The Kindest Lie(97)
“My dad got a job at a dairy in Crawfordsville.”
When Midnight didn’t respond, J.B. said, “So everybody from school says Corey tried to shoot some lady and the cops with your gun.”
A wad of spit rose from Midnight’s throat and filled his mouth. He wanted to shoot the projectile at J.B., but he swallowed it. “Shut up and leave me alone. You don’t even know what you’re talking about. I thought you were busy moving.”
“We are. It’s just that I heard stuff. Sebastian’s mom said you and Corey might have to go to jail.”
Nobody was going to jail, but in a way, Midnight wished he could pay for what he’d done with something other than bad dreams that chased him from night to day.
But none of that was any of J.B.’s business.
A Coors beer can rolled onto the street and a car zoomed by, crushing it flat. Midnight stared hard out the window at the mangled aluminum, keeping his eyeballs real still until he couldn’t see J.B. anymore, even with his side vision, then he felt J.B. move away after he got tired of being ignored.
Midnight wandered to the back of the shop and found Granny closing up the register. She put a hand on his shoulder and asked, “You doing okay?” The last couple of days, he’d caught Granny staring, watching him more closely than before. And she touched him lightly, as if he might break.
He mumbled an “okay” and watched her finish up around the shop. When she was done, he followed her out to the car and they sat in silence on the drive to her house.
Midnight set the table as Granny heated up the roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and fancy peas. She told him to use their good dishes, a sign she was trying too hard, and that usually made him nervous. She even asked him to put out the cloth napkins, instead of the paper towels Miss Ruth had said were plenty absorbent.
When he had come home from the river Monday, Granny hugged him so hard he thought his bones would break. Then, in the next breath, she screamed at him. What were you thinking? You could’ve got yourself and Corey killed out there. Don’t you ever, ever, ever do that again.
Now, he knew what she’d tell him over dinner. When something you had expected for a long time happened, it fell like a peanut falling in the snow, making no sound at all.
She would ship him off to live with his cousins in Baton Rouge. He’d go to a new school. Make new friends. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to start over. Maybe even be given a new nickname by those who knew nothing of Midnight and his old life.
Granny took long, slow drinks of tea. Glancing up at the photo of him and Mom on the mantel, she said, “I miss Hannah every day. She was my firstborn. I can never get her back, but I have you now. You know, I’ve been thinking about some things.”
“Like what?” he said, waiting for it, even choosing to welcome it with parted lips.
She glanced up at him. Her shoulders rounded as if somebody had strapped a fifty-pound sack to her back. “I’m selling nearly everything in the shop. I’m gonna have to close it.” He heard the sadness in her voice.
“So, I’m moving to Louisiana.” He said it for her, so she wouldn’t have to.
With his fork, he squashed the lumps in the mashed potatoes.
“Let me add a little sour cream and butter to them,” she said, whipping the potatoes with the serving spoon. “That should make them nice and creamy.”
She continued. “I got a new job at Save A Lot, where your auntie Glo works. Cashier for now, but they know I’ve run my own shop for years, so they’re talking about making me a store manager. Less stress. Money’s not bad. So, nobody’s moving anywhere. I want you to stay right here with me.”
Granny shuffled to Midnight’s side of the table and wedged her hips onto his chair. He smelled the Jergens face cream she used to smooth out her wrinkles. Squeezing him hard, she said, “I promise you this. We’re sticking together as a family. We’ll do just fine right here in Ganton. All of us.”
He’d longed to hear those words. But now, he stared at his plate unblinking, watching potatoes ooze between the prongs of his fork.
“What about Daddy?” he asked.
Granny sighed. “He’s still looking for work. I think he’s checking into that dairy in Crawfordsville to see if they’re hiring. But he’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.”
Nothing felt solid and sure anymore. Midnight leaned his head back on the kitchen chair. Miss Ruth’s face haunted him, the deep disappointment he’d put there frozen in his memory. She had been the one to tell him she felt closer to her grandfather at the Wabash River. That place sounded magical in her voice, and maybe that’s why he’d gone there in the early hours of Monday morning. To find some magic.
Midnight wanted to start over, but how could he do it here in Ganton? How could he face Corey at school and all the other kids who knew what he’d done? For the first time, he wished he were J. B. Wagner in his family’s Chevy following the moving van, leaving all he’d loved and lost in a trail of exhaust.
Thirty-Seven
Ruth
Ruth found herself on Verna Cunningham’s doorstep New Year’s Eve morning, facing the woman in her wrinkled nightgown. Verna’s eyes were tired, empty, as if she were long past crying. Ruth didn’t want to cause any more upset than she already had, but she needed to talk to the woman raising her son. The memory of the hurt and shock in Corey’s eyes still haunted her, and she braced herself for facing him again.