The Animators(54)

Farther north, the sand creeps out of the soil and the mountains begin to ebb and flow. We make it through Knoxville to stop at a Chat ’n Chew in a county lining Kentucky. “I want pie,” Mel says. “And I want to check my email.”

“You want some waitress tail.”

She gives me the finger.

“Good luck finding wireless down here.”

“They’re supposed to send Mom’s coroner’s report today,” she says. “Finally.”

I exhale, puffing out my cheeks. “Jesus. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I don’t care.”

“Why don’t we keep going. It’s not that much longer.”

“Screw these pigfuckers. I want my coffee and pie.”

“I resent that term.”

“I resent you.”

The Chat ’n Chew is tinged with lo-fi nostalgia. Its parking lot is gravel, siding flaking from the outside, and the signage is posted with an ancient Mountain Dew ad promising to tickle yore innards. A table of local guys can be seen through the window, smoking and drinking Cokes. When we step out of the car, a chill breeze hits us, makes us hunch and hug ourselves. It’s almost winter. So much lost time. The last I was out in the world, it was summer. We get the eye when we settle into a booth.

Mel is gratified to find a strong wireless signal. She purses her mouth to one side and clicks rapidly with her thumbs, stopping occasionally to push her glasses up her nose.

The waitress brings coffee and lemon meringue. Mel puts her phone down. “Press release on the Hollingsworth’s out.”

“Didn’t that come out weeks ago?”

“They postponed it. Wanted to make sure you didn’t bite it first.”

“There’s nothing about the stroke in there, right?”

“No, Sharon. I shouldn’t have said anything to you about it being online. Everyone gets sick, but you’re being awfully cagey about it.” She rolls her eyes and licks pudding from her fork, one thumb still working.

“Sepsis,” she says finally.

“Huh?”

“Kelly Kay. The official cause of death is sepsis. The wound got infected.” She crams more pie into her mouth. “The report’s pretty thorough, actually. One of the inmates stabbed her in the rib with, like, this super-sharpened toothbrush handle. So it’s not an urban legend. They actually do that in prison. It’s like if someone shaved the end of a screwdriver into a shark’s tooth and then stuck it into you. Worse than a knife. Poison and pus and shit just bubbling up. They even have a picture of the toothbrush here. See? There’s stuff on it.”

I put my fork down.

Mel clicks her phone off and looks into her coffee. “Weird. Just when I got the word about the Hollingsworth? I thought to myself, Hey, Mom should be hitting me up for cash any day now. You know?”

“Why would she need money in prison?”

“Tampons and black-market lipstick? I dunno.” She gulps her coffee down. “Probably booze.”

“They sell booze in prison?”

“They sell everything in prison.” She taps her fingers against the Formica. “Didn’t say anything about the reason for the fight. Any causes. I was kind of hoping it might say something.”

“Mel.” I make her look at me. “It wouldn’t make any difference. Okay?”

“I know.” She gestures to my plate. “You gonna finish that?”

Mel eats the pie. A few of the men at the table still stare at us. I palm my afternoon blood pressure meds and rise, looking for the bathroom.

When I pass their table, I hear the grandfatherly one with the John Deere cap perched on his wispy hairline lean over and say, “She must be the wife.” The table erupts in snickers. I give him a dirty look. He shoots it right back, chuckling nastily.

When I return, Mel is smoking and ashing into a foil tray. “You can totally smoke in here.”

“Yeah.”

“What did Chester Molester over there say to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Right.”

“Just don’t pay attention,” I tell her. “We should get going.”

She stubs out and rises, reaching for her wallet. The sky is gray. Sixteen-wheelers rumble off the interstate. Something else is said. In response, low and clear: “Dresses like a boy.”

A guy at the table’s edge, young enough below his cap brim to display fresh acne scars, calls over, “Hey. Hey.”

We turn. He spreads his index and middle fingers into a V and waggles his tongue theatrically in the space between. “Y’all.” He does it again. “Y’all.”

The men chortle. The waitress making Mel’s change shakes her head, a small smile on her lips. If we hadn’t been there, she would have laughed with them, would have said, mock-disparagingly, “Y’all are just awful.”

I grab Mel and drag her with me, opening the door. She turns before I can stop her, flips them the bird, and says, “Fuck you ingrates.”

There’s a beat of silence, then the kid yelps, “What?” The word is in two syllables. Something cold touches my spine. I know now that I’m home, and not in the soft-focus Hallmark sense of homecoming, but with the paralyzing fear of a rabbit about to get shot on a hillside: Oh shit and goddamn, I am home.