The Wolf Wants In by Laura McHugh

Author:Laura McHugh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2019-08-05T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

On the way back from dropping Lily off on Sunday (early, so she could go with Greg and Heidi to the Nutcracker matinee), I took the beltway to the south outer suburbs. After twisting through a labyrinth of subdivisions, I found the Goreckis’ tidy split-level, one of two dozen nearly identical homes that had probably been surrounded by fields when they were built decades earlier, but were now crowded by a proliferation of chain stores selling mundane necessities—Batteries Plus Bulbs, Big O Tires, Mattress Firm—things everyone had to buy but didn’t enjoy shopping for.

Four concrete stepping stones, each decorated with a child’s name and handprint, sat among frozen mums in the flowerbed next to the tiny front porch. Gorecki answered the door dressed in church clothes. It looked like the same gray suit he’d worn to the funeral—noticeably tight, shoulders pinched, waistband cutting into his soft belly.

He nodded hello, his lips pursed, his bulbous forehead and small round eyes reminding me of a parakeet. He pushed the screen door open wide, ushering me in from the cold. Once inside, he didn’t invite me up or down the split stairs, so we stood awkwardly in the cramped foyer. Four school-bus-shaped frames on the wall chronicled the Gorecki children’s young lives, each window in each bus representing a new school year, new teeth, new haircuts, new blemishes. Two of the buses were nearly full. I admired the Goreckis’ organization and follow-through. I’d had good intentions, evidenced by all the scrapbooks and picture frames I’d bought over the years and stashed in a closet, but I’d never even finished Lily’s baby book.

“I’ve got to pick up my wife and kids about noon,” he said. “When Sunday school’s over.” He held up the church bulletin clutched in his calloused hand.

“I won’t take much of your time,” I said. “I wanted to talk to you before, at the funeral, but I didn’t get a chance. The whole day was a blur. I meant to thank you for coming. I know you probably had to take off work to be there.”

“It was a lovely service,” he said.

He was lying. Being kind. We had expected that Shane would be buried near family, but Crystle had chosen a cemetery in Kansas City. The service was quick and impersonal, the funeral director mistakenly calling Shane “Shannon” several times. As we sang “Amazing Grace,” a deer had emerged mere feet from the tent and stepped unhurriedly across the lawn. The peaceful animal had appeared for a moment like a sign from Shane, ruined when the funeral director grumbled that the place was overrun with them, a nuisance they couldn’t keep at bay.

We were rushed away from his casket with a warning that reminded me of the bartender’s closing-time classic: “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” Now please, they’d said, move your cars or they’ll be towed. They were on a strict schedule that didn’t allow for tearful lingering.

The entire time, Crystle’s family

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.