Page 83 of We Already Dug the Grave

Frances hopped out of the car and ran across the yard to Ruth, and the two embraced. I followed, more cautious. My heart thumping against my ribs.

Would they pull me in for a hug? Was I forgiven for leaving without a word? It had seemed that way on the phone, but perhaps I’d mistaken.

The same moment I stepped onto the porch, Hattie-May shuffled outside. A clear oxygen tube looped from behind her ears and into her nose, and she pulled a small wheeled tank behind her. She smiled for a moment, and it was if she was looking through me.

“Hattie-May?” I said her name softly and she blinked. Wherever she’d gone in her mind, she was back.

She reached up and lightly touched my cheek. “Milly, you’re all grown up.”

I felt the sob break free as I hugged her neck. She smelled the same—thriving things and tomato vines, faintly sweet—and it undid me.

When I’d left home, I thought I’d never return, but at seventeen I hadn’t understood how long forever was. As months turned to years, it sank in. Hattie-May was my great-aunt, the older sister to a grandmother I’d never known. She’d been old when I’d been sent to live with her as a child. I’d feared she’d die without me ever hugging her again.

“Goodness.” She rubbed her hands over my upper arms. “You’re plumb damp.”

I whispered into her cloud of white hair, “I’m surprised y’all are awake.”

She stepped back and gripped my hands in hers. “Of course we are, honey. Ruthie knew y’all would be here. Now come on inside. Bunny’s warming up leftovers from dinner. Y’all must be starving after that drive.” Aunt Hattie turned toward the door, pulling her little oxygen tank behind her. “Come along, now.”

Frances followed, but Ruth hung back, catching my eye. The screen door snapped shut and only she and I remained on the porch.

“Aunt Hattie said you knew we were coming.” I asked, “How?”

The rules were Ruth’s religion, and she’d never break them. On our phone call, she’d asked to read me. Had called me hardheaded for not allowing it. But I knew she hadn’t done it, and I knew better than to ask.

“Good to see you too,” Ruth snarked, but there was no malice in it. She sighed. “I told Aunt Hattie I’d talked to you—that after we got off the phone I read my own leaves and they said to gather my family. Though I’m a bit fuzzy on what I’m gathering for.”

“I’m surprised you read your own leaves.”

“Yeah, well.” She shrugged. “I don’t make a habit of it, but your phone call made me uneasy. I’d have asked Aunt Hattie-May to read me, but she was having one of her spells, and I didn’t think she’d be up to it.” Ruth rocked back on the heels of her boots. “I didn’t know you were coming at all, much less tonight—but Hattie-May got that in her head, and you can’t convince her any different. She woke up an hour ago, and I worried she’d take to wandering. She does that sometimes. Mostly it’s fine—but she can get outside.”

“Aunt Hattie wanders outside at night?”

“Yeah. Sometimes.” Ruth scraped her palm over her short salt-and-pepper hair and let out a breath. “Gets madder than a wet hen if you so much as suggest she’s not in charge of her faculties, though.” Her lips pressed into a small smile, and she shoved her hands into her pockets. “She seemed fine, but I didn’t want to chance it, so I went ahead and got up. Hattie-May started tidying up the house and putting fresh blankets in y’alls’ old room, talking about y’all coming as if it were planned. It was easier to let her run with it than to convince her to go back to bed. Imagine my surprise when you two pulled into the yard.”

I could imagine it—Ruth jumping to her feet and running to the window while Hattie-May continued dusting and sweeping, unbothered, pulling her little oxygen tank along like a pet. I didn’t like the wandering, though. “But Aunt Hattie’s okay, right?”

“Hattie-May’s good as anyone her age could hope for. Her memory slips. She gets confused occasionally. Otherwise—she’s the same nosy old busybody.” She smiled. “You know she’s always had that sense that told her when visitors were on their way.”

It was true, Hattie-May had always seemed to know when someone would come bumping down the driveway, though usually only a minute or two before they showed up.

I looked toward the powder blue El Camino parked next to Ruth’s white pickup.

“Bunny lives here now?” It was about damned time.

“Naw,” Ruth said. “She stays over a bit, but we like our space. She has the club and her apartment. And I can’t leave Aunt Hattie. Besides. I have it on good authority I ain’t the easiest person to live with.”

I snorted.

“Come on,” she said. “If y’all both came home together, I suspect we have a lot to talk about. I didn’t know you and your sister were in touch.”

“We weren’t,” I said. “You remember the phone call I got? Well, let’s just say Frances’s husband is no good, and he knows more than he should about certain things.”

“Is that so?” Ruth’s words were sharp enough to flay skin.

“I’ll tell you everything. But first, Aunt Hattie-May said something about leftovers.”

I turned to walk inside, but my aunt caught my arm. “Why don’t you tell me now? At least the short and sweet of it?”