Archer Sullivan’s stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Tough, Reckon Review, and Rock and a Hard Place, among others. A ninth-generation Appalachian who is proud of her roots and homesick for the hills, her crime fiction is hard-boiled and country-fried.
I watch my mother dig. I listen to the scrape of the shovel—a loud SHINK—in the moist, sandy soil. She grunts as she gets another shovelful and tosses it over her shoulder. The dirt falls in a clumpy shower.
Shink, grunt, pitter-patter. Shink. Grunt. Pitter-Patter.
My mother is strong because she is a woman who has lived her whole life in the mountains and has pulled a plow with her own body. She has carried babies and carried groceries and carried lambs fresh born and later, in pieces, from the butcher.
The night is dark but I see her in the light of the moon. Her hair is a gossamer blond streaked—already—with white and pulled back from her face with a bandanna. There is dirt on her cheek, her clothes, her hands.
I shift to look closer at the hole she is digging and my mother says, “No. Stay right there, sugar. Keep an eye on Jasper.”
Jasper is my little brother. I am nine. He is four.
Jasper sleeps in the back seat of our car. His seat belt is off and he is lying down, curled up under a Batman blanket. I am leaning against the back door, watching, as my mother digs.
I do not know yet—but will figure out soon—what my mother is doing, or why. I do not know, yet, about the man in the diner, the things he said, the things my mother did.
What I see now, as I lean against the car and listen to my mother dig, is the form of a person wrapped in the blanket we always kept in the trunk of the car.
What I think is that the man in the blanket—which is a pale peach color but stained from years of use before I was even born—looks like a burrito. What I think is that I would like to go to Taco Bell.
“Mamma,” I say.
SHINK. Grunt. Pitter-Patter.
“Yeah, sugar?”
“Can we go to Taco Bell?”
She laughs. It is the first time I have heard her laugh since she picked me up from Noma’s—mine and Jasper’s grandma—and her laugh is very soft and very tired sounding. My mother has a laugh that rolls out of her mouth like an echo of her heartbeat. Huh-haaah. Huh-haah. Huh-haaah.
Her laughter rolls on into the shinks and grunts as she goes back to digging.
Eventually, she says, “Maybe.”
Encouraging. Hopeful, I say, “They stay open late.” I know this is true because I have seen it in commercials.
“Maybe,” she says again, looking not at me but at the bottom of the hole.
I look up at the stars and try to find the Big Dipper, which I have learned about in school and from a book that we got from the library. I have learned about stars and planets and I have asked for a telescope for Christmas even though I know that they are expensive.
“Cheaper than a bike,” I have said more than once. “And safer.”
Shink. Grunt. Pitter-patter.
I look back at my mother. She is waist-deep in what I now understand is a grave. I feel tired but I do not want to sit down. Sitting down, for some reason, feels like a betrayal. Like I am lazy while she digs a grave.
I look over at the burrito man. I can see the bottoms of his shoes poking out from the end of the burrito like a couple of shiny black olives. The shoes look barely worn, the soles hard and slick-looking. The men I have known in my life—my uncle, Jerry, my Pop-Pop, even my teacher, Mister Davies—have all worn work shoes. Real shoes. There are treads on the bottom and there are worn-in places, faded and chewed up.
There is nothing on this man’s shoes. No sign of life lived in them.
“Mamma,” I say when my mother is hip-deep in the grave.
“Yeah, sugar?”
“Where are we?”
Shink. Grunt. Pitter-patter.
Shink. Grunt. Pitter-patter.
“Mamma?” I say again.
“I heard you,” she says. She is breathing heavy. She pauses a moment and I look at the shovel in her grip. I think her hands must be aching. My mother has tough hands, I tell myself. They are thick-skinned on the bottoms and soft and veiny on the tops and they smell like coffee and dish soap. My mother can carry a hot, hot plate without even a pot holder. She does it every day at the diner. Every night at home. Still, I think, it has been hours.
