Sam watched Charlie pace around the front lobby of the funeral home. The building was modern on the outside, but the inside was decorated more in the style of a fussy old woman. They seemed to operate with the same efficiency. There were two funerals taking place in the chapels on either side of the lobby. Two identical black hearses awaited their passengers outside. Sam recalled the funeral home’s logo from a billboard she had passed on the way into Pikeville. The ad showed a happy-go-lucky-looking teen beside the ominous words, Slow down! We don’t need the business.
Charlie passed by Sam, arms swinging, mouth set. She was wearing a black dress and heels. Her hair was pulled back. She had worn no makeup, done nothing to cover her grief. She mumbled under her breath, “Who ever heard of waiting in line at a damn funeral home?”
Sam knew that her sister was not looking for an answer. They had been asked to wait less than ten minutes ago. Competing music came from behind closed doors on opposite sides. One service seemed to be winding down while the other started. They would soon be overcome with mourners.
“Unbelievable,” Charlie muttered, pacing past her again.
Sam felt her phone buzz. She looked down at the screen. Before leaving Charlie’s, she had texted Stanislav, asking him to meet her at the farmhouse. The driver had been well compensated for each trip, but she still read a curt tone in his reply: Will return ASAP.
The ASAP threw her. Sam was suddenly possessed by the desire to tell him to take his time. She had arrived in Dickerson County wanting nothing more than to leave, but now that she was here, she found herself overcome by inertia.
Or perhaps obstinance was a better choice of word.
The more Charlie told her to leave, the more rooted Sam felt to this cursed place.
A side door opened. Sam had assumed the room was a closet, but the older gentleman in a suit and tie came out drying his hands on a paper towel. He leaned back in and threw the towel in the trash.
“Edgar Graham.” He shook Sam’s hand first, then Charlie’s. “I’m sorry that we kept you waiting.”
Charlie said, “We’ve been here almost twenty minutes.”
“Again, my apologies.” Edgar indicated the hall. “Ladies, this way, please.”
Sam took the lead. Her leg was cooperating today, just a tinge of pain reminding her that the détente was likely temporary. She heard Charlie muttering behind her, but the words were too low to make out.
Edgar said, “Your husband dropped by with the requested attire this morning.”
“Ben?” Charlie sounded surprised.
“Through here.” Edgar stepped ahead of them so that he could hold open the door. The sign said BEREAVEMENT COUNSELING. There were four club chairs, a coffee table, and boxes of Kleenex discreetly placed behind potted plants around the room.
Charlie glared at the sign on the door. Sam could feel a flinty heat coming off of her sister. Usually, they fed off each other, whatever emotion Charlie was feeling becoming amplified inside of Sam. Now, Charlie’s panic, her anger, served to make Sam calmer.
This was what she was here for. She could not solve Charlie’s problems, but right now, in this moment, she could give her sister what she needed.
Edgar said, “You can make yourself comfortable in here. We’ve got a full house today. I’m sorry we weren’t expecting you.”
Charlie asked, “You weren’t expecting us for our father’s funeral?”
“Charlie,” Sam said, trying to rein her in. “We came unannounced. The funeral doesn’t start for another two hours.”
Edgar offered, “We generally open visitation an hour before the service.”
“We’re not having a service.” Charlie asked, “Whose funeral is in the other chapel? Is it Mr. Pinkman?”
“No, ma’am.” Edgar had stopped smiling, but he appeared unruffled. “Douglas Pinkman’s service is scheduled for tomorrow. We have Lucy Alexander the following day.”
Sam felt unexpectedly relieved. She had been so focused on Rusty that she had not remembered that there were two more bodies that would require burial.
Edgar indicated a chair to Sam, but she did not sit. He said, “Currently, your father is downstairs. When the service in our Memory Chapel is completed, we’ll bring him upstairs and place him on the podium at the front of the room. I want to assure you that—”
“I want to see him now,” Charlie said.
“He’s not prepared.”
“Did he forget to study for a test?”
Sam rested her hand on Charlie’s shoulder.
Edgar said, “I apologize that my meaning was unclear.” He kept his hands on the back of the chair, his preternatural coolness intact. He explained, “Your father has been placed in the casket that he chose, but we need to move him to the podium, set up the flowers, prepare the room. You want the first time to see him to be—”
“That’s not necessary.” Sam squeezed Charlie’s shoulder to keep her silent. She knew what her sister was thinking—Don’t tell me what I want. She said, “I’m sure you’ve got something lovely planned, but we’d like to see him now.”
Edgar gave a smooth nod. “Of course, ladies. Of course. Please allow me a moment.”
Charlie didn’t wait for the door to close behind him. “What a condescending prick.”
“Charlie—”
“The worst thing you could say right now is that I sound like Mother. Jesus.” She pulled at the neck of her dress. “It feels like it’s a hundred degrees in here.”
“Charlie, this is grief. You want to control things because you feel out of control.” Sam worked to take the lecture out of her tone. “You need to learn how to deal with this because what you are feeling is not going to stop after today.”
“You need,” Charlie repeated. She took a tissue from the box beside the chair. She mopped sweat from her brow. “You’d think with all of these dead people, they’d keep the air down low.” She paced the small room. She kept moving her hands, shaking her head, as if she was having some kind of private conversation with herself.
Sam sat in the chair. This was her chickens coming home to roost, watching her sister’s manic, frantic energy manifest itself in rage. Charlie was right that she sounded like their mother. Gamma had always struck out when she felt threatened, the same way that Sam had, the same way that Charlie was doing now.
