Remember Me Like This

by Bret Anthony Johnston

  Eric said, “Just spend some time with her. That’s all she needs.”

  “Letty thinks maybe I did it because I was angry.”

  “Like you said, Sasha needed to eat. That’s proof enough for me.”

  “It was the last thing we talked about yesterday. She didn’t say if she thought I was angry with y’all or with Dwight.”

  “The mice were bought to feed to the snake,” Eric said. “Nothing seems mysterious here. Nothing seems malicious.”

  “The timing. I guess she was talking about the timing.”

  Outside, the sky hung low with clouds. Soon Laura would come through the door, or Griff would. Eric knew he wanted to move beyond this conversation, but something was nettling him: Justin hadn’t said he disagreed with Letty. Aiming to keep his tone light, Eric said, “What about you, bud? Do you think you fed the mice to Sasha because you were angry?”

  “I don’t think so,” Justin said. He was peeling flakes of dead skin away from his fingernails.

  “I don’t think so either.”

  Justin closed the cereal box and returned it to the cupboard, then dusted his hands over the sink. Eric had to again stop himself from touching him.

  “I just couldn’t believe he was getting out,” Justin said.

  “None of us could. It was a complete shock. And wrong. But there’s nothing to be afrai—”

  “And I just didn’t want to look at the mice anymore. Mom liked them because I had them with me when I was found, and that’s cool, I get that, but I was tired of seeing them.”

  “And Sasha needed to eat.”

  “But I don’t think I was mad at y’all anymore.”

  Eric’s breath caught, audibly. His gut turned over. It was like having his ribs kicked in. He said, “Anymore?”

  “I guess not,” Justin said.

  “When were you mad at us?”

  “When I was over there, I guess. When I was so close, and you couldn’t find me.”

  “We tried, bud,” Eric said. “We looked everywhere, every waking moment. You have to know that.”

  “I do,” he said, his voice light with resignation. “You did everything you could. It just took a while.”

  Eric was unsure of what to say. What to do. What to feel. Everything seemed arrested, inert. Justin’s expression reminded Eric of the look on Laura’s face when she spoke of beached dolphins—the son’s resemblance to his mother at that moment was uncanny, intimidating, and indicting—and Eric recognized the emotion that the expression always failed to mask: pity. What he wanted, what he needed, was for Justin to yell and curse him. Berate him. Punish him. Anything would have been more tolerable than pity. When Justin left the room, Eric was disgusted by the depth of his relief. Pathetic, he thought. Unforgivable. Then the beams from Laura’s headlights sliced through the living room windows, flooding the house with a white glow. Eric crossed the kitchen and opened the fridge. He stood there for a long moment, the chilled air on his body, and pretended to be looking for something to cook. His eyes were closed the whole time.

  20

  CECIL WAS NOT A MAN WHO PLUCKED WEEDS FROM HIS WIFE’S grave. He was not a headstone cleaner, not a widower who laid sprays of lilies to mark the anniversary of her death or single roses for her birthday. He visited the cemetery so infrequently that he tended to forget exactly where she’d been buried. Her plot was under one of the slumped weeping willows—he always remembered that, but he could walk for twenty minutes before finding it. Knotty crabgrass had inevitably covered her marble plaque. Anthills dotted the ground, small cones of dry and granular dirt that were the shade of ash, puckered like bullet holes. He cleared the plot before leaving each time, but years would pass between visits, so it typically looked like he’d never been there at all.

  But in the last month he’d driven out to the Coastal Bend Cemetery two and three times a week. He’d stop off at the Circle K for carnations—roses if they had them—and bottles of spring water. He doused her stone and polished the marble until the magenta veins and silver flecks took on a rich sheen. With his pocketknife, he cut away the weeds and dug caked sand out of the engraved letters: CONSTANCE LAUREL CAMPBELL. NOVEMBER 13, 1942–AUGUST 28, 1985. TENDER MOTHER, BELOVED WIFE. Mostly he’d visit in the early mornings before the day’s heat locked in, but he’d also come in the evening to watch the sun drop into the bay. The cemetery was quiet, breezy. The weeping willow leaves lifted and fell. Cecil tried talking to Connie, tried narrating all she’d missed, but the words sounded childish, more like he was talking to himself than her, and he ran out of things to say far quicker than he would have guessed. If he wasn’t yanking a weed or washing her plaque or arranging the flowers, he’d stand with his thumbs hitched in his belt loops and watch the doves and bitterns picking at the grass. Or he’d rest on one knee, squinting in the direction of the bay, listening to the tides convey what they could out to sea.

