in, Morgan.”
“Did you get my ticket?” Morgan said, changing the subject.
Caren didn’t want to have this conversation right now.
“Get in the car,” she said.
Morgan pouted openly. She climbed into the backseat, tossing her backpack across the floor, and didn’t speak again until they were ten miles outside of Laurel Springs. She kept her eyes glued to the passing landscape, lined with bookstores and gun shops and roadside stands selling oysters on ice, which eventually gave way to naked Louisiana swampland, as they rode shotgun alongside the river. Morgan put a finger on the cool glass of her window, lifting it every few seconds to see the patch of heat and sweat left behind, then pressing down again.
“You promised,” is all she said.
Caren glanced at her daughter’s face in the rearview mirror.
Morgan was still carrying some of her baby fat, which softened what would otherwise be duplicates of Caren’s own sharp features, the L-shaped jawline and cheeks like two wide conch shells beneath the skin, the heart-shaped hairline passed down from her mother. It used to embarrass Caren, how much they looked alike, as if she’d huddled alone in a dark room and sculpted the child from her own flesh. It seemed greedy, like she was taking more than her fair share. These days, Caren wore her hair long, tightly pulled and pomaded into a cottony ponytail or a single chignon-like braid on event nights. Morgan, on the other hand, had demanded to wear her hair short for as long as Caren could remember, even attempting to cut it herself when she was only four years old. Even then she seemed to sense that where a line couldn’t be drawn between them, only heartache and trouble would follow. In that way, she was a lot smarter than her mother, Caren thought. Now, at nearly ten, Morgan wore her curls in a short, floppy ’fro, pushed back by a headband—but she’d also been trying a myriad of different styles, pin curls one week, a flatiron the next, long afternoons spent in front of the bathroom mirror. Caren loved her desperately. To date, theirs was the most enduring relationship of her life, and one she was determined not to fuck up. This job, this life way the hell out in the country, it was all for Morgan, she told herself daily.
Morgan saw it differently.
She was presently in the early stages of a growing resentment about their living arrangements, especially the distance from her father. She would sometimes go days without talking, often alarming her teachers and the few school friends she’d made. The school’s staff sent home notes, worried over her shy and withdrawn nature. But Caren knew better. Morgan could be quite charming when she wanted to be, winsome even, when she wanted someone’s attention. At Belle Vie, that usually meant Lorraine, but especially Donovan. She had probably seen The Olden Days of Belle Vie at least fifty times, and Donovan’s part she could recite by heart, from start to weepy finish. Caren had long suspected that Morgan was developing something of a schoolgirl crush on Donovan—harmless but for the fact that it further signaled the limits of her maternal influence. She had dreams in those days of following her daughter through an endless series of rooms, round and round short corridors, walking in a tight, coiling circle.
“ ’Cakes,” she said.
They were almost to Modeste, and she was running out of time.
“I need to talk to you about something, okay? Something important.”
Morgan was busy tracing her finger along the rear window’s glass. She didn’t even look at her mother. “There’s been an incident at Belle Vie,” Caren said, because she couldn’t immediately think of another way to put it. “Someone’s been hurt badly.”
In the rearview mirror, she caught her daughter’s eye.
“What happened?”
“Somebody died.”
In the backseat, Morgan was silent a moment. “Oh,” she said finally.
“There’ll be police officers there when we get home,”
“Did you get my ticket?” Morgan said, changing the subject.
Caren didn’t want to have this conversation right now.
“Get in the car,” she said.
Morgan pouted openly. She climbed into the backseat, tossing her backpack across the floor, and didn’t speak again until they were ten miles outside of Laurel Springs. She kept her eyes glued to the passing landscape, lined with bookstores and gun shops and roadside stands selling oysters on ice, which eventually gave way to naked Louisiana swampland, as they rode shotgun alongside the river. Morgan put a finger on the cool glass of her window, lifting it every few seconds to see the patch of heat and sweat left behind, then pressing down again.
“You promised,” is all she said.
Caren glanced at her daughter’s face in the rearview mirror.
Morgan was still carrying some of her baby fat, which softened what would otherwise be duplicates of Caren’s own sharp features, the L-shaped jawline and cheeks like two wide conch shells beneath the skin, the heart-shaped hairline passed down from her mother. It used to embarrass Caren, how much they looked alike, as if she’d huddled alone in a dark room and sculpted the child from her own flesh. It seemed greedy, like she was taking more than her fair share. These days, Caren wore her hair long, tightly pulled and pomaded into a cottony ponytail or a single chignon-like braid on event nights. Morgan, on the other hand, had demanded to wear her hair short for as long as Caren could remember, even attempting to cut it herself when she was only four years old. Even then she seemed to sense that where a line couldn’t be drawn between them, only heartache and trouble would follow. In that way, she was a lot smarter than her mother, Caren thought. Now, at nearly ten, Morgan wore her curls in a short, floppy ’fro, pushed back by a headband—but she’d also been trying a myriad of different styles, pin curls one week, a flatiron the next, long afternoons spent in front of the bathroom mirror. Caren loved her desperately. To date, theirs was the most enduring relationship of her life, and one she was determined not to fuck up. This job, this life way the hell out in the country, it was all for Morgan, she told herself daily.
Morgan saw it differently.
She was presently in the early stages of a growing resentment about their living arrangements, especially the distance from her father. She would sometimes go days without talking, often alarming her teachers and the few school friends she’d made. The school’s staff sent home notes, worried over her shy and withdrawn nature. But Caren knew better. Morgan could be quite charming when she wanted to be, winsome even, when she wanted someone’s attention. At Belle Vie, that usually meant Lorraine, but especially Donovan. She had probably seen The Olden Days of Belle Vie at least fifty times, and Donovan’s part she could recite by heart, from start to weepy finish. Caren had long suspected that Morgan was developing something of a schoolgirl crush on Donovan—harmless but for the fact that it further signaled the limits of her maternal influence. She had dreams in those days of following her daughter through an endless series of rooms, round and round short corridors, walking in a tight, coiling circle.
“ ’Cakes,” she said.
They were almost to Modeste, and she was running out of time.
“I need to talk to you about something, okay? Something important.”
Morgan was busy tracing her finger along the rear window’s glass. She didn’t even look at her mother. “There’s been an incident at Belle Vie,” Caren said, because she couldn’t immediately think of another way to put it. “Someone’s been hurt badly.”
In the rearview mirror, she caught her daughter’s eye.
“What happened?”
“Somebody died.”
In the backseat, Morgan was silent a moment. “Oh,” she said finally.
“There’ll be police officers there when we get home,”
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