffic in your own backyard), though he brought new recruits to the farm as needed and kept them hidden for a few days or weeks until he could transition them to Springfield or Branson or other locations. He’d had girls in trailers and basements and back rooms, in the sticks, the city, the suburbs. It didn’t matter where they were, because men would find them, and the money would follow.

He’d learned the basics from Emory, a mentor of sorts who looked more like a senile moonshiner than a businessman. They had met at an Amway meeting, though neither of them was there to join up and start selling vitamins and detergent door-to-door. Crete was there to confront a guy who owed him money, and Emory was there to scout for like-minded individuals who could expand his territory. At the time, business was slumping at Dane’s, and Crete needed to make up for a few bad investments. Once Emory trusted him enough to talk details, Crete couldn’t believe how easy it sounded.

Even with Emory’s guidance, Crete made mistakes at the start. He picked the wrong kinds of girls. Girls who weren’t desperate enough, hadn’t resigned themselves to their situations, wouldn’t cede. And he failed when it came to forcing them. He figured out quick enough that force wasn’t necessary when he picked the right ones. There were plenty of ordinary girls who were poor or dumb or lonely, abused, addicted, confused. No need to import exotic beauties. Emory had told him that looks didn’t matter—a guy would screw a goat if he got desperate enough—but that was another mistake Crete had made in the beginning, picking pretty girls, girls he’d want for himself. It had backfired with Lila in the worst way. He could admit later how stupid he’d been to think something would spark between them once she arrived. He had lost perspective, let himself feel spurned and jealous and vengeful. And instead of cutting his losses on a sour deal, he’d brought strife to his family, ultimately hurting his brother—the one person who had earned his love and loyalty. He wouldn’t let himself be tempted to make that mistake again.

He thought about quitting early on, but it was easy money—which he sorely needed to keep Dane’s afloat—and he couldn’t argue with the business model. You could only sell a cow once, but you could milk it every day. And no matter how much people drank, they would always be thirsty again. Demand was unceasing, and the supply was bountiful. There were so many girls, like milk cows, giving and giving until they gave out. He took them in, spoiled them with compliments and attention and clothes, and sometimes recouped his investment in under twenty-four hours. Someone told him that way back in slave times, a girl might cost you a thousand bucks. For reasons he didn’t question, women’s worth had plummeted, and Crete could buy one for a few hundred dollars. And he didn’t always have to buy them; sometimes he got lucky and found one on his own.

After a while, the thrill dulled and he didn’t touch the girls anymore, even when they tried to touch him. He’d slept with some of them after Lila, hard little creatures with broken parts inside that caused them to malfunction, to seek comfort in his lies, to kiss his stubbled neck, remove their clothes, and kneel before him, an empty offering to a false god. But that was how all gods were, he figured: blind, deaf, and dumb, unconcerned or unaware of what people begged of them. It wasn’t guilt that made him stop sleeping with the girls, it was the pointlessness of it. Sex with a broken girl was hardly better than jerking off. He wanted something he couldn’t find in girls as empty as he was. Nothing plus nothing equals nothing, he thought, an equation that served no purpose.

The only girl he truly cared about was Lucy. He barely trusted Carl to watch over her, doubting his brother could be ruthless enough or smart enough to protect her. And so he was there, always, for Lucy when she needed him. He was there rocking her to sleep while his brother drowned in grief. He was there, with his eye on her, while Carl wandered for work. Carl wanted to send Lucy off to college, but Crete wanted her to stay in Henbane and take over the family business—Dane’s, not the other, the buying and selling of girls. He would rather she saw none of that but the assets, the money he had set aside to provide for her and keep Dane’s running as long as she liked without worrying about its actual profits. That was a reason he gave himself for continuing in the business when he no longer needed the money; it was a better reason than the simple fact that he liked having control over the girls. The flip side was that Lucy wouldn’t want the money if she knew where it came from. She had the same moral compass as Carl but lacked his ability to ignore unsavory things.