Tomorrow River

you feel like you’re somewheres else.” The candlelight bounced off the cracked root cellar walls. Off my sister’s face. Even in all that decaying ugliness she looked beautiful.

She didn’t reach for her drawing stuff right away, so I nudged her and said, “Ohhh, I get it. You want to eat a little something first. Why don’t we crack open a jar?” That’s a joke. Woody and I cannot stand to even look at those jars of strawberry preserves that sit on that rickety shelf along the back wall, that’s how much we’ve eaten them. We got so hungry we ate the pickled beets, too. “Come on, pea. Drawing will make the time pass faster, you know that,” and then I started singing “Some Enchanted Evening.” Woody goes crazy for that song. When my voice wore out, I whispered her the story about two girls who go to a faraway beach with their mother, she likes that one most of all. “Once upon a time, it’s a perfect day. Not a single cloud in a baby blue sky. The girls’ mama is relaxing under a striped umbrella reading and watching her twins build sand castles.” My story was so believable Woody started drifting off. “Wake up,” I told her when she began listing. I found a mouse nibbling on her hair one night and after that, we don’t fall asleep no matter how whipped we are.

I mean, I understand why Papa puts us down there. All the liquor he’s been drinking has made him stricter, but he has never spared the rod. How else are sinful children to learn? The Good Book is clear on this subject. And Woody and I deserve to be punished. We’re not telling him the whole truth about the night Mama disappeared and somehow, some way, his under-the-influence brains knows that. Whenever he interrogates us, I leave out the part about Sam and our mother’s friendship and how I ran through the woods that night to his place looking for her. And then there’s Woody, who will not speak to him at all, which makes him worse mad to be disregarded like that. His Honor expects you to follow the rules. If you don’t, then you got to take the punishment. It’s his job.

Of course, E. J.’s noticed. He pointed at our scabbed knees and asked, “Why ya always got those?” I told him, “From kneelin’ on the root cellar floor, a course.” He grinned and asked, “And which root cellar floor would that be?” like he was waiting for me to deliver the punch line of another Bazooka joke. I didn’t want to embarrass him over his poor upbringing, so I told him, “It’s something rich people do, you wouldn’t understand.”

I reach into my pocket for a piece of pecan fudge that I keep in all my shorts for moments like these, but there’s nothing in there, not even lint. “Wait here and whatever you do, don’t let go of her,” I say, passing E. J. my binoculars. “I’m going in for a better look.”

Our sidekick doesn’t understand why we’ve got to be so secretive like we always are, but unlike Mama did to Sam-I am not spilling the beans. I expect E. J. to trust me and for the most part, he does. I drop to the ground and unlace my sneaker. Slide off my sock and ball it up. We had to give up using just our hands to clamp my sister’s mouth shut because she bit us too many times. “We got to keep her from howling. Stuff this in her mouth.”

“Aw, Shen,” E. J. says, holding the sock by the toe. “That’s so… it’s-”

“Ya think I don’t know it’s disgustin’? You got another idea then have at it. It’s the only way she’ll keep quiet without the fudge and I forgot to bring it, okay? Can’t remember everything, can I?” I say, feeling guilty that I haven’t.

E. J. looks at his love girl, and says, “Sorry, dear,” as he slips the sock into her mouth and gets her hands in his so she can’t dislodge it. I want to suggest that he take the rope off his pants and tie her wrists, but I know he won’t.

I warn Woody, “You can forget gettin’ an almond cream rub tonight if you spit that sock out. Mind E. J.,” and then I take off to make my way up closer to the house to find out what’s going on between the sheriff and Papa.

Over in the east yard, Mr. Cole has abruptly stopped pulling milkweed and started cutting down an apple tree that got diseased. He sees me, I know he does. Our caretaker mostly stays in the background of our lives, but Mr. Cole is real attentive to what plays out at Lilyfield. Especially if it involves Woody and me. He’s promised Beezy that he’ll keep her up-to-date on our well-being and takes that responsibility very, very seriously.

