The Reckless Oath We Made - Bryn Greenwood Page 0,72
stack of dead microwaves had toppled over and blocked the front steps. Everywhere else—every square inch of dead grass and weeds—was covered in cardboard boxes and trash. Like a tornado had hit the house.
Sitting in my car, staring at the mess, I didn’t even know where to start. Movers? Gasoline and matches?
When I walked into the front room, the shock of seeing it almost empty was nearly as fresh as it had been on Friday. There were maybe a dozen cardboard boxes that she’d managed to drag in herself. Or maybe a neighbor had.
“I told you not to come back here,” she said, after she lit a fresh cigarette off her butt.
“Are you still having a temper tantrum?”
That fast, I failed at the resolution I’d made not to snap at her.
“Go away. Just leave me alone to die. It’s what you want to do.”
“When’s the last time you ate?” I said.
“What do you care?”
She picked up the remote control and turned the sound back on her TV show. The cordless phone charger was there on the side table, but the cradle was empty, which explained why she hadn’t answered all weekend. I went to see if there was any food in the house. Someone had brought the mini fridge and the one working microwave and set them up in front of the sink. Mom yelled something I couldn’t hear, so I went back out to her.
“—cares more than you do,” she was saying.
“Who does?”
“Kevin. He helped me bring some of my things in.” Mom waved her hand at the boxes scattered around. Kevin was the same neighbor who got her cigarettes and brought her garage sale treasures, no matter how many times I asked him not to.
“Gentry and I tried to bring things in, but you wouldn’t—”
“Oh, I know. I’m not allowed to have an opinion about anything. I’m just supposed to sit here and smile like a doll, and be grateful for anything you do,” Mom said. To prove she wasn’t a grateful little doll, she picked up the pack of cigarettes and butt-lit another one. She was using a Peter Rabbit Melmac cereal bowl as her ashtray.
“Where’s your phone, Mom? I tried to call you a bunch of times.”
“I wouldn’t know. Maybe Mr. Mansur can tell you what he did with my phone.”
She took a big drag off her cigarette and did a French inhale. Then she turned the volume up on the TV. Some Hollywood doctor was talking to a thin blond woman about superfoods. Some berry that would just melt the pounds away.
Back outside, I walked up and down, looking in boxes. After almost half an hour, I saw the cordless phone’s antenna poking up out of a box of paperbacks. I grabbed the phone and an armful of books, and carried them back inside.
“What did you bring those in for?” Mom said, when I set the romance novels on the side table next to the phone. Like they hadn’t come out of her house.
“So you can have something to read.”
“Those old things? I’ve already read those.”
“Okay. Well, here’s your phone. I thought I might call some movers today and maybe a cleaning—”
“Mind your own business! If I want movers or cleaners, I’ll call them. I certainly don’t need your help.” She stubbed out her cigarette in the middle of Peter Rabbit’s face and picked up one of the books. “Don’t you worry about me.”
She read while I stood there trying to decide what to do. The phone nook was still unburied, and the poster board with Uncle Alva’s phone number and address. I tried to think practical thoughts, and what I kept coming back around to was that Uncle Alva knew Craig Van Eck, because he’d been in Van Eck’s gang, the White Circle. And Van Eck knew Barnwell and Ligett, because they were also in his gang. To me, it looked like Uncle Alva was already three steps closer to LaReigne than the marshals were.
He’d told me not to call him, but if I showed up at his house, he would have to talk to me. Plus, going to see him seemed less crazy than staying and fighting with my mother. In the ten years since I moved out, nothing had changed. Wasn’t that the definition of crazy? Doing the same thing over and over, thinking you’ll get a different result. I might as well have stuck my head in Mom’s oven as think anything was going to change.