Grave Secret (4 page)

“How are you?” Tolliver asked pleasantly.

“I’m feeling wonderful,” Iona said, and our mouths fell open at the same moment. We’d never heard Iona say anything remotely like that. “Hank’s arthritis is acting up,” she continued, oblivious to our reaction, “but he can get up and go to work, thank God.” Iona worked at Sam’s Club part-time, and Hank was the manager of the meat department at a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

“How have the girls been doing in school?” I asked, my standard fallback question. I was still trying not to look at Tolliver, because I knew he was just as floored as I was. Iona was preceding us into the kitchen, where we usually had our conversations. Iona saved the living room for real company.

“Mariella’s been doing pretty good. She’s a middle-of-the-road-type student,” Iona said. “Gracie, they always say she’s a little behind where she ought to be. You two want some coffee? I’ve got the pot on.”

“That would be great,” I said. “I take it black.”

“I remember,” she said with a sharp edge to her voice, as if I’d accused her of being a bad hostess. That sounded more like the Iona I knew, and I felt a little more comfortable.

“And I take mine with some sugar,” Tolliver said. While her back was to us, he looked at me and raised his eyebrows. Something was up with Iona.

In short order, a mug was in front of him, and a sugar bowl and a spoon and a napkin. I was served second, and I got the plain mug. Iona poured herself some coffee, too, and settled herself in the chair closest to the coffeepot in a way that indicated she was really, really tired. For a minute or two, she didn’t speak. She seemed to be thinking hard about something. The table was round, and there was a pile of mail in the middle. I automatically scanned it: phone bill, cable bill, a handwritten letter protruding from its envelope. The handwriting looked sort of familiar in an unpleasant way.

“I’m wore out,” Iona said. “I been on my feet at work for six hours straight.” Iona was wearing a T-shirt and khakis and sneakers. Clothes had never been a priority for her the way they had been for my mother, until she’d stopped caring about anything at all but the drugs and where they’d come from next. I felt an unexpected flash of sympathy for Iona.

“That’s hard on the body,” I said, but she wasn’t listening.

“Here come the girls,” she said, and then my ears caught what hers had already registered: the sound of footsteps outside the garage door.

Our sisters burst into the room and tossed their backpacks against the wall right under a coatrack. They hung their jackets on the coatrack and took their shoes off to park beside the backpacks. I wondered how long it had taken Iona to establish those habits.

The next second, I was taken up with examining my sisters. They’ve always changed when I see them. It takes me a minute to absorb it. Mariella is twelve years old now, and Gracie is just over three years younger.

The girls were surprised to see us, but not startled. I didn’t know if Iona had even warned them we were stopping by to see them. Mariella and Gracie hugged us dutifully, but without enthusiasm. I wasn’t surprised at that, given how Iona had tried hard to get the girls to regard us as unnecessary and maybe even bad. And since they didn’t remember Cameron, I knew their memories of the trailer had to be faint or nonexistent.

For their sakes, I hoped so.

Mariella was starting to look more like a girl and less like a sack of flour. She had brown hair and eyes, and was square-built like her father. Gracie had always been small for her age, and she’d always been moodier than Mariella. She kissed me voluntarily, which was a first.

It’s always hard to get comfortable with our sisters. It’s uphill work, reestablishing a bond that has always been tenuous. They sat at the table with us and the woman who’d been a mother to them, and they answered questions, and they acted pleased with their little presents. We always got them a book apiece to encourage them to read, a pastime that wasn’t the norm in the Gorham household. But we generally got them something else, too, something cute to wear in their hair or little trinkets, something frivolous. It was hard not to light up like a Christmas tree when Mariella said, “Oh, I read the other two books this lady wrote! Thanks!” I kept my “You’re welcome” down to a pleased smile.

