Close to the Broken Hearted

by Michael Hiebert

  “Well, we’ve definitely found the source of your fruit-fly problem,” Leah said to Sylvie. “They’re all comin’ from down here in your crawl space.” There were flies everywhere beneath the house.

  “Why would there be fruit flies in my crawl space if there ain’t no fruit down there?” Sylvie asked. She’d calmed down considerably since Leah had arrived. Leah got the feeling both of them were getting a little too used to this same routine.

  Sylvie’s question was one Leah couldn’t answer. “I don’t know, but there ain’t no fruit that I can see. Not even a dead possum or anythin’ like that. Could be a stray banana peel or somethin’ tucked away in one of the corners, maybe.”

  Just like every other time she showed up at Sylvie’s, Leah pulled out her pad and took down an official statement from Sylvie. And just like every other time, Sylvie added in her own editorial comment, this time using Preacher Eli’s name in place of “the suspect” or “whoever did it.”

  “I wasn’t gone for not even thirty minutes,” Sylvie said. “And Preacher Eli came and opened these doors. God only knows what else the man did.”

  Leah didn’t bother trying to explain that Eli Brown had been with her. Instead, she calmly said, “You don’t know for sure who is responsible for this, Sylvie. Just remember that. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty.”

  “I know it’s Preacher Eli. You might not, but I do.” Sylvie was holding the baby, who was sucking on a soother.

  Leah let out a breath. “I’m leavin’ that out of the statement.”

  With a shrug, Sylvie said, “Suit yourself.”

  After she’d taken the report, Leah stood back and examined the doors one more time, wondering who really did it.

  The baby started getting fussy and Sylvie said, “I have to go inside and give her the rest of her bottle. I spent all night pumpin’ it, so she’s gonna drink it. Is that okay? Or do you still need me?”

  “No, go ahead. I’m just going to have a look around.”

  As Sylvie walked back inside, Leah started thinking about all of the different times she’d been called out to Sylvie’s lately. First it was for the flowerpots. That one she wrote off as paranoia. Even if it turned out to be someone messing with Sylvie, it was so benign, it wasn’t worth putting on the list. But then there were the big ones: the single cellar door being opened; the shotgun being unloaded, and the shells being lined up on the table; the dead cat on the porch; and now both cellar doors being opened.

  She squatted back down and swept the cellar again with her flashlight. Was there something down here she wasn’t seeing? And if there was, why would someone draw attention to it by leaving the doors open, unless they wanted it found? That made no sense. What did make sense was using the doors to make Sylvie think she was going nuts.

  But who would want to do that?

  Part of Leah was disappointed Eli Brown was no longer on the suspect list. He’d fit so well, in so many different ways. Maybe it could still be him. She had called Leland’s dad in Alabaster from her car phone on the way over and he had been able to put Leland on the line, so Eli’s story about his grandson going home checked out. Could there be a third partner?

  What about the shotgun? How had they gotten into the house and back out again without any evidence of breaking and entering? There was no way in Leah’s mind that she could see Sylvie accidentally leaving a door or a window unlocked, or not noticing if a door was not locked when she got back home. The girl was far too paranoid.

  It had to be someone good at picking dead bolts. But in a town of fewer than two thousand people, how many potential suspects do you actually have? Again, that’s why Eli Brown had been such a great suspect. It was a skill he could’ve picked up in prison during the past seventeen years.

  Unless . . .

  Unless it was someone who didn’t have to use a door or a window.

  Leah stepped back and took in the back of the house. How else could somebody get in?

  There were ducts, but they were much too small to crawl in through. There was no fireplace and, besides, was she seriously considering someone coming down the chimney?

  No, it had to be a door or a window.

  And then it came to her.

  And when it did, she had no idea why it had taken this long before she thought of it.

  What if the person who broke in had used the door but didn’t need to know how to pick locks?

  Because, what if the person breaking in already had a key?

  Now the question was: How many people might have keys to Sylvie Carson’s house?

  Leah walked in the back door where Sylvie was breast-feeding the baby. “Sylvie?” she asked. “Who has keys to your house?”

  “Nobody,” Sylvie answered. “I just changed the locks.”

  “I mean before that.”

  “Nobody.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. Why would I give out any keys?”

  “What about Orwin?”

  There was a long silence while Sylvie considered this. “Actually, I don’t know what happened to his key. I doubt he still has it.”

  Leah had her pad out again and was back to taking notes. “Can I ask you some questions about your relationship? With Orwin?”

  Sylvie shrugged, rubbing the back of the baby’s neck. “Sure.”

  “How would you describe it?”

  “It was fine. I mean it wasn’t perfect, but whose is, right? We had our good days and our bad days.”

  “Describe a bad day.”

  “He’d come home from work in a mood or it would be a day when he couldn’t find work.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “And he’d usually get drunk and loud. You know.”

  “Pretend I don’t.”

  “Well, he’d call me names and stuff.”

  “So he’d get verbally abusive?” Leah asked.

  “I guess. Not sure if I’d call it abusive.”

