Page 41
"No. No children. "
"Good. Then you're the last of them. "
But she'd answered the wrong question. I asked it more directly while I still had her attention. I wanted to draw my face away from hers but I couldn't. It might have broken the spell, and the right question had not yet been aired.
"Tatie," I tried again, "It isn't true, is it? I'm not Avery, am I?"
Despite my best efforts, my words carried a tinge of fear that made her smile. I loathed myself for requiring this weird, uncomfortable intimacy, but what else was I to do? Lulu said Eliza knew, and I had Eliza talking. She might not be telling me the truth, but she was at least giving me something to chew on.
"Malachi thinks you are," she finally responded.
"What do you think?"
"Doesn't matter. So long as Malachi believes you are. You're the last, and when you're gone . . . " Her words petered away. Her slitted eye closed and she exhaled, long and warm so close to my face. Then she drew in a shallower breath and her body drooped, her head lolling against the chair's winged sides. Her wrist went limp and the remaining gin and water dripped onto the floor.
"Tatie?"
She did not reply.
I stood and stretched, leaning my back to crack the kinks out and returning to the photo. I turned it over and pried the frame loose to remove the picture, fully intending to cut Rachel out of it at a later date. I deserved one picture of my father, didn't I?
When I turned around to leave, Harry was standing in the doorway. He must have seen me take the picture, but he said nothing to indicate that he planned to do anything about it.
I waved at the softly snoring old woman in the chair. "She fell asleep. "
Harry nodded. "I'll see to her. "
"Hey, Harry?"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"There's a cemetery near here, right? A family plot?"
"Leave to your right, out of the driveway. Go up the hill—you can't miss it. "
"Thank you, Harry. "
"You're welcome, ma'am. Ma'am?"
"Yes?"
"She wasn't too hard on you, was she?"
I grinned, clutching the picture to my chest. "Nothing I couldn't handle. "
6
Up the Road a Piece
Maybe the old coot was right. Maybe Malachi wason his way. I went ahead and left her there, sleeping in her oversized chair, but it wasn't because I was afraid of him. I'm afraid of some things—spiders, drowning, needles, and the like. But I'm not afraid of Malachi. He simply isn't intimidating, even with his True Faith to bolster his aggression. He hides behind God and guns, and ineptly at that. It can't have been more than luck that caused him to kill Terry. He was a terrible shot when I was a kid, and I didn't think he'd spent much time practicing his aim in prison.
It must be hard for him. He believed so firmly that he was right, and that his mission was blessed, but he failed at every turn. What did it say about him that he tried so hard? He was either very devout or very stupid, I figured. More likely a sampling of both.
I almost felt like I owed him fear. He'd worked so hard to kill me, the least I could do was be just a tad nervous. But no. I couldn't muster it. The best I could do was summon up a healthy sense of caution, and toss him a minor, grudging respect for his persistence.
Tatie would certainly tell him I'd been to see her, but I hadn't given her any indication of where I might be headed, so it wasn't as if she could point him my way. She might be able to guess about the cemetery because of my questions, but beyond the cemetery, even I didn't know where I was going. I was almost disappointed that my quest had ended so quickly. I hadn't found all my answers, but I had found my father. That was more than I might have expected.
As for Avery and his mysterious book, it might be better to decide that Lulu was right and it didn't matter. Let the dead who can sleep lie undisturbed.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41 (Reading here)
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86