Brother (24 page)

Before Michael could react, the razor edge of the blade sliced across the base of his sister's neck. Michael's eyes widened as gore fanned out across his face and arms. Misty's blood splashed hot against his skin.

Wrenching himself free of Rebel's hold, he lunged for Misty's crumpled body and tried to stop the bleeding. He frantically pressed his palms against her neck, but it was no use. Within seconds, they were both covered in iron-scented red. Blood soaked Misty's once-white nightgown, staining it a deep burgundy. The ends of Michael's hair dripped like wet paintbrushes waiting for a canvas.

Momma threw the knife onto the floor. It clanked against the boards next to Michael's knees. He didn't acknowledge the weapon, didn't look up to see what he was sure was written across her face: this was Misty's own fault. And as a parting gift, Michael would be the one to sop up her blood.

Michael sat with Misty in his embrace, rocking her back and forth as he stared across the kitchen into nowhere. By the time he finally gathered the strength to look up, the room was empty and the house was eerily quiet.

And for the first time in his life, he truly understood.

This was not his family.

This was not supposed to be his life.

W
HEN REB STEPPED
inside the green-shuttered house through the unlocked sliding-glass door, Bonnie was sitting on the couch watching some sappy made-for-TV movie. She turned away from the television and blinked in surprise. But rather than panic at the stranger standing in her home, she smiled.

“Michael,” she cooed, rising up from where she sat, giving Reb a kiss on both cheeks. “What are you doing here? You should have called. I'd have made something to eat.”

Reb returned her smile. “That's why I didn't call. Didn't wanna put you out.”

Bonnie tsk-tsked at that, pulled her long, box-dyed hair back into a ponytail, and blushed with embarrassment when she realized what she was wearing.

“Well, you could have at least called so I could have gotten
decent
, you know. I'm a mess.”

Bonnie Rasmussen wasn't exactly stylish. Reb took in her loose-­fitting sweatpants and pale-blue tank top with a cartoon sheep in the middle. He was convinced the woman owned nothing but shirts with some sort of animal printed on them—cats or dogs or cartoon owls. Judging by the photographs on the wall, she hadn't always dressed that way. A hallway photo that must have been taken in the 1950s or '60s had Bonnie looking like a wind-chafed starlet. Her hair was big and bouncy like Brigitte ­Bardot's. A wide-legged jumpsuit had been cinched at the waist with a thick, woven belt. Time had not been kind to Bonnie. She had lost her looks and fashion sense. All that was left was a depressed widow whose interests stopped at birds, books, and bad TV.

But her limited hobbies were exactly what Reb had been hoping for. It left her free of distraction and wide open to making a new friend. She had been reluctant at first, nearly not letting Reb inside to use her phone when he'd pulled the oldest trick in the book.

Sorry, ma'am, but I think I've run outta gas and I ain't got no way of gettin' home. Mind if I use your phone?

Bonnie had been dubious. No matter. Reb had given her a megawatt smile. Two minutes later, he was standing dead center in her kitchen while Bonnie offered him a glass of iced tea.

Their second meeting had been less awkward. Reb had arrived on her doorstep with a bunch of cheap carnations from the nearest gas ­station—red and white, a few of them dyed a garish blue in celebration of the Fourth of July. When Bonnie answered the door, she looked about ready to cry at the sight of him. She invited him in for lemonade and they watched a Pirates game together. She asked him questions about himself, which he answered with quaint-sounding lies. He told her he was four years younger than he was, that his father was a miner, and that he had a younger sister who was a senior in high school—she was a creative type, the kind of girl who could really make something of herself if she could just get out of West Virginia.

By the time Reb stepped uninvited into Bonnie's house while Michael waited outside, he had visited her every week for nearly a year.

He had bought her a greeting card for her birthday. Had given her chocolates on Valentine's Day. Had sat with her at the kitchen table and gorged himself on mashed potatoes and turkey a few days before Thanksgiving. At Christmas, he had presented her with a small heart locket he'd torn from a screaming girl's neck. He could tell Bonnie looked forward to their visits by the way her face lit up, knew that he'd thoroughly wormed his way into her heart when, rather than scolding him for not knocking, she smiled when he appeared unannounced.

