on the playground. By middle school there was no goofing around with Holly Burke and no saying hello in the halls even, and if you ever told anyone you’d once wrestled with her on the living room floor she’d call you a liar and a pervert, and by high school you wouldn’t even believe such a thing yourself—suddenly it was hard to believe she’d ever been a little girl at all.
You can say it, Danny. She was a good-looking young woman and you desired her. You wanted Holly Burke.
No, sir . . . No, sir.
He saw that night again—the dark road winding through the dark woods, the bending limbs, the boughs that dipped and swayed. What if you’d left the bar a few minutes earlier? What if you hadn’t stopped to let the dog out? You’d been drinking. Hell, you were drunk. Taking those turns. The trees tossing and you are in your truck and you are nineteen and nothing can touch you, and you come around the bend and suddenly . . .
And what if you had? What if you’d come around the bend with the beers in your blood and not seen her in time? What if what they wanted to be true was true? What if your life now was exactly the one you deserved?
He walked around to the driver’s side of the truck, the night so still and cold there was only the sound of his boots on the packed snow, the sound of his own breath, but then, under these sounds and far off, he heard a tinny jangling, a faint rattling that was the sound of a dog running somewhere and he turned back toward the yard, toward the fields beyond. But there was no dog, no dark shape moving fast over the white. There was only the snow and the farmlight and the dark, unmoving shadows on the snow.
48
He was sitting at the table eating his cornflakes when she came down and she already knew, it was in her face, her eyes. The way she moved.
“He couldn’t wait till I came down?” she said, crossing to the sink to look out the window.
“He left last night Momma.”
“What time last night?”
“Two a.m. Momma.”
“How do you know?”
Marky stirred his cornflakes, chewing.
“Marky?”
“He woke me up to say good-bye that’s all.”
“That’s all?”
Marky nodded. Spooned up more cornflakes.
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No Momma.”
She stood watching him eat. The sound of the cornflakes so loud in his ears.
“So he woke you up to say good-bye but not me,” she said, and he looked up at her tired, sad face.
“He didn’t want to wake you up Momma. He told me to tell you good-bye for him.”
“What was the big rush?”
“I don’t know Momma he just said it was time for him to go again.”
She lit the flame and put the kettle on the stove and then stood looking out the window.
“He’ll come back Momma. He always comes back.”
She wiped at her face and then she turned and crossed the kitchen and ran her hand down the back of his head and said, “I’ll go get dressed and then we’ll go.”
“OK Momma.” When he heard her on the stairs he got up and checked the kettle, ran tap water into it, and returned it to the flame.
He spent the morning in the back, stocking shelves and matching inventory to what was on the computer, and it was a long morning. At lunchtime he sat at the little table in the back office and after a while Jeff came back and took his bag out of the fridge and tossed his burrito into the microwave and punched the buttons, then stood looking at Marky as the machine hummed and blew the spicy meat smell into the room. Marky took a bite of his ham sandwich and washed it down with his bottle of Sprite.
“You’re awful damn quiet today.”
“Yeah I been working on the inventory Jeff.”
“I see that. Very shipshape. Very shipshape.” Jeff watching him. Marky sipping at his Sprite. “How about that bag of chips?” Jeff said.
“How about it?”
“You gonna eat it?”
“No.”
“You’re not gonna eat your chips?”
“No do you want them Jeff?”
“Hell, if you don’t want ’em,” he said, and he popped open the bag and began eating the chips. The crunching loud chip sound. The microwave humming and blowing. Mr. Wabash banging on something in the garage. Then, holding a chip partway to his mouth, Jeff said, “Shit, I know what this is. This is Danny, isn’t it.”