Sam offered, “I have some Valium in my purse.”
“You should take it.”
Sam tried again, “Where’s Lenore?”
“So she can calm me down?” Charlie walked over to the window. She bent open the metal blinds to look out at the parking lot. “She won’t come to this. She’d want to kill everybody here. What do you use on your neck?”
Sam touched her fingers to her neck. “What?”
“I remember Gamma’s neck was getting crepey. Like, the skin was starting to wrinkle. Even though she was only three years older than I am now.”
Sam did not know what to do but carry on the conversation. “She was out in the sun all of the time. She never used sunscreen. None of her generation did.”
“Don’t you worry about it? I mean, you’re fine now, but—” Charlie looked in the mirror by the window. She pulled at the skin of her neck. “I put lotion on it every night, but I think I need to get a cream.”
Sam opened her purse. The first thing she saw was the note she had given Rusty. The odor of cigarette smoke lingered on the paper. Sam resisted doing something melodramatic, like holding the note to her face so she could remember what her father smelled like. She found her hand cream beside Ben’s USB drive. “Here.”
Charlie looked at the label. “What’s this?”
“It’s what I use.”
“But it says ‘for hands.’ ”
“We can Google something.” Sam reached for her phone. “What do you think?”
“I think . . .” Charlie took a short breath. “I think I’m losing my shit.”
“It’s more likely you’re having a panic attack.”
“I’m not panicking,” Charlie said, but the tremble in her voice indicated otherwise. “I feel dizzy. Shaky. I might throw up. Is that a panic attack?”
“Yes.” Sam helped her sit down in the chair. “Take some deep breaths.”
“Jesus.” She put her head down between her knees. “Oh Jesus.”
Sam rubbed her sister’s back. She tried to think of something that would take away the pain, but grief defied logic.
“I didn’t believe he would die.” Charlie grabbed her hair in her hands. “I mean, I knew it would happen, but I didn’t think it would. Like, the opposite of when you buy a lottery ticket. You’re saying, ‘Of course I’m not going to win,’ but then you actually do think you might win, because why else would you buy the damn ticket?”
Sam kept rubbing her back.
“I know I still have Lenore, but Dad was—” Charlie sat up. She took a jittery breath. “I always knew that, no matter what, if I had a problem, I could take it to him and he wouldn’t judge me, and he would make a joke about it so it didn’t hurt so much and then we would figure out how to solve it together.” She covered her face with her hands. “I hate him for not taking care of himself. And I love him for living his life on his own terms.”
Sam was familiar with both sensations.
“I didn’t know that Ben brought his clothes.” She turned to Sam, alarmed. “What if he asked to be dressed up like a clown?”
“Charlie, don’t be silly. You know he would’ve chosen something from the Renaissance.”
The door opened. Charlie stood up.
Edgar said, “Our Memory Chapel is clearing out. If you would give me another moment, I could place your father in a more natural setting.”
“He’s dead,” Charlie said. “None of this is natural.”
“Very well.” Edgar tucked down his chin. “We’ve temporarily placed him in our showroom. I’ve put out two chairs for your comfort and reflection.”
“Thank you.” Sam turned to Charlie, expecting her to complain about the chairs or make a sharp comment about reflection. Instead, she found her sister crying.
“I’m here,” Sam said, though she did not know if that was a comfort.
Charlie bit her lip. Her hands were still clenched into fists. She was trembling.
Sam peeled open Charlie’s fingers and held on to her hand.
She nodded to Edgar.
He walked to the other side of the small room. Sam had not noticed a discreet door built into the wood paneling. He turned the latch, and she saw the brightly lit showroom.
Charlie would not move on her own, so Sam gently led her toward the door. Though Edgar had called this the showroom, Sam had not been expecting to find an actual showroom. Shiny caskets painted in dark earth tones lined the walls. They were tilted at a fifteen-degree angle, their lids opened to display the silk liners. Spotlights illuminated silver and gold handles. An assortment of pillows was in a spinning rack. Sam wondered if mourners checked the softness before making their decision.
Charlie was unsteady on her high heels. “Is this what it was like when your—”
“No,” Sam said. “Anton was cremated. They put him in a pine box.”
“Why didn’t Daddy do that?” Charlie looked down at a jet-black display casket with black satin lining. “I feel like we’re in a Shirley Jackson story.”
Sam turned, remembering Edgar. She mouthed the words, “Thank you.”
He bowed out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Sam looked back at Charlie. She had come to a standstill. All of her bluster was gone. She was staring at the front of the room. Two folding chairs draped in pastel blue satin covers. A white casket with gold handles on a stainless-steel cart with big, black wheels. The lid was open. Rusty’s head was tilted up on a pillow. Sam could see the peppered gray of his hair, the tip of his nose, and a flash of bright blue from his suit.
Charlie said, “That’s Dad.”
Sam reached for her sister’s hand again, but Charlie was already moving toward their father. Her deliberate stride tapered off quickly. She stuttered to a stop. Her hand went to her mouth. Her shoulders began to shake.
She told Sam, “It’s not him.”
Sam understood what she meant. This was clearly their father, but just as clearly it was not. Rusty’s cheeks were too red. His wild eyebrows had been tamed. His hair, normally sticking up in every direction, was combed into something resembling a pompadour.
Charlie said, “He promised me he would look handsome.”
Sam wrapped her arm around Charlie’s waist.
