I sat on the tiled floor with my back pressed against the door. My head was in my hands—my hands were covered in blood. My mother’s blood. I looked across the kitchen at her body lying lifeless under the sheet I’d draped over her just moments ago.
“Am I supposed to fucking cry, Mom?” I gritted my teeth. “Is that what comes next—cry my fucking heart out?”
Then when I looked over at my dead sisters, also covered in sheets, I almost did cry. But instead, I concentrated all of my emotions into my teeth, gritting, gritting, gritting, until pain shot through my jaw and raged in my temples.
Slowly, I unclenched my bloody fists.
Slowly, I allowed my breath to steady, to settle in my chest.
Slowly, I rose into a stand; a sliver of golden sunlight penetrated the sheer white curtain on the kitchen window, moving outward across the eggshell-white tile and touching the toe of my left shoe. Was it trying to stop me from going any farther, or was it lighting my way?
I stepped through the light of the new day and went forward—Nothing will stop me. I stood over my mother’s body, looking down specifically at the outline of her shoulder beneath the sheet, but, despite my efforts, still seeing the bright crimson soaking the sheet around her head. How much blood can there be?
I knelt in front of my mother.
“Well, I’m not going to cry,” I told her stubbornly. “And you want to know why? Let me tell you why—I’m not going to cry for you because you had no right. No right to expect that of me.” Tears stung my eyes and prickled my sinuses—gritting, gritting, gritting; the pain in my temples swarmed the top of my head, clouding my vision.
I stood. Tall over my mother. Powerful over my mother. Powerless over my mother.
“I can’t bury you,” I told her matter-of-factly, not looking at her, not looking at my sisters seven feet to the right of her. “I can’t bury you because it’ll take too much time. I’ll lose their trail if I don’t leave now. I’m sorry, but I can’t bury you.”
Unable to stay a second longer lest I certainly cry my fucking heart out, I moved on past her and left the house through the back door, and with me all I took were my weapons and my bloodied hands that would, if things went as planned, soon be covered in the blood of those I was hunting.
“Atticus?” The voice was soft and sweet.
I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder; sweat poured from every pore, dripped from my eyebrows and my chin and my nose and my earlobes.
I felt the weight of the shovel leave my hands…
THAIS & (ATTICUS)
“Let me dig some,” I suggested, insisted, taking the shovel from him carefully.
Jeffrey was standing next to me, ready to pounce on Atticus if he had to, but I gently pushed him back.
“But what if he—” Jeffrey tried to say, but I put up my hand and stopped him.
The three of us had been watching Atticus come apart at the seams, digging ferociously. It worried me to see him in such a state: the way he stabbed violently at the dirt as if he’d wanted to kill it; how his face contorted with pain and anger; the shovelfuls of dirt he tossed behind him carelessly, oblivious to everything around him, it seemed.
(I looked down at the hole I’d dug, the deep hole I’d dug. Thais stood tall over me—she was standing tall over me, I realized. How long have I been digging?)
Atticus braced his hands on the ground and heaved himself out of the hole.
“I could use a glass of water,” he said, lightheartedly, slapping the dirt from the palms of his hands; his palms were blistered and bleeding.
“Jeffrey,” Esra called out, “go up a get the man some water.” He pointed a long, gnarled finger toward the treehouse. “Bring a whole gallon—I could use some m’self.”
“No, I stay here,” Jeffrey argued, crossing his arms petulantly. “He might hurt Thais. I stay here, Grandpa.”
(I lowered my head, and my shoulders fell. I would never hurt her…)
“No, it’s okay,” I insisted. “He’s not going to hurt anybody, Jeffrey. I promise. Please go get some water, all right?”
Jeffrey’s eyes moved between Atticus and me in contemplation, and then he took off toward the treehouse.
“Better resolve them issues,” Esra warned, as Atticus took a seat on the ground beside him.
I began to dig, but I kept my ears open to what was going on with Atticus.
“We all have issues to resolve,” Atticus said; he stripped off his sweat-soaked shirt and wiped his face with it. “I don’t suppose mine are any worse than yours or anyone else’s.”
“Maybe not,” Esra said, “but how bad mine or anyone else’s are really ain’t got no bearing on your own. Mine cain’t really affect ya. But yours can kill ya if ya let ‘em.”
Atticus dropped his soiled shirt on the ground. He sat with his forearms propped on his knees, his body hunched over.
“I know,” he told Esra, his voice distant.
The almost-silence stretched between us, the only sounds were the shovel stabbing the earth, the shuffling of dirt onto the spade, the dirt falling onto a sizeable mound. How could he have dug so much in such a short time? I was beside myself; I had only been digging less than a minute and already I hated it.
Jeffrey came running back with a gallon milk jug of not-so-clear water. We all drank until the jug emptied.
“How’d you manage to cut the wood so precisely for the casket?” Atticus asked Esra.
“’Lectric saw.”
I noticed Atticus’ interest grow.
“I got a solar panel on the roof.” Esra pointed toward the treehouse again. “Only use it when I really need it.”
Atticus nodded.
“Ya need to borrow it for that canoe yer makin’?” Esra offered.
“It’s not a canoe, Grandpa—it’s a rowboat.”
No one corrected Jeffrey.
Atticus shook his head at Esra. “Nah; I’m making a dugout—no straight-cut pieces needed, but I appreciate the offer.”
“Won’t that take a while?” said Esra.
“Yeah,” Atticus said, “but I like the work.”
“Good distraction, ain’t it?”
“It is. But I just like doing it.” Then he glanced at me and smiled. “Got all the distraction I need,” he added.
I continued to dig, felt a blush warm my face.
“Y’know,” Esra said, “I don’t really miss ‘lectricity so much—never really did. Me and my June, we had this decent little house on a hill before thangs went to shit, and we didn’t never have no fancy air conditioner. We just opened the windows most of the time, ‘cept when it got real hot, and then we’d blow ‘dem fans—used ‘lectricity fer the fans but that was it. Heated the house with a wood stove in the winter; my June cooked on gas and we ain’t never had no use fer a microwave”—his weathered old face scrunched up with disapproval—“Dem damn things were made fer lazy people. Besides, I ain’t never ate nothin’ that came out of a microwave that didn’t taste like rubbery shit.”
Atticus smiled.