Tears slip down Roxy’s temple again, and I feel wetness on my own cheeks.
“While I was doing my thing with my sister, having my baby, hanging out with my family, your dad was slowly dying. He was nothing but light. He was good. He was better than all the rest of us.”
Like Jason is.
I should let her rest and sleep now, but I need to know one more thing. “Why were you so mad at Elle before? When you left?”
Roxy wipes sloppily at her cheeks. She can hardly hold up her own hand. “She told me to get over it when Lucas died. She told me that we had a job to do that was more important than him or even you.” She shakes her head. “Nothing is more important than you. You know that, right? I wanted it to be different between us than all the Brayburn mothers and daughters. I wanted to know you.”
I nod as she tries to wipe my cheeks. If only she had let me know her, too. Maybe I don’t have to take care of her anymore. Maybe we can take care of each other.
She is snoring again.
I tuck her arms under the blanket, turn on the fan.
“There’s a puke bowl right here if you need one,” I say, knowing she can’t hear me.
She is completely still, and for a moment I’m afraid that three pills is too many and that she will die in her sleep. But Millie has crawled onto her chest, watching carefully. I need her to live. I want to tell her that I’m okay with being part of this fight and that I’m okay being covered in dirt. This is my life and it’s the life she gave me and that all the other Brayburns inherited before her ever since Julianna, and it’s the life I want.
THIRTY-EIGHT
FINALLY
In spite of circumstance, it’s nice to be here in the quiet in the low light. I used to be the loneliest person there was, but now I’m content to make some tea from the loose leaves in the pantry and eat a couple chocolates. Roxy is finally asleep, and Elle and Jason and Kidd should be back soon. I contemplate a bath, or adding my own entry to the journal. Finally I settle for a book on tinctures and the couch and a blanket. The sky has stormed over, and last time I checked it seemed there might actually be rain.
I must have fallen asleep, because when there’s a thud upstairs, I startle awake. I am halfway to the landing when I hear the whirs and clicks coming from the bedroom. This could be the sound of Roxy coming to. This could be her story starting up around her, but as I have the thought I know that’s not it, because we don’t see into each other like that. The doors to the house were open. Hell, the windows were open.
And that’s how Lyle must have gotten in.
I can smell him, feel him as I push the door back from where it’s sitting open a foot.
Lyle is on the bed, hugging my mother so the tips of his fingers whiten against her black T-shirt. The smell of sick and sweat almost makes me gag. Roxy’s eyes are open and pleading over his shoulder; the bowl I gave her to throw up in if she needed sits a few feet away, upside down, vomit sprayed across the floor. It must have made the thudding noise I heard. She doesn’t speak or move, so I scan her quickly to see if she is hurt in some way. She shakes her head the slightest bit, and I remember this secret language of barely twitching fingers and head signals between us, one we developed to keep ourselves safe.
Millie is watching Lyle with her back up from the bottom of the bed, but she isn’t hissing and she isn’t moving. When Lyle hears me, he turns around so Roxy is next to him, though he doesn’t let go of her, keeps one arm around her shoulders.
My eyes have to adjust to Lyle, like he’s the sun. I haven’t seen him in so long, I don’t know if he’s actually thinner. His carefully kept five o’clock shadow has grown into a beard, and he is now ruggedly handsome in a way I hadn’t noticed before, as though the pain of losing his wife has made him fit for the pages of a magazine. His wiry body is what I do remember, his sandy hair falling across his forehead, his polo pulled across his chest. The smell of Listerine freezes me right into place, and as he stares at me, unreadable, I remember.
No, I don’t remember. I’m there, the night we left, my head whacking into that wall. Right in the middle of my body being hurt, I thought about the crow that had been dancing outside my window that morning; about the sun rising up over the trees sending dappled light across my arm; about my mother always being a little hidden but me knowing her anyway; about the water covering me so I was safe. And I thought, Not yet. Please, not yet. It was the first time I’d ever wanted to live, that I’d even thought about it as a choice. Lyle was still over me, still yelling and shaking, and I went limp and I knew that whatever he did on the outside, inside I would be free. Then I looked him in the eye and I decided that I was free, that he couldn’t keep me locked up for one second more.