Gracie didn’t speak, but she smiled at us. That was the more significant because she’s not a smiley girl. She doesn’t look a thing like Mariella; but then, my sister and I hadn’t looked alike, either. Gracie looks like a little elf: she has greenish eyes, long wispy pale hair, an aggressive little nose, and a cupid’s bow mouth.

Maybe I’m not a kid person. I find Gracie more interesting than Mariella, though this confession sounds simply cold. For all I know, real mothers have secret favorites, too. I’m pretty sure I don’t show this partiality. I’m waiting for Mariella to do something that interests me, and I was delighted that she was happy about the book. If Mariella turned out to be a reader, I’d find a way to connect with her. Gracie had been so sick, at the same time I’d been sick. It had been the unstable taking care of the weak; I’d been laid low by being struck by lightning, and Gracie had had chronic chest and breathing problems.

“Are you a bad woman, Aunt Harper?” Gracie asked. The question came completely out of the blue.

This “aunt” business had originated with Iona, who’d thought we were so much older than our sisters that they ought to address us with respect. But that wasn’t why I was so dumbfounded. “I try not to be bad,” I said, to buy some time until I found out what had prompted that question.

Iona made herself mighty busy with her coffee, stirring it with a spoon over and over. I could feel my mouth clamp down in anger, and I was trying to keep the bitter words inside. After a moment, it became clear Iona was going to act like she wasn’t involved in the conversation, so I went on. “I try to be honest with the people I work for,” I said. “I believe in God.” (Not the same God Iona worshipped, apparently.) “I work hard and I pay my taxes. I’m the best person I can be.” And this was all true.

“Because if you take money from people and you can’t really do what you say you can do, that’s bad, right?” Gracie said.

“It sure is,” Tolliver said. “That’s called fraud. And it’s something Harper and I would never, never do.” His dark eyes drilled holes in Iona. Gracie looked at her adoptive mother, too. I was sure they were seeing two different people.

Iona was still not meeting our eyes, still stirring the damn coffee.

Hank came in the garage door then, which was good timing. Hank was a big man, with a broad, high-complexioned face and thinning blond hair. He’d been very handsome when he was younger, and he was a good-looking man still, now that he’d reached forty. His waist was barely thicker than it had been when he and Iona had married.

“Harper, Tolliver! Good to see you! We don’t see you-all enough.”

Liar.

He kissed the top of Gracie’s head and chucked Mariella under the chin. “Hey, you two!” he said to the girls. “Mariella, how was that spelling test today?”

Mariella said, “Hey, Daddy! I got eight out of ten right.”

“That’s my girl,” Hank said. He was pouring some Coca-Cola out of a two-liter bottle. He chunked a few ice cubes into the glass and pulled up a folding chair that stood beside the refrigerator. “Gracie, did you have a good time in chorus today?”

“We sang good,” she said. She seemed relieved to be on familiar conversational ground.

If Hank had noticed the tense atmosphere in the tiny kitchen, he didn’t comment on it.

“How are you two doing?” he asked me. “Find any good bodies lately?” Hank had always talked about our livelihood as if it were a big joke.

I smiled back faintly. “A few,” I said. Evidently, Hank didn’t read the newspapers or watch the news on television. I’d been mentioned more often than I wanted to be in the past month.

“Where you traveled to?” Hank also thought it was amusing that Tolliver and I were always on the road, pursuing this strange living of ours. Hank had been out of Texas when he was in the army, but that was the extent of his traveling experience.

“We were in the mountains of North Carolina,” Tolliver said. He paused to see if either Iona or Hank would pick up on the reference to our last, most notorious, case.

Nope.

“Then we went to another job between here and Texarkana, in Clear Creek. Now here we are in Garland to see you-all.”

“Any big news in the corpse-finding business?” Again with the teasing smile.

“We have other news,” Tolliver said, irritated by Hank’s facetiousness. This happened every time. Every damn time. I looked at Tolliver, saw the intent way his eyes were focused on Hank.

Uh-oh
, I thought.

