Grave Sight

A

"Helen told me about your visit," A

I tried to imagine having the same person as a friend for so long. A

I would be lucky to live that long, I thought. I watched the tail end of that thought trail out of sight and wondered where it had come from. At the moment, I had to pay attention to this woman across from me.

"I have to talk to you about something you may not like," I said. This was a direct woman, and I sensed it would be better to approach her head-on.

"You have to run it by me before I decide." Her face might be soft physically, but there was nothing soft about her will. "Some things ought to be secret."

"I agree," I said. I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. "Ms. Gibson, Helen herself told us she had a bad time when she was drinking."

A

"With Teenie being murdered, Helen was real upset when she asked us to come by to talk to her," I said, going so slowly, so carefully. "When I told her about Teenie and Sally, she said, ‘I'll have to call their fathers.' What I want to know from you is, Who was Teenie's father?"

A

"And did she?" I asked. I blessed my brother for his silence.

"Yes," A

"So, it seems like that was a pretty crucial secret," I said. "You see? She asked, and she died. Helen tells me she's going to call Teenie's father, and she dies."

A

"He must have," I said. I tried to keep my voice gentle and reasonable. "I told Helen that Hollis's wife Sally was murdered, too. All three members of that family are gone now. And they all knew who Teenie's father was."

"Not Teenie," A

"Jay?" Tolliver asked.

"Helen's husband. Sally's father. He's coming back for the funeral. He may have been divorced from Helen, but I guess he inherits the house now. He called me this morning."

"Where is he staying?" I wondered if he would have a few words with us.

"He's at the motel where ya'll are at. But don't expect to get much sense out of him. Helen may have quit drinking, but Jay ain't. She had to take out a restraining order on him, I guess a year or two after Sally was born. Jay used to be a nice-looking man, and he had sweet folks, but he ain't worth a tinker's damn."

"We've had experience in dealing with drunks," I said.

"Oh, like that, huh?" She looked at me, with level eyes. "I thought I seen the mark on you."

"The mark?"

"Kids raised by drunks. They all got the same mark. I can see it. Not everyone can."

I was certainly not the only person walking this earth possessed of a weird little talent.

Tolliver and I rose to our feet, and A

"If I were you," I said, very carefully, "I'd go to Little Rock for a couple of days to go shopping, or something like that."

"Are you threatening me?" she said right back at me.

"No ma'am, I am not. I liked Helen, the little I knew of her. And I saw her after she died. I don't want you to be as scared as she was."

"Sounds to me like you are threatening me," A

"I swear I am not," I said, as earnestly as I could. "I'm just worried about you." She wasn't going to listen to a word I said, so I might as well save my breath. From now on, anything Tolliver and I told her would go straight to feed her conviction that we meant her ill.

"You all need to go to the gospel singing tonight, get some good thoughts in your head," she concluded, shutting the door behind us.

"I thought Helen was a tough nut to crack," I muttered. "I just hadn't met A

We ate lunch at a McDonald's, which showed we were at the bottom of our spirits. Our parents had fed us from the fast-food place so often when we were little that we could hardly bear the smell of one now. When my mother had been married to my father, and we'd had the nice home in Memphis, we had a maid I'd been fond of. Her name was Marilyn Coachman. She was a stern black woman, you didn't back talk her, and when she told you to do something, you did it. The minute she'd realized my mother was using drugs, Marilyn quit. I wondered where Marilyn was now.

I looked down at the French fries in their grease-marked cardboard sleeve and shoved them away. She was a great cook.

"We need vegetables," I said.

Tolliver said, "Potatoes are a vegetable. And ketchup is made from tomatoes. I know technically they're a fruit, but I always think of them as vegetables."

"Very fu

"You mean it?"

"I do."

"You want to buy a house."

"We've talked about it before."

"But I didn't... You were serious, huh?"

"Yes." I was deeply hurt. "I guess you weren't."

He put down his Big Mac. He wiped his fingers on the paper napkin. A very young mother went by, carrying one child on her hip. The other hand held a tray full of food and drinks. A boy, maybe five, followed close on her heels. She put the tray down on a nearby table and began getting the children into their places and sorting out the food. She looked harried. Her bra strap kept falling down her arm; both her arms were bare. She was wearing a sleeveless tank top despite the chilly day.

Tolliver was giving me all his attention, now. "You're still thinking Dallas?"

"Or thereabouts. We could find a nice small house, maybe in Longview or even closer to Dallas, to the north. That'd be more central than the Atlanta area, which was the other place we'd discussed."

His dark eyes searched mine. "Dallas is close to Mariella and Grace."

"Maybe they won't always feel the same."