American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,153

kissing or having sex for the first time in years: you remember where things are supposed to go, and how much they want to be there, and everything is so impatient.

She tosses her pink backpack in the cab and situates the rifle nearby. She wishes the cleaning tools were around, for she doesn’t trust the state the cowboy left the rifle in, but it is still a gift.

She turns the truck on, the diesel engine guttering to a roar.

Maybe now, since things are going her way, she’ll get some answers.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

It is such a boring day for Megan Twohey, the most boring out of a boring couple of weeks. As she lies under a primrose jasmine, kicking at the cascade of leaves with her small bare feet, she reflects that all of this happened because of the funeral, which of course makes her wonder if this is her fault.

It shouldn’t be, she thinks. She had never been to a funeral before. People die so rarely in Wink. When she first heard the news, she was so confused she asked her momma, “So what do we do now?”

“We pay our respects,” said her momma. “We have to go and pay our respects, dear.”

“How do we do that?”

“Well, we dress up, and we go see him get buried. We all go and hold hands and listen to the… the preacher speak. As a community.”

“But I don’t want to do that,” said Megan.

“Well, that’s too bad,” said her momma. “You’re going.”

She wanted to ask her daddy what he thought. But her daddy stayed down in the basement, smoking cigarette after cigarette, and all they ever got out of him was a hoarse “Yes” or “No” or “Uh-huh” emanating from that thick blanket of smoke. She asked her momma once what he did down there, and her momma said, “Well, he…” and then she didn’t say anything at all.

And since Megan had never been to a funeral, and since funerals are so stiff and uncomfortable, she behaved pretty poorly, taking off her shoes and picking at her toes, and though she didn’t know it things got so bad that her momma got upset, like crying upset, and Megan’s daddy leaned over, eyes glimmering and face cold, and he whispered something to her momma. Then her momma hauled Megan out to the parking lot where, for the first time in months, she pushed Megan over her knee and spanked her.

And this was not a spanking like any Megan had ever received before. This was no warning, no threatening tap. Two hits in, Megan realized her momma was really, genuinely trying to hurt her. And Megan got so scared she started crying too, and both of them just sat there in the car crying while those people put that box with the man in it in the ground.

“You can’t do that,” her momma said. “You can’t do bad things in front of your neighbors. They all saw, all of them.”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t think it was bad.”

“It was. It was so bad, Megan.”

“I didn’t know. I didn’t, I promise.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said her momma. She shook as she stared at the people standing around the hole in the ground. And then Megan realized her momma was scared, way more scared than she was, and she understood, a little, for there seemed to be so many unspoken rules to how adults lived their lives, always maintaining a constant image of prosperity and happiness. Megan felt sure she’d just shattered theirs for everyone, so went to see Lady Fish straightaway after, and that calmed her down a little.

But ever since, no one will come out to play. It is as if that day changed everyone. They stay inside, staring out the windows with wide, frightened eyes. It’s like they’re waiting for something. Only Megan gets let out to play, and that’s because her momma sleeps all day now. And her daddy, of course, just stays down in the basement.

But there is no one to play with. Megan is alone. Even Lady Fish left, just up and vanished in the night.

She feels sure it is her fault. If she had not been bad in front of everyone, if they had not all been there to see, then perhaps everyone would still be happy together…

Megan sits up. Someone is walking her way through the brush. She peers through the branches and sees an old lady hiking across the hillside behind their house. Megan thinks she recognizes her, a little. Isn’t