“Well, I did. Most everything. But I held some back, some few precious things.”
“What things?” I said. “Show what you got.”
Ray looked at the sheriff, whose hand was resting on his gun holster, and pointed to his own front pocket. The sheriff nodded to say it was all right, and Ray drew out a square photograph and handed it to me.
It was a black-and-white picture of a woman with a baby, but you could only see the back of her head and the baby’s forehead resting on her shoulder. I couldn’t tell if it was Mama and me or not.
“There’s more where that came from,” Ray said.
“You can’t see her face or the baby’s either,” I said. “Could be anybody.”
“It’s her, all right,” said Ray.
“So give what else you got and get on,” I told him.
“Now, hold on, not so fast,” Ray said. “This is complicated. Might be these things have come to mean something to me. Maybe a lot and I’d be hard-pressed to part with them. Fact is, I’m pretty sure I can’t part with them. Leastways, not easy. They have a special place right here.” He rested his open palm on his chest like he was pledging allegiance.
“How much this time?” Henry said.
Ray looked pleased. “Well, now.”
“Well, what?” Henry said. “How much?”
“I hadn’t decided on a figure. I was leaving that to your generous nature.”
“And if I pay,” Henry said, “this is the last time we’ll ever see you again? The last time, the sheriff, Fred, and Zoë as my witnesses? There will be no further contact? No attempt at contact? No surprise visits, no further boxes full of mementos and photographs, no further emotional blackmail?”
“Those are hard words,” Ray said.
Henry was as silent as stone.
“They sound pretty accurate to me,” the sheriff put in.
“The way I see it, I’m performing a family service,” Ray said. “It’s hard to know if that service would be required in future. Things happen, turn up. Why, on the news just last night, I saw how documents turned up saying a little girl’s dead mama had wanted her to live with somebody different, different from the blood relative she was living with, and how there’d been a settlement to compensate the disappointed party. A sizable settlement.”
Ray fixed me with his ice-cold stare. My stomach turned. I felt every muscle in Henry’s body tighten, and his hold tightened on me.
“What are you saying?” Henry said.
“Speak clearly,” suggested the sheriff.
“I’m not saying anything,” Ray told him. “Except that the future’s uncertain.”
“Don’t pay him a dime, Uncle Henry,” I said. “Whatever he’s got, I don’t want it. I’m finished with it, with him, with her, the whole selfish lot.”
Henry looked at me. “Honestly?” he said. “You’re certain?”
Ray sensed he was losing a sale. “Ain’t nothing bad in the box. It’s pictures and things. Trinkets. Things women save. Things you might like.”
“Things I’ve got no use for,” I said, throwing the photograph in the dirt.
I wriggled free of Henry and walked straight inside, slamming the door behind me. I leaned back against it, breathed out.
“Guess that’s that,” the sheriff said to Ray. “Guess you’ll be leaving straight away and I won’t be seeing you around here again. I’ll overlook that expired license plate and inspection sticker for the next fifteen minutes, about the time it’ll take you to get to the nearest county line.”
Henry, Fred, and the sheriff kept silent after that. I peeked through the window. Ray looked from one stony face to the other. Then he went to the trunk of his car, shoved the key in the lock, opened the trunk, and took out a cardboard box. He carried the box five or six paces and set it on the ground.
“Tell her Merry Christmas,” he spat, got in his car, and slithered down the drive.
I let Ray’s box sit in the driveway all afternoon. Mr. C’mere went over and sniffed it, but he sneezed right off, which I took as a bad sign.
I sat in the front room trying to turn my thoughts back to the boy and the deer, but that box kept claiming my attention, like it had a life of its own. One minute I thought sending it into outer space wouldn’t get it far enough away from me, but the next minute my curiosity would rise till I could barely stand to sit. The zzzsstt zzzsstt zzzsstt of Henry’s welder sounded out in the studio. Fred had gone to give Bessie her medicine and Harlan was helping the Padre, so I was alone.
I started creeping myself out, worrying that the sheriff hadn’t followed Ray all the way to the county line. I worried that Ray might double back to kidnap me and hold me for ransom or claim custody of me with phony papers. Ray could still knock the joy right out of me, he and that box of Mama’s things, if they really were her things. Anything to do with Mama could still do that to me, come out of nowhere, push my buttons, even from the grave.
Worst of all, it brought back that Saturday I was down at the library reading, away from her and Ray and all their carrying on. They’d been fighting all morning; then Ray stormed out of the house and she screamed after him, “I’m going to do it this time, you see if I don’t!” I hadn’t cared to spend all day listening to her snapping and whining about Ray and how hateful he was, so I headed to the library and stayed as late as I could. But when I got home an ambulance was wailing down the street, police cars were everywhere, and Ray was yelling and fuming that it was all my fault, like Mama was dead because of me.
When Henry came in, I was remembering so hard I didn’t even hear him.
“You all right?” he said, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. He was leaning against
