Salvage This World E-Book

Michael Farris Smith

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 327

Beschreibung

In Michael Farris Smith's latest gritty epic, a young woman returns home with her child, to her ghost-haunted father, while a religious extremist hunts the storm-ridden territory to find the girl who may hold the key to the region's apocalyptic future. There was no rising from the dead and there was no hand to calm the storms and there was no peace in no valley. In the hurricane-ravaged bottomlands of South Mississippi, where stores are closing and jobs are few, a fierce zealot has gained a foothold, capitalising on the vulnerability of a dwindling population and a burning need for hope. As she preaches and promises salvation from the light of the pulpit, in the shadows she sows the seeds of violence. Elsewhere, Jessie and her toddler, Jace, are on the run across the Mississippi/Louisiana line, in a resentful return to her childhood home and her desolate father. Holt, Jace's father, is missing and hunted by a brutish crowd, and an old man witnesses the wrong thing in the depths of night. In only a matter of days, all of their lives will collide, and be altered, in the maelstrom of the changing world. At once elegiac and profound, Salvage This World journeys into the heart of a region growing darker and less forgiving, and asks how we keep going — what do we hold onto — in a land where God has fled. 'Michael Farris Smith masterfully takes us on a ride into the growing darkness of a crumbling world. You couldn't ask for better than that.' — Michael Connelly 'Southern, wet and gritty. Storm-filled and laced with fear and tension, as well as realistic and engaging characters, this world is grimly enticing' — Joe Lansdale 'With a cast of fierce, masterfully drawn characters set loose in gorgeous, hurricane-blasted landscapes, Salvage this World by Michael Farris Smith is riveting: I couldn't put it down' — Laird Hunt 'Audaciously prophetic. Here's a near-future and all too plausible southern noir in which the lawlessness already creeping into American democracy has become the norm and in which preachers have abandoned Christ and instead are searching for the new climate Messiah, and the line between good and evil is not only very thin but completely effaced. A rollicking good (dark) read' — Brian Evenson 'An exceptional storyteller in top form' — Kirkus 'Smith melds fire and brimstone with the ravages of hurricanes in this evocative noir of the Mississippi Delta' — Publishers Weekly

Leseprobe

Critical Acclaim for Michael Farris Smith

Praise for NICK

‘Gripping… NICK rings fiercely true’ – Financial Times

‘Vividly imagined and suffused with pulsing narrative energy’ – Irish Times

‘Vivid, visual, strong, poetic’ – Herald

‘Evocative, rich in detail and memorable. You can’t help but think of Gatsby when reading Smith’s sensitively written tale… A book to read and reread’ – Belfast Telegraph

‘Atmospheric, haunting, rich in detail and incident’ – Literary Review

‘Anybody who believes that the war is over when the enemy surrenders and the troops come home needs to read Michael Farris Smith’s masterful new novel NICK. Its stark, unvarnished truth will haunt you’ – Richard Russo

‘NICK is an exemplary novel. Smith delivers a moving, full-bodied depiction of a man who has been knocked loose from his moorings and is trying to claw back into his own life’ – New York Times

Praise for Blackwood

‘Smith is emerging as one of the great chroniclers of America’s dispossessed’ – Mail on Sunday

‘If you’re a fan of Southern or Rural Noir – James Lee Burke, Daniel Woodrell, Donald Ray Pollock, the literary children of Flannery O’Connor – you’ll feel uncomfortably at home’ – Times

‘Outstanding’ – Strong Words

‘Blackwood is a fine and captivating novel with a sturdy Faulknerian theme – past and present are never exactly separated, and actions in the present are provoked by words or deeds from long ago. Michael Farris Smith’s prose is calm yet full of feeling for this place and these people, and he handles scenes of introspection and scenes of hostility with equal skill. In Smith’s hands, pages keep turning’ – Daniel Woodrell

‘Miraculously beautiful... Smith’s prose is both raw and poetic, like opera sung at a honky-tonk. His books are tinged with reverence, an intangible and nearly religious grace that watches over the often brutal events he describes, hinting at the possibility for redemption even in the most debased’ – Los Angeles Review of Books

