Perfectly Flawed (58 page)

Grandpa turns off the highway, still speeding
down the thin, deserted private road that only leads to four
different houses. We’re all quiet in the car, thinking separate
thoughts as Grandpa continues to drive down the long, winding road
while I concentrate my gaze on the brown-and-green blur blowing
past my window. He takes the first right, which is two miles away
from the highway, and follows that until it turns to a thinner dirt
road, one only used by family and the people he hires in the summer
to help with the land and horses.

The familiar white house glides into view as
we move through the trees and I notice that nothing has changed in
the few months since I last saw it. That was during the summer when
I get put to work, squealing like the pigs because it all scares
me.

I’m kind of weak on the farm.

“You’ll be a natural by the end of the
summer, Joey,” Grandpa told me the first time I cowered away from a
horse I was attempting to ride. I wasn’t, in fact that very
afternoon, I fell off the horse. Her name was Honey and she was the
most beautiful creature I’d ever seen, I just psyched myself out
and fell. Honey didn’t move, I swear, which makes it all worse, I
just somehow tilted and met the ground very quickly.

Needless to say, that was the end of my horse
riding dreams, if I ever had any. I spent the rest of the summer
brushing out the horses and mucking out the stalls, which wasn’t
very pleasant, but ride them, I did not.

The car parks in the garage attached to the
house, and we all scramble out, stretching our arms and legs out.
We grab the bags from the back and make our way inside the large
house.

Immediately entering the house, the
overwhelming scent of banana chocolate chip muffins floats through
the air and my mouth instantly waters.

We leave the bags by the stairs and gather in
the kitchen, Grammy and Hilary standing in the kitchen, Grandpa and
me sitting on the stools next to the island. The plate of muffins
sits on the island next to a bowl of flowers, and I sneak two
before Grammy can see, passing one to Grandpa, who winks at me. I
start peeling back the polka-dotted paper cup.

“So what do you want to do now that you’re
here?” Grammy looks at me, eyeing the muffin my hand as it slowly
inches toward my mouth, stopping in mid-air as her gaze traps me. I
sneak a glance at my grandfather, but his muffin has surprisingly
disappeared, his cheeks puffed out—presumably filled with food. He
reminds me of a squirrel.

I smile sheepishly, flushing, as she laughs
at me, grabbing a glass from the cupboard above the sink, and the
gallon of milk from the fridge. Grammy sets the glass of milk in
front of me and I take a bite of the delicious,
melts-in-your-mouth,
sweet baby Jesus, it’s still warm
dessert before I answer her question.

“Well…” I trail off, thinking of the only
thing that I have wanted to do since I boarded the plane at
Sea-Tac.

“Ah,” Aunt Hil interrupts me before I can
finish my thought aloud. “I know what that means, Mom.” All eyes
turn to me, the muffin completely devoured. I start drinking the
milk. “She wants to go to the cemetery.

“Can we?” I ask after swallowing. I set the
empty glass on the counter before I can hop down from the stool and
take it to the sink, rinsing out the glass. I leave the glass in
the sink out of habit. Grammy doesn’t bat an eye.

Hilary doesn’t hesitate. “Definitely.”

“Let me grab my keys, lovelies,” Grammy walks
toward the door that leads to the stairs. “We can all go.”

The cemetery is as empty as I remember, and
still creepy, but welcoming. I’ve been here many times before, I
try for at least four times a year; the start of the summer, the
end of the summer, the start of winter break, and the end of winter
break. Sometimes I’m here more than four times, some I only make it
twice. I always feel horrible when I leave.

Every time I look at those graves, I read
those names, and I hate myself for being here. I shouldn’t be here,
I don’t deserve it like them. They sacrificed themselves for me.
And I’m still here, I’m still living and breathing, and I get to
walk out of there.

In my hand is a bouquet of flowers I picked
out for my mom’s grave. My aunt is holding another bouquet for
Noah, and Grammy is holding one for Ivy. Grandpa is still in the
car, waiting for our return. He can’t handle the cemetery like I
can, but then again, I’d spend more time here if I lived anywhere
near it. Standing anywhere near here, although creepy, makes me
feel closer to them.

