The Unraveling of Mercy Louis (18 page)

Illa moves toward the door to the garage.

“Sweetie?” Mama calls after her.

Illa unties the full trash bag that sits waiting to be put out come trash day, and sure enough, there's the telltale blue of an Oreo bag. Two, actually, both empty. But how did Mama manage to get them when she doesn't even drive?

Back inside, Illa washes her hands. “You know you're not supposed to eat that junk.” She can't bring herself to look at her mother, so she speaks to her own distorted reflection in the faucet.

“I just treat myself every once in a while, I didn't eat it all at once . . .”

“Where'd you get it?”

“That's none of your business.”

“Goddammit, Mama, if that's not my business, I don't know what is, seeing as I'm the one trying to keep you alive, and that trash bag is chock-full of things that'll kill you.”

Her mother looks at the floor. “Your life would be easier if I were dead,” she says, folding her hands in front of her and staring at them.

“My life would be easier if I had a
mother
. Sometimes you act like you've forgotten that you were one of the lucky ones that day.”

“You haven't got a shred of love left for me,” Mama says, her breathing uneven from holding back tears.

“Mama . . .”

“You've saved it all up for a girl who doesn't even know your name.”

Illa looks at her sharply. “What are you talking about?”

“I saw the photo in your backpack, Illa. And you never shut up about her during the season.”

“How dare you look through—”

“Take my advice and don't waste your time on Mercy Louis. No use loving a girl raised by Evelia Boudreaux.” Mama dabs at her runny nose, her pale skin pearlescent from sweat.

“You're just jealous of Mercy,” Illa says. “That's why you never told me about Charmaine or the letters. That's why you read all of them.”

“I read them looking for the apology Charmaine owes me!” Mama says. “I'm sick of feeling like shit every time I think about her.”

“If Charmaine's mad at you, she probably has a damned good reason.”

“Don't go talking about things you know nothing about. It was Evelia who crushed Char. By the time that woman got finished with her, the girl was the walking dead.”

Mama's words remind Illa of Charmaine's warning to Mercy in the letter:
Get out of that house.
Eager for whatever information Mama has, Illa swallows her indignation and asks: “What do you mean,
crushed
her?”

But Mama, injured by the pointed exchange, ignores the question. “I'll need my insulin,” she says.

Illa sighs, exasperated. “What's the point?”

“Illa, please . . .”

“No, really. What's the point, Mama, when you're obviously hell-bent on staying put in that chair.”

“You know I can't do the shot without you,” Mama says quietly.

Illa has more than a minute; she has an hour, an evening, a day, weeks, years, her whole frigging life, to spend nursing Mama. This is her sorry destiny.

“You never even tried to get out of the chair,” Illa says. “Insurance covered everything, all the physical therapy. Mr. Alvarez drove you there every day. All you had to do was show up.”

From the cupboard to the left of the sink, Illa pulls out the insulin kit, then yanks open the fridge to grab a vial. She washes her hands, then swabs the top of the vial and sticks the needle in it. Mama lifts her shirtsleeve to expose the stippled white flesh of her upper arm. Illa jams in the needle, too hard, judging by the way Mama sucks air between her teeth.

“Beau Putnam is going to run for mayor,” Illa says. “He'll announce at the Purity Ball.”

The look on Mama's face wavers somewhere between pain and surprise. After a long pause, Mama says, “He's just arrogant enough to do that, isn't he?” Then a mirthless laugh. “Thinks he's untouchable, and why should he believe any different? If I'd gotten away with murder and managed to hang on to my fortune in the meantime, I'd think I was bulletproof, too.”

Illa thinks of Annie Putnam, the haughty upward tilt of her chin, the way successes accumulate around her, her friendship with Mercy, the dozens of teachers and students—boys, especially—vying for her attention. Is it luck that allows people like the Putnams to thrive? Or is it fate, the inevitable result of their ruthlessness?

“You know they never found any evidence of wrongdoing on Beau's part, Mama,” Illa says, regaining her composure. She doesn't like defending Beau, but she likes Mama's victimhood even less.

“Don't think OSHA looked too hard after it was clear that Sands would pay its way out of the mess . . . the idea that they could put a price tag on my legs, all those plaintiffs' attorneys happy with any settlement they could get . . .”

“But Mama,” Illa says. “You're alive. At least you're alive.”

The newscaster's voice fills the silence until Mama, staring out the window, says, “Is that what this is?”