‘Unsettling, heartbreaking, and frequently astonishing, this Southern gothic never runs out of revelations… A gleaming, dark masterpiece by one of Southern fiction’s leading voices’ – Kirkus(starred review)

Praise for The Fighter

‘Like living language, literary modes have both a formal and a demotic form. What we call “noir” is high tragedy brought down to the forgotten and disavowed – the fallen, who can do little but go on falling. Ours to witness the beauty and power of their fall. With The Fighter, cleaving to tradition, Michael Farris Smith brings that tradition brilliantly into the present’ – James Sallis

‘Smith’s fiction is full of hard people in tough situations, but his obvious love of language and innately rhythmic prose lift his stories to a higher level’ –Big Issue

‘A novel that takes hold of your heart in a tight vice… The Fighter is also written with diamond-like care and has a visceral impact, although not always for the faint-hearted’ – Crime Time

‘Equal parts brutal and beautiful and harrowing, it’s left me totally bereft’ – Chris Whitaker

‘Michael Farris Smith is continuing the southern gothic tradition of William Gay and Flannery O’Connor. Drenched in sorrow and written with complex language, The Fighter moves toward a conclusion both surprising and inevitable’ – Chris Offutt

‘One of those wonderful and rare books that’s both a page turner and a novel of great depth and emotion. The Fighter is Southern Noir at its finest’ – Ace Atkins

‘Smith’s great talent here is writing about ancient, universal concerns – parents and children, aging, and place – in a setting so vivid and specific that the book practically tracks mud up onto your doorstep. His vision of the Delta is powerful and lingering’ – New York Journal of Books

Praise for Desperation Road

‘You will not be disappointed’ – Daily Mail

‘A wonderfully evoked and deeply touching work’ – Big Issue

‘Michael Farris Smith’s prose focuses on small details and has a rhythm that gives it a poetic quality; a comparison with Annie Proulx is not overly enthusiastic’ – Crime Review

‘A brilliantly compelling novel’ – Robert Olen Butler

‘A harsh but beautiful thriller that has you cheering under your breath for its wounded, fallible protagonist throughout’ – LoveReading

‘This is just stunning… little short of perfection… think Daniel Woodrell, Bill Beverly and Lou Berney for starters and that will give you an idea of the style, the range and the humanity of the novel’ – Graham Minett

‘Smith handles agony with a devastating tenderness… in a selfish, predatory world, Desperation Road carves out a bloody chunk of redemption’ – Crime Scene

Formydaughters

PART I

1

She stood bathed in twilight, the dust in her hair and a kidonherhipandshestaredattheapproachingstorm asiftryingtofigurehowtowranglethe thunderheads and steer them to a distant and parched land where desperate soulswouldpaywhateverransomshedemanded.Theacresof sugar cane cut to nubs surrounding the house. A dry autumn turned into an unpredictable winter and then eleven days ago heleftandshe’dseennoonesince.Itwasamilewalkalonga dirtroadthatseparatedtheacreageandanothereightmilesto walktothenearesttelephonebutevenifshewantedtobundle up and make it she wouldn’t know who to call. He was gone. And he had taken the car and the cigarettes and every dollar except for the stash she kept hidden beneath a floor plank in thecloset.Shehadfinishedthelastofthewhiskeythreenights before. The milk had run out yesterday.

Jessie stared at the storm and the wind began to blow and dustclouds rose like souls awakened and she listened to the windandwelcomedthesoundofsomethingelse.She shifted the child from one hip to the other and pointed out at the lightningandsaidlookatthelight.Seethelight?Onesideof the sky was thick with stormclouds and the other side of the sky was wrapped in a rustred belt that bled into the horizon like anopenwoundandthechildliftedhissmallhandandpointed atthelightbutitwasnotthelightninghesawbutagathering ofheadlightsapproachinginthedistance.Thethunderroared and the engines roared and she turned and ran for the house, setting the child down on the porch and hurrying for the bedroom,herfootfallshardagainstthefloorboardsandherbreath inquicksucksasshetookthepistolfrombeneaththemattress and grabbed the set of keys from the dresser drawer that he hadalwaystoldhertograbifshehadtomakearunforitand thenshehustledoutandscoopedupthechild.Theheadlights growing closer and splitting the dusk as she hurried around the house and along the beaten trail through the high grass that led into the woods. She ran and the child bounced in her arms and she had just reached the edge of the woods when she looked back to see the vehicles skid to a stop in front of the house, a pale and powdery cloud rising around them. She heard the engines cut and the doors slam behind her and then she heard the shouts coming in her direction as the last of twilight seeped into the earth.

