Sticks and Stones

by Angèle Gougeon

  “We can’t give him a proper funeral,” Daniel said, voice loud after all the silence.

  Sandra felt her face twist.

  “We’ll have to lie low. And we can’t—”

  This time, Jack reached out and squeezed his brother’s shoulder. Sandra reached up and tangled her hand in Daniel’s loose shirt.

  They were with him. Whatever they had to do, they would.

  Daniel nodded quick, eyes going shiny, and then he pulled away and led them to the back of the truck. Sandra didn’t want to look inside. She did. It was still Lem, only paler, more horrifying. Blood congealed over his shirt and had spread across the grooves of the truck bed. The dirt from the bottom of the box had stuck to his arms and his jeans. There was a smear on his face, a spatter of drops, and Sandra had to stop and breathe deep. And then she had to breathe shallow because all she smelled was the metal of the blood.

  “We should … we should clean him up,” she got out. Daniel nodded carefully and climbed up, stepping over and around Lem, not looking down, to reach the tarp shoved up under the middle of the truck’s back window. He passed it to Jack, and Jack found a clear spot in the barn, free from old mud and stones. Then they picked him up, laid him out, and Sandra went to the car to fetch the water bottle, found another unopened one, and took a rag from the car’s glove box.

  There were loose boards along the back wall of the barn, rough and weathered, and Daniel found Jack a pair of gloves. He didn’t find any for himself but didn’t seem to care as he tugged at the wood, getting splinters and nicks. They gathered boards as Sandra wet Lem’s face, biting her lip hard enough to taste blood. There was nothing she could do for his shirt and she settled for brushing the dry dirt loose. His jacket was in his truck and she thought maybe they could use that instead, cover up his chest, put it on and zip it tight. She’d get the boys to help her. The blood stuck under her nails and Sandra trembled as she finished, rising to her feet and looking for metal nails along the floor, ones that weren’t bent or rusted too badly, to make the coffin and close the lid.

  She didn’t know if she could do this.

  Wiping her arm across her eyes, Sandra breathed in deep, held the air in her lungs until it ached. One thing at a time. That was the only way they’d make it through. She tried not to think, and went back to looking for nails.

  Daniel and Jack stacked the boards up, again and again until there were enough. And then Daniel went to the truck, found a hammer and Sandra asked Jack for help with Lem’s jacket.

  He stared for a long moment, and she thought maybe he’d want to keep the jacket instead, but then he looked at Lem’s chest and only said, “Good idea,” and quietly went to get that, too. Everything felt like it was moving too slow, swimming in molasses, as though it would break the world to move any faster.

  The jacket was hard to maneuver and Sandra was very close to tears by the time they finished. But Daniel had started trying to match the rough boards together, and she pulled her shoulders back and went to join him. She helped hold pieces with Daniel while Jack nailed them into place. The wood got discolored in her hands by little wet spots, and Sandra pretended not to notice while her vision blurred, tears on her cheeks, sure she wasn’t the only one.

  They found a spot in the woods outside the barn. A fifteen-minute walk to where no one would ever find Lem. There was only one shovel and they took turns digging. The blisters that sprang up on Sandra’s hands barely hurt.

  The walk through the poplars and pines seemed longer with the coffin and after several minutes they had to set it down, rest their backs and shoulders. The death grip on that box gave Sandra splinters, turned her skin red. Daniel kept swallowing, again and again, overly loud. Plants tangled and broke around their feet.

  Sandra felt covered in grime, dust and dirt thick over her skin, even though she only saw it on her hands. The too-sweet smell of the forest clogged her nose, the smell of vegetable decay on a warm day.

  They reached the spot. A blue flannel marker fluttered in the breeze like a flag. When they gently laid the coffin on the ground, Daniel unwound the rope from his arm and he and Jack awkwardly lowered first one end of the coffin, and then the other. The last inch slipped and the wood landed heavily, making them flinch. The hole was deep and shadowed, and the trees didn’t let much light through. Sandra wished they had a candle to burn so that maybe Lem could find his way home.

