All These Bodies by Kendare Blake

Author:Kendare Blake
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2021-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Cat and Mouse

ON SUNDAY, MY mom decided to drive the car separately to church. When I asked why, she said she wanted to drop a coconut cake by for Widow Thompson, the Carlsons’ old neighbor.

“You can come with me, if you want,” she said when I hung around in the kitchen.

So after church, I drove the two of us out to the Carlson farmhouse along County 23. The closer we got, the tighter my tie felt around my neck, and I could tell that my mom was nervous, too—she kept fiddling with the plastic food wrap over the top of the cake, worrying the toothpicks were going to punch through and the covering would ruin the frosting.

We pulled into Fern Thompson’s driveway, which was actually an offshoot of the Carlson driveway, and parked near her front walk. I got out and opened the car door for my mom, both of us stealing solemn and nervous glances toward the Carlson farmhouse. Charlie and Bert had been by to clean things up like my dad had promised, so the chalk marks were gone and the blood-stained rug had been burned. But if that had been meant as an exorcism, it hadn’t worked. The place still looked empty and inhabited at the same time.

We went up Fern Thompson’s cement steps and I knocked. My mom didn’t wait for a reply before trying the knob and opening it up a crack.

“Fern? Hello, Fern? It’s Linda Jensen and Michael!”

We stepped into the linoleum entryway just as Widow Thompson was getting up from her living room chair. Steve’s old tomcat swayed a few steps ahead of her with his tail in the air. Then he jumped up onto the kitchen table to say hello. My mom gave the cat a look, but when Mrs. Thompson gave no objections, she just said, “Michael, take care not to let the cat out.”

“It’s all right,” Mrs. Thompson said. “He won’t go. Not even if I try to shove him through the door. That’s a very pretty cake.”

“I hope you like coconut.”

“Mmm,” she said. “I’ll put on some coffee for us to enjoy it with.”

She nodded to me and I said hello, but I think my being there made her kind of sad. Maybe I reminded her of Steve. We didn’t have the same build or the same coloring, but being the same age might’ve been enough. She moved around her kitchen, setting out three small plates and three forks. Only two cups for coffee, figuring I was too young to drink any. She and my mother chatted, and I tried to pet Steve’s cat, but it seemed shy of being touched. Not by Mrs. Thompson, though, who scooped him up with one arm and set him on the back of the sofa. I remember wishing that the old tom had been younger. So he would live longer and give her more company.

“Would you like a big slice of cake, Linda, or a smaller one?” Fern asked.

“I never say no to a big slice.

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