some flowers on the graves of his own father and mother, Calvin and Muriel.
No lilacs this year. It had been too damn cold.
Brandt stopped on a hill and looked behind him to the south. Through the bare trees, he could just make out the faded red of the old barn.
Margi trudged up behind him, breathless and shivering. “Why are we here?” she asked.
“Because I need to know where I come from,” Brandt said.
He walked toward the creek, to the small clearing where the cluster of old headstones lay half buried in the earth. He remembered where his old man and his mother were, and he went there first. It was a simple gray marker:
JONAH BRANDT
VERNA BRANDT
D: 1967
D: 1957
“That your parents?” Margi asked.
He didn’t turn to look at her, didn’t bother to answer. He trudged to the first row of old headstones and knelt to clear away the weeds. He had to use a stick to scrape the dirt and moss from the etching. Calvin and Muriel. On the stone next to it, only the name of Samuel was visible.
He scraped away at the next headstone until it revealed a name he had never heard before: Lizbeth. He guessed she was Samuel’s wife and moved on. The next headstone in the row belonged to Charles, followed by two people named Amos and Phoebe. They must’ve been the ones to start this farm, since the dates on their stones appeared to be the oldest.
He had vague memories of his grandfather Calvin, but he had never paid any attention to the rest of these people. Never cared before today. Was it those nigger bones in the barn that had driven him here or something else?
“Wow, your family has been here a long time,” Margi said, staring at Amos Brandt’s stone.
“Yeah,” he said.
Brandt pushed to his feet and started walking, kicking at the weeds to see if there were other headstones hidden. At the edge of the clearing, the toe of his shoe hit something hard, and he bent to see what it was. Just a broken piece of granite, inscribed with one name: ISABEL.
Who was this, and why was her stone so far away from the others?
Brandt brought his heel down hard on the stone. Bits of the edge crumbled away. Three more tries, but he couldn’t smash it. Finally, he picked it up and started to throw it into the trees. But then he looked toward Lethe Creek. He carried the piece of granite down to the bank and heaved it into the water.
“Why did you do that?” Margi asked.
“’Cause it don’t belong here.”
“Why not?”
“Come on,” he said, grabbing Margi’s arm. “Let’s get out of here.”
He didn’t like going up to the attic, but today he had no choice. That’s where the Bible was. He had seen it up there once, seen Crazy Verna holding it against her chest and praying on it. Like God could actually free her of her demons.
She had shown him the Bible once, shown him where all the names of the Brandt family were written. He hadn’t paid any attention then, but he wanted to see it now, wanted to know if what Geneva had told him was true.
He pulled himself up onto the plywood that covered the beams and looked around. The place was a mess here, too. Boxes everywhere, old books and pictures strewn around like someone had been searching through them for something. Probably that stupid girl looking for a picture of her slut mother, but he had burned them all years ago.
He pushed at cobwebs as he walked to the far corner of the attic. He ducked under the same beam Crazy Verna had hung herself from and knelt next to an old chest. This is where she had kept it, he remembered. But there was nothing but old clothes in the chest now.
He tore through the boxes, throwing the contents aside. But there was no Bible. He stood, panting, his eyes traveling around the attic. There was an old wooden crate wedged under the eave in the corner. He pulled it out. It was nailed shut, and he had to hunt up a hammer to pry it open. He lifted the lid.
It was the one he had used on Jean that night in the kitchen.
When had he put it in here?
That night?
Hell, he’d been so drunk it was possible. He barely remembered cleaning up the kitchen.
He held the knife up to the thin light. It had been his favorite knife, the one he used to skin deer. He had bought it special out of a catalogue, not minding that it cost forty dollars, because when a man was standing out in the freezing cold trying to gut a deer, he didn’t need his hand slipping down the grip.
And that night, when the tip of the blade had broken off in Jean’s belly, it was like she’d taken the one good thing he had left.
Brandt stared at the broken tip, still crusted with her blood.
“Owen? What are you doing up here?”
He turned. Only Margi’s head was visible above the opening. The shadows played across her thin face, and for a second, she looked a little like his mother.
“Leave me alone,” he said.
“What’s wrong with you, anyway? You’re acting crazy.”
That was one of the last things Jean had said to him. He looked at Margi again. She had crawled up onto the plywood. Verna was there in her lopsided mouth and bony features. Jean was there, too, in her wide, frightened eyes.
“You see this?” he asked, holding up the broken knife.
Margi crawled closer. “You ain’t supposed to have no weapons, are you?” she asked.
“No, I ain’t supposed to have no weapons,” he said, mocking her tone.
“Owen, that has blood on it.”
“It’s her blood,” he said, picking at the crust.
When Margi didn’t reply, he looked up. She had moved away into the shadows and was watching him. Again, it was weird just how much like Jean she was. Weak and scared all the time but still willing to climb into his bed at night and do what she could to make him happy.
“You ever think about leaving me, baby?” he asked.
“No, Owen. Never.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
Brandt beckoned her closer. Margi hesitated, then crawled across the plywood to him. He grabbed the back of her neck and crushed her mouth with his. Margi’s hands instinctively came up against his chest until she realized what he was doing.
He jerked her head back and placed the broken blade against her throat. Her hands flew to his wrists, gripping.
“Owen, don’t.”
“Tell me the truth. Do you ever think about leaving me?”
