I pulled off the road and onto the gravelly patch where last night Hamish and I had had sex in my car. I was glad for the rental, for the swinging scented tree that hung from the cigarette lighter.
I turned off the ignition.
Sarah sipped at her beer. “Can you open the windows?”
“Better yet, let’s get out,” I said.
“Beer?”
“No.”
She stashed an extra in her coat pocket anyway.
When I stood up, my legs buckled, and I stumbled, whirling around to put my hands on top of the car to steady myself. Sarah came rushing over.
“Mom, are you okay?”
I had seen a detective show on television in which the trademark maneuver of a tough-talking cop was to slam the criminal’s chest so hard into the roof as he pinned him to the car that it made a thumping sound. I watched this show with my mother, and every time this happened, the two of us would giggle. “They call them ‘perps,’ ” she said one night, and I had thought how our moments of ease were so rare anymore that even this stupid television show was something I was grateful for.
“I’m weak, Sarah.”
“Weak? What are you telling me?”
“A weak person,” I said.
I gained my breath. I had begun.
“Let’s go for a walk,” I said, and crossed the road. I had never set foot on Forche Lane in all the times I had driven here, but I decided that’s where Sarah and I would walk. It was a one-lane road that was privately owned and full of gaping potholes, from which weeds and wild grass poked out.
“What are you talking about, Mom? Slow down.” She caught up to me, holding the open can of beer in her hand.
“I have to keep walking if I’m going to tell you everything.”
“I hate your exercise shit. Don’t make me pump my arms.”
“I’m weak morally. And who I am does not reflect on you and Emily. That needs to be said up front.”
Sarah ran in front of me and spun around to block my path. The Schlitz foamed up, and a few drops spilled on the ground.
“Don’t,” I said.
“Mom, what is it?”
“Move.”
“No.”
I pushed her aside, then moved to my left a bit to regain the road. Sarah joined me a moment later.
“Okay, I’m listening,” she said.
“I don’t know where to begin.”
On our right, a flock of grouse fled the bushes where they’d been hiding. The air was filled with the beating of wings.
“How about why Dad is here?”
“I called him. He flew out from Santa Barbara last night.”
“Why?” She took a preparatory slug of Schlitz.
I could not do it. Not yet.
“Remember Hamish?”
“Of course.”
“I slept with him last night in my car. Twice. Once in his driveway and once back there, where we parked.”
“No shit!” Sarah said.
“No shit.”
“Hamish, our blond-god doofus?”
“Yes.”
“That’s your moral weakness? Granted, not the usual thing, but cool, very very cool.”
We walked on. Forche dropped down after the part of the road that I had always been able to see from my car. Here the pavement gave way to dirt.
“So is that it?” Sarah asked.
“No.”
“Well, what?”
“Your grandmother is dead,” I said.
“What?”
“She died last night, and I called your father.”
Sarah grabbed my arm.
“Mom, that’s huge. Were you there?”
“We’re not walking,” I said.
“Were you?”
“Yes.”
Sarah dragged me toward her and tried to hug me. Despite her bloodline, she had always been one for touch. Emily had called her “Face Invader” when they were teenagers because Sarah didn’t know when close was too close.
“You’re all bones,” she said.
I pulled back and looked at her. I felt the tears in my eyes and knew they would fall.
“And you’re my beautiful child,” I said.
“Mom, it’s okay. You did everything for her.” She offered me her beer, but I shook my head.
“I killed her, Sarah.”
“That’s ridiculous. She sucked you dry.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m sorry. And I’m sorry she’s dead, but come on, you sacrificed yourself to her.”
“You’re not understanding me,” I said. I turned out of her embrace and looked back in the direction of the car. We were so far down in a hollow I could not see the main road.
The fields were wheat or barley. I had spent my life surrounded by them, but they were only various colored patches of earth to me, things that were good mainly because they were not buildings being built. I’d never known a farmer in my life.
“Listen. I’m sorry. I know you loved her, but Emily and I both think she’s why you never had a life.”
“I had a life,” I said. “I had the two of you.”
She paused. “Dad came all that way because Grandma died?” Something had twitched in her brain.
“Yes.”
“But he hated her.”
“That’s not why,” I said.
“Then what?”
“I’ve been trying to tell you. Because I,” I said, pointing to myself and waiting a beat, “killed her.”
I could see it begin to sink in. I could not make it go away. No Bactine for this wound, no soothing salve or spray.
“You what?”
“I suffocated her with a hand towel.”
Sarah backed away from me and dropped the beer can.
“She was very out of it,” I said. I thought of my mother’s eyes looking up at me, of her ruby rings flashing in the porch light, and of the sound of her nose as it snapped. “I don’t think she even knew it was me.”
“Stop talking,” Sarah said.
“The police are investigating. Mrs. Leverton died this morning after they took her away in an ambulance.”
“Mom, shut up! What are you saying?”
“That I killed my mother.”
Sarah picked up the beer can and started walking back toward the car.
“Sarah,” I said, “there’s more.”
She pivoted.
“More?”
I felt suddenly heady with it.
“Your grandfather killed himself.”
“What?”
“My father committed suicide-your grandfather.”
“You’re smiling,” Sarah said. “Do you know how sick you look?”
“I’m just happy to finally tell you the truth.” I walked toward her. A butterfly-shaped barrette was coming lose from her hair. “Your father knows, but we agreed never to tell you and Emily.” I reached up to fix her barrette. She flinched.
“Honey?” I lowered my arm.
She felt for the barrette and ripped it out, a clump of her hair coming with it.
“Don’t do that,” I said.
“How?”
“He shot himself.”
“And you blamed her for that?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
“She was my mother, Sarah. She was ill. You know that.”
“I don’t know anything,” she said. “You said something about police.”
“The thing is,” I said, “Mrs. Castle found her, and she was, well…”
“Yes.”
“I washed her.”
Sarah’s face distorted, her lip curling as if she might soon be sick.
“Before or after?”
“After.”
“Oh, Jesus,” she said. She walked away from me but this time across the potted road and into the edge of the woods on the other side.
“Ticks,” I said.
She walked quickly back. “You killed Grandma, and you’re worried about Lyme disease?”
“She had soiled herself. I knew she wouldn’t want anyone to see her like that.”
She stared at me. It took me a moment, and then I realized.
“Not afterward,” I clarified. “She soiled herself that afternoon. I was trying to figure out how to clean her before I called hospice. That’s why I had the towels.”
“I want to see Dad.”
“I wanted to tell you myself. I thought it was important.”
“You’ve told me.” She threw the beer can down, smashed it flat with her foot, and then tucked it inside her coat pocket. “Now let’s get out of here.”
She turned too sharply and a second later was down on the ground. I saw her lying there. I thought of my mother. I thought of tiny Leo bouncing off the back of the chair.