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necessarily curious about her own identity.   Her grandmother had understood this, and as
Wilmington had still been a relatively small town in those days understood also
that someone would eventually say something.   And so she had told Heather, one night in her third grade year, why she
had no pictures of her father.
    “He was evil,” her
grandmother said.   “He was wicked, he was
evil and he used to beat your mommy up on a regular basis.   And finally, he killed her.   She tried to leave him and he killed her with
a gun.   Then he killed himself, because
not only was he evil, not only was he wicked, but he was also a coward who
didn’t want to face what he had coming.”
    The revelation
detonated like an artillery shell.   She
watched her grandmother shake and cry as she said it, and she tried to connect
with that same depth of feeling.   But she
was numb.
    “He wanted to kill
you, too, but your mommy saved you.   She
put you in the closet when she heard him coming.   She covered you with clothes and told you to
be quiet.   And you did what you were
told.   Because you were a good little
girl.   You always did what you were
told.”

 
    She lay now on the
sofa, which she and Amber had propelled back into its proper place after
unloading the Durango.   Amber lay sleeping in her bed upstairs.   Heather had started out curled up beside her
but couldn’t sleep, so she came downstairs for a nip from the whiskey bottle in
the pantry.   It hadn’t helped.
    Surrendering
herself to wakefulness, she fell onto the couch, where the tears came.   Her grandmother hadn’t liked Mike, but she
hadn’t known him.   Not really.   She had known Heather’s father and assumed
the daughter would pick someone just like him, but that wasn’t fair.   Because Mike got it.   An orphan himself,
he understood her in ways no one else could.
    He hadn’t been a
bad husband, far from it.   Things had
gone poorly as of late, but they had simply reached that difficult period all
Navy marriages face when the sailor comes home for good.   The point where the rest of one’s life
begins, the end of the era where peace comes as easily as the start of the next
cruise.   Changes.   Of course they’d be difficult.   Of course they’d both have trouble with
it.   Mike would naturally have had more
than anyone because the Navy had been the closest thing to a family he’d ever
experienced and for him, leaving the service had resembled a death.   So of course he’d grown a little more clingy,
needy.   Controlling, even; all the things
she’d ever hated in him.   But it was just
a phase.
    You stupid, selfish bitch.
    Indeed.   Had she approached this with a modicum of
understanding, she’d have realized what was going on and done something to
change it.   She’d have stopped picking
fights, stopped her passive-aggressive needling.   Maybe she would have found something to like
about Deep Creek instead of stewing in the house all day counting the reasons
she didn’t want to live here.   Mike had
lost his temper and trashed the kitchen.   But she’d done nothing to help...
    Something rustled
in the leaves outside.
    Her eyes darted to
the window above the couch, her heart rate rising.   Beyond the glass, a pair of trees stood in
naked silence.   She stared at them, and
then she heard the noise again: a creeping, rustling sound.   Crunching.   An animal in the bushes below; a raccoon, perhaps, or a squirrel.   A neighborhood cat, lost and confused.   Wind in the dead leaves.  
    She rose from the
couch, slowly so as to minimize the creaking of the floorboards.   She took the pistol from where she’d laid it
on the coffee table, turned and reached for the blinds.
    The noise came
again.   She thought of the empty yards
and open doors.   The crosses.  
    Something else her
grandmother had said echoed in her skull.   Nothing good ever happens after
dark .   All the good folks are in bed.
    She backed away
from