Mind Games

Rem’s question got a resounding no from every adult in the room.

“How come? Kids in France drink wine.”

“You find your way to France, sweet potato, you can have some.”

“I think maybe I will. They eat snails, too. I’d try a snail.” He gave Thea a superior look. “Bet you wouldn’t.”

“You make gagging noises if you’ve got spinach on your plate. You’re not eating any snails.”

“I would in France. French snails are different or people wouldn’t eat them over there.”

“Then you’ve got to wear a beret,” Caleb told him.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a hat. You wear it cocked.” He demonstrated with his hands.

“Probably an ascot. That’s a fancy tie,” Waylon explained. “Like a scarf.”

“Ties suck, but I’d wear the hat thing and the ascot. I’d eat snails and drink wine, and say merci beaucoup because that’s French for thanks.”

“What if you don’t like the snails?”

Rem frowned at Waylon a moment. “I’d spit them out and say whatever’s yuck in French. How do you say yuck in French?”

“Merde’s close enough.”

Now Waylon frowned at Caleb. “How the hell do you know that?”

“The theater, brother. You learn all kinds of things in the theater.”

Under the table while the other three talked, Thea took her grandmother’s hand. And smiled.

This, she realized, was what needing to live meant.

That night, after Grammie tucked her in, she lay trying to dream herself to sleep. But then she sat up, turned on her light. For the first time since her parents’ death, she picked up her journal.

She wrote out everything she could remember, even about that night. She wrote about Ray Riggs, about the deputy, the detectives. She wrote about Will, about making candles. She wrote about opening or closing the window, about the funeral. About Maddy and her uncles.

About words spoken, songs sung.

She wrote it out of herself, into the journal, until she had hardly any pages left.

She’d ask her grandmother if she could get another journal.

After she finally set it aside, turned off the light, she slept.

And slept quiet and calm and easy while everyone in the house slept around her.

* * *

Waylon and Caleb stayed three more days. They ran errands, helped with the animals, and both did their best to work with Lucy on the paperwork and decisions involving the estate.

“Cora and John did well for themselves, but holy hell, Mama, I didn’t know John brought that kind of money with him.”

“He never flaunted it,” she said to Waylon as the three of them sat in her little office. “They couldn’t take the money away from him, but they sure withheld everything else. Not one of them came to his funeral. Their son, their brother. Not a one of them has called or written those children to offer comfort.”

“There’s a simple solution.” Caleb shrugged. “They don’t exist, not in our world. They just don’t exist. John was ours, your son, our brother, and he always will be.”