“When is Mama not angry,” she says to me, then turns to the deputy. “Hey, Dewayne. How’s your mama and them?”
Deputy Rankin looks down his nose at her and doesn’t answer. “You’re free to go,” he says dryly, clearly unhappy about having to do any kind of actual work.
“I see you’re still eating your mama out of house and home,” Aunt Violet says, not happy about getting snubbed.
He frowns back at her. “I see you’re still sucking on that vodka bottle.”
Aunt Violet makes a pfft sound in response, then scratches her cheek with a single middle finger. “Bastard,” she mumbles as we walk away. “Don’t worry about Mama, Weatherly. She’ll find something new to bitch about tomorrow.”
The bright morning sun smacks me square in the face as we enter the front office’s waiting room. My jaw clamps tight when I find Stone Rutledge, leaning over the intake desk, signing some papers. His wife, Rebecca, hovers off to the side. Her face bunched up in disgust as her eyes scan the room. She clutches her Dooney & Bourke satchel like she’s expecting to be mugged.
“No, I’m certain. No charges to file,” Stone says to the woman behind the desk. “That family has been through enough.” He hands her back the paperwork. In his periphery, he catches sight of me and does a double take.
There’s a scratch on his cheek. Good. His eyes are rimmed red and irritated from the rosehip hairs I tossed in his face. Even better.
I give him my best fuck-you glare.
A deep sadness washes over his face as he locks eyes with me. The genuineness of it kicks me in the chest and throws me off for a minute. Until I realize he’s just playing up the empathetic mayor image for the room full of voters. What an ass.
We’re almost to the door when Rebecca makes a tiny grunt of disapproval, giving voice to what everyone else in this room thinks of us...white trash.
“Let it go,” Aunt Violet warns, then snags me by the elbow and guides me out the door, making sure I don’t do something stupid yet again.
Not two seconds outside, Aunt Violet is fumbling through her purse for her pack of Marlboros. She lights her cigarette with an urgent shaky hand.
We pass Rebecca’s sparkling white Cadillac Eldorado—a convertible no less. It’s an out-of-place crown jewel compared to the other junkyard relics parked around it. Aunt Violet grumbles when she sees it.
“You know what I heard?” she asks.
“What?”
“I heard Jimmy Smoot hauled the mayor’s precious little Corvette to the shop because somebody put a jar of nails behind his tire.” Her voice full of mock surprise. “Wonder who could have done that?” She eyes me knowingly, then blows a long plume of smoke out the side of her smiling mouth.
“I have no idea.” I wrestle back a grin as we get in her car.
“Wyatt’s got him a job working at the Lasco factory over in Mercer,” she tells me as we pull out of the parking lot and head toward the house. “It’s a good job. He’ll make lead maintenance technician in no time.” She flicks her cigarette ash out the window crack.
“Seriously?” I say, incredulous. “He’s not going to stick around and help us figure out how to make Stone pay? He’s just moving on? Is that what we’re all doing?”
Shame creeps across her face; she won’t look at me. “Well, we gotta keep going somehow. That’s how life works, baby girl.” From the cup holder, she picks up her Styrofoam drink and swirls it around. Ice shushes inside, mixing the watered-down contents. Then she takes a large swig like it’s medicine. I suppose it is.
It’s hotter than Hades in the car. I roll down my window to let a breeze in and the cigarette smoke out.
“Have you talked to Davis?” If there’s anyone who’s going to help me, it’s Davis. He loved Adaire fiercely. He’s not going to lie down and take this verdict as the final say. “What does he think we should do?”
Aunt Violet lets out an exasperated sigh. “What else we gonna do, Weatherly? Call the governor, tell him we’ve got a shitty mayor down here? You saw in court how chummy they all are. The Good Ole Boy’s Club,” she says in a mocking tone. “Rich folk like Stone ain’t ever gonna pay. That’s how it is. Just something the rest of us have to accept.” She flips on her blinker with an angry hand, and we turn down the gravel road.
“I’ll never accept it,” I say. We ride the rest of the way in silence.
At the house, as soon as she shifts the car into Park, I reach for the door handle—
“Hey.” She lays her hand to my arm, and I pause. “I got something in the mail this week,” she says with a lilt in her voice, as if whatever this is will make everything better.
From the sun visor, she pulls down a postcard and hands it to me.
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
An image of the coastline, blue waters and soft sand, waves across the front. My mama’s hurried handwriting scribbled on the back.
Every now and again, I get a postcard from her. Dallas, Texas. Memphis, Tennessee. San Diego, California. Always with a Wish you were here! Like it was me who chose not to go with her, and I was missing out. It’s a penance for her guilt. If she thinks of me now and again, it absolves her from the feelings of neglect and abandonment. Or so I’m guessing. Really, I’m too grown to give a shit anymore.
“Your mama’s sorry she couldn’t make it to Adaire’s funeral,” Aunt Violet says as if that’s alright with her, but I see the pinch in her eyes. “Darbee doesn’t have enough money to get home right now. But she says she’s got herself a promising job at a souvenir shop.” Aunt Violet always gives her older sister the benefit of the doubt. I’ve never understood why.
According to Violet, Mama used to be an honor roll student who loved church. A Goody Two-shoes who never swore. An all-around saint. Then she got pregnant with me, and everything changed. The sister she remembers and the woman I know are two entirely different people.
For years, I let it eat at me that my mama never stuck around. Pawned her newborn off on her parents, like I was a doll she was tired of playing with. Hell, neither of my parents seemed to give a shit about me.
When I was seven, I asked Aunt Violet about my father. “He’s a ball-less sack of shit for not stepping up and taking responsibility for his daughter. And your mama wasn’t no whore.” I should have been relieved, but I cringed. “She wasn’t married, but that didn’t make her no whore,” Aunt Violet went on. “But she wasn’t fit to be a mama yet, she had some wild oats to sow—heartache will do that to you. That don’t mean she doesn’t love you. Just means she loves you enough to do what’s right for ya. Now, you go on outside with Adaire and make me some mud pies.” She shooed me out the door, half a cigarette flopping from the side of her mouth. I never asked about my father again.
I wanted to believe Aunt Violet, I really did. But seven-year-old me had a hard time understanding how you could leave someone you loved behind.
“She says she’ll come home for Christmas, though—if she can save up enough,” she adds like it’s a consolation prize.
Tell Weatherly I said hi. That’s what she wrote on the postcard. Me—an afterthought at the end of her pathetic excuse for a relationship with her family.
“Why bother?” I toss the postcard on the seat and get out of the car. Twenty-two of my twenty-four Christmases I’ve spent without her. I don’t see why that needs to change now.
The smell of fresh cut grass lingers in the air. Bone Layer is busy with the bushhog before the sun cooks everything alive. Laundry hangs on the clothesline strung from the smokehouse to a pole stuck out in the middle of the yard. Wood clothespins clump in a mesh pouch of fabric that looks like it’s hanging on for dear life. I hate the way my clothes smell after drying on the line—thick with the outdoors and baked stiff from the sun.
