A Long Time Gone Read online

  Then I remembered my mother in her odd dress, and Tommy, and the curve of a white skull against the dark earth, the ruined cypress scattered across the backyard. “The bones,” I said, trying out my voice, wondering why I’d chosen the skeleton as a place to start. “Who is it?”

  “I’m not sure yet. The Mississippi crime lab has sent a CSI team to assist in the recovery of the remains. You have an Indian mound on your property, which could account for the bones, but maybe not, since they were found so far away. I won’t know for sure until the remains are examined, but it looks like they’ve been there for a while.”

  He spoke slowly, and I noticed it now because I’d grown used to the West Coast and how people there spoke quickly and in abbreviated sentences, like verbal texts. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed his voice and the time between words that gave you time to listen.

  Tripp sat back in his chair, regarding me silently for a moment. “Bootsie’s old housekeeper, Mathilda, would never go near that tree, remember? She said there were haints who haunted the tree. It’s where we used to go when we stole biscuits from the kitchen, because we knew she wouldn’t follow us.”

  I could barely focus on his words, the throbbing in my head obscuring all thoughts. “Tripp, I left my purse in my car. Would you mind . . .”

  I stopped at the familiar shake of a plastic pill bottle and I pulled the handkerchief away to see Tripp holding up the bottle. “This is powerful stuff, Vivi. Not to mention the two empty bottles of other medications.”

  “Where did you get that?” I asked, my anger overpowering my embarrassment.

  “Tommy brought up your bags and your purse, and they fell out.”

  “And you had to read the labels.”

  His steady gaze held mine, and I knew he wouldn’t answer. It had always been this way with us. It’s why we’d been best friends since, by the sheer virtue of our last names being alphabetical neighbors, his desk had been placed next to mine in kindergarten.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I didn’t take the other two medications. I emptied them in the toilet.”

  “But you kept the bottles because refills are available.”

  I didn’t argue. He’d always had a knack for pulling out the truth like a magician with a card trick.

  “Who’s Dr. McDermott?”

  I closed my eyes. “My husband. Ex-husband,” I corrected. “He’s a plastic surgeon.”

  Tripp’s eyebrows rose, making me feel defensive and pathetic all at once. As if he’d just made me admit that I was so messed up in my head that I’d blindly take narcotics for anxiety and depression prescribed by a plastic surgeon.

  He shook the bottle, the pills clicking against the plastic. “These are addictive, you know. And dangerous if not taken with close medical supervision.”

  I shrugged, trying to pretend that I didn’t care. “I’ve had a tough time of it these last few years. And I don’t take them all the time—just when I need one to get over a rough spot.” I looked away so he couldn’t see the lie in my eyes. “Mark never told me. He just called them happy pills. And they are,” I added defensively.

  Eager to switch the subject, I pulled myself up against the headboard. “Why are you the coroner? I thought you wanted to go to medical school.”

  His face remained expressionless. “I did. But then I changed my mind.”

  “But why? All you ever talked about was becoming a cardiologist.”

  His silences might have been unnerving to anyone who hadn’t grown up with Tripp, but to me they were plain frightening. Because they always meant that he was thinking deeply, and what he said next was never what you thought it might be.

  “You left,” he said, allowing me to interpret what he’d meant.

  I closed my eyes, trying to focus on the meandering words ricocheting around my head, words to form questions I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answers to. I opened them again to find Tripp staring calmly back at me.

  I opened my mouth to ask about Bootsie and what was wrong with my mother, but the headache stabbed at me from behind my eyes. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answers to my questions, and knew that I needed a pill before I could even think about asking.

  Refocusing on the bottle of pills, I said, “I need one. Just one. I need it for my nerves. I don’t even need water.”

  He didn’t give me the bottle. “When was the last time you ate?”

  My head throbbed, nearly blinding me. “In Arkansas. Yesterday sometime. I don’t remember.”

  He stood. “You’re dehydrated and you need food. Tommy’s making breakfast. I’ll bring up a plate of eggs, bacon, and grits, and after you eat, I’ll give you a pill with a glass of water.”

  I pressed the back of my head against the headboard, desperate to quell the throbbing. “Who died and made you king?”

  Tripp shoved his hands and the bottle into his pockets, his unflinching gaze never leaving my face. Finally he said, “I’ll be back.”

  I stared at the butterflies on the walls, wishing I could get out of the bed and storm downstairs and demand answers to all the questions that were hurtling themselves against my skull. But my whole body was shaking now, and I couldn’t quite figure out how to throw my legs over the side of the bed and stand.

  After what seemed like hours, Tripp appeared with a tray of food. I looked behind him, feeling disappointed when I realized he was alone. “Where’s Tommy?”

  Tripp took his time depositing the tray on my lap and making sure my glass of water was within easy reach on my nightstand. He waited until he was back in his chair before he answered.

  “He’s not ready to talk to you. You left him behind, too, remember.” He indicated the tray with his chin. “Eat first and I’ll give you a pill. Then we can talk.”

