No, said Landreaux.
Well, my work here is done, said Romeo.
Picking up the red gas can, he gave a jaunty, irritating hand salute and stepped into the road that would take him back to his car and empty tank.
Give my regards to Emmaline, he yelled over his shoulder.
Landreaux gave him a sharp sidelong glance, put the mozzarella sticks on the hood of his car. As he got in, the way Romeo had saluted started him remembering. There was plenty to recall, but the knife Romeo had stuck in his forearm, then his bicep, left a visible scar. Amazing that in his sleep Landreaux had rolled over and reached up to scratch his nose as Romeo struck. Wandering back in thought, Landreaux forgot the carton on top of his car and drove by Romeo, who was filling his tank with the siphoned gas. As Landreaux rounded the corner, the mozzarella sticks flew off the roof at such an angle that they slid onto the hood of Romeo’s car. When his tank was no longer empty, Romeo reached for the box, took out a mozzarella stick. He took only one bite — they had gone cool and rubbery already. He drove to the Hot Bar and complained.
I’ll heat them up for you, said the girl behind the counter.
I’d rather get my money back, said Romeo.
AFTER THE FIRST weeks, LaRose tried to stop crying, around Nola at least. Maggie told him the facts again, why he was there. His parents had told him, but he still didn’t get it. He had to hear it again and again.
You don’t even know what dead means, said Maggie.
You don’t move, said LaRose.
You don’t breathe, said Maggie.
Breathing’s moving!
Here, said Maggie, let’s go outside and I’ll kill something to show you.
What would you kill?
They looked out the window.
That dog, said Maggie, pointing.
It was at the edge of the yard, just lazing in the sun. It was the dog LaRose’s family fed. He didn’t say that he recognized it, but he did say, You must be mean. Nobody just goes and kills a dog for nothing.
Your dad went and killed my brother for nothing, said Maggie.
On accident.
Same difference, said Maggie.
LaRose got tears in his eyes and then Maggie did too. She was overcome by a restless wretchedness. Dusty had come to her in a dream and showed her a stuffed dog that looked, she now remembered, just like that orange dog out there. She turned back to check on the dog, but it was gone. She had a thought. She could get something from LaRose. Get him to help her.
Okay, little dork.
Don’t call me that.
I won’t call you dork if you change my mom from evil, like she is now, into nice. If you can do that? I think they would make a TV show about you.
What should I do?
To make her nice?
LaRose nodded. Maggie told him to ask if she needed a foot rub, but LaRose looked confused.
Do anything she tells you to do, Maggie directed. And eat her cakes. Also, hugs.
LaRose waited for Nola to tell him to do something. Later on that day, Nola said that LaRose should call her, Nola, mother.
Okay, Mother.
Give me a hug?
He did that too.
Nola smoothed back his hair, looked into his eyes, and her face ballooned up and went red, like she might roar.
What’s your favorite food? she asked.
Cake?
She said she would make him lots of cakes. When LaRose put his arms around her neck he could feel her bones jutting up under her skin.
You’re boney, he said to Nola.
You can feel my skeleton, Nola said.
Are you a Halloween lady? he asked carefully.
No, she said, I’m not. My mother was a witch. I don’t want to be my mother.
LaRose laid his head on her chest to make sure her heart was beating. Her collarbone jutted against his temple.
Boney, he thought. She’s boney. He’d heard his father tease his mother. You’re getting boney! He’d heard his grandmother say this about his sister Snow. You don’t want to be so boney, like your mother.
He’d landed in a world of boney women. Even Maggie was boney with her gangly legs. He hadn’t said it, though. Nor had he said that Maggie called her mother evil. Something stopped him. He didn’t know why he just didn’t say everything in his mind anymore. It was like his mouth had a little strainer that only let through pleasant words.
LAROSE SAW HIS real mother in the grocery store. He ran to Emmaline and they melted together. Romeo happened to witness this incident. He stood in the meat-case radiance, swaying, clasped his basket to his chest. Across his face there passed an expression that did not belong to the dangerous scumbag he considered himself now. Romeo caught himself, narrowed his eyes, and pretended to examine the tubes of cheap hamburger.
It was good that LaRose was with Peter, who didn’t interfere. For a while Emmaline held on to her child, smelling his hair. She looked at Peter, and when he nodded she let LaRose hang on to the cart for a ride. She walked the store with him, talking. It was like being heart-dead and then heart-alive, but she couldn’t shop forever. Peter helped her carry groceries out and then she brought LaRose to the Ravich car. LaRose got in without crying, buckled himself into the backseat. His wordless bravery choked her. As they drove away, he waved at Emmaline. He seemed to float from her on a raft of frail sticks. Or was that a dream? Every morning, she floated to consciousness on that same disintegrating raft. Many times each day, she questioned what they had done.
After seeing LaRose, she couldn’t go home. She thought that she might see her mother, but instead found that she was drawn to the church. She then thought that she might pray there, for peace. But instead she walked around back of the church. She thought that she might find Father Travis, but he wasn’t in any of the church offices or at the rectory — a simple boxy house. She started to feel uncomfortable, tracking him down this way. Then she saw him at a distance, working a little Bobcat by the lake, building a walkway. He was wearing a droopy brown stocking hat pulled down behind his ears. The hat made his ears stick out. It should have made him look ridiculous. But it was hard to make Father Travis look ridiculous. He had wind-toughened skin, lightly freckled, the classic red-blond’s sun-shy complexion. His cheekbones were planar, almost brutal, and he had a chiseled movie-star chin. Just as his looks had begun to grate on people, he’d gotten older, which made him easier to bear. Also, scars flamed down his throat. Father Travis’s eyes could be warm if he smiled, the lines around them starred pleasantly outward. His eyes could also go the other way — somber, colorless, maybe dangerous — but of course he was no longer an earthly soldier.
He shut the Cat down when he saw Emmaline and got off. She was used to seeing him in a cassock. Father Travis wore cassocks most of the time because he liked the convenience. He could put them on over T-shirts and work pants. The old people liked to see him in one, and after The Matrix the young people liked it too. But right now he wore old jeans, plaid flannel shirt, a brown canvas jacket.
Emmaline smiled at him, surprised.
He glanced around the yards, checking to see if anybody was watching. It was that — the checking — he thought later, that gave it all away. His heart was hidden from his thoughts for days, until he remembered glancing over Emmaline’s shoulder to make sure no one was watching.
They shoved their hands in their pockets and walked the fitness trail that he was making through the woods. They passed the push-up rail, the chin-up bar, before she could say anything.
I didn’t want to give LaRose to them, she said.
Why did you?