The Familiar Dark

by Amy Engel

  I looked at her. “Are you going to hold it together? Once daylight hits and all this is real?”

  She stared back at me. “It’s already real. And yeah, I’ll hold it together fine.”

  “What about Zach?” I asked. “He knew it was Cal.”

  Jenny leaned back against her car. I could barely make out her features in the moonlight. “Don’t worry about Zach. The second I came out of the kitchen and told him I’d heard you two, the only thing he could focus on was the fact that now I knew he was Junie’s father. ‘What she said was true about that night, it was only one time. You and I weren’t even engaged yet. It never happened again.’” She snorted out a laugh. “Like I give a shit about that, at this point. It was years ago. They’re gone. Who cares? But Zach is Zach. He’ll carry his guilt around like a hair shirt for the foreseeable future.” She turned and opened the driver’s door. “I can use that, if I have to. But I don’t think I will.”

  “For what it’s worth, he never really wanted to keep Junie a secret from you. That was my idea. I didn’t see what good it would do for anyone to know.”

  Jenny gave me a little smile. “They found each other anyway, didn’t they? Zach and Junie. Junie and Izzy. Looking back, I feel like an idiot for not seeing it. The way he was always hovering around them when Junie was at our house, hanging on every word she said. I finally know why he never wanted to leave Barren Springs. It was written all over his face.”

  “What was?” I asked.

  “Love,” Jenny said. “He loved her.”

  It should have eased something in me, the knowledge that Junie’d had a father who loved her after all. Junie, who’d never once voiced a complaint about being fatherless, but whose eyes always followed men carrying babies, men with kids balanced on their shoulders. But all I felt was sorrow. My heart ached for my daughter, for Zach, for all of us. For the secrets we’d kept from each other, for the chances we’d never had. I’d thought I was doing the right thing for Junie all those years ago, but maybe I had robbed her without meaning to.

  “What will you tell Zach about tonight?” I asked. “We need to have our stories straight.”

  “That we went to talk to Cal, but we couldn’t find him. Spent half the night tracking him down, but came up empty. I’ll tell him that during that time we hashed it out and we’re not even sure anymore he had anything to do with it.”

  “And he’ll believe that?”

  Jenny slid into her seat and put her key in the ignition. “Sure he will. Because he’ll want to. Because he’ll need to. He wasn’t lying earlier. He’s not equipped for this kind of thing. But he needs to believe we aren’t, either.”

  “I didn’t think you were,” I told her. Which wasn’t entirely true. I remembered her expression when she’d spoken about Matt and Izzy in her kitchen. The death wish written on her face. And I knew this place, this patch of land. It didn’t breed many weaklings. She might have grown up in an actual house and never seriously wondered where her next meal was coming from, but here you got strong fast or you didn’t make it.

  Jenny smiled, white teeth in a dirt-streaked face, all bite and no joy. “I’m capable of anything, I guess. When someone pushes me far enough.” She tapped her steering wheel with both hands. “You and your mama can handle Land?”

  “Yeah, Mama has his number start to finish. I think she’s the only person he’s scared of, other than maybe Jimmy Ray. But she’s gonna leave Cal’s car at her place, let it sit there. If Land comes sniffing around, she’ll tell him Cal showed up today, all antsy, told her he had somewhere to be, and then some guy in a dark gray truck came and picked him up. Last she’s seen or heard from him.”

  “That’ll probably be good enough for Land. His lazy ass isn’t going to waste time looking for Cal, especially if you and your mama aren’t squawking about him being gone.”

  “I thought you liked Land,” I said, surprised.

  “No one likes Land,” Jenny said. “But we needed him, or thought we did, so I played nice. It about killed me, though. I’ve hated him since I was a teenager. When I was sixteen, he caught me sneaking out of my house. Told me if I gave him a blow job he wouldn’t tell my parents.”

  “What did you do?” My voice sounded far away.