“I feel like,” she says, wiping her forehead with the back of her wrist, “it’s maybe better if you don’t know where we are.”
“Oh,” I say. Shink. Grunt. Pitter-patter. “Because I was thinking we’re in Amber and Matthew’s cornfield.”
I watch my mother push down a smile and carry on shoveling.
I go to school with Amber and her brother, Matthew. My mother works with Amber and Matthew’s mother at the diner and I know that Amber and Matthew’s daddy is planting tomorrow. I know because Amber and Matthew got to ride along when their daddy harrowed the field and they told me today that the weather is right and that tomorrow is planting day.
“Tomorrow is planting day,” I echo.
Shink. Grunt. Pitter-patter.
If we are in Amber and Matthew’s cornfield, then we are not far from home. Only two roads over. I could almost walk home if I took the path through the woods. My aunt Mellie will be there, at home. Mellie is my mother’s sister, who lives with us. Or we live with her. I’m not sure.
We live together.
Mellie stays up late watching shows on the laptop. She is probably watching a show right now, I think. Probably one of her cop shows. Mellie likes shows with dead bodies.
I look again at the burrito man.
I see now, when I hadn’t seen before, that one of his hands is poking out from the burrito, just a little bit. Enough. On his finger is a gold ring.
I stare at the gold ring in the high, pale moonlight, and I jump because, as I stare at it, it moves.
“Mamma,” I say.
Shink. Grunt. Pitter-patter.
“Mamma,” I say.
Shink. “Yeah, sugar?” Grunt. Pitter-patter.
“Mamma, I think that man’s hand just moved.”
And as I say it, the burrito wobbles. A groan comes from inside it.
My mother sighs and climbs out of the hole. She is still wearing her diner uniform, minus the apron, which is a pair of black scratchy pants and a yellow scratchy shirt. The shirt is covered with dirt now. And something else.
“Look away, sugar,” my mother says.
“Mamma,” I say.
“Look back at Jasper,” she says.
She is dragging the shovel out of the hole behind her.
“Keep an eye on him, alright?”
“Okay,” I say. And I turn away.
I look inside the back seat at my little brother who has hair as gold and pretty as our mother’s. He has the blanket up to his chin and he is sucking his thumb.
Behind me, I hear the CLANG of the metal shovel and the SQUISH of something wet. My heart is beating hard. My tummy hurts. I keep on looking at Jasper.
“You sure you don’t wanna crawl in there and get some sleep?” my mother asks me. Her voice is thin and panting.
“No,” I say. But I’m still turned away from her. “No, I want to stay with you.”
I was asleep when we arrived here, in Amber and Matthew’s field. I do not know where the burrito man came from, how he got to be rolled up in the blanket, lying in a turned field. I do not recognize his shoes or his hands or his smell.
Shink. Grunt. Pitter-patter.
My mother keeps on digging. She has always said any job worth doing is worth doing right. She is burying this burrito man under the moon in the middle of the cornfield and I know that she will not stop until she gets the hole deep enough so critters won’t smell him. So Amber and Matthew’s daddy will come out in the morning—probably only a couple hours away—and drill his sweet corn right on top.
Shink. Grunt. Pitter-patter.
I am tired and I know she must be too. She worked all day today and then picked us up, dropped us off at Noma’s, went back out, came back to get us. Just like Jasper, I fell asleep in the car from Noma’s, as I often do.
And then I woke up. And my mother was digging a hole in Amber and Matthew’s cornfield with a burrito man lying on the ground behind her.
She is more than hip-deep now and there is a blotch like Fire Sauce on the far end of the burrito. She stops. She breathes out the word, “Okay.” She crawls out of the hole again, bringing the shovel with her. She sits down for a few small, panting seconds. She looks at the shovel, the burrito man, me.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say.
I am nine, I think. And probably not okay. This is not the kind of thing Amber and Matthew are doing right now. But I am smarter and more serious than Amber and Matthew. This is what my mother has said and I know that it is true.
