Sam woke up on Charlie’s couch. She stared up at the white ceiling. Her head had not stopped aching since she had left New York. Last night, she had been unable to navigate the stairs to the guest bedroom. She had barely been capable of making it up the two steps into the house. Her body had started shutting down, her brain unwilling or incapable of fighting off the stress and the exhaustion and the unexpected despondency after finding Rusty dead in his wheelchair.
Normally, at the end of particularly bad days, Sam negotiated with herself about whether or not to add more pharmaceuticals to her daily cocktail of Celebrex for joint paint, Neurontin to ward off seizures, Paroxetine to treat chronic pain, and Cyclobenzaprine for muscle spasms. Did she really need another anti-inflammatory? Could she sleep without another muscle relaxer? Was the pain bad enough for half of an OxyContin, all of a Percocet?
Last night, her body had ached so badly that she had to keep herself from taking everything.
Sam turned her head away from the ceiling. She looked at the photographs lining Charlie’s fireplace mantel. Sam had studied them more closely last night before the drugs had taken effect. Rusty sitting in a rocking chair, elbow propped, cigarette in hand, mouth open. Ben wearing a funny hat at a Devils basketball game. Various dogs that had likely passed away. Charlie and Ben standing together at the edge of what looked like a Caribbean beach. Suited up for skiing at the base of a snow-covered mountain. Standing beside a cable suspension for a bridge painted in the unmistakable red of the Golden Gate.
Proof that things had been better at some point in their lives.
Sam felt understandably drugged as she sat up on the couch. Her legs moved stiffly. Her head pounded. Her eyes would not focus. She stared at Charlie’s giant television that took up most of the wall. The shadow of her reflection stared back.
Rusty was dead.
Sam had always assumed she would get the news while she was in a meeting, or when she landed in a different city, in a different world. She had assumed his death would elicit a sense of sadness, but a temporary one, the same way she had felt when Charlie had told her Peter Alexander, her old high school boyfriend, had been killed by a car.
Sam had not thought that she would find Rusty herself. That she would be the one required to deliver the news to her sister. That she would find herself so paralyzed by grief that she sat on the bench beside Rusty for half an hour before she could alert the hospital staff.
She had cried for the father she had lost.
She had cried for the father she had never known.
Sam found her glasses on the coffee table. She stretched her legs, starting with her ankles, moving into her calves, then her quads. Her back arched. She pushed her hands out in front of her, raised her arms over her head. When she was ready, she stood up. She performed more stretches until her muscles warmed and her limbs moved with only a modicum of discomfort.
There was no rug on the hardwood floor. Sam doubted Charlie had a yoga mat. She sat cross-legged beside the couch. She stared out at the backyard. The sliding door was cracked open to let in the morning breeze. The rabbit hutch, Charlie’s long ago Brownie project, was still standing. Sam had been too overwhelmed with grief to comment on it last night, but she was glad to see that Charlie and Ben had built their home on the old lot where the red-brick house had been.
Not that Ben had stayed here last night. He’d gone upstairs for only a few minutes. Sam had heard the floorboards squeak as he walked into Charlie’s room. There was no screaming. There was no crying. Ben had sneaked down the stairs and left the house without telling Sam goodbye.
Sam straightened her spine. She rested the backs of her hands on her knees. Before she could close her eyes, she spotted Charlie pushing a wheelbarrow through the yard. Sam watched her sister spread hay in the rabbit hutch while stray cats mewed at her feet. Bags of food were in the wheelbarrow. Kibble, birdseed, peanuts. Judging by the way Sam’s eyes were watering, a dog had at some point lived in the house.
So this was how Charlie spent her time: feeding a menagerie.
Sam tried to push her sister’s problems from her conscious. She was not here to fix Charlie, and even if she was, there was no way that Charlie would let her.
She closed her eyes. She pinched together her fingers. She considered the broken parts of her mind. The delicate folds of gray matter. The electrical current of synapses.
Rusty slumped in his wheelchair.
Sam could not clear her mind of the image. The way the left corner of his mouth had curved down. The total absence of his spirit, his spark, that had always been there. The sadness she had felt when Sam had realized that he was gone.
