“Is everything recorded?”
“Not everything. Almost, though. Pay attention. I’m only going to explain this once.”
“Sorry.”
“Fresh tapes are in those boxes under the desk. If someone is in there, youalwaysrecord. If he’s talking, even if he’s alone in there, youmost definitelyrecord. That stuff is gold, that’s what they really want. Be careful what you say here in the booth. The microphones pick that up, too, and it will be part of the record. If things get crazy, keep your mouth shut. Doesn’t matter how crazy. Keep your mouth shut and do your job.”
“Load fresh tapes.”
“Yes.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“As long as it’s not a stupid question.”
“I was told not to listen to him. Not to let him talk to me.”
“They solved that problem a few years ago. Pretty simple, really. Everything is on a delay. What you see and hear on these monitors actually happened thirty seconds earlier. It’s safe that way.”
“If that’s the case, why’s he wearing a mask?”
—Charter Observation Team – 309
1
“Help me clear this off,” Auntie Jo said, peeling away a vine that somehow managed to snake up out of the ground and wrap around Momma’s headstone in the two days since I had been out here.
I tugged at the base, and a clump of dirt came out with the plant.
I caught her studying Daddy’s stone—the lack of dirt, no moss growing in the carved letters.
“How you can possibly have feelings for the man who killed your mother is beyond me.”
I knew better than to say anything. Correcting her would only lead to an argument, and I wanted to check the bench.
Aside from a couple of days during the winter, I had walked out to the bench nearly every day, and every day I found it empty. I even took to trying different times of the day on the off chance I was just missing her, but still, she was never there.
I didn’t see her in school, either. She said she was the same age as me, and all the kids in this neighborhood went to Lincoln Elementary. That meant she lived somewhere else, but if that was the case, then why was she in the cemetery that day? Who was she visiting? I couldn’t help but think of the woman with her. Why the gun? Maybe the woman kidnapped her, brought her to the cemetery to—to what? That didn’t make sense, either. Nothing about the encounter made sense, and I guess that’s why I couldn’t get her out of my head.
Auntie Jo spread the blanket over the graves and handed me a sandwich—ham and American cheese on white. About a week ago, I noticed she stopped buying Wonder Bread and instead brought home the store brand. Our peanut butter was no longer Jiffy, either. The jar just saidPeanut Butteracross the front on a plain label. When I asked, she said the diner wasn’t doing as well as it used to and her hours got cut. If things didn’t change soon, she might have to pick up a second job. I offered her my savings, now at one hundred twenty-three dollars, but she wouldn’t take the money.
“Read,” she said, nodding at Momma’s gravestone.
“Seriously? Again?”
“Read.”
“Kaitlyn Gargery Thatch. February 16, 1958 to August 8, 1980. Loving wife, mother, and sister.” I didn’t have to look at the stone. I had memorized the text of both long ago.
“Five years,” Auntie Jo said softly. The smoke trailed up into the heavens from the cigarette pinched between her fingers. I couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t smoke, but lately she seemed to be smoking more. Sometimes she lit one cigarette from the stubby remains of the last one. She puffed, blew the smoke back out. Her teeth were yellow.
Ten minutes later, sandwich eaten, transistor radio and comic book in hand, I found myself heading up the hill toward the mausoleums.
The weather had turned cool early this year, and the wind kicked up, twisting and turning through the spaces surrounding the stone buildings.
The bench was empty.
She wasn’t there.
