Page 42 of Every Sweet Thing Is Bitter

“I wouldn’t care if they brought the casseroles and left, but they all try to tell me stories. Now that she’s dead, they all have something nice to say about her. Like, suddenly half the town is in tears, telling me ‘Oh, she was such a bright light at church’ and ‘I always loved her chokecherry pies.’ No one ever said anything nice while she was alive.”

“Do you …?”

She draws a sharp breath. “Do I what?”

“I could come see you. If you don’t want to be alone.”

“Dad wouldn’t …” She trails off.

“I know. I know.”

Wishful thinking, like always. I should abandon the thought, but I can’t. The fantasy unfurls in detail so crisp it feels like a memory instead of an invention: me and Grace on the couch together, our father nowhere to be found. She rests her head against my shoulder like a weary traveler finally offered respite, and I twine her hair into a lazy braid to busy my fingers. There’s a movie on in the background, something lighthearted and funny to distract us from the maelstroms churning within us. We drink hot chocolate even though it’s summertime, because—and I’m not sure how I know this, but I do, I do, I do—Grace loves hot chocolate. We don’t say anything, but we don’t have to. It’s enough to be near each other.

Anger lashes me like a whip. Here I am, pining for the sweetness of sisterhood, while Harmony has rejected it with casual carelessness, like a restaurant patron declining a second glass of wine.No more for me, thank you.While she numbs herself with shots and floats around the pool hall like a ghost, Grace is trapped at the house, maybe alone but maybe with our father. He skulks from room to room, beer bottleneck graspedbetween his fingers, waiting for her most vulnerable moment to strike.

A sob claws at my throat, but I force it down. “Will you please call me if you need anything?”

“I will.”

“Promise me.”

Her voice sounds as tortured as mine. Two animals scrambling to break free from the same cage. “I promise.”

CHAPTER

13

August 16th

11:20AM

ITHINK THISis grief. I am not sure. It is one thing to think my mother is dead, but to know is another beast entirely. Now it’s really over. Our story ends here.

My brain is on fire withwhat if?What if she had been able to forgive me? What if I had been able to forgive her? What if she had protected me from my father? What if she had managed to stay sober? What if she had never taken the oxy? What if she had still been able to love me? I follow each strand of existential yearning to the same end, back to my parole hearing eight years ago.I don’t care if they let you go. I don’t care if you die tomorrow.It doesn’t matter to me anymore.After so much suffering and violence, at the end my mother only wanted to forget me—and now she is gone, and now I cannot forget her.

For two days, I scarcely leave the bedroom. Almost everyone I work with at the tattoo shop leaves a voicemail of condolence. Sara brings me food three times a day, like I’m back in prisondoing another stint in solitary. This morning, she comes bearing bread and a purplish, pudding-like sauce. “It’swojapi,” she says as she sits beside me on the air mattress, Zenobia napping between us. “Think of it like a berry sauce. Dip the frybread in it.”

Thewojapiis bittersweet like chokecherry pie. I submerge a piece of frybread. “I thought you hated cooking.”

“I’m out of cereal.”

I laugh for the first time in days. Zenobia is alarmed to hear me make a noise other than a sigh. I look to Sara, hoping my laughter will assure her I’m not dead from the neck up, but her eyes are stoic and glassy. My first thought is that she’s discovered Daniel’s drinking habit and, worse, discovered I didn’t tell her as soon as I found out. “What’s wrong? I’d ask if someone died, but I already know the answer.”

“Don’t shoot the messenger, all right?”

“What a vote of confidence.”

“Daniel called a few minutes ago,” she says, reaching up to pull back the curtains and blind me with daylight, “and said Sheriff Eastman is on his way here to talk to you.”

“The man can’t even let me grieve in peace.”

“He spoke to Grace earlier and he’s talking to Harmony tonight. Daniel says it’s due diligence.”

I push the bread into my mouth with tired fingers. I am acutely aware of how pathetic I am, spending days locked in this stuffy room, staring at the ceiling and torturing myself with recollections of my mother. Once the real memories ran dry, I created false ones. The chokecherry pie became my mother helping me pick my wedding dress.

“I think it’s heartless to ask us about it so soon after they found her body. It’s …” I trail off.

“Like I said, don’t shoot the messenger.”

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