And it was like Roxy heard me. It was like she saw.
Because that’s when Roxy got between us.
“Stop it!” she yelled. “Stop! It’s my fault! It’s because of me!”
He punched her. He jammed his knee into her wherever he could. I screamed, but no sound came out. I couldn’t move. He wasn’t stopping. I looked for something to hit him with, but the only thing I could find was a fruit bowl, and when I aimed to slap it against his head, it hit his back and rolled to the floor. It didn’t hurt him, but it did break the spell. For a moment I thought he would redouble his efforts and kill us both, but instead he smirked, grabbed his wallet and keys, and left us both there.
“Stay put,” he said, as though he knew we would simply because he had ordered it so, and he closed the door behind him.
Now he’s only considering me, his head slightly to one side, while I make calculations of how long it will take Elle to find her friend at the hospital and bring back whatever she was going to get, and about how sick Roxy actually is and about how long I was asleep.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says. “You were sleeping on the couch.”
Roxy is green again. She gags, and I reach for the bowl. I see how Lyle tenses when I flip it over and hand it to Roxy.
“She’s sick,” I say.
“I can see that,” he says.
I want to pounce on him, to yell at him about coming in the house without knocking, because surely I would have heard that, but we’re circling each other carefully.
“Elle went to get her something for Roxy’s stomach.” I hope this will put some fear into him, but instead he only looks at Roxy, concerned. “I don’t know how many people she’s bringing back with her.”
“Why’re you not feeling good?” he says, shaking Roxy awake.
Roxy moans.
“She’s off all that stuff she’s taking ever since she met you.”
“It helped her,” he says.
Helped her deal with living with you.
Roxy looks at me, then at Lyle beside her. She pats his chest. “Lyle, you can go home now. I’m fine.”
He blanches, holds her tighter. “We can go now. We can go together.”
“She’s sick. Even if she wasn’t—” I begin.
“Now.” He sits up. “I don’t want to hear this. I’m not going to listen. You’re sixteen years old, and this is my wife. We’ve been married for thirteen years. I’m going to take her home. You stay here,” he says reasonably. “You do whatever you want, but Roxy comes back with me.”
“You’re going to stick her in the truck and drive her away and that’s going to be the end of it?”
“I can take care of her.” It’s like he’s a little boy who wants his toy truck back even though he broke off all the wheels and slammed it into pieces.
“Did you ask her?” I say.
“What?” He scrunches his nose like I’ve said something that smells funny.
“Did you ask Roxy what she wants to do?”
Lyle looks at her in her boxer shorts and T-shirt, no makeup, hair in two short pigtails, ten pounds lighter than she was when we got here. He crouches down in front of her, cups her cheeks with his hands, and peers deeply into her glassy eyes. “What have you done to her?” Lyl
e says to me. “You and that sister of hers she never liked anyway. You ever think about anyone but yourself, Mayhem?”
“She’s dope sick,” I say. “She’ll be okay in the morning, but you can’t move her now.”
“Roxy and I have something special. Our love is good. She knows she can’t handle things on her own. She’ll burn herself right up. She needs someone to cool her down. Look at her. I don’t know why you can’t see that.” He shakes his head as though he feels sorry about my ignorance.
I want him to let her go so I can get him out. But as he is before me, I see he won’t take his hands off her until he has her in the truck, and he cannot be allowed to do that.
Roxy moans. “Lyle,” she says, “no.” She pushes at him feebly and he holds her yet more firmly, albeit as gently as he can while not letting her go. He wipes at her forehead with his free hand and then dries his palm against his jeans.
“She doesn’t know what she wants.” He says this more to her than to me. “She needs to come home.”