The need for comfort.
The need for Charlie.
Sam did not have her sister’s phone number. She was too ashamed to admit this to the hospital staff. Instead, she had emailed Ben, then waited for him to email back. Again, the task of delivering bad news to Charlie had fallen on his shoulders. Her sister had not driven to the hospital, as Sam had expected. Charlie had sent Ben to pick up Sam. She had not come down the stairs when Sam arrived at her home. Sam might as well have been a stranger, though Charlie would never be so rude to someone who was not family.
“Are you having a stroke?” Charlie stood in the open doorway. Her eyes were swollen from crying. The bruises under her eyes had gone completely black.
Sam said, “I was trying to meditate.”
“I tried that once. Irritated the shit out of me.” She pushed off her boots. Hay was in her hair. She smelled of cat. Sam recognized the logo on her T-shirt from math club, the symbol PI with a snake curling around it. The Pikeville Pythons.
Sam adjusted her glasses. They had not been right since the judge had handled them in the courtroom. She stood up with less difficulty than she expected. She told Charlie, “A possum stared at me through the door all night.”
“That’s Bill.” Charlie turned on the giant television. “He’s my lover.”
Sam leaned against the arm of the couch. This was exactly the kind of shocking thing Charlie used to say when she was ten. “Possums can transmit leptospirosis, E. coli, salmonella. Their scat can carry a bacteria that causes flesh-eating ulcers.”
“We’re not into the kinky stuff.” Charlie flipped through the channels.
Sam said, “That’s quite a television.”
“Ben calls her Eleanor Roosevelt, because she’s big and ugly but we still adore her.” Charlie found CNN. She muted the sound. Captions scrolled up. Sam saw her eyes quickly scan the words.
“Why are you watching that?”
“I want to see if there are any stories about Dad.”
Sam watched Charlie watch the news. There was nothing they could tell her sister that Sam could not provide. Without doubt, she knew more than the reporters. What their father had said. What he was likely thinking. That the police had been called. That Rusty’s body had been left in the chair for over an hour. Because he had been stabbed, because his injuries had likely contributed to his death, the Bridge Gap Police Department had been called.
Fortunately, Sam had managed to remove her Kelly Wilson list from her father’s robe pocket before the police had arrived. Otherwise, the girl’s secrets would have been at Ken Coin’s fingertips.
“Shit.” Charlie unmuted the sound.
A voice-over was saying, “… exclusive interview with Adam Humphrey, a former student who attended Pikeville High School with Kelly Rene Wilson.”
Sam watched a plump, pimply young man standing in front of a beat-up old Camaro. His arms were crossed. He was dressed as if for church, a white button-up shirt, skinny black tie and black pants. A smattering of hair suggested a goatee on his chin. His glasses had visible fingerprints.
Adam said, “Kelly was all right. I guess. There were things people said about her that weren’t nice. But she was—okay, she was slow, all right? Up here.” He tapped the side of his head. “But that’s okay, you know? Not everybody can be on the honor roll or whatever. She was just a nice girl. Not real bright. But she tried.”
The reporter came into the shot, microphone under his chin. “Can you tell me how you met her?”
“Ain’t no telling. Maybe going back to elementary? Most of us know each other. This is a real small town. Like, you can’t walk down the street without seeing people you know.”
“Were you friends with Kelly Rene Wilson in middle school?” The reporter had the look of an animal that had smelled fresh meat. “There have been rumors about indiscretions during that time. I wondered if you—”
“Nah, man, I ain’t gonna get into that.” He tightened his crossed arms. “See, people are wanting to say bad things, like that she was bullied or whatever, and maybe there was some people who were mean to her, but that’s life. Life in school, at least. Kelly knows that. She knew it back then, too. She’s not stupid. People are saying she’s stupid. Okay, she’s not bright, I already said that, but she’s not an idiot. It’s just how things are when you’re a kid. Kids are mean. Sometimes they get mean and stay mean, and sometimes it stops when they graduate, but you roll with it. Kelly rolled with it. So I don’t know what set her off, but it ain’t that. Not what you’re saying. That’s a falsehood.”
