Bitter Sun

by Beth Lewis

  ‘I don’t want to go in there,’ she said.

  ‘It won’t be so bad. She’s just drunk. You know what she’s like when she’s drunk. You go straight upstairs and I’ll bring you dinner.’

  Jenny kicked at the dirt. ‘Like that’ll help.’

  I tried to stifle my sigh. ‘Just try not to sass her.’

  We could turn around, run back to the Fort or go to the west field and sleep between the corn while Momma slept off hers. That would be better than seeing the anger and snarl on Jenny’s face a moment longer. But we stood by that rope swing too long. The crashing inside stopped for a sickening moment. Then the slam of the back door flung wide, the screen’s rusted spring whining. Then the slapping steps of her shoes on the dirt. Then the voice.

  ‘There you are, my babies,’ Momma said, slurred and breathy. ‘Look at you both, skin and bone. You hungry, my babies?’

  Momma’s hair, thin curls turned white-blonde instead of gold like Jenny’s, flared wild on her head, like a storm brewed on her skull. And it did. On it. In it. She was a tornado, my momma.

  ‘Hi, Momma,’ I said and nudged at Jenny to say hello but she wouldn’t.

  ‘Come inside now.’ Momma swayed on her spindle heels and spindle legs wrapped up in tight blue jeans, her red camisole cut a half-inch too low.

  She caught herself on the side of the house. ‘I’ll fix you both a plate. Get in, get in.’

  She pounded her fist on the whitewashed boards with every word, then hurled up her arm, half sick of us for being there, half gesturing which way to go.

  I felt my sister’s heartbeat thrumming through her hand. I took a step toward the house, tried to pull Jenny with me but she wouldn’t move. Her face set in a dark frown. A prickle went up my back, I knew what was coming.

  ‘Please, Jenny,’ I whispered but she shook her head.

  ‘Not when she’s like this,’ she said.

  Momma saw Jenny’s expression and matched it. All her slur and swagger disappeared and she turned pin-sharp. Momma stood tall and straight, her back like rebar, and set toward us. Careful steps turned ragged fast. Red whiskey heat rose in her cheeks and filled up her throat, turned the sweet words sour.

  ‘Look at you,’ she sneered down at Jenny. ‘That dress. Showing off those legs. You’re so dirty. Get in this fuhking house. I made you dinner and you’ll damn well eat it.’

  Then she was in front of us, her hand on Jenny’s arm, pulling her toward the porch. Her eyes, blue and bloodshot, flared up bright despite the dark, red lips pulled back, lipstick on her teeth, smeared on her chin.

  ‘Let me go!’ Jenny tried to pry Momma’s fingers but her grip was iron.

  ‘I am your mother and you will mind me.’

  Jenny’s shoes cut furrows in the dirt, her nails dug into Momma’s wrist. ‘I wish you weren’t. I hate you! Let me go!’

  Momma recoiled like those words were a slap across the cheek. I put myself between them, one hand on Momma’s hand, the other on Jenny’s, tried to prise them apart.

  ‘She didn’t mean it, did you, Jenny?’ I said, keeping my voice level, calm, anything not to throw gas on the fire.

  ‘I meant it,’ my sister snarled. ‘I wish you weren’t my mother.’

  The sharp sobriety in Momma crumbled and her slur returned. ‘You ungrateful little witch.’

  She yanked on Jenny’s arm again, harder, fiercer, I thought it might pop out the socket. I was invisible to them. They sniped through me, around me, trading hurled stones and scratches one for one.

  Momma’s elbow dug into my side, pushed me, and suddenly her and Jenny were away. Momma dragged her around the house. Jenny cried out, scratching, swearing and saying the most awful things about our mother, calling her ugly, fat, a bitch, and all sorts else. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. The noise, the hate, it all hurt too much to hear. Then I followed them around the house, begging them to stop but they wouldn’t. It felt like they never would.

  At the step up to the back door, Momma finally let go and Jenny fell, landed hard on a rock, but Momma didn’t see.

  ‘You stupid, stupid girl,’ she hissed and went to grab her but Jenny scrambled away and I was between them again. Behind me, Jenny whimpered, clutched her knee.

  ‘Momma, please.’ I took her by the shoulders and held her wavering gaze. Same as Jenny, the best way to calm them both. ‘Jenny’s just tired, she doesn’t know what she’s saying. She doesn’t mean it.’

