“She’s gone,” Arlene said to her husband, bracing herself to be struck. “I told you I looked everywhere.”
“How in the hell did you lose track of a girl?” Lewis said. “What were you doing that you could do that?”
“Nothing. Watching my game shows.”
“That’s not nothing. That’s something.”
“It’s not my fault. One second she was here, the next second she wasn’t.”
He clenched his fists, face red and gnarled. “Lucky for you, I ain’t got time to straighten your ass. We gotta find her. They find out, they’ll take her. We’ll have to look ’round the woods in the dark somehow.”
“What about calling the sheriff to get a dog here?”
“You are as dumb as you look.”
Arlene winced. How had she ended up joined to a man just like her daddy, after all those girl years she’d spent crying in her bedroom hating her daddy and swearing over and over and over, promising herself: Never. Never ever ever ever. Now. Here she was. And the girl. She’d run off just like Arlene had always wanted to run off. Smart girl. Brave girl. Give the girl that. She was smart. And brave. Smarter and braver than Arlene ever was. Arlene, who knew she herself could be as mean as a pit bull and as ugly as a rat with her ugly mean thoughts, shutting the door to the cellar on the poor girl when Arlene thought she was down there, just so Arlene could watch her game show in peace and teach the girl something. Teach her what? Teach her how to be mean as a pit bull and ugly as a rat? Arlene had wanted to stop herself from slamming and locking the cellar door, but she couldn’t; the mean part of her was too strong and it bullied the good part of her from acting the way Arlene knew in her heart she should act, the way God expected her to act. Just like it always did.
Many times in the past weeks she’d wanted, truth be told, to go down in the cellar and grab the girl and take off with her. Use the girl’s bravery for her own. Escape. Leave and never come back. But she’d been too scared. Of Lewis. And . . . And what? Scared she didn’t know what to do next. Where would she go? What would she do? She had no money. She had no one to turn to. No other family. No family at all. A mean man and a girl who wasn’t even her own blood, lucky for the girl.
And now that the girl was gone, Arlene hoped the girl’d get away for good. Arlene rooted for her. And if the girl did come back, if they found her, Arlene would never treat her so bad again. Never yell. Never hit. Never put her to bed hungry. Never lock her in rooms. In the cellar. Never let Lewis get after her again. Never. Never ever ever. She promised herself then and there, promised over and over again.
“What’re you mumbling on about over there? You even listening to me?” Lewis barked.
Arlene blinked.
“No sheriff,” Lewis said. The spittle on his chin made him look like a retarded dog, Arlene decided. A dog someone ought to shoot and put out of its own damned misery, or at least to spare others from its bite. Same look as her daddy always wore. And now she wished she’d run away. Oh Lord she wished. Her whole life was one long unfulfilled wish for running away to another life. Any other life. Some long-lost distant life and dream, over the rainbow.
Lewis slapped her face. “Earth to Arlene. No sheriff till we look and got a story if we don’t come up with her quick.”
“It’s so cold already,” Arlene said. “Poor thing. If we get the sheriff here and—”
“Poor thing. She’ll manage. Poor us.”
Lewis hoofed it to the edge of the overgrown yard. “Where you at?! Come on out. We ain’t mad,” hollered Lewis, who was always mad.
Arlene decided then that if she found the girl, she’d hide her. And if she didn’t find the girl . . . Well, she didn’t know. But she felt she might curl in a ball and die for all the wrongdoing she’d done the girl. And she needed to right it. If she could. Lord, give me the chance, she thought, and if we don’t find her, I’ll take a willow branch and lash myself bloody for you, and the girl.
Lewis stepped into the woods where the night shadows were long and deep. “You’ll eat your supper cold.”
Arlene sneaked in behind Lewis. I could take an axe, she thought, and strike him in the back of the head and he’d never know. It’d be done.
Lewis pushed deeper into the dark woods.
A branch whipped back and gashed Arlene’s face.
She shrieked.
“Lucky that’s all you get,” Lewis said.
Trees. Nothing but dark trees. And rocks. “We ain’t going to find her in this,” Arlene said. “Not if she don’t want to be found. We need to get help for her sake—”
“I’ll go see Aulden ’bout his dog. He’s killed a few bear behind that dog,” Lewis said.
“I’ll call him,” Arlene said.
“Leave me to it. You fucked up plenty already,” Lewis said and knocked her to the ground as he shoved past.
Arlene lay on the cold ground, not getting up.
Not daring.