The reporter said, “But with Kelly Rene Wilson, did you—”
“Don’t be trying to John Wayne Gacy her, okay? It’s just Kelly. Kelly Wilson. And what she did was a hateful thing. I don’t know why she did it. I can’t speculate or nothing. Nobody can, and nobody should, and if they try to, then they’re a bunch of liars. What happened is just what happened, and nobody but Kelly knows why, but you—you people on the TV—y’all gotta remember it’s just Kelly. Folks that went to school with her, too. It’s just Kelly.”
Adam Humphrey walked off. The reporter did not let the absence of an interview subject slow him down. He told the anchor back in the studio, “Ron, as I said before, the typical profile of a shooter is male, a loner, generally bullied, isolated, and with an ax to grind. With Kelly Rene Wilson, we’re presented with a different possibility, that of a young girl who was ostracized for her sexual promiscuity, who, according to sources close to the Wilson family, terminated an unplanned pregnancy, which in a small town—”
Charlie muted the set. “Unplanned pregnancy. She was in middle school. It’s not like she kept a fucking fertility calendar.”
Sam said, “Adam Humphrey would be a good character witness. He clearly didn’t want to denigrate her like some of her other friends have.”
“Friends don’t denigrate you,” Charlie said. “I bet you could get Mindy Zowada on TV and she’d talk about love and forgiveness, but you read the shit she’s posting on Facebook and you’d think she was two seconds away from grabbing a pitchfork and a burning torch and heading to the jail to pull some kind of Frankenstein shit.”
“People understandably feel that she’s a monster. She murdered—”
“I know who she murdered.” Charlie looked down at her hands as if she still expected to find Lucy’s blood on them. “That Humphrey kid better get a good lawyer. This ‘femme fatale’ angle is going to catch on quick. They’re going to hog-tie him to Kelly whether he had anything to do with her or not.”
Sam refrained from commenting. She felt guilty for unburdening herself to Lenore at the diner last night when she would not break privilege for her own sister; however, unlike Lenore, Charlie would definitely be called to the witness stand. Sam did not want to put her sister in the position of having to choose between perjuring herself or providing evidence that might cause a jury to vote for execution.
This was one of the many reasons Sam did not practice criminal law. She did not want to have her words lead to the literal difference between life and death.
Sam changed the subject, asking Charlie, “What now? I assume we have to make arrangements for Dad.”
“He already took care of that. He pre-funded everything, told the funeral director how he wants it to go.”
“He could do all that but couldn’t draw up a will or a DNR?”
“Rusty always wanted to make a good exit.” Charlie looked at the clock on the wall. “The service starts in three hours.”
Sam felt sucker-punched by the news. She had assumed she would be looking for a hotel today. “Why so quickly?”
“He didn’t want to be embalmed. He said it was beneath his dignity.”
“Surely one day wouldn’t matter?”
“He wanted it to be fast so that you didn’t feel like you had to come, or for you to feel guilty because you couldn’t make it.” Charlie turned off the television. “It’s not like him to let something drag out.”
“Unless it was one of his stupid stories.”
Charlie shrugged rather than making a pithy comment.
Sam followed her into the kitchen. She sat down at the counter. She watched Charlie tidy the counters and load the dishwasher. She said, “I don’t think he suffered.”
Charlie took two mugs down from the cabinet. She poured coffee into one. She added tap water to the other and put it in the microwave. “You can leave after the funeral. Or before. I don’t think it matters. Dad won’t know, and you don’t care what people here think.”
Sam ignored the pointed remark. “Ben was very kind to me before he left last night.”
“Where’s your tea?” Charlie retrieved Sam’s purse from the bench by the door. “It’s in here, right?”
“Side pocket.”
She found the Ziploc in Sam’s purse and slid it across the counter. “Can we acknowledge that Ben’s not living here without actually having to have a conversation about it?”
“I think we’ve been doing that for a while.” Sam pulled out a tea sachet. She tossed it to Charlie. “Do you have milk?”
“Why would I have milk?”