  Momma’s eyes, red-rimmed with drink, welled with tears. ‘She breaks my heart, that girl, just breaks my heart.’

  ‘I know. Please go inside, Momma. I’m so hungry and I’d just love some of that chicken. I’ll talk to her, okay? She’s sorry, she’s really sorry and so am I. Please?’

  Keep it calm, John Royal, keep the eye contact, keep the tone light, keep the platitudes coming.

  Momma wasn’t Momma when she was drunk. She was a beast of ups and downs and harsh words she didn’t really mean. At least, I hoped she didn’t. I prayed neither of them did, else what hope was there for us?

  ‘She needs to learn respect,’ Momma said, voice like a dry kettle on the heat. ‘She needs her momma’s teaching, she can’t be dressed so loose.’

  ‘I know, Momma. I know.’

  Momma put her hand, soft and warm and trembling, on my cheek. ‘You’re such a good boy, John. My perfect boy.’

  Her hand fell away and her gaze drifted. ‘You look hungry. I’ll fix you a plate.’

  Then she went inside and let the screen door bang. The only sound left in the world was Jenny’s anger, her sharp breaths and tiny scratches of her nails in the soil. I went to her, knelt down beside.

  ‘Jenny,’ I said, soft as cotton, put my hand on hers. ‘Are you all right? Let’s go inside now.’

  Tears mixed up with dust, streaked down her face. Her hair, gold blonde and perfect, was rucked up and twisted. She shook. Hands on her knee, a trickle of blood down her shin.

  ‘We have to,’ I murmured, distracted, eyes on the blood. The image of the girl, the body we found, hit the back of my eyes.

  Jenny wiped her face hard with the heel of her hand. A bruise blossomed on her arm.

  ‘No. I won’t go in there.’

  And she broke, wept hot tears into her hands. I wrapped my arms around my sister and sat until her sobs eased and the last of the evening light faded to night. I teased my fingers through her hair, tamed it down best I could without hurting her. A speck of rage grew in me that Momma had let this happen and Jenny had let this happen and a few stupid words had blown up into a fight that would linger for days. I wished I could say to Jenny, it wasn’t all Momma, was it? You said some nasty things too. You hurt her feelings too. You made her cry too. Why can’t you both just get along? Why do I have to be stuck in the middle all the time? But I clenched my jaw, swallowed down the blame, and tried to soothe my sister.

  ‘It’ll be worse if you don’t go in,’ I said. Then, as if it made it all right, ‘You know she’s only like this when she’s drunk.’

  I met Jenny’s eyes, raw and blazing. ‘I meant every word.’

  She slapped away my hand and scrambled to her feet.

  ‘Please, Jenny, just come inside,’ I said but she wouldn’t hear it.

  ‘You go, Johnny, you go be with her, she’s got your stupid chicken.’

  Before I could say I’d share, she ran. Just turned and ran.

  ‘Jenny!’ But she was away, into the night, into the fields.

  I whipped around to the house and to those three steps up to where my mother waited, wrapped in her own hurt. I heard her move inside, the clinking of glass as she poured another drink. Those sounds mixed with the rustle and crackle of Jenny’s footsteps running through dry grass.

  I was stuck in the back yard, between Momma and sister. I didn’t stand a chance of catching up with Jenny but I knew where she would go. She was like those starlings, darting and weaving, the best runner in our class. Mr Escott, our phys-ed teacher, said it was a good
job I could read and work a corn huller because I wasn’t much good for anything else. The rest of the class had laughed. I’d stared at my skinny arms and legs, my too small gym shorts, and watched the others cross the finish line.

  ‘John?’ Momma said, gently from the back door. ‘Come on inside, baby.’

  She smiled, that full smile that lit up her face and eyes, rosy and glowing with whiskey. The snarl and sneer was gone, like it had never been. A flipped switch and there was my momma again, reaching for me.

  ‘Dinner is on the table.’

  This wasn’t the woman who’d said those things to Jenny and dragged her across the yard. It just wore her face, spoke in her voice. It was the drink. It was the sickness. Not my momma, not really.

