The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [253]
But it was so hard to remember where he had been. It was a vague blur, as if everything that had happened to him since he left this place had meant nothing next to what had gone on within these faded clapboard walls. There had been a shadow, that was all he remembered. But maybe it didn’t matter now. Maybe all that mattered was that he was back.
Travis walked past the garden—his mother’s garden. In his memory it was as neat as her kitchen: everything tucked into its proper place. Now it was a tangle of honeysuckle and clematis and wild zinnias. A few fireflies glowed amid the foliage. They seemed dim and sickly, their time all but spent.
And so is yours, Travis. Why else would you come back here, if it wasn’t the end?
He reached the steps to the front porch, started to ascend the rotten wood, then hesitated. He couldn’t go in there, not yet. He turned and made his way around the house, to the backyard.
It was even wilder than the front: a commotion of thistles, goldenrod, and milkweed. The white fluff of dandelions floated on the muggy air, drifting back and forth but never finding a place to stop and lay down roots. Travis knew all about drifting. Wasn’t that what he had done ever since he left this house? Look for a place that could be his own?
“I guess you never found one,” he murmured. “If you did, why would you have come back here?”
For a moment it seemed like a fragment of a memory shone in the darkness of his mind: a place where he had settled down. No, not a place. A valley. Then the shadow was there, blotting out the memory.
The house looked in even worse repair from the back. Half the shutters had fallen from the windows, the gutters slumped, and some of the clapboards curled away from the walls like fingernail parings. Why hadn’t they kept the place up?
Because they’re dead, Travis. Remember? They’re dead, and you didn’t even go back for their funeral.
The only way he had known about their deaths was from a letter their pastor had written, and which had somehow found its way to him. Travis didn’t remember much of what the letter had said. There had been something about cancer, about how it had been advanced by the time they found it, and how his father had followed not two months after from a stroke. All he really remembered was the last line.
God bless them both, for they have joined their beloved Alice at last.
Travis shivered.
The trees whispered her name, the weeds echoed it, the fireflies flashed weakly in time. That was why he had come back to this place. Not for them, but for Alice.
His eyes found it in the gloom: a low mound covered with crown vetch. They had buried her right there in the backyard. Not in the center of the yard, but off to one side, where they must have known he would be able to see from his bedroom window: a constant reminder of what he had done.
Killing is a terrible sin.
It was his father’s voice, hoarse and shaking. Travis had crouched at the top of the stairs, listening when he shouldn’t have been.
Not when it is done in accident, Mr. Wilder. That was the pastor’s voice. Dry but not unkind.
Yes, an accident. His mother, her words as faded as the gingham curtains hanging in the kitchen window. An accident can’t be a sin.
His father again, lower. And was it? He was jealous of her. He’s always been an idiot. And she was so perfect, so smart …
A warm zephyr brought on the night, unveiling muted stars in the sky and blowing away the words.
But it had been an accident. He had loved Alice more than anything—her piping voice, her cheerful blue eyes. He would have done anything for her. But she had been sick; they had left him to take care of her. Only the numbers on the medicine bottle had danced like they always did. He had mixed them up, had given her too many of the pills. Far too many.
A yellow glow touched his cheek. He looked up. The farmhouse was dark and silent—except for one window in the upper story. Someone had turned on a light there, up in her old room.
Before he really thought about it, Travis tried the kitchen door. It was unlocked. He pushed it open,