Mr. Cole gives me a wave and picks a baby green apple up off the ground and shines it on his pants. He knows they’re my favorites. He’s getting ready to shout out, “Hey, Miss Shen. Look what I got for ya,” so I shake my head as wild as I can. Mr. Cole stares back, confused, until I point to the porch. He nods, lifts the ax up to his shoulder, and begins chopping… chu… chu… chu… harder and faster. For good measure, he breaks into a round of “I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad.” He can’t write his letters all that well, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a smart man. He knows that sometimes I got to slink about to get an understanding of what’s going on around here. The disturbance he’s making will cover up any noise I make.

I weasel through the bushes to squat down below the kitchen window, being ever so careful not to step on anything that might make Papa snap to attention. Him and the sheriff are only a few yards away. Above me, I can hear Lou in the kitchen beating a spoon against a bowl near to death. She’s making such a racket that I’ve got to work hard to hear the sheriff say, “… don’t really know for sure. Thought at first he’d drowned in the creek, but I got Perry Walker, the medical examiner from Charlottesville, to come take a look. He said there was no water in Clive’s lungs. Perry hasn’t run all the tests, but it looks suspicious. Murder maybe. Did you happen to hear anything out of the ordinary comin’ outta the Minnow place Friday evenin’?”

Murder? Minnow?

“Friday?” Papa replies. “Wish I could help you out, Andy, but as I recall, the girls and I had a light supper, played a game of cribbage, and turned in early that night.”

That’s not true. We don’t eat or play cribbage or do anything else nice together.

Papa then says to the sheriff in his most persuasive voice, “I’d certainly like to keep this incident quiet. With Founders Weekend coming up, we wouldn’t want to put a damper on the festivities with talk of something as nasty as a possible murder, would we? I don’t think my father would appreciate that.”

The sheriff says, “I take your point.”

Of course, he does. I admit, I’ve got some resentment towards him on account of the way he never found Mama, but I’m not letting that affect my assessment of his personality. Sheriff Andy Nash with his brown hair and brown eyes and brown uniform-if he was standing next to a pile of bull crap you’d never be able to make him out. It’s not like he’s evil or anything, he’s actually sort of nice. Just always seems like he’s more interested in glad handing than crime solving. Sam is usually so picky about who he spends his time with. What he sees in the sheriff is beyond me.

I can’t tell from where I’m crouched down, but I bet the sheriff is dabbing his chin with his red bandana. He does that a lot because he sweats a lot. “This heat is really something. Have you noticed the trees? They’ve been soaking in so much of this wet warmth that they can barely stay upright. Remind me of hoboes on a bender,” he says. “Can’t remember a summer this bad. Maybe in ’61, yeah, that was a scorcher. You could fry-”

“Was there anything else you needed to discuss, Andy?” Papa interrupts. “I’m afraid I’m rather pressed for time.”

“Well, now that you mention it, sir, I’d like to have a few words with the twins. Ya know how children can sometimes hear and see things us grown-ups don’t. I know they got that tree fort that overlooks the Minnow place. Would you mind?”

“I’m afraid that would be inconvenient,” Papa says politely, but he minds very much. I can tell by the sound of his voice that his feathers are ruffled. “I’ll ask the girls this evening if they saw anything and get back to you. By the way, have you heard anything more about the parade rerouting?”

The sheriff says, “I haven’t… golly, could I trouble you for another glass of tea? This heat… it’s… I’m parched.”

Papa calls impatiently, “Louise?”

Instead of going out to the porch the way she’s been taught to ask if they’re needing anything, Lou slams the mixing bowl down on the counter and thrusts her head out the kitchen window that I’m hiding under. Hearing my gasp, she startles, too, and bangs her head on the bottom of the raised window. She narrows her eyes at me and says, “Yes, Your Honor?”

“We need another pitcher of sweet tea. Quickly, please.”

I clasp my hands together in a praying way and beg Louise with my eyes, please, please don’t tell him, “Your spoilt daughters’ve been runnin’ off to town against your expressed wishes. Been talkin’ to folks about your wife’s disappearance, and oh sakes alive, look! Here’s one of ’em balled up beneath my kitchen window listenin’ in on y’all.” Remarkably, she doesn’t utter a word. I’m already thinking a few good thoughts about her until she points at