“Did you know we were born on the same day?” Lee licks his scarred lips. “Just a few minutes apart. I wasn’t due for a couple of months, but I still got here first. See, I’ll always be one step ahead of you, brother.”
His initials written in the margin of our family tree … the numbers, 11:26, weren’t from the Bible, it was the time of his birth. If he was born first, does that make him the sixth?
“How long did my dad know about you?” I ask as I stagger back, trying to keep my footing.
“He knew from day one, but Ma didn’t tell me ’til she was on her deathbed last year. I went to him, told him I just wanted to spend time with him, get to know him, but he was too good for the likes of me. Just threw some money at me, and so I took it, and I kept taking it. And when I threatened to go public, he started confiding in me. Telling me things about this town and the Devil. He took a real shine to me. I thought we were finally getting somewhere, forgin’ a real relationship, and then he came over that night, telling me how he’s sinned, and how it was time to make things right. He gave me a present. Said it was a family heirloom, something a long time coming, generations in the making. Told me I was the chosen one. Special.”
“What did he give you? The present … what was it?” I manage to ask, but I can hardly breathe. My chest feels tighter than an oil drum.
“Our dear ole dad told me to open it at nine o’clock sharp. Wrapped it himself. I was so excited, thinking he’d finally accepted me. I even started packing up, thinking I’d be moving into your house soon, be a real Tate, and then BOOM!” he screams. “Boom. Boom. Boom,” he runs around screaming, as he pounds his fist against the trailer and the side of his head.
“That can’t be…” I brace my hands against my knees, huffing down air. “He wouldn’t do that. He was a good man.”
Lee moves toward me, but he’s all blurry. “How can you say that when he tried to kill you, too?”
“How do you know about that? How could you possibly know about that?” My eyes are stinging with tears as I sink to the ground.
“It’s too late,” Lee says, crouching in front of me. “We’re just like Cain and Abel, you and me. Why can’t you see that? What else do I have to do to make you see the light? One of us has to die for the other to truly live.”
I can’t stop thinking about Miss Granger … how she had Lee’s picture tacked under the Tate column, and how she said, “Unless it’s not you.”
I look up at him, using all my strength to focus in on his face, and I see it now—the pale blue color of his eyes, the broad forehead, the faint cleft in his chin. Like Dad. Like me.
“Do you have it?” I grab his shoulders. “Do you have the mark?” I shake him, but he won’t answer. And all I see is red. Everything’s spinning around me, the clouds are moving way too fast. There’s a high-pitched ringing in my ears, like someone just dropped a yellow jacket nest in my skull. I can’t hear … I can’t feel … I can’t think … the only thing I know is that I need to see the mark. The upside-down U with two dots, above and below. I have to see it.
The next thing I know, he’s lying on the scorched earth, his ripped clothes strewn around him, his mangled flesh exposed to the elements. I look down at my trembling hands in disgust … and then at his body. There’s no mark, but it looks like God chewed him up and spit him back out.
I take off my jacket and cover him up.
“I’m sorry what happened to you. I’m sorry what my dad did. But I am not my father. And neither are you.”
“Don’t leave,” he says as I escape into the trees. “Things were just getting good. I’ll be waiting for you, brother,” he yells, and I pick up my pace. “We have unfinished business, you and me.”
45
I SIT on the edge of the bed of my truck, waiting for Ali to get out of practice, looking up at the sky. I remember when Jess was little, she said she wanted to be an astronaut. I laughed at her, like it was the most ridiculous thing in the world. I wish I hadn’t done that. I never see her look up anymore.
As hard as I try, I can’t stop going over everything that happened today on an endless loop. Every family has its secrets, I get that, but this is a doozy. It’s murder. I think about telling Sheriff, nipping all this in the bud, but I figure it’s Lee’s secret to tell. And my family’s been through enough.
I’m starting to think all of this is nothing more than some fucked-up fantasy world Lee and Miss Granger cooked up together. That combined with good old-fashioned sleep deprivation. Ali told me to look into it. And it’s no joke. Lack of sleep can cause psychosis, memory impairment, and hallucinations. Check, check, and check.