chapter twelve

When I called Collette the next day, she told me right over the phone that we weren’t on speaking terms. I tried not to let that bother me. I wasn’t about to apologize for the truth.

All along, I’d needed to go to Elijah—I hadn’t realized that until my vision. I had to get close enough to let him show me where he rested; then I could kiss him goodbye.

And yet, thinking about what must have happened to put him in my daddy’s path—it was strange to care about him still. To feel him everywhere I went.

He was strongest by the river. I sat on the shore and chucked rocks into it, making myself more like him. I blinked and held up a hand when a shadow fell on me. My heart jumped as I looked up into a boy-shaped silhouette, haloed by the sun. I settled again when he moved out of the glare and proved to be Ben.

He poked the ground next to me with a stick. “Can I sit down?”

“I don’t own the river.” I leaned back on my elbows to look into the water again.

Without a hint of grace, Ben flopped down at my side, crossing his arms over his knees and squinting into the distance. Sneaky patches of sunlight bared the pale freckles on his face.

“Smells like a storm’s coming,” I said to fill the quiet.

“Looks like it, too.” He pointed out the hazy sky with his stick, then swirled it around in wide curlicues. I think he signed his name in the air before looking at me again. “Collette’s still spitting mad this morning.”

I rolled my eyes. “Like that’s news.”

Disappointed, Ben said, “I’m serious, though.”

“Me too.” Rolling onto one elbow, I acted like I was queen of the world. Since he looked so whupped, I decided to needle him about it. “So how much trouble are you gonna be in when she finds out you came to talk to me?”

Ben made a face, tossing his stick away so he could thread his fingers in his hair. “She’s not my boss.”

I laughed under my breath. He sounded like he was in kindergarten and looked close enough to pouting that I expected him to stick out his lower lip. “You better not tell her that.”

“I don’t even think she likes me,” he said.

The sour in my belly soured my words. “Don’t be stupid, Ben.”

He turned his pale blue eyes on me, and from his brows to his chin, an unsettled wash of hurt crept across his face. “When did you get to be so mean?”

I licked my hand to scrub at my knees and offered up my only excuse. “I’m sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“You’re not the only one.” Everything about him seemed to darken, not with anger but with heavy thoughts that sloped his shoulders and bent his back. “This was a lot more fun when it wasn’t real.”

A touch of guilt twisted low in me, and I worked harder at wiping my knees. “I didn’t mean to see what I did.”

Ben nodded, then knotted both hands in his hair. Wheat-gold stalks of it jutted between his fingers, and I finally realized what Collette meant when she said he was pretty. He had long, dark lashes and a softness to his mouth that made me want to stare at it when he talked.

He stole a look at me, so sad, and then turned to the water again. “I wish you hadn’t. It was good, getting to go away. Making things up.”

I stopped in midswipe. “We didn’t go anywhere.”

Ben tightened his fingers in his hair, dragged down a little more by that invisible weight. “My daddy hits my mama. He did. Not anymore.”

It was like falling, hearing a confession like that. I could only guess at what would make a man stop hitting, once he’d started. “ ’Cause she’s sick?”

Ben looked at me, hard. “ ’Cause the last time, me and Shea held him down and told him what he’d get if he ever did it again.”

“Oh no.”

“We meant it, too.”

A single thread of cold worked through my chest. I didn’t know Ben’s parents, but I’d seen them at church. They looked like happy people to me, Ben’s daddy tall and gold, his mama true Acadienne, pale skin, dark hair. They held hands in the pews all the time. I didn’t understand how those outsides could hide this inside.

I grasped for something, anything, to say. I tugged his wrist, making him free a hand so I could slip mine into it. I didn’t even think about it; he hurt and I wanted to make it better. “I think you did a good thing.”

“I can’t even tell anymore.” Ben looked at our joined hands; all I could see of him was the troubled curve of his brow. I thought he might be crying, but when he raised his head again, his face was dry. Drawing himself inward, he rubbed a thumb against my hand.

“Anyway, I ain’t ever gonna tell on your daddy.”

