Lu definitely didn’t like this. The toughness Dave feigned was iron-clad in her voice. “Word taken.”
“So what if I told you that maybe I wasn’t entirely complete in my description of what happened there, that I might have left out the part of the story that I didn’t think you’d like very much? Say, hypothetically, well . . . you remember Malachi?”
It was the stupidest possible way I could have brought him up, but they were making me manic with their tense, stoic audience. Of course they remembered him. He’d tried to kill me. Twice.
Neither of them answered.
“Okay. So. Malachi. As I think we can all agree, he had some issues. But those issues sprung from a series of misconceptions he had—”
“Oh God,” Lu breathed. She’d already caught on, but I kept talking.
“And it is very, very safe to say that—in the swamp, at that batty old guy’s shack—those misconceptions were cleared up. Malachi even tried to help me. I won’t say he saved my life or anything, but he definitely helped. And once he realized how wrong he’d been, I . . . um . . . I might have pulled him out of the burning shack.”
“Oh God.” It was Dave’s turn.
“Well, sure, God. With Malachi, y’know, it was always ‘God this’ and ‘God that.’ He was hurt pretty badly and I had a moment where I couldn’t help helping him. And then I gave him over to Harry.”
“Harry.” They said it in stereo, and I knew they were both thinking back to the regularity with which Harry continued to call me.
“Sure. Harry. And Harry is . . . not exactly rehabilitating him, or anything, but Harry’s been keeping an eye on him for the last couple of years. And, yes, before you even ask, yes Malachi and I have been in semi-regular contact. And please don’t freak out or anything, but—”
“But?”
“But Harry’s bringing him over here tomorrow night because we’re all going to have supper together and it’s going to be lovely
I’ve heard about situations where people have heart attacks or strokes and death strikes them so swiftly that they remain upright for a time, and other people don’t know they’ve died because their eyes are still open. For about thirty seconds, I was afraid that this weird mishap had spontaneously struck both my aunt and uncle, that I had killed them both with the news of Malachi’s imminent arrival.
“Somebody say something,” I whispered.
They gave me another thirty seconds or so before Lu finally asked, in a cracking voice, “What time?”
“Six-ish.”
“Now, wait,” Dave said, but he said it slowly like he was still catching up—not like he intended to put his foot down. “Wait. This is. Wait.”
“Weird. Believe me, I know how weird it is. I’ve been thinking about how weird it is for years now. All kinds of weird. But at the end of the day, he’s had an enlightenment and a change of heart, and he is my half-brother.”
“Well, yes. Technically.” Lu said it like a disavowal.
“Technically, and literally. Like it or not.” Then it was my turn to disavow. “It’s not like we’re suddenly best friends or anything. It’s not like that at all. But he’s really fucking eager, you know? He wants to make it up to me; he’s got something to prove. He wants to be friends and . . . and, he’s alone, except for Harry. He’s got nobody but me, and while I realize that this is deeply screwed up, that’s the way it is. He’s coming tomorrow. And . . .”
Dave downed the last of the drink in a long swallow. “And?”
“And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to kill him. He’s harmless. I swear to God.”
“He tried to kill you.”
“Yes, but he was never any good at it.”
“What about that girl at the poetry slam? He killed her, Eden.” Lu had hardly touched the drink since I’d started talking, which was possibly a bad sign.
“It was an accident! Look, do you really think I don’t know how bad this is? Why do you think I’ve kept quiet all this time? Why do you think I haven’t said anything, that I just let Dave think I had a creepy long-distance thing going on with Harry?”
“I did kind of think that,” he confessed.
“I know you did. But hey, look on the bright side, right? I’m not having an affaire de coeur with a man old enough to be my grandfather.”
“Some bright side,” Lu grumbled.
“It’s a bright side. I didn’t say it was the brightest of all possible sides.”
Lu shook her head like she was still thinking and all this talking was distracting her. “Have you—have you seen him since then? Since Florida?”“Yes. Once. He came up here last year, but I kept him out of sight and sent him back to Florida.” I thought I might as well build up some trust by offering a partial confession.
“Oh God.”
“Lu, stop saying that.”