  Instead, there was his jacket and the photograph that Sandra had carefully placed next to his heart. Hopefully his boys would send him home instead.

  The first shovelful was loud, hollow thuds ringing until layers of dirt muffled the sound. The boys didn’t talk, just sunk into the steady dig and dump of the shovel, handing it off when the other nudged his shoulder. The humid-heavy air left their skin damp, shirts dewy, and the insects incessantly buzzed.

  Sandra watched and tried not to think of anything.

  When it was done, the silence fell thick and heavy.

  Sandra didn’t know what to say. This would be easier with someone else, someone she hadn’t cared so much about. But it was only them and she pulled up her courage, breathed deep and made herself try. “He…” Sandra began. The boys jerked toward her, startled, like they thought they’d have woken up by now. Her throat burned and her eyes hurt, but she forced the words out, pausing to clear her closing throat. “He saved me,” she said. “He gave me a family.”

  Danny’s breath stuttered and he looked away, back at the grave, and then away, staring out into the forest trees. His lips moved with words she couldn’t hear and Sandra closed her eyes, letting him send out his own private prayer.

  It still felt like a dream.

  I failed him, part of her wanted to say. I failed him and I’m so sorry.

  Jack stared at the muddy heap, earth rounded and clumped in chunks because of how far they’d dug, from the rain and the roots that had curled strong and deep. “He made us safe,” he whispered. “He made me solid.”

  Sandra swallowed fast, held her breath because it would sob out if she didn’t, and tried to remember how Lem had smelled, of oil and leather and a little like despair, how he’d always made her feel safe, big hand on her head, on her chin, because she should never look down – don’t you dare be ashamed – how he could make them straighten their spines with a look and shut up with a word … feel proud. She wanted to say that, say everything he had meant to her – safety and love and comfort and hope and pride and family – but she didn’t know how. He was gone. He was gone and everything felt razor thin.

  “I wish he could’ve been my dad,” she whispered, and then she was crying, huge gasping sobs, and didn’t even know she was on the ground until Danny’s arms were around her, and then Jack’s, and they all sat in a heap, clutching at each other, until her nose was so stuffed she couldn’t talk and her eyes were too red to see.

  It’s not fair, she wanted to say, and maybe she did, because Danny kept telling her shhh shhh, voice torn all to pieces.

  “He was,” Jack kept saying, and his voice was no better. “He was. He was your dad. He was yours, too.”

  For real, she wanted to say. She wanted it to have been real. But paper had never meant anything to the Sloans, and it hadn’t mattered to Lem that he wasn’t her real guardian because he’d played the part since she’d first met them at thirteen, and, maybe…

  “He was,” Jack said again.

  And then the tears dried up and they got up off the ground and said goodbye for the very last time.

  Daniel crouched low, didn’t touch the mound of dirt, but lowered his head, spoke soft.

  Jack nodded, nodded again, and couldn’t speak.

  Sandra just prayed, silent and deep, fingers clenched so hard that they turned white and numb.

  She promised, I will protect them. She hoped he heard. I will always protect them. I won’t fail again.

  Then they turned a
round and walked back to the barn. Her heart hurt every step of the way.

  Chapter Twelve

  They stripped the truck for parts and left the rest to rust inside the thick line of trees when they drove away. It was hard to pack all the truck’s belongings into the car, and those that they couldn’t fit were buried in a pit just inside the trees, the boys shifting old branches and leaves to make the displaced soil less noticeable.

  Even after, covered in enough mud to fill another grave, they sat around the barn, silence pressing down. Daniel wanted to wait for night, when the dark could help conceal their car plates for a little while longer, make it a few towns over and steal another, make it a little further, then ditch the car altogether. They couldn’t go home, not that the place they’d been living could be called much of a home. They’d spent more time outside of the rental than in. Sandra’s eyes wouldn’t stop aching, and she spent her time carefully ignoring the area where the tarp had been, cleaning her hands with a long strip of flannel she’d found stuffed under the car’s front seat. Her knees had gotten scraped at some point. There was a bruise on her arm, and she kept pressing at it, watching the skin turn white, then slowly deepen back to angry purple and green.

