Chapter 6 - The Inventory of the Shed
By Tuesday noon, the heat had returned with an oily, yellow persistence that made the leaves on the live oaks hang limp.
I sat in the passenger seat of Deputy Cole’s cruiser at the entrance to the property. We were there under a court order for "civil standby"—three hours granted to Lauren Mercer to remove her "essential personal apparel and legal documents."
A yellow rental truck with three different colors of primer on the cab was backed up to the front porch.
Lauren wasn't carrying boxes. She was sitting on an upturned milk crate by the well-house, wearing dark glasses and a straw hat, smoking a long, white cigarette with fingers that were stained yellow at the tips. Two boys from the vocational school—nephews of Evan’s from down near the river—were doing the work, their backs dark with sweat as they wrestled a Sears washer-dryer set through the narrow screen door.
"That’s Claire's washer," I said through the open window of the patrol car.
Deputy Cole sighed, his fingers drumming on the rubber steering wheel. "You want me to go down there and check the serial number, Claire? The judge said 'household goods of personal utility.' A washing machine’s pretty grey under the statute."
"My grandmother bought that Maytag in nineteen-ninety-four," I said. "The serial number is 44-J-812. It’s written on page forty-eight of the red book."
Cole looked at me, his young, sunburned face pulled between embarrassment and the natural horror all men have of family division. "Is it worth the row, Claire? Really?"
"Go look at the back of the tub, Cole."
He got out of the car, his leather duty gear creaking in the heat. I watched him walk down the gravel lane—that slow, heavy-footed deputy’s walk that is designed to let people have time to drop whatever they’re holding before he gets there.
Lauren didn't stand up when he reached the porch. She blew a long stream of smoke toward the gutter.
I couldn't hear the words, but I saw the rhythm of the arms. Cole pointed at the machine on the tailgate. One of the river boys spat into the chicory. Lauren stood up, her straw hat tilting back, her mouth working fast and sharp like a pair of hedge shears.
Cole didn't argue. He pulled a yellow carbon copy from his breast pocket, held it against the side of the truck, and pointed his pencil toward the road.
The river boys didn't look at Lauren. They climbed into the truck bed, tipped the washing machine onto its side with a hollow, metallic boom, and slid it back down the ramp onto the grass.
Lauren threw her cigarette into the petunia bed—the one Grandma had bordered with river mussel shells—and marched up the lane toward the cruiser.
Her skin was grey beneath her powder. She had lost the look of the young matron from the country club; her linen shirt was wrinkled across the ribs, and she was wearing a pair of old canvas slip-ons with the heels crushed flat.
She stopped three feet from my window. She didn't look at the purple side of my face. She looked at my right ear, as if she could un-see what Evan’s hand had done by refusing to acknowledge the geometry of it.
"You're having him kept in the county lockup," she said.
"The magistrate set the bond, Lauren. I didn't set it."
"You told the prosecutor he threatened your life."
"He told twenty-three people he’d kill me if I came back on the porch," I said. "It’s on the audio Tessa gave them."
Lauren let out a sharp, ragged sound that was half-cough, half-laugh. "Tessa. That little bitch. Wayne’s going to take her phone and throw it in the river."
"It’s already on the state server, Lauren. You can throw the whole county in the river and the recording will still be there."
She leaned her hands on the car door, her knuckles white. She smelled of cold nicotine and the sour, unwashed scent of a house that had been closed up with the heat on.
"We have nowhere to go, Claire," she whispered. Her voice wasn't angry now; it was thin, wet, and had the terrifying, slick intimacy of our childhood bedroom. "Evan’s mother won't take us in because of the probation officer. Gregory’s place in Wilmington has three families in it already. We have four hundred dollars in the credit union."
"You had eight hundred on Thursday," I said.
"That went to the lawyer!"
"Then you have a lawyer," I said. "Ask him for a room."
"Claire... please." She reached through the window, her hand coming toward my collar.
Deputy Cole’s hand came down on her forearm—not hard, but with the flat, professional weight of the law.
"Step back from the vehicle, Mrs. Mercer."
"She’s my sister!" Lauren screamed, her voice cracking into three pieces. "She’s my sister and she’s sitting there in an air-conditioned car watching them throw my clothes in the dirt!"
"They’re your clothes, Lauren," I said. "The dirt belongs to me."
She stepped back, her chest heaving, her eyes wild behind her dark glasses.
"You’re going to die alone on this ridge," she spat. "Just like the old woman. You’re going to rot in that kitchen and nobody’s going to come down that lane to see if you’re cold or warm. Nobody. Not Wayne. Not Robert. Not one of them."
"I know," I said.
"You think you’re better than us because you work the night desk and save your nickels! You’re nothing! You’re just the girl who stayed behind to carry the slop jars!"
"The slop jars were full of Grandma," I said, looking her dead in the center of her glasses. "And you didn't touch them once."
May you like
Cole put the car in reverse, his arm over the back of the seat, his tires spitting small, grey stones as we backed away from the gate.
In the rearview mirror, she stood in the chicory by the mailbox—small, white-shirted, and alone against the vast, empty green of the lower pasture, while behind her, two boys who didn't care about either of us dragged an old iron bedstead across the stones where our blood had dried into the lime.
