03 A Comedy of Heirs by Rett MacPherson

Author:Rett MacPherson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781466888838
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

“Oh, Christmas tree, Oh, Christmas tree…” we all sang. My left hand held Rachel’s and my right hand held a candle. She sang her little heart out. Snow had begun to fall and I couldn’t believe our luck at this seemingly perfect moment.

The crowd of my family snuggled in together and in front of the Murdoch Inn. Eleanore and Oscar and the few guests that weren’t my family members stood at the door to hear us. Other people on the street had come to their front doors to hear us, too. Uncle Curtis’s deep baritone voice surrounded me like a warm glove from behind.

Aunt Charlotte often mentioned that Uncle Curtis was sort of homely but his voice is what had made her notice him. I don’t think he was homely. He was just sort of plain looking, punctuated by absolutely no outstanding features at all and a semibald head. He couldn’t even be bald all the way.

The next song was “Joy to the World.” The song that can get stuck in my head and be there for a week. We all moved up along River Point Road with the river on our right. The water looked like black oil slithering south, swallowing up all the big fat snowflakes that fell into it.

Then I heard somebody say, “What is that?”

We all kept singing. I am fairly short and was surrounded by people so I couldn’t really see what was going on. A few voices trailed off and people were beginning to walk over to the river. I’m not sure what to call that feeling you get, when you know something, and you have no real way of knowing it. But, I knew something was wrong. I made my way through the ten or so people in front of me dragging Rachel close behind me.

In the Mississippi, facedown, was a body. “All right, everybody back!” I heard Rudy yell. “Go on.”

“Damon,” I said. Damon, who stood about three people from me, walked over, staring at the body in the river the whole time. “Run up the road to my house. The sheriff is there taking my mother home. Tell him to get down here.”

“Who is it?” I heard somebody ask. I think the voice was my cousin Wendy’s, but I couldn’t be sure. “Is he dead?” another voice asked.

“Okay,” Rudy said. “This is nothing for children to see. Everybody go back to our house or to the Inn or a restaurant or something.”

I was frozen, looking into the water at the body that floated there. “He could have floated for miles,” Rudy said to me. He knew what I was thinking. He knew I was wondering if it was anybody that I knew. “Why don’t you take Rachel and Mary home.”

“No,” I said. I looked around and saw Aunt Sissy standing by a fire hydrant. I walked over with Rachel and now Mary. “Could they stand back here with you, or would you take them up to Pierre’s bakery for a goodie or something?”

“Of course,” Aunt Sissy said.

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