JACK AND SAM went to see a double feature of To Have and Have Not and Key Largo at the Paramount Theatre. Sam had gotten a job there that spring at the concession stand. She loved the thick red velvet curtains, the elderly ushers in their uniforms. The timeless feel of the place. On their way in, Jack had spotted Kate in the lobby with Edward, who he’d met at the Christmas party. Jack said hello and they talked a bit about Kate’s new job at a realty company. Sam was friendly but kept her distance. He wanted to ask Kate what the detectives had told her, about the death of the man in Chicago, but he stuck to small talk. Likely the murders would remain unsolved, as the reports said. But maybe now she might get on with things, build a new life. Would he? Talking with her now, a part of him still held out hope.
The last time he and Kate had been together, more than two months ago, she slept beside him in bed, the sheet twisted between her thighs. A pale C-section scar above her pubic bone, faint stretch marks along her breasts, hips. Her freckled shoulder, the shell of her ear. He cupped her hip with his hand as if to test if she were real. And he marveled at being there with her then, in that moment, among the many that might not have been. Tethered to each other. Through grief? Solace? Did it matter? And for a minute or so it seemed that moment would never pass. Our dream has no bottom. And lying there beside her, his hand still on her hip, he heard the newspaper hit the bushes outside the window, and after a little while, the sprinkler start up. And then Sam pulled into the driveway, her headlights flaring off the back wall, and Kate jerked awake beside him.
59
HOLLIS FINGER CROSSES Barton Springs Road in the backhoe he’s stolen from a condo construction site. In Iraq, he’d driven military trucks and even operated a small crane, and this wasn’t so different. True, he had some trouble at the bridge when a tread caught a fire hydrant at the curb and then scraped the corner of the bridge wall, but he’d made it through. The caterwauling of the engines and the condition of the seat cushion—stained, lumpy with moisture—unsettle him. Remain calm, he thinks. I have carved you on the palm of my hand.
At the edge of the park, he sees birds—starlings—wheeling after insects around the moon tower. Before him, an expanse of dew-thick grass, rising and falling, like sea swells.
The true moon arcs over the trees. The false one moves through him like a tide. He lifts rock, soil, and root. He heaves great trees from the ground. He digs deep. Shatters water and utility pipes, colorful maps of which are etched in his head. The shovel groans at its work. Debris, dust flies. The glass cage that houses him grows fissures until his vision is like that of an insect. He is a jealous guardian, a faithful slave, a doting father, an innocent son. He is Abraham and Isaac, wielding the knife above while welcoming it to his throat. And before they lay hands upon Hollis, before he’s dragged from his glass box and beaten by God’s unwitting fists, he carves the girls’ likeness into the earth.
60
TWO BLOCKS FROM our Nana’s place, there’s an abandoned house near the beach that will one day burn down. But that part doesn’t matter yet.
We are eleven and twelve. We don’t see our horsey girl as much since her parents divorced, since she moves back and forth. We’re upset. Moody. Vengeful. There’s another man involved, we’re sure of it, we tell her. How could her mother do this to him? To Mister Lopez, with the kindly face, who never raises his voice except for that time when we get into his stash? We try not to talk this way unless we need to put our horsey girl in her place.
The stakes seem higher now when we’re together. So we try to make it count.