Promises of Home

10

“This is an unholy mess.” Hart Quadlander shook his head at me. Candace had taken Scott in, finally plying him with an offer of a more substantial lunch, and Hart had lit a cigarette. I saw his fingers tremble slightly, the smoke swirling around his hand.

“Trey’s death has you unsettled, doesn’t it?” I asked him.

“More than you’ll know,” Hart answered. I liked him; he was one of the last remaining icons of Southern gentility to be found in Mirabeau. He was tall, striking, dark, gray-streaked haired, gray-eyed, with a textured deep drawl that should have done public readings of the works of Padgett Powell or Larry McMurtry. Being the last of the Quadlanders counted for a lot in Mirabeau, and Hart wore his position like a mantle.

“It was hard on me,” Hart said, halfway to himself, “when Trey left town. I’d grown real fond of him over the years. And of course, it just killed his daddy. Louis had always had a drinking problem, but it just got worse when Trey left. I reckon we can be thankful Louis ain’t here to see what became of his boy.”

“Trey sent my sister money,” I said.

Hart digested this news, drawing on his cigarette and breathing out a plume of smoke. “I hate to say this, Jordy, but the town gossips have Arlene pegged as the prime suspect. None of us can ignore her belting Trey at Truda’s house. It’s not helping her that Junebug pulled himself off the case.”

“You don’t think that, do you?” My stomach sank. Hart Quadlander was highly respected in Mirabeau. His opinion could influence others.

“I don’t believe in assessing guilt before you got all the facts. Maybe someone else had a reason to kill Trey.” He stubbed out his cigarette in the ceramic ashtray we kept out on the porch for our smoking guests and looked at me. “Frankly, Jordy, I can’t think of a soul other than Arlene with a motive. He’d been out of town for a long while.”

“What about when he left town? Can you remember anything that happened then? Maybe he got killed ’cause he came home.” Over the years Hart and I had wondered about Trey’s reasons for leaving; but I had to ask.

He shook his head. “He was here one day, gone the next. He must have been planning to run out on Arlene and Mark and his father. After all, he took those pictures that Scott found.”

The pictures bothered me; they suggested a man who still cherished his family, not an abandonee. And something niggled at my mind regarding those pictures. “You sure you can’t think of anything?”

Hart shook his head and lit another cigarette. “Son, I’ve gone over that time again and again. Louis was still drinking a little too much, but he was trying to stay off the juice. ’Course, when Trey left he started boozing all over again. Drank himself to death over that boy.”

I still stung from the intimation against my sister. “So where were you when Trey died?”

Hart shrugged and didn’t seem offended by the bluntness of my question. “Saturday morning I was over in Fayette County, at the Running Creek Horse Farm. Looking at some ponies to buy. I didn’t hear about Trey’s murder till I got home that afternoon at three.”

“Did Trey tell you why he showed up in town again?”

“God, no.” Hart rubbed his chin, a half smile on his face. “And that just about shocked the bejesus out of me. I never expected to see that boy’s face again. He showed up at the horse farm with young Scott and that Nola gal. Asked to talk to me alone.” He shrugged, “I was awful glad to see him. I don’t know if I would have felt that way a few years back. I blamed him too much for pushing Louis back to the bottle.”

“Louis poured out his own death,” I snapped, perhaps a bit more bluntly than I should’ve. Louis Slocum had never been any good; he’d been a sorry father to Trey. Louis made his own choices in life. Not confronting his alcoholism was one of them. (Yes, I know it’s a disease. A treatable one.)

“That’s easy for you to say now, Jordan,” Hart said with heat in his voice. “You didn’t have to see your best friend drink himself into a grave.”

I didn’t answer. “Trey gave you no reason for why he’d left six years ago?”

Hart rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. “None. And he offered no apologies. He told me that he wanted to see Arlene and Mark again. That he was tired of being away from home. That the accident had-had changed his viewpoint on many things. On people that he’d cared about.”

“Too little too late,” I murmured to myself. Not only for those he’d left behind, but for himself.

“He was awful sickly looking,” Hart said. “I wondered if he’d been honest with me about how bad his injuries were. Maybe he came home to die.” And I saw the horror dawn on Hart’s face as he realized the double meaning of his words.

I shook my head. “Did he mention Clevey Shivers?”

