“That’s why I brought my daughter. She’s going to drive me home.”
3
Erma felt the tears wet and hot cooling on her pillow, spit leaking from her mouth. They were both dead now, her parents. Her dad of the bottle and her mom of cancer. But they clung to her, like hooked ghosts, and she had not been able to shake them.
Beside her, John began to stir. If she woke him now, maybe, finally, she could explain what she had not been able to tell him before. That she was not only Twila Brown’s daughter, but her father’s child, too. And somewhere within her swam the cells to create a new beast, a mirror-creature to the one who’d crawled out of her father’s drink-dim eyes.
Erma laid a tentative hand on John’s shoulder, started to whisper his name, but the sound of a door slamming startled her away.
From under the crack of their bedroom door, she saw a light flip on. A figure paused before their door. Erma could hear breathing, slow and heavy.
Bunny? Bunny’s husband? It must be one or the other, and Erma pulled the covers tighter, waiting for the figure to pass. When it did, she felt herself exhaling, not realizing that she’d been holding her breath.
There was the sound of another loud thump in the hallway, the light switch flicked off, and then all, again, was dark.
The chance to tell John had fled with the shadow, and once again Erma closed her eyes.
Finally, she found a kind of restless, desperate sleep.
Chapter 6
1
Driving through Cavus was like having a conversation with a wife, or with a lover you’d known for years. Not a wife like his ex, Sharon, but one like he thought his high-school sweetheart, Sue, might have been. Comfortable, because you each knew everything about the other.
Here, for instance, was Main Street, the heart of the town, the same place Riley’d grown up riding his bike past McGregor’s drugstore, stopping inside to get nickel candy and a fountain soda if his parents had been especially kind and his pockets were full. He’d always been fond of the chocolate malts there, too, but Herman McGregor had been so generous in his portions that once, when Riley had drunk the entire malt out of its tin cup, then tried to ride his bike back home in the hot sun, he’d ended up puking.
He let his car lights flash over the wood storefront. There it was, alive and well, except it was Petey McGregor and not Herman who ran the joint now. He turned onto Main and let his car drift down the paved street in silence. There were two blocks of “downtown,” which really meant that there were about two blocks of actual town.
Beyond the downtown, large and stepped hills framed the skyline, ringing it like a jagged bowl. Cavus sat nestled in the middle of them, a soft spot in the earth, like some god had stuck his thumb in a cooling cake. At the edges of Cavus, the rolling prairie stretched in beauty for miles before beginning its rocky ascent.
His was the only car out, and Riley slowed himself to a crawl. If any of Cavus’s townsfolk saw the cop car rolling through the streets at this hour, he hoped they’d find it comforting. Patrick Riley, Cavus born and bred, was back in the saddle, folks. Nothing to worry about here.
To the right he saw the Thompson’s boot and leather repair shop and thought he should probably remember to get his own boots in soon for a resoling. He didn’t like to buy new boots often because he hated to break them in, and so he went through two or three soles a pair. Alexander Thompson knew this and took care to put on as sturdy a sole as he could for Riley and always threw in a free shoe polish.
The trees alongside the street were purely decorative, out of place in the natural sweeping plains of Montana. Still, Riley thought they were beautiful. He looked at them now, remembering how as a boy he’d come downtown at night and hidden with friends behind their shadows in rowdy games of tag.
Riley pulled his car into one of the slanted parking spaces along the street,
3
Erma felt the tears wet and hot cooling on her pillow, spit leaking from her mouth. They were both dead now, her parents. Her dad of the bottle and her mom of cancer. But they clung to her, like hooked ghosts, and she had not been able to shake them.
Beside her, John began to stir. If she woke him now, maybe, finally, she could explain what she had not been able to tell him before. That she was not only Twila Brown’s daughter, but her father’s child, too. And somewhere within her swam the cells to create a new beast, a mirror-creature to the one who’d crawled out of her father’s drink-dim eyes.
Erma laid a tentative hand on John’s shoulder, started to whisper his name, but the sound of a door slamming startled her away.
From under the crack of their bedroom door, she saw a light flip on. A figure paused before their door. Erma could hear breathing, slow and heavy.
Bunny? Bunny’s husband? It must be one or the other, and Erma pulled the covers tighter, waiting for the figure to pass. When it did, she felt herself exhaling, not realizing that she’d been holding her breath.
There was the sound of another loud thump in the hallway, the light switch flicked off, and then all, again, was dark.
The chance to tell John had fled with the shadow, and once again Erma closed her eyes.
Finally, she found a kind of restless, desperate sleep.
Chapter 6
1
Driving through Cavus was like having a conversation with a wife, or with a lover you’d known for years. Not a wife like his ex, Sharon, but one like he thought his high-school sweetheart, Sue, might have been. Comfortable, because you each knew everything about the other.
Here, for instance, was Main Street, the heart of the town, the same place Riley’d grown up riding his bike past McGregor’s drugstore, stopping inside to get nickel candy and a fountain soda if his parents had been especially kind and his pockets were full. He’d always been fond of the chocolate malts there, too, but Herman McGregor had been so generous in his portions that once, when Riley had drunk the entire malt out of its tin cup, then tried to ride his bike back home in the hot sun, he’d ended up puking.
He let his car lights flash over the wood storefront. There it was, alive and well, except it was Petey McGregor and not Herman who ran the joint now. He turned onto Main and let his car drift down the paved street in silence. There were two blocks of “downtown,” which really meant that there were about two blocks of actual town.
Beyond the downtown, large and stepped hills framed the skyline, ringing it like a jagged bowl. Cavus sat nestled in the middle of them, a soft spot in the earth, like some god had stuck his thumb in a cooling cake. At the edges of Cavus, the rolling prairie stretched in beauty for miles before beginning its rocky ascent.
His was the only car out, and Riley slowed himself to a crawl. If any of Cavus’s townsfolk saw the cop car rolling through the streets at this hour, he hoped they’d find it comforting. Patrick Riley, Cavus born and bred, was back in the saddle, folks. Nothing to worry about here.
To the right he saw the Thompson’s boot and leather repair shop and thought he should probably remember to get his own boots in soon for a resoling. He didn’t like to buy new boots often because he hated to break them in, and so he went through two or three soles a pair. Alexander Thompson knew this and took care to put on as sturdy a sole as he could for Riley and always threw in a free shoe polish.
The trees alongside the street were purely decorative, out of place in the natural sweeping plains of Montana. Still, Riley thought they were beautiful. He looked at them now, remembering how as a boy he’d come downtown at night and hidden with friends behind their shadows in rowdy games of tag.
Riley pulled his car into one of the slanted parking spaces along the street,
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