Charlie started crying, too. His sisters? His mother? His selfish father who had run off when Ben was six?
She put her hand on his shoulder. He was still shaking. “Babe, what is it? You’re scaring me.”
He wiped his nose. He turned around. Tears streamed from his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“What?” Her voice was almost a whisper. “Ben, what?”
“It’s your dad.” He swallowed back his grief. “They had to life-flight him to the hospital. He—”
Charlie’s knees began to buckle. Ben caught her before she hit the floor.
Will he make it?
“Your neighbor found him,” Ben said. “He was at the end of the driveway.”
Charlie pictured Rusty walking to the mailbox—humming, marching, snapping his fingers—then clutching his heart and falling to the ground.
She said, “He’s so …” Stupid. Willful. Self-destructive. “We were in my office today, and I told him he was going to have another heart attack, and now—”
“It wasn’t his heart.”
“But—”
“Your dad didn’t have a heart attack. Somebody stabbed him.”
Charlie’s mouth moved soundlessly before she could get out the word, “stabbed?” She had to repeat it, because it didn’t make sense. “Stabbed?”
“Chuck, you need to call your sister.”
WHAT HAPPENED TO CHARLOTTE
Charlotte turned to her sister and shouted, “Last word!”
She ran toward the HP before Samantha could think of a good comeback. Red clay swirled up from Charlotte’s feet and gummed onto her sweaty legs. She jumped up the porch steps, kicked off her shoes, peeled off her socks and pushed open the door in time to hear Gamma say, “Fuck!”
Her mother was bent at the waist, one hand braced on the counter, the other at her mouth like she had been coughing.
Charlotte said, “Mom, that’s a bad word.”
Gamma stood up. She used a tissue from her pocket to wipe her mouth. “I said ‘fudge,’ Charlie. What did you think I said?”
“You said—” Charlotte saw the trap. “If I say the bad word, then you’ll know that I know the bad word.”
“Don’t show your work, sweetheart.” She tucked the tissue back into her pocket and headed toward the hall. “Have the table set before I get back.”
“Where are you going?”
“Undetermined.”
“How will I know how fast to set the table if I don’t know when you’re going to get back?” She listened for an answer.
Gamma’s sharp coughs echoed back.
Charlotte grabbed the paper plates. She dumped the box of plastic forks onto the table. Gamma had bought real silverware and plates at the thrift store, but no one could find the box. Charlotte knew it was in Rusty’s study. They were supposed to unpack the room tomorrow, which meant that somebody would have to wash dishes at the sink tomorrow night.
Samantha slammed the kitchen door closed so hard that the wall shook.
Charlotte didn’t take the bait. She tossed out the paper plates onto the table.
Suddenly, without warning, Samantha threw a fork at her face.
Charlotte was opening her mouth to scream for Gamma when she felt the tines of the fork stab her bottom lip. She instinctively closed her mouth.
The fork stayed, a quivering arrow in a bull’s eye.
Charlotte said, “Holy crap, that was amazing!”
Samantha shrugged, like the hard part wasn’t catching a somersaulting fork between your lips.
Charlotte said, “I’ll wash the dishes if you can do that twice in a row.”
“You toss it into my mouth once, and I’ll wash dishes for a week.”
“Deal.” Charlotte took aim, weighing her options: bean Samantha in the face on purpose or really try to get it into her mouth?
Gamma was back. “Charlie, don’t throw utensils at your sister. Sam, help me look for that frying pan I bought the other day.”
The table was already set, but Charlotte didn’t want to be enlisted into the search. The boxes smelled like mothballs and cheesy dog feet. She straightened the plates. She re-lined up the forks. They were going to have spaghetti tonight, so they would need knives because Gamma always undercooked the noodles and they clumped together like strands of tendons.
“Sam.” Gamma had started coughing again. She pointed toward the air conditioner. “Turn that thing on so we can get some air moving in here.”
Samantha looked at the giant box in the window like she’d never seen an air conditioner before. She had been moping since the red-brick house had burned down. Charlotte had been moping, too, but on the inside, because Rusty already felt bad enough without them rubbing it in.
Charlotte picked up an extra paper plate. She tried to fold it into an airplane so that she could give it to her father.
Samantha asked, “What time are we supposed to pick up Daddy from work?”
Gamma said, “He’ll get a ride from somebody at the courthouse.”
Charlotte hoped Lenore would give him a ride. Rusty’s secretary had loaned her a book called Lace, which was about four friends, and one of them was raped by a sheikh, only you don’t know which one, and she got pregnant and no one told the daughter what happened until she was an adult and she got really rich and she asked them, “Which one of you bitches is my mother?”
“Well, shit.” Gamma stood up. “I hope you girls don’t mind being vegetarian tonight.”
“Mom.” Charlotte dropped down into the chair. She put her head in her hands, feigning sickness in hope of soliciting a can of soup for dinner instead. “My stomach hurts.”
Gamma asked, “Don’t you have homework?”
“Chemistry.” Charlotte looked up. “Can you help me?”
“It’s not rocket science.”
Charlotte asked, “Do you mean, it’s not rocket science, so I should be able to figure it out on my own, or do you mean, it’s not rocket science, and that is the only science that you know how to perform, and so therefore you cannot help me?”
“There were too many conjunctions in that sentence,” Gamma said. “Go wash your hands.”
“I believe I had a valid question.”
“Now.”
Charlotte ran into the hall. It was so long that you could stand in the kitchen and treat it as a bowling alley. At least that was what Gamma said, and that was exactly what Charlotte was going to do as soon as she could get a ball.
She opened one of the five doors and found the stairs to the yucky basement. She tried another and found the hallway to the bachelor farmer’s scary bedroom.
“Fudge!” Charlotte bellowed, but only for Gamma’s sake.
She opened another door. The chiffarobe. Charlotte grinned, because she was playing a joke on Samantha, or maybe not a joke—whatever it was called when you wanted to scare the crap out of somebody.
She was trying to convince her sister that the HP was haunted.
Yesterday, Charlotte had found a weird black-and-white photograph in one of the thrift store boxes. At first, she had started to color it, but she only got as far as yellowing the teeth when she had the idea to stick the picture in the bottom drawer of the chiffarobe for Samantha to find.