But Daddy’s frozen solid, staring dead ahead again, watching her mother’s every move.
Marjorie sees it before her mother does.
The thing she’s using to wipe the windshield isn’t just a rag. It’s black. The material’s thick and not absorbent enough to wipe the blood away. And on the side she’s pressed to the windshield, Marjorie can see a familiar starburst design. When her mother retracts it slightly from the glass to ball more of it inside her hand, light winks through the center of the star, and she realizes it’s an eyehole.
For Marjorie, there’s only one way to make sense of what she’s seeing.
If her father’s a monster, then it means monsters aren’t what the world thinks they are.
Her mother’s wiping slower now, as if she’s realizing the thing she’s found in the trunk won’t get the job done. She pulls it away from the windshield, holding it in two fingers like you might a dead rodent by its tail. Uplit by the headlights at her waist, her face looks ghostly, her expression unreadable.
For a moment that slows Marjorie’s heart, she’s convinced her mother is quietly experiencing the same revelation she just came to. Yes, the stocking cap can only mean one thing. It means her father has done terrible things. But his reasons for them must be complicated. They know who Beatty Payne is. They know who he is at dinner and while he watches television and when he comes through the front door calling out to them as if just saying their names aloud soothes him. And so together, quietly, the three of them will discuss what this discovery really means.
Just the three of them. As a family.
Thank God they’re out here alone, free from others’ eyes, judgments, and definitions. Maybe her mother will finally see what vast open plains can bring you—the space needed for essential secrecy, the kind of secrecy that can help a family survive anything.
Her mother realizes none of these things.
Instead, she lets out a scream so powerful it sounds loud enough to be heard all the way back in Lubbock. And when Marjorie sees the pickup that just flew past them slam on its brakes and pull a U-turn in their direction, she realizes her mother has destroyed their family with a single, unending cry.
20
Amarillo, Texas
Her mother’s scream is playing on a longer tape loop than usual in her dreams, and for a second or two, Marjorie thinks the wind chimes along the porch are to blame. Then she realizes it’s the ringing phone. If it’s one of the calls she’s expecting, they won’t hang up no matter how long it takes her to answer. She’d disconnected the machine a few days ago; the only messages she needs this weekend are from her boys, and she’ll receive those herself, thank you very much.
Rising from her recliner tightens little bolts of pain in her right hip, but the voice of one of her boys will make the effort worth it, she’s sure. She picks up the pump-action shotgun she’ll be keeping within easy reach all weekend and walks through the darkness to the jangling phone.
She dozed off just after dusk, and so the only illumination in the house is coming from the oven light in the kitchen, like a lantern that’s been left on in the recesses of a cave. It’s dark out, but the expansive, dry land around her house looks darker than usual. A few days ago, she got up on a ladder and unscrewed the bulbs from the security lights ringing the roof of a barn that hasn’t seen a horse in years. Dangerous work for a woman of her age but essential preparation for what’s to come, and worth the risk because it’s for her boys. Even though they didn’t wake her, the wind chimes along the house’s broad front porch are playing a vaguely harmonious concert. It’s a sound that’s always filled her with confidence and focus, a reminder that the breath of the universe is something that can be played to your advantage.
She answers with a clipped greeting, and a familiar male voice says, “Good evening, ma’am. Is Sheryl there?”
It’s Wally, the gentlest of her boys. The first time she’s heard him in months, and the soft sound of it relaxes the tension in her shoulders and has her smiling faintly as she rests her forehead against the wall next to the phone. His little eyes always make him look a little sleepy, and he usually sounds it,