Long Black Veil (6 page)

The night was cool, but not unreasonably so, as Devon walked to Gil’s car. She opened the passenger door and pulled out her jacket. She shrugged it on and closed the door, but didn’t go back inside. It was quiet in the parking lot and after the raucousness of inside, it was a welcome change. Devon leaned against the car, elbows propped on the trunk, and stared up at the night sky.

After a few minutes she heard footsteps crunching on the gravel of the parking lot. Devon lifted her head to see who it was.

“Brock?” The tall frame looked like his, although his face was backlit from the lights of the diner.

“Devon?” He came closer so she could see him better. His hands were jammed deep into the pockets of his jacket.

“What’re you doing out here?” She looked around to see if anyone else was with him, but he seemed to be alone. Stranger and stranger.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked.

Devon didn’t answer; she just scooted over on the back bumper of Gil’s car to give him room to sit. She made a point not to look at him, keeping her gaze on the cars in the parking lot. She felt the car dip as he settled his weight beside her.

“Just wanted to get some air,” Brock said, answering her earlier question. “You here with anyone?”

Devon cocked her head to check his face, unsure of what he meant by that question. Of course she was here with people—what was the point in coming to the diner on a Saturday if she wasn’t? Or did he mean something else by it? His face was alternate swathes of shadow and light, so she wasn’t able to get a good look at his expression.

“Yeah, a couple of friends,” she volunteered, still trying to get a good look at his face. “You?”

He shook his head, surprising her. “I’m not sure why I came,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders.

Devon crossed her arms across her chest, feeling the temperature drop a little as the wind breezed across the lot. “Can I ask you a question? Besides that one, I mean.”

Again the shrug. “Sure.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay.” Devon paused, unsure of how to put what she wanted to say out there in a way that wasn’t completely offensive. Finally she gave up. “I don’t get you.”

He smiled; she saw his teeth flash in the light coming from the diner. “That’s not actually a question, you know that, right?”

Devon elbowed him lightly, feeling an ease with him that she never expected. What the heck was going on here? “What’s changed?”

Brock turned his head so he was facing her, all of his attention on her suddenly. Devon found it both frightening and exciting. He was looking at her—seeing her. She clamped down on the giddy feelings that were bubbling up her throat, ready to explode into giggles at the first opportunity. She stared back at him.

He smiled again, this time a little ruefully. “You’re the only one who’s asked me that.” He stopped, as if trying to figure out what he wanted to say next. “Everyone just asks what’s my problem or am I mad.”

“Would you rather I ask that? Because I totally can,” she teased, trying to lighten the mood.

He pushed his shoulder into hers. “Please don’t. I can’t take it.”

Devon wanted to touch the place where his shoulder had bumped hers. It tingled. How was that even possible? Their legs were almost touching as they sat on the bumper. She could move her knee over just the slightest bit…

Brock continued, unaware of the nearness of their legs or anything else, for that matter. “I’m just tired of it all. Don’t you get tired of it?” His voice sounded dry and dusty, like a drought-parched streambed.

She thought a moment before answering. “Depends on what the ‘it’ is, I guess.”

“Going to school, getting good grades, having to be the perfect…everything. I’m just so sick of it.” His voice dropped to nearly a whisper.

“I guess I don’t, considering I’m too busy enjoying the experience of everyone in school thinking they’re better than me just because of where they happened to be born.” She scowled. “But that’s nothing in comparison to you.” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
Really? Mr. Perfect Life was having an existential crisis with her?
“I feel your pain.” She nodded. “Totally.”

Brock sat there for a few seconds, looking a little flabbergasted. Suddenly he burst out laughing, causing Devon to jump in her seat beside him. He looked over at her, still laughing, and managed to get out, “I guess that puts me in my place.”

Devon was glad the parking lot was so dark so Brock couldn’t see her flush. She didn’t know what had gotten into her to say something like that to him. Still, she was glad she had. “No, really,” she began, making patterns in the gravel with the toe of her shoe. “What’s changed?”

“Nothing,” he replied, sighing. He stood up. “That’s the problem.” He looked toward the diner. “We’d better get back inside before your friends send a search party out for you.”

“And before yours think you were eaten by wolves.”

“Sometimes, the wolves might be preferable,” he muttered, leading the way back to the front door.

He held the door open for Devon, following her back inside. They went their separate ways, but all the way back to her table, she could feel eyes on her. Some were friendly. Some weren’t. And some were Brock’s.

Chapter Six

“Did you find the box with my mom’s birth certificate?”

“There’s a box under my bed. It has all of the land deeds and birth and death certificates I could find.” Gammy took up her needles again. “They sure got you working hard on this senior project.” She speared Devon with a look that made her swallow nervously.

Devon hadn’t been exactly honest when she originally asked Gammy for the family records. Gammy was particular about who she shared family history with, and Devon had been afraid that Gammy wouldn’t let her have a look at the papers. So she’d fudged the truth a bit; now it was a senior project that was worth half her grade rather than a scholarship that meant all of her future. She and her grandmother had never really discussed what would happen after she graduated; Devon got the distinct impression her grandmother didn’t want to really think about her leaving.

“Thanks,” Devon said, disappearing down the hall.

Her grandmother’s room was like Devon’s own: small but tidy. She had a ridiculous number of handmade afghans stacked atop the twin bed, and an old blanket rack that housed several quilts. On the nightstand stood a picture of her husband, dead some twenty years, and a small lamp. Devon turned it on, then knelt next to the bed and flipped up the bedskirt to reveal the stacked plastic bins under Gammy’s bed.

