He looked at his hands—at one fist wrapped in the other, a great tight ball of knuckles.
“Gordon,” she said again, but he would not look up. “Gordon, we have to try, don’t we?”
He said nothing. Staring at those fists.
“I’ll tell you what I think,” he said at last, without looking up. “But you won’t like it.”
“Tell me.”
He unclenched his hands and flattened them on the table, one to either side of the piece of cloth. He looked up.
“I think just about anybody who isn’t his mother is gonna think there’s only one way in hell that boy comes up with this pocket ten years later.”
She watched him. “Is that what you think, Gordon?”
He didn’t answer. Looking into her eyes. Then he looked away, toward the window, as if he’d heard something, and she looked too, and listened, and for just a moment she heard them: The kids, chasing each other in the snow. Laughing, shouting. Any second now a snowball would thud against the house, trying to get them to come to the window, come to the porch, watch us, notice us!
“Doesn’t matter what I think,” Gordon said, and she turned back to him.
“Of course it does.”
“Not to the law it doesn’t.”
A panic began to rise in her. She had the urge to swipe up the cloth and hold it in her fist.
“Gordon—” She had to swallow. “Gordon . . . you sound like you don’t even want to try.”
He shook his head. “It isn’t that. I don’t want anything more in this world than to know the truth. It’s just . . . God damn it, Rachel.”
“What?”
“What if the truth isn’t what you want it to be?”
She looked at him. Was it possible this was the same man who’d held her as she sobbed against his chest? Who’d built the fire and thawed the ground and dug up the earth so she could bury the dog?
Then she saw her own hand moving slowly toward the square of cloth. Palming it up, replacing it in the folded stationery, fitting the stationery back into the envelope, and the envelope back into her purse.
“I’m going to the sheriff with or without you,” she said, her voice trembling.
Gordon nodded. “I know it,” he said. “I know it, Rachel. And I’d do the same, I were you.”
52
He didn’t call. 4:50 and he didn’t call.
5:00 and he didn’t.
Mr. Wabash was in the front office closing out the register, putting the cash and the checks into a zipper bag for the bank. Jeff had pulled the Impala out and was backing it into a tight spot. Marky stood watching through the glass.
“You OK there, Marky?”
“I’m OK Mister Wabash.”
Mr. Wabash looking at him, and Marky looking out the glass, watching for his mother’s car to pull in. Finally Mr. Wabash zipped the bag shut and said, “OK then,” and turned and went back into the garage.
Marky zipped up his jacket and stepped outside and stood in the cold wind. It was not dark yet because it was almost March and the days were getting longer, but everything still looked like winter. Smelled like winter. Jeff came back from parking the Impala, hurrying to get back inside, but then stopped next to Marky and stuffed his hands in his pockets and stood as if he would wait too.
“She’s running late, huh.”
“She’s running late Jeff.”
They watched. Jeff shivered and said, “Well,” and at that moment the wagon turned into the lot, and Jeff said, “I’ll see ya, Big Man,” and Marky said, “OK seeya Jeff,” and he got into the car, so warm and smelling like his mother—“Hi Momma”—and he shut the door and pulled the seatbelt across him, but then they just sat there.
“Momma?”
She seemed to be watching Jeff as he stepped back into the office.
“Yes?”
“Are we going?”
She turned to him, but it was another second or two before she really saw him, and he knew she hadn’t talked to him—to Danny—just as she knew he hadn’t talked to him either, because he would’ve told her already, he would’ve called her right away like he promised, but of course she had to ask anyway, and he had to tell her, “No Momma he didn’t call,” and she looked at him then for a long time, just looking at him, before she faced forward again and took her foot off the brake. And it was the longest drive home. Or not the longest because