Page 82 of We Already Dug the Grave

Will my corpse give?

One. Two. Three. Four…

Chapter 31

Now

I’d never loved Puddle Creek in that misty-eyed way that songwriters and poets waxed lyrical about “home.” But there was something to be said about the place where the people who loved me lived. Where the soil held the secrets and bodies of generations of women in my family.

Something dark, perhaps. But something nonetheless.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Frances said.

I yawned, wiped drool from the corners of my mouth, and looked out the window.

“Looks like the old gas station burned down.” Frances pointed to the old store where Ruth had worked part-time, slowing almost to a stop, as the headlights illuminated the once familiar place.

Sure enough, the store now sat in a jumbled, charred mess. Yellow tape wrapped around the structure, seeming to serve as both a warning and holding it together. Someone had spray painted KEEP OUT on a piece of plywood and propped it near where the gas pumps had once stood. The fire that had claimed the building could’ve been recent or years old. In Puddle Creek, empty buildings became landmarks.

Frances swiped at her eyes.

“You okay?”

“Yes. It’s so stupid—after everything this is what I get emotional over?” Her voice cracked on the last word. “I always liked the old store. When were little and Hattie-May would take us to visit Ruth at work, the men who sat on the outdoor bench would always call out multiplication problems to me, then act amazed and clap when I got them right,” she said. “I know it’s silly, but it was a happy part of my childhood.”

I understood completely.

“You remember what Hattie-May used to call that outdoor bench where all those old men sat and drank coffee?” she asked.

“The dead-dick bench. How could I forget?” I said. “I thought it was called that because some guy named Dick had died there or something until my fourth-grade teacher threatened to give me detention if I said it again.” I turned and grinned at my sister. “Aunt Ruth explaining what a dick was might still be the most embarrassing moment of my life—even worse than getting the birds-and-the-bees talk from Bunny.”

“Bunny gave you the talk?” Frances asked in disbelief.

“Yeah,” I said. “Who gave it to you?”

Frances giggled. “Hattie-May.”

“Oh no.”

“Yeah. She used words like pollinating and blossoming into womanhood. I had no idea what she was talking about, so I nodded along and then got a book at the library.”

“Ha,” I said, thinking maybe I got off easy. Bunny was very matter-of-fact. I remember her slapping her pack of Virginia Slims against the heel of her palm, while telling me vagina isn’t a dirty word and that sex is a regular part of life. I’d wanted to melt into the porch as she blew a steady stream of smoke from the side of her mouth.

When we pulled onto our road, the clouds had parted, and a full moon hung in the sky like a yellow thumbprint. Hills pressed on both sides, and it was almost like I’d never left. Ten years was nothing to a mountain.

Our headlights bounced over the fence posts at the end of my aunts’ long driveway, the beams illuminating sun-bleached bone. Ruth’s wards. Instinctively my hand reached into the pocket of my shorts, and my fingers curled around the slice of bone that hadn’t left my side in ten years.

There was something comforting, nostalgic maybe, in seeing that Ruth remained faithful in changing out the bones. Throughout childhood, everything from hog jaws to chicken skulls had stood sentinel over the property.

This reminded me of other bones, of the grinder whirring in Ruth’s workshop on my last night at home. Of being told in no uncertain terms that there’d be no questions about Shane’s corpse, being assured it would never be found. I hoped my aunts were right.

We were both lost in thought as Frances pulled to the end of the drive and parked in the yard.

In the glow of the porch light, the old house remained unchanged. Its peeling paint, the tangle of flowers from old window boxes and pots, and without seeing it, I knew the tin roof was still dotted with patches of rust that had once reminded me of the orange spots on a calico cat.

It was late—almost morning—and I hadn’t told the aunts we were coming. I’d figured their onslaught of questions was best fielded in person.

I’d expected them to be asleep, but the front door opened, and Ruth, tall and angular, stomped onto the porch. Her hair was still cut short, and even in the dim light, I could see her face bore new and deeper wrinkles. Her skin hung a bit looser, but the pissed-off expression was familiar.