Chris Whitaker - We Begin at the End

“It’ll be a capital case. Jesus, Vincent. Think about what you’re doing.”

Vincent knocked the door and signaled the guard. “I’ll see you, Walk.”

That half smile again, the smile that took him back thirty years and kept Walk from giving up on his friend.

14

THEY SLEPT TILL EIGHT THAT first Sunday.

Duchess woke first, her brother pressed close to her, his face washed gold. He caught the sun quick.

She stepped from the bed into the bathroom and caught the shape of her face in the mirror. She’d lost weight, skinny to start, her cheeks now hollowed, collarbones proud. Each day she looked more like her mother, so much that Robin told her that she should eat something.

As she walked out and into the hallway she saw it. A dress. Flowers on it, maybe daises. Beside was a hanger and on it a smart cotton shirt and dark slacks, the tags still on, size 4-5.

She took the stairs slow, still learning the noises of the old house. At the kitchen door she stood and watched him. Shoes shined, tie, stiff collar. Though she was certain she made no sound he turned.

“I left you a dress out. We go to church on a Sunday. Canyon View, we don’t miss it.”

“Don’t say ‘we’ like you mean me and my brother.”

“The kids like it at the church. They have cake after. I already told Robin and he was alright.”

Robin, Judas, would do anything for cake.

“You go to church. We’ll stay here.”

“I can’t leave you alone.”

“You have for thirteen years.”

He took it.

“You didn’t even buy the right size. Robin is six. You bought four to five, you don’t even know how old your own grandson is.”

Hal swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

She walked over and poured herself coffee. “What makes you think there’s a God anyway?”

He pointed in the direction of the window. She turned and looked out.

“I don’t see nothing at all.”

“You do, Duchess. You see it all. I know you do.”

“I know what I do see.”

He looked up, tensed a little, like he was more than ready for it.

“I see the shell of a man who’s made a decent mess of his own life, who’s got no friends and no family and no one to give a shit when he drops dead.” She smiled, innocent. “Probably happen in his field, his special fucking land painted in God’s color. He’ll lay there till his skin is green, till the oil tank comes and the delivery guy sees the crows, a hundred crows amongst the wheat. The animals will have torn him up by then. But it won’t matter because they’ll stick him straight in the ground. No one to mourn.”

She saw a slight tremble in his hand as he picked up his coffee. She wanted to go on, maybe she’d talk of her aunt, her darling beautiful aunt whose grave would’ve gone untended because her mother couldn’t face it and Hal had left her so totally alone. If it wasn’t for her, riding the hill, picking the wildflower, Sissy would have just rotted alone. But then she looked up and saw her brother at the door.

Robin climbed up onto the chair opposite Hal. “I dreamed about cake.”

Hal watched Duchess.

“You’ll come to church, won’t you?” Robin stared at her, and she saw it in his eyes, that need for her. “Please, Duchess. Not for God, just for the cake.”

She climbed the stairs and snatched the dress down from where it hung above the bedroom door, swinging on the frame. In the bathroom she opened the cabinet, fished through band-aids and soap and shampoo, found a pair of scissors and got to work.

She cut it short, the daisies stopping high on her pale thighs. A couple of random slashes, showing her back, the top of her stomach. She didn’t run a brush through her hair, just tousled till it was wild. She dug her old sneakers out from beneath the bed and kicked the new sandals across the floor. She had a cut on her knee, grazes from crops that stood as tall as her, and a scar on her arm that she knew would not heal. If she’d had a bust she’d have cut the dress low in front.

They were outside when she came down. Hal had washed the truck the day before, Robin helped him, the two of them soaping it up beneath falling sun, rinsing it off and wiping it down with a worn chamois.

“Oh, Jesus,” Robin said when he saw her.

Hal stopped, stared, took it, then climbed into the truck.

They passed another farm, a line of transmission towers, white rusted brown, the steady hum of lines lost beneath the rattle of the engine. East a pipe rose from the land like a worm feeling the first drum of rain, it carried five hundred yards then buried.

Ten minutes and they passed a lone sign hammered into the dirt, THE TREASURE STATE.

“Did that say ‘treasure’?”

She patted Robin’s knee. She read with him nightly, ten minutes. He was smart, already she could see that, too smart for her and Star. She worried he’d slip behind, old life tugging him back like vines around his feet.

“Minerals.” Hal kept a hand on the wheel but turned once and raised his eyebrows at Robin. “Oro y Plata. Gold and silver.”

Robin tried a whistle but never could get much of a sound.

West was the Flathead, so far Duchess could not make out the buffalo. She could see prairies, hundreds of something, cattle maybe.

“And the headwaters. That water that flows through the rest of the country starts out here.”

Robin did not whistle at that.

They turned. A sign told them it was Canyon View Baptist. The only view she could see was more browns.

The church, vernacular, wood and white, the gable front splintering and the bell tower low enough to throw stones at.

“You couldn’t find a shittier church?”

There were cars and trucks in the small lot. Duchess climbed out into sunlight and stared around. Fifty miles out wind turbines spun.

An old lady wandered over, smiled wide, liver spots and hanging skin, like the earth was calling the flesh to be buried but her brain was too stubborn to cede it.

“Morning, Agnes,” Hal said. “This is Duchess and Robin.”

Agnes extended a skeletal hand. Robin shook it with great care, like he worried it might come free and he’d be tasked with fixing the mess.

“Oh my, that’s a pretty dress,” Agnes said.

“This old rag. I thought it was a little short but Hal said the priest would enjoy it greatly.”

Agnes kept her smile though confusion tried hard to replace it.

Duchess led Robin off toward the church. There was a cluster of kids by the side window, neat hair, every one of them smiling.

“Must be retarded,” Duchess said.

“Can we go play with them?”

“No. They’ll try and steal your soul.”

Robin looked up at her, trying to search for a smile. She held firm.

“How will they steal it?”

“They’ll distract you with unrealistic ideals.”

She fussed with his hair and pushed him toward them, nodding when he turned back.

“Your sister’s dress is gross,” a little girl said. Duchess walked over, the kids all watching her careful. The girl looked past her and waved at a large lady wearing purple eye shadow.

“Is that your mom?” The barb took form.

The girl nodded.

Robin looked up at her, pleading in his eyes.

“We have to go inside now,” Duchess said, swallowing it down.

Robin breathed again.

They sat on a bench at the back of the church.

Dolly strutted in, towering heels and a wave of perfume. She winked at Duchess.

Robin sat between them and asked Hal questions about God that could not be answered by the living.

The priest led them, spoke of places far, war and famine and the desecration of kindness. Duchess let it roll over her till he mentioned death and new beginning, the climax of a plan so vast we should not try to understand or question it. She watched Robin, rapt, knowing certain where his mind was.