“When we talked about it, I told him I didn’t want an open casket, and he promised me that he would look handsome. That I would want to see how good he looked.” She told Sam, “He doesn’t look good.”
“No,” Sam said. “He doesn’t look like himself.”
They stared down at their father. Sam could not remember a time that she had not seen Rusty in motion. Lighting a cigarette. Throwing out a dramatic hand. Tapping his toes. Snapping his fingers. Nodding his head as he hummed or clicked his tongue or whistled a tune that she did not recognize, yet could not get out of her brain.
Charlie said, “I don’t want anyone to see him like this.” She reached up to close the lid.
Sam gave a hushed, “Charlie!”
She pulled on the lid. The lid did not move. “Help me close it.”
“We can get—”
“I don’t want that creepy asshole back in here.” Charlie pulled with both hands. The lid moved perhaps five degrees before it stopped. “Help me.”
“I’m not going to help you.”
“What was your list? You can’t see, you can’t run, you can’t process? I don’t recall you saying your useless body couldn’t help close the fucking lid on your own father’s coffin.”
“It’s a casket. Coffins are tapered at the head and foot.”
“For fucksake.” Charlie dropped her purse on the floor. She kicked off her shoes. She used both hands to pull down on the lid, practically hanging from it.
There was a creak of protest, but the casket remained open.
Sam said, “It won’t simply close. That would be a safety hazard.”
“You mean, it could kill him if the lid slammed shut?”
“I mean it could hit you in the head or break your fingers.” She leaned over Rusty to examine the brass barrel hinges. A cloth-covered strap and loop assembly kept the lid from over-opening, but no apparent mechanism controlled the closing. “There must be some kind of release.”
“Jesus Christ.” Charlie hung from the lid again. “Can’t you just help me?”
“I am trying—”
“I’ll do it myself.” Charlie walked around to the back of the casket. She pushed from behind. The table moved. One of the front wheels was unlocked. Charlie pushed harder. The table moved again.
“Hold on.” Sam checked the exterior of the casket for some kind of lever or button. “You’re going to—”
Charlie jumped up, pushing down on the lid with all of her weight.
Sam said, “You’re going to knock it off the table.”
“Good.” Charlie pushed again. Nothing moved. She banged her palm against the lid. “Fuck!” She banged it again, this time with her closed fist. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
Sam ran her fingers inside the edge of the silk liner. She found a button.
There was a loud click.
The pneumatic pump hissed as the lid slowly closed.
“Shit.” Charlie was breathless. She leaned her hands on the closed casket. She closed her eyes. She shook her head. “He leaves us with a metaphor.”
Sam sat down in the chair.
“You’re not going to say anything?”
“I’m reflecting.”
Charlie’s laugh was cut off by a sob. Her shoulders trembled as she cried. Her tears fell onto the top of the casket. Sam watched them roll down the side, bend around the stainless-steel table, then drop onto the floor.
“Shit,” Charlie said, using the back of her hand to wipe her nose. She found a box of tissues behind the handle display. She blew her nose. She dried her eyes. She sat down heavily in the chair beside Sam.
They both looked at the casket. The gaudy, gold handles and filigree corner guards. The bright white paint had a sparkling finish, as if glitter had been mixed into the clear coat.
Charlie said, “I can’t believe how ugly that thing is.” She threw away the used tissue. She snagged another from the box. “It looks like something Elvis was buried in.”
“Do you remember when we went to Graceland?”
“That white Cadillac.”
Rusty had charmed the attendant into letting him sit behind the wheel. The paint on the Fleetwood had been the same bright white as the casket. Diamond dust had brought out the sparkle.
“Dad could talk anybody into letting him do anything.” Charlie wiped her nose again. She sat back in the chair. Her arms were crossed.
Sam could hear a clock ticking somewhere, a kind of metronome that synched with the beating of her heart. Her fingers still held the memory of the tap-tap-tap of Rusty’s blood rushing through his veins. She had spent two days begging Charlie to unburden herself, but her own sins weighed far heavier.
Sam said, “I couldn’t let him die. My husband. I couldn’t let him go.”
Charlie silently worked the tissue in her fingers.
“He had a DNR, but I didn’t give it to the hospital.” Sam tried to take a deep breath. She felt the weight of Anton’s death restricting her chest. “He couldn’t speak for himself. He couldn’t move. He could only see and hear, and what he saw and heard was his wife refusing to let the doctors turn off the machines that were extending his suffering.” Sam felt the shame boiling in her stomach like oil. “The tumors had spread to his brain. There’s only so much volume inside the skull. The pressure was pushing his brain down into his spine. The pain was excruciating. They had him on morphine, then Fentanyl, and I would sit there by his bed and watch the tears roll from his eyes and I could not let him go.”
Charlie kept working the tissue, wrapping it around her finger.
“I would’ve done the same thing here. I could’ve told you that from New York. I was the wrong person to ask. I couldn’t put my own needs, my desperation, aside for the only man I have ever loved. I certainly could not have done the right thing by Dad.”
Charlie started to pull apart the layers of tissue.
The clock kept ticking.
Time kept moving forward.
Charlie said, “I wanted you here because I wanted you here.”
Sam had not meant to stir up Charlie’s guilt. “Please don’t try to make me feel better.”
“I’m not,” Charlie said. “I hate that I made you come here. That I’ve put you through this.”
“You didn’t force me to do anything.”
“I knew that you would come if I asked. I’ve known that for the last twenty years, and I used Dad as an excuse because I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Couldn’t take what?”
