Burn Our Bodies Down(24)

“Your mother’s not with you?” Gram says brusquely as she throws the truck in reverse and rolls the windows down. Like I really am just visiting for the summer. I don’t know how she can pretend everything’s normal.

“No,” I say. I don’t want to talk about Mom right now. “She didn’t want me coming here in the first place.”

We peel out of the lot so fast I careen into the door, let out a hiss as some of my burn blisters pop. She turns onto the road bordering the town square, and I glimpse a few of Tess’s friends from this morning, back at the fountain, stretched out to tan. But then Gram’s leaning on the gas and we’re out of Phalene proper almost before I can blink. Like everything at the station never happened.

“Why not?” Gram asks.

I can barely hear her over the wind coming in through the open windows, and it takes me a minute to remember what she’s talking about. Do I want to be honest and tell her how far Mom went to keep her—her and that girl in the field—a secret? I doubt it’ll be a surprise. Not with what I’ve seen today.

I decide on something neutral. A shrug, and I say, “Just how she is.”

Gram laughs, a cracking, unruly sound. “That’s an understatement, Mini.”

“Mini?” My first thought is that she’s insulting me somehow, in a way she knows I won’t understand. But that’s not fair. She’s done nothing yet to tell me that’s who she is.

The fields stream by as we head in the direction of the fire. My mouth goes dry, my head swimming. Gram doesn’t seem upset that her land’s gone up. Why doesn’t she care?

She glances over at me, one hand on the wheel, the other dangling out the window. “Sorry,” she says. “I used to call your mother that.”

So, not an insult. But it sits uncomfortably in my chest anyway. I don’t want to be like Mom to her. I want to be myself. Her granddaughter.

“She never told me,” I say.

“Of course she didn’t.” Gram sounds bitter, and I know the feeling. “She doesn’t know you’re here, does she?”

I look at Gram, searching. For disappointment. Disapproval. For the thing that’s gonna send me back to Calhoun. But she’s just asking, her expression open and curious.

“No,” I say firmly. “I didn’t tell her. I just left.”

“Well, we’ll give her a call when we get home.”

Home. It’s enough to keep the rest of what she said from hitting me, but when it does I lurch across the console, leaning toward Gram, my palms itching to grab her arm.

“Please, let’s not,” I say. I hate how anxious I sound. “She’ll figure it out on her own. And in the meantime, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

Gram shakes her head, her eyes still on the road. “There is a time and a place for that line of thinking, Mini, but I don’t think we’re there.”

The time and place were at the police station. She had no trouble keeping things from them. But I guess I should be happy, should take this as a sign that once we get to Fairhaven, she’ll tell me everything.

And all of this—it should make me more uncomfortable. Even without the fire and the body, Gram should feel like a stranger. But she isn’t, really, is she? She’s Mom, and she’s me, and she’s family, and it wasn’t that she never wanted me. It was that Mom never wanted her. There was only ever Mom between us, and now that’s gone.

The fire’s coming up on our right. This is the same path I took with Tess and Eli, twenty minutes on the bike turned into five in the truck. Out across the tops of what corn has survived I can see a fire engine parked on an access road, fighting the blaze back toward where it came from.

But I’m looking up ahead, to where two cruisers are parked across one lane of the highway. When we left the scene for the station, there was only one, and only one officer keeping watch. It felt like half a dream. Like it couldn’t be real.

It’s different now. Neon crime scene tape, and a stretcher waiting for the body. I can see two figures there, on the shoulder of the road, the body between them covered with a white sheet.

“Don’t give it another thought,” Gram says, slowing down as we ease into the other lane. “It will all sort itself out.”

“How can it?” I say. How can she be so calm? “That girl. She’s—”

“She’s what?” There’s a challenge in her voice that stops me short.

“Nothing,” I say. This is still too fragile. It isn’t safe.

“No, let’s hear it,” Gram says, just like Mom when she won’t let go, when she makes me make her angry. “Say what you mean, Margot.”

Fine. She asked for it. “My sister. She has to be. She looked exactly like me, and she was on your land. And I know you said you didn’t know what the police were talking about, I know that, but we’re not with them anymore, and you can be honest with me. You can just tell me you were keeping her.”

The truck squeals as Gram hits the brakes. I swallow a cry of surprise.

“Excuse me?” she says, turning to me. Dust drifting in through the open window. The heat catching up with us.

“Why did you stop?” My heart racing, my mouth dry. I knew I shouldn’t risk it. I knew it, and I did it anyway.