“It’s good to see your face.” She holds my cheeks briefly between her hands. “I came around the other day to visit your daddy but he said you had your own place…?”
I nod. “Yeah, I rented a place behind the hair salon,” I say. Feeling suddenly judged, I add, “I just didn’t want to put my dad out. And I’ve gotten used to my privacy now, living in Chicago.”
“Seems lonely to me,” she replies, and I’m not sure whether she means it as a criticism. But a second later, she smiles.
“Come in, come in.” She steers me into a cramped seating area wobbly with teetering sports trophies and framed family photographs: she must have tripled her collection since I was last here years and years ago. “Sit down. Make yourself at home. Can I get you anything? Water? Soda? I got some of my special tea!”
“Sure, tea is great,” I say, as she bumps off into the kitchen. I sit down next to a shrine to Monty’s incremental growth from grinning, gap-toothed child to enormous muscle man.
She returns a moment later with a tall glass of tea clinking with ice. “Monty told me he saw you last night at the game.” She puts a coaster on the table and takes a seat across from me, sighing as she eases off her feet. “You know half the kids showed up today still smelling like beer. Alcohol-free zone, my you-know-what. Last week of school, too. Some of them don’t even bother bringing books to class anymore.”
“You didn’t go?”
She shakes her head. “Football and more football. Seems like that’s the only thing anyone can agree on.”
“Is he at home?” I ask. But before she can respond, I get my answer: from deeper in the house, the crash of something heavy to the ground.
“Gimme a second,” she says, stiffly, and pushes up from the sofa. She disappears and I hear a muffled dialogue, the rapid back-and-forth of teenage stubbornness. She returns looking not angry, just exhausted.
“Hun, he’s not up for talking,” she says in a low tone. “I had to take him out of school early today. He turned over his desk, got into a shouting match with the principal.” For a second, she looks like she might lose it. “I’m just at my wit’s end with him. But what do they expect, dropping that kind of news at assembly?”
“What news?” I ask, and she stares at me.
“Lord, I thought that’s why you came by.” She scooches forward on the couch and lowers her voice, casting a nervous glance in the direction of Monty’s room, as if he might overhear. “Terrible, terrible thing. She’ll pull through okay, though. Still, a girl so young…a good student, too…”
“What girl? What happened?”
“Tatum Klauss,” she says, and my heart stops. The girl who accused Monty of stalking her, according to Sheriff Kahn. “Monty’s had a thing for her for ages—since they were freshmen and they used to ride the same bus, before her parents divorced. Sweet as anything, and always so polite when she sees me in the line. Not like most kids. Look at you like you’re trash. A bright student, too.”
Talking to May has always been like trying to separate strands of spaghetti left to cool in a colander. Every idea leads to ten others. “What happened to Tatum?”
“Got ahold of a bunch of her brother’s attention medicine and took them all at once—last night, when everyone was at the game.” May makes the sign of the cross. “Thank God her momma wasn’t feeling well and came home early. Found her puking her guts out and barely conscious. She rushed her right to the emergency clinic in Dougsville.” The same clinic where I rushed my father, after his fall. “They say she’ll be just fine. Can you imagine? And she’s a straight-A student, too. Got one of them Optimal Scholarships. Supposed to be heading out to college in the fall…” May says “college” the way someone might say “heaven.” In some ways, it isn’t surprising. Around these parts, both are just as hard to get into.
I take a long swallow of tea, hoping it will wash down the sudden bitter taste in my mouth. “Do they know why?”
May shakes her head. “Sheriff Kahn was there for assembly, and that’s all he said.”
An image blinks in my mind, hundreds of hands passing photographs through the risers. And Becky Sarinelli, hurtling herself down from the bleachers, trying to escape—but not quickly enough.
Not nearly quickly enough.
Some things are inexplicable, Sheriff Kahn said that day. It seems there are a lot of things he hasn’t been able to explain.
May adds, with sudden ferocity: “Well, he ain’t gonna pin the pills on Monty, is he? Doesn’t mean he won’t try. I swear, if the sun turned green tomorrow he’d say it was Monty’s fault.”
“Has Sheriff Kahn told you whether Gallagher is going to press charges?”
“It isn’t Gallagher,” she says. “Even that old kook has more sense than that. Sheriff Kahn keeps saying they need to make him an example!”
“I’ll talk to Sheriff Kahn again.” I say the words automatically, though I know the promise in them is empty. If Gallagher isn’t pressing charges, there’s no reason to go after Monty. Unless Kahn’s trying to cover for someone else.
“He won’t eat,” May is saying. “The school’s saying they might keep him from walking at graduation. If he graduates.” May’s eyes well up and she swipes at them with the back of her hand. “Look at me, crying over spilled milk. I keep thinking of Tatum’s mother…”
“Will you tell Monty I came by?” Suddenly I just need to get out of here. A hundred Montys grin at me from a hundred different pasts: a hundred idiot smiles, blissfully unaware of what comes next. “Have him call me, if he feels like it. Here.”
She lifts my card by its edges, as if she’s afraid to smudge it. When she glances up, I see a look of uncertainty travel all the way from forehead to chin. “Why did you come by, then, if not about what happened to Tatum?”
“No reason.” I stand up, alarmed by a cloud of black that temporarily darkens my vision. I steady myself against the wall. “To say hi, that’s all.”
She nods. But I can tell she isn’t convinced.
I’m already in the car when she pokes her head out again to shout, “You say hi to your daddy for me, okay?”
It looks like she says something else, too, but the engine swallows whatever it is.
Girls, games, poisons—the past is repeating itself, rippling outward like the surface of the reservoir.
—
I’ve missed another call—not a local number, this time. I pull over onto one of the nameless dirt roads, so narrow that the fields slap my side mirrors. I cut the engine and listen to a faint wind sift the leaves. From here the road does nothing but disappear into cornstalks, and I imagine if I keep driving, I’ll disappear too, just blink out of the world. Like Kaycee did.
The first voicemail is from Shariah, sounding uncertain. In the background, a baby cries.
Hello, Ms. Williams. I got your note. I…well, I’m calling you back, like you told me to. You can give me a call anytime at this number. Or if I don’t pick up, I’m probably putting Grayson down. Okay. Bye.
The next message is a man I don’t recognize: he explains he’s calling for Abby Williams in a creepy-calm voice.
This is Dr. Chun, calling from Lincoln Memorial in Indianapolis.