Read May We Be Forgiven for Free Online Page A

at the house. He arrives in one car, his men in another. They carry heavy cases and remind me of exterminators.
    “Top of the stairs on the right,” I say, sending them up.
    “What the fuck happened here?”
    “What do you mean, what happened?”
    “The place is a mess.”
    “You told me not to touch anything,” I yell up the stairs.
    “It fucking stinks.”
    Tessie follows me up. Halfway, the smell hits me.
    “Fucking shit,” the lawyer says.
    The dog looks guilty.
    Tessie, home alone, did a kind of clean and purge: she licked Jane’s blood off the floor, made bloody pink tracks across the floor, and then had diarrhea on the bed.
    Tessie looks at me as if to say, “It’s been crazy around here. Something had to happen.”
    “S’okay, girl,” I say, going downstairs and getting a box of Hefty bags. The dog has done me a favor. Whatever evidence might have remained on the sheets has been obliterated. I stuff the sheets into two Heftys, open the windows, and fire off a can of Lysol.
    The trash has been taken out. The lawyer and his men are leaving. “The situation is less than satisfactory,” one of the men says to another as they make their exit.
    “No shit, Sherlock.”
    I stand in the kitchen, obsessing about the sheets: Is in the garbage good enough? Would it arouse suspicion if I took them to the dump? What would happen if I tried to burn them? Would it send shit smoke signals for miles?
    I dial Speedy Mattress Service. “How quickly can I get a new mattress?”
    “Where’s it going?”
    “To 64 Sycamore.”
    “And what are you looking for? Do you have something specific in mind: Serta, Simmons, plush, pillow-top?”
    “I’m open to suggestions, it’s got to be a king, soft but not too soft, firm but not too firm, something just right.”
    “You’re looking at twenty-eight hundred—that’s mattress and box spring.”
    “Seems high?”
    “I can do twenty-six fifty delivered, and if you buy our mattress cover you get a ten-year guarantee. It’s usually one twenty-five, but I can give it to you for a hundy.”
    “And will you take away the old one?”
    “Yes.”
    “Even if it has stains?”
    “They all have stains.”
    “When?”
    “Hold on.”
    I dig Jane’s credit card out of my pocket.
    “Between six and ten tonight.”

    I get a bucket of hot water, scrub brush, roll of paper towels, Mr. Clean, Comet, a bottle of vinegar, and Jane’s latex gloves from Thanksgiving. I weep as I pull the gloves on.
    I am on my hands and knees, scrubbing. The blood is dark, dry, and flaky. Wet, it softens to a swirling pink, spreading like beet juice through the paper towels. I slice my finger open on shrapnel, a shard of porcelain that tears the skin, and my blood mixes with the mess. Later, I use a tube of Krazy Glue to seal the wound. As I am working I have the sensation of being watched, spied upon. I feel something pass over, brushing against my leg. When I turn to look, something sails over my body, leaping. I spin. I slip on the wet floor, landing on my ass. There is a cat, sitting on the dresser, staring, his tail flicking this way and that.
    “Motherfucker,” I say. “You scared me.”
    He blinks and looks at me, hot green eyes like emeralds shining.
    A creature of habit, I stop only when the job is done, the bloody water bucket emptied, the rags thrown away. I work, and then I look to see what’s for dinner. Standing inside the open door of the refrigerator, I pick at the leftovers, at what we had the night before. I eat random bites of things, thinking of Jane, of our evening snack, of our lovemaking. I make a plate and lie on the sofa in front of the television.
    The echo of gunfire wakes me. I come to thinking George has once again escaped and has come to kill me.
    Bang. Bang. Bang.
    A heavy knocking on the door.
    Tessie barks.
    The mattress has arrived.
    “Nice thing is, mattresses aren’t breakable,” one of the men says, as they wrestle it up the stairs. “I used to do