Chapter 40
Forty
They agreed to decamp to The Briars and get into the good stuff. Colin said you couldn’t drink beer to celebrate a day like
this, you had to have Scotch like a civilized human being, and anyway, Llewellyn would want to drink with them. He had written
one of Gwen’s recommendation letters. By some agreement, the McBrides and Allie went with Colin, crammed into his granddaddy’s
cherry Caddy, which was over in student parking. Arthur left with Gwen to ride in her Civic. She had left her car in the staff
lot, behind the student center, where the custodians and cafeteria services parked.
Gwen grabbed his hands and spun him and they kissed—a wonderful, sloppy kiss, clinging tight to one another, staggering and
rebalancing and laughing. They broke and he led her across the lot toward her car. They made it three steps before he saw
Tana Nighswander.
She had spotted them at the same time, had just climbed out of the Shut-Up-And-Eat-It delivery car, holding a stack of pizza
boxes. Her round face was a dull, dark-eyed blank, pink from the evening chill. Arthur gently pulled himself free of Gwen.
Gwen glanced past him, saw Tana, and touched her mouth, embarrassed. Tana stood with the pizza boxes in both hands and resting
on the shelf of her distended belly.
“Tana,” Gwen said. “How are you?”
Tana stared with glazed eyes, swaying as if she were under the influence of something.
“My sister is dead,” Tana said. “She burned to death. How are you?”
“What?” Arthur asked. “When?” Some disassociated part of himself noted that his heartbeat hardly accelerated, that in this moment there was no physical sense of shock at all.
“Easter. They found her in the Ranchero with her driver’s license in her purse. They called my mother and she called me. They’re
checking Jayne’s dental records to confirm, but it’s her. She knew she was going to die. She called me from the road, a few
days before. She told me. She said she wasn’t going to make it.”
Gwen walked across the pitted gravel, took the pizzas, and set them on the top of the car. She took Tana in her arms and Tana
put her head on Gwen’s shoulder and began to cry. Gwen stroked her hair while Tana wept. Arthur waited to feel something,
but nothing came. He had heard that when one suffered a serious injury it was much the same—that men who had legs suddenly
blown off very rarely registered any immediate pain.
“Will you stay with me after work, Gwen?” Tana asked. “Will you stay with me? I feel awful bad. I don’t want to be home alone.
Not while it’s dark.”
“Long as you need, darlin’,” Gwen said.
“She was a bad person,” Tana whispered. “But she was my person.”
“I can be your person tonight,” Gwen said. “I’d be glad to. Should you be working?”
Tana caught a hitching breath and put a hand against her belly. “Gonna have to pay for diapers somehow.”
Gwen didn’t argue with her. “I’ll pick you up after work and stay as long as you need.”
Arthur had been walking toward them and now he placed a tentative hand on Tana’s back.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I’m not,” Tana said. “Why do you think I feel so bad?”