  I went inside and sat at the kitchen table. Jenny would be fine. I’d never been able to truly calm her after a fuss like that, I’d never be able to get her to come home if she didn’t want to. Besides, if she was still riled up the fight would start fresh soon as she walked in the back door. It was best for them and me to wait it out, let the anger subside and then find her, cradle her, let her sob it all out onto me instead of watch her beat it out of herself. I knew where she’d go, I’d find her.

  Momma sat down beside me at the kitchen table, smoking a Lucky Strike. She reached to me, brushed my hair back, then flicked out her ash into a chipped cup.

  ‘How was your day, baby?’

  ‘Fine.’ It wasn’t fine. We found a dead body. But I wasn’t ready to say that. It was still too mixed up in my head.

  Momma went quiet as I ate. Her eyes flickered every now and then, like she was thinking of something, wanted to say it, but chickened out. She bit on her lower lip. Jenny did that when she was worried.

  ‘Is your sister all right?’

  ‘I don’t know. I guess,’ I said. ‘She will be.’

  Momma stubbed out the Strike and rubbed her forehead, tucked her hair back, laid her hand over her neck, fidgeted like she had ants crawling all over her skin.

  ‘That girl makes me so mad sometimes, the way she talks to me. If I’d have spoken to my mother like that, ooh she would have kicked me out of her house so fast it’d make your head spin. You heard what that girl said, didn’t you?’

  She shook her head, finally her eyes went to mine, eyelids drowsy with drink. ‘You’d never talk to me like that, would you, baby? You’re my prince. What a good boy you are.’

  She cupped my cheek with her hand. Soft skin. Sweet smell of tobacco and old perfume on her wrist.

  ‘My temper sometimes, I don’t know,’ she said, waving her arm, dismissing it as nothing.

  Then she snapped back to me. ‘Oh! I almost forgot.’

  Momma went to the family room, to the cabinet behind the couch. She pulled out a package wrapped in brown paper. A rectangle, about two inches thick, tied up with string.

  ‘I got this for you,’ she said, skipping back over to me and setting it down on the table. She moved my still full plate and pushed the package closer.

  ‘I saw it in the thrift store on Lexington a month ago and I thought, my John will just love that, so I had them wrap it up and then I went and forgot all about it, can you believe it?’

  A fire lit in my chest. A present. For me? It wasn’t Christmas and my birthday was way back in March and we didn’t have the money for throw-away spending.

  ‘What is it?’ I said. I traced the edges with two fingers, felt a ridge on the right side and a fizz of electric went through me. A book.

  Momma made a dopey face. ‘Open it and see, dummy.’

  I untied the string and ripped the paper away in one tear. My eyes went wide and my mouth dropped open and I couldn’t quite believe it.

  The cover, a pale beige cloth, said, Birds of North America, then smaller at the top, A Guide to Field Identification. Below, three vivid, multi-coloured birds perched on a bright green branch.

  ‘Do you like it?’ Momma said, her hands clasped below her chin. ‘You used to love watching the crows steal the corn and you’re always out gawking at those starlings.’

  ‘I love it,’ I said.

  I flicked through. Pages and pages of exact, perfect drawings and information on habitat and nesting and migration. I couldn’t stop staring. Some birds I recognised immediately. Wrens. Tanagers. But there were so many more. So much more to learn. I wanted to devour it then and there and go searching for them in the fields and trees.

  ‘Are you sure, baby?’

  I looked up at Momma, her eyes on me like she was nervous. Scared she’d got me wrong, that I’d hate it, hate her, but I never could. I went to her and threw my arms around her neck.

  ‘Thank you, Momma. I love it. I love you. It’s the best thing.’

  She hugged me back, hard, and held on for a few seconds before releasing me. She grabbed my face in both hands and kissed me on the forehead. ‘I love you too, my little prince.’

  Then she let me go, said something about her programmes, and disappeared into the family room. A moment later I heard the television blare out The Partridge Family. I cleared my plate while pawing through my book. Stopped when I got to the cardinal. A striking red bird, Jenny’s favourite. We’d seen one, a year or two ago, when we’d gone camping with the Bible Study class down at Fabius Lake.

  A sharp prick of guilt hit my chest and I closed the book and took it upstairs, hid it under my side of the bed. I didn’t want to tell Jenny about it. She’d be upset that Momma hadn’t got her anything and it would spiral into another fight. As I came back downstairs, I listened for Momma’s movements but just heard David Cassidy’s warbling, then I snuck outside.

