Page 7 of Broken Bayou
Dusk has settled in among the thick, twisted live oaks flanking the narrow driveway. Veiny roots sprout from the ground and spread in all directions. No manicured lawn or landscaping here. The Aunts always complained about how the trees’ shadows prevented any grass from growing, but from the looks of things now, weeds grow plenty. They choke every square inch of the yard.
Something moves deep in one of the shadows. Probably a raccoon or possum looking for food. Or maybe it’s just the ghosts of two little girls running around in oversize Hanes T-shirts, catching lightning bugs in mason jars. I picture Mama running around with us, her T-shirt always shorter and tighter. The Aunts yelling at her from the porch to “Put some britches on, Krystal Lynn!” Mama, of course, ignored them. We brought the full jars inside, up to the front bedroom. Mabry and Mama jumped into bed, and I turned out the lights and opened the jars. Tiny dots of light filled the room, and Mabry whispered, “Magic.” And we all fell asleep, watching the light show, Mama humming “Delta Dawn.” But the magic ended the next morning when Mama and I awoke to Mabry’s wails and small dead carcasses covering the beds.
I teared up as well. “I didn’t know it would kill them.”
Mama smoothed Mabry’s hair, pulled me in close, and in a rare moment of clarity, said, “Shhh, sweet girls. Of course you didn’t. Sometimes we do things for fun and don’t realize the consequences. That’s just how life is.”
Every inch of this property holds a story from my childhood. I wonder how long I’ll be able to live among them.
The old house looms in front of me in a hulking mass. Greek Revival columns that have seen better days hold up a sagging porch that looks like it’s given up. Weeds have made their way here as well, twisting through the wooden slats as if nature decided to take over since the Aunts were no longer around.
White peeling paint covers most of the exterior of the house, interrupted by bare patches of wood and windows with a thick layer of grime. Shadow Bluff is not like its closest neighbors to the west: the stately Rosedown with its extravagant gardens and smooth columns, or the haunted Myrtles Plantation with its 125-foot veranda and Baccarat crystal chandeliers. No, Shadow Bluff is different. Smaller, not on hundreds of acres, and certainly not fifty-three thousand square feet like Nottoway, a few towns over. Shadow Bluff lives in the shadows of the moss-hung oaks in a town nobody wants to visit. Thelocal Historic Preservation Society may have more on their hands than they bargained for.
The summer air feels like a heavy blanket when I fling open the car door. Frogs croak in the shadows of the large oaks that give this property its name. Bugs flit around my face. I grab my things and crunch across the oystershell drive toward the ramshackle porch. My handgun slides into view through my open duffel. I added it last minute, along with a box of bullets. “A girl’s day out,” Amy said about our conceal-carry class. Laughing, she added, “It’s practically mandatory in Texas.” I shot ten different guns in our class that day, but this handgun fit me best. Even my ex-husband argued it might not be a horrible idea to have protection. A single woman living alone in a big city and gaining notoriety. Notoriety. Jesus.
I drop my bag on the old porch and stare at the heavy front door. I pinch the bridge of my nose and squeeze my eyes shut. I could turn around, get back in my car, and go back to the mess in Fort Worth. It’s not too late. I could tell the lawyer to throw Mama’s boxes in the trash. But as I open my eyes, I know I’ll do neither. This is not just about old boxes. It’s not just about running away from public humiliation. It’s about protecting what means the most to me: my career.
I lift up the front mat and find the key the lawyer told me about and slide it into the lock. Mama’s young voice fills my head. The one from that night down here so long ago. Soaked in vodka, warm, and slurred in my seventeen-year-old ear as I leaned over her bed.
Get rid of it, sweet girl.
I turn the key.
Chapter Three
A whoosh of dusty air escapes when I open the door, like I’ve broken the seal of an ancient tomb. My hand finds the light switch out of habit. Bright LED lights illuminate the foyer’s splintered and warped wood floors. The lights are new, but judging from what’s around me, they’re the only new things.
The two rooms sitting off the foyer are filled with sparse cloth-covered furniture. On my left is the formal dining room, connected to the kitchen by swinging doors, and on the right, a parlor where Mabry spent most of her time drawing in her sketchbook. The rooms are nothing like the blond hardwood floors and tall windows of my high-rise. They are dollhouse rooms, separate and boxed in and much smaller than I remember.
The floorboards creak as I walk farther in, and along with that sound, I hear our voices ricochet off the walls as we hauled our gear in that last summer here.
“Hey, y’all, we’re here!” Mama yelled, a cigarette balanced between her lips.
Mabry clung to my side. She was always shy when we first arrived.
The Aunts shuffled down the hall in unison. They reminded me of fairy-tale creatures ... Grimms’-fairy-tale creatures. Made of sharp bones and loose skin and topped off with salt-and-pepper frizzy hair and thick eyeglasses. In sync, right down to their missing molars. Theirmatching muumuus hung on them like bright tents, baggy and wrinkled like their skin but with lots more color.
“Lookee here, Pearl,” Petunia said, wrapping her arms around me. “We got us some scalawags come to visit.”
Petunia grabbed Mabry, and we all hugged in an awkward circle full of pats and coos and smelling like mothballs and Rose Milk body lotion.
“I need a wine cooler after that drive. Where y’all keep the hooch?” Mama ran a hand through her hair and exhaled a perfect ring of smoke.
“Sweet sugar, you know good and well we don’t keephoochin this house. And we don’t smoke in it neither.” Pearl pursed her lips. “Maybe one of these summers your memory will kick in.”
Mama rolled her eyes.
“What are we gonna do for fun this summer?” I asked Pearl, or maybe it was Petunia. They looked more alike than usual.
“Ever milk a goat?” they said in unison.
I laugh at the memory, but the laugh fades as my eyes fall on the straight staircase in front of me. The last time I saw it, I was hauling bags down, not up. Oblivious in some ways, complicit in others. Not understanding it’d be almost twenty years before I stepped foot in this house again. I missed this place so much that first summer we didn’t return. I’d packed my bags and Mabry’s, and we raced home after our last day of school to load them in the station wagon. That’s when Mama told us we wouldn’t be going back, ever. Mabry cried for days. The Aunts called and wrote letters, and Mama told them we’d try next summer. Mama and I fought, and I told her I’d take Mabry without her, and Mama slapped me so hard my teeth rattled.
“We’ll never step foot in that town again,” she said. “If you try to go, I’ll take Mabry and disappear.”
That was all the threat I needed. Mama knew my weakness.
I shift the paper sacks from the Sack and Save as my duffel strap digs into my arm. I glance down the hall toward the kitchen, then back to the staircase.