  Jack had his eyes closed, pretend-asleep, like he feared they would try talking to him. Both boys had spare work clothes in the trunk, stained with grease and oil, and Sandra closed her eyes as they changed. They kept themselves turned to the walls, as though they were sparing her some delicate sensibility.

  Sandra made do with dusting the dirt from her jeans and peeling off her shirt, wrapping herself up in Daniel’s jacket

  When the reddening sky cast bloody light through the cracks in the slates of the barn, Jack peeled back the doors and they climbed into the car.

  The radio filled the silence.

  In the back seat, exhausted and filthy, Sandra let the turn of the wheels lull her to that moment just before sleep, body heavy and eyes closed. She hoped the whole day would be a long, horrible dream when she opened them. Jack turned his body into the line of the door and stared intently out the window as Daniel drove and drove, mindless of the hours as the gray asphalt was eaten beneath them. When he couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore, he pulled over and switched places with Jack. Sandra sat up at the sound of the door, but they pulled back onto the highway, far-away fairy lights of a city glittering on the horizon. Sandra sunk down, head stuck between the door and the padded seat backing. She watched Danny’s face tip down in the front seat, brown hair curling around the one ear she could see. Time was non-linear, and whenever Sandra opened her eyes, everything had changed. Jack was driving. The music was off. Daniel was awake. The music was on, soft and slow. Daniel was asleep. Jack was crying. Daniel was driving again. The music was off and the sky was turning orange, eastern light falling over the world, joining the headlights in cutting through the tar-black shadows.

  The highway stretched endlessly.

  Sandra considered offering to drive, but her hands shook inside the jacket where they were drawn in, cold against her chest, and she lowered her head back down, forehead now pressed to the cool glass of the window and watching fields turn golden-bright. The horizon lights winked out and the clouds soared orange across the sky.

  Lem felt worlds away.

  Jack, sleeping in the front seat, came awake with a startling, wounded sound that Danny pretended not to hear, teeth clamped tight and jaw set against the rising sun shining into his eyes. He was falling asleep again, but he didn’t stop until they needed gas, and then he made Jack take all the money that they could out of Lem’s account at the ATM. Jack peeled a hole in the fabric of the car down near the middle of his feet and stuffed the money inside, an extra three hundred stashed inside their wallets and pockets. Coffee and donuts, then they were back on the road, leaving someone’s dust-covered car behind them with the wrong plates.

  Jack drove well into the day. Sandra switched spots with Danny and he stretched out along the backseat, still too tall to lay his head flat and having to keep one leg bent, the other hanging over the side. He lay with his hands covering his eyes and Sandra couldn’t tell if he was asleep or just wishing for it. Jack kept the radio on low and Sandra spent some time going through the glove box and trying to separate the good from the trash, but she couldn’t concentrate and ended up with her knees pulled up on the seat, head tilted down.

  Jack’s hand stayed heavy on her neck.

  ~

  Sandra sat in the car while Danny walked to the used car lot. Jack disappeared next door to get food at the tiny convenience store labeled Bob’s Mart. Danny had pulled on one of Jack’s sweaters, trying to look a little less like himself. It was small on him and made him look younger.

  Sandra lost sight of him across the street and nodded off to sleep, managing ten minutes before jerking awake and slamming her head against the side window, heart jackhammering inside her chest. Bang-bang. Lem falling. No sleeping then. She curled up against herself, breathed in the smell of Danny and the mud and blood still on her skin and watched Jack amble back toward the car with two heavy plastic bags.

  The used car ended up smelling a little odd; not bad. But musty, like it had been shut up for years, maybe since it had been made. The engine was alright and with a little work Danny figured it would be fine.

  Jack drove their old car fifteen blocks away to the seedier part of town where they loaded everything up, lost the stolen plates and finally drove away. It hurt, a little, leaving it there, something that Lem had helped build with his hands.