  I found Jenny down at the Roost, staring into the tiny ripples on Big Lake. With her golden hair and in her pale yellow sundress, she shone in the dark.

  ‘I knew you’d come after me. Eventually,’ she said, but she didn’t seem sad or angry, just glad I was there. Her voice was calm as the lake, quiet as the water. She stared, trancelike, as if red-eyed on Mary Jane. Blood streaked down her shin so I ripped a swatch out of my t-shirt and dipped it in the cold water.

  ‘Here,’ I said, ‘let me clean that.’

  The blood diluted and ran down to her foot, soaking pink into her bobby sock. Jenny didn’t look at me or seem to notice what I was doing, her eyes fixed on a point across the lake.

  ‘It’s so quiet here,’ she murmured.

  Only chirping crickets and the soft lapping of water. No shouting or screaming or hurt feelings. No whiskey slur in Momma’s voice. Just us and our breathing and the darkness. It was like the feeling you get when you duck underwater, everything muffled and thick. The water holds every part of you, keeping you buoyed and enclosed, safe, for a time. You know the world is still out there but it can’t touch you except when you come up for air.

  ‘Do you think she’s lonely?’ Jenny said and I wondered if she meant Momma.

  Then I saw where she was looking.

  Something shifted in that moment. Jenny turned to me, our eyes met. The moon and starlight broke through the canopy enough to highlight the water, define the shapes of the trees, and her, pale against the black. Jenny took my hand and we went to Mora.

  ‘It’s so strange. She looks like she’s sleeping,’ I said, and felt something squirm inside me.

  You shouldn’t be here, Johnny boy. It’s a goddamn dead body and you’re, what, visiting with it?

  My dinner, chicken and mashed potatoes and carrots, churned and swirled in my stomach.

  ‘We should go home,’ I said.

  Jenny knelt beside Mora and pulled me down. ‘We can’t leave her here alone. Look at her, she’s beautiful.’

  She picked a scrap of dead leaf from Mora’s forehead and flicked it aside.

  I don’t know how long we knelt there, staring into those dead eyes. I’d never seen a smile like that on Jenny’s face before and it scared me. That change, that jitter in her bones that Mora sparked had fanned to a dark flame and I didn’t know what it meant. I checked around us, sudd
enly aware of what this picture might look like to anyone watching. And a creeping cold in my bones that whoever did this to her, this poor girl, could still be around. But it was empty, silent, I saw everything through moonlight, all silver and black and not quite real. This wasn’t quite real. How could it be?

  ‘Death is special, isn’t it, Johnny?’ Jenny said. ‘It’s like the way the Pastor Jacobs talks about God. Death is a kind of god. It’s terrible and powerful but if you treat it right and have faith, it’s love. Behind the fear, death is love, isn’t it, Johnny?’

  I swallowed burning bile.

  Jenny lay down beside Mora and I had no choice but to lie down too. I couldn’t leave my sister here, alone, with a killer on the loose, and she wouldn’t go home yet. So I stayed, despite the nausea, despite the strange, sour smell, despite the gnawing pain in my head.

  But Jenny seems calm, John.

  She seems happy.

  And that’s good enough for now.

  Jenny fell asleep quicker than she had in weeks but I couldn’t. I lay on the ground, stones and twigs poking into my back, replaying every word of the argument until the movie reel reached the gift Momma gave me. The bird book. Light beige cloth. A dozen shades of blue, red, green, every colour filled my head, blotted out the pale white body beside my sister. I fell asleep in those colours, to the sound of cooing birds and gently ruffling feathers.

  Jenny and I woke to warm sunlight and a fuzzy voice on a radio. I opened my eyes, squinting. We didn’t have a radio at the Fort. Could have been a dream or some kind of birdsong, I didn’t know. Then it came again. Then a close, clear, hundred-per-cent real voice said something back, bzzt ten-four. My eyes adjusted to the sun and my insides turned to snow. Jenny woke too and immediately tensed and clutched my arm.

  Standing over us was Sheriff Samuels and a dozen of his deputies. The way they looked at us. Their eyes wide, their mouths set in grim frowns. One was chucking up his breakfast far off and I hoped it wasn’t in Big Lake because it would make swimming gross.