“And how’s that going.”
“Did you see my panic attack during dinner? Not so awesome.”
“What kind of stuff did you remember?”
I take a deep breath. “When I was eleven, Teddy Caudill and I found a bunch of pictures of little girls that his dad took. Some of the stuff the FBI got later.”
Shauna goes still. There’s a pause in the music piped over the loudspeaker, a moment of almost complete silence before we hear an ad for a sale on Goodyear tires.
“You’re joking. Right?” she says quietly.
I stare at her in the rearview.
She puts her face to the side without turning in her seat, waiting for me to say something. She inhales, exhales.
I wipe my nose onto my hand, rub my eyes. Outside, the automated Walmart doors part. Mel lopes out into the night, a stack of cigarette cartons tucked under one arm. She holds one aloft in her hand, triumphant. Breaks into a run for us.
—
We cruise back through town. I try to see everything: the long downtown building that once housed Belk-Simpson on Main Street, the Faulkner Sundry Store, Cummings Lunch Counter, which retained its rattling bar seats and Johnson-era newspaper clippings on the walls until it closed.
The hilltop of Phillips-Stamper Cemetery hangs over everything. Our father lies at the western end, feet pointing toward the interstate. Small lanterns and floodlights have been placed on headstones, creating a glow on the rise in the dark, a hundred pinpoints of light. Mel cranes her neck to look, watching the hillside rise higher and higher above town, an outline of the city founder, his back to us, visible against the sky. There are stars. She curses softly in wonder, state-tax cigarette trembling between her lips.
“Pretty, iddint it,” Shauna says.
“Dude. Right?”
I turn as we pass, trying to look as long as I can.
Something inside me shifts. I picture a deep, rich rendering of Phillips-Stamper, its purple girth, its lights twinkling on the slope, soft pricks against the night. How vibrant and full it would look. Like something you could stick your fingers into and feel.
There in the rushing dark, I am, for the first time in months, inspired. My chest opens. Adrenaline spreads hot down both legs. It’s the opposite of what happened at the dinner table, that terrifying moment of shutdown. This is your chest hinging open and gasping with relief. This is air and light, this is blood flow and movement, the belief that I will overtake all this before it overtakes me.
This is how it happens. I am terrified, I fear for my life. But I fall. I fall.
—
There’s another joint to smoke. It is decided that we should park behind the D.P. Smith water treatment plant. We spark up, watching the tower of light and the water churn through the machines, everything glowing and moving. The whistle sounds. A guy walks past our window, calls, “Hey, Shauna.” She lifts a polite hand, a tight-lipped smile.
“You gonna tell Mom?” Shauna asks me.
“I don’t know.”
I slide down in my seat, a shiver of shame running down my spine. Shauna, whether you know it or not, you’re all material. But I close my eyes and see the Phillips-Stamper hilltop, indigo, slightly wavering on a frame. And despite my shame, I smile.
—
We pull up the drive at twelve-thirty. Kent’s car is still parked there. “Guh,” Shauna says. Pantomimes kicking its rear fender.
“Come on. He’s not so bad,” I say.
“He’s still him.”
Kent has gone to bed. Caelin and Jaeden are gone; Brandon picked them up, said something about the truck needing a new transmission, and took them home. “Well, he’s paying for the fuckin thing,” Shauna grumbles.
“You need to take this up with him. And y’all shouldn’t be pickin at each other in front of the kids.” Mom’s in an old T-shirt and robe, a ripped pair of sweatpants cinched at the waist and ankles, ancient UK football symbol on the thigh. She stomps across the room to us, belly trembling. “What are you doing keeping Sharon up so late?”
“Sharon wanted to stay out. Sharon’s a grown-up.”
“It’s true,” I say.
Mom rolls her eyes and snorts. She’s done with the cooking and hugging; we bug the shit out of her and she sees no reason to hide it. She turns to Mel. “So what’d you think of Faulkner.”
Mel brandishes five cartons of cigarettes. “These are only forty bucks here,” she says. “Kentucky’s the tits.”
Mom shakes her head. “The tits,” she mutters. “Well, that’s a new one on me, I’m telling you.” She thumps out. I hear the fridge open and close. She returns and pushes a glass of water into my hand. Her forehead does not smooth until I drink the whole thing. “Shauna, go home and go to bed.”
“I’m going.” Shauna plops down on the couch. Her eyes are red. She glances at me. Raises an eyebrow. I nod. She nods back.
Our mother looks back and forth between us. “What did you all do tonight? I knew y’all didn’t just go to Walmart. I knew y’all were gonna go out and screw around.”