Page 14 of Every Sweet Thing Is Bitter

Daniel scrawls notes on a small pad, tears the sheet off, and crams it into his shirt pocket without folding it. He snaps a piece of bacon in two and puts both halves in his mouth. “I’ll work on this,” he says. “It might be a new angle.”

“Covering up an accidental overdose, maybe?” asks Sara. “Some shitbird who doesn’t want to lose his medical license?”

“At this point, I’d bring in a psychic if it got us a new lead.”

“You need to check out my father,” I add before Daniel leaves. I don’t want them to lose focus on the man who should be the prime suspect. “Josiah won’t. They say it’s always the husband.”

“All due respect, I can do my job without your interference.”

I take a sip of coffee so I don’t tell him to go fuck himself. “Forgive me if I don’t believe you. I’ve never met a competent cop before and I’m not expecting you to be the first.”

Sara edges her chair closer to me. She’s taking my side on this one. “My brother is a sour bastard, but he’s good at his job. He’ll look into your dad as much as he can.”

“I’m not going on a wild goose chase based on your hunch, but if you find something, somethingcompelling, bring it to me and I’ll see what I can do.” It’s the closest he’ll come to an apology. He smirks at Sara as he heads for the door. “Good at my job, right?”

Augustus follows Daniel out of the trailer, and with her brother gone, Sara visibly relaxes. She heaps a spoonful of sugar into her coffee. “I’m sorry about him. He’s a walking ray of sunshine.”

“Does he despise my father as much as you do?”

“Other than you, no one despises Tom Byrd more than me,” she says, lighting a cigarette. “It’s not enough we’re impoverished and unemployed and sick and shit on by the government. We have that asshole pouring thousands of gallons of liquor onto our reservation—adryreservation—every year. Everyone has an alcoholic in the family. It’s liquid genocide.”

“It’s bullshit,” I agree. It is not my place to add more.

“I wish you’d run over your dad instead of your mom.” She fidgets with her bridge piercing. “We’d all be better off for it.”

“I tried,” I say. Sara is not the only person who’s heard the true story of what happened that March morning, but she’s the only one who’s ever believed it.

Sara rattles her lips with a long breath, as if she hadn’t considered this. “If he—” She accidentally ashes her cigarette into her coffee, then pounds a fist against the table. Coffee spills over the brim of her mug. “Goddamn it!”

I leap at the opportunity to make myself useful and prove I’m nothing like the man she so viciously hates. I grab a wad of paper towels to sop up the mess, but as I wipe the table, I make the mistake of rolling up my sleeves. I don’t even bother to yank them down. There’s no point. Sara has already seen my bite marks.

“You’re still doing it?” Sara’s voice is heavy with disappointment.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You said you stopped years ago.”

“You’re surprised a criminal is a liar too?” I ask.

“I worry about you, you idiot. God, that time you did it after shakedown? I thought you were going to bleed out.”

I was nineteen. I hadn’t bitten myself since the day they transported me to the prison in York. I had a good sense for how deep I could bite without serious injury, but that shakedown was uniquely violating in ways I still can’t talk about. Sara had to useher own jumpsuit as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. The next day, with my fresh bite mark on display, another inmate started calling me Teeth. She meant it as an insult, but eventually I turned it on its head and used it to scare new inmates. No one wanted to trifle with a girl whose nickname was Teeth.

I abandon the clot of wet paper towels and focus on fixing her a fresh cup of coffee. I can’t bear to face her. Throughout my life, I’ve disappointed countless people, but the only person I’ve ever felt bad about letting down is Sara. All she wants is for me to be healthy and happy, and I can’t even manage that.

“I take my meds. I’m in therapy. I’m doing my best.”

“I know.”

I pull down my sleeves.

Sara goes to work at the library in the afternoon, giving me a few precious hours of solitude. I settle into an uneasy truce with the dogs and sit at the dining room table with a pencil and a sheet of paper. Drawing tattoo designs by hand is an antiquated practice, but I like doing it from time to time. It feels like a love letter to the art.

I begin sketching the outline: a female hand, her nails long and elegant, a cigarette cradled between two curled fingers. Tendrils of smoke unwind from the cigarette even though it’s lit from the wrong end. I already know which scars I will place it between. As I fill in the woman’s nails, regret nips at my ribs. If I’d brought my tattooing supplies, I could have fresh ink by sundown.

My phone buzzes from beside me, the screen lighting up with a FaceTime from my boss, Kiera. I stand my phone up against the vase of faux roses at the center of the table just as her beaming face fills my screen. She has a Miss America smile that even the best veneers can’t buy.

“Hey, sweetheart. Just calling to check in.”

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