None of us spoke. None of us came close to touching each other again.
The floor was in pieces, and Tyler stood back, hands on his hips, breathing heavily with exertion. The earth was exposed and waiting. Tyler got a shovel from his truck, Daniel used the one in the corner, and I used the garden spade from out back, softening the earth until it crumbled, coming up in chunks.
The only sounds were our breathing, shovels hitting earth, dirt hitting dirt, and rain and thunder.
And from deep in my memory, Corinne’s words in my ear, the scent of spearmint, her cold fingers, and my skin rising in goose bumps as I dug in once more, hitting something that was not earth, not rock.
My fingers reached in, touched plastic, and I jerked back. Used my shaking hands to brush aside some dirt. It was a blue tarp, like the one Tyler had in the back of his truck at this very moment.
Of course it was me.
It was me with the tiny shovel and the corner of the garage.
It was me, and it was fitting—that I should be the one to find her.
I stood too quickly, my vision swirling as I pressed myself against the wall. Tyler and Daniel had stopped, moved to see what I had uncovered. Stood around the spot I’d left. Daniel used the side of the shovel to brush more dirt off the tarp, to nudge it a bit to the side, exposing a corner of quilt.
Daniel sucked in a quick breath. “Oh, fuck.”
Blue material and yellow stitching.
My mother’s blanket that she wore around her legs in her wheelchair. Long, dull hair, matted and spilling out the top.
Like whoever had put her here, in the earth, couldn’t bear the thought of her being cold.
* * *
MY MOTHER DIDN’T DIE in this house. She intended to, but I guess at one point she also intended to live. Intention is nice, but it’s a thing sometimes based more on hope than on reality.
It had been winter, and with winter comes the common cold, and we all had it. My father came down with it first, which wasn’t something I’d typically remember; Daniel and I had the chicken pox together, and I remembered my mother dunking us into oatmeal baths, dousing us with calamine, but I couldn’t remember which of us got it first. This cold, I remember: Dad’s dry cough echoing at night, and the hospital mask we attached over our mom’s ears, and him sleeping on the couch. And then Daniel coming down with it, and then me, and then her.
The cold quickly running its course through all of us but becoming pneumonia for her. Packing her up to the hospital, the onslaught of fluid in her lungs and ineffectual IV treatments, and her sudden death.
She was terminal—had been terminal—and yet her death was unexpected. Caught us all unprepared. I guess I imagined last words of wisdom from my mother, something meaningful to hold on to, something worthy of a story to tell my children. Something with weight that would belong to me alone.
I felt robbed.
It was my dad’s fault. Even he knew it. I suppose if I’m being honest with myself, I know that it was a virus’s fault and cancer’s before that. And she could’ve caught it from any of us. But if my dad traced back the threads—which of course he had, as he was the type of person to follow every thread no matter what rabbit hole it led him down—it would end with him.
Maybe he knew where it came from, that virus. A student at school, a colleague from the workroom. The man behind the counter of the coffee shop, or the woman who asked for directions. Maybe he had his own point of blame. Maybe he saw this person with his girlfriend, or laughing next to his car, or staring out the window absently, and thought: You killed my wife. And they never knew. How many people out there are responsible for some tragedy and don’t even know it?
* * *
THIS WAS WHAT I was thinking about when I saw the quilt. This was what I did to protect myself for just one more moment. Focusing on my anger, on my mother, on who was to blame—the fault, and the suddenness, and maybe even its bitter insignificance—and not on what lay underneath the blanket.
A rustle of plastic as Daniel moved the tarp again, and then it hit me with its own suddenness. Corinne.
I lunged outside the garage, knees in the grass and sickness in the earth. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
Daniel was standing over me, a hand on my shoulder. I shrugged him off. He dragged the hose from the side of the house, even though it was already raining, to clean up the mess. And for once, just once, I wished we would discuss what was actually happening. At least mention it. Acknowledge it. What should we do? What? My mouth formed the W, but no sound would come forth.
Daniel was already making a list: Clean up the mess. “We’ll burn it down,” he said.
“And what,” Tyler said from inside, “get the cops here so they can find a body? Get an investigation started?”
Inside the door, in the dim light, I could just make out Tyler’s profile—still staring down at the blanket, which would implicate someone in this house. And the plastic tarp, and the concrete floor, which might implicate him.
He cursed, kicking the tools on the floor. Stormed past us and tore the tarp from the top of the truck bed. He threw it over the exposed plastic, used the shovel to tuck it under at the edges. I stayed outside while Daniel helped Tyler roll the tarp up.
Daniel peeled back the corner to check and ended up in the grass beside me.
“Is it Corinne?” I asked.
He didn’t answer at first, just dragged his arm across his mouth, spitting out anything left, which was answer enough. A body with long hair buried under our garage. Of course it was her. “It’s her clothes,” he said, and then he gagged again, retching over the grass.
“Nic,” Tyler said, “watch the woods.”
I watched the woods. Tried not to notice the rolled-up tarp, and the blanket underneath, and Corinne underneath that, being carried from the garage to the back of Tyler’s truck. Tried not to picture the girl she had been or the times I had stood in that very spot, the truth just inches below the surface.
Daniel put a hand on Tyler’s shoulder. Took the keys from his grip. “Not your responsibility,” he said.
Tyler rubbed a hand down his face. “We’ve got work sites.”
“This won’t come back to you,” Daniel said. “Thank you.”
“Daniel,” I said.
“I know plenty of places, Nic. This is my region. It’s full of abandoned sites.”
We were doing this. Really doing this. Moving a dead body with no idea how it truly got there. I thought of police and lawyers and all the ways her body being under this house might get twisted around. And then I thought of Everett trying to get the phone records thrown out in the Parlito case. “Leave your phone,” I said. “It’s a GPS.”
“It’s in the kitchen,” Daniel said. And then, tilting his head toward the mess, “Will you take care of this?” He looked at Tyler, since I am unreliable, apparently. Tyler nodded.
He drove away, and I began to cry, hoping the rain would cover for me.
“I need your car,” Tyler said, pretending not to notice. He kept his gaze focused on the garage as he spoke to me.
“For what?”
“Gravel. Concrete. We need to pour a new floor.”
“Shouldn’t we wait until morning?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. We need to clear the area. Level it. Can you do that?”
This was a task. I could do the task. “Okay,” I said. “Yes.”
Stop crying.
Focus on the pieces of concrete. Focus on the dust. On the pressure washer. On the thunder.
Focus on the tiny insignificant details.
Leave out what’s happening
Pull yourself together, Nic.
Pick yourself up and move.
Tick-tock.
The Day Before