They’d been sitting in Lucky’s after church—that was saying something right there. Clayton Burroughs had never stepped foot in a church before her, but there he was, hair combed and shirt tucked in, pretending to be comfortable—the two of them sharing a massive plate of cathead biscuits, peach preserves, and fresh butter. Kate had the figure for that kind of thing back then. That memory made her reach under the covers and pinch at her love handles, then cup the pudge of her belly with both hands.
The gossip in the air that morning at the diner was about Sheriff Flowers’s stepping down. Sam Flowers had been the law in McFalls County since she was a little girl, but something about a bad shooting, him being drunk or something, was forcing the old man into retirement, and the gossip hounds were out in full force. Kate remembered as if it were yesterday how she’d casually formed the words that would change both her and Clayton’s lives. She originally said it as a joke, but the look on Clayton’s face when she said it, as if she’d just solved all the world’s problems with a single sentence, was enough to wish she could freeze time and erase it from his memory.
“You should run, Clayton. You’d make a great sheriff,” she’d said, and after that there was no stopping him. Come November, they both added shiny new accessories to their nightstands—a modest diamond engagement ring for her and a silver sheriff’s badge for him. He ran unopposed and considered that a lucky break, although the whispers that coated the edges of every conversation through the election were that no one dared to run against a Burroughs—even the good one. The next decade was filled with the sleepless nights of a cop’s wife. A cop whose primary goal was to buy back the soul of a family that had grown accustomed to being soulless. And it was her fault.
Kate got out of bed, crossed the room, and laid a towel from the floor over the maddening glow of the clock. She walked to the bathroom and quietly lowered the toilet seat with mild annoyance. She sat down, letting her head fall into her hands. And after that fiasco at Buckley’s funeral? she thought. Is he out of his mind? Buckley had been completely psychotic, as far as Kate was concerned. He scared her more than Halford ever did. If Clayton was the good, and Halford was the bad, then Buckley was the ugly in spades. It didn’t surprise her or anybody else to hear he was shot to death in a gunfight with the police. Buckley was the shoot-first-think-never type, who most likely deserved everything that happened to him, but he was still Clayton’s brother. He was still family, and Clayton had the right to pay his respects, no matter what Halford and the rest of them thought.
Kate was supportive of Clayton’s attending the funeral; she even insisted on being there with him, but even she’d tried to change his mind about wearing his dress uniform. She groaned now and ran her hands from her head to the back of her neck, pressing down on the tense knot of muscle. She pictured him standing in front of the bathroom mirror, decked out in starched polyester with military creases and polished brass, wrestling with a tie for maybe the first time in his life. His well-worn hat was traded in for a stiff-brimmed sheriff’s hat she didn’t even know he owned. Standing in the doorway watching him like that, all she could think about was how this thing—this bad decision—would be the thing that got him killed. He insisted without urging that it was a way to honor his brother and in no way a massive fuck you to Halford and his cronies, and maybe, deep down, some of that was true, but she knew better. It was Burroughs piss, spite, and ego. Only, he couldn’t see it. None of them ever could. None of them ever thought they were wrong. She could smell the whiskey on him, too, no matter how much mouthwash he swigged to cover it up. She knew if she’d searched the cabinets and drawers, she’d find at least one, if not more, drained half-pint bottles of cheap bourbon. She let it go. She always let it go.
They were the last to arrive at the funeral, if you could even call it that. Outwardly it looked more like a crowd who’d turned out for a cockfight. Just a bunch of unkempt men standing around in a circle in their dingy work coats and boots, holding jars of corn whiskey, smoking, and carrying on. The few women who’d been allowed to come sat silent, bound together by expressions of profound sadness that were in no way inspired by the departed. They all looked much older than they were, tired and bleached out, the color of summer hay bales. Kate felt equal parts compassion and resentment toward them all, but also found herself trying to tug a few extra inches out of her skirt to cover more of her bare legs. No reason to rub it in.