Read Online The End of the Sentence by Maria Dahvana Headley, Kat Howard - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Maria Dahvana Headley, Kat Howard
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claws, with rough edges. This was someone’s hand, iron, left here to rust. I stood, staring at it, wanting to fall down. Here it was. She’d told me.
I thought of how Olivia Weyland had prayed for me. I’d go and pray for her. And Row. All my wrongs. All my rights, in one little body.
I picked up the awful horseshoe and wrapped it in my shirt. I went inside and put the other horseshoe—there it was, kicked beneath the table—into a cloth napkin. Shrouded, my brain told me.
I wasn’t a churchgoing man. I was someone who wished he could muster the hope it would take to believe in anything. But it was Sunday.
13.
I walked into town. The car wouldn’t run for me. My hands were full of scraps of metal, wrapped in cloth. I walked, and as I walked, I talked to myself. I wrote
myself a letter, as though someone loved me enough to send me comfort. My faults were my own, but people had loved me despite them.
Dear Malcolm,
You’ll never be forgiven, but you’ll forget the pain a little. Your son will not be returned to you, but you will keep living.
You will not forgive yourself, but it isn’t necessary to forgive yourself. Mistakes are made, and you live with them. No one ever died of sorrow, Malcolm.
I realized I was quoting Olivia Weyland, even in my head.
I passed the cemetery, this sad little stand of white stones like tree stumps. I hopped a fence, thinking to visit Olivia’s grave, and looked for the original Lischen March, and for Michael Miller, but they were nowhere to be seen. Someone still waiting for a prison letter that never came, a letter saying where to find the bodies. I found Weylands and Marchs all over, though, this town seemingly filled with them. A small section of Millers, off to the side, all in a row, grass dead atop them, just as the grass was dead beneath them on my land.
There was a grave set off to the side of the rest, a simple monument, with a small hand etched in lines of silver at the top of it. The only writing, “My son.”
I brushed at my prickling eyes, and nearly fell over a small metal marker, stabbed into the earth as though the person below it was a row of seeds planted for the harvest.
Olivia Jones Weyland , it said. I looked at the marker more closely. There was something written on the metal, after her last name, etched in with a sharp tool, not colored as the rest of the letters were.
Olivia Jones Weyland Chuchonnyhoof
And below it, the mark I’d seen on the brand. The C tangled with the W.
I stood up, panting. Graffiti, someone messing with the graves. More Chuchonnyhoof’s there, and there, on some of the other stones, scratched into stone, scribbled on in pencil.
On the road beside the cemetery, a beige truck idled, a horsetrailer attached to the back of it. Ralph leaned out the window. “You okay there, fella?” he asked. “You tied one on last night. Need a ride? You’re far from home, and far from town too.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that the cemetery wasn’t in town at all. I was still miles from Ione proper. I tried to smile at him, aware that I must look as crazy as I felt.
“I guess I might,” I said. In the trailer I could see a sleek black horse pressing its face against the slats to look me over. It snorted. The live sound of it, and the rattling of it stamping its hooves against the straw on the floor made me come to attention. “I thought I was going to church. But I don’t even know where it is.”
I tugged at my thin plaid shirt, a gift from the house before the house had gone quiet, trying to make it look better than it was.
“There’s no church in Ione.” I was bewildered. Even the tiniest towns had churches. “Used to be a town of bears and mountain lions, wild
horses,” Ralph said. “Now we have people, but only just. This was a walk through the wilderness, not a hundred years ago. Still not too safe out here.”
I got into the truck. The horse in the trailer stamped and
I thought of how Olivia Weyland had prayed for me. I’d go and pray for her. And Row. All my wrongs. All my rights, in one little body.
I picked up the awful horseshoe and wrapped it in my shirt. I went inside and put the other horseshoe—there it was, kicked beneath the table—into a cloth napkin. Shrouded, my brain told me.
I wasn’t a churchgoing man. I was someone who wished he could muster the hope it would take to believe in anything. But it was Sunday.
13.
I walked into town. The car wouldn’t run for me. My hands were full of scraps of metal, wrapped in cloth. I walked, and as I walked, I talked to myself. I wrote
myself a letter, as though someone loved me enough to send me comfort. My faults were my own, but people had loved me despite them.
Dear Malcolm,
You’ll never be forgiven, but you’ll forget the pain a little. Your son will not be returned to you, but you will keep living.
You will not forgive yourself, but it isn’t necessary to forgive yourself. Mistakes are made, and you live with them. No one ever died of sorrow, Malcolm.
I realized I was quoting Olivia Weyland, even in my head.
I passed the cemetery, this sad little stand of white stones like tree stumps. I hopped a fence, thinking to visit Olivia’s grave, and looked for the original Lischen March, and for Michael Miller, but they were nowhere to be seen. Someone still waiting for a prison letter that never came, a letter saying where to find the bodies. I found Weylands and Marchs all over, though, this town seemingly filled with them. A small section of Millers, off to the side, all in a row, grass dead atop them, just as the grass was dead beneath them on my land.
There was a grave set off to the side of the rest, a simple monument, with a small hand etched in lines of silver at the top of it. The only writing, “My son.”
I brushed at my prickling eyes, and nearly fell over a small metal marker, stabbed into the earth as though the person below it was a row of seeds planted for the harvest.
Olivia Jones Weyland , it said. I looked at the marker more closely. There was something written on the metal, after her last name, etched in with a sharp tool, not colored as the rest of the letters were.
Olivia Jones Weyland Chuchonnyhoof
And below it, the mark I’d seen on the brand. The C tangled with the W.
I stood up, panting. Graffiti, someone messing with the graves. More Chuchonnyhoof’s there, and there, on some of the other stones, scratched into stone, scribbled on in pencil.
On the road beside the cemetery, a beige truck idled, a horsetrailer attached to the back of it. Ralph leaned out the window. “You okay there, fella?” he asked. “You tied one on last night. Need a ride? You’re far from home, and far from town too.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that the cemetery wasn’t in town at all. I was still miles from Ione proper. I tried to smile at him, aware that I must look as crazy as I felt.
“I guess I might,” I said. In the trailer I could see a sleek black horse pressing its face against the slats to look me over. It snorted. The live sound of it, and the rattling of it stamping its hooves against the straw on the floor made me come to attention. “I thought I was going to church. But I don’t even know where it is.”
I tugged at my thin plaid shirt, a gift from the house before the house had gone quiet, trying to make it look better than it was.
“There’s no church in Ione.” I was bewildered. Even the tiniest towns had churches. “Used to be a town of bears and mountain lions, wild
horses,” Ralph said. “Now we have people, but only just. This was a walk through the wilderness, not a hundred years ago. Still not too safe out here.”
I got into the truck. The horse in the trailer stamped and
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