Chapter 4: Mama's Kitchen

Sawyer drove me home at eight in his truck, because my truck was still in the hotel garage with my going-away bag in it.

I was wearing his jeans rolled four times and a belt with a new hole he'd punched with an awl.

"I'll wait out here," he said.

"She might not let me in."

"Then I'll be out here when she doesn't."

The yard looked the way it always looked on a Sunday.

The travel lift sat parked over the empty well, and both sheds had their doors rolled down.

Out on our fuel dock was the spot where I'd shoved him in the river five days ago.

The house sat at the top of the lot, white, with Daddy's porch swing out front.

The kitchen door was unlocked. It always was.

Mama sat at the table in yesterday's lilac suit.

She hadn't been to bed.

In front of her, on the oilcloth, lay the flag.

It was folded tight in its triangle, stars up, the way Bryce had handed it to her twenty-six months ago.

She didn't look up.

"I told you not to come home."

"You said last night. It's morning."

I poured myself coffee from her pot because my hands needed a job.

"Your cousin says it's on the television," Mama said.

"It's on everything."

"Bryce called me at midnight. To see if I was all right." Her mouth went thin. "He's the one who got jilted, and he called to see about me."

"Mama, he wrote the report."

"I know he wrote the report. He sat right there and read it to me." She pointed at Daddy's chair. "He held my hand while he read it."

"It was a lie."

"Says a boy who drinks."

I set the cup down.

"Says a boy who was in the back of that truck. Bryce wasn't."

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