Hart stared out at the rain for a moment, then stubbed out his cigarette. “No. He didn’t mention any of his old friends. I don’t think I told him you were back in town.”

I told Hart about the 2 DOWN scrawled in blood on Trey’s wall. “I hope no one intends to add to that score.”

The story obviously jolted Hart; his jaw worked as though he were chewing unfamiliar, bitter food. “I-I don’t understand. Who’d want them both dead?”

Candace appeared in the porch door. “Um, Jordy? Arlene and Mark are home now. You want to come in?” It was more of a demand than a request, and I suddenly remembered Scott Kinnard’s possibly disruptive presence in the house. I hurried in, followed by Hart.

Silence reigned in the kitchen. Sister and Mark stood near the refrigerator, ill at ease in their own home. I was surprised to see Steven Teague hovering behind Mark. Scott was halfway through a hearty plate of roast beef, broccoli-rice casserole, copper-penny carrots, and rolls. Mama sat next to him, quiet as a mouse. Candaee was in the middle, a forced smile on her face. Wanda, Eula Mae, and Bradley stood together on the other side of the kitchen. Mark and Scott stared at each other.

“Uh, hi, Sister, Mark.” I gestured toward our young guest. “This is Scott Kinnard. Trey was staying with Scott and his mother. Scott, this is my sister, Arlene, and her son, Mark.”

Scott had the wide eyes of a trapped rabbit. Sister pursed her lips and stepped forward, offering her hand.

“Hello, Scott. It’s nice to meet you.” Sister could be a spitting hellion at times, but Mama didn’t raise her to be rude to folks. I, however, was fair game.

“Jordan, may I speak privately to you?” she asked.

Explanations were in order. “Scott brought us some pictures, Sister. Pictures that Trey took with him before he left town. Scott thoughtfully returned them to us.”

Sister’s face softened slightly as she glanced back toward Scott. “Well, I’m sure that was very nice of him. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, ma’am.” Scott, emboldened by her kindness, looked to Mark again. “Hi, Mark. I’m glad to finally meet you. Your dad talked a lot about you.”

“Why would he do that?” Mark’s voice sounded wooden.

Scott coughed, fumbling for words. “I don’t-well, he always said he was real proud of you.”

“Proud of me? That’s a joke! How could he be proud of me? He wasn’t here for me! He didn’t even know me!” Mark stumbled back, stepping on Steven Teague’s immaculately loafered foot.

Scott looked helplessly at me, confusion on his face.

“Course he knew what you did. It was in his letters.” He blinked at our blank stares. “Trey used to get letters from Mirabeau from some lady named Anne. He didn’t tell me who she was. They stopped about two years ago.”

Scott glanced from Mark to me; but my gaze, along with everyone else’s in the room, went to my mother. She was tunelessly humming and drawing pictures with a fork on the canvas of her mashed potatoes. Suddenly aware that she was the focus of attention, she smiled brightly at us.

“If Mama wrote him, he must’ve written her. If he was moving around like Scott said, he would have to tell her where she could reach him.” Sister fumed as she paced up and down the back porch. “Mama never threw a thing away in her life. Ever. We’re gonna find those letters. We’re going to tear the house down if we have to.”

“I can easily see Mama destroying any letters Trey wrote her,” I interjected. “She might not have wanted you to see them.”

“How could she? How could she carry on a correspondence with the man that deserted me and my child?”

“Look, we don’t even know why he left town.”

“Of course we do! He was a coward, Jordy! He was tired of the responsibility of a wife and a child.”

“All of a sudden, without warning? Why would he do that?”

Sister’s eyes narrowed. “That woman. Nola Kinnard. Maybe he was seeing her on the sly. She used to spend her summers here as a kid, Hart says. She’s got family here. Maybe he met her when she was visiting them. They had an affair and he left me for her.”

“Then why would he write Mama? Why would she write him back?”

She shook her head. “Maybe Scott’s lying.”

“Why would he?”

“Well, he brought back those pictures. Why doesn’t he produce these so-called letters?”

“I asked him. He said he doesn’t know where they are. Maybe Trey didn’t keep them.”

