Ghost Wood Song Read online

  “Damn it,” he snarls, clinging to the armrests.

  “Get your ass up. Now.” I grab his arm and yank him as hard as I can. He staggers to his feet, cursing and grumbling.

  “Fine,” he says, and stumbles down the hall to his room. I hear his door slam and then his body drop onto the mattress.

  Mama comes in with slumped shoulders and red eyes, mascara smudged down one cheek. She puts her purse on the kitchen counter and sinks into a chair.

  “Hey, Mama,” I say.

  “Hey, baby.” She rests her chin in one hand, putting all her weight on her elbow. I’m surprised the kitchen table doesn’t collapse under all that grief.

  “You want something to eat or drink?” I ask, and she shakes her head. I go to the sink and fill a glass of water anyway. When I set it down in front of her, she reaches for it and takes a few sips.

  “Thank you.”

  “I made some dinner for Honey and me. I put a plate in the fridge for you.” She doesn’t say anything, so I get it out and put it in the microwave. She stares into space, like she forgot I’m here.

  When I set the plate in front of her, she automatically starts eating, but I know she’s not tasting the food. After a few bites, she pushes the plate away. “Where’s Honey?” she asks absently.

  “She’s on the couch over there, sleeping. I’ll put her to bed in a minute.”

  Mama nods, and I’m afraid she’s going to disappear back inside herself, so I force a question out, even though I already heard enough at the police station to know. “What happened to Jim?”

  She doesn’t look at me, just keeps staring ahead, seeing nothing—at least nothing in this room.

  “Mama?”

  “Someone hit him from behind with a hammer.” Her face pales.

  Hearing it again makes me nauseous. “Who would do that?”

  Mama shakes her head. Then she looks up at me, her eyes haunted. “Why do the men I love keep dying? You think I’m cursed?”

  “Of course not.” I sit at the table next to her and put my hand on hers. “You’re not cursed, Mama. You’ve just had some bad luck.”

  “Ain’t that the same thing?” Tears are streaming down her cheeks now, and I feel my own eyes begin to smart. She glances out the window toward the pines. “I think it’s these woods. I didn’t get far enough away. They came for Jim, too.”

  “You’re not making any sense. It’s a coincidence they both died,” I say, and I know I’m trying to convince myself, too. I reach over and pull some paper towels from the roll on the table. “Here,” I say, handing them to her, though I know I hate wiping my nose with rough paper like that.

  “You seen Jesse?” she asks after she blows her nose.

  “He’s in his room.”

  She nods. She looks lost, so lost, like she’ll never find her way home again. And I can’t go with her, can’t lead her back to us. Even if I could, I don’t have a map to her grief. That’s the thing about losing someone. It’s a landscape no one’s familiar with, and it’s never the same for two people. We’re all alone in our loss, without a map, without a companion. It’s the loneliest thing there is.

  “Did Daddy really beat up Frank once? Is that why Frank’s nose looks like that?” I ask, trying to change the subject.

  Mama nods. “Frank made a pass at Ena, back when she was just starting college. She wasn’t interested, but Frank wouldn’t leave her be. Your daddy . . . he, he couldn’t bear to see her treated that way. Not after his father—” She breaks off and closes her eyes.

  “After his father what?”

  “Baby, I don’t want to dredge up all that ancient history.”

  A low buzzing against the window catches our attention. A wasp is flying there, fumbling against the glass. Mama shudders. A memory crawls across my skin, but I bat it away.

  “I keep thinking about how Jesse beat up Kenneth yesterday,” I say. “The way he climbed on top of him and beat him till his face was all bloody.” When it happened, I was so busy trying to get Jesse off Kenneth, I didn’t really think about how scary and awful it was, but now the memory makes me queasy.

  When Mama doesn’t say anything, I finally ask the question that’s been eating at me all afternoon. “Do the police think Jesse killed Jim?”

  Mama closes her eyes, as if against a wave of pain, but then she gazes up at me, her eyes ringed with dark circles. “You gotta stand by your brother. No matter what. You hear me?”

