Vanished by Mary McGarry Morris

Author:Mary McGarry Morris
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504048101
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2017-08-07T04:00:00+00:00

11

It was late afternoon and three days into a heat wave that had shriveled the leaves on the trees and dried the grass to tinder. The big red dog panted under the porch. His eyes glowed through the dark lattice strips.

Down in the yard the three little girls sat in a sagging plastic pool with their knees drawn to their chins. They were pale and limp with the heat. Their Barbie dolls floated face down in the murky, grass-flecked water. Kelly said they were all drowned. She said their car crashed and rolled off the cliff and into the pond. Canny and Krystal had given up arguing with her. They drooped against each other in the pool and watched listlessly as Kelly tied stones to the dolls’ necks to make them sink.

“They’re all dead,” she crowed. “Whole goddamn bunch of them!” Canny rubbed the bridge of her nose at a mosquito bite that was raised and white.

Up on the porch steps were Ellie and Dotty in sweaty halter tops and skimpy shorts. Dotty sat on the top step unbraiding Ellie’s long black hair.

Alma and Wallace sat inside at the kitchen table. From time to time she glanced out the door toward the road. Jiggy had been gone since early morning. “He’s up to no good,” she said, lighting her cigarette with a butane lighter that hissed and flared so high it singed her eyebrows. Sweat matted on the dark hairs of her upper lip as she bent over the gray, shapeless bra she was mending. Wallace looked everywhere but at the bra.

Alma had been at the table since breakfast. She had spent most of the morning cutting out coupons from a stack of old magazines while she watched her favorite game shows. Every time Wallace tried to leave, Alma thought of something else she wanted him to do. After he had dried the lunch dishes he swept the kitchen floor, and then, when he thought Alma wasn’t looking, he made it as far as the porch. She called him back and insisted he sit down and rest while she got him a cup of coffee. That was an hour ago and he still hadn’t gotten any coffee.

“Once,” she was saying, “him and this guy he knew, they were gonna hold up a liquor store and he acted just the same as now. Mean and nervous and gone all the time.” She knotted the thread and bit it off and spit the long end onto the floor. “And when he’s home, he’s cleaning that damn gunna his all the time.” She glanced up at the clock and Wallace knew it was almost time for her soap operas. She stubbed out her cigarette and poured a glass of cherry-powdered drink. She took a sip and made a sour face. “You forgot the sugar!” she said.

“I just put half in,” Wallace answered. “Too much ain’t good for ya.”

Alma reached for the sugar bowl and tipped it over the glass. “I’ll bet your first wife hated losing you,” she said, as the sugar ran into the bright red drink.

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