2. A Hot Beverage #2
Miriam, in her crop top and low-rise jeans, grabbed her backpack and rain jacket.
Were low-rise jeans back in fashion? And crop tops?
No one had sent her home with one of those lost-and-found T-shirts that were too big, and I’d never gotten a call from school about them, either.
So I guess it was okay to wear that to school now?
“Come on, come on!” I said, rushing them out.
Every knock on the door, every passing police car, every news article about a crime in Mourningkill—they all sent shivers down my spine and fear coursing up my throat. I was stressed and unable to eat. Until I could eat, then I ate everything until I puked.
You’d think I had an eating disorder, but what I really had was the sky-high anxiety of the murderer from The Tell-Tale Heart. And reminders of my crime were everywhere.
In the photos on the wall I couldn’t pull down because it’d be suspicious and upset my younger siblings.
It was in the vegetable garden he’d built for my mother when she decided fresh food was best for her growing children.
In the siding Luke was supposed to fix, but didn’t because…because of the accident.
It was in everything.
It was a noose around my neck.
The door knock came again with a “Hello?”
I almost whimpered. Sheriff Whitlaw. I knew her voice. Everyone knew her voice. It was a small town.
When I opened the door to push the kids out, she was there, her face serious. Not a social call.
I could already feel the handcuffs on my wrists. I swallowed.
“Have a good day at school!” I said to the retreating figures of my brother and sister as they walked up the road to meet the bus. I mentally said goodbye, hoping I’d done enough.
I hadn’t.
They’d be devastated.
“How can I help you, Sheriff?” I barely squeaked out.
I killed him. It was me. Please don’t let Miriam and Marcus go to the Grays. Please don’t put them with their uncles. Especially not Miriam. You of all people know what they’re like…
I said none of that, though. I gave her my best grimace of a polite smile and stepped out of her way in a quiet invitation.
“Can I come in?” She confirmed anyway, because she was law enforcement and they had to.
She removed her large-brimmed hat and held it to her stomach. One side of her lips tilted up, but she didn’t truly smile. Polite. Cordial. Not like a woman about to violently body slam me into the ground and put my hands in cuffs.
“Of course,” I whispered. “Would you like some tea? Coffee?”
It was important to offer hot beverages on rainy days like this.
“Either one,” she said with that flat smile, meant to be friendly, but one that didn’t reach her eyes. The smile of bad news about to be delivered.
Sheriff Whitlaw shook her jacket off her shoulders and put it on the bench outside, where water dripped from it. She wiped her boots on the mat and even flapped her hat a bit to get rid of the rain that had collected on the brim.
“I’ve got some green tea,” I said, relieved. I didn’t really keep coffee. I didn’t want to get Miriam and Marcus on a caffeine kick, so I usually stuck to tea. In my head, it was healthier. Though maybe not. I didn’t know.
“That’d be great. Thanks, Mel.”
Sheriff Whitlaw put her hat on her lap as she sat at my mother’s breakfast table, watching me. I tried to steady my hand as I pulled two mismatched mugs from the yellow cupboard.
“I’m sure you know why I’m here.”
I almost tipped my good mugs, but thankfully, I saved them at the last minute.
These were the mugs we kept for company.
My grandmother’s fine porcelain-white china with intricate blue paintings of flowers and birds.
Me and the kids? We drank from chipped novelty mugs collected over lifetimes of vacations.
Company—especially company with authority and standing in Mourningkill—always got the good china along with the little porcelain plates that went with them.
I placed a green tea bag into each cup and poured the water. I needed to do this. I needed repetitive actions to ground myself.
My heart pounded, and my hands shook; the panic was held back by the slightest, flimsiest sugar glass that was the barest touch from crashing into a thousand, blade-like shards.
“I don’t.” I do. “Did I do something? Did one of the kids?” She knew I meant my brother and sister.
Marcus was nine years younger than me, and Miriam was two years younger than him.
I wished I could say I had always been part mom and part sister to them, but I wasn’t.
I didn’t help change diapers or pick them up when they fell and skinned their knees.
Mama was always there to do that. She was so busy with them, it was my stepfather who stepped into the vacancy created by her lack of attention.
It was hard to like them after that. I loved them, yes.
But liking them was harder…so, so much harder.
Looking into their blue eyes, the eyes they’d inherited from him, made life feel like dancing on a blade.
I forced a smile that likely wasn’t convincing, because she looked at me with pity.
She should pity me. She’d once been one of my idols. A female sheriff in a conservative county like Mourningkill? Unheard of. Her existence had given me hope. I thought I could make something of myself despite my circumstances.
I was wrong, of course. But the years of hope I had were nice.
I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t, so I put her cup in front of her, wishing she’d just get on with it as my hands wrapped around a fucking “World’s Best Daughter” mug—one he had given me—as I waited for the axe to fall.
“Melody…” She leaned forward, mirroring my posture. I appreciated her attempt to be sympathetic. “There was a body found at the outlet of Mourningkill Lake.”
My heart beat hard in my ears.
I swallowed and nodded. I had expected for this for over a year now. The cops. The sirens. The handcuffs.
“DNA confirms it’s the body of Luke Gray.”
Tell me something I don’t know.
I was so fucking terrified, I nearly laughed at the ridiculousness. It bubbled in my throat, almost escaping like a snort.
I couldn’t read her. Not at all. She had one of those faces that didn’t give anything away. Willow-leaf shaped eyes, a flat profile, sharp cheekbones, and a large mouth that never frowned or smiled—only ever serious.
I took in a shuddering, unsteady breath. My vision narrowed. My eyes watered.
Whitlaw was a woman with authority. A woman I would have wanted to be one day.
If I weren’t a fucking criminal…
I wanted to be a lawyer. Now, I would need one.
“I’m going to need you to come in—”
Here it is. I shut my eyes, waiting for it.
“—to identify the body.”
I froze.
I should have known someone had to identify him. That was normal. Right?
The longer I lived under stress, the stupider I became. The less I knew.
“Okay,” I croaked. What was going on?
“Sweetie.” Sheriff Whitlaw reached over the sticky table—sticky from the milk I hadn’t cleaned from the teenagers who depended on me—and grabbed my hand. “Do you have anyone who can do this with you? Some kind of support system? I know you have a lot going on with Marcus and Miriam.”
I shrugged. “It’s just me, now.”
Mom was gone. My grandparents were an ocean away, and I didn’t know them.
There were the Grays, sure, but I’d rather take a kitchen knife to my own eye socket before asking them for help.
If they knew…they’d blame me for tempting him.
Never mind that I was just a child. Never mind that Sheriff Whitlaw had also just been a child when Turner Gray changed her life, too.
“How’s your son?” I asked.
“Cohen?” Her eyebrows shot up to her forehead in surprise.
“Is there another one?” I blurted out before I could stop my sarcasm. Good going, Mels.
But Sheriff Whitlaw smiled and chuckled. “Oh, you know how teen boys are. Thirteen and know everything about everything.”
Her almond-shaped eyes shone with pride even as she complained about him.
“I’m sure Marcus is the same way.” The way she looked at me…
it was almost pity. But also, like we were peers.
We were not, of course. She was far above me.
“You’re doing a good thing, raising your brother and sister like you are.
Don’t tell the social worker, but I think it was the right thing to do. ”
“I dunno,” I said honestly. “I don’t think I’m doing a very good job as a guardian.”
“It’s tough. Being a sister, but with the responsibilities of a mother. It can’t be easy.”
I almost cried. No one ever said things like that to me. All I ever heard was how I was failing them. How I was letting everyone down and I wasn’t qualified to be their legal guardian or caregiver.
“They’re better with you than their uncle.”