The Kindest Lie(96)
She spoke first. “Corey, honey,” she said tentatively, inching toward him.
As if a spell had broken, he ran into the woman’s arms, sobbing.
“You’re safe now, son,” Mr. Cunningham said, putting a protective arm around the boy’s shoulders.
Son. That word shattered something inside Ruth. Mrs. Cunningham’s cheeks flushed, and above Corey’s head, she met Ruth’s eyes. The ripe scent of fear emanated from this woman.
From what she could tell, the Cunninghams appeared to love Corey. And he loved them. She saw it now in the natural way they cleaved to each other and moved as one. Everything made sense all of a sudden. Corey had traveled through Ruth, but he wasn’t hers. The certainty of that realization stunned her, and instead of bringing her peace, it made her ache for what she didn’t have, for what should have been hers all these years.
Thirty-Six
Midnight
The vacancy sign at the Oak Creek Motel blinked red. Midnight couldn’t ever remember the No lighting up. He knelt on the bed and pulled the blinds apart to see if he could spot Daddy outside having his morning smoke before the sun came up. All he saw was the motel clerk tossing a big black garbage bag into the dumpster and then scratching his balls through his pants. Daddy had gotten a room there after Christmas, when Drew put him out for not carrying his load. Maybe a move to Louisiana wouldn’t be so bad now, a chance to leave everything behind.
While he had his face pressed to the window, he heard the turn of the door handle. As soon as his father walked in, Midnight caught a whiff of sickly sweet weed.
Daddy looked pissed. “If you ever pull a stunt like that again, I’ll put a bullet in you myself.”
Only one day had passed since everything happened at the Wabash River, and already he knew nothing would be the same again. Daddy wouldn’t stop talking about it. Midnight stood between the two beds, the air stuffy in the tiny motel room. “I said I’m sorry.”
Ever since that morning, people watched him and whispered, smiling too hard when he caught them staring. He hadn’t heard from Corey and doubted he would see him until school started again next week. Sebastian and Pancho must’ve heard what happened, and they hadn’t texted him. Usually the four boys met up on New Year’s Eve to set off fireworks and listen to the crackle and boom in the night air. But he knew he’d be ringing in the new year alone.
Even Bones stayed away. Granny said somebody had finally taken him to the shelter, which made Midnight sad. It meant he wouldn’t be around anymore. It occurred to Midnight that Bones might get adopted just as Corey had, and he felt the strange stirring of jealousy over a dog. How would his new owners know he liked his belly rubbed in small circles with a light scratch, not too much fingernail?
Daddy plopped down on one of the beds and Midnight held his breath to block the smell. “The last thing I need is the cops hassling me. You know they still haven’t given me that airsoft back. You had no business taking it from my truck. Next thing you know the feds will be on my ass about my real guns. Goddamn it, Patrick. What the hell were you thinking?”
Midnight looked down at his socked feet, the left pressed on top of the right. He lost his balance and reached for the arm of a chair to steady himself. “Guess I wasn’t thinking.”
“Damn right, you weren’t. Good thing I’ve got a buddy down at the station. They were talking about charging you with delinquency for making a fake 911 call. You’re lucky they didn’t haul you off to juvie.”
Midnight wanted to scream that juvie would be better than this ratty motel with the peeling walls and the nasty brown stains on the bedspread. But when Daddy got like this, you had to let him go until he stopped on his own.
Later that afternoon, at Granny’s shop, Midnight sat near the door waiting for Granny to finish up for the day. People were taking advantage of the after-Christmas/New Year’s Eve sales on baskets of jellies and jams, and wool sweaters that gave him static shock.
There was nothing Granny couldn’t get some sucker to buy, not even an old miter saw of Daddy’s. She rested her hands on her hips and looked up at a man twice her size. “That’s as low as I’m going. Not a penny less. I’m telling you, this thing will cut through baseboards like butter. Either you want it or you don’t.” People said Granny could sell shoes to a man with no feet. And she probably could.
A moving van idled at the end of the street, and when he leaned against the shop window, he saw J. B. Wagner from school stumble over a pothole. He carried a tube TV with the cable cords dragging behind him. After J.B.’s little sister, Polly, died in that fire, his folks had cleared ash from the roof and gutters and mopped up the soot, but every time Midnight walked by their house, the air hit his nose and it always smelled of death.
Granny had said, Too many bad memories in that house, and you can’t wash them away.
J.B.’s neck stayed scaly and red from burns that hadn’t healed. The kid should’ve worn a turtleneck to hide them, the way Midnight wore long sleeves to cover his scars. Midnight pretended he didn’t see him when he walked in the store. “We’re moving today,” J.B. said.
Midnight licked the peanut butter from a Reese’s off his thumb. They had both lost their sisters, but that didn’t make them friends. “Yeah” was all Midnight managed to say.