Charlie wadded the tissue into a ball. She held it tight in her hands. “I had a miscarriage in college.”
Sam remembered the hostile phone call from all those years ago, Charlie’s angry demand for money.
Charlie said, “I was so relieved when it happened. You don’t realize when you’re that young that you’re going to get older. That there’s going to come a time when you’re not relieved.”
Sam felt her eyes start to water at the piercing undertone of anguish in her sister’s words.
Charlie said, “The second miscarriage was worse. Ben thinks it was the first, but it was the second.” She shrugged off the deception. “I was at the end of my first trimester. I was in court, and I felt this pain, like cramps. I had to wait another hour for the judge to call a recess. I ran to the bathroom, and I sat down, and I had this feeling of blood rushing out of my body.” She stopped to swallow. “I looked in the toilet and it was—it was nothing. It didn’t look like anything. A really bad period, a glob of something. But it didn’t feel right to flush it. I couldn’t leave it. I crawled out from under the stall so I could leave the door locked. I called Ben. I was crying so hard he couldn’t understand what I was saying.”
“Charlie,” Sam whispered.
Charlie shook her head, because there was more. “The third time, which Ben thinks was the second time, was worse. I was at eighteen weeks. We were outside, raking leaves in the yard. We had already started to put together the nursery, you know? Painted the walls. Looked at cribs. I felt the same kind of cramping. I told Ben I was going to get some water, but I barely made it to the bathroom. It just came out of me, like my body couldn’t wait to get rid of it.” She used the tips of her fingers to brush away tears. “I told myself it was never going to happen again, that I wasn’t going to risk it, but then it happened again.”
Sam reached over. She held tight to her sister’s hand.
“This was three years ago. I stopped taking my birth control. It was stupid. I didn’t tell Ben, which made it worse because I was tricking him. I was pregnant in a month. And then another month passed, and then I hit the three-month mark, and then it was six months, seven, and we were so fucking excited. Dad was walking on air. Lenore kept giving hints about names.”
Charlie pressed her fingers to her eyelids. Tears streamed down. “There’s this thing called Dandy-Walker syndrome. It sounds so stupid, like an old-timey dance, but basically, it’s a group of congenital brain malformations.”
Sam felt an ache inside her heart.
“They told us late on a Friday. Ben and I spent the whole weekend reading about it on the Internet. There’d be this one great story about a kid who was smiling, living his life, blowing out the candles on his birthday cake, and we’d say, ‘Okay, well, that’s—that’s fantastic, that’s a gift, we can do that,’ and then there’d be another story about a baby who was blind and deaf and had open-heart surgery and brain surgery and died before his first birthday, and we’d just hold each other and cry.”
Sam squeezed Charlie’s hand.
“We decided that we couldn’t give up. It’s our baby, right? So we went to see a specialist at Vanderbilt. He did some scans, and then he took us into this room. There weren’t any pictures on the wall. That’s what I remember. The rest of the place had babies everywhere. Photos of families. But not in this room.”
Charlie stopped to dry her eyes again.
Sam waited.
Charlie said, “The doctor told us that there was nothing we could do. The cerebrospinal fluid was leaking. The baby didn’t have . . . organs.” She took a shaky breath. “My blood pressure was high. They were worried about sepsis. The doctor gave us five days, maybe a week, before the baby died, or I died, and I just—I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t go to work and eat dinner and watch TV knowing that—” She clasped Sam’s hand. “So we decided to go to Colorado. That’s the only place we could find where it’s legal.”
Sam knew she was talking about abortion.
“It’s twenty-five grand. Plus flights. Plus the hotel room. Plus taking off work. We didn’t have time to take out a loan, and we didn’t want anyone to know what we were using it for. We sold Ben’s car. Dad and Lenore gave us money. We put the rest on credit cards.”
Sam felt a crushing sense of shame. She should have been there. She could have given them the money, flown with Charlie on the plane.
“The night before we were supposed to leave, I took a sleeping pill, because what did it matter, right? But I woke up with this burning pain. It wasn’t like before with the cramps. I felt like I was being ripped apart. I went downstairs so I wouldn’t wake up Ben. I started throwing up. I couldn’t make it to the bathroom. There was so much blood. It looked like a crime scene. There were pieces I could see. Pieces of—” Charlie shook her head, unable to say the rest. “Ben called an ambulance. I’ve got a scar, like a C-section, but no baby to show for it. And when I finally came home, the rug was gone. Ben had cleaned up everything. It was like it had never happened.”
Sam thought about the bare floor in Charlie’s living room. They had not replaced the rug in three years. She asked, “Did you talk to Ben about it?”
“Yeah. We talked about it. We went to therapy. We got past it.”
Sam could not believe that was true.
Charlie said, “It was my fault. I never told Ben, but every time, it was my fault.”
“You can’t believe that.”
She used the back of her hand to rub her eyes. “I saw Dad do this closing argument once. He talked about how people always obsess about lies. Damn lies. But no one really understands that the real danger is the truth.” She looked up at the white casket. “The truth can rot you from the inside. It doesn’t leave room for anything else.”
Sam tried, “There’s no truth in blaming yourself. Nature has its own design.”
“That’s not the truth I’m talking about.”
“Then tell me, Charlie. What’s the truth?”
Charlie leaned over. She put her head in her hands.
“Please,” Sam pleaded. She couldn’t stand her own uselessness. “Tell me.”
