Beautiful to the Bone (The Enuis Trilogy #1) (35 page)

“No, thank you, we have to go, but it was a pleasure meeting you, Constance.” I turned, gathering Lyle in the process. The pattern was clear, and I fit perfectly in it.

“You too, Eunis and brother.” She waved. “You too. Enjoy! Say ‘hi’ to Harold. Tell him Constance loves him.”

If Lyle hadn’t been with me I would have cried all the way to the car, and then I don’t know what.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

We didn’t talk much on the way home, traveling through dense unsettled knob and kettle woodlands of virgin red pine and bloodroot. Now I understood why Harold was so resistant to bringing me to the park.

Without turning to Lyle I finally said, “I wanted us to be together. Spend some time.”

His eyes went soft. “Thank you.”

“You’re the brother I never had.”

“Right.” He chortled and rubbed my shoulder.

We became quiet again, Lyle probably wrestling with his demons or perhaps contemplating his last visit to the Mississippi and never riding it to its end. Me gripped by my painful inconsequence, how easily Harold had exchanged us all. No more than a factory part.

Finally Lyle asked, “Who told you about Johnny Ray?”

I was struggling with my thoughts. “A text. Don’t know who.”
Or why
.

Again we reverted to silence.

We stopped at a bar restaurant in the middle of the woods because Lyle was particularly gaunt and there were few places to stop before Bemidji. The food — a plump lightly fried walleye with chips and a cheeseburger with slaw and chips — turned out to be pretty good, though the place was full and festive and rowdy with music. Neither of us fit in. We ate quickly, leaving an obscene amount on our plates.

On the way out I caught a glimpse of Victor in a booth, beyond the dance floor. He reached across the table, addiction in his eye, and met the hand of a woman. Fingers intertwined. I couldn’t see her. He didn’t see me.

I moved to the far end of the bar to get a better look. A cocktail waitress pushed past me through the crowd. He kissed the woman’s hand then looked up and toward the bar, as if he was aware I was watching him. I turned away and ducked my head. I don’t think he saw me. It was none of my business.

When we got to the car, my windshield was fissured in veins, a one-way assault from a crowbar or baseball bat.

“Oh shit,” said Lyle.

Around the dark dirt parking lot nothing moved.

Lyle yelled, “Come out you fuckin’ coward!” But there were only crickets and the music and laughter from the bar.

“I’m going back in,” I said.

“Talk to the owner? I better come with you.” But he leaned heavily against the car.

“Not necessary. Will you be okay?”

“I’m fine.”

By the time I got back inside and fought my way to Victor’s booth, it was empty. I scanned the dance floor. I corralled a waitress and yelled above the din. “Did you see the woman with the guy in that booth?”

She looked at me like I was insane, then yelled, “You kidding? You see this place?” She shrugged me off. “I got six tables, she’s got nine. Juliette, that bitch, didn’t show. No time for getting familiar with nobody tonight.”

And with that she headed to the bar.

***

The glare of the fractured windshield fought me all the way home. After we passed through Bemidji and non-existent Puposky, with the farmhouse minutes away, I broke the silence. “Your Martin,” I said speaking of his once constant companion guitar. “You’ve stopped playing.”

“What’s the point?”

“I haven’t heard you sing in years.”

He managed little more than a sucking-air sound.

“It brings you pleasure. It’s your thing, it’s
your
beauty.”

“Was.”

“Your dad loved music, remember?”

“O’course. And he was your dad too.” Even in the dark I could see Lyle turning to me to acknowledge it. “He gave me that toy ukulele. He got me started.”

“And,” I reminded him, “he hummed those songs, remember? What was the name of that guy?”

“Ralph Stanley. He loved Ralph Stanley.”

Papa Karl would hum the songs just fine but he’d never
sing
any of them, like his mouth was sewn shut when it came to singing. Maybe that’s why Lyle took it up, so he could sing
for
his father. “You brought your guitar to the hospital. You sang him a couple songs.”

