Page 35 of Miserable Marionette

“Yeah, more to work than celebrate, I think. Ally is convinced Jim will ruin his suit on the big day.”

He laughs. “Oh well, if you uh—” He takes a deep breath, and my cheeks are already heating knowing what’s coming next. “If Bryan’s not around and you need someone to hang with, I’ll be there. All my brothers will too. Mom and Dad are back in Florida for the season.”

I offer him a soft smile. “Yeah, of course.”

“Here, let me help you pick this up.”

I tense, bending quickly to grab the brushes before him. “Ah, it’s okay, Trent. I gotta do it a certain way.”

He just laughs, his cute, boyish laugh. He’s never lost the spark most kids do when they turn into boring adults who run movie theaters. His happiness is endless. It’s nice, tempting even to see if it would trickle down to me. Several times when he’d be at a party Bryan dragged me to, I’d look a little longer than I should’ve. “I’m running to Fork-n-Fuel in a bit for dinner. Maybe I’ll see you there?”

“Great minds think alike. I was headed that way too, but I’m—" I cut off, swishing the brush in the water. “I was grabbing it to go. Thought I might see if Gideon needed anything. He’s back in town, for a bit anyway.”

I’d been thinking about it all night, after the clock.

An olive branch.

“Yeah, how is he? I saw him walking down Main Street the other day. He seems…” he pauses, rethinking whatever was about to leave his mouth. “Cool.”

I just shrug, letting the silence fall over us in awkward droves, wondering if he’s judging me, not that I think Trent would. But everyone else… you know, they never liked him anyway. Never understood how much he screwed me up, and now here I am bringing him—

“Well…” Trent clears his throat, brushing his hands through his hair. “I’m gonna finish up inside. See ya later, Auds. Thanks again!”

My cheeks are bright red, no doubt, when I face him again. “See ya.”

When I finally return to my art, my eyes go straight to the stem on a pumpkin that doesn’t look quite right. I groan, rubbing my paint-smeared palms on my cheeks before I scrape it off and try again.

Gideon, Present Day, 1994

I pant, bringing my fist down on the flaccid piece of flesh again, my dark hair hanging in my face.

“For God’s sake, you can’t help it, son. I know you can’t help it, but you’re sick. You can’t… Oh God, help us. Gideon, you can’t do these things without thinking! They’ll take you and lock you away somewhere like you’re some goddamn animal.”

I wonder if he’s churning in his grave now. If there’s an afterlife, perhaps he returned here, to his beloved family business he had to leave, his legacy he had to fucking evacuate because of me and his stupid wife. I twist my gloved fist, my knuckles digging and mushing Bryan Jordan’s appendage against the sterile table. My father gave up everything for me: his wife, his home, his business.

He turned his back on everything for one single promise.

That I would never come back here.

Never come back to her.

I can’t imagine he’d pictured anything going this wrong. That Jackson had never actually gotten around to signing the paperwork to pass the funeral home into his hands, or maybe he’d just not really wanted it.

My father had to have pictured something awful to make us go, more awful than me being arrested for what happened with Mom. Perhaps even he, in his detached way, had meant to protect Audrey. I stopped buying his the police would’ve suspected her bullshit mere weeks after we moved. It had worked at the time. In my frazzled, overwhelmed state, it made sense, until distance allowed me to calm a bit.

I smash his dick a few more times under my fist, although it looks more like minced meat than a penis by now. I’m panting, and the buzzing won’t stop.

He’s dead.

I don’t need a medical degree to know that. To know he was dead the moment I swung that door open, long before I took those pills from that shack he stays in and crushed them into his brandy. I’ll have to get creative with the body. Have to be tactful, although I think it’s a little too late for that. Everything can be explained away, everything accounted for. I rip off my gloves, tossing them in the trash, my knuckles bruised. They strain and ache as I adjust my glasses on my nose, readying another pair—

“Gideon?” a soft voice calls out, making me go still.

Her footsteps are gentle, just like I remember them, as they creak overhead. How many times did I stand in this room listening to her walk above me, calling out my name? How long has it been? I inhale deeply, closing my eyes to savor the moment.

To savor her.

When I hear her trail to the top of the stairs, lingering there, I finally move. Letting the double doors burst open and fall closed loudly behind me. Letting my girl know exactly where I am. Daring her to do exactly what we both know she won’t.