  I wanted to refuse, but the last nine years had beaten all the fight out of me. I’d learned that acquiescence was always the path of least resistance. And the smell of the food had reminded me just how hungry I was. I ate quickly, without speaking, then pushed my plate away and picked up the glass of water. Tripp removed the tray from my lap and set it on the dresser before taking the pill bottle out of his pocket and opening it, expertly spilling out one pill onto my palm. I swallowed it, then drank all of the water under his watchful eye.

  He placed the nearly full bottle on my nightstand almost as a challenge. Leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs, he waited.

  “Where’s Bootsie?” I asked, ready to hear the answer now. It could have been my anticipation, but the pill seemed to have already begun to form its cushion around all of my nerve endings, making even the harshest blow more bearable. It was the soft bed into which I disappeared to escape the realities of what had become of my life. I had left this house at eighteen with all the hopes and dreams a young girl could stuff inside her head and heart, and returned with empty bags. Only my grandmother knew how to fill them again.

  “I’m sorry, Vivi. She died last spring. Pneumonia. It was real quick. She died in her sleep.”

  The words skimmed over me like geese on an autumn pond, the pain blocked even as I remembered the unread letters I’d thrown away before I’d moved again, leaving no forwarding address; my unlisted phone numbers; and my constant vigilance just in case somebody from home came to find me. Shame and regret slid down my arms, and I folded my hands as if I could put those useless emotions away permanently.

  “Tommy and I wrote to let you know.”

  I turned my head and found myself staring at a large butterfly, its wings seeming to beat slowly against the wall. “And my mother . . . ?”

  “Tommy should tell you. . . .”

  I shook my head. “If he’s angry with me, it could take months, and I doubt I’ll be here that long.” Holding grudges wasn’t reserved for only the females in our family.

  His expression shifted. “She has dementia. W
e suspect she could be in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, but she refuses to see a doctor and get tested. Tommy could sure use your help. He’s been running the farm and the antique clock business, and he’s pretty wore out taking care of your mama, too.”

  I felt like I was having surgery while being completely awake, sensing the pressure of the scalpel without the pain.

  I shook my head. “That can’t be right. She’s not old enough.” I closed my eyes, the beating wings of the butterfly making me dizzy. “And Bootsie can’t be dead. I would have known. I would have felt it.”

  He didn’t speak for a long time, and I eventually opened my eyes again to see him still sitting by the side of my bed, his expression blurred. “Tommy would have called when she first got sick if he’d known how to reach you.”

  I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. Numbness covered me now like a warm blanket, and I nestled further into it. I wanted to tell him that a mother’s abandonment is permanent even if she comes back when it’s too late to matter. That my leaving was meant to punish her and my family, who welcomed her back. If only I could have told my eighteen-year-old self that leaving home was like leaving behind a part of myself, that the pull of the land and the muddy river and the cotton fields would tether me to this place like an umbilical cord no matter how far I ran. I said nothing, inertia cocooning my body.

  Tripp leaned toward me. “Tommy brought these in with your suitcases. He found them on the dash in your car and thought you might want them.”

  He held out two photographs, one a sonogram and the other Chloe’s third-grade photo. I stared at them like a stranger would, only a vague squeezing around the heart telling me that they meant something to me. “Thank you,” I mumbled from stiff lips.

  He didn’t ask—he wouldn’t—but I could see the question in his eyes. I shrugged, burying myself further into the blanket of oblivion. “They’re lost to me.” I was startled to feel the sting behind my eyes. “I was wrong to think I could be different.”

  Tripp studied me with serious eyes. “Why did you come back?”

  Because I’ve made a mess out of my life, and I needed Bootsie to make everything better. But now she’s dead and I’m lost. “No matter where you go, there you are.” I closed my eyes again, trying to remember where I’d heard those words before. I clenched my eyes tighter, realizing it had been Tripp who’d said them to my retreating back as I stepped into my Chevy Malibu, the trunk stuffed and the backseat piled high with everything I’d accumulated in the first eighteen years of my life. Bootsie, my mother, and Tommy had remained indoors, unwilling to accept my leaving. Tripp hadn’t even shouted the words, knowing his calm Southern voice would stay with me longer than any words hurled at me like stones.

  Tripp stood and walked slowly toward the door. “I don’t know how long you’re planning on staying, but don’t leave just yet. I know I’ll have more questions, and the sheriff will have to write up a report and might have some questions for you, too. I know it sounds redundant, but in real life the coroner just mostly handles the forensics part and the paperwork. We normally don’t get involved in the actual case.” He paused. “You need to make your peace with your brother. Your mama’s gone back to bed, but Tommy’s at his workshop trying to salvage what he can. You might as well get it over with.”

  I leaned back against the headboard, knowing there was something else I had to say to him. He opened the door and stepped out into the hallway just as I remembered what it was.

  “I came back because I had nowhere else to go.”

  He kept his hand on the doorknob without looking back at me. After a brief pause, he said, “I’m sorry to hear that.” He closed the door with a soft snap.

  I sat up in bed and found myself facing the shelves Bootsie had hung on my wall to display my beauty pageant trophies, and the plaques and ribbons for my compositions and essays. I had once wanted to be an actress or a weather girl or a writer, and for one brief glimmering moment in time, it had all seemed possible.

