The Weight of Blood

by Laura McHugh

  Back at the garage, he half-carried me inside and laid me down on the bed. “You gonna be all right?” he asked, pushing my hair out of my face. I nodded. I was so tired. He sat down next to me and traced his fingers along my back, but sickness had dampened any desire, and his touch made me feel like throwing up.

  “I think I just need to sleep,” I mumbled.

  “I’ll stay awhile,” he said. “Keep an eye on you.” He continued to stroke my hair, and I didn’t have the energy to tell him to stop. He spoke in a low, soothing voice as I drifted off, and his words began to slip away, no longer making sense.

  I woke up the next morning in my nightgown, which I didn’t recall putting on. My head was ringing and I’d overslept. The alarm on my clock had been turned off, and I found a note from Crete on the dresser: Told Ransome you’re taking the morning off.

  I showered and dressed and nibbled on some crackers in bed, trying to recall everything that had happened the night before. I’d agreed to go swimming, which wasn’t so bad, but things had quickly gone downhill from there. I was beginning to think I wasn’t so different from an alcoholic. I couldn’t let myself make one small, impulsive decision, because that was guaranteed to lead to a whole six-pack of bad decisions, some likely to end in regret. I was fairly certain that I hadn’t slept with my boss—I had no memory of things going that far. In the agonizingly bright light of day, I knew what a mistake it would have been to screw the guy I was contractually bound to for two years. It was incredible luck that I’d gotten sick when I did, because nothing else would have stopped me from going through with it. Crete probably felt the same way, like he’d dodged a bullet. We’d just gotten carried away.

  I had a little speech ready for when he came to drive me to Dane’s, but I figured I’d give him a chance to go first. Then I could agree with what he said and get on with my day. When I first got in the truck, he asked how I was feeling, and we had a little laugh about my low tolerance for alcohol. I thanked him for helping me home and waited for him to launch into the reasons why the previous night shouldn’t have happened. But he didn’t.

  “I was thinking you might like to come over to my place after work tonight,” he said. “We could have a real dinner.”

  I squirmed, not sure how to start my speech. It didn’t dovetail easily with what he’d just said. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m still not feeling very well.”

  He smiled at me. “Tomorrow, then. I’ll pick you up after work.”

  “Maybe … maybe it’s not the best idea,” I said softly.

  He was quiet for a minute, chewing on a toothpick. “I thought we had a good time last night,” he said, his eyes on the road. “Sure seemed like it.”

  “No, I did, I had a … It was fun,” I said. “I was just thinking it over, the whole employee/employer thing. I don’t want to … cause any problems.”

  “Nothing wrong with having a little fun,” he said. “You worried I’d fire you over it?”

  “I don’t want to mess things up. I do that sometimes, and I really want to keep this job.”

  “You don’t need to worry about your job,” he said.

  “Still, I think it’s best if we don’t. You know. We can just … keep it professional.”

  He nodded without looking at me. “If that’s the way you want it.”

  Chapter 7

  Lucy

  Over the next couple of days, float season started to pick up. The constant stream of customers kept me busy, and every once in a while, I caught sight of tourists posing for pictures across the street, in front of Cheri’s tree. One guy came in to ask me which tree it was, the one where they’d found “that retarded girl’s parts.” A filthy pink ribbon dangled from the lowest branch, all that was left of the memorial. Crete wasn’t around, and when I tried his office door, it was locked. I wondered which of his friends had lived in the trailer, how well he knew them.

  I walked home through the woods after work on Friday, picked a few strawberries from the garden, and ate them hot from the sun. Then I lay down on the couch to rest for a few minutes. It wasn’t completely dark when I woke up, but the crick in my neck told me hours had passed. The answering machine was beeping and someone was knocking at the door. I got to my feet just as Bess let herself in.

  “You didn’t call,” she said.

  “Sorry,” I said, rubbing sleep from my eyes. “I just woke up.” I punched the button on the answering machine, and we listened to a message from Dad, sorry he couldn’t make it back until the next morning. There was a problem with his truck. “I’m still tired,” I said to Bess. “I think I might stay in tonight.”