“Yeah,” I say again. “I’m okay.”
My mother nods and puts her hand beside her in the dirt and heaves herself up to her feet and goes to stand behind the burrito man. She heaves a sigh and kneels and gets the edge of the burrito blanket. She tugs hard but nothing happens. She tugs again, lets out a big grunt. Nothing.
My mother is tired.
She gets up even before any of the rest of us. Even when it is still sleepy early. My mother rises in darkness. She does it for us.
I push off the car and go to stand beside her. She does not argue this time. I wrap my hands around the blanket edge. Hold tight. I had forgotten that the blanket edge is satin. Its softness in my sweating hands surprises me.
“Okay?” my mother says.
“Yeah.”
Together, we pull. The burrito man budges but not much else. We both take heavy breaths. Again, I see the burrito man’s shoes. The slick, shiny, unused black reflecting the night.
My mother says, “One. Two.”
I grip the blanket harder, stand like my mother is standing, try to dig the heels of my sneakers into the loose soil.
When she says, “Three,” we pull.
The burrito unwraps itself and the man rolls into the grave.
“Don’t look, sugar,” my mother says.
But I do look. I do not see his face. Only the back of his head. His hair is a plain acorn brown and he is wearing a fancy jacket like the ones the lawyers wear in my Aunt Mellie’s dead body shows.
My mother says, “Oh.” And she gets back into the grave and kneels and comes back up with a fat brown leather wallet. She puts it in her own back pocket, climbs out of the grave.
My mother shovels dirt back into the hole. This putting back is easier than taking out. Faster.
Skish. Pat-pat-patter. Skish. Pat-pat-patter.
My mother is rushing, hurrying on. It must be very late, I think. Maybe not even Taco Bell is open now. Skish. Pat-pat-patter. And the stars have shifted above. I try to find the Big Dipper again and do. Skish. Pat-pat-patter.
Soon, she is finished. She looks around at the messy dirt. She rakes the shovel through the area again, hacks at it a little, spreading out the loose soil. She is trying to make it all match, I think. Trying to make it look like nothing was ever dug or buried here in the middle of the night.
“Okay,” she says when she is finished. “Sugar, go get in the car with Jasper.”
I mind her and I watch as she picks up the burrito blanket and folds it, makes the Fire Sauce blotch disappear into the square of dirty, peachy fabric. Jasper stirs as I open the door and the light comes on.
“What … are we home?” he asks.
“Not yet,” I say. “Almost.”
He closes his eyes again as I slide into the passenger seat up front. He puts his thumb back into his mouth and says around it, “I’m hungry.”
“We’ll get something when we get home. Put your seat belt back on.”
He falls asleep again. I get out, open his door, pull the seat belt out, pull it around him and his blanket while he whines and fights me. I click it closed and let him lay back against the seat, his head lolling onto the doorframe as soon as I’ve closed it.
I go back to the front.
Behind us, I listen as my mother opens the trunk. The shovel and blanket go inside. She closes it with a soft thud and then walks around to the front of the car. She slides a dark blue sweater off of the seat back and pulls it on over her dirty yellow work shirt. She gets in behind the wheel, starts the car, puts her hand on the gearshift. She is shivering.
We do not talk about what has just happened. Why. What led us here. I realize, much later, that we never will. This night is as thin and sharp as a dream. It always will be.
We pull away from the edge of the field, away from the trees under which we’ve been parked, and back onto the road. We drive just a little ways.
And then there are the lights.
Red and blue. Flashing.
My mother gasps. There are tears in her eyes as she pulls to the shoulder. It seems a forever long time until a man in a black outfit comes walking toward her side of the window. She has already rolled it down. She looks in the mirror and wipes a smudge of dirt from her cheek.
The man in the black outfit—OFFICER SALISBURY it says on his badge—shines a light into the car. We blink at it.
“Evening, Officer,” my mother says. Her diner voice.
Officer Salisbury says to my mother that she has a taillight out.
