KAT’S NOT ANSWERING her phone. I left three messages last night—I heard about Kenyon. Call me.—and another one this morning, but still nothing. It’s impossible, Kenyon getting arrested, him hurting Rhiannon somehow. He and Rhiannon were friends, or at least friendly; they used to party together, and I remember seeing them sitting on the bleachers during gym once, talking, just the two of them, ignoring Coach Tremblay’s whistle. It hits me that Kenyon must’ve been the one to tell the cops that I was in the barrens the night Rhiannon disappeared. I can’t understand it, not at all.
Mags has been nice about it—even though this proves her right about the Levesque twins—making conversation about other things and not chiming in this morning when the locals knotted together in the barrens before work to kick Kenyon’s name around like he’s something the dog coughed up. Nell bites her thumbnail and watches me. She’s been watching me ever since she yanked me away from Shea. She saw something in my face that I never meant her to, and now I don’t know how to make it better. This isn’t how it works. I’m the one who takes care of her. I don’t like things being backward.
Now, a parade’s coming toward me with Shea in the lead, followed by Mason and some other guys. Most of them are grinning, carrying their rakes and water like they’re planning on staying awhile.
I fold my arms and meet them. Shea stops short of stepping on my toes. He looks me in the eye but he doesn’t talk to me; he talks to the guys, saying in that loud, warm voice, like he’s joking around, “Miss America here says she’s gonna beat my ass.”
Laughter. Only Mason isn’t smiling. He watches me closely, grimly, like he’s trying to figure something out. I search for Jesse’s face but don’t find it. “That’s right.”
Shea throws a look back at his buddies, and they feed him with more laughter and catcalls. “Told you guys.” He leans down into my face like I’m a little kid. “Okay, Princess. Don’t blame me when you go home crying.”
I pick up my rake and turn into the first row of the day. “You still talking?”
And like that, it’s on.
I’m not aware of anybody but Shea. There’s a powerful wind today, pushing puffy white clouds across the sky and kicking up leaves and dust, making my eyes water. I don’t need to see. My body’s a machine: rake-rake-rake, dump, rake-rake-rake, dump, close the box, open another. Guy talk and laughter hums in the background like power lines.
Lunchtime. “Darcy, what’s going on?” Mags’s face hovers in front of me as I shove food down, not wanting to waste a second and lose ground. “Why are you racing Shea? Hey, are you hearing me?”
Maybe I grunt out an answer; I don’t know. I churn the afternoon away, then stand, fists on my hips, one knee twitching like a racehorse’s as Mrs. Wardwell tallies up the day’s haul and writes in the new standings.
Shea’s moved up to the sixth slot. I’ve moved up only one slot to number eight, dogging some migrant named Bankowski.
Can’t believe it. I busted my ass today for one stupid slot? Shea’s smirking hard enough to give himself a hernia, shaking his head as he gathers his stuff. The other guys are leaving, too, talking about what they’re going to do after work, acting like it’s over.
Not even close.
Mom’s garden is a thing of beauty. Ruler-straight rows, stakes labeling what’s what. It puts Libby’s neglected jungle of a flower garden to shame, which is why nobody cares that Hunt’s poking his ladder holes all through the marigolds and bleeding hearts.
After supper, Mom goes out to weed and pick green beans. I watch her through the window as I wash dishes. She’s hunched over, wearing her gardening stuff, old cutoffs and a T-shirt so thin you can see the knobs of her spine through it as she bends forward. It’s her day off, and she spends it slaving. Go figure.
I wander outside, standing over her until she looks back, squinting in the fading golden light. We haven’t talked about Edgecombe or telling the truth since that night, but I guess she reads something in my face, because she slaps the ground beside her, and I sit.
I tug some weeds, splitting a strand of witch grass down the middle with my fingernails. The wind picks up, making a hollow howl through the moose blowers—tin cans with string threaded across the opening, meant to scare off the crows—and flapping the old shirt hanging from the scarecrow’s frame. It’s a man’s shirt, probably one of Dad’s. She’s got all his stuff packed in boxes in the attic. Not like a shrine. It’s good stuff and we might get some use out of it. There’s a big pair of steel-toed boots, a heavy Gore-Tex coat he wore when he worked the tugs out of Belfast, a collection of Clydesdale beer steins.
“What did Gramma and Grampie say when you brought Dad home the first time?” It’s an old story, but I love hearing it.
Mom snorts. “You know what they said.” A pause. “You know your grandparents are good Catholics.”
“Not like us.”
“No. If Gramma Nan isn’t sitting in her pew Sunday morning, you’ll know the Rapture’s come. And Grampie can be a hard man to live with.” She hands me the colander and gestures for me to start picking. “The first time I saw your dad, he was parked outside a St. Patrick’s Day dance they were having at the Elks Lodge. I didn’t want to go, but Libby did, so I went along because I’m older and that’s what you do. Your dad was sitting outside on his old Indian bike wearing this red-and-black lumber jacket, and he had the best-looking head of hair I’d ever seen.”
I smile. “Love at first sight?” Behind the trailer, the clothesline jerks and begins to move on its rusty wheels.
“Close enough. Libby got mad at me over something stupid and left the dance early, so your dad offered me a ride home.” I hear a huh from the direction of the trailer’s back steps, which happens to be within earshot of our conversation. “I took him up on it. When Gramma saw us pull up, she went straight for her rosary beads. Grampie was waiting for us at the door, and the first thing he said was, ‘Son, you know that bike ain’t inspected?’ Your dad said yeah, he knew. ‘Well, who the hell do you think you are, driving my daughter around on a piece of junk that ain’t road-legal?’ And he sent Dad packing.”
She always pauses here. I’m grinning as I snap beans off the vine, because I know what comes next.