They called out as they chased her into the woods and the childsqueezedherneckandheldonbutdidnotcryassheran. Shehadgonefarintothesewoodsbeforebutneverfarenough to know if there was anything on the other side and she was seized by the thought that she may run over the edge of the earth and that she and the child would plummet soundlessly intonothing.Thatthoughtwasinterruptedwhena shotgun fired into the night, its echo ringing through the trees. She pushedharder.Squeezingthechildclosetoherchest.Praying not to run over the edge or if there was such a thing praying that her fall would be brief and painless. Another shotgun blast. And then another. She knew then they were looking for him. Sheknewtherewasafinedamnreasonhehadneverreturned. Sheknewsheandthechildcouldnevergobacktothehouse. And she knew she would have to keep running.

2

They shivered through the night. Jessie unbuttoned her flannel shirt and held Jace against her skin and wrappedtheshirtaroundthembothbutitdid not stop the shaking. He cried some. Little whimpers of discomfort.Littlewhimpersofhunger.Shesatonapileofleaveswith her back against a white oak and held him tight. Rocked a little. Hummed and sometimes sang and she kept promising that everything was going to be all right. The boy slept in increments,theraggedsleepofdistressanddiscomfort.Anowl hooted. Nightbirds sang. Deer moved in the dark and their creeping sounded like monsters in wait.

She nodded in and out of sleep. When her eyes fell heavy she imagined strong arms and strong hands reaching for her through the dark, prying the child from her grasp and she would wake with a jerk to find herself squeezing the child so tightly he was struggling for freedom. She would stroke the back of his head and coax him back to sleep and her eyes stayedopenedwide,watchingthewoodsandwatchingfor the armsandhandsthatapproachedinherdreamsbutthenclosing them again.

Finally there was light. She rubbed her eyes. Felt the warmth of the child’s skin against her own. She did not want to wake him so she sat there and watched the morning come. Listened to the chirps and whistles and the movement of the earlycreatures.Thechildliftedhisheadandcoughed.Opened his eyes and looked with question at his mother.

Shekissedtheboyontopofhisheadandsaidit’sallright. It’sallright.Shethentuckedtheemptypistolintothebackof herpantsandshestartedthemwalkingsouth,believingifshe kept walking south they would run into Delcambre. Amidst the trees she would stop and listen for the hum of a highway. Set the boy down and rest a minute. Listen. Then he would cry to be carried again and she would tell him to hold on. Hushasecond.Buthewasnotconcernedandhecriedharder and made little mad fists and she would pick him up and start again.

In an hour she came to a clearing and the earth grew soft andheavy.Thedampgroundsuckedatherfeetandshesetthe childdownandretiedthelacesonherboots.Hewobbledand plopped down on his behind, a smack as his ass hit the wet ground. He screamed. Something different now from toddler whimpers. He screamed and shook and slapped at his own legs, redfaced and releasing as much anger as his little body could muster. And she propped her hands on her hips and looked down at him and said let it out. Let it all out, boy.

When he was done she reached down and helped him to his feet. The back of his pants muddy. He stood next to her andtheybothlookedoutacrossthemarshland.Cranes stood onstumps.Aflockofblackbirdsrosefromaclusterofyoung cypress and scattered across the low sky. The sun sat on the horizonandlatheredthemarshingold.Itseemedbeautifulto her in a way she had not expected.

Buttherewasnotimetoadmire.Thechildwasnow wet. And hungry and cold. She was hungry and cold. She didn’tknowwheretheywerebutsheknewtherewas a highway somewhere.

3

They circled around the edge ofthemarshforatleast anhour.Crossedintoanotherwoodwherethetrees thinned.Thesunrosehigherintoablueand cloudless sky. Their pace had slowed and the child slept with his head on his mother’s shoulder. The pistol was cold and hard against the small of her back and every now and then she touched the pocket of her jeans, feeling the keys and making sureshehadgrabbedthemanditwasnotpartofsomehurried dream.