“Oh …” my mother says. “I didn’t know.”
He looks at both of us, at Jasper in the back seat. My heart goes, TUMTUMTUMTUMTUMTUMTUMTUM. There are no downbeats. No calm beats. Just hammering. I am sweating. I swing my feet and feel something that I had not noticed before. A hard thing. Like a box or a case. I tell myself not to look at the thing. Only Officer Salisbury. Only smile. Be good.
TUMTUMTUMTUM.
“Out awful late, ain’t ya?” he says.
My mother’s mouth opens into a silent, awful O and she is still shivering.
TUMTUMTUMTUMTUMTUMTUM.
I open my own mouth.
“It’s for homework,” I say.
“Homework?” he asks.
“We’re learning about stars,” I say. “I was trying to find the Big Dipper. I want a telescope for Christmas and—”
But he nods and taps the roof of our car and says, “Get the taillight fixed.”
And he walks away.
Tears go sliding down my mother’s face.
TUM-TEE-TUM—Tee-Tum-tee-tum.
“Mamma,” I say.
“Yeah, sugar.”
“Let’s go home.”
She nods. We get home and she is carrying Jasper in and Mellie opens the door for us.
“We were here all night,” my mother says to Mellie, “Except a few minutes to see the stars.” It’s just a statement. Like saying, “We had roast beef for dinner,” but instead, “We were here all night.” A lie that sounds so regular it might as well be truth.
“Okay,” Mellie says, adjusting her reality around my mother’s words. Behind her, on the laptop, a woman in a gray jacket is talking to a man in a blue jacket. They are looking at a dead body on a table. He is lying half under a clean white sheet. His feet are covered.
It is months later that I am sitting on the porch with Amber and Matthew. It’s their porch and we are shucking corn together while Jasper catches crawdads in the creek a little ways down the hill.
Through the window, I hear Amber’s mother talking to my mother inside the house.
“The police think it was some kind of drug deal gone bad,” Amber’s mother says. “That’s what my cousin said. He said the man had a briefcase full of cash. And you know he was bragging about it on the phone in the diner that day? You heard him didn’t you?”
“Yes,” my mother says.
And Amber’s mother says, “How he was gonna take that money, get on a plane, and fly away.”
“Yes,” my mother says, sounding bored as she can be. Like this missing man who had a bunch of money and then came through our town and then disappeared is nothing exciting at all.
“They think he probably switched cars here somewhere, or maybe someone picked him up.”
“It sure is something,” my mother says.
“Well,” Amber’s mother says, “He definitely ain’t here anymore. That’s for sure. Otherwise, someone would’ve seen him by now.”
“You’d think,” my mother says.
“You all wanna stay for dinner?” Amber’s mother says.
“Nah,” my mother says. “Better get home.” She comes out onto the porch and Amber’s mother comes with her. They watch us as we shuck the corn.
“It’s been a good harvest so far this year,” Amber’s mother says.
“Looks like,” my mother says.
I glance up at her. She is almost hurting beautiful, there in the sunshine, her blond-and-white hair glowing like one of the angels in Pop-Pop and Noma’s church windows.
My mother smiles at me and I smile back up at her.
She is wearing a new dress, bright white, and new earrings too. The night before, I heard her talking to Mellie about getting me a telescope. What kind. Where to get it from.
I pull the last green sheaf from the corn in my hand with a Ksshhh. It smells like heaven. I put the fresh ear into the basket with the others and my mother says, “Looks like a real good harvest.”
*As a kid, I spent a lot of time in the car. I don’t know why, exactly, but it always seemed as if me and my single mom were always going somewhere. And the sensation—waking up in the middle of the night, AM talk radio playing to keep her awake, her drive-through coffee in the cup holder, the stars shimmering overhead, the road nothing but yellow rectangles stretching out on black tarmac—is something that remains as near and vivid as any other childhood memory. I suppose this story grew from those nights, from the sleepy conversations, questions, and dreams of better days ahead.