Valentine(68)

And when Mrs. Shepard walks through the door a few minutes later, still wearing her house slippers, she looks around the kitchen, her eyes taking in the broken glass, the iced tea all over the wall and floor, and the three girls leaning uneasily against the doorframe while the baby howls like someone has set him on fire. Mrs. Shepard claps her hands sharply together. You girls go get that goddamn baby and take him to Aimee’s room. She bends down so she’s eye level with Mary Rose, who is crying so hard her whole body shakes with the strength of it.

None of the girls have ever seen a grown woman cry this hard, not even at a funeral, and they are all too young to recognize it as rage.

Mrs. Shepard rubs the younger woman’s arm and rests one hand in the center of her back. Okay, she says, you’re going to stand up now and come sit down at the kitchen table.

Aimee’s mother shakes her head.

Honey, I can’t bend over like this for one more minute. Now get up.

Without a word, Mary Rose stands and walks over to the kitchen table. She sits down and lays her head against the oilcloth, her shoulders moving in time with her sobs. Corrine wipes the tea off the wall and sweeps the glass into a corner. Just for the time being, she says, we’ll clean it up in a few minutes. After she pours two glasses of iced tea and carries them to the table, she looks over and sees the girls still standing in the doorway with their mouths open. Why are y’all still here? Corrine says. Go get that goddamned baby before he bursts a blood vessel.

The girls walk down the hall to Aimee’s bedroom, the wind shaking the house like it wants to fling them out the windows and into the yard. They sit on the floor and make goo-goo eyes at the baby, and Casey suggests they play O Mighty Isis because Isis can master the wind, and Lauralee says they ought to play Incredible Hulk, because he can turn his rage into a force for good. Aimee doesn’t want to play anything. She just sits and looks from her baby brother to the window, and back again. She tells the other girls she has been thinking about probation—what it means, or what she thinks it means. Dale Strickland can still go anywhere he pleases, he can eat ice cream whenever he wants, and go see a football game. What about Glory Ramírez? What happens to her? And what about them?

Half an hour will pass before Corrine comes into Aimee’s room with a bottle for the baby. She looks around their little circle, three pale, round faces and the baby grabbing at his sister’s hair. Where the hell is Debra Ann? she asks them. Why isn’t she in here with you girls?





Corrine

Between the wind blowing and the baby crying, between air filled with enough dust to suffocate a bull and Mary Rose refusing to open her goddamned curtains, not even for two minutes to let some sunlight in, Corrine couldn’t have heard or seen Jesse and D. A. pulling the garage door open and backing the truck out. Now she stands on the dusty concrete with clenched fists and sweaty armpits, staring at the empty spot where Potter’s truck used to be. All that remains is a puddle of fresh motor oil.

Mary Rose runs across the street, still buttoning her blouse, purse knocking against her hip bone. Her shoelaces are untied and she is not wearing socks. When she sees Corrine standing in the empty garage, she stops abruptly. Where is Potter’s truck? Where’s Debra Ann?

I don’t know. Still hung over from the salty dogs, Corrine presses her fingers so hard against her eyelids that she sees stars. She tries to recall the last time she sat in the truck. When did she last listen to Bob Wills on the radio and shift into neutral before turning the key and hoping for the nerve to stay put for as long as it took? When was the last time she stared at the gauges for a minute or two before sighing and turning the truck off and going inside to fix herself a glass of iced tea? Two nights ago. And then, as always, she left the key in the ignition.

Mary Rose hurries into Corrine’s kitchen and holds the phone receiver to one ear. Propping the door open with her foot, she quickly taps the switch hook, listens for a couple of seconds, and taps it again. How much gas is in the tank? she calls through the open door.

Less than half, I think. Corrine scans the garage. Everything is in its usual place, other than the empty space where Potter stored his tent. Boxes of Christmas ornaments are labeled and lined up on the shelf next to the rest of their camping gear. His rakes and shovels are stacked in a corner, covered with a fresh layer of gray dust, and just like that, Corrine sees him walking across the backyard with some animal lying in the center of the shovel blade—a garter snake or mouse or sparrow. She sees him digging a hole, a goddamned grave for every little creature. He should have outlived me, she thinks. He was so much better at life.

Corrine walks to the center of the garage and turns in a slow circle, her gaze lifting and falling as she again scans the room. Potter’s truck is gone, the phones are out, and although the dust storm has passed, the air is still so thick with particulate and heat that her lungs feel as if they’re caught in a steel press. The puddle of fresh oil again catches her eye, and then she sees the piece of paper lying next to it on the concrete.

Mary Rose steps out of the kitchen and stands with one arm outstretched as Corrine hands the page to her. It is a napkin from the strip club, folded in half, and although the words beneath the logo are slightly smeared, the women can make out the words Penwell and gas station and, on the other side of the napkin, a name. Jesse Belden. Rocking slightly, with one arm folded across her belly, Mary Rose leans forward until her hair scrapes the floor. We have to go get her.