Page 69 of Broken Bayou
I grab my cell, the wine, Mabry’s sketchbook ... and the thermos and plod upstairs.
After Mabry’s memorial, a man in a nice suit handed an urn to Mama. She said it was too heavy for her to carry, so I carried it, feeling like all my important parts had been sliced off and incinerated alongsideMabry. And as Mama drove us back to her house, I promised Mabry I’d protect her, keep her safe. She’d always be with me. That night, Mama and I climbed into the same bed, and she held me tight and kissed my head and sang in my ear until I finally fell asleep.
I promised Mama I’d find the perfect spot for Mabry’s ashes. A place she could always be free and happy. Bright light filters through the old windowpanes in the front bedroom. I haven’t found that place yet.
But then again, maybe I haven’t been looking.
My duffel and the stack of attic boxes sit by the door in the bedroom. The old television and VCR are turned off. Trash bags of VHS tapes piled next to them.
I wanted Mabry with me. She should have always been with me. If she had, maybe she wouldn’t have ... I swore to myself it was temporary. A way to keep her close until Mama and I could decide where to put her. A container no one would question.
No vase. No urn. Just a simple thermos, sitting on my kitchen counter.
I drop everything I’ve brought upstairs onto the bed and walk into the bathroom. My travel kit is open, and among the face lotions and toothpaste sits the sharp reminder of my pain. I pull the straight razor out, and before my breathing can even change, I deliver a quick surgical slice to my left arm. The sting is immediate, but it’s just a nick. I wait. Nothing happens. No relief. Of course there’s not. Once you confront and understand the reasoning behind your toxic actions, they lose their power.
I grab a towel from the side of the sink and press it onto my new wound.
Stupid, stupid, desperate woman.
I climb into the twin bed with the wine and sad array of items. I pull the thin sheet up to my chin and rewind to the day I broke into the attic to get to those boxes, the tapes. I think back to the letter on my kitchen counter in Fort Worth, back to the show and Harper and ripping my shirt off on live television. Then I think back to the week beforeall that, when absolutely nothing had happened. What I wouldn’t give to go back to that week.
A fresh shudder rolls through my body. Mabry. She will never know she didn’t kill a man.
I pull my phone from under the covers and press Mabry’s number. A laugh.Leave a message.I end the call and punch the number again and again and again until tears blur my vision. I throw the phone across the room and cover my head with the sheet. My back heaves as a flood of pent-up sadness bursts through the crack in my dam. Tears for Mama and Mabry. Tears for a little girl named Emily. Tears for my failed marriage. Tears for all the people who thought I actually helped them. I can’t even help myself.
The Aunts’ ghosts whisper in my ear about salvation. Mama returned that morning I told her to get us a car, smeared red lipstick on her face and the keys to our old station wagon in her hand. Mabry and I hugged the Aunts goodbye as Mama leaned through the passenger window and shoved something in the glove box.
I slid behind the wheel. Mabry climbed in the front seat and Mama lay across the back. I glanced in the open glove box. A stack of cash sat inside. I slammed it shut, telling myself it was the insurance money, even though a part of me knew better.
As much as I wanted to get away from the bayou and what I’d done there, I still had an urge to fling open my door and run for Travis’s house, but the precious cargo next to me kept me put.
Pearl yelled, “I pray for y’all’s salvation.”
No Hank Williams Jr. or Loretta Lynn songs blared as we pulled away from Broken Bayou. Only cicadas and whip-poor-wills and the golden sun on the bayou. Mama passed out with her cigarette still between her lips before we even made it to the Atchafalaya Basin. I motioned for Mabry to get it. She reached over the front seat and plucked it from Mama’s mouth. Then she brought it to her own lips and inhaled. Coughing and scowling at Mama, she lowered the window and flicked it out with her little twelve-year-old hand. I held my rightarm out over the back of the seat, and she scooted across to my side, placed her small head on my shoulder.
“Love you, sissy,” she whispered.
I stroked her hair with my hand. “I love you too.”
Then I slammed down on the gas and got us the hell out of Dodge.
Chapter Twenty
Ermine is behind the register at Taylor’s Marketplace when I walk in the next morning. She takes one look at me and escorts me to a table away from the others, snapping her fingers at the waitress to pour me some coffee. The coffee is strong and hot and helps my hands stay steady. Ermine slides into the chair next to me. She doesn’t speak. She only pats my hand.
My eyes are dry and salty from all the tears, and my chest feels like it’s full of sand. I bite my lower lip to keep the tears from coming back.
“Do you want to talk about whatever this is?” She scans my face, my knotted hair, the dirty clothes I’m wearing.
I shrug.
“Honey, what happened?”
“Mabry.” Her name is thick on my tongue.
“Oh, sugar. We were all just heartbroken when we heard of her passing. It’s tragic. When your mama called your great-aunts and told them, they were beside themselves with grief.”
“Mama called them?”