“You found you a girlfriend and you’re going to settle down!” Hank said jocularly, since Tolliver’s lack of a steady girlfriend had long been the subject of many pointed jokes from both Iona and her husband.

“As a matter of fact, I have,” Tolliver said, and the smile on his face made me close my eyes. It was bright and hard.

“Well, listen to that, girls! Your uncle Tolliver has got himself a girl! Who is she, Tol?”

My brother hated it when someone abbreviated his name.

“Harper,” Tolliver said. He reached across the table and took my hand. And we waited.

“Your . . .” Iona almost said “sister,” but recalled the word in time. “But . . . you two?” She looked from me to Tolliver. “That’s just not right,” she said hesitantly. “You two . . .”

“Are not related,” I said, smiling brightly at my aunt.

The girls were looking from one adult to another, confused.

“You’re my sister,” Mariella said suddenly.

“Yep,” I said, smiling at her.

“Tolliver is my brother,” she said clearly.

“Also true. But we’re not related to each other. You understand that, right? I had a different mom and dad from Tolliver.”

“So,” said Gracie, “you gonna get married?” She looked pleased. Confused, but pleased.

Tolliver looked across the table at me. His smile gentled. “I hope so,” he said.

“Oh, boy! Can I be in the wedding?” Mariella said. “My friend Brianna was in her sister’s wedding. Can I wear a long dress? Can I get my hair done? Brianna’s mom let her wear lipstick. Can I wear lipstick, Mom?”

“Mariella, we may not have a big wedding,” I said, since I could guarantee that wasn’t going to happen. “We may just go to a justice of the peace. So it might not be in a church, and I wouldn’t wear a long white dress.”

“But whatever we do, you can be there, and you can wear whatever you want,” Tolliver said.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Iona said, sounding thoroughly disgusted. “You two got no business getting married! And if you do, which God forbid, Mariella and Gracie sure wouldn’t be there!”

“Why not?” Tolliver asked, in that dangerous voice. “They’re our family.”

“It just ain’t right,” Hank said, his face serious, giving us the correct and final verdict on our relationship. “You two was raised too close for comfort.”

“We’re not related by blood,” I said, “and we’ll get married when we want to.” Then I realized I’d been sucked into the argument much further than I’d counted on. Tolliver was grinning at me. I closed my eyes.

Apparently Tolliver had just proposed and I had just accepted.

“Well,” said Iona, her lips pursed in the old Iona way, “we got us some news, too.”

“Oh, what is it?” I was willing to be interested. I was willing to dispel the angry atmosphere that had made my sisters so unhappy. I made myself smile at my aunt to show a decent anticipation.

“Hank and I are gonna have a baby,” Iona said. “The girls will have a little brother or sister.”

After a long moment of intense struggle not to blurt out, “After all these years?” I managed to say, “Oh, what great news! Girls, aren’t you excited?”

Tolliver’s hand found mine under the table and gripped it hard. We’d never considered that Iona and Hank might have a baby of their own, and, speaking for myself, I’d never been curious about why they didn’t have any. In fact, I’d just regarded the two as inconvenient irritants who got in our way when we wanted to see our sisters. However, they were mighty convenient when it came to doing the day-to-day care for those two little girls, who were no walk in the park to deal with.

In a flash of clarity, I realized all this, and I knew we couldn’t possibly interfere with Iona and Hank’s relationship with the girls now. I looked into Mariella’s face and saw the uncertainty there. Neither she nor Gracie needed any other problems to handle at the moment. The girls were trying to feel happy about the baby, but they’d been thrown for a serious loop.

I could sympathize.

AT
the Texas Roadhouse the next night, we’d already put our name on the list for a table when Mark arrived. Mark looks like he’s Tolliver’s brother, all right; they have the same cheekbones, the same chin, the same brown eyes. But Mark is shorter, thicker, and (an observation I have kept to myself) not nearly as smart as Tolliver.