First she saw the smoke and she followed it until she was close enough to smell it. She came to the edge of the woods and stopped. Hid herself behind a tree. Saw the small cabin with the smoke rising from its chimney and a trailer next toit. A truck sat unevenly, propped up by a jack. A front tire missing. The hood raised. Behind the truck a hatchback sat running and the driver’s door was open. A cloud of exhaust from the tailpipe as the heat met the cold.

Awomanstoodonthecabinporchwithalit cigarette. Then another woman joined her. She held a shovel and she leaneditagainstthedoorframe.Theybothworedenimjackets with collars pushed up around their necks. Both stood with their hips propped while they smoked. They talked between inhales and exhales in one and two word sentences. When they were done smoking they flicked the butts into the dirt and one of them yelled out toward the trailer. Come on. We got shit to do.

Thewomenthensteppedbackinsidethecabin,leavingthe door open.

Jessie sprinted from the woods, the child waking with the sudden jolt and he let out a cry that she didn’t acknowledge as she darted between old tires and a pile of firewood and a smoldering heap of trash and then she heard the growl as a wolf on a chain rose from slumber and lurched at her backside with its bonewhite fangs only to be held fast by a chain. She screamed and the wolf yelped but she didn’t slow down, makingittothehatchbackandhoppinginjustasaman in coveralls emerged from the trailer holding a coffee mug. He sipped and watched dumbeyed before realizing it was a strangerinthecar.Astrangerholdingachild.Heholleredand the two women came from the cabin and the three of them came down steps and ran for the hatchback as Jessie shifted into reverse, the car door open and flapping like a wing and thenslammingshutwhenshehitthebrakes,shiftedintodrive and stomped the gas, the tires spinning and the three of them trying to corral the hatchback like some untamed animal and asthecarracedawayfromtheircriesacoffeemugcrashedon the hood as if dropped from heaven, just as the tires caught firm on the gravel road.

4

She drove along the backroads away from Delcambre andtowardLakePeignur,findingasolitarygasstation whereshestoppedandboughtasmallbottleofmilk andhoneybunsandpowdereddonuts.Cigarettesandalighter and a pack of diapers. Then she left the store and drove east along Highway 14, the landscape shifting from swamp to crops and back to swamp. She turned off down a dirt road and she and the child ate and drank until there was nothing left but to lickthesugarfromtheirfingertips.Shechangedtheboy’sdiaper.Leanedbackthepassengerseatandlethimliedownwhile shesatonthehoodandsmokedacigaretteandtriedtofigure out what the hell to do.

She would need to get rid of the hatchback and she was ready for that. The upholstery was stained and pocked with cigarette burns and smelled sour and sick. The backseat was piledwithwaddedclothesandfastfoodbagsandasfoulasthe hatchbacklookedandsmelledsheknewithadbeencalledin. TheywerenotfarfromNewIberiaandtherewasprobably a busstationthereandshecouldleavethehatchbackwithanice notethatsaidIwasonlyborrowingit.ButalsoinNewIberia therewouldberealpolicemadeawareofthelicenseplateand given the description of both them and the shitty little car.

And where the hell do you think you’re taking a bus to anyway?

She made a lap around the car. Smoking and thinking. Looking in at Jace who was turned on his side and sleeping. Smallhandstuckedbeneathhissmallcheek.Powderedsugar on the corners of his mouth.

She flicked away the cigarette. Looked at the heap in the backseatanditdidn’tmatterifshewasgoinganothermileor another hundred miles she couldn’t do it with this smell so she quietly opened the door. Pulled the lever on the driver’s seat and it came forward and she reached into the backseat andgrabbedamessofclothesandtrash.Shemadethreetrips before she had it all lying in a pile at the rear of the car and thenshetookthekeysfromtheignitionandsheunlockedthe hatch to shove it all into the back.

Buttherewasno room.