Charlie inhaled deeply, drawing air between the gap in her hands. “Everybody thinks I blame myself for running away.”
“Don’t you?”
“No,” she said. “I blame myself for not running faster.”
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO CHARLIE
“Run!” Sam shoved her away. “Charlie, go!”
Charlie fell back onto the ground. She saw the bright flash of the gun firing, heard the sudden explosion of the bullet leaving the barrel.
Sam spun through the air, almost somersaulting into the gaping mouth of the grave.
“Shit,” Daniel said. “Christ. Jesus Christ.”
Charlie scrambled away, crab-like, on her hands and heels, until her back hit a tree. She pushed herself up. Her knees shook. Her hands shook. Her whole body was shaking.
“It’s okay, sweetpea,” Zach told Charlie. “Stay right there for me.”
Charlie stared at the grave. Maybe Sam was hiding, waiting to spring up and run. But she wasn’t springing up. She wasn’t moving, or talking, or shouting, or bossing everybody around.
Zach told Daniel, “You cover this bitch up. Lemme take the little one off for a minute.”
If Sam could talk right now, she would be yelling, furious at Charlie for just standing there, for blowing this chance, for not doing what Sam always told her to do.
Don’t look back . . . trust me to be there . . . keep your head down and—
Charlie ran.
Her arms flailed. Her bare feet struggled for purchase. Tree limbs slashed at her face. She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs felt like needles were stabbing into her chest.
She heard Sam’s voice—
Breathe through it. Slow and steady. Wait for the pain to pass.
“Get back here!” Zach yelled. The air shook with a steady thud-thud-thud that started to vibrate inside of Charlie’s chest.
Zachariah Culpepper was coming after her.
She tucked her arms into her sides. She forced the tension from her shoulders. She imagined her legs were pistons in a machine. She tuned out the pinecones and sharp rocks gouging into her bare feet. She thought about the muscles that were helping her move—
Calves, quads, hamstrings, tighten your core, protect your back.
Zach was getting closer. She could hear him like a steam engine bearing down.
Charlie vaulted over a fallen tree. She scanned left, then right, knowing she shouldn’t run in a straight line. She needed to locate the weather tower, to make sure she was heading in the right direction, but she knew if she looked back she would see Zach, and that seeing him would make her panic even more, and if she panicked even more, she would stumble, and if she stumbled, she would fall.
And then he would rape her.
Charlie veered right, her toes gripping the dirt as she altered direction. At the last minute, she saw another fallen tree. She flung herself over it, landing awkwardly. Her foot twisted. She felt her anklebone touch earth. Pain sliced up her leg.
She kept running.
Her feet were sticky with blood. Sweat dripped down her body. She scanned ahead for light, any indication of safety.
How much longer could he keep running? How much farther could she go?
Sam’s voice came back to her—
Picture the finish line in your head. You have to want it more than the person behind you.
Zachariah wanted something. Charlie wanted something more—to get away, to get help for her sister, to find Rusty so he could figure out a way to make it all better.
Suddenly, Charlie’s head jerked back.
Her feet flew out in front of her.
Her back slammed into the ground.
She saw her breath huff out of her mouth like it was a real thing.
Zach was on top of her. His hands were everywhere. Grabbing her breasts. Pulling her shorts. His teeth clashed against her closed mouth. Charlie scratched at his eyes. She tried to bring up her knee into his crotch but she couldn’t bend her leg.
Zachariah sat up, straddling her. He worked his belt back through the buckle. His weight was too much. He was pushing the air out of her.
Charlie’s mouth opened. She had no breath left to scream. She was dizzy. Vomit burned up her throat.
Her shorts were wrenched down. He flipped her over like she was nothing. She tried again to scream, but he shoved her face into the ground. Dirt filled her mouth. He grabbed her hair in his fist. She felt a tearing deep inside her body as he ripped into her. His teeth bit down on her shoulder. He grunted like a pig as he raped her behind. She smelled rot from the earth, from his mouth, from what he was pushing inside of her.
Charlie squeezed her eyes shut.
I am not here. I am not here. I am not here.
Every time she convinced herself that this wasn’t happening, that she was in the kitchen at the red-brick house doing her homework, that she was running the track at school, that she was hiding in Sam’s closet listening to her talk on the phone to Peter Alexander, Zachariah did something new and the pain wrenched her back into reality.
He was not finished.
Charlotte’s arms flopped uselessly as he turned her over. He shoved inside of her from the front. She was finally numb. Her mind went blank. She was aware of things, but as if from a remove: Her body shifting up and down as he started to thrust. Her mouth hanging open. His tongue jamming down her throat. His fingers digging into her breasts like he was trying to rip them away from her body.
She looked up. Past his ugly, contorted face.
Past the bowed trees. Their crooked limbs.
The night sky.
The moon was blue against the dark expanse.
Stars were scattered, indistinct pinholes.
Charlie closed her eyes. She wanted darkness, but she saw Sam twisting through the air. She could hear the thump of her sister’s body hitting the grave like it was happening all over again. And then she saw Gamma. On the kitchen floor. Back to the cabinet.
Bright white bone. Pieces of heart and lung. Cords of tendon and arteries and veins and life spilling out of her gaping wounds.
Gamma had told her to run.
Sam had ordered her to get away.
They would not want this.
They had sacrificed their lives for Charlotte, but not for this.
“No!” Charlotte screamed, her hands turning into fists. She pounded into Zach’s chest, swung so hard at his jaw that his head whipped around. Blood sprayed out of his mouth—big globs of it, not like the tiny dots from Gamma.