  “Uh-uh,” Bess said. “Your dad’s gone, that’s a free pass. And I’m not going by myself. Let’s get you dressed.”

  “Can’t I just wear what I have on? It’s gonna be dark out anyway.”

  She eyed my Dane’s shirt and cutoffs critically. “No.” I followed her upstairs, and she began flipping through my closet, as if something new might magically appear amid the shorts and T-shirts I wore every day. “These look like your dad’s old shirts,” she said disdainfully. “Don’t you have anything dressy? I knew I should’ve brought some of my clothes.” She wore a pair of shorts tight enough to prohibit sitting and a low-cut tank top with sequins along the neckline. “Hey, how about this?” She pulled out the very last thing in my closet, a gauzy white dress I’d sewn in home ec and never worn.

  “I can’t wear that to the river.”

  “Sure you can.” She held it out until I shucked off my work clothes and slipped the dress over my head. “Now makeup,” she said, sitting me down at Grandma Dane’s vanity table. I didn’t bother to protest. She dumped out her purse and plucked a stubby little eyeliner pencil and a tube of Maybelline mascara out of the mess. I tried not to flinch while she worked. “Lip gloss,” she said, handing me a tube.

  “It’s too sparkly.”

  She groaned, cupped my chin in her palm, and slathered the gloss on my lips. It smelled sweet and tasted bitter. “Damn,” Bess said when she was done. “You should let me fix you up more often.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “You look good, too.”

  “No Gypsy witch like you.” She smirked. “Here, take your hair down.” She pulled out the ponytail holder and spread my hair over my shoulders, dragging the brush through it one section at a time. “You’re freaking my mom out, you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She was going on about you the other day: It’s like she grew into her skin. Lila’s. I mean, you always looked like her, I guess, but Mom said it’s weird how, all of a sudden, now that your hair’s so long, and with the boobs and everything … She said sometimes when you open your mouth, she thinks Lila’s voice’ll come out. Like Lila’s haunting her somehow. Then she lit a big fat doobie and locked herself in her room.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Should I get a haircut before she has a mental breakdown?”

  “No, it’s perfect,” Bess said, setting down the brush and smiling at me in the mirror. “Now you just need a black cat and a broom.”

  Fireflies strobed all around us as we followed the narrow path to the river. I regretted letting Bess take my hair down, because it was hotter than a wool scarf and sticking to my skin. Bottles of Boone’s Farm clinked together in Bess’s backpack, and I carried an old quilt for us to sit on.

  We heard voices and music and the hiss of a driftwood fire as we neared the clearing. I recognized a few faces around the bonfire, but no one I much cared to talk to. Bess grabbed my wrist and pulled me around the circle toward the shore, where two of the Petree brothers sat in the shadows taking turns with a one-hitter. Smoke hung in the damp air. “Did you know they’d be here?” I whispered. Jamie and Gage were too old to be hanging around high school parties. Jamie, who was nearly thirty, had always given me the creeps. He was a dealer with long stringy hair and a goatee and a habit of sta
ring at people to the point of discomfort.

  “I just want to talk to Gage,” she said. “Only for a minute, please?” I knew what that meant. She wanted to see if he was between girlfriends, in which case he’d take her back until he found a new one. Not that he was any prize. He was four or five years older than us, and I’d never known him to hold an honest job.

  “Hey, guys,” Gage said. “Glad you could make it.”

  Jamie, as usual, just stared. I spread the quilt out far enough from him that I couldn’t make out his face in the dark. Bess sat down next to Gage and held the tiny pipe to her lips as the lighter flared. She handed the pipe to me, and I passed it to Jamie without taking a hit, careful not to let our fingers touch. When the pipe finished its second circuit, Bess and Gage moved from courtship to foreplay, Jamie watching them with hooded eyes. I wouldn’t forgive Bess easily for tricking me into this awkward double date. I twisted around to see if anyone new had shown up by the bonfire, and when I turned back, Jamie was beside me, blowing smoke in my face.