  He’d started making the drive after Eric called to say Buford was getting out. Cecil’s initial reaction was to dig the .44 out from under the seat in his Ford and clean it, then take it into the dunes for target practice on bottles or coyotes or whatever availed itself. But driving to the island that first morning, he’d gotten his mind right. He didn’t want the game warden seeing his truck parked out where shots were fired. Without thinking, he drove to the cemetery. When he’d found Connie’s grave—it had taken half an hour—he stood for a spell, trying to will tears that wouldn’t come. The wide-open sky was a pale, expressionless blue, and the day was already heat-gripped. A few grackles perched here and there, openmouthed, like panting dogs. The ferry droned. Finally, apologetically, he said, “Honey, I’m fixin’ to land my ass in prison.”

  He hadn’t, though. He’d held off the first night, then the second, and by the third, he was thinking more deliberately. He made sure he was paid up on life insurance, double-checked his will, confirmed that Eric had access to his checking and savings accounts. He put together a couple of boxes of Connie’s belongings, of photo albums and keepsakes, and gave them to Eric. “I’ve got roaches,” he’d lied. “Once I get the house sprayed, I’ll tote these back.” Every couple of days he took a few of his things and sold them to the pawnshop. If Ivan wrote the ticket, Cecil said he was clearing out rooms, trying to make his house more appealing to his grandsons; if Ivan was out, he didn’t bother writing anything up. He understood he might need cash on short notice. He took one of the pistols Eric had been looking at, wiped the pawnshop’s records of it, and stashed it under his truck seat. He bought half a dozen jugs of water and loaded them in the truck as well, along with a sleeping bag, cans of beans and soup, a couple changes of clothes, and a map of northern Mexico.

  Cecil couldn’t say why he kept returning to the cemetery. He only knew it brought him a kind of peace that was precluded in the presence of his family. Around his son and grandsons, a wall went up inside him. The objective of every conversation was to lead them away from what he was truly thinking, away from what the future might hold. Eventually, there could be questions, and for their sake he wanted to make sure they didn’t have the answers. When Griff stopped by Loan Star or when Eric and Justin came by the house on their drives, Cecil kept his distance. They regarded him like he’d been diagnosed with an illness whose symptoms were becoming impossible to ignore. They thought he was down about Buford’s release, somber and distracted by the injustice of it all, so he lived behind that veil. Safer for everyone.

  But at the cemetery he could drop his guard. He could breathe. His thoughts banked off one another, moving from Eric to Justin to Marcy—Tell him Marcy says hey—to Dwight Buford to Connie until eventually his mind quieted. It was as if because Cecil hadn’t done what he’d thought he needed to do, it didn’t need to be done. As if because he’d been able to put it off this long, maybe he’d be able to keep putting it off. He knew he might be rationalizing, succumbing to a fear too deep to feel, but still he allowed himself the reprieves. In the cemetery, soft winds brushed over him, the scents o
f lantana and salt water. He wished he’d spent more time here over the years, tending her grave and sitting in the sun. He watched women dab at their eyes with tissues and men remove their hats to pray. Children chased each other through the maze of headstones, workers in bandannas and sweaty long-sleeved shirts came through with Weed Eaters. Twice, new mounds of freshly dug earth had appeared—one plot for Harold Rattray, and a week later one for Whitey Mullen. If Cecil wasn’t mistaken, Mullen still had a set of golf clubs in hock at the shop. The strange and scattered pieces of ourselves we leave behind, Cecil thought. Who could know what would still be in pawn when the world was done with you? Who could predict the legacy of small lives?

