The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires(79)

Patricia turned onto the state road and began winding her way back to Six Mile. Houses sat empty; a few were missing doors, and most had For Sale signs in the front yard. No children played outside.

She found Grill Flame Road and rolled down it slowly until she emerged into Six Mile. Not much of it survived. A chain-link fence hugged the back of Mt. Zion A.M.E., and beyond it lay a massive dirt plain full of bright yellow earthmoving equipment and construction debris. The basketball courts had been plowed up, the surrounding forest thinned to an occasional tree, and all the trailers over by where Wanda Taylor had lived were gone. Only seven houses remained on this side of the church.

Mrs. Greene’s Toyota was in the drive.

Patricia parked and opened her car door and immediately her ears were assaulted by the high-pitched scream of table saws from Gracious Cay, the rumbling of trucks, the earsplitting clatter of bricks and bulldozers. The construction chaos staggered her for a moment and left her unable to think. Then she gathered herself and rang Mrs. Greene’s front bell.

Nothing happened, and she realized Mrs. Greene probably couldn’t hear her over the din, so she rapped on the window. No one was home. Maybe her car had broken down and she’d gotten a ride to work. Relief flooded Patricia and she turned and walked back to her Volvo.

The construction was so loud that she didn’t hear it the first time, but she heard it the second: “Mrs. Campbell.”

She turned and saw Mrs. Greene standing in the door to her house, hair in a wrap, wearing an oversized pink T-shirt and a pair of dungarees. Patricia’s stomach hollowed out and filled with foam.

“I thought—” Patricia began, then realized her words were lost under the construction noise. She walked over to Mrs. Greene. As she got closer she saw that she had a gray tinge to her skin, her eyes were crusted with sleep, and she had dandruff in the roots of her hair. “I thought nobody was home,” she shouted over the construction noise.

“I was taking a nap,” Mrs. Greene shouted back.

“That’s so nice,” Patricia shouted.

“I clean in the morning and I do overnight stocking at Walmart in the evening,” Mrs. Greene shouted. “Then I go right back to work in the morning.”

“Pardon?” Patricia said.

Mrs. Greene looked around, then looked into her house, then back at Patricia, and nodded sharply. “Come on,” she said.

She closed the door behind them, which cut the construction noise by half, but Patricia still heard the high, excited whine of a saw ripping through wood. The house looked the same except the Christmas lights were dark. It felt empty and smelled like sleep.

“How’re the children?” Mrs. Greene asked.

“They’re teenagers,” Patricia said. “You know how they are. How are yours?”

“Jesse and Aaron are still living with my sister up in Irmo,” Mrs. Greene said.

“Oh,” Patricia said. “Do you get to see them enough?”

“I’m their mother,” Mrs. Greene said. “Irmo is a two-hour drive. There is no enough.”

Patricia winced at a massive crashing bang from outside.

“Have you thought about moving?” she asked.

“Most people already have,” Mrs. Greene said. “But I’m not leaving my church.”

From outside came the beep-beep-beep of a truck backing up.

“Are you taking on any more houses?” Patricia asked. “I could use some help cleaning if you’re free.”

“I work for a service now,” Mrs. Greene said.

“That must be nice,” Patricia said.

Mrs. Greene shrugged.

“They’re big houses,” she said. “And the money’s good, but it used to be you’d talk to people all day long. The service doesn’t like you to speak to the owners. If you have a question they give you a portable phone and you call the manager and he calls the owners for you. But they pay on time and take out the taxes.”

Patricia took a deep breath.

“Do you mind if I sit?” she asked.

Something flashed across Mrs. Greene’s face—disgust, Patricia thought—but she gestured to the sofa, unable to escape the burden of hospitality. Patricia sat and Mrs. Greene lowered herself into her easy chair. Its arms were more worn than the last time Patricia had seen it.

“I wanted to come see you earlier,” Patricia said. “But things kept coming up.”

“Mm-hmm,” Mrs. Greene said.

“Do you think about Miss Mary much?” Patricia asked. She saw Mrs. Greene rearrange her hands. Their backs were covered with small, shiny scars. “I’ll always be grateful you were with her that night.”

“Mrs. Campbell, what do you want?” Mrs. Greene asked. “I’m tired.”

“I’m sorry,” Patricia said, and decided she would leave. She put her hands on the edge of the sofa to push herself up. “I’m sorry to have bothered you, especially when you’re resting before work. And I’m sorry I haven’t been out to see you earlier, only things have been so busy. I’m sorry. I just wanted to say hello. And I saw Miss Mary.”

A distant clatter of boards falling to the ground crashed through the window panes. Neither of them moved.

“Mrs. Campbell…,” Mrs. Green began.

“She told me you had a photograph,” Patricia said. “She said it was from a long time ago and you had it. So I came. She said it was about the children. I wouldn’t have bothered you if it was about anything else. But it’s the children.”