  “Are you saying he—”

  “Shady Grove. Jesse ain’t never done anything but look out for you. It might be your turn to look after him. No matter what. That’s what brothers and sisters do.” Her lost look is gone now. She grabs my chin and holds my eyes with hers. “You hear me?”

  Tears roll down my cheeks, clogging my throat. “I hear you.”

  Daddy always told Jesse that taking care of me was Jesse’s biggest responsibility, the most important job in his whole life.

  Mama’s right—whether Jesse is guilty or not, it might be my turn to take care of him now.

  Eight

  I step onto the school bus at seven a.m. two days later, and there are already eyes on me, eyes and whispers. Jim’s death was on the news last night, along with the reported cause of foul play, which is the strangest expression. Foul play. What’s playful about murder? The reporter said the police were considering several possible leads, but I haven’t heard any specifics. The detectives questioned me with Mama present, asking what Jim was like at home and how Jesse and I got along with him. I told the truth, but I softened it a little, to make it seem like things weren’t quite as bad between Jim and Jesse as they really were.

  The police interrogated Jesse for a long time yesterday, and they asked him to come back again today instead of going to school. But I can’t let myself believe Jesse had anything to do with it. He and Jim had been fighting a lot lately, but Jesse wouldn’t kill anyone, not even Jim. It must have been someone else. Maybe another construction worker—Jim was never well liked at work. Too short a temper, too sharp a tongue.

  Orlando called three times to see if we needed anything, but I haven’t heard from Sarah since she dropped me at my car after the police station. Maybe she doesn’t know what to say or is afraid of trespassing somehow, but her silence feels all too familiar.

  I find a seat in the second row of the bus so I won’t have to meet all those eyes. I put my earbuds in and stare out the window, anxious about going to school but relieved to be getting out of the house, away from Mama’s grief and the people who keep dropping by with casseroles and questions I’m not allowed to hear the answers to. I offered to stay home to watch Honey, but Mama told me to go, said someone else would drop my sister off at daycare.

  The field rolls by, a morning mist still on it, the cows not yet out to graze. When the bus passes by my lightning-struck tree, its white, twisted branches seem to reach for me like always. Yet against the watery gray of the sky, the tree looks eerie, otherworldly, like another ghost in my world of lost souls. Maybe it’s Jim’s death or my fear for Jesse, or maybe it’s because the shadow man won’t stop haunting my dreams, but today the oak tree isn’t comforting. Instead, the sight of it makes me feel lonely and lost and a little bit afraid.

  Today, surviving lightning doesn’t feel like enough.

  The first person I see when I get off the bus is Cedar Smith, leaning against the brick wall like he owns it. Even off the stage he looks like an old country musician—a real one, not like the new ones that are hardly more than pop singers wearing cowboy hats.

  I eye him from a distance: brown cowboy boots—not the showy kind, just serviceable work boots—dark Wranglers, a big belt buckle, a plaid button-up with glossy buttons and some kind of star design on the shoulders. I always thought his clothes were all for show, but now that I’ve heard him play, I see the clothes are well earned.

  He probably thinks Jesse and I are trashy after the fight at the open mic, and maybe worse if he’s heard about Jim.

&nb
sp; The thought of speaking to Cedar makes me want to sink into the earth, but when I get close, I say hello and give him half a smile. To my surprise, he detaches himself from the wall and walks with me. “Shady, right?”

  I nod, and he smiles. “I’m Cedar, if you didn’t know.”

  “I know” is all I can manage to say. I suspect he’s about to ask about Jim and Jesse, but he doesn’t. I force myself to say something else. “Thanks for helping me Friday night—with Kenneth, I mean.”

  Cedar shakes his head. “That’s all right. That boy can’t walk five feet without coming across someone who wants to beat his ass.”

  I laugh—the first time I’ve laughed in two days. But then I remember how beating up Kenneth makes Jesse look, how it might make him seem guilty of killing Jim.

  “Ken is one of my best friends, but God, he’s got a mouth on him.”

  When I don’t say anything, Cedar starts talking again. “Y’all were really good Friday night—at the open mic, I mean. You played that fiddle like it was growin’ outa your arm,” he says with no attempt to hide the drawl we all inherited from our parents.

