Read Online The End of the Sentence by Maria Dahvana Headley, Kat Howard - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Maria Dahvana Headley, Kat Howard
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neighed.
“Hush, you,” said Ralph. “She doesn’t like newcomers. Gets funny around people from away.”
I looked out the sliding window. The mare looked back at me, very close, her eyes golden. I could feel her wet breath on my neck as we made our way down the dirt road, and into town.
Behind the hardware store, there was a fenced corral, with bushes tangled around the feet of the fenceposts, blackberries bending the vines back towards the earth. The horse tore at the fruit as Ralph walked it past.
As he slipped the halter from around the horse’s ears, something winked silver in the sun. I rubbed my eyes. The mare’s hooves seemed wrong. Then they were right again. She trotted into the corral, giving me one last look. Not a friendly horse.
“Maybe a bit hungover after all, fella?” Ralph asked, and slapped me on the back. “No shame in that, though. Every man’s got something he can’t resist, even when he might know better.”
No. It might have been easier if I could have blamed that particular demon for Row’s death, instead of my own unseeing carelessness. Carelessness is hard word to live with, when it comes to the thing you care for most. The police had ruled me not to blame, though I tried to surrender. To volunteer.
“You made a horrible mistake, Mr. Mays,” the district attorney told me, “but you didn’t break the law. You threw yourself on the mercy of the system, and the system rules the death accidental. Accidents can have tragic results, but that doesn’t make them crimes.”
I stood in that office, my wrists aching for handcuffs, my neck aching for a hangman’s noose, my wife stand- ing there too, her rage wrapping around me. I think she wanted to be punished as much as I did, but Row was dead because of me.
I was the one who’d turned the key in the ignition, not Amina. She’d stood on the porch screaming me on my way, and neither of us checked Row’s bedroom door, though we both knew he woke when we fought. Row had run out into the night once before, during one of our big blow-ups. In the morning, frantic, we’d found him sleep- ing in a treetop, draped in the spreading branches of the oak like a bright bird, his costume torn, his crown bent, his thumb in his mouth.
Amina blamed herself for his death as much as she blamed me. I blamed her too, and god, and fate, and stu- pidity, and my history, and my future, and the town we lived in, and the staircase, and the road, and electricity, and nightfall, and the sun, and the stars, but mostly I blamed myself.
I was the one who’d slam-braked the car at the bottom of the hill, thinking rabbit, deer, cat, dog. I was the one who’d found Row, blood from the corner of his mouth. I was the one who’d carried him home, screaming. No phone—I’d thrown it out the car window as I pulled out of the driveway, giving her no way to find me.
I was the one my wife had met on the porch in the middle of the night, and in my arms, our child, not sleep- ing. I hadn’t killed myself after the ruling, only because I’d heard my grandmother in my head.
“Nothing’s for nothing, Malcolm,” she’d said to me once when I was down and out, twenty years old, washed up on her porch, trying to recover from a girl I’d lost, telling her I wanted to die. “I have skill made of hard times. Nobody who hasn’t been hurt can work a miracle. You have to lose something to know what you have. You think you’ll die of love, but you won’t. Broken love’s not like broken glass. It’s like dull, heavy metal. Forge it into something useful, and stop moaning over how the world did you wrong.”
My gran cuffed me in the head like a mother cat bat- ting a stupid kitten, and handed me a glass of sweet tea. My granddad laughed from the porch swing. “She doesn’t have much in the way of sympathy, boy,” he called out. “You came to the wrong woman for that.”
But I’d seen her heal a broken-backed goat. I’d seen her fix a car engine by touching
“Hush, you,” said Ralph. “She doesn’t like newcomers. Gets funny around people from away.”
I looked out the sliding window. The mare looked back at me, very close, her eyes golden. I could feel her wet breath on my neck as we made our way down the dirt road, and into town.
Behind the hardware store, there was a fenced corral, with bushes tangled around the feet of the fenceposts, blackberries bending the vines back towards the earth. The horse tore at the fruit as Ralph walked it past.
As he slipped the halter from around the horse’s ears, something winked silver in the sun. I rubbed my eyes. The mare’s hooves seemed wrong. Then they were right again. She trotted into the corral, giving me one last look. Not a friendly horse.
“Maybe a bit hungover after all, fella?” Ralph asked, and slapped me on the back. “No shame in that, though. Every man’s got something he can’t resist, even when he might know better.”
No. It might have been easier if I could have blamed that particular demon for Row’s death, instead of my own unseeing carelessness. Carelessness is hard word to live with, when it comes to the thing you care for most. The police had ruled me not to blame, though I tried to surrender. To volunteer.
“You made a horrible mistake, Mr. Mays,” the district attorney told me, “but you didn’t break the law. You threw yourself on the mercy of the system, and the system rules the death accidental. Accidents can have tragic results, but that doesn’t make them crimes.”
I stood in that office, my wrists aching for handcuffs, my neck aching for a hangman’s noose, my wife stand- ing there too, her rage wrapping around me. I think she wanted to be punished as much as I did, but Row was dead because of me.
I was the one who’d turned the key in the ignition, not Amina. She’d stood on the porch screaming me on my way, and neither of us checked Row’s bedroom door, though we both knew he woke when we fought. Row had run out into the night once before, during one of our big blow-ups. In the morning, frantic, we’d found him sleep- ing in a treetop, draped in the spreading branches of the oak like a bright bird, his costume torn, his crown bent, his thumb in his mouth.
Amina blamed herself for his death as much as she blamed me. I blamed her too, and god, and fate, and stu- pidity, and my history, and my future, and the town we lived in, and the staircase, and the road, and electricity, and nightfall, and the sun, and the stars, but mostly I blamed myself.
I was the one who’d slam-braked the car at the bottom of the hill, thinking rabbit, deer, cat, dog. I was the one who’d found Row, blood from the corner of his mouth. I was the one who’d carried him home, screaming. No phone—I’d thrown it out the car window as I pulled out of the driveway, giving her no way to find me.
I was the one my wife had met on the porch in the middle of the night, and in my arms, our child, not sleep- ing. I hadn’t killed myself after the ruling, only because I’d heard my grandmother in my head.
“Nothing’s for nothing, Malcolm,” she’d said to me once when I was down and out, twenty years old, washed up on her porch, trying to recover from a girl I’d lost, telling her I wanted to die. “I have skill made of hard times. Nobody who hasn’t been hurt can work a miracle. You have to lose something to know what you have. You think you’ll die of love, but you won’t. Broken love’s not like broken glass. It’s like dull, heavy metal. Forge it into something useful, and stop moaning over how the world did you wrong.”
My gran cuffed me in the head like a mother cat bat- ting a stupid kitten, and handed me a glass of sweet tea. My granddad laughed from the porch swing. “She doesn’t have much in the way of sympathy, boy,” he called out. “You came to the wrong woman for that.”
But I’d seen her heal a broken-backed goat. I’d seen her fix a car engine by touching
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