“Well, what do you want me to say? Seriously? Should we go out and buy some streamers? Should we throw him a party? Would that make you happy?” She was creeping up to shrillness, and I knew that the calm before the storm was just about over.
Dave put a hand on her arm and withdrew it, like her skin was burning hot.
“No, but I want you to be civil. I want you to let a little water flow under the bridge and give him a chance to say his piece. He’s pathetic, all right? I feel sorry for him, and I let myself get talked into this when I probably shouldn’t have, but it’s too late to do anything about it now.”
“The hell it is.” Lu put her glass down and stood. She put her face in her hands, then ran her hands back through her hair and faced me. “This is unbelievable!”
“I know. Just—I’m asking you, just be cool. Harry will be with him, and he’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. We’ll be fucked up and fine. It’s just supper, and he’ll be back on his way to Florida the next morning.”
“Water under the bridge,” she repeated. She turned away from me and Dave both and glared into the backyard.
“If I can forgive and forget, I’d hope you can too.”
“It’s different.”
“How?”
“It’s different because he tried to kill you. He tried to take you away from me. I don’t know how much forgiveness I’ve got left, and I sure as all get-out don’t know if there’s enough left in me to cover that.”
“Then don’t forgive him. I’m not asking you to like him, I’m asking you to tolerate him for an hour. Don’t do it for him, or because he deserves it. Do it for me, because I’m asking you to.”
“This is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”
Dave raised a finger like he might have wanted to argue, but his desire to interrupt was overruled by his reluctance to get between Lu and me.
“So? Something has to take that title. Let it be this—at least it’s something harmless.”
“Harmless.” She used the word again, throwing it back at me. “Harmless. And I guess that’s your call, isn’t it? You wouldn’t bring him here if you thought for a second he’d do anything to either of us, I know.”
“See? That’s more like it.”
“But you’ve been fooled before. And I don’t like it. I don’t like the idea of it, of him being here in this house. I don’t like it that you think this is okay. None of this is okay. None of it.”
I stood up then, too, because I wanted to be on eye level with her. I didn’t want her to stand there, looking down at me while she talked. “Jesus, Lu. If you’d just meet him, you wouldn’t be half so worried. He’s innocent and stupid. If you do this and you meet him, you’ll never worry again. You’ll never wonder.”
“I don’t want to wonder,” Dave finally joined in. “I’d rather see him and know—and if I don’t know the second I set eyes on him, I don’t want to go through with it. But I’d be willing to set eyes on him. I’d be willing to find out. Lu? I think we should. I think we should at least take a look at him.”
“So it’s both of you then, lining up against me?”
“No one’s against you,” I told her, and I meant it. “No one’s for or against anybody. That’s the thing—there’s no reason to struggle anymore. There’s no reason to feel that way anymore, and I want you to see it. I want you to know it, and to stop being afraid.”
Out of pure frustration, I went ahead and left it at that—taking my leave while the leaving was good. I picked up my still-mostly-full drink and went back into the house, and I tried not to listen as they continued the conversation without me. It was tough to resist the urge to go back out there and argue some more, but there was nothing else I could tell them. Malachi was coming one way or another, and they were going to have to get used to it.
Maybe Dave would calm Lu down, and maybe she’d rile him up.
They’d have to work it out without me.
12
The River Walk
Christ’s voice whispered hard over the connection, and into my voicemail box.
“I found Ann Alice’s body. Not in the old furniture place, but up in the undersides. I wouldn’t have recognized her except for the old Smurfette tattoo on her wrist. You can barely see it anymore. She’s . . . I don’t know. I don’t know what could’ve done this to her. But nobody cares.”
He’d hung up then. The callback number was one I didn’t recognize, probably a payphone. He must have called overnight, when I had the phone turned off. He must be in trouble, or he wouldn’t bother.
I knew what he meant by “undersides.” Lots of us downtown people knew about the undersides—the place where the city’s water runoff drains down into the Tennessee River. You have to know where it is to find it, but if you know how to find it, it’s plenty big enough to climb up inside. Some people talk about it like it’s the Underground, down in Atlanta. But it isn’t. It’s just some water runoff tunnels and a few hollow places underneath the city where there used to be roads.