Page 102 of Snake

They still had no idea who’d ransacked her property early in the summer. No further trouble had happened since, so it was probably nothing more than shitty teenagers getting a jump on being worthless adults. The club wasn’t even talking about figuring it out anymore.

Tommy had been badly hurt for it, Cox had killed a man for it, and all for naught.

She waited to see if he’d speak. When he didn’t, she set the big bottle on the floor and came straight to him.

“Well,” she said, her Ozark drawl adding a syllable to the word. “I came in to tell you that that bottle there? It’s more’n two hundred years old. It’s hand-blown and got a stamp from France. Your estate folks missed it—they had it in the ten-dollar area, and Cox, hon, this thing’s worth at least twenty times that. Maybe more like fifty times. Or more. It’s almost a museum kinda find.”

A flutter of interest almost caught in Cox’s mind. Not about the worth of the bottle, he could not have cared less, but about Abigail’s apparently deep knowledge of obscure, inconveniently sized glassware. He almost asked, but the thought of stringing so many words together and actually starting a conversation exhausted and repelled him.

Instead, he said, “If you want it, just take it.”

Abigail stared at him with an expression like he’d offered to let her chop his hand off. Then she sucked in a big breath and shoved her hands on her hips. “Okay, mister. I know we ain’t close, and I know you don’t like meddlers. Or conversations. Or people. But I know you, ‘cuz I know people. I’d tell you what I see in your aura, but I know you don’t care about such things. Even so, I got somethin’ to say. I’m gonna say it, and you’re gonna listen. Because somebody’s gotta say it, and I guess nobody else is gonna.”

That might well have been the most words anyone had spoken to him since his mother’s funeral. It damn sure was a lot more words than he’d spoken at any time since. Cox stood there, watching her, waiting to see what was so fucking important for him to hear.

She stood there akimbo, looking at him like she was a teacher and he’d just given her a lame excuse about missing homework. “Where’s Autumn, Cox?”

Nowhere in his mind had he imagined Abigail Freeman asking him a question like that. He flinched as if she’d slapped him, and her expression softened.

“Why isn’t she here?” she asked when he said nothing.

No. Absolutely not. He started to turn, intended to get away from Abigail and things that were none of her fucking business.

She grabbed his arm. “Cox, stop.”

He stopped but didn’t turn back to her. He stared at the front door, standing open so strangers could feed on his mother’s things.

“Do you remember everything she did for you?”

Autumn, she meant. Not his mother. He remembered that she’d taken over his life, like she’d been waiting for the chance to turn him into a pet or something. Like one of his rats—which she’d also taken over.

He also remembered the howling emptiness when she’d left, when he’d sent her away.

He couldn’t remember which of those was really true, or if they were somehow both true, but it didn’t matter either way. She was gone, back where she belonged.

Except she was moving closer. He couldn’t get his head around how to deal with that, so he’d decided not to think about it.

When he continued not speaking, Abigail came around to face him again. “I’m telling you this because I know you’ve felt alone most of your life. I know right now, you feel more alone than ever.”

How the fuck did Abigail Freeman know shit about him?

Because they lived in a small town and everybody knew everybody’s shit.

She was still holding his arm; he twisted it free. When he tried to sidestep her, she moved back into his path. “I told you, you gotta hear this, and nobody else is sayin’ it, so I’m gonna. You are not alone, Daniel Cox. I don’t think you ever have been, but maybe it’s a certain kind of love you’re missing, and feeling that lack so hard it seems like it’s everything. That’s what I think, anyway. I’m only outside lookin’ in, but sometimes that’s the best place to be to see the real truth. So I want you to hear this: you ain’t never been alone, hon. You got people who love you all over the place.”

With that, she took his arm again and drew him onto his mother’s front porch. She gestured at the people on the lawn. The maggots feeding on his mother’s leavings.

Throwing an arm out toward the scene, Abigail Freeman said, “Look, Cox. Look.”

As if the words were an incantation, Cox found that he couldn’t not look. At first, all he saw was the same crowd of maggots that had been there since the sale opened.

Then he saw Zaxx and Darwin carrying the armoire that had held ancient board games and baskets of Hot Wheels and LEGOs to a truck on the street. Ian and Deck Elstad were carrying other large purchases to people’s cars. Megan and Caroline Ness, two of Badger and Adrienne’s kids, worked a snack stand at the sidewalk. Henry Ness and Loki Mariano were directing traffic. Lilli and Gia Lunden and Candy Kohl stood behind a banquet table, dealing with the transactions.

They weren’t feeding. They were helping. They’d stepped in where he hadn’t.

“Autumn did that, too.” Abigail said in an almost-whisper at his side. “I wasn’t part of any of it, ‘course, but I heard a little about it around town, and I could see with my own eyes, too. The day of the funeral, she ran ragged making it all happen, and looking for you, worrying about you. It was a beautiful service, Cox. Maybe you don’t care about that, but I think deep down you do. What’s more, I think I understand why you couldn’t do it, couldn’t be there. Anger is part of sorrow, and hopelessness is part of loss. But pain is fleetin’, just like joy. If you try to hold joy too long and too hard, you’ll crush it in your hand. If you try to hold pain too long and too hard, it’ll crush you.”

She let go of his arm and rubbed his back, much as Autumn had rubbed it habitually, knowing he could only breathe when he could feel her. “It crushed your momma, hon. Don’t let it take you down, too. Do you really want to follow her road? Do you think she’d want you to? Or could you maybe see instead that your momma released you the same time she released herself?”

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