“God!” Sister collapsed in a wicker chair, her hands balled into fists. “I don’t know anything anymore. Goddamn him.” She looked up at me, her face pale, the blackened eye like a smudge of ash that her tears couldn’t rinse away. “I can’t take this, Jordy. This is killing me. I always was strong. I had to be, for Mark. And then I had to be for Mama. I just don’t think I’m strong enough for this.”

I knelt by her and took her in my arms. She tucked her head under my neck. With her face still pressed against my shoulder, she performed a typical Sisterism and changed the subject from one unpleasant to her to one unpleasant to me. “I asked Steven Teague to come talk with you after his session with Mark. I think it would be useful for our whole family to have some counseling.”

“Well.” I didn’t know what to say. “I guess my first question for our family session is how’d you get that black eye, Sister.”

She jerked back from me. “I told you. I ran into a tree.”

“Sister.” I said it softly and I saw her lip tremble. “Don’t lie to me. If you’d hit a tree, the bark would have left abrasions or cuts. Now, who hit you?”

“No one.”

“Why on earth are you protecting him? Or her?” A thought dawned. “Was it Trey? Did he hit you, and you don’t want anyone to know because it might make you even more of a suspect?” I could see the scenario unfold: Sister and Trey arguing at his house, he grabs and belts her (he could still do that from his wheelchair), she runs, tearing her pants on that stray nail on the stairs.

“Trey didn’t hit me. No one hit me.”

“I don’t believe you, Arlene.”

“I don’t care what you believe, Jordan.” It was serious business if we’d stooped to Christian names. Her voice was as icy as a frosted pane of glass in the dead of winter. “Now, will you come to family counseling?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” I turned away from her. She got up and went back inside. After a moment I followed her.

“What’s your prognosis on my nephew?” I asked Steven. We’d offered him some lunch and he and I’d taken it out on the porch to talk in privacy. I stuck a tender piece of pot roast in my mouth and watched Mark showing Scott his favorite pecan tree to climb. I couldn’t hear what the boys said to each other in their hushed tones. Maybe Scott was telling Mark what-all Mama had written about Mark in those six empty years.

“He’s a smart kid. But he’s been through hell,” Steven said, buttering a roll and balancing the plate on his lap. “Mark would like to pretend that his father never died in front of him. That it just didn’t happen.”

The meat was tasteless in my mouth. “Can you help him, Steven?”

He paused, chewing. He took a long sip of iced tea before answering. “Yes, with time. Your sister’s done a great job of raising him, but he has a lot of unresolved issues with his father’s leaving him.” He patted at his mouth with a napkin. “Your sister suggested that your whole family attend some of the sessions. I think it might be productive. I understand you were once very close to Trey-”

“I was. Once. We were no longer friends when he came back.” I put my plate aside; my appetite had deserted me.

“Yes, so Arlene said. My plan is to have several individual sessions with Mark; we need to get him a certain stage past the trauma of his father’s death before we tackle the other-”

He didn’t get to finish. Junebug came out onto the porch, exhausted and a little peeved.

“Hello, Jordy. Well, Mr. Teague, you certainly turn up in the most unusual places.” His voice sounded tired and he sat heavily in one of the porch chairs.

“Excuse me, Chief?”

“I finished reading the case file on Clevey you had to turn over,” Junebug said, “and I’ve got a number of questions to ask you. Do you mind coming down to the station with me?”

Steven pointed at his heaping plate. “May I have my lunch first, Chief?”

“Lunch. What a concept,” Junebug muttered, eyeing the meat, gravy, and vegetables.

I’m not so dense I don’t know a plea for an invite. “Junebug, we’ve got plenty. Why don’t you and Steven have a bite and y’all can talk here if you like? Go on and get a plate.” I stood. “I’ll leave y’all alone and I’ll make sure no one bothers you.”

“Thanks, Jordy. Would you mind fixing me a plate?” Junebug asked. “Your sister’s wearin’ war paint instead of makeup, as far as I’m concerned. She didn’t look too happy to see me.”

“Give her time. She’ll cool off.” I went back inside, where I found Eula Mae, Sister, and Candace all speaking in hushed tones in the kitchen. I silently took a plate from the cabinet and began ladling food onto it.

“Second helpings for you?” Sister asked archly.

“No, for your boyfriend. I invited him to lunch. He and Steven need to have a little privacy out on the porch to talk about Clevey’s case.”