“Let me at least put on something decent,” Bonnie insisted. She tugged down on her blue tank top as though trying to hide the ugliness of her sweats. “I have a cheesecake in the fridge. Just picked it up at the store this afternoon. I even got a can of whipped cream, just the way you like.”

“You shouldn't have,” Reb told her, but she waved her hand at him, dismissing his niceties, and sidestepped him on her way to the master bedroom. Reb took the opportunity to sidle up to the main window, hook a finger around the curtains, and peek out at the Delta in the driveway. Michael's shadow shifted somewhere in the front yard. It was too far to be discernible, but he was definitely there, counting down the minutes before following Reb inside.

He cleared his throat, pulled his attention from the TaB commercial playing on TV—
the beautiful drink for beautiful people—
and moved through the living room to the darkened hallway. Bonnie had closed the door to the master bedroom behind her. Reb opened it without a knock. Standing in nothing but her underwear and her cartoon-sheep tank top, Bonnie gasped when the door swung open. She yanked the shiny satin bedspread toward herself in an attempt to cover up.

“What are you doing?” she squealed. “Michael, get out!”

He smiled, and while he couldn't see himself, he hoped he looked like a wolf—the big bad boy who had spent a year planning on blowing Bonnie's house down.

“Don't be shy,” he told her, stepping further into the room. Bonnie gaped at him, still clutching the duvet despite it hardly covering her at all. He paused at a chest of drawers and drew his hand across its top in an almost coy sort of way, like a little boy about to make an attempt at his first kiss. “You know, over our last year together, I've grown pretty, um”—he shrugged, gave her a bashful look—“
fond
of you.”

Bonnie blinked at him. The weird mix of fascination and confusion she wore made him want to snap her neck. Something about it made her look so stupid, something about it reminded him of Michael.

“Come on,” he murmured, “don't look so surprised. I mean, we've spent a lot of time with each other.”

“But
never
with the intent of . . . of . . .” Bonnie stammered. “My God, Michael, I thought you knew.”

“Knew what?” he asked, inching closer. “That you ain't interested?” He raised an eyebrow at her, challenging her to admit it. “That you and me were just
friends
?” He lifted his hands, made air quotes around the word to emphasize his point. “Come on, Bonnie. You're breakin' my heart.”

“I . . . I had no idea . . .” She shook her head. “If I had known, I would have made it clear, I would have told you, I . . .”

“You . . .” Reb stopped at the foot of the bed, not more than five feet from where Bonnie stood.

“I would have called the whole thing off!” She spit out the words. “Now I think you should leave.”

“You think I should leave,” He echoed, frowning at the carpet. “After a year of bein' friends, you're gonna kick me out like some stray? You know how much that hurts?” He grabbed a handful of comforter and gave it a firm pull, yanking it from her fingers. She gasped and stepped back, stretching her blue tank top over her hips, still trying to be decent despite her growing fear. “I don't like it when people hurt my feelin's, Bonnie. You can understand that, can't you?”

“You're crazy,” she whispered, seeing her young companion for what he truly was. “Please, get out. Leave me alone, before I call the police.”

Reb held up his hands as if in surrender. “Okay,” he said. “I'm sorry.” He saw her relax.
As if it could be that easy,
he thought, and he lunged at her before she had a chance to think. He threw her on the bed and pinned her to the mattress. And while he worked the top button of his jeans, he was fascinated by how simultaneously turned on and revolted he was. She was lying about how she felt about him—she had dyed her hair strawberry blond after
he
had told her how good she would look as one.
She
had invited him over time and again, cooking for him, sitting a little too close to him on the couch, her hand occasionally brushing his. Cheesecake. Oh, and that canned whipped cream he liked so damn much. If Bonnie had been anyone else, Reb would have dragged her outside and tossed her in the trunk without laying a finger on her. But Bonnie wasn't anyone else. She was his project, a yearlong effort, his magnum opus of patience and planning.

