The Familiar Dark(17)

“Fuck you,” he said. “I knew that girl when she was in diapers. You really think I could have killed her that way?”

I knew I shouldn’t believe him. But the thing was, I did. Because Jimmy Ray, for all his casual violence, had a set of rules he lived by, just like everyone else. And killing two twelve-year-old girls violated those rules. He could live with beating his girlfriends until they bled, with hooking kids on meth and heroin, with gunning down his competition and leaving them in the woods to rot. But killing two kids in the park? He’d have a hard time looking in the mirror after that. Because, at the end of the day, Jimmy Ray still thought of himself as one of the good guys.

“Enough of this,” he said, took a step closer to me. “That the only reason you came here? To accuse me of some bullshit? Or you got something else in mind?” He pushed even closer, the heat of his body leaching into mine. “Because you’re looking good, Evie. Real good.” He ran his hand down my arm, and God help me, my stomach still flipped. Even after everything. For a moment, I considered taking him up on it. Junie was gone. What did it matter? I could let Jimmy Ray beat me all day and fuck me all night and no one would get hurt but me. If I was aiming for self-destruction, Jimmy Ray was the fastest, most obvious choice. But I still owed Junie some justice, and a detour with Jimmy Ray wouldn’t get me where I needed to go. The moment passed, and I took a step backward.

“You don’t know anything about it?” I pressed and saw the way Jimmy Ray’s fist folded into a knot. I didn’t think he’d hit me here, in front of everyone, not least of all because he preferred hitting women who were attached to him. That way he could watch the painful aftermath, make us beg for his forgiveness and ask for a second chance. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying to punch someone who could turn and walk away. But I steeled myself anyway, readied myself for a blow. Welcomed it almost.

Jimmy Ray shook his head, spoke through a clenched jaw. “All I know is I didn’t do it,” he said. Which, when I thought about it later, didn’t really answer my question at all.





SEVEN


The smell of stale smoke woke me in the morning, and it took me a few bleary-eyed seconds to realize the stench was from my own hair. I could imagine the way those strippers smelled after a night in the club, although smoke might be the least offensive scent they had to deal with. I rolled over with a groan, squinting against the sunlight that pierced through my curtains and jabbed into my eyes. I hadn’t had more than that single sip of beer last night, but my whole body throbbed like I was nursing the world’s worst hangover. Even my skin ached. Maybe it was grief, oozing out through my pores. My body had suffered when Junie came into the world. It seemed only fitting that it suffered when she left.

I forced myself out of bed, whimpering a little when my feet hit the floor and I shoved myself to standing. I shuffled to the bathroom and was just heading to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee when my gaze landed on the patterned curtain blocking off the small dining alcove. It was the one spot I’d avoided looking since the night Cal brought me home from the funeral home. Junie’s “room,” such as it was. When Junie had been alive, I hadn’t thought much about the space. But now that she was gone, it taunted me. Not only because I associated it so strongly with my daughter, but because it was a reminder of another way I’d failed her. What child wants to grow up without a room of her own? Wants to make do with a sectioned-off portion of the living room? Even I’d had a room in the trailer growing up. I had to share it with Cal, and it was hot in the summer and cold in the winter and smelled like mildew and urine. But it was still a room. Four walls and a door. More than Junie ever had. She’d shared a room with me until she was eight and then moved into the alcove. I’d mentioned it to her sometimes, said I was sorry I couldn’t give her more, and she’d always scoffed, said she liked her space fine. It had always seemed like she meant it. But now, without her voice competing with the scolding one in my head, I found her assurances hard to believe. If she hadn’t been ashamed, then why had she so rarely invited Izzy to our apartment? And even then, only for a quick dinner or to watch a movie, never to spend the night. She always wanted to go to Izzy’s, never the other way around. That’s another thing no one tells you about dealing with death, how afterward the only voice you can hear is your own, reminding you of everything you did wrong.

I sidled over to the drawn curtain, slowly, like it was a rattler that might bite. Laid my hand gingerly on the cotton fabric. Yellow-and-white paisley. Pottery Barn. I’d done that one thing right, at least. Worked extra shifts at the diner until I could afford to let Junie pick something nice, quality, not some shiny, polyester crap from the clearance bin. It seemed a silly distinction now, but it had mattered to me at the time.

I drew the curtain back, the hooks tinkling against the wooden rod Cal had installed one snowy December night. It had been her Christmas present that year, a can of sunny yellow paint for the alcove walls, new bedding, the curtain. A small bookcase I’d rescued from the thrift store and painted white. A pink glass bedside lamp Cal’s contribution.

The room had changed very little in the ensuing years. The books on the bookcase morphing from children’s to young adult. A small dresser squeezed in against the far wall, the top littered with earrings and spare change and accumulated junk. But the tiny twin bed still had the same quilt, the pink lamp still perched on her bedside table.