  Cecil owned the two plots on either side of Connie. He’d bought all three shortly before Eric was born. She hated the idea of them, their implication and inevitability, but he never questioned the decision. He expected to die first and didn’t want his wife and son burdened more than they had to be. He also wanted Eric to know that he’d always be welcome beside his parents, no matter who he was, no matter where life took him. The deeds to the plots were in the safe-deposit box at the Coastal Credit Union. Cecil had always assumed he’d be buried to the right of Connie, and Eric, if he so chose, would be laid to rest on her left, allowing space on the other side for his family. That Cecil’s life had twisted in such a way that he himself might not be buried there at all was something he was still trying to swallow.

  There had, of course, been a time when it seemed one of the two plots would go to Justin. Cecil had gone so far as to open the safe-deposit box and reread the deed in the bank’s vault, checking for any fine-print stipulations about who could occupy the plots. He’d almost gotten sick on the bank floor, then again in the parking lot. He’d never broached the subject with Eric, but Laura had once asked if there was still space available around Connie. She’d pulled him aside at one of the annual beach searches, maybe the second or third year in, when most of the volunteers were deep in the dunes. Cecil had gone off by himself toward the National Seashore and she’d come up behind him.

  “I like the weeping willow,” she’d said. “I’d love for him to be in the shade.”

  Cecil hadn’t known that she’d ever visited Connie’s grave. Immediately he felt a new warmth toward her, and toward Eric for having shown her where his mother was buried. It was as if together they’d bestowed a great, unexpected kindness upon him. He also understood that Laura could’ve asked Eric but had come to him instead. They were each, in their own broken ways, trying to protect him, trying to gather what they needed to survive this long waiting.

  “I think all those seats are taken,” Cecil said.

  “It’s silly, I know it is, but I worry he’d be hot without some shade. I don’t want the sun coming right down on where he’d be—”

  “Like I said, they’re all booked up,” he said, firm. “When Justin gets home, we’ll go sit for a spell under that shade tree, but that’s as close as he’ll get.”

  Laura reached over and squeezed his forearm. She started back toward the dunes and the other volunteers. As she was walking across the sand, she crouched to pick up a shell Cecil couldn’t see. She blew on it and dusted it off, then turned and held it up to show Cecil. “A lightning whelk,” she said. “I always try to pick something up on the searches, something we can add to his collection when he comes home.” They never discussed it again, and although Laura had endured some rough patches, Cecil had always thought of the exchange as one that revealed a poise within her. She carried herself in a way he trusted.

  He was thinking of this on Wednesday morning, driving back from the cemetery. He was thinking not of the lightning whelk or the cemetery plots, but of how Laura had squeezed his forearm. It had always seemed akin to how a child will squeeze your hand at the doctor’s office, but now, in the truck, he thought she might have been trying to comfort him. Son of a bitch, he thought. The bay was dull and muddied, flat. He passed the Teepee Motel, where a group of stringy boys were climbing on the piles of rubble, chasing each other or some such. The Shrimporee banner over Station Street sagged, the morning dew still heavy on the frayed canvas.

  When he rounded the corner to his street, he saw the white Mercedes parked in front of his house. Mayne Buford sat on his front steps, holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee with both hands. As Cecil pulled into the driveway, Mayne levered himself up from the porch and moved toward the truck. Cecil shut off the ignition, waited for the engine to rumble down before opening the door. He thought for a second and decided to leave his pistol under the seat.

  “Coffee?” Mayne said, raising a second Styrofoam cup. “I stopped off at the Castaway. I figured you’d’ve already had your fill, but took a chance.”

  “You’re taking a chance by stepping onto my property. If you think I don’t have a Smith and Wesson loaded with Short Colts under the seat of this truck, I’d be happy to prove you wrong.”

  Mayne set the other cup on the truck’s hood. He said, “I’ve just come to talk. I’m trying to keep things civil here.”

  “I kindly think it’s a little late on that ticket,” Cecil said. “I also think you’ve overstayed your welcome here. I won’t ask again.”