S
OMETHING IS WRONG
with my arm. After the episode in my room, I made sure to stretch every day, massage it with Icy Hot. I even put a heating pad to it after games. But the bad feeling came back and my arm went wild again. Cold showers, hot showers, bench presses, wind sprints. No matter what I try, the sneezy feeling returns to set my arm jerking. I mean, it's not continuous, the twitching, it only comes on a few times a day. But when it does, it lasts minutes. It frightens me.

The past few nights, I've avoided Park Terrace. I can't play ball like this. If the tics struck during a game, word might get out that Mercy Louis has lost her touch. Even in summer, scouts have eyes and ears everywhere, especially the playgrounds. After the semifinal, I've got to be careful; Coach says I have only one more shot with this season, and I've got to be perfect.

Because Travis and I usually meet up at the park, I haven't seen him lately, either. Maybe it's for the best. Perhaps this affliction is God's way of telling me to give up the boy.

A FEW DAYS
before Annie's Purity Ball, I see Witness Louis coming out of the pool hall on LeBlanc Avenue. What's he doing hanging around? I squint to see him better. The constant sun of the rig has aged him, though he's no more than forty. It's been years, but I'd know that face anywhere. Handsome, in a hard-living way. Nose belonging to a richer man, someone descended from nobility, maybe—straight and thin. Eyes green and shrewd. Severe hairline. He's just as tall and ropy as before, but he's lost the crazed look that made me cry out when he grabbed me at the door those years ago.

He's with another man whose pants hang precariously beneath his big belly, whose bald head glows red with sunburn. Next to this round man, Witness looks gaunt.
Dad,
I think now, though I've never called him that. It just pops into my head, and immediately, I feel foolish.

There's a poster of the team taped to the saloon door, and I wonder if he noticed my name and picture there when he went in. I cross the street like I have somewhere to be.

“Hi, Witness,” I say.

He stares at me, his eyes bleary from drink. I see a hint of recognition take root there.

“Hello, sweetheart,” he says, then lights a cigarette.

His friend leers at me.

“Hi,” I say again. I realize I don't have much to say to this man, so I ask the only thing that pops into my mind. “Do you know who I am?”

He laughs. “Sure I do,” he says, kicking at the sidewalk with the scuffed toe of his work boot.

Liar,
I think.

“Who, then?” I press, steeling myself for the worst.

“Girlie, you got a boyfriend?” the round man asks. He laughs, then spits, chaw-dark saliva clinging to his chin.

“Hell, Darryl, this here's my daughter.” Witness smiles at me. “What you need, hon? Need some cash?” Before I can answer, he reaches in his pocket, pulls a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet.

“Wit, you ain't got no daughter, or the devil hisself has titties.”

I wait for Witness to correct the man, but he just grins and spits.

“No,” I say, flustered. “No, thank you.” This sets the two of them laughing and as I walk away, the fat man wolf-whistles after me.

PARK TERRACE IS
empty this time of day; it's too deadly hot for basketball. As I dribble, the ball can't hit my palm hard enough.
Hell with finesse,
I think; I want to smash something. Lines from the poem Travis and I listened to on our first date come back to me:

                                       
When Sonny Boy's mama died

                                       
He played nonstop all day, so hard

                                       
Our backboard splintered.

At the elbow, I hoist the ball overhead and launch it at the backboard. It bangs hard and ricochets back to half-court. I chase it down, take two big dribbles, jump-stop on the opposite elbow, shoot. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. My body goes slippery with sweat; I'm not breathing so much as growling.

I play until I vomit onto the cedar chips at the court's edge. I feel faint, all the liquid drained out of me—sweat and tears and bile. But I keep going, squaring up for an eighteen-footer. Just before releasing the shot, I get that strange feeling from before, and the shot swings way wide, as if I'm not aiming at all. Then the downward thrusts in my arm start again,
one two.

I chase my rebound, hoist up another shot that flies wide again. This time I have to stop because my shooting arm is so painfully tight. The ball rolls under a bench staked in the cedar chips. I follow but don't pick it up, instead collapsing on the bench.

In the afternoon's stillness hangs the question I can no longer avoid, which comes in rhythm with my gasping:
What. On. Earth. Is. Happening. To. Me.

AFTER THIS AFTERNOON,
I'm desperate for company. I need to tell someone about Witness, about my arm. At Annie's house, I try the gate, but the old code no longer works. When I buzz the house, no one answers.

