Page 26 of Last Breath

Without emotion or sympathy, Salem answers her. “Why worry about her? She treated you like trash.”

“No.” Bending down, gripping her grandmother’s arms, Joy attempts to pull her across the floor toward the open screen door. “We aren’t leaving her like that. She won’t be left like trash. She’s not garbage!”

“Joy, honey, stop. You’ll hurt yourself,” I tell her.

“Then help me, Malachi. I want her buried.” Tears threaten her eyes, and I understand her need. If it were my family, who I did love, then I’d want to send them off properly too. Turning to Salem, I implore him. I want to help her.

“Okay, Joy. I think we can spare a bit of time.”

With help, a few hours later, we finally have Marjory buried under an old oak in the yard. Joy said a few choice words, some nice, some not, but overall, I think she was content with the resulting end.

Joy’s dead grandmother didn’t deserve more than we’d done, but it allowed Joy a semblance of peace.

With her bags now loaded in the trunk, her gran buried and the house alight, we’re riding down the road toward our past. This will be an eye opener for Joy for sure.

Chapter 15

Malachi

The drive to our childhood homes felt like a death sentence. Not for Tress, but for us. The weight on my shoulders as I drove compounded with every mile.

We’d done everything we could to escape this town, the horrible past, and yet here we were, driving toward it. It’s necessary. Tress has avoided his fateful appearance with the devil for too long. Happily, I’d have sent him to his death all those years ago, but it wasn’t mine to enact. As well, we were only kids.

He’s Salem’s to contend with. He always has been.

I hope he’s strong enough to dole out the deserved punishment.

Venturing a look across the seat, Salem’s hands are tightly balled, his posture stiff, his gaze hardened and transfixed on the horizon. To anyone else, they’d think he was afraid. I know better. He’s contemplating Tress’s destruction.

“We’re only a few miles now.” Reaching the outskirts of our hometown, I feel my own heart racing. I’m not afraid either, at least not of seeing Tress. I’m fearful of seeing my family, of seeing their disappointment in me. The disappointment that it’s by my own hand that I’ve been gone for as long as I have. That I could have returned at any time. But I couldn’t. I’ve changed too much to go back to that sweet lifestyle and care.

The area itself has changed too.

“Look, Mal.”

My boyhood mind remembers there was a small town—one grocery store, a coffee shop, small stores that dotted the Main Street, and the single road that headed toward the country road. That led to our thirteen-year-old selves and the years of torture that Salem endured. Now there are big box stores. The Main Street holds boutique stores, and there are street lights and expensive cars parked along the sides.

“It seems our little speck is now a destination.” Passing women dressed meticulously, cars cleaner than clean, that are less than ten-year-old models, I feel completely out of place. Money has moved in.

Heads turn our way as we rumble down the street. Visibly, we’re an anomaly with our vintage car. We’ve taken care of it, but a ’70 Impala in a sea of Porsche’s and BMW’s is like a horse drawn carriage in a drag race.

Coming to the light, turning down toward our homes the car growls on through traffic. The sound itself rouses Joy.

Joy sits up stretches, wiping the sleep from her eyes. “Where are we?”

Opening my mouth to answer, Salem interrupts. “Nowhere of importance.”

Leaning forward in between the two front chairs, Joy rests her hands on the back rests. “Did we go north? I swear I’ve been here before.”

“Why would you have come to Illinois?” I ask.

“Cheerleading competition freshman year.”

“That says a whole lot about you, Joy,” Salem states with a slight laugh.

“Why?”

“You’re fluffy, sweet. The darling of your high school. You were a homecoming queen I bet,” I say to her, knowing the truth of it. She’s perfect in so many ways. “I’ll bet you were the sweetheart of the captain of the football team too. The quarterback. Probably some guy named Austin, Brolin, or Colby.”

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