  “Cheri,” he said, inches from my ear. “Friend of yours, correct?”

  I rearranged myself to get farther away from him without letting on how uncomfortable he made me. “Yeah,” I said. “She was.”

  “She sure was a sweet thing, weren’t she, though?” He brushed his hair back from his face and brought his hand down disturbingly close to mine. Fever radiated from his body.

  “Did you know her?” I asked. He could’ve mentioned Cheri simply because she was a popular topic of conversation, but I was thinking of the trailer and the kind of people who might have hung out there. It wasn’t a stretch to picture Jamie ogling Teen Pussy.

  “Yeah,” he said, packing the pipe and sucking it to ash. “Showed me her room one time when I was there to see her mom. Weren’t hardly nothing in it. Had this doll made of socks knotted up.”

  I wondered if he’d been there to sell drugs or get laid, but I didn’t ask. Could’ve been both; he was known to barter. He unscrewed a bottle of Wild Turkey between his legs and took a long swig. I glanced over at Bess, all but straddling Gage, and knew I’d be walking home alone, cursing the stupid too-small sandals she’d made me wear.

  Jamie’s gravelly voice pulled me back to him. “The strange thing was, I saw her once after she disappeared. Last summer.”

  “What?” I said. “Where’d you see her?”

  He leaned in, filling what was left of my personal space with his shadows and angles and heat. “It was the middle of the night. I was out on the river, and I heard splashing, heavy breathing. Up like a ghost she come, wet and shining in the moon, tearing through the shallows like the devil’s on her heels.”

  “Where on the river?” I snapped.

  He was close enough that I could see his eyes, bloodshot, unfocused. He wavered for a moment, mesmerized, like he’d forgotten what we were talking about.

  “Where was Cheri?” I prompted.

  He blinked hard. “Can’t say, exactly,” he said. “Upstream.”

  I wondered if she could’ve been running toward town, looking for help. Maybe Jamie could’ve saved her if he’d done something.

  “You didn’t try to help her?” I said.

  “I thought she was a ghost,” he whispered. “She looked right through me, kept going. I thought maybe I’d imagined it.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. But I wondered if it was possible, if he was so far gone that he no longer knew what was real, couldn’t rely on his brain to make the distinction. I tried to sound nicer. “Have you told anyone else?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “a few people, right after it happened. They had a good laugh.” He paused to take another drink.

  “Why’d you tell me?”

  “You’re different, you know?” His hand traced the outline of my hair, my body, not touching but wanting to. Longing softened his voice. “You’re like her. Lila.” I pushed away, stood up. Jamie gaped up at me, and I wondered if he, like Gabby, looked at me and saw my mother. He couldn’t have been more than a kid when she’d left, but somehow, in that mystical way of hers, she’d impressed herself upon him. How unfair that she lingered in Jamie Petree’s burned-out skull, while I hadn’t been able to conjure her up in a lifetime of trying.

  Bess didn’t come after me, probably didn’t even notice I was gone. I pried my sandals off at the water’s edge and waded in until the river reached the hem of my dress. Dampness wicked up the thin fabric and I shivered, letting the chill displace all other sensation. Jamie’s smoke lingered on my skin and hair, and I lowered myself deeper into the current, splashing water over my bare arms. Had I not been wearing the ridiculous white dress, I would’ve plunged below the surface to remove any trace of his smell.

  “Going for a swim?”

  I recognized Daniel’s voice and mashed down the little quiver of excitement it caused. There was no chance this time of fate and an empty bottle forcing us to make out by the bonfire, though some small part of me held out hope for that very thing. I turned around to face him. “I was just getting out.”

  “So maybe you have a few minutes to talk. If you’re not in a hurry to get back to the party.” A teasing smirk.

  “I don’t think anybody’s missing me,” I said.

  “You’re wrong there. I don’t know what you did to Jamie, but he’s rocking back and forth like a mental patient.”

