The Unremembered Girl: A Novel Read online

  His mother glanced back at him.

  “There were people at the shack again last night,” she said.

  Henry had heard the voices too, traveling over the night air, before the fat drops of rain had started their chorus, blanketing the sounds. The wind that came close on its heels had shaken the trees and pulled the shingles from Ms. Watson’s often-mended roof.

  Was that where the girl had come from?

  “Tell me you’re not poking around in those people’s business, Mama.”

  “I beg your pardon. I do not poke. I mind my own, thank you very much.”

  And she normally did, at that, but the world seemed tilted a little left of center that day.

  “The place was empty when I passed by this morning. Those folks were there, then gone. As usual.”

  “Fine by me.”

  Henry didn’t know what those people were up to over there, but he had enough on his own plate to keep him from eyeing what was on his neighbors’. At least, until they began showing up here, flitting about in the woods with shadowy eyes that burned through him.

  His mother let go of Henry’s arm and moved slowly to head up to the house.

  “Come by the kitchen and pick up that jelly for Helen Sue before you go, Henry. And be back by suppertime. Del and Alice are coming, and you know how your father gets.”

  “He’s not my father,” Henry called to her retreating back.

  “He most certainly is,” she called over her shoulder in a familiar refrain. “Lots of different ways to be a father, Henry. Livingston’s no worse than most.”

  Henry had heard it so many times in his twenty-three years that he could—and did—mouth the words along with her. But only while her back was turned.

  “And no better than some,” he muttered under his breath.

  Henry walked back over to his truck, going through the motions of a life he tried to live without resentment.

  He put the girl from his mind. Or tried to. He didn’t count the times his eyes were drawn involuntarily back to the woods. Instead, he tried to focus on the tasks in front of him.

  The bottles he’d wash and sanitize, then make ready to be filled again with the booze that helped other people to celebrate, or grieve, or just get through the day.

  He didn’t drink himself. Not as a habit anyway, not past testing the batches. Not because he was sitting on any sort of moral high horse—a bootlegger doesn’t have the luxury of high horses, moral or otherwise.

  No, he didn’t drink because he’d seen every kind of reason for diving into a bottle, seen them up close and personal. But he’d never seen a solitary soul come out the back end of a bottle any better off than they had gone in. Mostly they just came out hungover and in need of a shower.

  Once the truck was unloaded, he gathered up his toolbox. He raised it over the side of the truck bed, but something caught his eye, and his hand stilled. Squinting, he stared into the darkened canopy of trees.

  He lowered the heavy metal box of tools and set it gently in the bed of the truck, keeping his eyes turned toward the place where he’d seen the shadow.

  Henry wiped his hands on his jeans, and after a split second of hesitation, he gave in, unable to help himself. He walked toward the break in the pines.

  The brushy undergrowth had been pushed back long ago, giving way to a maze of pathways that his mother had wandered along every morning for many years, communing with nature, or God, or whatever. According to her, they were one and the same.

  As he stepped into the dim light, the woods enveloped him. Henry’s eyes scanned the familiar surroundings. In this place, it was easy to forget that the world had turned the corner into the twenty-first century. Time was different here, as if a spell had been cast that slowed the revolution of the earth. Those who lived and died nearby were touched by it, carrying the traces on their fingertips, in their lungs, woven through their hair. It was inescapable.

  The mystical qualities that so enchanted his mother weren’t lost on him. He’d walked these paths by her side as a boy.

  Maybe she was right. Maybe God did live here. It was a place as full of divine beauty as any he’d ever seen. But if that were true, there was no denying God had a cruel side.

  The tall, stately pines that grew in drier soils soon gave way to the curving, dripping beauty of the cypress that thrived in the swamp. The ground sloped downward, giving a body the subtle sense of being pulled into the bottomlands that waited patiently just around the corners, where the dark heart of the marsh beat with a symphony of life. Stinging, singing, ancient, and deadly life, where the alligators were king, the snakes and snapping turtles were barons, and the woodpeckers were court jesters jangling their bells from the tops of the trees.