Roxy pukes white pasty oatmeal that dribbles down her shirt. I rush forward to get the towel from the side of the bed, and Lyle yanks her toward him.
“Give it to me,” he says. “I’ll do it.”
I hand him the towel and he wipes the sick from Roxy’s chest. Her eyes flutter open, and for a moment they are clear. She strokes at his cheek and his eyes well up.
“Lyle,” she says again, “no.”
The fear leaks from my body until it is gone.
All around Lyle, honeycombs are beginning to form, and the click click clicking is getting louder, picking up its volume to a deafening wail.
THIRTY-NINE
A MURDER OF CROWS
“Put her down.” I know I say it, but I can’t hear my own voice.
I’m waiting for Lyle to let go of Roxy so I can get him out of there. I have to try real hard not to put my hands over my ears. This has not happened before. Lyle’s mouth is moving and I can’t hear him and I don’t care, because what’s in the honeycombs is me all over. There are some with Roxy, but mostly it’s me with hands over my face, around my throat, being slapped, kicked, pummeled. The honeycombs chatter at me. They warn me. His face may be placid, but inside him, murder lies in wait.
“Stop,” I shout, and the room goes silent, the honeycombs shrink, and Lyle narrows his eyes to lupine slits.
“What’d you say?”
“I said, put her down.” I can hear myself now, and without the whirring, the room comes back into proper focus.
He smiles and clutches Roxy more tightly. “See, honey,” he says to her as she groans and rests her head on his shoulder again, “I told you to stick with me. I told you Mayhem needs a firm hand. Now look at her. All sass.”
He takes his time putting his attention back on me. I am steeling myself. I know that curl of his lip and the way his muscles tense. Lyle is gearing up for a fight. Thing is, I know something he doesn’t know. I can see his secrets, but he can’t see mine. So I smile, too.
He stands and wraps Roxy’s arm around his neck, then scoops her up before I can get to him. “I’ll be back.”
He moves so quickly and with so much grace that he is past me in a shot, hauling Roxy down the stairs, not looking back. By the time I get outside, Roxy is sitting up in the truck, shaking her head, looking more awake though with some effort. He is kneeling down beside her, holding on to her legs as she squirms. The trees rustle with birds, their leaves nearly black with feathers.
“Hey!” I shout.
Lyle and Roxy both turn to me. Lyle swipes a hand through his hair. “Little bitch,” he says, “would you shut the fuck up? I’m trying to have a conversation with my wife, and you keep on interrupting.” He is walking smoothly toward me, face reddening, veins beginning to pop.
Ah, there he is. There’s the Lyle I know and hate.
“You just never know when to say when. Always getting into my business. Always something to say. Like you have the least idea what your mother needs. You don’t know. You don’t know a thing.”
I back into the house, through the doorway. Spittle pools in the corners of his mouth in a frothy white, the Listerine smell not covering the sepsis beneath it.
Lyle places a hand on his hip and looks upward. “Lord,” he says, “please help me to assist Mayhem in seeing her wicked ways.” He nods as though he’s heard something and then shakes his head just a bit and inches in a couple steps more. “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”
He reaches for me, and I think maybe I’ll still be meek and fearful, that he’ll still be able to petrify me into submission. The bowl will still bounce off of him. I will have no effect. But then I feel it. The pull. Though I cannot bear him, I want to hold him. I hug him.
“What—” he says.
I clutch tightly. He struggles, but he can’t escape me. He can’t move his arms. He yelps, then swiftly backs me into the wall, slamming me the way he did before, my spine colliding over and over again. It doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts. The slamming grows weaker, and his mouth hangs open and his eyes are full of questions because I am not doing this the nice gentle way. I am doing this to hurt. And then hands are prying my arms away from him. Voices are whispering in my ear.
No, May. No, honey. Not this. Not now.
I come to, as if from a dream. My mother is there. Elle is there. Jason and Kidd are close behind. Only Elle and my mother speak. Elle is sparking. My mother is pushing to be here from a great distance, but some of the dullness has been purged and parts of her shine.
