Litani by Jess Lourey

Author:Jess Lourey [Lourey, Jess]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2021-10-18T16:00:00+00:00

We grew easy with each other as the day wore on, Crane and me, as comfortable as two people could get when one of them was as talkative as a rock. But that’s what I liked about him. It reminded me of my dad. A steady quietness, the kind you didn’t need to fill.

“Have you heard the story about a boy who drowned here twenty years ago?”

It felt good to ask it like that, distant from me, like a medical question almost. Any word on that new flu bug going around? I wasn’t ready to come straight out and explain my connection to the story, the way us Jubilees killed our close relatives. But I figured if I came at it sideways, Crane might tell me more than if I came straight out and asked.

He grunted as a response. That was the downside to the Dad part of him.

“Well, did you or didn’t you?”

We’d hit all the remaining houses on that day’s list. Crane would wait on the boulevard in the shade of one of Litani’s spindly elm trees while I knocked on doors. I don’t know if anyone else really noticed him—he was good at blending in—but I knew he was there, and that settled me.

One more person recommended we put an Engle Brewery can in the time capsule, someone else a signed baseball from the year the Litani Lions won the state baseball tournament (that person happened to own the very thing they believed should go in the capsule, a pattern I’d noticed), and I got more suggestions for yearbooks and personal items. A nice man smoking a pipe with a yowling basset hound at his feet mentioned he was an amateur historian and said he’d donate the book he was writing about the town. I was left wondering what else had happened in Litani in years past that was worth writing about.

I’d split my lunch with Crane, keeping the apple for myself after he’d looked at it like I was offering him a wart, but sharing my ham, Miracle Whip, and lettuce sandwich on white bread, offering up the perfect triangle. I could say a lot of bad things about my mom, but she sure did make a good sandwich. The ham was square, so it perfectly reached the ends of the bread. The Miracle Whip was generous, its tangy deliciousness squirting out if I bit too fast or too hard, the bread soft as a cloud, the lettuce crisp and sweet.

The Shasta she’d packed paired perfectly with it, even if it was warm from being lugged around all day. I was grateful when Crane passed on sharing it. I didn’t think I’d have been able to take it back after he’d had a chug.

We were now on our way back to the trailer park to update Theresa and pick up tomorrow’s list. I hoped Crane would be joining me again.

“I wasn’t alive back when that boy drowned,” Crane said, after so long I’d almost forgotten what I’d asked him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.