The Amulet. A.R. Morlan
never mentioned you to me,” Anna began, before she realized what her words sounded like. But if Stanley was offended, he said nothing about it. Instead, he said, “What I was meanin’ to ask was, are you makin’ out okay with your mom gone.”
You weasely fuck, you, Anna thought as she leaned over to pick up her mesh bag of fruit and used cake pans. Why didn’t you come right out and tell me you knew all about me and Ma?
“I’m doing fine. As you probably already know,” Anna said evenly, making a move to walk away. Stanley didn’t say anything until she was abreast of the front passenger window. Then Bib rolled down the automatic window on that side and leaned over, turning on the interior lights. In the faintly yellowish light, every hair of his five o’clock shadow stood out in three-dimensional relief, and the dry wrinkled pouches under his light brown eyes were elephantine. Anna didn’t think he looked the way he should have, based on his voice alone.
“Got a minute, Anna? I...I didn’t mean to come on like a bad cop before—I was just curious how you’re making out. I mean, with your mom gone, that leaves you with your grandmother, and—”
“Yes, a lot of people are worried about me,” Anna said, her voice belying her sarcastic intent. “And yes, I know I have to take care of the old lady. I’m seeing her later this morning. In case you’re curious, she’s taking Ma’s departure with her usual aplomb.”
“Y’know something, Anna? With smarts like yours, you’re really wasted out here. Went to college, didn’t you?
“Okay, I know you did, considering that you made it out of Ewerton once, you shouldn’t have come back here—you or your mom either. Y’know that your grandmother isn’t as helpless as she makes out. Not to speak ill of your kin, but she’s been that way—y’know, sorta helpless—for as long as I remember, and I’m forty-six. She wasn’t too old then, either.”
“My grandmother is old, Chief Stanley. Age doesn’t have anything to do with it when it comes to her. I think she relishes being old.”
“Well, that’s her affair. She seems to like it here. Things always had a way of rollin’ off her back—not like with you and me. I remember, when I was in school with Tina, how the kids—”
Jiggling her bag, Anna began to walk away again, saying, “It’s been really nice talking to you, but I have an early morning job, and I have things to do before then.”
Bib Stanley slapped the top of his dashboard, exclaiming, “That was it! I almost forgot. Would you be interested in a job that pays better than what you’re making, and for about the same amount of time?”
Really been checking up on me, haven’t you? Next you’ll be telling me when I have to take a shit, Anna mused, before she said, “I don’t think so. I’m happy where I—”
Bib was scribbling something in his notepad as he said, “You give this to Marv down at the CEP office—you can type and file a little, can’t you?—and tell him I sent you.” He extended the ripped-out page through the window. Anna made him wait a beat before reaching out to grasp it. In small, crabbed handwriting, Bib’s message said, “A. Sudek—the clerk-matron position at the police office—Brian Stanley, C of P Ewerton.”
Anna put the slip of paper into her top jacket pocket, then zipped it shut before asking, “Why the sudden interest in my welfare, Chief? Atoning for old sins?”
Bib leaned back in his seat, arms crossed behind his back. “Feisty little chit, aren’t you?” he asked without rancor.
Not quite sure what a “little chit” was, Anna replied, “Not without reason. If I wasn’t, I’d have been eaten alive out here, and you know it,”
“Yeah, I know it.” Bib yawned and scratched his head under his cap; the bristling sound was loud in the darkness. “Just like I also know that you and your mom have no chance here. It took Tina a while to wise up and get out again, and I don’t think she’s as savvy as you are, is she?”
“You’re the expert on my family,”
Bib slapped his thigh, exclaiming, “Ye gods, you’re a pip. You could have tamed some guy but good, y’know that?”
“Not when they think killing might be catching,” she replied evenly, speaking the very words her own father had used against Ma—or so Ma and the old lady often told Anna, while she was growing up.
“Well, not some guy from out here, but some guy, anyhow. Heck, my Rhonda, she put the starch in my shorts mighty quick. And I was a wild shit. Worse than these goomers in the rust buckets with the dirty bumper stickers on the back.”
“As I said before, Ma didn’t mention anything about you to me.”
The more reserved she acted, the more Bib seemed to enjoy himself. “If you don’t beat all. Seriously, kiddo, you I should think about takin’ a page from your mom’s book and leave if you don’t want that clerk job. With your education, you’re only hurting yourself by staying, and you know it. Ewerton’s not a town for someone like you. Heck, you don’t talk like the rest of us do, let alone act like us. For most people, Ewerton’s good, but not for you. Too much baggage, y’know what I mean? And it ain’t fair, since it didn’t have nothing to do with anything you or your mom done.”
His omission of the old lady’s name wasn’t lost on Anna. Unbidden, the memory of the neighbors telling Ma about the old lady doing dirt on their lawns returned. It was just plain craziness. Anna had read about the exact same behavior in Sybil during her psychology class in college. Her professor, a laconic fellow who always wore jeans and baggy turtleneck sweaters to class, had claimed that the real Sybil had lived somewhere near Wisconsin, or in it, and said that there were clues to her hometown in the book—but Anna had never been able to find them—as if she’d actually wanted to know where another family in pain once dwelled.
Maybe it’s a Wisconsin thing—nutty middle-aged ladies like Sybil’s mom and my grandmother dropping a load in their neighbors’ shrubs. Body language to the tenth power or something.
“There isn’t actually nothing holding you here.”
“Listen, do you think our leaving would have made it not happen? People can find out what they want about you, or your kin. I know—my father did it with Ma. Hiding never works—not if it means hiding from yourself, or your blood. Running away would only mean that what my great-grandfather did does matter.”
Unable to go on, yet unable to leave, Anna stood there next to the car, struggling to catch her breath, feeling the familiar, unpleasant tightness there, and blinking back wetness in her eyes.
Bib paused to blow his nose, then, as he pushed his hankie back into his pants pocket, said, “Yeah, well...you just take that slip of paper to Marv, and tell him I recommended you for the job, And don’t worry none about paying for any training. CEP takes care of that. Really, it’d pay a lot more than what you’re doing now, and the hours are better.
“Y’know, I’m not tryin’ to give you a hard time here. You understand that, Anna? It’s just that I’m aware of certain things that’ve been going on, and sometimes a person can do something about ’em, and sometimes not. This is one thing I can do, okay? It don’t make up for what’s been, but maybe...well, you just take that slip in to Marv. Now you better get home, before whatever got that Hibbing witch gets you.”
Recovered now, Anna said with a tight smile, “Animals...know better than to mess with me. I bite.”
“That you do, girlie, that you do.” Bib smiled as he turned on the ignition and began to back away from the rear of the grocery store, Anna took off, mesh bag banging against her thigh, without so much as a good-bye or thank you. She still wasn’t sure if she should go see Marv Krumb down at the Concentrated Employment Program office, but as long as she had that note written in the chief’s hand....
It wasn’t until she was almost home, completely out of breath, as usual, that Anna realized she hadn’t