  “Really?” I glance up at him, distracted from thoughts of Jesse. “That’s not really the kind of music I like to play. Never feels quite right.”

  “What kind of music do you like?” Cedar asks, smiling again when he catches sight of the blush spreading across my cheeks. “I always wondered, since I’d see you toting that fiddle around school. Thought maybe you played classical or something.”

  “I like the same kind of music you do,” I say, screwing up my courage. I think his arrogance is making me bold. “That’s what I was raised on. Actually—actually, I was named after the song you played. My whole first name’s Shady Grove.”

  “No kidding,” Cedar says with a short laugh. His eyes crinkle at the corners. “How’d we do then, playing your namesake?” I can tell he knows exactly how well they played, and if it were any other boy playing any other song, I’d probably put a stop to his peacocking.

  “It was almost as beautiful as the way my daddy used to play it,” I say. “Almost.”

  “He died?” Cedar asks, and I nod.

  “I’m sorry. That’s awful.” Cedar clears his throat. “Kenneth told me about your stepdad—about what happened.”

  There it is. I’m amazed he waited this long to bring it up. “Is Kenneth okay? It’s been a rough couple of days for him.”

  “Yeah. He’s upset, but he seems all right. I guess they weren’t really close. He’s not coming to school today, though.”

  “No, they weren’t close,” I say. That probably makes his dad’s death even worse.

  “Did you like him, or did you hate him like most people hate their stepdads?”

  “You met him the other night,” I say, as if that’s all the answer Cedar needs. A few weeks ago, I would have said I hated Jim—his impatience, his rough manners, his insistence on watching NASCAR all the damn time. But I saw a whole different side of Jim at the hospital on Friday, something soft underneath all those hard angles. “I don’t know. He was . . . he could be all right sometimes. I mostly feel bad for my little sister. He’s her dad.”

  “Yeah,” Cedar says. But we’re at my classroom now, my hand already on the door handle. “Listen,” he says, “I didn’t really mean to talk to you about everybody dying. I’m sorry about that. I only wanted to tell you how well you played.”

  I turn to him. “Maybe next time we can talk about something a little happier.”

  He smiles. “I’d like that. See you later, Shady Grove,” he says, and then he winks at me. And despite everything going on, despite the fact that he’s a rodeo boy with an ego the size of Texas, I feel that wink all the way down to my toes.

  And then I’m watching his very finely made backside wander off down the hall, and I can’t find a single mocking thing to say about those Wranglers.

  “Hey,” I hear, and turn to see Sarah staring at me. She looks between me and Cedar’s retreating form, her face unreadable.

  “We were only talking about Kenneth,” I say, feeling defensive for no good reason.

  “Okay.” She crosses her arms and glances away. I don’t know what I expected after our kiss, but it wasn’t this. She doesn’t know what to say, where to look. Did she change her mind about me after Jim’s murder? Does she regret the kiss? Is that why she didn’t reach out to me all weekend? Because her silence felt like it was saying something, even if she didn’t mean it to.

  I can tell she’s about to ask if we know who killed Jim, and I don’t want to talk about it—she doesn’t really deserve to hear me talk about it after ignoring me all weekend. I yank open the classroom door and head inside, my anger a sudden roar in my head.

  Sarah sits in the desk next to mine, and I can feel her eyes on me. When she finally speaks, her voice is tentative. “I thought about texting you, but . . . I didn’t want to bother you. I thought you’d be busy with your family and everything.” She’s embarrassed, maybe a little ashamed of herself.

  I’m mad at her, but I give her a weak smile and nod. I know she’s doing her best, but it’s not enough. Not today. She doesn’t try to say anything else, so I stare at the words in my book until class starts, thinking not of Spanish verb conjugations but of Jim’s murder and Sarah’s silence, the wail of a fiddle in the woods, and—a welcome distraction—the way Cedar’s eyes crinkle when he smiles.

  The school bus door closes behind me, and I start home with leaden feet. Once the rattling of the bus windows disappears down the road, I can hear the shouting coming from home. Mostly male voices, loud and angry-sounding, but then there’s a shrill scream I recognize as Honey’s, and I’m running, dirt clods flying behind me. Through the trees, red and blue lights spin lazily, and the world feels like those lights, too bright and dizzying, utterly disorienting.