It was covered in garbage bags and bound with duct tape and it was big and lumpy and she knew what it was. She stepped back, tripping through the clothes and trash and falling to the ground. Up quickly and a hand over her mouth as she moved back toward the hatch and stared at it, wondering if it would jerkifshepokedit.Shewatchedcarefullyforanymovement. Any rise and fall of breathing. Any possibility of it being somethingotherthandeadashell.Butitwasstillandtheworldheld still around her as her mind could only find one thought.

Isit him?

She walked back and forth along the side of the car. Mumbling to herself. Rubbing at her face and neck. Wanting tolookandtokeepaway.Shepickeduparockandthrew it and then another and another, finally crying out in disgust with not just today and yesterday but crying out against the years that had led her to now. All the steps she had taken to arrive on this empty road in the middle of nowhere with her smallsonasleepinastolencarandadeadthingwrappedina garbage bag in the hatch and she screamed out into the void and when she had screamed herself out of breath she turned andsawJace’sfaceinthewindow.Awakenedbyhismother. Hisnoseandpalmspressedagainsttheglass.

She slammed the hatch before opening the car door and liftinghimout.Talkingtohiminaflurryofmotherly voice. Did you sleep okay? I didn’t mean to wake you up.Do you feel better with your tummy full? Ready to ridesome more?

The child shook his head at her questions. Rubbed at his eyes.Thenheputhishandsonhercheeksasiftoholdherstill and gain her full attention. Their eyes were close and the boy pushed at her cheeks.

‘Home,’he said.

But I don’t know where that is, she thought. I don’t know which direction. I don’t know what to do. And then he said it again and pressed her cheeks harder with his little hands.

‘Home.’

She squeezed him. Walked down the road holding him, singing bits and pieces of songs. Fragments of lullabies anda half a verse of Amazing Grace and ending with both of themquackinglikeducks.Theysangandwalkedandshe kept lookingbackatthehatchbackasifhopingithadsunkintothe earth or maybe never existed at all.

They returned to the car. Nobody would have called it in. She could drive it to the end of the world if she wanted to. But she didn’t want to. She opened the milk bottle and Jace took a swallow and then she took a swallow. She settled him in the passenger seat and then she returned to the back. You have to look, she thought. You know you have to look and see if it’s him.

She opened the hatch again and felt around and found the head. Pulled at the plastic bags and tore a hole and she saw matted hair and crusted blood on the forehead and she turned the face toward her and two bruised and pulpy and halfopen eyeslookedatherandshegasped.Takenquicklybythestare of the dead and she stepped back and put her hands on her knees and bent over, drawing deep breaths. Settling herself. Because it was not him and she had been ready for it to beso. But she took a breath and pulled at the body and tried to wrestleitoutofthehatchback.Itwasheavyandawkwardand kept flopping back down but she finally got the legs over the side and she lifted the torso and the weight carried forward and the body tumbled out. It lay on its back. The hole in the plastic allowing its swollen eyes one last glimpse of sunlight before she turned it on its stomach and grabbed the legs and pulleditintotheditch.Whenshewasdonesheturnedaround and Jace was standing there watching her. Holding the bottle of milk. Pointing at the thing in the ditch as if pointing at an animal in a zoo.

The wrestling and the anxiety had given her a sweat and shewipedherforeheadandmouthandthenshescooped up thechildandbegantellingthestoryofthethreelittlebearsas she returned him to the car and buckled his seatbelt and she kept telling it as she cranked the car and as they turned back ontothehighway.JacesatsilentlyandJessiedrovewithboth handsgrippingthesteeringwheel,herforearmsclenchedand her shoulders clenched as she deepened her voice for papa bear and lightened it for mama bear and the rough road thumped beneath them as she told the story and tried to figure outhowmanyyearsithadbeensinceshehadlastspokento her father.

