her ass back to Murrayville. Maybe she’ll come back on her own now.”
“Look at this,” Ricky said, holding out a full-body photo of Margo’s ma smiling in a two-piece bathing suit. “She looks like a movie star. I remember her lying in the sun with her top off.”
Margo blotted her tears with her shirt sleeve.
“Show a little class, man,” Junior said and kicked at Ricky.
“I’m sorry, Nympho. You know we all miss her.”
Margo wished she could find a photo of her mother looking the way she remembered her, smiling sadly or frowning, even. Luanne used to lie in bed sometimes through whole winter days. She had let Margo cuddle with her or read a book in the bed. Luanne had seemed to take comfort from Margo’s presence.
Ricky Murray pulled from the tin box a new chocolate-colored leather wallet, identical to the one her father carried, and he handed it to her. Margo took from her pocket the wadded-up twenty-dollar bills she’d received from Brian Ledoux, straightened them, and put them into the wallet. She put in the Murray Metal ID card and the folded birth certificates, too.
“Did you know your dad wanted to be cremated?” Junior said.
She shook her head. “There’s no money for it.”
“You heard the cops. My dad will take care of it.”
She nodded. Though her sadness was powerful, the smoking had helped—Junior was right. Maybe she could survive her daddy’s death if she stayed outside herself this way.
Junior lit a second joint, and after his first exhalation, he said, “I won’t get to smoke again until Christmas. It’s hard as hell to smuggle anything into that prison. I’ll promise Mom and Dad anything if they let me come home. Or I’ll figure out a way to run off to Alaska and work on a fishing boat like Uncle Loring.”
“Do you think Billy will go to prison?” she asked.
“I don’t know what’ll happen to my hotheaded little brother. I know he’d end up in solitary if he went to my school.” Junior stood up. “I’ve got to go home, Nympho—I mean, Margo—and Ricky’s got to get back to work. He’ll drop us off at the house. Come on.”
“I want to bring my boat.”
“Grandpa’s boat? We can come back for it later.”
“I need to take a shower first. Please, just let me be alone for a little while.”
“All right. Don’t wait too long,” he said. “You’ll want to get there in time for Ma to make you go to church with her tonight. She really wants everybody to go.”
“I promise I’ll come along soon. Just go.”
He hugged her, gave her a joint in a baggie, and said, “Just in case.” He put a wintergreen candy in his mouth, popped one into hers, and left with Ricky.
When Margo was alone, she took the envelope out of her back pocket, opened it, and smoothed out the letter, one small pink page that matched the envelope, featuring a cartoon flamingo:
Dear Bernard,
I’m sorry it had to be this way with the divorce. You know I never belonged there with you people. I don’t think I can bear to see Margaret Louise right now. It would be too painful. I’ll contact you again, soon, when I’m in a better situation, and she and I can visit. Please don’t use this address except for an emergency, and please don’t share it with anyone else.
Love, Luanne
More important than what she said was the address on the envelope: 1121 Dog Leg Road, Heart of Pines, Michigan. Heart of Pines was the town thirty-five miles upstream, just beyond Brian Ledoux’s place, a town with lots of rental cabins and restaurants and bars, a place where you could buy hunting and fishing supplies. It had been an all-day trip when she’d motored up there and back with Grandpa. Beyond Heart of Pines the river was too shallow to navigate.
She went through the tin box one more time, chose three photos of her mother and closed them in the pages of Little Sure Shot. She put the book in her daddy’s old army backpack with Crane stenciled on it. She loaded the pack with her favorite items of clothing, plus a few bandannas, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a bar of soap, a bottle of shampoo, some tools and paper targets, and what her daddy called female first aid. When she stepped outside, she could not take her eyes off the sparkling surface of the water; maybe it was the pot she’d smoked, but the river was shimmering in the late afternoon sun as though it were speaking to her with reflected light, inviting her to come out and row. She loaded up The River Rose, tossed in an army sleeping bag, two life vests, a vinyl tarp, a gallon jug of water, and her daddy’s best fishing pole. She climbed in, fixed her oars, and pushed off.
Margo headed across the river toward the Murray place, rowing at first in slow motion so she ended up downstream and had to struggle back up. As she tied off her boat, she felt her daddy’s disapproval of the Murrays sift over her. Without him, she could cross the river and swim if she wanted, and she could pet the Murray dogs without getting yelled at. Crane could no longer get angry, and she would no longer be the reason for his or anyone’s living. Maybe if she kept reminding herself of this, she could survive without him. The thought of surviving without him made her cry again.
Margo made her way to the whitewashed shed—someone had rinsed the blood off the wall and placed a blanket-sized piece of mill felt over the ground where her father had been lying. Margo picked up the trail that led to the road. When she saw the Ford truck still parked on the gravel driveway, the scene was so ordinary that she expected to see Crane sitting behind the wheel. After a few deep breaths, she opened the door of the truck and folded down the bench seat, but found no gun there. If the police had taken the shotgun, as well as the rifle, she knew she was out of luck. If Cal or someone from the family had taken it, she would find it in Cal’s office off the living room with the rest of his guns. Margo wondered how she would be better off now, with the Murrays or without them.
Margo moved closer to the house and hid behind some maples. The dog Moe pulled against his chain and whimpered. If Margo moved in with the Murrays, she would have to wait for her mother to come get her, and there was no telling how long that would take. It was hours later when Joanna walked outside and started the Suburban. Margo ducked down. She heard boys’ voices arguing, maybe the twins. Junior came out of the house, held the door open for Cal, and walked slowly beside him down the stairs and to the driveway. Cal was taking small steps, as though just learning to walk. Junior opened the front passenger door and held out his arm as if to support his father.
“I don’t need any damned help,” Cal said in a strained voice.
He got into the front passenger seat, and Junior got into the back seat. Finally, one of the twins climbed from the back to sit between his parents. None of them looked in Margo’s direction. The Christmas lights on the oil-barrel float were still on, their colors muted in the early evening light. Saturday evening Mass would keep them away from home for at least an hour and a half. Usually Joanna went alone or with the littler kids—Cal had about as much interest in religion as Margo’s father’d had—but today Joanna might have convinced them that they ought to pray for Billy and have their souls worked on. Maybe Joanna thought there was something to be gained by showing the family in public at this time. Maybe Cal wanted to show he had not been crippled.
Margo climbed the steps, found the door key under the flowerpot where it had always been, used it in the lock, and replaced it. The kitchen was warm from the woodstove, which someone had damped down to last until they returned. The house smelled of cinnamon bread. Margo smelled turkey soup, too, which meant that Joanna, despite last night’s events, had boiled turkey carcasses as she always had done the day after the party. Margo had last been in this big, bright room last Thanksgiving when she was helping Joanna with the dishes, before she’d gone out to join the party. Margo ventured into the living room, where she’d argued with Billy for years without feeling uneasy—it was only in the last year that Billy had become strange and scary to her. The Murray house never did feel empty, even when everybody was gone. Always