“I think he did it, Ben,” I said. “I really do.”

Saying nothing, neither one of us moved. We had a staring contest, and I thought I’d won when he closed his eyes. Instead, he pressed his mouth against mine, and it was soft. Dry and warm, too, a familiar gesture that felt strange for lingering.

I closed my eyes, just for a second, overaware of everything. My heart pulsed until it stopped on a single, captured beat, and I felt dipped in summer again, searing everywhere.

Pulling back, I swiped my lips with the back of my hand to rub in any mark he might have left behind.

“You better go home, Ben,” I said.

After the warmth of his mouth, I felt cold all over and couldn’t look at him. Elijah’d gotten himself killed this way.

No wonder he picked me—I was just as bad.

For a week, I had nightmares. I felt sick all the time, aching for everything missing, wanting to pull out my hair and grieve in loud, wrenching sobs. Any kind of penance would have helped, but I needed things.

I needed Collette to be my other half again, but it looked like she was never coming back. I needed Ben to be some dumb boy who threw rocks at us again, and nothing else. I needed my daddy to be innocent and Elijah to stay dead. Most of all, I needed somebody to notice I’d shattered.

Plodding through my waking hours, I did my chores automatically and tasted nothing when I ate, until I suddenly burst into tears over supper. The salt didn’t improve the peas much, but Daddy finally moved.

“Sugar, what’s wrong?” He pushed his plate aside and slid his chair close to mine, wrapping me up in his arms.

Surrounded by the scent of his aftershave and the warm, strong cage of his hug, I cried harder. How could I tell him anything? How could I say I was being haunted? How could I explain kissing my best friend’s boyfriend?

How could I look him in the face and tell him I knew what he’d done?

My belly hitched with hiccups, and I had to fight my own throat to answer him. “I don’t know.”

Through my gulps and whimpers, I could hear him whispering nonsense promises, reassurances that everything would be all right, but that just made me cry harder. Nothing would ever be right again; that was one thing I knew for certain.

When I’d settled down to ragged gasps, Daddy pushed me back and reached for a napkin. He studied me, like he could read my mind, concerned as he mopped up my face. His touch was soft under my eyes but hard beneath my nose.

Balling that napkin up, he reached for another and handed it to me. “Blow your nose, baby.”

I was glad he didn’t hold it for me. Between honks, I apologized. “I didn’t mean to ruin supper.”

“We can have peas any day,” he said, taking my dirty napkins and throwing them away. Turning on the tap with his wrist, he washed his hands but watched me over his shoulder. “You know you can talk to me, Iris.”

“Uncle Lee gave me Mama’s memory book,” I said. I turned in my chair and stared at him, trying to look into him. “How come you didn’t have it? How come I had to get it from him?”

Daddy slumped slightly, drying his hands on an old towel. “Because he’s the only one with any sense.”

“Daddy, what are you talking about?”

“I wanted to throw everything away,” he said. “After her funeral, it was just too hard. Lee took the important things home instead. He thought you might want them someday.”

I looked toward the living room. “Then how come you kept the couch?”

“Sofa’s too heavy to throw away in a fit,” Daddy said.

His shamed smile softened my heart. Already heading for the stairs, I said, “You should look.”

“Iris, I . . .”

“I’ll be right back.” I tore up to my room and nearly broke my neck coming back down. Pushing my plate to the middle of the table, I spread the book out. I wanted him to look at it with me. I needed him to.

He hesitated, then leaned in, framing the book with his arm. “It’s been a long time.”

“You went a lot of places,” I said, stopping at the camping pictures.

Daddy worked a nail under the plastic sleeve to pull out a photograph of Mama sitting on his lap by a tent. “Actually, that was Eddie Lanoux’s backyard. They lived a ways out and had a good piece of land. We never brought enough matches. Half the time we ended up sneaking into the house to make supper.”

I turned the book a little to get the glare of the lights off the plastic. “Did Mama take this one?”