“Some boyfriend he is, supposing I could’ve killed Trey.”

“He had to take himself off the case because he believes you’re innocent. Don’t you see that? He couldn’t be impartial in his investigation.”

Sister made a noise that indicated logical arguments were not welcome. I didn’t respond. Nabbing a glass of iced tea, I took Junebug his food. He thanked me and dove heartily in.

“Y’all help yourselves if you want more.” I left them alone on the porch.

Solitude sounded good to me. I avoided any further skirmishes with the female contingent and went up to my room. I lay down on my bed and tried to nap, but the image of Trey, collapsing, dying, staring into his son’s face with the final glimmer of life, kept me awake. And the air felt dense in my lungs, the room having been shut so tightly during all the recent rain.

I went to my bedroom window, which faced out onto the backyard. Scott and Mark had either gone ’round to the front or gone inside. I tugged the window open, hoping for a little fresh air.

“-and I resent this, Chief Moncrief.” Steven’s voice was tight with anger. ’I’ve given you my case file. You’ve read it. I really don’t want to be grilled about my therapy with Clevey.”

“I read it, but I don’t understand half of your mumbo jumbo. And you don’t have a choice, Mr. Teague. You’re not a psychiatrist. You’re not under the same legal obligation to confidentiality. Your lawyer’s already advised you to cooperate fully with me; I suggest you heed his advice.” Junebug’s voice, fainter than Steven’s, floated up to me past the back-porch roof. I saw a bluish puff of smoke from Steven’s pipe drift up from the porch steps.

Shut the window, I told myself, but I didn’t. Curiosity won out over good manners. So much for my Southern-gentleman merit badge. I leaned down slightly from the window.

Junebug muttered something I couldn’t catch. Another miniature cloud of pipe smoke wafted from the porch as Steven didn’t answer.

Junebug spoke again: “He was murdered. He was my friend. I’d like to think that if he’d had a problem, he would come to his friends. I know you want to find who killed him, Steven. Please don’t help this killer get away.”

There was a long, thoughtful silence, then Steven’s unaccented, polished voice: “I’ve never discussed a patient’s therapy before. Never.”

“You’ve never had a patient murdered, I assume.”

“No, I haven’t,” Steven answered. There was another pause and then he spoke, his voice sounding resigned and not a little bitter: “Have you ever read Steinbeck, Chief Moncrief? East of Eden, in particular?”

“No, but I saw the movie-with James Dean, right? About the perfect son and the bad son.”

“Clevey was both. He wanted to be good, someone liked and respected. He envied you, he envied Davis, his other friends that he saw as successful. But he enjoyed… being bad, for lack of a better term. He thought there was a certain glamour in breaking the rules. But he was driven to make up for bad actions by doing good. He was like a moral pendulum, swinging from anger and bitterness to piety and kindliness, back and forth. It made him a very unhappy man.”

I heard Junebug’s distinctive snort. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, but it certainly wasn’t Clevey.”

“Wasn’t it? Didn’t you ever see him be cruel to someone, then be desperate to make amends? Again, and again, and again?”

That phrasing put a different spin on it. Clevey, torturing Ed with truly mean-spirited teasing and the next moment being Ed’s best friend, apologizing and treating him to lunch. Raking Junebug over the coals in the newspaper for a flubbed case, then rallying support around him out of friendship. I’d noticed it always in him, but perhaps I’d dismissed it as a quirk of personality. I’d grown up with him. I thought I knew him.

Steven continued: “Chief, I tried to help Clevey see the value of moderation in his judgments. Realizing that if he made one good judgment, that didn’t give him permission to make a bad one. And if he made a bad choice, did something he regretted, he needed to let go of it and move on with his life. Clevey was eternally making amends because he was eternally doing something wrong.”

“Wrong? Like he was committing a crime?” Junebug demanded.

A pause ensued, and I could imagine Steven sucking at his pipe. “Of course not. At least he didn’t confess to me. Clevey was a manipulator-but he specialized in manipulating himself. He was his own worst victim. He made himself miserable.” He paused again. I glanced around, wondering if any of my neighbors would wonder why I was sticking my head out the window for so long. “I think he would have been much happier if he’d just tried to be a saint or a total son of a bitch. But not both.”