“Fucking bitch.” He reared back his hand to punch her.
Charlotte saw a blur out of the corner of her eye.
“Get off her!”
Daniel flew through the air, tackling Zach to the ground. His fists swung back and forth, arms windmilling as he beat his brother.
“Motherfucker!” he yelled. “I’ll fucking kill you!”
Charlotte backed away from the men. Her hands pressed deep into the earth as she forced herself to stand. Blood poured down her legs. Cramps made her double over. She stumbled. She spun around in a circle, blind as Sam had been. She couldn’t get her bearings. She didn’t know which way to run, but she knew that she had to keep moving.
Her ankle screamed as she ran back into the woods. She didn’t look for the weather tower. She didn’t listen for the stream, or try to find Sam, or head toward the HP. She kept running, then walking, then she felt so exhausted that she wanted to crawl.
Finally, she gave into it, collapsing to her hands and knees.
She listened for footsteps behind her, but all she could hear was her own heavy breaths panting out of her mouth.
Blood dripped between her legs. His stuff was in there, festering, decaying her insides. Charlotte threw up. Bile hit the ground and splattered back into her face. She wanted to lie down, to close her eyes, to go to sleep and wake up in a week when this was all over.
But she couldn’t.
Zachariah Culpepper.
Daniel Culpepper.
Brothers.
Charlotte would see them both dead. She would watch the executioner strap them to the wooden chair and put the metal hat on their heads with the sponge underneath so that they wouldn’t catch on fire and she would look between Zachariah Culpepper’s legs to watch the urine come out when he realized that he was going to be electrocuted to death.
Charlotte got up.
She stumbled, then she walked, then she jogged and then, suddenly, miraculously, she saw a light.
The second farmhouse.
Charlotte reached out her hand as if she could touch it.
She swallowed back a sob.
Her ankle could barely hold her as she limped through the freshly plowed fields. She kept her eyes on the porch light, using it as a beacon, a lighthouse that could guide her away from the rocks.
I am here. I am here. I am here.
There were four steps up the back porch. Charlotte stared at them, trying not to think of the steps at the HP, the way she had run up them two at a time just a few hours ago, kicked off her shoes, peeled off her socks, and found Gamma cursing in the kitchen.
“Fudge,” Charlie whispered. “Fudge.”
Her ankle buckled on the first step. She held on to the shaky railing. She blinked at the porch light, which was bright white, like a flame. Blood had dripped into her eyes. Charlotte used her fists to rub it away. The welcome mat had a plump, red strawberry on it with a smiling face, arms and legs.
Her feet left dark prints on the mat.
She raised her hand.
Her wrist had a springiness, like the rubber band on a paddle ball.
Charlotte had to steady one hand with the other so that she could knock on the door. A bloody, wet impression of her knuckles was left on the painted white wood.
In the house, she heard a chair scrape back. Light footsteps across the floor. A woman’s chipper voice asked, “Who could that be knocking so late?”
Charlotte did not answer.
There were no locks that clicked, no chain that slid back. The door opened. A blonde woman stood in the kitchen. Her hair was pinned back in a loose ponytail. She was older than Charlotte. Pretty. Her eyes went wide. Her mouth opened. Her hand fluttered to her chest, as if she had been hit by an arrow.
“Oh—” the woman said. “My God. My God. Daddy!” She reached for Charlotte, but she didn’t seem to know where to touch her. “Come in! Come in!”
Charlotte took one step, then another, then she was standing inside the kitchen.
She shivered, though the space was warm.
Everything was so clean, so brightly lit. The wallpaper was yellow with red strawberries. A matching border rimmed the tops of the walls. The toaster had a knitted cozy with a strawberry stitched onto the side. The kettle on the stove was red. The clock on the wall, a cat with moving eyes, was red.
“Good Lord in Heaven,” a man whispered. He was older, bearded. His eyes were almost perfectly round behind his glasses.
Charlotte stepped away until her back was against the wall.
He asked the woman, “What the hell happened?”
“She just knocked on the door.” The woman was crying. Her voice trilled like a piccolo. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“That’s one of the Quinn girls.” He opened the curtains. He looked outside. “Are they still out there?”
Zachariah Culpepper.
Daniel Culpepper.
Sam.
The man reached his hands to the top of the cabinet. He pulled down a rifle, a box of bullets. “Give me the phone.”
Charlotte started to shake again. The rifle was long, its barrel like a sword that could cut her open.
The woman reached for the cordless phone on the wall. She knocked it to the ground. She scooped it up. Her hands were still fluttering, their motions chaotic, uncontrollable. She raised the antenna. She handed the phone to her father.
He said, “I’ll call the police. Lock the door behind me.”
The woman did as she was told, her fingers clumsy as she tried to turn the latch. She clasped together her hands. She looked at Charlotte. She took a quick breath. She glanced around the room. “I don’t know what . . .” She put her hand to her mouth. She was looking at the mess on the floor.
Charlotte saw it, too. Blood was pooling around her feet. It was coming from her insides, sliding down her legs, past her knees, her ankles, steady and slow like the trickle that came from the farmhouse faucet if you didn’t hit it hard enough with the hammer.
She moved her foot. The blood followed her. She remembered learning about snails, the way they left a slick slime behind them.
“Sit down,” the woman said. She sounded steadier now, more sure of herself. “It’s okay, sweetheart. You can sit down.” She gently pressed her fingers to Charlotte’s shoulder, guided her to the chair. “The police will come,” she said. “You’re safe now.”