Hilary and Grammy wait in the car, giving me
a little alone time, like they usually do. I turn to the corner and
spot an elderly woman standing at the graves, staring down at Ivy
and Noah’s headstones.

She doesn’t hear me walk up and that gives me
time to look at her, because I don’t recognize her, and the only
people that visit these graves are people I know. Her hair is short
and white, curled and poofy. She’s wearing a dark blue dress and a
grey sweater. Wrinkles cover her face, hiding what was probably
beautiful once.

I step on a stick, cracking it beneath my
feet, which catches her attention. Cloudy blue eyes look to me,
pale and deep, and
familiar
.

“Who are you?” I blurt out when I notice her
turning around to face me. I can’t think of anything else to say as
her eyes laser in on me, freezing me where I stand. There’s
something cold in her stare, and it’s familiar.

“Who’re you?” the elderly woman snaps back,
anger and annoyance in her thick southern accented voice. “These
here are my grandchildren.”

“What?” I bark loudly in surprise, shocking
the woman standing in front of me. That may have been a bad idea, I
mean, we are in Texas, everyone is packing some sort of weapon to
protect themselves from nutcases. Well, everyone except me. “I-I
mean…” I stutter out, trying to save my outburst. Is this the
paternal grandmother I lived with, the woman I can’t remember?
Would it be wrong if I asked
her
why she lost custody of me.
As she stands in front of me, it becomes more obvious.

“Little Ivy and Noah,” she points out,
turning around, her gaze dropping to the headstones in front of
her. I walk up next to her, making sure to keep at least two feet
of space between us, staring at the names and dates I’ve stared at
and memorized throughout the years. “What kind of name is Nevaeh,
anyway? It’s a good thing it was her middle name.” As this woman
rambles, I can understand
more
why she lost custody of me.
“Someone killed them many years ago.” From that statement, how it
left her lips as casually, as if she were talking about the
weather, I don’t like her. I don’t want to look at her, I don’t
even want to listen to her as she tries to explain to
me
what happened
many years
ago, so I stare at the headstones,
reading the names etched into the thick stone.
Ivy Nevaeh
Archembault
.
Noah Jonathan Archembault
. “They locked up
my son for it; stupid people, those police are. Who could possibly
think that my son—my beloved, good baby—would murder his own
family?” I hear her stifle a sob.
Is this woman actually
crying?
I shake my head, facing forward to hide to roll of my
eyes, but I feel her gaze zero in on me. “You look familiar. Have I
seen you around town, dear?”

Don’t call me Dear
, I want to snap at
her.

Instead, I play it cool, pretending to be…
anyone else in the world, and saying, “Maybe.” I know, clever,
right? It’s a possibility with how much I visit my grandparents’
farm over the years that she could have seen me in town, at the
little diner where everyone remembers your face. Or at any of the
stores in town where the owners call you when they receive more of
your favorite type of candy, even when you don’t ask them to call
you. “I’ve just come to pay my respects.”
It’s
my
family
. I want to stake my claim, this is
my
territory.

“Well, pay that one there no mind. She
deserves no respect.” She points to my mother’s grave. “She ruined
this family.” I have to close my eyes and count to ten to prevent
myself from hitting this woman, yet again. “It’s her fault that
this happened to such wonderful—”

“
What the hell do you know about it,
lady?
” I snap, cutting her off before she can finish her
sentence. Crap! I shouldn’t have said that, I know that, but I was
just so caught up in the moment and tired of listening to her
badmouth my mother. This woman, whoever she is, doesn’t know who I
am and I don’t even know her name. It’s probably better to just
pretend that I don’t know who they are, that I’m just some random
local that heard of the tragedy and wanted to pay my respects. So I
shake my head to calm myself down. “I mean, what do you know about
what happened to them.” That’s better.