Devon found the bin she was looking for after a few moments of searching. She lugged it out from under the bed, disturbing a small cardboard box as she pulled it free. She reached for that one and noticed that it had her mother’s name scrawled in black marker across the top of it. With a glance at the door, Devon pulled open the top, revealing stacks of letters, photos, and tons of other memorabilia that must have meant something to her mother at one point.

She didn’t hesitate. Opening up the bin, Devon upended the contents of the Lorelei box into it and slid the now empty cardboard box under the bed. Part of her felt bad about stealing her mother’s things, but a larger part needed to see what the woman had been like before. She’d asked Gammy to tell her about her mother, but Gammy always begged off, like the subject was just too painful. But here were things of hers that Devon could see and touch and read. She couldn’t pass that up, not even if it hurt Gammy.

She was probably going to hell for it. But she could live with that right now. She gathered up the box and returned to her room.

Devon dumped everything from her mother’s box onto her bed and began to sift through the things her mother had thought important enough to keep. Being orderly, she began to sort everything into piles. There were some movie ticket stubs, a few buttons with stupid slogans on them, a journal or diary of some kind, a couple of keychains, a few small stuffed animals, and a bunch of pictures. She put the book aside and began to flip through the pictures.

They were from high school. The first one had her mom and dad smiling at the camera, squinting in the bright sunshine. They were sitting on some bleachers so Devon assumed they were at a football game or something like that. The next picture had her father with another guy she didn’t recognize. They looked dirty, like they’d been rolling in mud, and the teen she didn’t recognize held a football. She flipped through the rest, but it was all of the same three people: her father, her mother, and this young man she didn’t recognize.

All that remained to go through was the book. Devon laid her fingertips on the book’s cover. A sense of dread suddenly filled her. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was in here. Did Gammy know? Had she read this? Why hadn’t she showed Devon these things before?

Devon swallowed. She felt like if she opened this journal there was no going back. Her eyes flicked to the door, then back to the book. She didn’t know how much time she had. No matter what the journal said, she had to know.

She opened the book to the first page. It was a diary. The first entry wasn’t dated, but the girlish scrawl was not that of an adult. Devon skimmed the first entry; her mother wrote about her classes and some girls who were bothering her and hanging out with Deacon and Jackson. Nothing earth shattering there. Devon had known her parents were friends for years before they ended up married. But Jackson she’d never heard of before.

Devon paged through entries, reading randomly. A lot of what was written was more of the same, high school details, nothing really important. A few references to Grandmother Mackson that detailed the woman's chilly behavior, but that didn't exactly surprise Devon. As she flipped through more pages, a photograph fell on her bed. She turned the photo over in her hands. Her mother and the young man she didn’t know stared adoringly at each other. He’d obviously taken the picture; his arm was stretched out, holding the camera so he could capture the shot. Devon looked closely at their faces. She’d never seen her mother look so happy. Devon flipped the photograph over. ‘Lorelei and Jackson’ was written in the same girlish script from the diary on the back. A heart was drawn next to Jackson’s name.

Devon grabbed the journal and held it upside down by the front and back covers and shook the book. Nothing else fell out. No pictures of her father. Nothing. Just this one picture of her mother and a young man Devon didn’t even know. Lorelei obviously loved him, even Devon could see it. It made her stomach hurt.

She gathered everything back in the bin except for the journal. Tucking the photograph back into the diary to keep her place, Devon put it in the drawer of her nightstand. She’d return Lorelei’s things back to the box in Gammy’s room tomorrow. But she wasn’t done with her mother’s diary.

Chapter Seven

Devon brought her mother’s diary to school with her the next day. She had to wait until lunch to devote any serious time to it. Zipping up her jacket, she headed out to the stone table at the back of the school where she could eat her bagged lunch and read in privacy.

The sun was a buttery yellow, limning the half-bare branches of the trees with gold. It was cool and dry this October day, one of those perfect fall afternoons where the sky looks unreal in its clarity of blue. The weather was turning colder, but it was still warm enough to sit outside if the sun was on you. It wouldn’t stay that way for long though.

Devon sat on the table to better bask in the sunshine, her feet on the stone bench, knees drawn up close to her body. She set the diary on her knees and opened it to the page she’d left off with last night. This entry, like the others before it, detailed the minutia of Lorelei’s high school days. But there was a pattern Devon was noticing. Lorelei never mentioned Devon’s father, Deacon, in any of these entries. But she spent a good amount of time talking about Jackson. She glanced at the photograph of her mother and Jackson once again.

She flipped to the next entry. This one was a departure from previous ones. Her mother mentioned Deacon’s mother—Devon’s grandmother—in this one:

Went over to Deacon’s house after school today. We were all working on a project. Mrs. Mackson was there. Pretty sure she doesn’t like us all hanging out at her house. The look she gave me when I walked in with Jackson and Deacon could’ve curdled cream. I haven’t done anything to her, but I know she’s not really happy with Deacon being friends with a mountain girl. Glad Jackson’s family doesn’t have that problem.

That wasn’t surprising. Charlotte Mackson made no secret that her son had married beneath himself when he’d wed Lorelei. She was a cold, proud woman. Devon had always been a little bit afraid of her. She hadn’t seen her grandmother at all since she’d come back to town to stay with Gammy. It was interesting that her mom felt it too, even when she was just friends with Deacon.

Devon went back to the diary, absently eating her peanut butter sandwich. It was more of the same, with no further mentions of Lorelei’s future mother-in-law. An empty page demarcated the years, so Devon knew she must be into her mother’s senior year entries now. She wished there were dates for the entries, but she managed to crib together a loose timeline based on events her mother wrote about.