A tumbler full of ice and an entire bottle of bourbon purloined from the back kitchen, then up to my room to drink. The booze hit me fast, probably because that was how I was drinking it. My ears were hot and my skin had stopped its blinking. I thought about that word at the back of my neck. Vanish. Vanish will banish my woes, I thought loopily. Vanish will banish my troubles. Would we have been this ugly if Marian hadn’t died? Other families got over such things. Grieve and move on. She still hovered over us, a blonde baby girl maybe a hair too cute for her own good, maybe just a bit too doted on. This before she got sick, really sick. She had an invisible friend, a giant stuffed bear she called Ben. What kind of kid has an imaginary friend that’s a stuffed animal? She collected hair ribbons and arranged them in alphabetical order by color name. She was the kind of girl who exploited her cuteness with such joy you couldn’t begrudge her. Batting of the eyes, tossings of the curls. She called my mother Mudder and Alan…hell, maybe she called Alan Alan, I can’t place him in the room in these memories. She always cleaned her plate, kept a remarkably tidy room, and refused to wear anything but dresses and Mary Janes. She called me Mille and she couldn’t keep her hands off me.
I adored her.
Drunk but still drinking, I took a tumbler of liquor and crept down the hallway to Marian’s room. Amma’s door, just one room down, had been closed for hours. What was it like growing up next to the room of a dead sister you never met? I felt a pang of sorrow for Amma. Alan and my mother were in their big corner bedroom, but the light was out and the fan whirring. No such thing as central air in these old Victorians, and my mother finds room units tacky, so we sweat the summers out. Ninety degrees but the heat made me feel safe, like walking underwater.
The pillow on her bed still had a small indentation. A set of clothes was laid out as if covering a living child. Violet dress, white tights, shiny black shoes. Who’d done that—my mother? Amma? The IV stand that had tailed Marian so relentlessly in her last year was standing, alert and shiny, next to the rest of the medical equipment: the bed that was two feet taller than standard, to allow patient access; the heart monitor; the bedpan. I was disgusted my mother hadn’t purged this stuff. It was a clinical and utterly lifeless room. Marian’s favorite doll had been buried with her, a massive rag doll with blonde yarn curls to match my sister’s. Evelyn. Or Eleanor? The rest were lined against the wall on a set of stands, like fans in bleachers. Twenty or so with white china faces and deep glassy eyes.
I could see her so easily here, sitting cross-legged on that bed, small and sweat dotted, her eyes ringed with purple. Shuffling cards or combing her doll’s hair or coloring angrily. I could hear that sound: a crayon running in hard lines across a paper. Dark scribbles with the crayon pushed so hard it ripped the paper. She looked up at me, breathing hard and shallow.
“I’m tired of dying.”
I skitted back to my room as if I were being chased.
The phone rang six times before Eileen picked up. Things the Currys don’t have in their home: a microwave, a VCR, a dishwasher, an answering machine. Her hello was smooth but tense. Guess they don’t get many calls after eleven. She pretended they hadn’t been asleep, that they simply hadn’t heard the phone, but it took another two minutes to get Curry on the line. I pictured him, shining his glasses on the corner of pajamas, putting on old leather slippers, looking at the glowing face of an alarm clock. A soothing image.
Then I realized I was remembering a commercial for an all-night pharmacy in Chicago.
It had been three days since I’d last talked to Curry. Nearly two weeks since I’d been in Wind Gap. Any other circumstance and he’d have been phoning me three times a day for updates. But he couldn’t bring himself to ring me at a civilian’s, at my mother’s house no less, down in Missouri, which in his Windy City mind he equated with the Deep South. Any other circumstances and he’d be rumbling into the phone at me for not staying in pocket, but not tonight.
“Cubby, you okay? What’s the story?”
“Well, I haven’t gotten this on record, but I will. The police definitely think the killer is male, definitely from Wind Gap, and they have no DNA, no kill site; they really have very little. Either the killer is a mastermind or an accidental genius. The town seems to be focusing on Natalie Keene’s brother, John. I have his girlfriend on record protesting his innocence.”
“Good, good stuff, but I really meant…I was asking about you. You doing okay down there? You have to tell me, because I can’t see your face. Don’t do the stoic thing.”
“I’m not so good, but what does that matter?” My voice came out higher and more bitter than I’d planned. “This is a good story, and I think I’m on the edge of something. I feel like another few days, a week, and…I don’t know. The little girls bit people. That’s what I got today, and the cop I’ve been working with, he didn’t even know.”
“You told him that? What was his comment?”
“Nothing.”
“Why the hell didn’t you get a comment, girl?”
See, Curry, Detective Willis felt I was holding back some information and so he sulked off, like all men do when they don’t get their way with women they’ve fooled around with.
“I screwed up. I’ll get it, though. I need a few more days before I file, Curry. Get a little more local color, work on this cop. I think they’re almost convinced a little press would help juice things. Not that anyone reads our paper down here.” Or up there.
“They will. You’ll get some serious notice for this, Cubby. Your stuff is getting close to good. Push harder. Go talk to some of your old friends. They might be more open. Plus it’s good for the piece—that Texas floods series that won the Pulitzer had a whole story on the guy’s perspective about coming home during a tragedy. Great read. And a friendly face, a few beers might do you good. Sounds like you’ve already had a few tonight?”
“A few.”
“Are you feeling…like this is a bad situation for you? With the recovery?” I heard a lighter strike, the scratch of a kitchen chair across linoleum, a grunt as Curry sat down.
“Oh, it’s not for you to worry about.”
“Of course it is. Don’t play martyr, Cubby. I’m not going to penalize you if you need to leave. You’ve got to take care of yourself. I thought being home might do you good, but…I forget sometimes parents aren’t always…good for their kids.”
“Whenever I’m here,” I stopped, tried to pull it together. “I just always feel like I’m a bad person when I’m here.” Then I started crying, silent sobbing as Curry stammered on the other end. I could picture him panicking, waving Eileen over to handle this weeping girl. But no.
“Ohhh, Camille,” he whispered. “You are one of the most decent people I know. And there aren’t that many decent people in this world, you know? With my folks gone, it’s basically you and Eileen.”
“I’m not decent.” The tip of my pen was scribbling deep, scratchy words into my thigh. Wrong, woman, teeth.
“Camille, you are. I see how you treat people, even the most worthless pieces of crap I can think of. You give them some…dignity. Understanding. Why do you think I keep you around? Not because you’re a great reporter.” Silence and thick tears on my end. Wrong, woman, teeth.
“Was that funny at all? I meant it to be funny.”
“No.”
“My grandfather was in vaudeville. But I guess that gene missed me.”
“He was?”
“Oh yeah, straight off the boat from Ireland in New York City. He was a hilarious guy, played four instruments….” Another spark of a lighter. I pulled the thin covers up over me and closed my eyes, listened to Curry’s story.