  Two police officers are grappling with Jesse, their limbs tangled with his, all three of them sounding like a lot of bulls trying to kick their way out of a stall. Jesse’s fighting hard, but they are big, burly men, and they soon slam him against the car and wrest his arms behind his back, slapping cuffs on his wrists.

  Jesse goes limp, like he’s given up and given in, resigned to whatever comes next. They slide him into the back seat of the car and slam the door on him. He stares at me through the window, and he doesn’t look afraid or angry like he should. He looks ashamed.

  “Shady, Shady, Shady, Shady, Shady,” Honey is screaming, and I look over in time to see her rip herself from Mama’s arms. She runs to me and wraps her hands around my legs, sobbing into my jeans. Mama’s face is hard and unreadable as a slab of stone.

  One of the officers turns from Jesse, and I realize it’s Kenneth’s stepdad, Gary. I’ve seen him drop Kenneth off at school a few times. He probably handled Jesse extra rough for Kenneth’s sake. Gary goes over to Mama and talks to her for a minute, puts a slip of paper in her hands. If she understands him, she makes no indication. He pats her on the shoulder and gets back into the car.

  They back out onto the dirt road, Jesse still staring out the window, watching his home and family recede from him like the tide. Honey’s cries have died to a shuddering sob against my legs, and Mama’s still standing where the cop left her, staring at the place the car had been moments before.

  Dust is all that’s left of what just happened.

  I pick up Honey and sling her to one hip, and then walk over to Mama and take her arm. Her eyes clear for a moment, and she lets me lead her up the steps and into the trailer. There’s a lamp broken on the carpet, and several books and DVD cases lie strewn around it.

  I guide Mama over to the couch and make her sit down, and put Honey next to her. My little sister lies down with her head in Mama’s lap. Mama smooths Honey’s hair absentmindedly, and Honey puts her thumb into her mouth and closes her eyes. She’ll fall asleep if we leave her like that.

  I sit down too. “What happened?”

  Mama’s face looks so tired, like she’s livin
g every hour twice. She shakes her head. “They say he killed Jim.” She speaks like she’s reciting a well-known liturgy, the words flat and empty of meaning. “His fingerprints were on the hammer. Two of the workers saw him arguing with Jim that morning before they left for lunch. He disappeared from the work site and wasn’t seen again.”

  No, no, no.

  “So what?” I say, pushing down my panic. “He worked there, so it’s not crazy he would have used the hammer. And they are always arguing. It’s what they do—what they did. How do we know those workers aren’t lying? Why aren’t the cops investigating them? All those guys hated Jim!”

  My panic seems to wake Mama up, and she finally talks normally. “The police did, baby. They looked into both of the workers who were there that morning, plus a dozen more. Everything led back to Jesse.”

  “Well, couldn’t there be other suspects? A customer? Or maybe someone who got fired?”

  But Mama shakes her head. “Only Jesse. They’ve dismissed every other lead.”

  “They’re wrong. They’ll figure it out eventually. We just need to make them understand.” My voice breaks on the last word, a sob lodging in my throat.

  Mama’s eyes meet mine. “There’s too much evidence against him.”

  I shake my head to clear it. “No. Jesse gets mad, but he wouldn’t kill someone. It has to be someone else. He didn’t do it.”

  “I hope not,” Mama says, “but even if he did, he’s still your brother.”

  When I don’t respond, Mama settles her eyes on mine. “You support your family even when they’ve done wrong. If you love them, you do. No matter what they’ve done.”

  No matter what they’ve done. The words almost knock the wind out of me. Mama’s already given up on Jesse’s innocence. I shake my head and back away from her, straight into the trailer’s front door. I can’t breathe. Can’t breathe.

  I stumble outside to the edge of the trees, so light-headed I think I might faint. Black dots edge into my vision, and nausea roars in my gut. But the moment I lean against a skinny pine tree for support, the wail of a fiddle cuts through my shock. I snap to attention.