“Do you think you helped him?” Junebug said. I would’ve asked that myself-I didn’t like the thought of Clevey dying a tortured soul, always doing wrong and forever trying to make up for it. Assuming that Steven’s portrayal was correct. I knew of no reason for him to lie.

“I don’t know. Maybe if I had, he wouldn’t have died. He wouldn’t have hurt someone so much they killed him.”

“This swinging back and forth between good and evil,” Junebug said. “How did it manifest itself? What was he doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you must know, Steven. How else did you arrive at this diagnosis?”

The wind whipped through the dripping trees. I heard the tap of Steven’s pipe against the rail of the porch. “I think,” he said slowly, “that this conversation is over. I still respect my client’s memory, even if you don’t. And I’m not going to answer any more questions without my lawyer present. Good day, Chief.” I heard the back door shut and Junebug cuss softly, then go inside. I pulled the window closed, the air smelling like waiting rain. And I went downstairs to tell Junebug about the argument between Clevey and Trey that Scott had overheard.

That afternoon, we completed Trey’s funeral arrangements. Mark and Sister agreed with Truda Shiva’s that a double funeral for Clevey and Trey would be appropriate. Hart said he would speak to Nola; he thought she would agree. Sister told Hart to tell Nola she could pick out the burial suit; we would select the coffin. Hart left with Scott. Sister excused herself and I could hear her up in Mama’s room, opening and slamming drawers. Looking for letters. I didn’t join in her search. I watched Mama’s serene face as she watched the beginnings of another rainstorm patter on the grassy yard and wondered how she could have truly exchanged letters with Trey. Why would she? And why wouldn’t she have told Sister?

A thought made my mouth go dry. What if she had told Sister? The only one who could say that Mama definitely hadn’t told Sister was Mama herself, and she was in no condition to remember. What if Sister had known all along where Trey was? What he was doing, where he was living? She said she didn’t know-but was she being entirely honest?

That didn’t make sense. What reason would she have for pretending now that she hadn’t known? I couldn’t think of one; but then, I couldn’t think of a reason for her to have that shiner.

Sister found nothing in her search. Candace ran home for a while, and Clo left to tend to her own family. Mark and I desultorily watched part of the Cowboys game. They stomped their opponents, taking away any distraction for us. Junebug, who’d gone back to the station after Steven bolted, called to tell me that they hadn’t made much progress on the case. He sounded tired. He didn’t ask to speak to Sister, but he asked me how she and Mark were doing.

“They’re fine, Junebug. And how are you?”

“I wish everyone would quit worrying so damn much about me. I’m perfectly all right, just tired. Hey, I found some old pictures last night in my daddy’s scrapbook,” Junebug said. His father (the same SOB who’d christened his son with an insectoid nickname) had fancied himself a photographer and endlessly annoyed you at any social gathering by sticking a lens down your gullet. “There’s a couple of real funny photos of you and Trey. Remember at Ed’s twenty-first birthday party, we all got tight and nearly decapitated each other swinging at that stupid pinata his mama got him?”

I remembered. I’d nailed Trey in the shoulder. Blindfolded with a soft cotton bandanna and with a six-pack in me, he was lucky I hadn’t brained him. He’d wrested the stick from me and swatted me hard on the ass. We’d gotten into a wrestling match that ended when Davis finally whacked the pinata and the damn thing dumped pounds of candy on us. Try to keep fighting when a bunch of squealing, pretty girls fall on you, grabbing sweets out of your hair and face.

“Oh, and one of you and Clevey and Trey when you went fishing with Daddy and me on Lake Bonaparte. You didn’t catch squat. You ought to see all the fish on Trey’s line. Man, that boy could fish. You never had the patience for it, Jordy.”

I didn’t want to remember. “I gotta go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

I hung up. I saw Candace look up from a magazine. Mama snored softly in her chair, Mark had retired to his room; Sister had taken to bed, claiming a bad headache. All of us straying to our separate little compartments, except for Candace.

“Junebug.” I shrugged toward the phone. “He likes to jabber.”

“So he does.” Her voice was strangely low. “How you feeling?”

I kept from making a face. “Fine, I’m fine.” I smiled and stuck my hands in my jeans pockets. “But I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed. You don’t have to stay over.”

