LITMIR.BIZ

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sandwiches as a peace offering.

      “I already had lunch,” he said as his eyes brushed past the plate.

      “I’ve come to ask you a favor.”

      “Oh,” he said, wiping his hands on a rag. “Shoot.”

      “I need you to talk to Cal.”

      Leo began to laugh as he turned away from her. She grabbed his arm and swung him around.

      “Enough. You want Pa to go, then you listen to me. The only reason why he is holding on up in that bed is for Cal. That may hurt you but it’s true nonetheless. The only way he will go is if Cal will speak to him.”

      “For what?”

      Piper sighed and cradled the plate.

      “I think he wants forgiveness,” she said, looking down.

      “For what?” asked Leo slowly. Piper sighed.

      “For sending Cal away all those years ago. What happened to Ma could have been an accident, Leo. You used to think so.”

      Leo’s voice when it came out was curdled with venom. “And now Pa does, too, that it?”

      “I don’t know,” said Piper, exasperated. “All I know is Cal is itching to leave, you’re itching for him to leave, Pa’s itching to die and it’s about time somebody started to scratch these things out before they do some real damage.”

      “Here’s me thinking you were enjoying your little family reunion.”

      “Take Cal into town when you go and get the horse feed. Talk to him.”

      “And say what?”

      “Jesus H. Christ, do I have to think of everything?!” She bit her lip and steadied her voice. “Do it this afternoon.”

      She made as if to walk away.

      “Leave the plate on the bale,” said Leo after a pause.

      If you asked my aunt Julia what her earliest memory was, she’d tell you that it was of her mother’s decapitation. She was lying.

      Later on she would admit to her husband, Jess, that she didn’t really remember anything too much about the accident, or her father picking her up at the hospital, or being covered in her mother’s blood. She would say that she had the feeling the memory was there but that for some reason she just couldn’t get to it. Some part of her wouldn’t let it spring into life. That was the closest she ever got to trying to understand her own psychology.

      Her first real memory was of her father’s second wedding. She remembered the smell of the courthouse, how polished the woods were and her feet dangling as they scuffed along the floor while she waited for them to finish. She could recall her aunt Piper holding her, the pressure of her fingers on her waist and how Piper’s body had heaved with Julia’s as she gave a great sigh when her father had kissed her new mother. Piper would say that it was the first time Julia had ever met her.

      But here she was wrong, because unbeknownst to her, Julia had met the woman who would be her stepmother four months earlier, as she had lain sobbing on the dust floor outside the local feed store.

      In the car on the way there she had sat in the back watching the views change in the windows. According to my father and uncle, she used to say that whenever she sat in cars as a child she always felt as if her mother were right there next to her, her head severed from her body, her hands limp, the top of her neck slewed with the bone creating a pyramid of blood and flesh at the top. How she could have known this—when she didn’t remember the decapitation itself—is anyone’s guess. Perhaps it was a dormant memory that occasionally sprang into life. Or perhaps it was simply her imagination of what the physical effects of a decapitation might be. If so, you would have thought that she would have envisioned a clean, neat severing, not the crude hewn state she saw. Whatever the reason, it later became a valuable weapon against her younger brothers. But a year before the first one was born, she sat in the back of her uncle’s truck, so intent on not looking at the last surviving image of her mother beside her, that she did not hear the stilted conversation of the men who sat up front. All she knew was that suddenly the car came to a stop and with the unspoken promise she had assumed her father had made to her of licorice laces beckoning, she climbed out of the car, careful not to disturb the dress of her mother beside her as she left.

      When they got out of the car she skipped ahead into the store, only to be severely disappointed. There were no jars of multicolored candy, no licorice laces in red and purple spools. The place smelled and everything seemed dull and boring. She felt she had been betrayed and so she did what she would always do in the face of disappointment. She threw a tantrum.

      Her father was angrier with her than usual. Normally he would gaze at her in a cool, collected way until he eventually gave in or she exhausted herself. But this time he slapped her on the back of her legs, hauled her up by the arm and dragged her out of the store, her legs curling underneath her as she tried to kick out in anger and frustration, and then quite suddenly he dropped her; he just let go and the slam of earth on skin made her sob stick in her throat. The silence for the both of them seemed eerie, but while she looked up at him, he was looking somewhere else.

      My grandmother said that the moment she saw Julia curled up on the floor next to her father, staring at him obstinately, snot and drool spitting from her lips and nose, she knew she did not like her. It was not the mess the child had made of herself, it was the way she had looked from her father to her, and how when she had seen that his attention had been caught by someone else, her eyes narrowed and she spat out another spit trail that curled under her chin.

      “I didn’t know you would be here,” Cal said when he finally found his voice.

      “I was out getting groceries,” said Anne-Marie.

      Cal saw her lips covered in rouge and the swell of the jaw beneath the heavy makeup. He reached out to touch her and she shrank back, and glanced over her shoulder quickly to see if anyone had been watching. He snaked his fingers through his hair in frustration.

      “I thought about calling,” he said.

      “I am glad you didn’t.”

      She was so cold as she stood there waiting for him to finish, as if he were just another piece of nuisance she had to climb over before she could carry on with her day. It angered him, this aloofness of hers. It made him want to smack her again just to get a reaction. Suddenly he began to feel sick.

      “I don’t know what … I don’t—”

      She continued to stare at him, her foot rubbing against her ankle in impatience. Beside him he felt his daughter shift and her shoe scuffed against his heel with a small kick. He looked down at her and saw her glare back at him. Her knee was bleeding.

      “Please don’t talk to me again,” Anne-Marie said finally.

      He panicked. “Lavin—”

      “Don’t you ever—” She took a step forward and he saw more clearly the yellowish swirls near her jaw. “Ever call me that again.”

      She walked away, passing Leo as he came out with a bag of horse feed. Leo saw his brother standing there, his mouth open, looking at the doctor’s wife and his niece sprawled on the floor, her left knee bleeding, her face bright red as she stared with hatred at her father.

      “Cal?” he asked. “What are you doing?”

      Cal looked down at his daughter and with one hand pulled her up. She cocked her bad knee for effect as she stood but he didn’t seem to notice.

      “Will you take Julia back for me, please?” he asked.

      “You thought any more on what I said?” asked Leo as he cradled the feed.

      “Yeah, I—I listened.”

      Leo paused. “Okay,” he said finally. “Let’s go, girl,” he said to his niece.

      What

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