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed, then made my way through the old house. The walls seemed to grow and swell as I passed through the familiar rooms, as if the house recognized me and were welcoming me home. I paused near the bottom of the front stairs, at the mark in the plaster that had never been painted or wallpapered over. Or ever would be, I suspected, much like how Yankee cannonballs were preserved in the stately columns of the Vicksburg mansions like marks of pride. It was a watermark on the wall that showed the height of the water during the great Mississippi River flood of 1927. It had killed five hundred people, including a family member, an event nobody talked about anymore. The mark was the house’s scar, proof that it had suffered a loss as much as the family living inside it had.

  I took two steps down and stopped, placing both hands on the newel post at the bottom of the ornate stairs, remembering the day my mother had come back for the last time and everything changed.

  Shaking away the memory, I began to search for my brother, hoping that he would at least remember the girl I had once been and thought I could be, but half-worried that he had forgotten her as much as I had.

  Chapter 4

  Vivien Walker Moise

  INDIAN MOUND, MISSISSIPPI

  APRIL 2013

  The morning had given way to the heat of afternoon by the time I stepped outside again, finding my muddy shoes neatly tucked by the kitchen door next to the high-heeled pumps I’d seen my mother in earlier. A drainpipe hung loose from the porch roof, its paint long gone, its edges rusting. Water dripped into a large puddle from the gutter onto the corner of the porch, the wood floor buckled as if the rain had come in unchecked for more than just a single spring.

  When Bootsie had lived here, flowers flourished on every walkway, by every door, and on every surface inside the house. Her vegetable garden rivaled that at any nursery, her plants green and lush, each stem hanging heavy with a bountiful harvest almost year-round. Fresh corn, watermelons, beans, okra, onions, squash, and cantaloupe were staples on our dinner plates, the taste and smell of them so pungent and authentic that nothing else would ever taste as good.

  Even such a utilitarian place was beautiful to the eye, with raised sections for better drainage placed with architectural precision. I’d been told that the first Walker woman to live in the house had designed the vegetable garden, and each generation had added to it or changed it in some way, as if trying to prove to her mother before her that it could be done better. The women in my family could make things grow even in the middle of a drought, although it appeared that the gift had skipped my mother.

  Ever since I could walk, I’d accompanied Bootsie while she gardened, holding baskets of seedlings and pruning shears and torn sheets. But I’d never bent next to her in the dirt, or stuck my hands in the soil. Even then I’d known not to make my mark here, to create roots I couldn’t sever.

  Ignoring the activity surrounding the cypress tree, I stepped off the back porch and walked toward the fenced enclosure of the garden. I felt Bootsie’s loss here more than if I’d been standing by her grave. Most of the scalloped white fencing was missing, and what remained had been stripped of almost all its paint and hung listlessly, as if it couldn’t summon enough interest to simply fall onto the muddy ground.

  Fingerlike stalks reached up out of the earth surrounded by dead leaves and debris; the spots where the outdoor chairs had been sat empty without even weeds to keep them company. I turned my back, unable to look anymore. I found myself facing the fallen tree, saw tire tracks in the mud leading to the site and a hearse pulled near with its rear doors open. I recognized Tripp squatting down next to a man in uniform, pointing at something inside the hole. For a brief moment, I envisioned going back inside and packing my bags before heading out the front door. I’ve got no place else to go.

  I looked down at my muddy shoes, the words loud inside my head. I thought of Chloe and the storybook she liked me to read
to her when she was small and still enjoyed things like sitting in my lap. I hadn’t seen her with anything but a cell phone in her hand in a long time, and I wondered if things might have been different if I hadn’t given up trying.

  Thinking of Chloe made me stumble, and I had to catch myself on the fencing. The storybook had been about a little girl who’d been given life’s instruction book as a birthday gift. I wished for something like that now, something that would tell me what happened when there was no plan B, and when your only refuge had a No Vacancy sign on the door.

  Squaring my shoulders, I slogged across the muddy ground, stepping over the tire grooves in the grass. The site had already been staked off with yellow tape. But even though a side porch of the old cotton shed and part of the roof had been clipped by the falling tree, the front door stood open, and I saw my brother in the doorway.

  As soon as he spotted me he stepped back inside, which only made me walk faster. He was almost a decade older than I was and six inches taller than my own five foot ten, but I’d never been intimidated by him. We’d always known that we had each other no matter where our mother was. We had each other, and Bootsie, and Bootsie’s cousin Emmett, the house and the farm, and that had been enough for both of us. Until my mother reappeared, reminding me that there was a world beyond the Mississippi River that must be better than what we had here.

  Damp, warm air hit me as I stood inside the doorway, my eyes blinking as they tried to adjust to the darkness. When Tommy had inherited Cousin Emmett’s antique watch and clock repair business, he’d moved it from the Main Street location closer to the house so he could oversee the farm and the business simultaneously. He’d taken over the old cotton shed and extended the second story beyond the attic, along with electricity, air-conditioning, and modern plumbing. He’d moved the farm’s office of operations downstairs, and all the old watches and clocks found a new home upstairs. Then he’d added a small kitchen and bedroom, where he’d stay during the planting and harvest times, with their long days and short nights.