5

Wade was lying on his back in the dreamy halfworld betweensleepandconsciousness,thepushofthe windlikesomenaturalhypnoticashelaythereon the floor next to the fireplace where random raindrops fell down the chimney and made little taps and hisses into the remains of the fire he had kept burning through the night. Unable to sleep. The heavy gusts and the cracks of lightning thatkepthimawakeandlisteningandwonderingifthiswould be the night the house came down. He lay there and drifted backtoastormriddendayofhisyouth,lyingonthecouchand watchingtelevisionandlisteningtohismotherandsmallsister laughing in the other room. Playing and giggling and little happy squeals echoing in his mind. One of the last days they wouldallbetogetherbeforehismothertookhissisterandran away,leavinghimtherewithhisfatherforreasonshebothunderstood and never would. The winds swirled in the gray worldbuthismemorieswerefilledwithcolor.Popsofyellow andgreenintheflowersontheshirthissisterwore.Anorange ribbontiedinherhair.Hismother’sskybluetanktopas she loaded the trunk of the car. The purples and blues of the bruises on her arms.

The thunder rolled and he imagined the strength of God.Afeelinghehadsincehewasaboy,drawntoathunderstorm, watchingoutofhisbedroomwindowasastormclosedinand pushedthetreesandthestaggeredwhispersthroughthelimbs and the sway of the treetops and the winds growing stronger and stronger, his only notion of God being that of some magical creator of the heavens and the earth.

More than forty years now since he had been a boy and more than forty years now his notion of God arrived with the wind and as he lay there next to the fireplace with his back flat against the floor and his eyelids heavy and mind caught betweenwakeandsleepheimaginedthevoiceofGodsaying Icreated you and I can destroy you and don’t you ever forget it. A bolt of lightning ripped through the sky and jerked him from his halfworld.

Hesatup.Hecrawledacrossthefloorandmovedontothe couch, stretching out and he wiped at his face and stared at the waterstain on the ceiling. Once a tiny dot of brown that sprawlednow.Herolledtohissideandreachedforacigarette packonthefloornexttothecouchbutitwasemptyand he crumpled the package and tossed it into the fireplace. The rain began to weaken as he lay there. The cracks of lightning and thunderclaps lessening in volume. He knew that by the afternoon there would be a parting in the clouds and streaks of sunshine and a rich blue sky and he sighed and wished for cigarettes as he lamented that God was moving on.

Wade had dozed off again when the phone rang and woke him.Itwassuchararesoundthatheleapt,alittlejerkas his eyes opened and his head lifted from the couch cushion. I cannot think of one person, not one soul, that I want to talk to. Or that wants to talk to me. The phone kept ringing and his mind raced back across the years as he tried to imagine the face on the other end and all he could muster was the shadowed and dark.

Wadecouldnotseeherorevenimaginehisdaughter on the other end. Pacing and mumbling to herself. Please answer. The empty parking lot of the abandoned gas station andthepayphonethatsurprisedherwhenshepickedup the receiver and heard a dial tone. Scrounging change from thefloorboardsandfrombetweentheseatsofthecarshehad stolen and hoping it was enough to make the phone dial and make the phone ring and then pausing in the middle of the number. Her eyes lost toward the horizon and the winds of loneliness blowing all around her and somewhere there wasa life different from this but no notion of how to get there. She took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut and her thoughts were empty but for the single thing she had to do which was the same thing as the single thing she didn’t want todo.Callherfather.Shereacheddowndeeptofindtheguts. Find the courage to finish dialing and reach out to him and knowing he didn’t want to hear it but what the goddamn else am I supposed to do she thought as she finished dialing the numberandthenswallowinghardasshewaitedforthecallto connect. The child in her arms. The things that were chasing her. The phone ringing and for a second she wondered if he wasdead.Maybehewasdead.Maybewehavecometo the actual end of things. Maybe I am more alone than I imagined myself to be.

Wadelaytherewithhiseyesclosed,hisirritationgrowing with each ring. Not even imagining that it could be her. He finally sat up. Stared at the phone on the kitchen counter and hegotup.Walkedovertoit.Staredatitasitrangtwicemore and then stopped as she slammed down the receiver in the emptyparkinglotwhentheboystartedtocry.Hestaredatthe phone,relievedbyitssilence.Unabletoimagineherwalking two laps around the car and staring at the sky and wondering whatcouldhavebroughtherheresofarawayfromanyoneor anything. Opening the car door and putting the child down and cranking the car and thinking I will just drive. To whereIdon’tknow.Iwilljustdrive.Butlookingagainatthephone and thinking one more time. One more time. Walking over and dropping in the coins and calling and it ringing and ringing and then he finally couldn’t take it anymore so he picked up the phone.