Sam shrugged and shook her head at the same time. “I didn’t forget that you’re lactose intolerant. I thought maybe Ben—” She saw the futility in a drawn-out explanation. “Let’s try to get through the day without arguing again. Or continuing the argument from yesterday. Or whatever it is we’re doing.”
The microwave beeped. Charlie found a potholder. She put the mug on the counter. She pulled a saucer from the cabinet. Sam studied the back of her shirt. Charlie had put her math club handle in iron-on letters on the back of her shirt: Lois Common Denominator.
Sam asked, “What’s going to happen to Kelly Wilson? Will that alcoholic, Grail, get the case?”
Charlie turned around. She placed the mug in front of Sam. The saucer was on top for unknown reasons. “There’s a guy in Atlanta, Steve LaScala. I think I can get him to take over. He might call you for your impressions.”
“I’ll leave you my number.”
“Ben has it.”
Sam put the saucer on the bottom. She dipped the tea bag in and out of the water. “If this LaScala won’t do it pro bono, then I’ll pay him.”
Charlie snorted. “That’s gonna be over a million bucks.”
Sam shrugged. “It’s what Dad would want me to do.”
“Since when do you do what Dad wants you to do?”
Sam felt their temporary peace start to tear at the margins. “Dad loved you. It was one of the last things he talked about.”
“Don’t start that.”
“He was worried about you.”
“I’m sick of people being worried about me.”
“On behalf of people, we’re sick of it, too.” Sam looked up from the mug. “Charlie, whatever is bothering you, it’s not worth it. This anger you have. This sadness.”
“My father is dead. My husband left me. The last few days have been the shittiest days I’ve had since you were shot and Mama died. I’m sorry I’m not happy and peppy for you, Sam, but my give-a-fuck is broken.” Charlie drank her coffee. She looked out the kitchen window. Birds had flocked to the feeder.
This was the time, perhaps the last opportunity, for Sam to tell her sister about Anton. She wanted Charlie to know that she understood what it meant to be loved, and what a crushing responsibility that love could sometimes be. They could trade secrets the way they had when they were little—I’ll tell you about that boy I have a crush on if you tell me why Gamma put you on restriction for three days.
Sam said, “Rusty told me that the letters from Zachariah Culpepper were nothing. The police know about them. He’s just desperate. He’s trying to get a rise out of us. Don’t let him win.”
“I think you forfeit your participation trophy when you’re on death row.” Charlie put down her coffee. She crossed her arms. “Go ahead. What else did he say?”
“He talked to me about the death penalty.”
“Did he make you put your fingers on his wrist?”
Sam felt hoodwinked yet again. “How did he never get run out of town for selling fake band instruments?”
“He didn’t want me to go to Culpepper’s execution. If the state ever gets around to doing its job.” Charlie shook her head, as if the death of a man was a mild inconvenience. “I’m not sure if I want to go. But nothing Rusty says, said, is going to influence my decision.”
Sam hoped that was not true. “He told me about a photo of Mama.”
“The photo?”
“A different one, one he says that neither of us has seen.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Charlie said. “We used to go through all of his stuff. He had no privacy.”
Sam shrugged. “He said it was in his office at home. I’d like to get it before I leave.”
“Ben can take you by the HP after the funeral.”
The farmhouse. Sam did not want to go, but she would not leave town without having at least one piece of her mother to take back to New York. “I can help you cover that.” Sam indicated the bruises on Charlie’s face. “For the funeral.”
“Why would I want to cover it?”
Sam could not think of a good reason. No one would likely be at the funeral, at least no one Sam wanted to see. Rusty had hardly been a popular figure in town. Sam would make an appearance, then she would go to the farmhouse, then she would wait for Stanislav to drive up from Atlanta and leave this place as fast as she could.
That was, if she could manage to find the energy to stand. The muscle relaxer was still in her system. She could feel the drug weighing her down. Sam had been awake less than fifteen minutes and she could have just as easily gone back to sleep.
She picked up the mug of tea.
“Don’t drink that.” Charlie’s cheeks were flush. “It’s got boob sweat.”
“It’s got—”
“Boob sweat,” Charlie said. “I ran the tea bag under my bra when you weren’t looking.”