They are between Lyle and me. My mother leans into Elle. Jason and Kidd are to the side now.
“What in hellfire was that?” Lyle says incredulously. He tries to stand up tall, but he’s wounded somewhere, everywhere maybe.
“Get out, Lyle,” Roxy says. She clears her throat. She struggles to stand upright, to keep her eyes open. “Get out.”
“You want me here.”
“I don’t.”
“You love me.”
“I don’t,” she says, and she shoves him in the chest. Hard.
He stumbles back a few steps.
“Stop telling me what I want,” Roxy says.
He tries to grab for her.
Elle gives him another shove. “She said get out.”
He lunges at her, and she easily casts him aside so he falls on his hip.
“Shit,” he says, “that hurt.”
“And that’s as good as it’s going to get, bully,” Elle says.
Lyle stands and wipes himself off, takes one step toward the three of us, then reconsiders. The squawking from the trees gets louder.
“What is this place?” he says, dazed.
Elle smiles. “Why, Lyle,” she says, “this is Brayburn Farm.”
She makes a slight gesture with her hand, and that’s when the birds come. They descend in a great cloud. I didn’t realize just how many there were until they swarm Lyle, pecking, wings beating. Crows hold a grudge, and they know a piece of garbage when they see one.
“And stay the fuck out!” Roxy screams, before falling to the floor.
We shut the door and leave him to the birds in favor of tending to Roxy. She is crying. I haven’t ever heard her cry like that before, great sobs from her dark place. Millie hops into her lap and licks at Roxy’s hands while Elle strokes her hair.
Jason puts his arms around me. “You okay?” he says.
“Okay is overrated,” I say.
We open the door a little while later. Lyle and his truck are gone. He’s left a trail of blood behind him. Maybe he will drive himself to a hospital. Maybe to the police. It won’t matter around here. We do things the Santa Maria way. He’s better off driving himself right on out of town.
FORTY
AND THEN CAME THE RAIN
I don’t know why people always want to put a blanket on a person after trauma, but they do. That’s how I end up on the bench overlooking the valley, sitting between my mom and Elle, blanket on our heads while th
e rain drizzles over us, the first rain since we’ve been here, a welcome break from the sun. We have been overheating for weeks, so we don’t put on sweaters or anything. We let the rain fall around us and the wind whip at us a little and all we say is yes and I stick my tongue out to catch some. And the birds sit around us and everything is especially green, and when the crow with the brown on his beak perches on my shoulder again, which is his habit now, I say, I think I’ll name you George. I don’t know why except it sounds royal, like a king, and in the light George is deep purple, and since purple is a royal color, it suits him.
When I say it he makes a series of cooing noises and bobbles back and forth on his feet, so I am almost sure he likes it.
Roxy is gorgeously worn, and light is beginning to show around her, in weak wisps. But they are there. Her fever is gone, sleep meds worn off, and she, like Elle and me, is wiped out, wiped clean. She won’t stop fussing at me, rubbing my back, squeezing my shoulders, checking my face for expression, then settling her head onto her sister’s shoulder and going quiet again, knees tucked up under her chin.
The air feels good up here on the hill. Clean. Like the rain is washing everything away and we are all at bare bones.
Footsteps crunch behind us. “Ladies,” Boner says.
Roxy untangles herself from us and wraps her arms around his waist. She called him, of course, after Lyle left and she had taken a long shower and gotten some more, less feverish rest. She won’t be completely herself for days, and I can’t wait to see her for the very first time.
“Hey, Bone.”
“Hey, Rox.” He kisses her on the forehead and then looks to me reflexively.
It doesn’t make me angry.
He hugs Roxy close. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
“No,” she says. “We handled it.”
He turns his mouth up on one side. “I’m sure you did.” He hesitates.
“Bone,” Elle says, “please spit it out.”
“I have news,” he says.
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