“Yes, ma’am, and all the ones with her in them, too. She had a timer. She wouldn’t let anybody else mess with her camera, not even a little.” Daddy shook his head at himself and sighed. “I never told you about Katie and her pictures.”

That hit a hollow place, one I wanted filled up so badly it ached. “Huh-uh.”

“She said she’d have a gallery someday. Me and Eli planned to build her a darkroom. . . .” Daddy trailed off thoughtfully. “Damned if we knew what belonged in one.”

Thumbing over another page, Daddy frowned at the empty spot he found, his eyes darting over the handwriting left behind in the margin. “The parish fair should have been right here.”

For a moment, I kept my silence, then admitted, “I’ve got it up in my room. I like it.”

He gazed at the empty page as if he could see the picture that belonged there, his lips twitching with an odd smile. “We all started off together, but by midnight, Nan threw Eli over for some carnie, and I’d asked your mama to marry me.” A pleased glimmer colored his eyes again, and he glanced at me. “She told me no.”

Clasping the edge of the table, I twisted in my chair to look up at him. “She changed her mind, though!”

“Only after she spent spring break in New Orleans.” Flicking to the next page, he glanced at it briefly, then closed the memory book softly. “She’d been planning on moving there after high school. She wanted her gallery to be right on the water, and I liked Ondine just fine.

“She went for two weeks, and when she came back, she marched up to my front door and said, ‘All right, Jack, what did you do to ruin my city?’ And I just looked at her and said, ‘I stayed here.’ ”

Daddy leaned his chair back, smoothing a hand over his hair. “She didn’t plan on taking me back, but I think it scared her when Eli died.”

I forced myself to stay still, but God, it was hard. My daddy had just told on himself.

Trying to be all nonchalant, I picked up the memory book and held it to my chest. “How do you know he’s dead?”

Daddy clamped down on his memories and started to clear the table. “I guess I don’t. Why don’t you put that book away before it gets ruined?”

How could he mourn Elijah if he killed him? He should have looked guilty or scared or maybe both or something, but not heartbroken.

“Do you miss him?”

He looked right into me; he crackled with possibility. And then he nudged me gently. “I said go on.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, and stole upstairs with my thoughts.

After a couple of lonely days, Daddy tapped on my door and told me to get my shoes on. I did as I was told, but I asked, “Where are we going?”

Holding up a covered plate, Daddy said, “I’m going to play cards with Eddie, and you’re making up with Collette.”

In the dusk, we walked over to the Lanouxs’ with an offering of thick brownies, all with nuts because that was how Daddy liked them and he wouldn’t bend on that, even for me.

Shoving my hands in my pockets, I smiled up at Mr. Lanoux when he opened the door, and I asked, “Is Collette home?”

“Upstairs, peaches.” Winking at me, he plucked an exposed walnut from the brownies to pop into his mouth.

Music rolled out of Collette’s room, just loud enough that it was pointless to knock. Opening the door a crack, I snuck inside and closed the door by leaning on it.

She’d made a couple of changes since the last time I’d been in: she’d replaced her pink covers with wine red ones and had grown a collection of overstuffed pillows in shades of gold and bronze. The colors matched a new robe I’d never seen her wear before. She lounged on her belly in the middle of the bed, her bare feet waving in the air, stilling when she realized she wasn’t alone. Looking up from a magazine, Collette let me see a brief, scathing frown, then turned back to her article. “What do you want?”

“I found out some more stuff,” I said, my feet pinned in place. Sliding down to sit, I squeezed the rock in my pocket, willing Collette to look at me again. “My daddy messed up when he was talking to me about Mama.”

“What, did he tell you he personally cut off Elijah’s head?”

Strangled by big gulps of pride, I shrugged. “I think I was wrong about that part.”

Thin magazine pages crinkled, then the bed groaned as Collette shifted to look back at me. “You think?”

I tugged my knees to my chest. “You don’t have to be ugly.”

Collette grabbed the edge of the bed and pulled herself down to sit on the end. Leaning forward, she curved her mouth into an icy smile, one that didn’t have any humor to it at all. “You went too far, Iris. He was already your ghost. You didn’t have to make your daddy kill him, too.”