I pound the steering wheel in frustration. “Come on, Annie!” I shout out the car window. “I
need
you!”

Staring up at the house, I see a curtain flutter on the third floor. Mrs. Putnam. What does she think of the Purity Ball, the LeBlanc baby? Does she even know about these things, or is she so cut off that news no longer filters up to her?

Out of options, I wind up sitting next to Travis on the riverbank, my bare toes pressed into the cool mud. For now, my arm has stopped its haunted-house act. He tells me how much he missed me, strokes my hair as I lean in to him.

After a time, I tell Travis about Witness. I think:
You asked for my story, so here is just one ugly part of it.
For a long while, Travis doesn't say anything, just holds me close. I'm worried my arm will start up again, but for now it's still. Through his thin white undershirt, I feel the heat of his chest, imagine his heart pumping the blood that allows him to hold me, to form the words
I'm so sorry.
My tears have made the fabric of his shirt transparent in places.

“What are you sorry for?” I ask, speaking into his chest. I don't want to look up, to remove my cheek from this warmth. “It's got nothing to do with you.” I think of that word,
sorry,
in Charmaine's letter. From her it's not enough; from Travis it's too much. Useless thing.

“Because you deserve better, Mercy,” he says. “You deserve the best.”

“I need you closer to me,” I say.

“Closer than this?” He laughs.

“Yes,” I say. “Closer.”

Despite the heat, I'm shivering. If Maw Maw is right, and all of this will come to an end in just a few months—the river, this town, Witness, Charmaine, basketball—then, God forgive me, but I cannot go a day longer without love; if my time is almost at an end, then please, let me revel in this boy who loves me. I am only a daughter of Eve, after all.

Travis grabs my shoulder and, quicklike, spins me over so that I am just under his face. I catch my breath, stare into the clean cavities of his nostrils. The blue twilight spreads out behind him. Eyes darting in their sockets, he studies my face. “Are you sure?”

“You're the best thing I have,” I say.

“I love you,” he says. “So much.”

“Say it again.”

“I love you.” He thrusts his nose in the air and howls: “I love you!”

“Softer.”

Near my ear, the warm whisper like a tickle: “I love you.”

I want to say it back but can't; when I go to speak, I only goggle up at him like a fool, surprised by my own muteness. Maybe people are like apple trees; I read somewhere that they need years of care before they bear fruit. Can Travis love me for the time it takes me to learn how to do this?

I feel the sharp protrusions of his hip bones, the heat of his belly. My bones are liquid over the ground. Slowly, he sinks in to me. I feel the mounds of grass beneath the quilt pressing into my back.
Closer, closer
. I wrap my arms around him and pull hard until I feel his whole weight crushing me. His skin smells of sweat and salt and something else, the sweetness of pine needles baked in the sun. Our breathing becomes matched. Then I kiss him, pushing my tongue into his mouth. I press my face up into the concave space between his chest muscles, where I can feel the warmth of his blood beneath his skin. I never want to let go.

“Come on, come with me,” Travis says. Quickly, we climb into his truck and speed away, leaving our bodies' indention in the riverbank. I try not to think. He drives us exactly where I hoped he would, into the great silence of the forest, with its hushed and hidden places. We park a mile in, beneath a curtain of kudzu. Travis rolls down the windows, turns off the ignition. Together, we clamber onto the rear bench. He strips off my mesh shorts, then my shirt.

Sitting back a moment, he tilts his head to one side. He has a funny expression on his face. What's the matter? I wonder, suddenly self-conscious. He shakes his head slowly. Then, because I can't bear it anymore, I ask him what's wrong.

“Wrong?” he says. “It's just . . . look at you.” He places one of his big hands on each of my shoulders, then runs his fingers along my collarbone until his hands meet at my sternum. I shiver. “You're
ripped.
”

His face shines with admiration. In one easy movement, he pulls his T-shirt over his head, grabbing at the back of the collar. He may be skinny, but he's got nice arms, his torso washboard-flat and smooth. Taking my right hand and kissing it, he stretches my arm out long, makes like he's appraising it. “So this is the golden arm,” he declares. “The one that scored all twelve hundred and eighty-seven of your career points?”

My poor stupid arm. For a minute, I'd almost forgotten about it. I fold it tight to me like it's a wounded animal. I pray that it won't start twitching in front of Travis.