Sam put down the mug. She should have been irritated, but she laughed. “Why would you do that?”
“Don’t expect me to explain myself,” Charlie said. “I don’t know why I’m acting like a kid again, pestering you, trying to annoy you, trying to get your attention. I see myself doing it and I fucking hate it.”
“Then stop.”
She groaned out a heavy sigh. “I don’t want to fight, Sam. Dad wouldn’t want that, especially not today.”
“Actually, Dad loved arguments.”
“Not the hurtful kind.”
Sam drank some tea. She needed the caffeine too much to care what was in it. “So, what now?”
“I guess I’m going to go cry in the shower and then get ready for my father’s hastily arranged funeral.”
Charlie rinsed her coffee mug in the sink. She loaded it into the dishwasher. She wiped her hands on a towel. She started to leave.
“My husband died.” Sam had pushed out the words so fast that she wasn’t sure Charlie had heard them. “His name was Anton. We were married for twelve years.”
Charlie’s lips parted in surprise.
“He died thirteen months ago. Esophageal cancer.”
Charlie’s mouth moved as she tried to think what to say. She settled on, “I’m sorry.”
“It was tannins,” Sam said. “In wine. They’re—”
“I know what tannins are. I thought that kind of cancer was caused by HPV.”
“His tumor tested negative.” Sam offered, “I can send you the research.”
“Don’t,” Charlie said. “I believe you.”
Sam wasn’t sure she quite believed herself anymore. Her druthers was always to apply logic to a problem, but as with the weather, life existed in a delicate dynamical balance between the fields of mass and motion.
In essence, sometimes shit happened.
She told Charlie, “I want to go to the funeral home with you, but I don’t think I can stay. I don’t want to see the people who will come. The hypocrites. The sightseers. People who would cross the street when they saw Dad coming and never, ever understood that he was trying to do good.”
“He didn’t want a service,” Charlie said. “Not a formal one. There’s a visitation, and then he wanted everybody to head over to Shady Ray’s.”
Sam had forgotten about her father’s favorite bar. “I can’t sit around listening to a bunch of old drunks regaling each other with courthouse stories.”
“That was one of his favorite things to do.” Charlie leaned against the counter. She looked down at her feet. There was a hole in her sock. Sam could see her big toe sticking out.
Charlie said, “We talked about his funeral the last time. Before the open-heart surgery. Just me and Dad. That’s when he made all of these plans. He said he wanted people to be happy, to celebrate life. It sounded nice, right? But now that I’m in the middle of it, all I can think is what a stupid asshole he was to assume I would feel like celebrating when he was dead.” She brushed away tears. “I can’t decide if I’m in shock or if what I’m feeling is normal.”
Sam could offer no expertise. Anton had been a scientist from a culture that did not romanticize death. Sam had stood by the furnace and watched his wooden coffin slide into the flames.
Charlie said, “I remember going to Gamma’s funeral. That was shock. It was so unexpected, and I was terrified that Zachariah would get out. That he would come back for me. That his family would do something. That you would die. That they would kill you. I don’t think I let go of Lenore’s hand the entire time.”
Sam had still been in the hospital when her mother was buried. She was certain Charlie had told her about the funeral, just as she was certain that her brain had not been able to retain the information.
Charlie said, “Dad was good that day. Present. He kept making sure I was okay, catching my eye, interrupting when the wrong person said the wrong thing. It was kind of like you said. Some hypocrites. Some sightseers. But there were other people, like Mrs. Kimble from across the street, and Mr. Edwards from the real estate office. They told these stories, like strange things Gamma had said, or how she had known how to solve a weird problem, and it was really nice to see that other part of her. The adult part of her.”
“She never fit in.”
“Every place always has somebody who doesn’t fit in. That’s what makes them fit in.” Charlie looked at the clock. “We should get ready. The faster we can do this, the faster it’ll be over.”
“I can stay.” Sam sensed her wariness. “For the funeral. I can stay if—”
“Nothing has changed, Sam.” Charlie did her half-shrug. “I still need to figure out what I’m going to do with my wasted, unhappy life, and you still need to leave.”