“I know. But I’ll stay in the guest room, if you don’t mind. Arlene might need me.”

Arlene. She was staying for my sister, not for me. I blinked. I loved this woman. But I was conscious of how I’d been pushing her away, shutting her out from all the confusion I felt about Trey’s death. That wasn’t fair to her. I knew it. She wanted to help me, wanted me to need her now. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know why.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I said. It sounded empty, even to me.

“Sleep well, babe.”

I wished her a good night and went to my room. I lay facedown on the bed, breathing in the scent of clean sheets and the smell of rain that pervaded the old house.

Order, I decided. Just like at the library, I needed to get my thoughts in order. I fetched a legal pad off my desk and began writing. After a few minutes I’d scribbled down a list of questions-some horribly obvious-that I wanted answers to: QUESTIONS

1. Why did Trey leave Mirabeau in the first place? 2. Had Mama really been corresponding with Trey all these years? If so, why didn’t she tell us? If she kept Trey’s letters, where are they? 3. Who gave Sister the black eye? Why is she protecting that person? Or is it that she’s afraid of someone? 4. Why was Clevey hiding all that information on Rennie Clifton? Nothing there that isn’t public record. 5. What did Clevey and Trey argue about (that Scott overheard)? What did Clevey mean revenge is sweet? Who did Clevey-or Trey-need to revenge by himself on? What did Clevey mean by “gravy train”? 6. Are Davis and Ed hiding anything? Why did Davis sound so numbed when I talked to him? 7. What does 2 DOWN mean, painted in blood on Trey’s wall? 8. What motives would anyone have to kill either Trey or Clevey? Who had opportunity to commit the murders? 9. Why is Steven hesitant to talk about Clevey’s therapy? Is it just ethics-or something else? I read over my list, then added another: 10. Why did Trey really come home?

That seemed the key to me. He’d been away for six years; he’d sent money to his ex-wife; he’d possibly exchanged letters with my mother. This status quo had been maintained for a long, long while. Even with his injuries, he could have recuperated elsewhere. What suddenly urged him back to a town where he’d be shunned as a cowardly father?

I rubbed my eyes. My head throbbed, pained with memories and with doubts. I contemplated going downstairs to talk with Candace, but I preferred my own company for the moment. I didn’t know what to say to her. I doused the lights and fell into fitful sleep, vaguely hearing the distant roll of thunder as I drifted off.

“Sounds like rain’s coming.” Trey stared up at the star-dotted sky. He propped his booted feet on the cab door of his battered truck and folded his hands behind his head. I lay next to him, trying to count the stars through a blur of beer.

“Not this instant,” I said. “Too far off. We won’t get rain for a little while.” Glass clinked as he reached for another beer. He sat up and took a deep swig from the long-neck.

“You’ll get a lot of rain in Houston, Jordy. You’ll be walking to classes in knee-deep water. It floods there all the time.” His voice sounded as far away as the thunder did.

“Don’t tell Mama, she’ll buy me waders.” I sat up and opened another beer. The crickets chirped through the night air, sounding their brief trumpets before the approaching storm drowned them out. Whoever said nights in the country are quiet don’t know what they’re talking about. The air felt humid, as languid as a girl’s caress, and in the purplish darkness I could barely see Trey sitting next to me. I could see him tip the bottle to his lips, the moon reflecting off the curve where label ended and glass began.

“You ain’t gonna have no horses to ride in Houston,” he observed.

“No. I’ll have to come back here for that.”

“And you ain’t gonna get cooking as good as your mama’s. I bet that university kitchen don’t make good biscuits and cream gravy on Sunday mornings. Probably give you something nasty, like yogurt.”

“Probably.”

“And Marcia Tatum ain’t gonna be around ’case you get a tad horny.”

I laughed. “No, Marcia won’t be in Houston. ’Course, she’s not too pleased I’m going away, period. I don’t think she’d be granting me her favors even if I stayed.”

“Shit,” Trey scoffed. “Your first weekend back she’ll be as hot for you as you are for her.” He stood and stretched, and walked to the back of the truck. His boot heels made an eerie clang against the metal.

“Face it, Jordan, you ain’t got many reasons to come back here. Houston’ll suit you real well. You’re smart. There’ll be a lot of new things to hold your attention. You won’t need Mirabeau again.”