  “I threatened to tell his wife, but that didn’t seem to faze him. Now that I think about it, she’d probably have thanked me for saving her from having to do the dirty work. So I told him to go fuck himself. I figured a grounding from my dad was better than putting my mouth anywhere near Land. I had another choice and I took it. But I doubt everyone he runs into has the same luck.”

  I paused, wondering how much, if anything, to tell her. Decided that after tonight Land was hardly a secret worth keeping anymore. “I definitely didn’t.”

  Jenny’s eyes flew to mine. “When?” she asked.

  I made a noncommittal noise. “Years ago.”

  “Well, something tells me if there’s a next time, it’ll be a different story.”

  I nodded, and she reached out, laid her hand on my arm. “We did the right thing, Eve. We did good by our girls. It doesn’t bring them back.” She took a deep breath, released it. “But it helps, somehow.”

  When she drove away, I stood on the weedy verge and watched her taillights fade, knowing somehow that my story wouldn’t intersect with hers again. But I’d always look at her differently now, when I heard her name around town or caught a flash of dark hair in the distance. I had a feeling that before long Zach and Jenny would disappear from Barren Springs, finally venture out into the wider world. But wherever they ended up, she and I would remain interwoven. Not by our daughters’ deaths. And not by their shared father. But by this night—the dark and the earth and a man’s body between us. By our unflinching ability to do what was necessary.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  My mama was waiting for me on her trailer steps, her cigarette a glowing beacon in the dark. I sank down next to her, dirt clinging to the webs of my fingers, shoved deep under my nails. My back and shoulders ached something fierce, and I knew there’d be hell to pay tomorrow, in every kind of way. I already couldn’t picture a world without my brother in it.

  “Girl, you are a mess,” my mama said. “Don’t smell too good, neither. You can shower before you go. Leave those clothes here and borrow something of mine.” She held out her hand, and I passed her the gun. We’d already decided that it was safer for her to get rid of it. That way, if I was arrested, I wouldn’t be tempted to spill my guts about where the gun ended up. And we wanted it someplace far away from where Cal’s body was buried, just in case. These woods were vast, filled with caves and caverns, and I trusted Mama to find a good spot for it. One that would take decades, maybe lifetimes, for anyone to uncover. “Money’s inside,” she told me. “Don’t forget to take it.”

  We’d already decided that part, too. How tomorrow morning I was gonna go into Land’s office with the money and tell him I’d found it at Cal’s. I hadn’t been snooping, swear to God. I’d been cleaning out his closet, trying to keep myself occupied, and the vacuum caught on the edge of the carpet and there it was. I was freaked out, took the money without thinking, left the carpet and the mess and got out of there. I’d tried to ask Cal about it, but couldn’t find him. And when I went back to his place later, it was cleared out. His clothes gone. He must have come home, seen the money was missing, and panicked. I wasn’t sure what was going on, what to do about the money, but figured Land would help.

  “Help himself to the money, more like,” my mama had muttered when we’d devised this part of the plan. But we couldn’t see a good way around it. The money was the way to keep Land quiet. A little windfall and no talk-of-the-town embarrassment about how his deputy had been putting one over on him all this time. Of course, I had no doubt Mama had lightened the stash while I was gone. But I didn’t want any part of it. Every dollar stained with Junie’s blood.

&
nbsp; Even knowing my mama, I expected her to say something. To ask about Cal’s last moments or express some kind of pain. But she didn’t. She finished her beer and then led me inside for a shower. When I was cleaned up, dressed in a pair of her jeans and one of her faded T-shirts, I took the bag of money and paused at the screen door. The air was warmer than it had been only a week ago, summer barreling toward us fast as a runaway train. Sweat and stagnant air and legs pockmarked with mosquito bites just over the horizon. In a blink, autumn, leaves turning gold and amber, scent of wood smoke in the air. And then winter, ice on the roads and bitter chill sneaking under my door at night. The seasons would keep on passing, the days and weeks and months rolling on, taking me further and further from my daughter. Until one day, sooner than I could comprehend, I would have lived with her absence longer than her presence. Her life a brief, shining light fading into shadow.