She barks out a laugh. “Well, their mother
was a whore, that one.” Those words are like a heated knife in my
heart, slicing through me. How can anyone speak of anyone else,
dead or alive, in such manner? Hasn’t she ever heard
Don’t speak
ill of the dead
, well, she’s speaking ill, over here. “She was
seeing some man on the side, cheatin’ on my Benji. Only, the other
man didn’t know.” Can I punch my grandmother in the face, please?
“When he did find out, which didn’t take long, he killed them;
broke into their house and everything. The Bitch”—I might beat this
woman with the flowers in my hand. I think my mother would like
that—“had kicked out my Benji, askin’ him for a divorce so she
could be with the other man. Well, the second man, like I said, he
wasn’t too happy with bein’ the second choice, so he killed her and
two of her kids. My poor grandbabies.” She feigns wiping away a
tear from beneath her left eye. “But one survived the attack.
Little Josie survived. Poor girl, she wouldn’t speak. Not to me,
not to the special doctors I took her to. That’s how the cops could
manipulate her to convince everyone that my Benji did it. She
wouldn’t even talk to her father when I took her to visit him.”

Wait a damn minute, whack job Granny—you did
what, now?

That sentence alone—
She wouldn’t even talk
to her father when I took her to visit him
—stops my heart,
mid-beat. It chills my bones; it freezes me in place, and I can’t
breathe.

“You took her to visit her father?” I ask
quietly, still processing that little information, what she just
said, in my mind. How could she do that, especially to a little
girl? I’m beyond the fact that it was me, I was the girl she
tricked. It’s just the fact that she only cared about her son, only
cared about what he wanted, what she thought he needed, not about
the little girl. And she claims to be the little girl’s
family
?

That disgusts me about this woman the most
that she doesn’t even care about that little girl.

“Tried,” she replies, shaking her head from
side to side. “That little thing believed what the cops was sayin’
and was too scared to see him. She was shakin’ like a leaf every
time I took her there.” And just when you think it couldn’t get any
worse, the woman says something like that, something that makes you
hate her more. “I had to be covert. She’d fall asleep in the back
of the car on a trip to the store and I would just drop everything
and take her to visit him. It’s what he wanted.”

My mouth drops open as I listen to her talk
about this so casually, like she doesn’t see anything wrong. A
little girl suffers a traumatic event and the paternal grandmother
of the victim cares more about her son seeing his daughter and his
happiness when he was the one who stabbed his daughter twelve
fucking times in the chest and back.

My scars hurt when she speaks, they burn and
sizzle with every word that leaves her mouth.

“What happened to her?” I ask quietly, trying
to figure out how much she knows about me, the girl standing next
to her today. “This Josie,” I ask, my hand gripping the flowers so
tight, I can feel the stems snapping in my palm.

The woman shrugs her shoulders sadly,
defeated. “State took her away from me a few years back. Said that
my Benji couldn’t see her, but he needed his family then. He needs
his family now.” She turns to me, looking directly at me, drilling
me with her gaze. “He needs the support of his one remainin’
daughter.” She turns back, facing forward again. “But they put her
with her momma’s sister. Another bastard, just like her.” I close
my eyes tight, fighting to urge the fight for my aunt, for my
family. “I’m still tryin’ to place ya, dear. What’s your name?”

Like I’d ever willingly tell you!

“Harley,” I answer quietly, loosening my grip
on the flowers. “Harley Davidson.” I could slap myself for using
the name of a friend who was named after a fairly well known
company but there isn’t any way in hell I’m telling this woman who
I am. Although, I should have used Kennie’s name, if she knows
anything about motorcycles, which I doubt she does, she’ll already
know it’s a fake name.

She ponders it for a moment. “I don’t know
any Harley,” she spits out, disgusted with the name. “What kind of
name is that, anyway? It’s almost as bad as Nevaeh.” She shakes her
head. “Benji wanted to name his oldest daughter Ivy Evangeline
after his little sister.”

“That’s a pretty name,” I tell her, not sure
what else to say right now other than
You watch your fucking
mouth, you crazy old hag!
I’m afraid that’s a bit much at the
moment.

“Yeah,” she answers quietly as her brain
drifts somewhere else. “Too bad Evangeline committed the biggest
sin. She killed herself when she was fourteen.”
Holy shit
.
“I never admit that out loud; don’t want the folks around her to
think I raised my kids wrong.”

Well, if that isn’t the understatement of the
millennia. I should tell her that she’s never being nominated for
Mother of the Year, nor Grandmother of the Year.