The Familiar Dark(11)

“What?” my mama demanded, drawing my attention back to her. “What else do you want me to say? I didn’t even know the girl. Every time I spotted you in town, you practically dragged her across the road to get away from me. You never would bring her around here.” Something flashed in her eyes, some emotion that didn’t quite match her words, but she looked away before I could catch hold of it.

“To all this?” I threw out an arm. “You’re damn right I didn’t.”

My mama tsked under her breath, held up her beer can, and shrugged when I shook my head. “Suit yourself,” she said.

“Whose truck is that?” I asked. “Boyfriend of the month?” I glanced at the bumper, where a Make America White Again sticker was plastered up against My Other Toy Has Tits. “Looks like you’ve picked a real winner.”

My mama’s eyes narrowed as she leaned forward, poked me hard in the thigh with her bony knuckle. “Better watch your mouth,” she said. “You ain’t so grown I can’t still beat your ass.”

Fear slithered through me; defiance, too. A kind of muscle memory taking over, transporting me back to childhood, where I’d spent half my time trying to dodge her fists and the other half daring her to hit me again. Five minutes back in her presence and already I felt dirtier, harder, than I had when I drove up. Somewhere in the near distance a dog barked, a harsh, ugly sound, like he was swallowing nails. Even without seeing him, I could picture a flea-bitten, half-starved pit bull chained up in a muddy yard. That was the thing about this part of the world: You didn’t have to actually see something to know exactly how it would play out.

“What did you come here for, anyway?” my mama asked. “You even gonna sit down?” She scooted over on the rickety plywood step. Her version of a peace offering. I hesitated and then lowered myself next to her. She smelled like old cigarettes and dirty hair.

“I was wondering where Jimmy Ray hangs out these days,” I said, eyes on my ragged nails and torn-up cuticles. Working in the diner always had played hell on my hands. Junie used to put lotion on them before I went to bed, lulling me to sleep with the scent of lavender.

“Why you asking?” My mama paused, ground out her cigarette on the step between us. Lit another one before she spoke again. “You think he had something to do with what happened?”

“Not really,” I said, praying it was the truth. I’d brought Jimmy Ray into our lives, led him right up to our doorstep. I wasn’t sure how I’d manage to keep on living if he’d been the one to hurt Junie. “But Sheriff Land asked about him. Got me thinking is all.”

“Sheriff Land.” She snorted. “Why you listening to anything he has to say? That man’s as worthless as tits on a nun.”

I smiled at that, held out my hand for a drag off her cigarette. She rolled her eyes, but handed it over.

“You know where Jimmy Ray lives,” she reminded me. “Why you asking me?”

“Yeah, but you know I can’t just roll up there. Not if I want my head to stay attached to my body.” Jimmy Ray’s house, tucked even farther into the holler than my mama’s, was more like a fortress. No one approached without an invitation. No one who wanted to keep breathing, at least. Truth was, I didn’t care much about breathing anymore. But I was the only one who could speak for Junie. I didn’t trust anyone else, not even Cal, to see this through, to follow this path to the dark place where it surely led.

My mama glanced at my hand. “Are you going to give that back or should I light another?”

“Light another,” I said, holding the half-smoked cigarette out of her reach. I hadn’t smoked a cigarette in more than a dozen years, and the nicotine rushed through me, leaving me light-headed.

She shook her head, lit up a fresh cigarette. “Jimmy Ray could be anywhere. But I hear he spends a lot of time at that titty bar down the way, on 50. You know the one?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know it.” Grimy and dark and full of desperate women. Exactly the kind of place, and women, Jimmy Ray loved. I experimented with blowing a smoke ring, but netted only an amorphous cloud.

“What was she like?” my mama asked, her gaze fixed on the woods creeping up around the trailer as if the trees were anxious to reclaim the ground they’d lost. “Your girl?”

Her words pierced me, but for once I didn’t think she was trying to be cruel. I flicked the cigarette away, watched it smoke on the dirty gravel at our feet. A bird cawed nearby, and another answered in the distance. “She was smart,” I said. “So much smarter than the rest of us.”

“Huh, guess that wouldn’t be too hard.” My mama bumped her shoulder gently against mine.

“She was curious about everything. She loved animals, could sob for days over every stray dog I wouldn’t let her bring home. All the kids liked her, but she was picky about who she became friends with. Science was her favorite subject. She wanted to know how things worked. She wrote poetry. Kept it in a little notebook she carried around.” My words were coming too fast, slopping out of my mouth like water from a broken faucet. “Her hair was prettier than mine, thicker. She had the same freckles across her nose.” I ran my fingers over my face, surprised when they came away wet.

“She sounds like a special girl,” my mama said. “Like you raised her the way you thought best.”