‘Daddy?’thevoice said.

Somethinginhimfellaway.Agreatshiftofthesoul.

‘Daddy?’ she said again.

When he tried to respond he realized his breath had been suckedawayandhesawhertinyfootinthepalmofhisrough hand and her great blue eyes of wonder and her small fingers wrapped around his thumb and if not for the faint rumble of thunder from the departing storm he would have dropped the receiveranddroppedtohiskneesbutthethundergavehimhis breath and his brain and he managed to answer his daughter.

‘Jessie.’

6

A long pause. The anxious years and the ill words and the hard goodbyes gathering in the silence.

‘Aren’t you gonna say something?’ she said.

‘You called me.’

Anotherpause.Heclearedthis throat.

‘Then youknow Ineedsomething,’ she said.

It’sfinallycome,hethought.ExactlywhatItoldherwould happen. He’s run off and left her stranded or worse and it finally has got so bad she’s calling me like I said she would one day. I told her.

‘Daddy,’ she said again and this time something wavered in her voice. Something he recognized.

‘Whereareyou?’he said.

There was sniffing. A choking back.

‘Where are you?’

‘Ineedtocomehome,’she said.

Hewantedtosayit.Itoldyouso.Sayitandfeelbetter,he thought.Sayitandshowheryouwon.Butshewasnot there tofight.Hecouldhearsomethingelse.Soheletitfallthough hehaditallrightthereloadedandreadytofiresincehedidn’t know how many years. Two or three or maybe four. She said it again. I need to come home and I’m coming right now. A click and then nothing.

As soon as he set down the phone he had the memory of his daughter getting into a fender bender just after receiving herlicense.Shehadn’tbeenwearingherseatbeltandshehad smackedherheadhardagainstthewindshield,bringingblood that was matted in her hair when he picked her up at the emergency room. The wreck had been her fault and as they drovetowardhomehekeptaskingherwhathappenedbutshe didn’t want to talk about it. And when they got home both knelt over the side of the bathtub and he helped her wash the blood out of her hair and then after she had wrapped her hair in a towel and sat on the edge of the tub, as he was walking outofthebathroomshesaidIwishmamawashere.Itwasthe first time in her life she had said it to him.

Iwishmamawashere.

So do I.

That’s all it would have taken, he thought. Three words. Noteventhosethree.Anythreewouldhaveansweredherand closed the evergrowing gap between father and daughter and she had been reaching for him in that moment. He knew it then and he knew it now and he had only slipped into the kitchen and poured from the bottle.

He crossed the kitchen and did the same thing as he had done the day he left her alone in the bathroom. He openedthe cabinet and took out the bourbon but he only set it on the counter.Didnotopenit.Hestaredatthebottleand touched his fingertip to the curve in the neck. Squeezed his eyes shut. Then he opened his eyes and returned the bottle to the shelf and slammed the cabinet door.

Hewalkedoutside.Inalldirectionstheyellowbrowncornstalks swayed in the wind, their leaves a rustling chorus of thousands. No harvest in the last three years as the storms brought the rainfall and the rainfall drenched the fields and the fields never had time to dry out and the stalks had quit giving.Theacressurroundingthehousestoodasswayingand mocking reminders and he would have long since cut themto nubs if the combine could navigate the soggy earth but it couldn’t. All he could do was look at it. And wait for her.

7

It took two hours to drive to her father’s house. Moving alongtwo-laneroadsthatpassedthroughsmalltowns decorated with signs that read for sale or going out of businessorno trespassing. Lumberyards and grain mills sat silentandrustingasindustrialrelicsofsundrenchedtimesand rowsofFEMAtrailerslinedtheparkinglotsofemptystrip mallswherechildrenstoodwithbackpacksand lunchboxes waitingontheschool bus.