  The sky was dark again by the time they stopped, world gray and stretched thin in the evening air. The motel sign flickered as they pulled in, neon bulbs buzzing and popping. Sandra clutched her bag of newly bought clothing, cheap blue jeans, t-shirts, and pajama pants, and hunched down with them in the front seat while Danny went to check-in.

  The number four on their door was crooked and the heavy curtains over the window were lime green and ugly as sin. The dented wooden door squeaked open to reveal a lackluster motel room.

  Jack flopped down on the nearest bed, but moved when Danny shoved him to the other with a frown and Sandra headed for the bathroom, keeping her eyes slitted to block out most of the too-bright color of the wallpaper and red-orange carpeting until the door was safely closed, worn white tiles under her stockinged feet. The shower was missing grout, but there was plenty of hot water. A gritty swirl disappeared down the drain. The pressure left Sandra’s skin red and angry and she stared into the chipped mirror when she was done, dripping all over the floor and looking for something she wasn’t sure she could find.

  She always expected to look different. Outsides to match her insides.

  The steam made her a foggy, ghost image, and, heaving a sigh, she patted her hair dry with the sole towel. The new clothes scratched her skin, new-store smell making her hollow stomach twist.

  Sandra felt cold, even in the humid air, battered and full of shadows.

  Finally, Sandra opened the bathroom door. Jack still lay on his bed, arm thrown over his face, a curl of grit-black soil by his ear, following the sweat trail of his jaw, boots still on and one leg drawn up on the bed. A fine layer of mud was shedding onto the carpet and Sandra wanted to say something, but didn’t.

  Daniel sat on the edge of the other bed. His head wasn’t in his hands, but his chin nearly touched his chest, curled fingers hanging loosely over his thighs. His jeans had gotten ripped sometime during the day. A red line slashed across the glimpse of pale skin. Dust covered his knees. He blinked when she stepped into the room.

  “You should eat,” he said, voice scratched and blown to impossible bits.

  Sandra shook her head, moved toward Jack’s bed and nudged his shoulder softly until he moved out from the middle so she could climb in.

  Jack rolled her into the slot nearest the wall and tucked himself around her, long limbs and hot flesh. The dust on his
skin and his shirt tickled her nose, but she didn’t move, only pressed her face in between his shoulder and neck and closed her eyes. Danny settled heavily on his bed and Sandra listened until Jack’s breath evened out and slowed.

  Danny’s took a much longer time.

  He was gone when she woke. Jack grumbled, rolled out of bed and stepped into the shower.

  Danny didn’t come back for exactly three hours and twenty-nine minutes. He returned with new IDs and drivers licenses for him and Jack. Jack didn’t say a word about them, waiting for Daniel to explain, but the tension in the air grew and grew and his jaw got tight.

  “Dad had some contacts,” Danny said, but his eyes were too bland, face too empty, and even Sandra knew he was lying.

  Jack didn’t even bother looking up.

  “Good,” was all he said, turning the new license over in his hands. “Hey, look,” his grin grew wide, “we’re family now – Jack Casey. Does that make us kissing cousins?”

  Sandra grimaced and didn’t deign that worthy of a reply.

  “I’m betting we don’t have much money left,” Jack said, voice more subdued.

  Daniel shrugged, stopped close enough to Sandra that she could feel the heat from his body. Reaching out blindly, she grabbed onto his hand, pulled him down onto the bed and relaxed into the long, lean line of his body against hers. “I’ll take care of it,” he said.

  “No. We will.” Jack’s jaw went tight and eyes glittering something fierce. Daniel looked unsure but, finally, just nodded.

  “Are we okay to stick around?” Sandra asked.

  “No,” Daniel breathed.

  They left. They drove. She watched the boys get angry.

  Sandra dreamed things. Of Lem and Jack and Danny. She dreamed of bullets and fires and people she had never met. They came across police in some towns. She knew the Sloans had never trusted the law, but it was worse now. Danny went out of his way to stay out of trouble. Soon, Jack went out of his way not to. He pushed. He made people angry and found the right buttons until Daniel had to step in, or Sandra had to step in, and they had to get Jack far, far away.