She leaned her head off him and looked up. “The ring. Can I have it back? I just want it back.”
After she said it he began to hear everything again. Everything that had been blocked out by their whispers and her body close to him and the swarm of illusions that had joined them in the small space. He heard the voices of the husband and the twins and the sliding of chairs and the clang of silverware being dropped and the opening and closing of the men’s room door on the other side of the hallway. He moved his hand from her neck and touched his fingers to the outside of the front pocket of his jeans. Felt it there. Remembered what he had planned for it and weighed those plans against the voice that had asked for it. Against the voice and the one with the voice and where they had been together and how she smelled against him and what was waiting for her on the other side of the door. He weighed what he had planned for the ring against the moment and then he weighed it against more than the moment. Against tomorrow and the next day and the day after and there was Maben with her shallow cheeks and her thin hands and there was Annalee with her pink forehead and eyes of wonder and there they both were, drifting along on the edge of nothingness. He felt it in his pocket. Realized the possibilities of the ring. Realized that she had not said what he had imagined her saying and realized that she never would. Even if she wanted to.
“I don’t have it anymore,” he said. And he eased back away from her and her arms fell at her side.
He could see in her eyes that she didn’t believe him but she didn’t ask again and she didn’t accuse. There was a shriek from the smallest child and Sarah snapped to as if she had been released from a spell. She turned from Russell and took another paper towel and dabbed at her eyes. Dabbed at her nose. She breathed fragmented breaths and then she turned to him again. Managed to pull it together. And then she touched her hand to his chest and she unlocked the door and stepped out.
He locked the door again. Leaned on the sink with his back to the mirror. He hoped that no one would knock on the door and they didn’t as he listened and waited until the family was gone. And when they were gone he came out of the bathroom and paid his check and he walked out of the café.
He walked on down the street to a pawn shop and he showed them the ring and he got about a third of what he remembered paying for it and then he walked a couple of blocks to the Armadillo and he sat down and asked for a beer. When he was done he drove back to his house and he put the money from the ring between two plates in the kitchen cabinet and then he drove out to his dad’s place. Maben remained sleeping and the rest of them remained fishing though there was not much light left. He sat down on the back porch and lit a cigarette and looked across the place. Wishing for rain. Wishing for something. Trying to believe there’d be an end.
43
HE STOOD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD AT THE PRECISE SPOT where only four days ago they had found Clint lying facedown in front of his cruiser in a maroon pool of his own blood. Boyd’s hands rested on his gun belt as he looked down at the spot and then he looked up and down the road. Across the fields. Into the trees.
Nothing. Which is exactly what he had gotten from the woman at the shelter about Maben. A skinny white girl with a little kid. A girl. But hell we get those in and out of here regularly.
His stomach growled and he patted his belly and shook his head at the girth that kept adding up while he kept swearing to take it off and then he looked at his badge. He unpinned the silver star and he held it out in front of him and examined it as if he were thinking about buying it. The sun was hidden behind a cloud and there was no shine on the badge and he held it to his mouth and breathed hot air onto it and rubbed it on his shirt. Then he pinned it back above his name tag on the left side of his chest and he let out a sigh.
It was a small department and Boyd had heard things. Couldn’t help but hear things. Couldn’t much tell what was fact and what was fiction and he figured most of it fell somewhere in between but he had heard a lot more about the new guy than he had wanted to hear. Heard he likes the liberty of the badge if you know what I mean. Heard he likes to cross down into Louisiana from time to time to some old house back in some old hills and give his money to halfdressed, halfdrunk women who give him what he’s paid for. Heard he likes the late shifts because you can get away with more if you know what I mean. He’d heard it. Nothing that put an X on him for anything in particular. But enough to make Boyd stand there now and ask the question. What the hell was he doing out here in the middle of the night?