We Begin at the End(14)

He watched her, like he always did. He studied her face, hair, eyes, mouth. Taking in the detail, making her shiver.

She glared up at him, fierce, small nose twisted into a snarl. “I am the outlaw, Duchess Day Radley, and you are the woman beater, Dickie Darke.”

She scooted back, her head to the door. Above the streetlight fell through the glass, bathing her in orange as she watched her mother scream and yell and run at Darke.

She wouldn’t rise and help, she knew not to do that. Instead she stood when she saw the shape through the glass.

Behind, her mother swung fists, Darke gripped her hands and tried to keep them level.

Duchess made her decision quickly; whatever was outside could be no worse than what was within. She unlatched the door and looked up high into the man’s face. She moved aside and he passed, grabbed hold of Darke and they struggled. He landed one punch, caught Darke on the side of the head.

Darke did not flinch, saw who it was and stopped dead, stared, calm enough as he weighed options. He was much bigger, broader, but the other man looked like he burned with it, that need to fight.

Darke fished keys from his pocket, unhurried, and walked from the house. The man followed him out, Duchess behind.

She watched the Escalade till the lights faded from view.

The man turned and looked at her. And then past her, where Star stood behind, on the old porch, breathless.

“Come on, Duchess.”

Duchess said nothing, just followed her mother into the house, looking back once, where the man stayed, like he’d been sent there to guard her.

In the melee his shirt had been torn, and it was as the moon caught him she saw it. The crisscross of scars that covered him, raised and angry and fresh.





6


THE TIREDNESS RAN OVER HER, uncontended, she let it, labored steps and breaths and burning eyes, ears full of smothered sounds at times so distant she did not react.

She felt the small tug on her hand, the face of her brother, earnest, his night was spent in dreams.

“Are you alright?” he worried.

Duchess carried his bag and hers. A bruise on her forearm, where she’d fallen. In her bag was her paper, half done, her family tree. Her grades were middling, she knew to keep them that way. She did not cut anymore, tried not to get in shit, she could not risk any kind of involvement from Star. Parents’ evenings she would make the excuse, My mother has work, you know how it is. She ate alone, scared in case the other kids saw what she’d made. Sometimes just buttered bread, so stale it could be snapped. Some had it worse, she knew that, just did not wish to join them.

“I slept on your bed, you kept kicking me in the night,” Duchess said.

“Sorry. I thought I heard noises. Maybe I was dreaming.”

She watched him run ahead a little, into the neighbor’s front yard, where he found a long stick and brought it back, like a dog. He held it out and used it as a cane, pretending he was an old man till she laughed.

And then the front door opened. Brandon Rock, he tended his Mustang with the kind of attention Star said he’d have been better showing his ex-wife.

He wore a Letterman jacket, so faded and tight the sleeves stopped mid forearm. He glared at Robin. “You stay away from the car.”

“He didn’t go near it.”

Brandon crossed the grass and stood close to her. “You know what’s under that cover?” He motioned toward the car, the blue tarp wrapped it tight. Each night she watched Brandon put it to bed like a firstborn.

“My mother said it’s a penis extension.”

She saw his cheeks flush.

“It’s a ’67 Mustang.”

“Sixty-seven, same year that jacket was made.”

“That’s my number. Ask your mother about me. All-state. Used to call me the bull rush.”

“The ball rash?”

Robin walked back over and grabbed her hand. She felt Brandon watching her the whole way up the street.

“What’s he so mad about? I didn’t go near the Mustang.”

“He’s just pissed because he wanted to date Mom and she blew him off.”

“Did Darke stop by last night?”

Ahead there was sunlight, shutters up and shopkeepers readying.

“I didn’t hear.”

Duchess preferred Cape Haven in winter, where honesty stripped away the veneer and left a town like the rest. She suffered the summer, long and beautiful and ugly.

She saw Cassidy Evans and her friends sitting outside Rosie’s, short skirts and tanned legs, tousling their hair and pouting at each other.

“Let’s go down Vermont,” Robin said, and she let him lead her, away from Main and the girls that would laugh. “What’ll we do this summer?”

“Same thing we always do. Hang out, go to the beach.”

“Oh.”

He kept his eyes down. “Noah is going to Disney. And Mason, he’s going to Hawaii.”

She put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I’ll find something for us.”

Robin ran over to the trees by Fordham. She watched him part the willow and move beneath, he would try and climb the low branch.

“Morning.”

Duchess turned, she had been too tired to hear the cruiser, drifted too far to notice Walk pull up beside.

She stopped a minute and he killed the engine, took off his sunglasses and watched her too close.