long overdue.”
I stood and went to the sink. I ran water into my cupped hand, slurped it into my mouth, and rinsed the ick from my gullet. I spat back into the sink and stood to look at the woman I loved.
“One of your most annoying traits, Candace,” I said with a calm I didn't feel, “is that you always talk like you're some special seer. Like God pointed you and you alone to the flowchart of my life. That you know what everyone ought to be doing or thinking or saying to each other. And that if folks don't follow your advice, you can peer into that crystal ball you keep stashed away from the rest of us and foresee the onrushing doom. God, I'm tired of that!”
“Jordan, don't yell at me.”
The calm tone of her voice grated like fingernails raking a chalkboard. “I will yell, thanks. I will yell my throat raw if I feel like it. I have spent the past year trying to get used to the idea of a car salesman that I never liked much being my father. Of my mother being an adulteress. Of living the rest of my life in a little town that I love, but that offers me very few career choices. And watching my mother slide down into dementia. You know, those aren't fun things, Candace. Disney hasn't designed a ride around those little activities quite yet. And now I've gotten to meet my new family. And what a fucking thrill that's been!”
She was silent.
“I don't like to whine. Truly I don't. But I am tired, sweetheart.” My voice dropped and my head felt light. “I am tired of feeling like I've got to adopt Bob Don just because maybe he didn't wear a rubber thirty years ago-”
“Jordan!”
“-and because you keep telling me I need to give him a chance. No, I don't. There is no law, legal or moral, that says I have to give him the time of day. I don't need another father. I buried my father already. I would just as soon leave now, like he wants. I'm tired of being treated like a pariah here. I'm tired of feeling like I must apologize for who or what I am. And I'm so mad at him, at my mother, I can't even think straight. I said rotten things to him-and a part of me meant it.”
“Are you done?” Her words were soft. I felt my fury begin to subside.
I stood and leaned against the towel rack, feeling more tired than I believed possible. “No. Yes. I don't know. Please, can't we just get out of here?”
“Fine, we'll leave.” She turned soundlessly away and began packing. She folded shirts and walking shorts with cold precision, not looking at me. Finally she spoke: “I have to say you surprise me-I never thought you'd run away.”
“There's a difference between running away and acknowledging you've had enough,” I answered. She didn't look at me, briskly packing her belongings.
I had never spoken so harshly to her before. But I felt the sudden weight of weariness that I'd tried to ignore for months crash down on me. My relationship with Bob Don seemed finished, and with an icy idleness, I wondered if the same could be said for Candace. The thought jolted me and I forced it toward the back of my mind. I helped her in piling clothes into her bag. Neither of us spoke.
We didn't get a chance to finish stuffing the luggage.
Aubrey knocked on the door and opened it, barely waiting for an answer.
“Y'all gotta come downstairs. Mutt and the police are here.” He ran a trembling hand across the sheen of new sweat on his forehead. “They got the autopsy results.”
“It was a heart attack,” Uncle Mutt said in a low, soft voice. “Lolly had a heart attack.”
Silence greeted this announcement. I sat on the couch, sandwiched between Candace and Deborah. The air in the study felt old and heavy, like air from a tomb recently opened. My hand wandered to Candace's and I took hers in mine. Sweat slicked her palms.
Sass and Aubrey sat on the other couch, with Bob Don and Gretchen. Sass stood. She held hands with her son.
“Uncle Mutt. At least it was quick.” Her voice quavered. “The poor dear didn't suffer much.” As I listened to Sass speak I watched Bob Don. He would not look at me, instead concentrating on comforting Gretchen. She pressed her face into her fists and didn't respond to her husband's touch.
“When will we have her… body back for the service?” Sass asked.
Tricia Yarbrough, the justice of the peace who'd visited us before, and Victor Mendez exchanged glances. Finally Judge Yarbrough spoke. “Not quite yet, Cecilia. I've ordered further toxicology tests on Lolly's body.”
Ice trenched Mutt's voice. “That's ridiculous, Tricia. The coroner said heart attack, what else is there to know?”
“The coroner also said Lolly had no signs of heart disease. There's no reason for her heart to have given out the way it did.”
“Sometimes these things just happen…” Sass ventured.
Mendez cleared his throat. “Judge Yarbrough thought there was sufficient reason to call for the additional toxicology tests. Considering Mrs. Throckmorton's heart was healthy-and there was digitalis-based medication missing from the house.”
Mutt stared hard at the authorities. “I hope you're not implying my sister took her own life. She would never do such a thing.”
Tricia Yarbrough pursed her lips. “I'm sorry, Emmett. Truly I am. But I have no choice. We've got to know what killed her.”
“And if Aunt Lolly had no cause to commit suicide?” I piped up. Glares arrowed in on me.
“For God's sake, the woman was half-crazy,” Deborah said matter-of-factly. “I'm sorry to be so blunt, Uncle Mutt. But Lolly wasn't balanced. She had no business taking care of Uncle Jake and being entrusted with potentially dangerous medications.”
“Lolly was eccentric, not crazy. There's a real big difference, Deb,” Mutt boomed. “My sister would not take her own life.”
“If they find digitalis, and she didn't commit suicide, Uncle Mutt, that's not going to leave many attractive alternatives,” I said.
“Stay out of this, Jordan,” Mutt said. “You don't know what you're talking about.”
“She was threatening me,” I said. Candace's hand tightened against mine. I glanced at Victor Mendez, who stood near the study door. I explained quickly to the family about the malicious cards I'd received, and told Mutt that I'd found another vicious note in Lolly's closet. “I'm sorry, Uncle Mutt. But you can't tell me sending those cards was the act of a balanced mind.”
“Holy hell,” Uncle Jake murmured. Uncle Mutt's face reddened with ire.
“No. Lolly would not do such a thing. She would not. Someone planted that card in her closet, Jordan.”
A hush fell over the room. “Why?” Sass finally asked. “Why would someone frame Lolly for scaring Jordan?”
“I don't know!” Mutt snapped. He ran a hand through his hair, grief painting its rictus on his handsome face. “This ain't happening. It was a heart attack, for God's sake! She didn't kill herself and she wasn't murdered.”
“Uncle Mutt, please, be reasonable,” Philip said. He began to pace back and forth before the windows as he spoke, like a lawyer delivering eloquent summation. “We have to quit kidding ourselves that Lolly was entirely sane. She very well might have ended her own life.”
Mutt sank into a chair by our couch. Deborah reached out to embrace him. He leaned against her and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. His face reflected his misery. “I don't understand. Why would she try to frighten Jordan away from our reunion? She said she was excited about meeting him. And why, why kill herself?”
Philip knelt before Mutt. “I'm so, so sorry, Uncle Mutt.”
I couldn't remain silent. “Philip,” I managed to croak. “Why don't you explain what I saw last night when you and Mutt and I were in the library.”
Tricia Yarbrough and Victor Mendez had remained silent during this exchange. I'd felt their eyes wander from face to face, lingering a moment, perhaps weighing us each on some internal measure of guilt and complicity. Now I felt Mendez's dark eyes rivet on me as I tried to find my voice again.
Philip stared at me. “Excuse me? I don't know what to explain because I don't know what you saw.”
“I saw you replace a book on the shelves. A copy of Bitter Money.” I blinked at Mutt and Mendez and my