He pushed her panties aside and hissed into her ear. “You have no idea how long I've been waitin' for this. You're my masterpiece, Bonnie.”

He nearly laughed when she uttered his fake given name into the bedroom just as Michael filled the doorframe.

Nearly laughed at how damn perfect it all was.

W
HEN MICHAEL FINISHED
scrubbing the blood from between the grooves in the kitchen floor, it was dark outside. His knees were raw, his head was throbbing, and he could hardly see past his own weariness. But Misty was still waiting, wrapped in a blanket on the back porch—the blanket he'd slept with since he was a boy.

He walked around the side of the house and stared at the storm doors that led down to the basement. It was what Momma expected, but this time it wasn't what she'd get. Rather than pulling Misty down those rickety stairs, he retrieved the old, splintered shovel Rebel had made him drag into the woods and tucked it into the blanket like the dead girl's bedfellow. And then he carried his sister, bare feet bobbing, into the trees, the porch light shining at his back.

He walked in stops and starts for nearly an hour before laying Misty on the crest of their favorite hill. It was high enough to overlook the surrounding peaks and valleys. During the times Michael had been convinced his own days were numbered, he imagined himself being buried in this very spot. It was a peaceful place, far enough from the farmhouse to be free.

He sank the spade into the soft earth, barely holding it together as he went through the motions of digging his sister's grave. It was only when he realized just how perfect the spot was that he broke down, sobbing against the pain in his shoulders and back, in his hands and his heart.

The sunrise would peek over that valley only a few hours after Misty was in the ground, burning away the hazy purple mist of the night.

It would be what she'd see every morning until the end of time.

 • • • 

Michael didn't return home. Instead he spread the blood-soaked blanket over a bed of leaves, lay down, and pulled the corners over his legs and torso like a poor man's sleeping bag. With one arm outstretched, he buried his fingers in the dirt of Misty's grave.

When he woke, the sun was high and the heat was stifling. He squinted through the shivering leaves above his head and scowled at the cloudless sky before his eyes stopped on the lump of soil that bulged from the ground beside him. But despite the viselike tightening in his chest, he didn't cry. If there was a limit to how many tears a human could shed, Michael felt as though he'd reached it.

Standing there, staring down at Misty's grave, he wondered how old Lauralynn was now. Close to twenty-five, he guessed. Once upon a time, he used to think that she would rush back to their farmhouse in the West Virginian hills as soon as she had the chance. Now he understood why she never had. Lauralynn must have seen it in Momma's eyes so many years before, the true depth of that frightening hollowness.

Pulling in a breath, he tried to steady himself. It was only after he turned in search of a few downed branches to fashion a cross that he realized he was covered in Misty's blood. Had it been anyone else's, he would have pulled off his shirt and buried it. But the rust-colored stain that stretched from the top of his chest to the knees of his jeans made him feel closer to her. It was the last piece of her that he'd ever have.

He plucked a couple of average-size branches from the ground and stripped them of their bark, exposing clean, white wood beneath. Lashing the cross together with those same strips, he pushed the poor-man's cross into the soil at the head of the grave. He'd make a more permanent marker in the basement later, one that wouldn't break apart in the wind or get washed away in the rain. But for now, this would do.

Michael started to make his way down the hill, back to the farmhouse that stood lonely and secluded in the distance. And as he dragged his feet along the ground, he was struck by the fact that he didn't feel the hate or anger he knew should have been there. All he felt was guilt, because he had failed at the only job he truly had—nobody had assigned it to him, but it was one he had taken on himself. He had spent years satiating Momma's thirst, had gone through his entire life doing what Reb told him. All to be a good brother and son. To avoid abandonment in the woods. To keep Misty safe.

Except Misty had never really been safe. Not until now.

 • • • 

When the farmhouse finally came into view, Michael could see Wade and Momma sitting on the back porch. Neither one of them spoke as he shuffled through the backyard and up the steps. It was as though they were unaware of where he'd been and what he'd been doing, as though they were blind to the blood that covered him from his head to his knees. They simply let him duck inside the house, go upstairs, and close his bedroom door behind him.