“Don’t be stupid. Of course I still need Mirabeau. My family’s here. My friends are here.” I paused. “You’re here, man. You think I’m going to forget about you?”

“For the first time in your life, you’re going to be around a lot of people that are as smart as you are. Or even smarter. The people you meet at Rice are gonna make the rest of us look like dipsticks. Future doctors and lawyers and such.”

“That’s crap, Trey. Quit saying that you’re not smart.”

He laughed and sipped at his beer. “I don’t say I’m not smart. The teachers say I’m not smart.”

“The teachers here are stupid, then.”

“Brave words from the valedictorian. All I’m saying is, go. Go out there and make what you can of yourself. Don’t look back.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” I said uncertainly. I didn’t care for the way this conversation was going. The thunder sounded again, closer, wilder. “Of course I’m coming back home.”

“And do what? What are you going to do with your fancy degree here in Mirabeau, young Mr. Poteet? Be a lawyer in your crazy uncle Bid’s practice? You can’t stand him. Become mayor? You ain’t exactly a politician. Teach at the school? Won’t pay you diddly to clear them big student loans. Or maybe you’ll just end up serving Dr Pepper floats at the Sit-a-Spell.” His voice had grown harsh.

I stared up at him in the darkness. “Why are you doing this?”

“I don’t want you to think that Mirabeau is the whole world, like our numbnut friends do. I don’t want you to waste the chance you got.”

“I’ll come home if I want. I’ll live here if I want.” I stood and the wind surged, making me feel unsteady. Trey seemed an indistinct figure in the night. “Why are you being so shitty to me?” I hollered.

“Because you’re gonna do all the things in life I wish I could. Because you’re the brother I never had.”

Lightning split the sky and I saw the Trey standing before me was not the Trey of our careless eighteenth summer, drinking beer with me on the next-to-the-last night before I left for college. He was the Trey that had died, his face gaunt and drawn and bearded in the momentary white light.

“Then help me! Tell me who killed Clevey! Tell me who killed you!”

“Killed me?” he asked.

“Yes! You’re dead! Who killed you?” I screamed into the wind.

He collapsed against me and my hands felt the warmth of his life’s blood. His voice creaked like a coffin’s lid. “You are. You’re killing me, Jordy.”

A cry caught in my throat as I wrenched up in bed. I slapped the palm of my hand over my mouth and bit my fingers. Nightmare’s sweat adhered the sheets to my body and I kicked them away. They felt like shrouds.

I staggered to the window. Another storm swept over Mirabeau, headed for the Gulf, and the glass felt cool against my palms. What was happening to me? Why did I feel like this world was the dream and those memories with Trey were the reality? I shut my eyes and took a long, sobering breath.

I shrugged into my terrycloth robe and sat again on the bed, listening to the quiet of my house. Many nights Mama was restless in the wandering way Alzheimer’s patients sometimes are, but tonight she was still. I heard the remote ticking of the grandfather clock downstairs, like a colossal heart. Apparently I hadn’t called out; the house’s silence pushed oppressively on my ears.

I hungered for a comfort food. I didn’t want to stay in my bed; it was nothing but a trap full of memories. I remembered all the pies downstairs. My sweet tooth pulsed and I tiptoed down to the kitchen. I turned on all the lights; I didn’t like the dark anymore.

The pies looked tempting: pecan, peach, buttermilk, and apple, but I didn’t want a slice. Only two images from my dream could make me smile; Marcia Tatum and Dr Pepper floats. Marcia had been my senior-year girlfriend, a buxom, funny, sly-eyed brunette, and she’d served up the best Dr Pepper floats in the world at the old Sit-a-Spell Cafe. Trey had kidded me plenty that I’d had more Dr Pepper floats after school than any other boy in Mirabeau history. He’d follow me to the cafe and chatter at me and Marcia as she made my favorite fountain concoction while I watched her with vast-eyed devotion.

He loved to tease.

I pulled a gallon of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream from the freezer.

Give him an extra scoop now, Marcia, Trey would say, eyeing Marcia’s own scoops under her bright pink uniform.

I found an icy cold can of sugary, original Dr Pepper in the back of the fridge and popped the top.

Don’t you be skimpy with that Dr Pepper, Marcia. Jordy needs all the sweetness he can get. Don’t you, Jordy?

