Read Online Shaking out the Dead by K M Cholewa - Free Book Online

sleet. She felt the hole in the world that was Margaret being dead. She wished that she’d reached her before she died.
    Rachael. That was the name Margaret had used in the message on Tatum’s machine. “Rachael, it’s Margaret,” she had said. “I need you to come. I’m sick. It’s important.” Then, there was a long pause before the machine cut the message, as though Margaret had sat there with the receiver in her hand wondering if there was more to say.
    Tatum had called back. She spoke to Lee because Margaret was sleeping. She asked what was going on, but Lee was stingy with the details. She told him that Margaret had called her and that she was on her way. He seemed surprised. Tatum figured Margaret had to be either mortally ill or drugged out of her mind to have made that call. Maybe both.
    Drops too sloppy to be hail and too fat to be rain slapped against the windshield. Tatum surveyed the gravel lot. Three cars, counting her own. Not bad for the middle of nowhere. Outside one of the rooms, an orange glow rose and fell as a smoker took in the sleet and the low clouds from beneath the motel’s awning. He flicked his cigarette out into the lot. The sky stepped on it wetly. All in all, Tatum thought, the Cloud 9 wasn’t so different from the motel in Nebraska. Somewhat worn, but not seedy. Booked by people who watch the rain.
    Tatum briefly imagined that the man outside the motel room was smoking his last cigarette. He would return to his room where a .38 and a bottle of Wild Turkey sat on his nightstand. Bang . They would hear it in the middle of the night. It would wake them, jar them from their sleep. Perhaps, in their grogginess, the silent night that followed the shot would fool them. False alarm, they would think. Nothing. They would ease back into their dreams.
    Tatum had never told Margaret about the pills in Nebraska. But Margaret did know about that earliest attempt, so long ago in the shadow-cool of the garage. Tatum sniffed, a rueful, private laugh. She hadn’t thought about it for some time. She rolled her head to the side to look at Rachael. The shape-shifting of genes made her look like Margaret, then not Margaret, then Margaret again. Rachael’s eyes drooped and her head fell forward in sleep then snapped back up to sloppy wakefulness. She blinked slowly.
    Tatum reached over to tuck Rachael’s coat more tightly around her. For the first time since Rachael could walk, Tatum kissed her head.
    The two sat in the cold car pointed at their warm, bland room. Tatum loved the car, being in a car, looking up through a windshield at night, being in-between, which is nowhere. Tatum had lived alone most of her adult life, had worked largely for herself and primarily alone. She used to compile people’s data, write reports, organize information and return it to those with a stake in it. She hadn’t gone back to it, though, after her bout with cancer. She lived frugally on savings and a modest inheritance from her parents that wouldn’t last much longer. It was a life so different from Margaret’s. Margaret had it all in the classical sense. She had never tried to kill herself. Yet, Tatum was glad not to be her.
    She let her head roll back toward Rachael who slept with rose-colored lips slightly open. She looked peaceful, at last. But then, a shiver jerked her little shoulders, waking her, her eyes opening just for a second before falling back closed. The car was getting colder. Tatum considered starting the engine to warm them up but decided instead to get Rachael back inside.
    Tatum took hold of the door handle. She got out and walked to the passenger’s side. She unbuckled Rachael, gathered her up, and hauled her back into the room.
    Rachael was too tired to resist as Tatum turned back the bed and pulled enough clothes off of her that she would sleep comfortably. Then Tatum turned on the light in the bathroom and cracked the door. The rest of