A flare of heat rose in my chest, threatening to become a blush. “I said I was sorry.”

“No, you said you were wrong.”

“Fine, I’m sorry, all right? I thought it made sense!” Then I cut myself off. “Why am I apologizing to you, anyway? You’re the one who got nasty with me!”

Collette stood up, her crimson robe falling like waves all around her. “I didn’t, either. You did lie about the witchboard! Probably none of it’s true. Ben told me he threw the rock at the séance.”

“He did not.”

“Yeah, he did.” She graced me with another cold smile.

Unsteady, I wavered. “Did he do the knocking, too?”

“I figured you made up everything else.”

“I didn’t, though!”

Showing off another flash of the whites of her eyes, Collette sank down to ignore me some more.

My lower lip trembled, and I bit it hard to keep it still.

“Facts are facts. Elijah really did go missing, and Daddy said he’d died like he knew it for sure. If everybody else thinks he disappeared, and my daddy knows he died, then—”

“Don’t you get it? I don’t care!”

I grabbed the doorknob and hauled myself up. I’d had just about enough of her, and I was starting to get mad that I was the one apologizing. Maybe Collette did think she was right, but I thought I was, too, and that hadn’t stopped me from saying sorry. “You used to before you went all boy-crazy!”

“At least the boys I like aren’t dead!”

“At least the boys I like like me back,” I snapped.

Before Collette could figure that one out, the door shoved open enough to knock me in the head.

Rooster flung himself into the room, dancing like a rodeo clown. “Y’all in trouble—we could hear you yelling downstairs!”

Grabbing Rooster by the shoulders, Collette pushed him into the hall and slammed the door. “I told you to stay out of my room!”

Instead of going away like a sensible person would have, Rooster stood in the hall and knocked on the door. He knocked loud and soft; he knocked “Twinkle, Twinkle” and belched out every star before starting over again.

Cutting a glance at me, Collette set her jaw. “See what you did?”

I gritted my teeth and whispered through them. I knew if I started with Collette, we’d never make up again. “I wasn’t the only one yelling.”

“You started it,” Collette hissed, bracing her shoulder against the door when Rooster realized knocking wasn’t annoying enough and decided to bounce off it instead.

Forcing myself to give up just a little, I helped her lean against the door. “We both started it. I’m just trying to finish it.”

“I see London, I see—”

Rooster cut off with a yelp when heavy footsteps came down the hall. The doorknob jiggled again, and me and Collette jumped back to let her mama in.

Already shaking her head, Mrs. Lanoux crossed her arms over her chest. “Do I even want to know?”

I didn’t say anything. Collette looked me over, then spread her hands out helplessly. “We were just doing a play, and dummy Rooster wouldn’t leave us alone.”

Weary, Mrs. Lanoux craned down the hall, ignoring us for a minute to yell out a warning. “Boy, get in there and take your bath like I told you to!” Answered by a thump, then the sound of running water, Mrs. Lanoux turned to us again. “Try to keep it down to a dull roar.”

“We will,” Collette said, all but pushing her mama into the hall and closing the door on her. Whipping around to face me, she lifted her chin. “You owe me.”

Considering she had kept us both out of trouble, not just me, I didn’t see how. But I wasn’t gonna argue with the offering of a peace branch.

Pulling my hands from my pockets, I looked at her. “Do you really not care anymore?”

Collette rolled her shoulders in a great shrug, her robe shimmering all the way down her arms. “I don’t know. What did you find out?”

“Well, for one, Miss Nan lied to us.”

The dark sparkle came back to Collette’s eyes, both brows rising until they disappeared beneath her curls. “About what?”

I opened the door for a minute, listening for voices around the house. Rooster warbled from the bathroom, and after a minute, I heard my daddy laughing downstairs. Comfortable that they wouldn’t notice us again, I locked the door and nodded at Collette’s radio.

“Turn that up.”

Drowned out by the music, I told her my plan.