“I did.”

“He couldn’t speak. He could barely move a finger or bat an eye, but he could hear. You put a small curl on his mouth. I’d call it a smile.”

“I don’t remember.”

“I do.”

“Your point?”

“Play. Play for me. Play for Momma. Mostly, play for you. Leave us a piece of your beauty. Leave something of you I can hold on to.”

Silence. We turned on to Smith Road. Pressure built around my shoulders, fatigue parched my eyes. I steeled myself. “I hope Momma’s asleep.” At the farmhouse, the kitchen light was on.

“You ungrateful little bitch!” screamed Momma when we entered. Bottles and shrapnel shelled peanuts surrounded her. “Your real sister Carly came all the way to see you, Lyle, and your freak sister ruined everything, as usual.”

“Momma!” Lyle yelled without hesitation, a single searing accusation so damning I thought that, in that moment, my brother had shorn his fear and regained his health.

“She’s a devil, Lyle. She’ll drag you down like she has me.” Momma spun around, clutched her chest and fell to the floor.

Lyle staggered, I ran to her. “Momma!” I squatted next to her and raised her to her elbows. “Momma, what happened?”

She reached out for him, quivering. “Lyle, my baby.” She looked up at me. “You’re trying to kill me.”

“No, Momma.”

Lyle brought her a glass of water. She sipped it. We sat her up. “Don’t you touch me,” she said flinging my hands away. “Lyle.” She reached for him, pleading, and with every once of strength he had left he was able to pull her to her feet.

Then
he
collapsed.

“Lyle!” I knelt by my brother, cradling his head in my hands.

He was dazed. “I’m okay,” he said to me. “Just dizzy.” He took slow, shallow breaths and stared blankly at the garbage can.

Momma faced me, hands on hips, teeth bared. “Ya see what ya done.”

I was empty. There was no shelter from any of it.

***

Over the next few days I did my best to avoid Momma, mostly working on the skin of the house. It also kept me out of town, where I had no interest in bumping into Victor. I was ever vigilant for Atara but there was no sign of her, which made me even more uncomfortable.

My plan was to stay, tending to Lyle until he passed and I’d solved Harold, and then who knew? I’d never planned on leaving Momma because I’d never planned on coming back in the first place. But now that I was there, a blunt pulse followed me around.

And when would be an appropriate time to leave, if ever? The allotted time, though, the appropriate
amount
of time, was already a concept I’d have to reckon with. It also suggested the possibility of a Sisyphean existence without parole. Every breath, in or out, was a breath of low-level depression. I couldn’t shake it.

Momma wouldn’t look me in the eye. We didn’t speak. I heard Lyle strumming his guitar in his room, creating a warm, momentary micro-climate around my heart. Carly left the morning after the party without a word, just a note saying she’d be back within the week.

“You got a call from some guy in New York,” Momma said when I came in for a bite of lunch. She held my phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Don’t get sassy with me. Your damn phone just kept ringing, disturbing my peace and quiet.”

“What guy?” More than ever I hoped it was Roddy, saving me from the isolation I’d created for myself.

“Anthony somebody, and he wants you to call him about the comb. He sounded scared. You bringin’ your cursed demonkind down on him too?”

I grabbed the phone out of her hand. “Don’t pick up my phone ever!”

“Why? You gonna hurt me like you did that
tusser
husband of yours?”

I closed my fist.

“You think I don’t know?” She inched backward.

It was the second time I’d recognized the fathoms of my anger, and yes, my capacity to hurt someone. It should’ve scared me, but it didn’t. “Then if you know, you’d better not mess with me.”

Momma lowered her eyes. “Ungrateful bitch.”

I reckoned I’d go for a drive. It was time to try Harold’s parents again.

“Anthony, this is Eunis,” I said, leaving a message on his voicemail. “Please just sit tight. Nobody could have any idea you have it. Nobody.” I believed that was true, I really did. “They’re fishing.” I didn’t know what to say regarding Junior, so I said nothing.