Charlotte did not sit down. The woman did not look like she felt safe.
“I’m Miss Heller.” She knelt down in front of Charlotte. She brushed back her hair. “You’re Charlotte, is that right?”
Charlotte nodded.
“Oh, angel.” Miss Heller kept stroking her hair. “I’m sorry. Whatever happened to you, I’m so sorry.”
Charlotte felt a weakness in her knees. She did not want to sit, but she had to. The pain was like a knife jamming into her insides. Her bottom ached. She could feel something warm coming out of her front like she was peeing herself again.
She asked Miss Heller, “Can I have some ice cream?”
The woman said nothing at first. Then she stood. She gathered a bowl, some vanilla ice cream, a spoon. She placed it all on the table.
The smell brought a surge of bile into Charlotte’s throat. She swallowed it back down. She picked up the spoon. She ate the ice cream, shoving it into her mouth as fast as she could.
“Slow down,” Miss Heller said. “You’ll make yourself sick.”
Charlotte wanted to be sick. She wanted him out of her. She wanted to cleanse herself. She wanted to kill herself.
“Mama, what would happen if I ate two bowls of ice cream? Really big ones.”
“Your intestines would burst and you would die.”
Charlotte devoured a second bowl of ice cream. She used her hands because the spoon was not big enough. She reached for the container, but Miss Heller stopped her. She looked aghast.
She asked Charlotte, “What happened to you?”
Charlotte was winded from eating so fast. She could hear her breath whistling through her nose. Her shorts were wet with blood. The strawberry cushion on the chair was completely saturated. She felt the dripping between her legs but she knew that it was not just blood. It was him. It was Zach Culpepper. He had left his stuff inside of her.
The vomit roiled up again. This time, she couldn’t stop it. Charlotte slapped her hand to her mouth. Miss Heller picked her up by the waist. She ran down the hall, carrying Charlotte to the bathroom.
Charlotte threw up so hard that she thought her stomach would come out of her mouth. She gripped the cold sides of the toilet. Her eyes bulged. Her throat burned. Her intestines felt as if razors were inside. She yanked down her shorts. She sat on the toilet. She felt a torrent of fluid rush from her body. Blood. Feces. Him.
Charlotte cried out from the pain. She folded at the waist. She opened her mouth. She screamed out an anguished wail.
She wanted her mother. She needed her mother.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Miss Heller was on the other side of the door. She was kneeling down again. Charlotte could hear her voice coming through the keyhole. “ ‘He said unto them, “Let the little children come unto me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” ’ ”
Charlotte squeezed shut her eyes. Tears flowed. She breathed through her open mouth. She heard the heavy drops of blood hitting water. It would not end. This was never going to end.
“Sweet baby,” Miss Heller said. “Let God carry this burden.”
Charlotte shook her head. Her blood-soaked hair slapped at her face. She kept her eyes closed. She saw Sam spinning, somersaulting through the air.
The mist as the bullet entered her brain.
The heavy spray of blood as Gamma’s chest exploded.
“My sister,” Charlotte whispered. “She’s dead.”
“What’s that, baby?” Miss Heller had cracked open the door. “What did you say?”
“My sister.” Charlotte’s teeth were chattering. “She’s dead. My mother’s dead.”
Miss Heller held on to the doorknob as she sunk to the floor.
She said nothing.
Charlotte looked down at the white tiles at her feet. She could see black spots in her vision. Blood dripped from her open mouth. She rolled off some toilet paper. She held it to her nose. The bone felt broken.
Miss Heller came into the room. She turned on the sink faucet.
Charlotte tried to wipe herself. She could feel strips of flesh hanging down between her legs. The blood would not stop. It was never going to stop. She pulled up her shorts, but a wave of dizziness kept her from standing.
She sat back down on the toilet. She stared at the framed picture of a strawberry patch on the wall.
“It’s all right.” Miss Heller wiped Charlotte’s face with a wet cloth. Her hands trembled along with her voice. “ ‘But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as—’ ”
A loud knock shook the back door. Banging. Screaming.
Miss Heller’s hand went to Charlotte’s chest, keeping her still.
“Judith!” the old man yelled. “Judith!”
The back door splintered open.
Miss Heller grabbed Charlotte again, picking her up by the middle. Charlie felt her feet leave the ground. She braced her hands against the woman’s shoulders. Her ribs felt crushed as Miss Heller ran down the hall.
“Charlotte!”
The word was pained, like the sound you would hear from a dying animal.
Miss Heller skidded to a stop.
She turned around.
Her grip around Charlotte’s waist slowly released.
Rusty was standing at the end of the hallway. He leaned heavily against the wall. His chest was heaving. He gripped a handkerchief in his hand.
Charlotte felt her feet touch the ground. Her knees folded, unable to support her weight.
Rusty staggered down the hallway. His shoulder bumped the wall, then the other wall, then he was on his knees and then he was holding Charlotte.
“My baby,” he cried, enveloping her body in his. “My treasure.”
Charlotte felt the slow release of her muscles. Her father was like a drug. She became a rag doll in his arms.
“My baby,” he said.
“Gamma—”
“I know!” Rusty wailed. She felt his chest shake as he struggled to control his sorrow. “I know, sweetheart. I know.”
Charlotte began to sob; not from the pain, but from fear because she had never seen her father cry.
“I’ve got you.” He rocked her. “Daddy’s here. I’ve got you.”