  “Eric’s watching our house,” Mayne said. He averted his eyes when he spoke, looked at his shoes and the yard, as if ashamed. He sipped his coffee. He said, “He parks down the road and watches through binoculars. I’m wondering what the chances are of you asking him to give it a rest.”

  “I can’t control my son any more than you’ve been able to control yours.”

  A truck with a camper and a struggling muffler rattled down the street. Not someone Cecil knew. In its wake came the hot and sorry smell of exhaust.

  “Dwight’s scared,” Mayne said.

  “Good,” Cecil said. “I’d say scared is about one percent of what he deserves.”

  “My wife, too. And she hasn’t done anything. She wakes up crying.”

  “Justin’s mother probably knows something about that, too.”

  Cecil didn’t like this talk, the back-and-forth of it. He wanted to get inside and fry some eggs and bacon in his skillet. He wanted to shut the door between him and Mayne before he lost his composure.

  “I’d like to ask you for a favor,” Mayne said. “The answer’s no.”

  “I’d like to take my family out on the water one last time, the three of us on the boat. We’d leave in the morning and be back later that night.”

  “You leave that dock and no one’ll see you again. You can get to Mexico in a day. You can float to Galveston, tie the boat up, and drive to Canada.”

  “My wife would be with us. She’ll run out of oxygen if we don’t circle back.”

  “And you can’t load a boat with oxygen canisters? You can’t have a car waiting in Port Isabel with ten of the goddamn things?”

  “I can get him to change his plea,” Mayne said.

  Cecil locked eyes with Mayne.

  “Give me a day with my family and I can get him to plead guilty,” Mayne said. “It would spare everyone the trial.”

  “If you can do that, you can do it at home. You don’t need the boat for that.”

  “Probably I don’t,” he said. “But I want a day on the water with my wife and son. I want that memory. In a few months, I’ll lose them both. I think it’s a fair offer.”

  A skid of clouds moved past the sun and there was a gradual new light on the top side of the tallow leaves and puddles of shadows merging on the grass. The morning, the strange conversation with Mayne, felt like it was getting ahead of him, away from him.

  Cecil said, “Like I said, Eric’s a grown man. He makes his own choices.”

  “But you’ll talk to him? Ask him about September sixth.”

  The date jogged something in his memory, though he couldn’t readily name the day’s significance. Then he remembered. He said, “That’s the Shrimporee.”

  “I figure we push off in the morning before the crowds get here and come back once
everything winds down. It’ll save us some hassle, and y’all can have that day to yourself. I know they’re doing something special for Justin.”

  “You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

  “I’d like to give this to my wife. We’ve been all over the world, but there’s not a place she’s seen that she’d trade for a day on the Gulf,” he said. “I’m busted up about this. I’m drinking again. After the dust settles, I won’t have much reason to—”

  “If he comes near any of them, I’ll kill him myself.”

  “He hasn’t left the house. He barely leaves the couch.”

  “I’ll take a hammer to every joint in his body. I’ll pull his teeth out with pliers.”

  “Cecil, you don’t need to—”

  “I’ll cut him and bleed him out, then I’ll shove the barrel of a .44 down his throat and pull the trigger.”

  “Everyone will know it’s you. They know the stories. The police will go to you before anyone else. I can probably call them right now and have you arrested.”

  “Hell, I’d call them myself,” Cecil said. “But it’d be after I’d emptied the chamber.”

  Mayne nodded, sipped his coffee. Cecil locked the truck and started for the porch. To someone passing by, they might have looked like old friends.

  21

  LAURA HAD LIED TO ERIC THAT NIGHT IN THE KITCHEN. YES, she had dreamed of Buford showing up at Marine Lab, and writing out the dream had led to understanding why Justin wouldn’t try to run away—You feel haunted, she’d written—but Buford wasn’t the reason she couldn’t sleep. It was Rudy, the volunteer. It was remembering how he’d used her married name in the parking lot. The memory had come unbidden as she was trying to drift off, when she was tunneling through the gauzy realm between knowing and unknowing. The sheets, damp with sweat, clung to her skin. There didn’t seem enough air in the room, so she’d gone into the kitchen and opened the window over the sink.