  “Funny,” I said. I sat down cross-legged on the rocky beach, and he sat next to me, facing the water. “What were you doing, spying from the bushes?”

  “Sort of,” he admitted. “You’ve gotta watch out for that guy.”

  The muffled sounds of the party blended into the rush of water, the swell of insects. I wanted to sit in the dark with Daniel, not talking, until everyone else went home.

  “So,” he said. “Are you gonna tell me what happened the other day at the trailer?”

  I hadn’t thought he’d bring it up again. “Nothing happened,” I said. “I told you I wasn’t feeling well. And the place was just creepy. You said so yourself.”

  “There’s more,” he said.

  “Why are you so worried about it?”

  “Because,” he said, his voice low and calm, unlike mine. “You came out of that back room a different person. You shut down. I know we don’t know each other very well. I can’t tell what you’re thinking. It’s like, when you talk to me, there’s some other conversation going on in your head, and I’m not part of it. But when you came down the hallway, it was there, clear on your face. You were scared. You didn’t have time to hide it, or it was just too big to hide.”

  How do you decide to trust someone you barely know? It was hard not to be swayed by unreliable portents. His earnest brown eyes. His clean, safe smell, which somehow managed to be sultry. Birdie had taught me a thousand ways to divine unknowable answers, mostly passed down through folk wisdom—watching animals, splitting seeds, examining bones. She also relied heavily on the Bible and the Farmer’s Almanac. But if all else fails, trust your gut, she’d told me. The way it hollows out when things aren’t right, when you’re about to take a bad turn. I wasn’t sure I could trust Daniel. But no pit grew in my stomach. And whether it was wise or not, I wanted to trust him. So I took a chance.

  “It’s Cheri,” I said. “We know she was alive, she was staying somewhere. I think she was in that trailer sometime after she disappeared.” I stopped short of suggesting she was killed there.

  His expression didn’t change. “What makes you think that?”

  If I’d made a mistake in trusting him, I was about to make things worse. “I found something of hers,” I said. “In that back room. And the way the curtains were nailed shut, the carpet ripped out … I thought if she was there, there’d be some kind of evidence. I could figure out what happened to her. But when I went back, the trailer was gone.”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “I helped haul it out
. It never occurred to me that Cheri …”

  “Did my uncle know where they were taking it—who he sold it to?”

  “He said the deal didn’t pan out. So he sold it for scrap.”

  My throat tightened. “It’ll get torn to pieces.”

  He rested his hand on my shoulder, and I couldn’t help cataloging it along with the other times he’d touched me—his reluctant fingertips on my cheeks when we’d kissed; the bone-cracking handshake at Dane’s; the brush of his palm in rock-paper-scissors; now this protective, almost paternal grip of my collarbone—none of them sufficient in duration or intent.

  “Have you said anything to Crete?”

  “No,” I said. “If he knew anything about Cheri, he’d have said so. I’d ask him about the trailer, but Judd said something about a friend living there, and I don’t want to sound like I’m accusing anybody without knowing more.”

  His hand slipped down my arm and away. “I don’t see you as the sort to let things lie. But that’d probably be the smart thing to do.”

  “The smart thing’s not always right,” I said.

  Daniel was quiet for a minute. “How about Cheri’s mom, you talk to her?”

  “No. Cops questioned her up and down. She didn’t tell them anything. I doubt she’d say anything to me.” I rubbed one foot on the other to dislodge the sharp pebbles pressed into my skin.

  “Couldn’t hurt to try.”

  “Didn’t you say a minute ago that I’d be stupid to get involved?”

  A crooked smile. “I never said that. I was only thinking it’s a lot to take on by yourself. You could use some help.”

  “I’ve got Bess,” I said, standing up and trying to spot my sandals along the dark shore.

  “I dunno, she looked kinda busy to me.” I gave him my best not-funny face, which just made his smile bigger. “At least let me drive you home. I’d hate to see you walk all that way barefoot.”