I also believed that Carly had left town. Yet while pulling into downtown for groceries and Lyle’s medications, I spotted Carly’s fire engine yellow convertible, the luck or curse of a small city. As I slowed to be certain, Carly came out of a bright building, The Cosmetic Center:

Certified Laser and Injection Nurse

• Contour your body – freeze fat away
  
• Reduce unwanted hair – laser hair reduction
  
• Define your features – Botox, Xeomin, Juvederm and other injectables
  
• Rejuvenate your skin – remove spider veins and brown spots
  

And plastered across the window: “My skin lies about my age, so I don’t have to.”

On the go taxidermy for humans.
But why say she was leaving town?

Carly ducked into the nearby pharmacy. My phone jolted me. I stared at the number almost long enough to lose the call before picking it up.

“Yes? Hello?”

“Eunis, it’s Gordon. Can we get together one more time before I leave?”

“Gordon? Did you text me about Johnny Ray?”

“Who?”

“Johnny Ray Bardo. You texted me. Nearly a week ago. With his name. I’m pretty sure it was from your phone.”

“Can we talk weather?” he said. “I’m really not familiar with this guy. I’d tell you if I was.” That breezy earnestness I’d come to trust. “Would you be willing to come to our offices and meet my general manager? We’ll have to fudge your experience a little bit, but he values my opinion. Your instincts and smarts, you’d really fill a void we have right now.” He added, “You’d be behind the scenes, I’m afraid. Not on screen, I mean.”

“Naturally.”

“So you’ll come?”

“When I’m done here; could be months. And on one condition: you’ll check your phone for me. I got a text from your phone, I’m sure of it.” I hesitated. “Victor King doesn’t have access to your phone.”

“Vic? Certainly not. Not my type.” A quizzical silence followed. “You and I, we’re always bargaining, aren’t we? But sure, I’ll check my phone’s history. Just don’t count on anything. But you’ll come? I’ll even pay for the trip, caramels and all.”

At least I had one person in my corner. “Sure, unless my mother or the authorities get me first.”

“Authorities?”

“It was a joke.”

When I looked up, Carly’s yellow Miata was gone. The least of my worries.

***

An hour later, I’d worked up enough confidence to slump down in my car as Rhoald Cloonis drove off in his truck. As I approached the Cloonis house, the orderly yard impressed me again, but for the first time I sensed the bone-drying weariness vaporizing the place. Perhaps it was always there and I’d simply repelled it; it was only my third visit. The other two — first with Harold, then the attempt to understand him — were like wading deep into desert.

Muriel answered the door, without surprise. She did not invite me in. “I don’t think you should be here.” She was impassive.

“I loved your son.”
I think I loved your son
. “All I want is to put him properly to rest. If I could just have a moment.”

She glanced over my shoulder, left and right. “Okay, but just for a moment.”

But then Muriel, who was about to have one herself, offered me a cup of tea. Tea! Unlike my imagined encounter, it wouldn’t include Daryl Hannah and Michael Jackson.

I accepted, and while she was in the kitchen, I scanned the living room in hopes of a clue. There were a few cheap antiques: a brass hurricane lamp, a woodcut terrier dog, a mantle clock, all of them subdued brown or aged yellow.

A small, stoppered urn, porcelain with thin ochre trim, stopped me cold. Harold’s remains?

Only one photograph: Rhoald, quite a few years younger, in hunting gear with rifle and a dead trophy moose. The same rifle, it appeared, hung over the mantle, pressed against walls papered in a dull gray pattern. I stood to sniff the rifle to see if it had been recently fired, but Muriel returned.

“I hope this is okay. It’s just Lipton’s.” Lankier and less attractive than I’d remembered, Murial had long ears and a concaved face.

“Thank you, you’re very kind. This is great.”
Be quick and strategic
. I didn’t know when Rhoald might reappear.

As if she was inside my mind, she said, “Mr. Cloonis won’t be returning for about three-quarters of an hour.”