Charlotte was crying so hard that she couldn’t open her eyes. “Sam—”
“I know,” he said. “We’ll find her.”
“They buried her.”
Rusty let out a howl of despair.
“It was the Culpeppers,” Charlotte said. Knowing their names, telling them to Rusty, was the only thing that had kept her moving. “Zach and his brother.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head. “We got an ambulance coming. They’re going to take care of you.”
“Daddy.” Charlotte lifted her head. She put her mouth close to his ear. She whispered, “Zach put his thing inside of me.”
Rusty’s arms slowly fell away. It was like the air had been let out of him. His mouth dropped open. He crumbled to the floor. His eyes scanned back and forth as he looked at Charlotte’s face. His throat worked again. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a whimper.
“Daddy,” she whispered again.
Rusty put his fingers to her mouth. He bit his lip, like he didn’t want to speak, but he had to.
He asked, “He raped you?”
Charlotte nodded.
Rusty’s hand dropped like a stone. He looked away. He shook his head. His tears had turned into two rivers running down the sides of his face.
Charlotte felt the shame of his silence. Her father knew the things that men like Zachariah Culpepper did. He could not even look at her.
“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said. “I didn’t run fast enough.”
Rusty’s eyes went to Miss Heller, then finally, slowly back to Charlotte. “It’s not your fault.” He cleared his throat. He said it again. “It’s not your fault, baby. Do you hear me?”
Charlotte heard him, but she did not believe him.
“What happened to you,” Rusty said, sounding strident. “It’s not your fault, but we can’t tell anybody else, okay?”
Charlotte could only stare. You didn’t have to lie if something wasn’t your fault.
Rusty said, “It’s a private thing, and we’re not going to tell anybody, okay?” He looked up at Judith Heller again. “I know what lawyers do to girls who are raped. I’m not going to put my daughter through that hell. I won’t let people treat her like she’s damaged.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. His voice became stronger. “They’ll hang for this. Those two boys are murderers, and they’ll die for it, but please don’t let them take my daughter with them. Please. It’s too much. It’s just too much.”
He waited, his eyes on Miss Heller. Charlie turned around. Miss Heller looked down at her. She nodded.
“Thank you. Thank you.” Rusty rested his hand on Charlotte’s shoulder. He looked at her face again, saw the blood and bone and sticks and leaves that had become glued to her body. He touched the ripped seam of her shorts. His tears started to flow again. He was thinking about what had been done to her, what had been done to Sam, to Gamma. He dropped his face into his hands. His sobs turned into howls. He fell against the wall, racked by grief.
Charlotte tried to swallow. Her throat was too dry. She could not clear the taste of sour milk. She was torn up inside. She could still feel the steady flow of blood sliding down the inside of her leg.
“Daddy,” Charlotte said. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” He grabbed her, shook her. “Don’t ever apologize, Charlotte. Do you hear me?”
He seemed so angry that Charlotte dared not speak.
“I’m sorry,” Rusty stuttered out. He got up on his knees. He wrapped his hand around the back of her head, pressed his face to her face, their noses touching. She could smell cigarette smoke and his musky cologne. “You listen to me, Charlie Bear. Are you listening?”
Charlotte stared into his eyes. Red lines spoked out from the blue irises.
He said, “It’s not your fault. I am your daddy, and I am telling you that none of this is your fault.” He waited. “Okay?”
Charlotte nodded. “Okay.”
Rusty whimpered out another breath. He swallowed hard. He was still openly weeping. “Now, do you remember all those boxes your mama brought home from the thrift store?”
Charlotte had forgotten about the boxes. No one would be around to unpack them now. It was just Charlotte and Rusty. There would never be anyone else.
“Listen to me, baby.” Rusty cupped his hands to her face. “I want you to take what that nasty man did to you, and I want you to put it in one of those boxes, okay?”
He waited, clearly desperate for her to agree.
Charlotte let herself nod.
“All right,” he said. “All right. Well, then your daddy’s gonna get some tape, and we’re gonna tape up that box together, sweetheart.” His voice warbled again. His eyes desperately searched hers. “Do you hear me? We’re gonna close up that box and tape it shut.”
Again, she nodded.
“Then we’re gonna put that mean ol’ box on a shelf. And we’re gonna leave it there. And we’re not gonna think about it or look at it until we’re good and God damn ready, okay?”
Charlotte kept nodding, because that’s what he wanted.
“Good girl.” Rusty kissed her cheek. He pulled her close to his chest. Charlotte’s ear folded against his shirt. She could feel his heart thumping beneath the skin and bone. He had sounded so frantic, so afraid.
He asked, “We’re gonna be okay, aren’t we?”
He held her so tight that she couldn’t nod, but Charlotte understood what her father wanted. He needed her to flip on her logical switch, but for real this time. Gamma was gone. Sam was gone. Charlotte had to be strong. She had to be the good daughter who took care of her father.
“Okay, Charlie Bear?” Rusty kissed the top of her head. “Can we do that?”
Charlotte imagined the empty closet in the bachelor farmer’s bedroom. The door hung open. She saw the box on the floor. Brown cardboard. Packing tape sealed it closed. She saw the label. TOP SECRET. She watched Rusty hefting the box onto his shoulder, sliding it onto the top shelf, pushing it back until shadows placed it in darkness.
“Can we do that, baby?” He begged, “Can we just close that box?”
Charlie imagined herself shutting the closet door.
She said, “Yes, Daddy.”
She would never open the box again.