Anna Schumacher - End Times

He grabbed her bag, and Daphne followed him up the scrubby path to the trailer, her head still spinning. Nothing was the way she’d imagined it back in Detroit, where the glimmer of Carbon County and her uncle’s welcoming smile had gotten her through so many of the long, uncertain nights since Jim’s stabbing. It hadn’t even occurred to her that the Peytons might not be doing well themselves.

“There you are!” Karen Peyton threw open the trailer’s door and wrapped Daphne in a cinnamon-scented hug. The trumpet blasts disappeared momentarily into the folds of her aunt’s fleshy shoulders as Karen squeezed her tight.

“Welcome back, dear.” Aunt Karen pulled away, still grasping Daphne’s wrist in one of her pudgy hands. Wispy blond hair flew around her face, and a basket of cartoon kittens grinned from her sweatshirt. “Can you believe this . . . this . . . ?” She waved her hand in the air, at a loss for words.

“This miracle?” Floyd supplied.

“Miracle, racket, whatever you want to call it!” Karen hustled them inside, letting the screen door slam behind them. “Me an’ Janie’ve been on the phone with everyone, and of course the first person I called was Pastor Ted.”

Uncle Floyd caught Daphne’s eye and winked.

“Does he agree?” Floyd asked. “This could be that sign from God he’s been talking about all these years?”

“Well, he doesn’t know for sure, of course. Some folks say it’s gotta be a busload of trumpet players or something, some trick of the wind. But as far as I’m concerned, there’s really only one explanation: The good Lord is trying to send us a message, and He found the absolute loudest possible way to do it.” She raised her head to the trailer’s low, curved ceiling. “We hear you up there, okay, Lord?” she said. “And we’re ready and willing to do your bidding, always have been and always will be—so you can stop driving us nuts with that noise already!”

“For real!”

Over her aunt’s shoulder, Daphne saw her cousin Janie coming toward them from the hall. The towheaded girl who had once made Daphne call her Princess Janie was still blond, but now her color came with hair spray and dark roots. Her eyes were ringed in thick blue liner and accentuated with layers of mascara, and peachy gloss coated her lips. She’d filled out, too, with big breasts and pudgy shoulders and . . .

“Oh my God.” Daphne set down her bag and stared at the bulge under her cousin’s top. “You guys didn’t tell me Janie was pregnant!”

“We don’t take the Lord’s name in vain in this house,” Janie said sunnily. “And—yep, surprise! I’m gonna have a baby boy.”

Daphne’d been wrong. This was all wrong. She’d be an imposition on the Peytons, taking up space they didn’t have in a trailer that could barely accommodate them in the first place, stealing food from a baby that needed it way more than she did. She never should have come. The trailer felt like it was closing in on her, even more claustrophobic than her mother’s apartment. A claw of panic seized at her throat as she realized she’d have to leave, to find a whole new place for herself in the world, one without any friends or family at all. Maybe it was what she deserved.

“I’m sorry—I didn’t realize,” she babbled. “You should have told me. I could have gone somewhere else . . .”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Janie swooped in to give Daphne a hug. “We wanted it to be a surprise! There’s plenty of room for all of us here—like Pastor Ted says, if there’s room in your heart, there’s room in your home. Now come on, I’ll show you where I cleaned off a shelf in my room for your stuff.” She eyed Daphne’s duffel. “Although if that’s all you brought, I guess that’s a good thing, ’cause I’m a bit of a slob. So can you get a load of these trumpets or what? It’s all anyone in town can talk about . . .”

The claw eased its grip on Daphne’s throat as Janie led her down the hall, chattering the entire way: about clothes, the ordeals of pregnancy, and the kooky trumpet sounds that still filled the air. If the Peytons minded having her there, they sure did a good job of hiding it. I’ll help out however I can , Daphne promised herself. I’ll do the dishes, try to get a job—maybe even start a garden out back.

Daphne reminded herself that even if the situation wasn’t ideal, she was safe with the Peytons. It was time to forget about what had happened back in Detroit, to forget the nightmare of the past nine years. It was time to be a Peyton again.

THE trumpets continued as Janie showed Daphne around the trailer, serenading them as her cousin pointed out the holder for her toothbrush in the closet-sized bathroom and how to kick the stubborn leg on the foldout couch where she’d be sleeping in the living room. As cramped as the trailer was, she could tell that the Peytons had tried hard to make it feel like a home. The pint-size kitchen was painted a cheery yellow, and clean lace curtains hung over the windows above the sink and built-in banquette.

Two steps away, the living room was stuffed with plush, rose-colored furniture. Daphne saw her own seven-year-old face grinning from a photo on the wall, clutching an ice cream cone in one hand and her father’s swim trunks in the other, the entire family wet and sunburned and smiling. The photo was surrounded by Janie’s school pictures, framed certificates, and inspirational posters, and a big wooden cross decorated in hand-painted vines and flowers dominated the wall.

The trumpets blared through dinner, interrupting with blast after triumphant blast as Janie tried to lead the family in a lengthy grace blessing the Lord, the food, the baby, the baby’s daddy, Cousin Daphne’s poor dead stepdad, Pastor Ted and the entire congregation of the Carbon County First Church of God, and also Wal-Mart for having such cheap maternity clothes. Daphne had just finished doing the dishes when a bright green pickup truck decorated with shiny black lightning careened into the driveway, a dirt bike strapped to the back. An oversize guy in an Abercrombie T-shirt and Carhartt jacket, with hulking shoulders and a thick, pink neck, came lumbering out.

“Doug!” Janie called. She threw open the door and kissed him loudly while Aunt Karen averted her eyes. “Can you believe this noise? It’s, like, the craziest thing that’s ever happened to Carbon County since—well, ever!”

“Sure, babe.” Doug regarded Daphne over his girlfriend’s head. His eyes were narrow and piggish under puffy lids, and a purple pimple throbbed ripely by his lip. “This your cousin?”

Janie bobbed between them, making introductions. “It’s real nice to meet you,” Doug said, a slow grin spreading across his face. Daphne forced herself to smile back, reminding herself that not all guys were giant scumbags like Jim. “You ready to watch me ride?”

“I guess,” Daphne replied. During dinner, Janie had told her all about the motocross track in town, how ever since it had been built it was the main thing—and pretty much the only thing—to do on Friday nights.

“So you really never seen any motocross?” Doug asked as they headed toward his truck.

She shook her head.

“I guess not a lot of dirt bike tracks in Detroit. Just dirtbags, ha ha ha!” He guffawed at his own joke, and Janie joined in. After a moment, Daphne choked out a laugh of her own. She was liking Doug less and less by the minute—but if there was one thing Jim had taught her, it was that the bigger a guy talked, the less he liked to be contradicted.

“You’re gonna love it!” Janie did her best to twist around and smile at Daphne from the passenger seat. “Some of the guys around here are real good. Especially my man here—right, baby?”