All the Ugly and Wonderful Things(29)

“It’s my house, okay? You can’t come in here without me.”

She gave me the kinda look makes you wanna curl up and die. Just because she didn’t have any titty mags for me to look at didn’t mean I hadn’t snooped in her bedroom. I went around the table, opened the sink cabinet, and stuffed the magazine in the trash.

“I’m sorry, but I haven’t slept in two days. I’m f*cking dirty and greasy and tired and I need a shower and something to eat and there isn’t so much as a clean shirt in this goddamn house, because I had to leave in a hurry. So I’m sorry, but I don’t have—”

I came that close to saying, “I don’t have time for you.” Except it wasn’t just mean. It was a lie. I had all the time in the world for her. I wanted her to be there, but I was so miserable, I couldn’t even talk to her like I normally would. I didn’t have no business saying, Sorry I’m in such a shitty mood, but I just killed a couple guys.

She walked out to the breezeway, so I said, “The bike’s out front, sweetheart.”

She came back with a bundle of cloth in her hands. She held it out to me: a T-shirt, jeans, and a towel. Washed, dried, and folded. She did my laundry.

“Thank you. And I’m sorry. I’m just tired and I had a bad couple days.”

I reached out to take the clean clothes, but she pulled them back and frowned at me. My hands were covered in grease. I followed her to the bathroom, where she laid the clean clothes on the edge of the sink and turned on the shower. She went out, closing the door after her.

In the shower, I spent a good fifteen minutes letting the hot water pound down on me, trying to be finished with the two dead Mexicans. I needed to stop playing that over in my head. It was done.

By the time I got out of the shower, Wavy was gone. I worried she’d walked home, but her backpack was still in the kitchen. Weirder, she’d emptied my wallet. It was in the center of the table with its chain coiled up beside it. Laid out next to it, like a game of solitaire, was all the stuff I kept in my wallet and my pockets. A roll of Wint-O-Green Lifesavers, my keys, a bottle of eye drops, and five shell casings standing on end. I pocketed those. I’d cleaned and tossed the gun, but forgotten to ditch the shell casings. I guess I wasn’t much smarter than Vic.

I was about to put my wallet to rights, when Wavy came through the back door carrying a grocery sack from the store up the road. She dragged a chair to the counter and emptied the bag: a package of liver, an onion, a green pepper, a carton of eggs, and a box of ice cream sandwiches.

“I think I already got some ice cream sandwiches.”

She shook her head.

“You ate my ice cream sandwiches?”

An embarrassed nod.

“That’s okay. I’m sorry about what I said before. It’s okay for you to come here.”

I was so tired, I sat down at the table and drank a beer while I waited. In fifteen minutes, I had a steaming plate of liver with onions and peppers.

While I ate, she counted my change into piles and sorted through the stuff laid out on the table. She sniffed the Lifesavers and then traced her finger around the spot where the shell casings had stood.

“Those were trash,” I said.

She went through all the cards as she put them back in my wallet. My driver’s license, my library card, my blood donor card.

“O negative,” she mouthed.

Then she hit on a card that made her frown.

She primed herself with a big breath and said it out loud: “Barfoot.”

“I used to have a different name.”

I put out my hand and she gave me my old tribal ID card with my father’s name on it. I was Junior when I was a kid, but after he kicked me out, I started going by my granny’s name. Tipping back in my chair, I pitched the old card into the trash.

I finished my dinner, while Wavy watched me. I was never sure what that meant, her watching me eat. I figured she must like it, or she wouldn’t take so much trouble to feed me.

“I’m about done in, so I better take you home before I fall asleep,” I said.

“Mama.”

It made my skin crawl the way she said it. Like you’d say, “Tornado,” if one was bearing down on you.

“What about Val?”

Wavy brought her hands to her head and made her fingers stand up, like antlers. Or flames?

“Is she acting weird? Where’s Donal?”

“Sandy.” Wavy came around the table behind me and rested her hands on my shoulders. “Can I stay?”

“I don’t know, that’s not…”

I didn’t even remember what I was gonna say after she tightened her hands on my shoulders. She squeezed the spot where I’d gotten all bunched up from the stress.

When I got down on the kitchen floor, she took off her boots and walked on my back.

“What happened?” she said.

I knew if I didn’t answer, she’d never ask again. Part of me wanted to do that, but I couldn’t keep it in with her waiting to listen to me. She knew how to keep a secret.

“I killed some guys. This job Liam sent me on down in Texas. It got all f*cked up and I shot these two guys.”

She stopped walking her feet on either side of my spine.

“Who?” she said.

“A couple of drug dealers, so not any kinda good guys, but I guess that makes me about the same. Not any kinda good guy.”