A soggy landscape below. Clouds pushing across the sky above.ThehatchbackcrossedfromLouisianaintoMississippi and she felt something turn inside her as she passed the windbent welcome to mississippi sign on Highway 61. Jace sleptonthepassengerseat,curledintoaballandcoveredwith her jacket. She had found two cigarettes in a pack on the floorboardandshewasfinishingthesecondoneassheturned east on Highway 24 and began to recognize the names of towns. Woodville, then Centreville, then Liberty. Hitting the backroadsinLibertyandsnakingthroughthehillsandvalleys. Passingnooneandseeingnooneandsheimaginedtherough strip of asphalt going on and on and on until the car would simply run out of gas and that was just it. No world left to engage, only the end of the road. Jace coughed and sat up. Once more stared at her with wonder. She stroked the fine hairofthebackofhisheadandthenhelaybackdownandhe was asleep again as she made the final turn toward home.

8

Wade was sitting on the steps of the front porch wearing a thick flannel coat when the hatchback turnedontothedirtroad,movingslowly between the crops and then rolling to a stop in the yard. He stood and steppeddownandwalkedtowardthecar.Sheshiftedintopark and killed the ignition and she sat there behind the wheel. They studied one another.

ThenJacesatupinthepassengerseat.Thetopofhishead catching Wade’s attention. Jessie looked over to the boy and he crawled over the seat and into her lap. She wrapped her arms around him. Held him. Stared back at Wade.

Wade moved around the side of the car and opened the door. She got out holding the boy, who raised his sleepy eyes to Wade and then dropped his head against his mother’s chest.

‘Whoisthat?’Wadeasked.

‘It’s Jace.’

‘Where’dhecome from?’

‘Thesameplaceeverybabycomes from.’

‘Youknow what I mean.’

‘Andyoualreadyknowthe answer.’

She walked past him and up the steps and into the house. Wade looked around as if someone else may get out of the car and explain things to him. He shut the car door and he climbed the steps and sat down again. Lighting a cigarette and watching the cornstalks move in the wind and then the understanding that his daughter had a baby moving over him in the same manner. She didn’t even tell you. And he ain’t even a baby anymore. She had a baby and didn’t tell you and now the baby is a boy and she didn’t even tell you.

He heard the toilet flush inside the house. Footsteps back acrossthefloor.Asmallcry.Thewordsofamotherconsoling a child. The cry diminishing. The door opening. He smoked andgrewnervousasifwhatevershewasabouttocomeoutof the house and tell him was his fault.

ShesatdownnexttohimonthestepsandJacesatbetween them. Wade looked down at the small boy and the boy raised his finger and pointed at him.

‘That’s Wade,’ Jessie told him.

Wadetooktheendofhislittlefingerandshookit.

‘And that’s Jace,’ she said to her father.

‘Jace,’ he said. ‘That’s a good name.’

‘You got another cigarette?’

He reached into his shirt pocket and handed her his pack and a lighter.

‘You’retooyoungtobesmoking,’he said.

Shelaughedalittle.Cuppedherhandsandblockedthe wind and got it lit and then she took a long drag.

‘Iwishtherewassomewaytomakeyourealizejust how old I am. If anybody should know that then you should know it. Maybe one day my age and your age will settle where you think they’re supposed to be but this ain’t the day.’

Jacebabbled.Theysmokedandwatchedthewind.

‘Where is Holt?’ Wade said.

‘I can’t believe you said his name.’

‘Where is he?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘It must be bad.’

‘Whatmustbebad?’

‘Everything.’

‘Gee,Dad.You think?’

‘I can’t figure why else you’d be here.’

‘Well. There you go.’

Wade sucked his cigarette down to the butt and he flicked it into the yard and then when he started to talk again she stopped him.

‘I don’t have it in me right now,’ she said. ‘I’m hungry. He’s hungry. I’m tired. He’s tired. We’re here. That’s all that matters. I swear to God all I want to do is eat and get clean and go lay down. Can we just do that?’

Wade nodded. Stood from the steps. He held out his hand and she took it and he helped her up. Jace got to his feet and she told him to come on. Let’s go find something to eat. And he let out a quick and happy cry and then hustled between Jessie and Wade as they went inside and closed the door against the biting wind.

9

Three years before Holt had awakened with his face inthedirt,outbehindacinderblockbarontheoutskirtsofSt.Francisville.Adeepdrunknight that heldnodetailsandhismouthdryandchalkyandheraised