  My mama stopped me at the door, laid a cold hand on my cheek. Her eyes were clear, glowing. She was proud of me, I realized with a start. Maybe for the first and only time in my life. For doing a hard thing well. For doing an awful thing easily.

  “You my daughter again?” she asked, voice raspy.

  “Yeah, Mama,” I said, because it was the truth. And because sometimes you had to pick your poison. Weigh all the available options and choose the one that killed you least. Take a long, honest look at yourself and own the darkness that lived inside. “I’m your daughter. Always.”

  I opened the door and stepped out into the night.

  THE BEGINNING

  Somehow, she hadn’t thought her daughter would be this small. She’d seen baby girls all her life, boys, too. Women birthed them like puppies around here. First one barely walking before the next one came along. But when they belonged to other people, they seemed sturdier, less fragile. This one in her arms, her daughter, looked delicate as glass.

  The baby snuffled a little, burrowing against her chest, seeking. She had a sudden urge to pinch her daughter, show her, right from the start, that the world was full of ugly things. That way her daughter wouldn’t be surprised later, wouldn’t be weak, expecting the world to do her any favors. Trying, in the best way she knew how, to teach her daughter something worth learning.

  “Sorry, little girl,” she whispered against the baby’s downy cheek. She’d forgotten how sweet newborn babies smelled. “You’re stuck with me.” She’d seen the mothers who coddled, who passed out hugs and kisses like confetti. And that was never going to be her. Didn’t see what good it did, fawning over kids that way, making them think they were special, that life wouldn’t kick their asses the same as everyone else. She didn’t know how to coddle, but she knew how to forge. How to make her daughter strong. She couldn’t give her much, but she could give her that. Because, pinch or no pinch, the world was ugly, especially for girls. There was no escaping it. You either fought back or you surrendered. And no daughter of hers was going to surrender. No daughter of hers was going to lie down and take it. Not if she had anything to say about it.

  The midwife from up the road, who’d taken payment in booze and a crumpled twenty, wandered in, hands still streaked with blood. “You settled on a name yet?”

  She looked down at her daughter. “Eve,” she said. “Her name is Eve.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First and foremost, a huge thank-you to my family: Brian, Graham, and Quinn. This book could not have been written without your love, support, and encouragement. The three of you make my life better every single day. Thank you also to my mom, Mary Anne; my in-laws, Fran and Larry; and all my extended family. My father didn’t live long enough to see this book in print, but he asked me how the writing was coming every time we talked. I still feel him cheering me on whenever I sit down at my computer. Thank you to Holly, my best friend and most trusted confidante. You somehow manage endless patience with me whenever I’m in the throes of writing a new book. I am so thankful for you and our friendship. And to my SPs, Meshelle, Michelle, and Trish, thank you for always listening, making fun of me when I need a laugh, and bottomless margaritas when I need a break. Thanks also to Laura McHugh, who understands the writing life and the frustrations and joys that come along with it. Your e-mails helped me more than you know.

  Jodi, thank you for your wisdom, wit, and willingness to tell me to stop overthinking and start writing. I feel very lucky to have an agent I also consider a dear friend. To my editor, Maya Ziv, this is our first book together, but I sincerely hope it’s only the first of many. You have been a delight to work with. Smart, funny, and passionate about what you do. Thank you for making this process such fun. And heartfelt thanks to Christine Ball, John Parsley, Leigh Butler, Sabila Kahn, Hannah Feeney, Emily Canders, Elina Vaysbeyn, and everyone at Dutton and Penguin Random House. I am forever grateful for your enthusiasm, professionalism, and your support of me and my books.

  To all the readers, librarians, booksellers, and bloggers, thank you for reading, reviewing, recommending, and getting the word out. None of us would be here without you.

  And, as always, thank you to Larry the cat, who still keeps my legs warm while I’m writing.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Amy Engel is the author of The Roanoke Girls and The Book of Ivy series. A former criminal defense attorney, she lives outside of Kansas City, Missouri, with her husband and children.

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