“Where have you been?” Sam met me, hands on hips, at the door.
“Out for a walk.” I drank down a glass of water.
“We’re all worried about you. What’s going on?” Sam leaned in toward me, her expression changing as her eyes shifted to my hair.
“Nothing to be worried about.” I brushed past her to my room. Nice of her to show concern when she was the one to drive me from my home in the first place.
Twigs and thistles snarled my hair. I picked out the most annoying ones, then climbed under the covers and slept with my head under the pillow.
Saturday brought more of the same. I evacuated the area early, hoping to avoid brown eyes softened by those crinkles in the corners. Happy crinkles. Fun crinkles. The kind of crinkles that made you want to hang out with Brad for the rest of your life.
Sunday came. Instead of trudging to church in my negative state of mind, I trudged the plains. Every so often, my swampers sank in surprise springs, soaking my feet. I hardly noticed. At least the water washed off some of the mud caked on my jeans. And when did I tear that hole in my sweatshirt?
My slim digital camera, the one I used for before-and-after shots of my renovation projects, came along for the ride. My link to my mother . . . How would she have photographed the seed cluster clinging to that branch of the cedar tree? What angle would she have chosen to capture the circle of mushrooms in that sunny clearing? Which spring wildflower would have caught her attention and stolen her breath?
Snap. Click. I could only guess.
That night, a light supper from the kitchen. Then upstairs, exhausted. Bathe, sleep, dream. But as always, morning came. Out the door again, running . . . hiding . . . avoiding . . .
Monday found me at the Port Silvan cemetery a couple miles down the road. I meandered through headstones, reading names and dates, intent on finding one in particular. I started at the front near the highway and worked my way through family plots toward the back, like a wraith wandering over hallowed ground. Bouquets of plastic flowers, tiny American flags, and statues reminded the living that someone still cared. A few graves had elaborate displays of fencing and photos and even stuffed animals. But not the one that read elizabeth marie amble. I found it along the back row, in with the Nagy family plots. Grandma Amble had insisted on burying her daughter with the rest of her family, though Mom and I had only spent summers on the peninsula and the rest of the year in Escanaba. A simple rectangular slab of granite was inscribed with my mother’s name and the years of her birth and death. I crouched down. Somewhere, six feet below, lay the remains of my beautiful mother. I put my hands on the grass above her casket, imagining she could feel the pull of energy between us.
“Mom,” I whispered, my lips close to the ground. The scent of rich earth greeted my nose. A black ant traversed the grassy grave top, climbing up and down through the mess of green blades. I flicked it away with my finger.
Legs tucked, I rolled onto my side and rested my cheek on the ground. “It’s Tish, Mom. Your baby girl. Remember?”
I pictured her sitting on top of the grave, dressed in blue jeans and a sweatshirt, like a character from Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.
“Of course I remember my little princess.” She smoothed my hair as I rested my head in her lap. “I’ve missed my pumpkin. I’m glad you came to see me.”
I crushed my eyes closed, but the tears came pouring out anyway. “I miss you so much, Mom. Why did you leave me? Didn’t you love me?”
Her soft voice comforted me. “Tish, you have always been the most important thing to me. I made a mistake that night. Sometimes you have to let go of people so you can live. I held on to your father. But he wasn’t real. Just a dream. I should have let go of him. You let go too, Tish.”
“I don’t want to let go. I want you back. I want to be seven again, playing in the woods. Gerard and Joel can come too. We’ll all be together again. Puppa and Jellybean and the rest of us.”
“Let go, Tish. It’s all just a dream.”
“I don’t want to let go.” I clawed at her lap, but got only a handful of dirt and grass. I laid there sobbing, I don’t know how long, before I dusted off and headed home.
It was Tuesday. Or maybe Wednesday. Whatever the day, I left just after I heard Sam’s van pull out the drive. I made it to the edge of the woods without seeing anyone. Then, there she was. My friendly doe.
“Hi, girl,” I said. I kissed at her and held out a hand. She stared at me awhile. Then she casually bent her neck to eat. I smiled. She knew me. She liked me. She was comfortable around me. After a minute, she turned and walked away. I followed at a distance. Ahead, the underbrush crunched. Several times she stopped and I thought I lost her. But soon her shape emerged from the backdrop and we’d start off again.
The ground got soggy. Cupid’s Creek must be just ahead. If she decided to cross it, I’d have to let her go. Water trickled. The doe stopped in a clearing and looked back at me. I waggled my fingers.
From the direction of the highway came a loud crack, like a gunshot. The doe took off running. I ducked down, arms covering my head. The reverberation died as I scanned the trees. Perhaps the report had merely been the loud snap of a branch. It sure wasn’t hunting season. I stood and waited for my heartbeat to even out. I moved into the clearing ahead. A few more steps and I paused. Thumping and crunching sounded from the opposite side of the grassy area, then faded, as if something or someone were running away.
The sounds of solitude returned. I moved toward the creek. A cluster of marsh marigolds were sprinkled along the bank. A perfect photo opportunity. I stepped toward them. Halfway there, I froze in my tracks. Around me, black garbage bags filled with dirt appeared to be arranged in rows. And from the center of every bag rose the fat stumpy remains of some kind of plant. What on earth? I shrank back as if Alien babies would hatch from their pods at any moment.
A marijuana grove. Last year’s batch of Silvan Green.
With the feeling that I was trespassing, even on my own acreage, I backed away from the clearing. The root of a towering cedar caught my swampers. I landed on my backside, fighting for calm as I crab-walked toward cover. I rested against a trunk, panting.
From the quiet of the forest came a tiny electronic beeping sound, like the alarm on a wristwatch. I looked around, confused. The tones came from a nearby clump of bushes. Beneath the tangled branches, I spotted the watch, a man’s digital with chrome accents and a black band.
The wrist was still in it.
“Ahh.” I grunted and scrambled away.
Adrenaline surged through me, sharpening every sound, every smell, every thought.
The hairy arm lay unmoving on the ground. A fly feasted uninterrupted on the exposed flesh. I gulped for air, wondering if the person were dead or alive. My eyes followed the logical course of a body and saw the man’s work boots protruding from the other side of the bushes. He’d apparently fallen in a Nestea plunge straight backward into the brush. If not for the insistent beeping on his wrist, I would have been spared the distinction of finding him.
“Hey,” I called in a half whisper, wondering now if it might have been a gunshot I’d heard after all. “Are you okay?”
I glanced over my shoulder, hoping whoever had fled the scene was a good distance away by now and not lining me up in his crosshairs.
“Hey,” I said again. I crouched by the body and reached out my hand. I brushed away the fly. Then I put my fingers around the man’s wrist, feeling for a pulse like they do on cop shows. The seconds passed. I had no idea whether the man was still alive, or if my own racing blood created the dub dub I felt.
I pulled back the branches, straining to see a face with eyes full of life. I found his eyes. They stared up at the leafy canopy, the soul they once held snuffed out by a bullet that left its mark between his brows.
I scrambled backward. Not good. Not good. The man was definitely dead. Worse, he was dead on my land. Worse still, I found him.
Experience told me that if you were the one to report a dead body, pretty much everybody figured you for the killer. Likewise, TV crime programs laid it out just as plain that if you found a dead body and didn’t report it, they’ll also figure you for the killer. A classic Catch-22. And even in the short time I’d been out here, I’d probably left enough DNA on the scene to seal my own conviction. They’d ignore the fact that I didn’t have the murder weapon. Heaven knew I’d probably thrown it in the creek or swallowed it or something.
For a minute I wished I could be one of those famous monkeys, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil.