  For the moment, though, all was quiet.

  There was no sign of the girl.

  Shaking off his unease, Henry walked back toward the morning sun, leaving the woods and the girl to their business. He had his own to be getting on with.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jonah’s day had turned sour. He clutched his yellow Mustang Matchbox car in his left hand and walked back to the boat, his steps slower than before.

  He heard the rumble of a truck coming up the gravel road behind him and moved over to the side to let it pass, but he didn’t bother raising his head.

  The truck slowed, keeping pace with him.

  “Hey, Jonah,” he heard.

  At the sound of Henry’s voice, his day brightened some and his head came up with a small smile on his face. Henry was his friend.

  “Hop in, buddy, I’m headed your way.”

  Jonah opened the passenger door with a creak and settled his hefty frame into the seat.

  “Why so blue, man?”

  Jonah tilted his head, then looked down at his hands, but they were the same tanned brown color they always were.

  He didn’t understand, but that was okay. There were lots of things he didn’t understand, but he didn’t worry around Henry. Henry was nice. Not like some of the others. Not like Tinker’s daughter.

  “Sad,” Henry explained. “You look sad today.”

  “Tinker wasn’t where he always is,” Jonah said. He showed Henry the yellow car, sweaty now from being clutched in his hand.

  “Ah,” Henry said, understanding dawning. “Tinker’s daughter was minding the store?”

  Jonah nodded glumly.

  He’d tried to give her the yellow car for the red licorice. Wednesdays were for red licorice. But her face had pinched up when Jonah walked into the store, and it pinched more when Jonah tried to explain. Finally, he’d left, taking his car back with him.

  “Tinker’s visiting his grandkids up in Oklahoma for a few days, Jonah. He’ll be back next week. Why don’t you take a look in the glove box there?”

  Next week sounded like a long way away.

  As the truck bumped and rattled over the road, Jonah reached out and unhooked the latch on Henry’s glove compartment. He didn’t know why people called it that. He’d never seen anyone keep gloves there, but he thought he might. If he had a glove box, he’d definitely keep gloves in it, just so it wouldn’t get confused about what its job was.

  Jonah found a bag of peppermints instead of gloves, and his day got a lot better.

  He glanced over at Henry, a question on his face.

  “Course, man. I brought them for you. They’re the soft ones that kind of melt on your tongue.”

  “Thank you, Henry.”

  Aunt Helen told him to always say thank you, and he was proud he remembered before tearing open the wrapper.

  “These are good,” he said around the candy in his mouth.

  Henry pulled over at the edge of the marsh, where Jonah’s boat was sitting under a willow tree. He threw the truck into park and killed the engine.

  “I’ll stop by Tinker’s and see if I can soften Linda up for you.”

  Jonah didn’t see how that would work. She seemed pretty set in her pinched way, but he didn’t question Henry, who
had a better way with people than Jonah did.

  Henry loaded the pirogue with his toolbox and a crate, and Jonah put the candies and his toy car in his pocket and pushed off from the shore. The flat-bottomed wooden boat wobbled on the water when Jonah stepped in, but it was good at its job. It had been doing it a long time, and it stayed the course, settling down into the murky water.

  Jonah took the long pole and pushed them along, levering it against the muddy bottom.

  “Ol’ Brutal took down a doe right over there yesterday. Saw him do it,” Jonah said, motioning to the far-right bank.

  “You’re not gonna go messing around trying to bring Brutal down yourself, are you?” Henry asked.

  Jonah shook his head. “Aunt Helen says we got us a understanding with the big boy. We don’t bother him, and he don’t bother us.”

  “Ms. Watson’s a smart lady.”

  “Says he’s been here long as she has, which stretches far back as ever, so we gotta have respect. I got a line I throw out chicken for him on now and then, keep him happy.”

