Burn Our Bodies Down(25)

“I must have misheard you,” she says. I don’t know how to read her yet. Just her expectant face and her dark eyes, and it’s Mom and nothing like her all at once. “Are you suggesting that I’m lying?”

“No,” I say hurriedly. “No, I didn’t—”

“Good.” Her face softens. “I would never lie to you, Margot. That’s not how family should behave. And we’re family. I understand; I know you were there with the police for a long time, all by yourself. I’m sure they told you all kinds of things.”

“Not really,” I start. “I mean, some things, but—”

“Things like how Nielsens are all kinds of trouble, I’m sure.” She rolls her eyes, and it startles me for some reason. She’s sharp in ways I’m not ready for, in ways that will cut if I’m not careful, but warm, too. It coaxes me closer.

“Yeah,” I say. “Like that.”

Gram seems to relax, and she throws the truck back into gear and eases onto the highway again. The fire is burning in the distance. I wonder if it’ll be out by the morning. If this will have happened at all.

“Don’t listen to Thomas Anderson,” she says. Easy, like this is just an unfair parking ticket. “I’ve known that boy since he was seven years old. He’s no more than a nuisance. His father was the same way.”

This isn’t safe, I can feel that thrumming through my blood. Familiar, so familiar that for a moment I could be back in Calhoun, Mom in her room and me with a lighter in my hand.

But I’m not. I’m here. And Gram’s hiding the truth, and calling me family, and I have to decide which is more important. If I push now, I lose this forever. If I wait, I get Gram. I get Fairhaven. I get another chance to find out what happened.

“Okay,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

And then she reaches over. Her hand tight around mine. And she says, “Me too. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

An apology handed back to me. I’ve never had one from family before. I’m here, it means. I will still be here.

Not the answers I wanted, but something better.

We keep driving. The crops outside my window are blackened, broken, oozing smoke. Across the ash field I can see the lingering glow of the fire, the plume and spray of the fire hoses, and beyond, the red gleam of the engines. They’re parked on another of the access roads that seem to run like spider’s legs off the main highway, cutting through the fields.

“Is that where it started?” I ask.

Gram nods. “From what I can tell. But with weather like this, it’s hard to say. We’ll know more once it’s out.”

She doesn’t seem upset. Isn’t this her livelihood? I want to ask, but I don’t think she’d take kindly to that.

Gram doesn’t say anything more as we pass the last of the fire. I twist in my seat, keep watching it for as long as I can. She sounded like she thought it was an accident. But I know what the police are sure of. Me, and that girl, and a fire all our own.





ten





fairhaven isn’t much farther. I still have the photo folded in my pocket, the name imprinted on my mind in Gram’s handwriting. It looks just the same as we pull up to the long, straight driveway, the house in the distance, set a ways back from the road.

“There she is,” Gram says, turning us onto the dirt road, the rattle of the tires nearly drowning her out.

The house is big, three stories and tilting like somebody bumped into it and forgot to set it right. White siding, or it used to be. Now the color’s closer to spoiled milk, and the paint is peeling. A rusted weathervane tops the roof, and a rickety porch is striped across the front of the house. I trace the line of it, try to find where it corners, but it feels like the whole place twists around itself.

The corn crawls right up to the edge of the driveway, golden and crackling, tilting in the wind. It’s dead, I think—by that color it has to be dead—and yet it still seems to be growing.

I stare out the truck window as Gram parks. Tess said Gram plants. I’m not sure she’s right, though. The corn is growing, but from the emptiness, from the complete absence of any kind of machinery, I doubt Gram has much to do with it.

“Well,” Gram says, “let’s not dawdle, shall we?”

She’s already out of the truck, peering at me through the open window on the driver’s side. I get out, stumbling on my weak legs. It’s midafternoon, the sun still bright, and I can’t believe it. It feels like a year since I left Calhoun.

I round the truck, my shoes kicking up dust, my hair sticking to my forehead. I could drop to the ground right now and never move again, the rush of the day leaving me in a heartbeat. But the shade of the porch beckons, and so does Gram, waiting for me on the steps now, her hand outstretched.

When was the last time someone reached for me? Someone with my mother’s face, my mother’s last name? I follow her like it’s a dream. Up the stairs, boards creaking underneath me, the whole house seeming to sway. I can’t feel the pain of my blisters anymore. Can only feel Gram’s hand as it closes around mine.

She props open the screen door and pushes back the solid one behind it. Neither locked. Nothing in this whole place kept away from me. “Come on in,” she says, so I do.