“Hello?”
“Ms. Dakota Green?” a man’s baritone voice said.
“This is she,” I answered.
“This is Officer Micah Spradlin. Your mother took care of my wife when she…”
I vaguely remembered him and his wife, who’d survived breast cancer a few years ago.
“Anyway,” he breathed. “I have your aunt here at the station and you’re her one call. Would you like to speak with her?”
“Yes,” I almost shouted.
“Here she is.”
There was some shuffling and then my aunt came on the line. “Dakota?” Her voice quivered.
“I’m here,” I said, wishing I could reach through the phone and pull her close.
“Listen, hon. I wanted to tell you… well, I can’t really explain…” I could almost see her eyeing the officer listening over her shoulder. “I need you to work with the sheriff.”
This was not what I’d expected. “But?—”
“I don’t get much time, sweetheart, but you need to know that he’s just doing his job. I was praying on my way to the station and?—”
“All due respect, but this isn’t the time for a prayer meeting,” I interrupted her.Oh Lord, not praying. Aunt DeeDee often referenced God as if he’d sat across from her with a cup of coffee that morning, but unless he was about to show up and spring her out of jail, I wasn’t having it today.
“Dakota Deanna Green,” she said, using my full name in the way she had when I’d snuck a pack of cookies into my room and attracted the longest-ever trail of ants, which had been my goal. “Listen carefully to me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, cowering in the hallway.
She took a deep breath. “As I was saying, I was praying and I had one of my feelings.” I knew what she meant without her having to explain. She’d often credited it to discernment or “the Holy Ghost,” but she was right more often than not, so both Momma and I had learned to listen to her feelings. “The sheriff is just doing his job, and as soon as he has all the missing piecesof whatever is happening here, he’ll come to his senses and release me. I can tell: He’s a good man.”
Even though she might be right about the sheriff’s overall character, I’d already found him to be difficult.
“He needs help though,” Aunt DeeDee continued. “He’s new at this and you know that Aubergine doesn’t take kindly to outsiders unless they’re in a gown and heels or looking to spend a bunch of touristy money.” She paused to let that reality sink in. “You’ve been adjacent to the pageant world your entire life, and you can help him find what he needs to get me out of here.”
“I don’t think he wants my help.”
“That doesn’t matter. I have faith that you can provide him with the evidence he might miss. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good, then that’s settled,” Aunt DeeDee said, taking a calming breath as if she’d checked the final item off her to-do list. “I’ll just wait.”
THIRTEEN
On the day of Momma’s funeral the July sun shone bright, but a surprisingly cool breeze afforded us a beautiful graveside service. I glowered at the blaze above, and I grumbled as the preacher from First Baptist read Psalm 23 to fellow cancer victims, townspeople, and our small family of two. I fought the urge to pop the bunches of Mylar balloons Momma had requested we release at her grave—To remind you I’m watching from above.
I’d never thought of myself as a particularly angry person, but that was probably only because I’d had no reason to be mad before that day. I’d been raised in a good family—even if unconventional, with no known father and Momma and Aunt DeeDee acting as my co-parents. My life had been a steady downhill stream of academics and animals, flowing to a future as a successful small-town veterinarian. A bit dull, maybe, but even as a kid that’s how I liked it: Set a goal. Work hard. Reach it. Repeat.
With every setback in Momma’s treatment though, the angrier I’d grown, so by the time I stood at her graveside, my black dress itching at the zipper, I was spitting mad. I hated the preacher and my aunt and the hospital and this town that wouldbring pies and “easy to heat up” casseroles. I hated Momma for dying. I hated myself for my powerlessness. I hated life. For one whole week. Then, I ran out of steam. The anger evaporated, and a heaviness settled in my bones, making me sleepy and languid, like I was walking through water all the time.
One of my professors had worked in the wilds of Africa, studying behavioral patterns in elephants. I remember her talking about their grief process, how a young elephant would walk around the matriarch’s dead body in circles, how the herd would bury their dead, how they would cry and show signs of depression. I knew that’s what I had, but knowing something doesn’t fix it.
Sleep really is a lovely escape, as I’d found a month or so after Momma’s death, when friends were announcing on social media their return to what would’ve been my final year of vet school. I’d fall asleep with my phone in hand and stay that way anywhere from twelve to fourteen hours a day, that is until Aunt DeeDee woke me one morning by banging pots and pans around the kitchen. She’d come by at least once a day, often bringing food, but she hadn’t made me a full breakfast since weeks before Momma died.
“No more of this,” she said when I stumbled into the kitchen and poured myself a cup of day-old coffee. “Today, we’re going to the doctor to see about some medication. I also got you a job at the stables until you can find something more permanent, or go back to school.”