  Henry nodded. He understood how things worked in the swamplands, just like Jonah did. It was folks that gave Jonah trouble. He never could seem to figure out folks. Henry helped him with that, and Jonah helped Henry with the things he knew best.

  The rest of the short ride went by in silence, the only sound the easy splash of the pole as the boat cut through the green on the top of the water.

  That was one of the things Jonah liked about Henry. He didn’t need to fill up the air with a bunch of words. Too many words made Jonah feel like blackbirds were flying at his face, too fast and too many for him to catch. Made him want to duck down and hide.

  The two men pulled the pirogue up to the shore when they reached the swamp island. That was where Jonah lived, with his aunt. He liked it there in their big old house up on stilts. He was hardly ever confused on the swamp.

  “Henry Martell, I see you there toting your toolbox,” Aunt Helen called down from the ladder she’d perched against the side of the house.

  “Mr. Flannigan told me you’d come by and picked up shingles this morning. Figured you could use a hand after that storm last night.”

  “I’ll just bet you figured. I may be old, boy, but I can still patch a hole in my roof without the likes of you coming to save me.”

  “Course you can. I’m just here to give you somebody to boss around, since Jonah’s not real fond of climbing on the roof.”

  Aunt Helen snorted as she clambered down the ladder.

  “Well now, since you put it that way, I’ll be happy to show you a thing or two, child. Jonah, bring that crate on inside, and we’ll visit awhile. The roof will wait till you’ve had a glass of iced tea.”

  Jonah led the way while the other two passed words back and forth. He followed the trail of the conversation until it got away from him, then let the birds flutter on past.

  “How’s your mama doing, Henry?”

  “Well as can be expected, I suppose.”

  “And that horse’s ass she’s married to?”

  “Fit and hearty. Mean as ever.”

  “The mean ones live the longest, you know. I figure when the end of the world comes, it’ll just be me and that old fool Livingston left rattling around the whole empty expanse of the earth.”

  “And Ol’ Brutal,” Jonah added.

  “I do believe that gator’d be better company,” Aunt Helen said.

  Jonah went down the hallway to put his toy car away in the box under his bed with the space rocket blanket. It was a grown-up bed. At twenty-six, and big with it, as people said of him, he didn’t fit in a small bed no more. But he liked his space rocket blanket, even if the edges didn’t make it all the way to hang down the sides. It might not fit just so, but that was okay with him. He didn’t fit just so either.

  He’d take the yellow car back to Tinker’s again next Wednesday.

  Jonah couldn’t hear the words anymore, just muffled people noises, but he heard his aunt’s cackle of laughter. Henry was good at making her laugh.

  Jonah thought about having another peppermint but decided against it. He’d save them. Next week still sounded like a long way away for Tinker to be back where he usually was. He wandered down the hallway toward the kitchen, where the voices were.

  “She’d understand, Henry. She would. If she knew that’s what you wanted.”

  “Sure she would. And she’d put on a brave face and tell me to go, but what kind of person would that make me? What kind of son?”

  “The kind that has to start living his own life one of these days.”

  “One of these days will be here soon enough, Ms. Watson.”

  Jonah’s aunt put her hand, which always made Jonah think of a wrinkled paper bag, over Henry’s and sighed. It was a sad sound. He could understand that.

  “I suppose it will, Henry. I suppose it will, at that.”

  “And besides, if I run off and join the army, you’ll just insist on fixing your own roof.”

  “And perfectly capable of it I am too.”

  “I have no doubt. But since I’m here anyway . . .”

  “Well, hop to it then, boy. Daylight’s burning.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Jonah held the ladder while Henry patched the leaky roof. That was good. Jonah didn’t like it when the storms outside felt like they were getting inside. Made him wonder if the weight of the storm would push the roof all the way in one day, and he and Aunt Helen would just float off in the house like it was the pirogue.

  “I’ll talk to Tinker’s daughter for you, Jonah. I won’t forget,” Henry told him when Jonah had taken him and his toolbox back across the marsh to his truck.

