Charlaine Harris: Grave Secret

Tolliver countered this scenario with his own issue. “Do you really think Iona will be able to accept us ? Now that we’re together?”

I fell silent. The fact that we’d become a couple would shock my aunt and her husband, and that was putting it mildly. I could understand that point of view, even. After all, Tolliver and I had grown up together in our teen years. We’d lived in the same house. My mother had been married to his father. I’d been introducing him as my brother for years. Sometimes I still referred to him as my brother, because it was the habit of years and because we’d shared an upbringing. Though we weren’t blood relations at all, there was a certain ick factor in our sexual relationship, to an outsider’s point of view. We’d be fools not to recognize that.

“I don’t know,” I said, simply to be argumentative. “They might just accept it.” I was lying.

“You’re lying,” Tolliver said. “You know both Hank and Iona are going to go ballistic.”

When Iona went ballistic, God got mad. If Iona thought something was morally questionable, God thought so, too. And God, as channeled through Iona, ruled that household.

“But we can’t conceal from them what we are to each other,” I said helplessly.

“We shouldn’t, and we won’t. We’ll just have to see what happens.”

I tried to change the subject, because I had to think over everything we’d just said. “When will we see Mark?” Mark Lang was Tolliver’s older brother.

“We’re supposed to meet him at the Texas Roadhouse tomorrow night.”

“Oh, good.” I managed a smile, though I’m sure it was a weak one. I’d always liked Mark, though I’d never been as close to him as I’d been to Tolliver. He’d protected all of us as much as he was able. We didn’t manage to see Mark every visit to Texas, so I was glad he’d found the time to have supper with us. “So this evening we’re invited to Iona’s for a brief visit? And we’ll just see what happens. We have no plan?”

“We have no plan,” Tolliver confirmed, and we smiled at each other.

I tried to keep hold of the smile when we got into the car to drive over to the small house in Garland where our sisters lived. Though the weather was clear and bright, I wasn’t seeing blue skies ahead.

Iona Gorham (nee Howe) had based her character on being anti-Laurel. Laurel Howe Connelly Lang, my mother, had been Iona’s only sibling, and older than Iona by almost ten years. In my mother’s teen years and through her twenties, before her drug addiction, she had been fairly attractive, popular, and party loving. She had also made great grades, and she’d gone to law school. She’d married a man she met there, my dad, Cliff Connelly. My mother had been a little wild-well, more than a little-but she’d also been a high achiever.

To compete and contrast, Iona had gone the sweet-and-religious route.

Looking at Iona’s face when she answered the door, I wondered when the sweetness had turned sour. Iona had always looked disappointed. Yet today, she seemed a little less sour than usual, and I wondered why. Usually, the arrival of Tolliver and me would make her look like she’d sucked a lemon. I tried to remember how old Iona was, and decided that she must be a little less than forty.

“Well, come on in,” my aunt said, and stepped back into her living room.

I always felt like we were invited to enter only grudgingly, that Iona would have loved to shut the door in our faces. I’m five foot seven, and my aunt is shorter than I am. Iona is pleasantly rounded, and her hair is graying in a pretty way, as though her light brown hair was simply fading a little. Her eyes are dark gray, like mine.

“How are you?” Tolliver asked pleasantly.

“I’m feeling wonderful,” Iona said, and our mouths fell open at the same moment. We’d never heard Iona say anything remotely like that. “Hank’s arthritis is acting up,” she continued, oblivious to our reaction, “but he can get up and go to work, thank God.” Iona worked at Sam’s Club part-time, and Hank was the manager of the meat department at a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

“How have the girls been doing in school?” I asked, my standard fallback question. I was still trying not to look at Tolliver, because I knew he was just as floored as I was. Iona was preceding us into the kitchen, where we usually had our conversations. Iona saved the living room for real company.

“Mariella’s been doing pretty good. She’s a middle-of-the-road-type student,” Iona said. “Gracie, they always say she’s a little behind where she ought to be. You two want some coffee? I’ve got the pot on.”

“That would be great,” I said. “I take it black.”

“I remember,” she said with a sharp edge to her voice, as if I’d accused her of being a bad hostess. That sounded more like the Iona I knew, and I felt a little more comfortable.

“And I take mine with some sugar,” Tolliver said. While her back was to us, he looked at me and raised his eyebrows. Something was up with Iona.

In short order, a mug was in front of him, and a sugar bowl and a spoon and a napkin. I was served second, and I got the plain mug. Iona poured herself some coffee, too, and settled herself in the chair closest to the coffeepot in a way that indicated she was really, really tired. For a minute or two, she didn’t speak. She seemed to be thinking hard about something. The table was round, and there was a pile of mail in the middle. I automatically scanned it: phone bill, cable bill, a handwritten letter protruding from its envelope. The handwriting looked sort of familiar in an unpleasant way.

“I’m wore out,” Iona said. “I been on my feet at work for six hours straight.” Iona was wearing a T-shirt and khakis and sneakers. Clothes had never been a priority for her the way they had been for my mother, until she’d stopped caring about anything at all but the drugs and where they’d come from next. I felt an unexpected flash of sympathy for Iona.

“That’s hard on the body,” I said, but she wasn’t listening.

“Here come the girls,” she said, and then my ears caught what hers had already registered: the sound of footsteps outside the garage door.

Our sisters burst into the room and tossed their backpacks against the wall right under a coatrack. They hung their jackets on the coatrack and took their shoes off to park beside the backpacks. I wondered how long it had taken Iona to establish those habits.

The next second, I was taken up with examining my sisters. They’ve always changed when I see them. It takes me a minute to absorb it. Mariella is twelve years old now, and Gracie is just over three years younger.

The girls were surprised to see us, but not startled. I didn’t know if Iona had even warned them we were stopping by to see them. Mariella and Gracie hugged us dutifully, but without enthusiasm. I wasn’t surprised at that, given how Iona had tried hard to get the girls to regard us as unnecessary and maybe even bad. And since they didn’t remember Cameron, I knew their memories of the trailer had to be faint or nonexistent.

For their sakes, I hoped so.

Mariella was starting to look more like a girl and less like a sack of flour. She had brown hair and eyes, and was square-built like her father. Gracie had always been small for her age, and she’d always been moodier than Mariella. She kissed me voluntarily, which was a first.

It’s always hard to get comfortable with our sisters. It’s uphill work, reestablishing a bond that has always been tenuous. They sat at the table with us and the woman who’d been a mother to them, and they answered questions, and they acted pleased with their little presents. We always got them a book apiece to encourage them to read, a pastime that wasn’t the norm in the Gorham household. But we generally got them something else, too, something cute to wear in their hair or little trinkets, something frivolous. It was hard not to light up like a Christmas tree when Mariella said, “Oh, I read the other two books this lady wrote! Thanks!” I kept my “You’re welcome” down to a pleased smile.