I pulled the ice-cream scooper out of a drawer and rinsed it with hot water. I found a thick, tall glass in the cabinet and set it on the counter.

Marcia, sugar, you ought to give Jordy a large float but charge him for a small one. Don’t you care none about this poor boy?

Dragging the scooper across the pristine plain of ice cream, I pared free a globe of white sweetness. I jiggled it above the glass and the scoop fell in, leaving a creamy smear along the side. Again, another scoop. A small one to top it. Then the Dr Pepper, the fizz of its pouring the only sound I heard as it frothed above the ice cream. The can felt like a deadweight in my hand.

Ah, that’s his favorite there, Miss Marcia. He likes those floats even better than he likes you or me.

“Jordan?” Candace, standing nearby, watched me.

“I’m making a Dr Pepper float,” I announced, and my voice broke. Candace looked sort of blurry.

“I can see that, honey.” Her voice was cottony soft. “You okay? You’ve spilled it everywhere.”

I glanced down at the kitchen counter; the soda can was empty and my glass sat in a puddle of bubbling brown.

I looked back up at Candace and I could see her heart breaking. “He’s dead.” I heard my voice. “He’s really, really dead. Trey is dead. God!” A sob escaped from me, like air long trapped underwater then bursting to the surface. I felt her arms close around me.

I didn’t want to cry. No, not in front of her. I didn’t want her to see me that way. I put my fingers over my face and they were wet and sticky with Dr Pepper.

“Why? Why?”

“I don’t know, baby. I don’t know why he died,” she murmured into my chest.

“Not him dying! Why did he leave us?” I buried my face against her disarrayed hair. “He left me. I was like his brother and he left me. He left Sister and Mark and Mama and Daddy and his own father, but why did he leave me?” I pulled in a badly needed breath. “We were as close as brothers. What could have happened that he couldn’t tell me? If he was going to run away from here, why didn’t he come to Boston? I would have helped him, no matter what the trouble was. Didn’t he know that? What did I do wrong? Why’d anyone want to kill him? Why? Why?”

I was conscious of her taking me to the sink, washing the soda from my hands and my face, toweling me dry. She led me back upstairs to my room and laid me on my bed. She held me in her arms and I talked, I babbled like a mute just given speech, telling her all the idiocies and kindnesses that Trey and I had done in our reckless, vanished youths, our time when we thought we were immortal. It didn’t make, I’m sure, for a cohesive monologue. But she laughed at all the funny stories, and she smiled sadly at our tragedies. She stroked my hair and kissed my face and gave me all the strength in her heart. I took it like the precious gift it was. I never loved her more in my life. I told her so and she kissed me gently.

I felt her fingers lightly brushing my hair. “You know what?” she whispered. “I think you loved him very much. I think he loved you, too. And it’s okay to say that, and it’s okay to be sad. It’s normal.”

“You sound like one of them therapists on TV,” I rasped, sticking my face in my pillow.

“I don’t care what I sound like. I’m just glad you’re grieving,” she said. I opened one eye at her.

She ran a finger inside the cup of my ear. “I’m serious. I was about sick of watching you pretend that Trey Slocum’s death hadn’t affected you in the least. It wasn’t natural, not to someone that cares as much as you do. I was about ready to kick your butt if you didn’t start acting like a human being.”

I watched the translucent blue vein in her wrist as it moved barely above my face. “I was mad at him for so long. I didn’t know how not to be mad at him.” I closed the one eye I’d opened. “Now I can’t tell him I’m sorry. He can’t tell me if he’s sorry for what he did.”

“I’m starting to wish I’d known Trey Slocum. He must’ve had some virtues thrown in with the vices.”

I wished she had, too. I felt exhausted, as though I’d run a marathon with a weight on my back. I pulled her to me, feeling a sudden, intoxicating need for her. Candace responded, her lips seeking mine, her fingers tangling in my hair. My hands framed her face like a precious treasure.

The phone rang, shattering the three a.m. silence. I jerked in surprise. Candace rolled over, grabbed the receiver, murmured a quick “Hello, Poteet residence,” and listened.

“Oh, my God. Oh, no.” Her face crumpled with shock as she handed me the phone. “It’s the police station. Junebug’s been shot.”