  “Did he ever get physical with you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did he ever hit you?”

  Sylvie looked away.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Sylvie looked back at Leah. “Not very often. And it was usually on account of me doin’ somethin’ dumb.”

  “And I’ll ignore that completely.” Leah jotted down a few more notes on her pad. “Do you know where Orwin is now?”

  Sylvie shook her head.

  “No idea at all?”

  “None.”

  “Do you know anyone who might know? Close friends? Relatives?”

  Sylvie looked at the ceiling while she moved the baby higher onto her shoulder so she could burp her. “Well, Orwin does have this aunt he was close to. She lives somewhere in . . . oh, I can’t remember.”

  “He’s close to her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How close?”

  “Well, we were short money once and needed rent and he called her and she drove all the way down to lend it to us. She lives, like, four hundred miles away. Somewhere in Arkansas, I think.”

  “Wow, that’s a long way to come to lend someone money. Do you remember her name?”

  “His aunt . . . um . . . Jolayne. That’s it. Jolayne.”

  “Did you pay the money back?”

  Sylvie finished burping the baby and put her back into cradle position. “What?”

  “The money Jolayne lent you. Did you ever pay it back?”

  “Yeah. About three weeks later. Orwin drove it back to her.”

  “You didn’t go?”

  “No, I stayed here.”

  “How come?”

  Sylvie shrugged. “I dunno. He just told me I didn’t have to come and that he’d be fine goin’ alone.”

  Leah put her pad back in her pocket. “Okay, thanks.”

  “Why are you askin’ ’bout Orwin? You gonna try and find him?”

  “I might.”

  “Think you can?”

  “Shouldn’t be too hard,”
Leah said. “After all, he still has your car, doesn’t he?”

  On her way home, Leah’s thoughts wandered away from Orwin Thomas and Sylvie Carson and back to her son probably still lying in his bed back home. Leah wasn’t mad about his outburst, but she was concerned. She was pretty sure she knew what had driven him to it, and, the truth was, she was going through a similar emotional conflict herself.

  It was this whole new family popping up in their lives that was digging up memories of Billy. For Leah, those memories came mixed with anger, guilt, and blame.

  He’d been gone ten years, but it’d only been very recently she’d realized she still hadn’t gotten over his death. When he died, she took down all his pictures and put them away along with anything else that reminded her of him. Just thinking about him was too painful to bear, so she hid those thoughts away as best she could.

  One of the best hiding spots turned out to be behind a big heap of blame. She blamed him for leaving her alone. Blamed him for dying. And that made her angry.

  In the first couple years, she had gone to grief counseling, so she knew the drill: five steps of grieving and you have to go through it before you’re out of it. Only she couldn’t stand to get through the first step. So she stopped the cycle before it even had a chance to start.

  It turns out there’s a funny thing about grief. It won’t be stopped. The cycle will keep going all by itself if you try to keep it bottled up too long.

  And the part she hadn’t realized was that by hiding Billy’s death away from herself, she had taken a daddy away from her children. Especially from Abe. She saw that now, and it was that realization that allowed her to come to terms with needing to resolve Billy’s death in her own mind.

  Funny, but the therapist said first comes denial, then anger, then bargaining, then depression, and finally acceptance. Somehow that therapist had missed the one thing Leah needed to work out the most. And, in her mind, that was forgiveness. She needed to forgive her husband for dying on her.

  But tonight, she had a little boy at home who needed her to push all of this aside and be there for him as his mother and, even if it killed her on the inside, to show him that she accepted his pa’s death.

  Because her boy wanted nothing more than to know about his pa. And he had every right in the world to get his wish.

  CHAPTER 30

  By the time my mother returned from Miss Sylvie’s, I had stopped crying. I still didn’t know why I had flipped out in my front yard. I was starting to think I might have some emotional problems or something like people on TV were always talking about. The worst part was I knew I was in for it the minute I heard her car pull in the driveway. Normally, I couldn’t even give my mother the slightest “tone” (a word she used a lot that I didn’t rightly understand), and this time, I outright screamed at her for five whole minutes. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I had never wished I was Dewey so bad in all my life.

  I heard every detail as she walked into the house. I listened to her take off her shoes and put away her keys. Then she checked the fridge. She was supposed to make chicken-fried steak and potato salad tonight, but I didn’t think she still would. It was getting on quite dark and when I heard Carry come home at least an hour or two ago, I was sure I heard her fixing something to eat before she headed to the living room to watch television.

  She never once wondered where I was or, if she knew, why I was in my room. My sister didn’t really pay much attention to my life. We got along okay. We still did things together, like the day we made the swords, but I had found that more and more it required a lot of begging on my part to get her to be an active participant.

  Or I wound up having to paint her toenails once a week for an entire month. Things like that.

  Finally, after what sounded like my mother going through the mail, she left the kitchen and came down the hall. She didn’t come right to my room; she went to her own first. I started thinking that maybe she’d forgotten what had happened.

  But then I realized nobody could forget all that.