  “Thank you, Henry,” Jonah said.

  Henry was his friend.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “What is it, Mama?” Henry asked later that night.

  His mother shook her head, but she looked rattled.

  “Nothing. Nothing, I just thought . . .”

  “Is there somebody out there?” he asked. The girl, back again?

  Henry saw his mother staring out the window, before she knelt down to pick up the pieces of the dish she’d dropped.

  “No. I’m just clumsy tonight.”

  “Sit down, Caroline. I’ll take care of that,” Alice said.

  Alice and her husband, Delwyn, Henry’s sister-in-law and stepbrother, had joined them for dinner, a weekly ritual that almost everyone dreaded. Henry believed they came more for his mother’s sake than any familial obligation to Livingston, Del’s father.

  “I’ve got it, don’t fuss.”

  “Caroline, sit down and let the girl clean it up,” Livingston barked.

  Henry saw Alice’s face tighten at the unnecessary reprimand in his voice, but only for a moment. Alice was good at masking her disdain for Livingston. Better than Henry was, in any case, although it couldn’t be any easier to be Livingston’s daughter-in-law than it was to be his stepson. Or his son, Henry thought, glancing at Del.

  “The cake,” Mama said. “I nearly forgot. I’ll get the cake.”

  She made a move to rise again from her chair, but Henry stood first.

  “I’ll get it, Mama.”

  Henry almost mentioned their run-in with the stranger that morning, but shut his mouth. Something about his mother’s face . . . If she wanted to discuss it, she would.

  “If you ask me,” Livingston said, continuing his conversation with his son, “you ought to have better things to do with your time than harass Clayton Simmons anyway. He’s a good, God-fearing Christian, boy, and you could take a page out of his book, you know.”

  “Dad, we’re not harassing the man. And good Christian or not, Clayton’s crazy as a jaybird. You can’t go waving a knife around in the middle of the Winn Dixie, even if you think you’re fending off Satan’s minions.”

  “It’s those doctors pumping him full of chemicals that are throwing him off-balance.”

  “Those chemicals are the only th
ing keeping him from being thrown in the loony bin over in Rusk, Dad. If he’d take them like he was supposed to, he wouldn’t be seeing demons in the frozen-food section.”

  “That man is your elder, boy, and one of my flock. You ought to show some respect.”

  Livingston’s voice was rising, along with Del’s frustration. From experience, Henry knew this conversation was going nowhere good, but it was like a runaway train, and there was little he could do to stop it from its inevitable destination.

  “Respect? Dad, he came at Brady with a knife!”

  “Brady’s a fool, and so are you! You two strutting around with your badges acting like the whole damn town needs to roll out a carpet at your feet, to do your bidding just because you’re sporting a uniform. Neither one of you inclined to actually do anything useful. What about those criminals using the marsh over there to run drugs and Lord knows what else through here? You do anything about that?”

  “Dad—”

  Henry kept silent, placing plates of cake on the table.

  “You and Brady.” Livingston snorted. “My hind end’s got more smarts than the two of you put together. And neither one of you can be bothered to show up on a Sunday morning to receive the word of God. It’s a travesty!”

  “Show up where, Dad? In the middle of the damn woods, with you standing on a tree stump, throwing the same tired old sermons at the same half-dozen crazies that come to listen to you yell? That’s not a church, Dad, and you’re not a preacher anymore! When are you going to get that through your head?”

  The whole room stilled. Delwyn had stepped over a line, and they all knew it.

  Livingston’s fists came down on the table like the double barrels of a shotgun, but his voice was cold and calm, a far cry from his usual angry bellow.

  “I will not tolerate that kind of disrespect in my house, at my own table.”

  “Livingston—” Mama said, trying to soothe him.

  He ignored his wife.

  “Get out of my house.”

  “Livingston, you don’t want to—”

  “Don’t tell me what I want, Caroline. I know my own mind. And I want you to leave, boy. You and your wife both.”