  And she hadn’t. She was in her room about ten minutes before she came in and sat on the edge of my bed. I was facing away from her, toward the wall with my window. I didn’t turn around.

  “Abe?” she asked. “You awake?”

  Her voice was very calm, which can sometimes be even worse than when she sounds upset, so I’ve learned not to trust it. I’ve also learned never to lie to her, so I said, “Yes.”

  “Will you turn around?”

  I turned over in my bed, leaving my head on my pillow. I could feel the stains from my tears still on my face even though it had been at least an hour since I stopped crying.

  I expected to see her looking full of anger.

  Only she wasn’t.

  “Are you okay now?” she asked.

  Her question confused me. “I—” I started, then answered with, “Yeah.”

  “Do you know what happened outside?”

  I just shook my head. It was the truth.

  “I think I do. I think you got a little overwhelmed by everything that’s been going on lately.”

  I hesitated. Was I not going to get in trouble? “What do you mean?”

  “Well, first, I think I made a mistake taking you to Eli Brown’s that day. Second, this whole thing with your new grandparents and that woman who’s your aunt—I reckon it’s got you thinkin’ ’bout your pa and that’s drummed up a bunch of feelin’s you just don’t know how to handle. And I’ve been very selfish, not tellin’ you things ’bout him. So that’s gonna stop. Right here. Right now.”

  There was something on the bed beside her. She’d brought it in with her. It was something I’d seen before, but not for many years: the shoe box from her closet that I “stole” the picture of my pa from, the one I kept in the drawer beside my bed and carried around in my pocket for good luck.

  Seeing it now made my heart start hammering against my chest. What was she going to do?

  Slowly, she lifted the top off the box. It was exactly as I remembered it: full of scattered photos of different sizes.

  “I want to go through some of these with you, and tell you ’bout them. Tell you how old your pa was when they was taken and where we was and stuff we were doin’. That is, if you want to hear ’bout it?”

  I gave her a big smile. “Boy, do I!” Then my throat went dry and felt too tight to get any more words out.

  “And then I want you to have them.”

  I blinked, stunned. “Have what?” I managed to ask.

  “The pictures.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes. As long as you’ll take good care of them.”

  “Yes. I will.” I couldn’t believe it.

  So we went through the pictures one at a time. Some we skipped on account of them being similar to others, but she told me stories about how my pa used to play football with his friends in the afternoons and how they used to go camping and hiking and then after Carry came along how they would take her down to the beach in Mobile and then they’d take me after I came along and how much I loved the waves and the sand. I listened to every word as though it were coming from the Gospels.

  Then she reached into the box and stopped talking.

  Her face fell sort of flat of emotion. She looked like somebody had just told her some very bad news.

  “What is it?”

  “Just—I forgot this was here,” she said, pulling out a gold ring.

  “What is it?”

  “My wedding ring. I put it in here when I put the pictures away.”

  I watched her face, waiting to see if she was going to get angry the way she used to when I would bring up my pa. Or maybe she’d start crying, the way I remembered her doing a long time ago when things would remind her of him.

  But she didn’t do either. Instead, she just put the ring in her shirt pocket.

  “What are you gonna do with it?” I asked.

  “I’m not certain,” she said. “But you certainly d
on’t need it.”

  I laughed. “No. I’m happy with the pictures.”

  “I’m sure I’ll find some use for it.” Her voice sounded very far away.

  “Mom?” I asked after a moment of silence.

  She sort of jerked back to my room. “Yeah?”

  “You okay?”

  She reached down and hugged me. “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “Mom, when am I gonna meet my new grandma and granddaddy? You said we was going.”

  Sitting up, she replied, “Whenever I can get time away from work to drive to Georgia. We’ll need a whole day. Right now Miss Sylvie’s takin’ all my time.”

  I frowned. “Does she have to call the station constantly?”

  “Hey!” my mother snapped. “Sometimes people really do need the police to help them.”

  “Does Miss Sylvie?”

  She thought that over. “Let’s just say I don’t think Miss Sylvie’s as crazy as other people do.” From the way she said it, it was obvious the topic was to be left at that.

  It didn’t matter; I was more interested in getting back to the photographs, anyway.

  We continued going through pictures another thirty minutes or so. Then she asked me if I felt like eating anything. I told her I hadn’t had any supper on account of she told me to go straight to my room and stay here until she got back from Miss Sylvie’s.

  “Well, I have potato salad already made,” she said. “Let me quickly fry you up some steak Then I think it’s bedtime.”

  “Okay,” I said and got out of bed and followed her to the kitchen with the shoe box full of photos underneath my arm.

  While she cooked, I kept looking through the pictures, feeling closer and closer to my pa. I was happy my mother was able to talk about him without getting angry or sad. It seemed to me that must be a definite improvement in the way she was handling him being gone. But then, I was just a kid, so what the heck did I know?

  Well, I knew I loved chicken-fried steak and potato salad, which I had two helpings of before putting the pictures safely away in my own bedroom closet and going to bed for the night.