He’d washed the last round of dishes, including another go at Jacob’s denture glass, before he tried anything on Marlene. He knew he didn’t have Harold’s good looks or charm or pure heart. All Roby had was a stubborn streak. And a crumpled piece of pie.
"Want to go for a walk?" he asked, careful to keep his voice even.
"I don’t know. I’m awful tuckered."
"Just to get some fresh air. I’ll have you in bed before you know it." He realized what he’d just said, how she might take it. "I mean-"
She grinned and shook her head. "Roby Snow. I thought you didn’t have a single bad thought in your head."
"I don’t-I mean, well, it’s a pretty night, and I could use some fresh air. This kitchen has got me feeling cramped." He thought of Jacob, who’d soon be confined in a casket.
Marlene looked toward the kitchen entrance, considering. "Well, okay. Just don’t try nothing. I’m not in the mood."
"I’m not, either."
She gave him that patented Marlene pout and put away the last of the food. The Frigidaire was jam packed, the freezer so full that bags of raspberries fell out when the door opened. The top of the refrigerator was covered with the remnants of cakes and homemade loaves of bread.
They went outside into the cool darkness. The dew had settled early, fat and slick on the blades of grass. Alfred had put the cows in the barn on his way out, and now the pastures were empty under the weak gleam of moon. Black trees stood like long, scrawny scarecrows along the fence line.
Marlene walked a few steps ahead, following the worn path that bordered the garden and led to the creek. The water was silver in the night, gurgling and licking at the smooth stones. The aroma of cow manure and cut hay filled the sky. The tobacco had been harvested and speared on stakes to dry, and the silent rows seemed alive with small moving shadows.
"How could you ever leave this place?" Roby asked.
"Easy. If you lived here, you’d want to be gone, too."
"No. I’ve been out there, to other places. The big city. I’ve been places where you wouldn’t believe, even if I told you."
Marlene stopped along a broken wooden fence and leaned against a post. Her face was turned to the moon, its light soft on her cheeks. Roby realized she was probably beautiful. Maybe this is what Harold saw in her, what all those other men had seen in her. A glow that came from inside.
Maybe that’s why people gave their hearts to each other.
No. That was foolishness. Roby had a job to do. Something more important than the things between a man and woman, the twin beating of hearts. His business was between life and death.
"Can I ask you something?" Roby asked.
"You just did."
"Something scary."
She looked at him, then back to the house with its distant squares of light. "Roby, I do believe you’re trying to get fresh."
"Hey, I’m serious."
"Yeah. Just like every other man."
"It’s about your daddy."
The crickets chirped louder. Something moved in the shrubs along the creek.
"I don’t want to talk about him," she said, so low that Roby could barely hear her.
"This is important."
"I don’t care. He’s dead."
"I know. But he talked to me, told me what you folks ought to do."
"Well, he told Momma, too. And Barnaby Clawson. And just about every damned body except us. The ones who have to decide."
"He told me last night."
Marlene had no answer for that. Her breath came fast and shallow, her eyes wide and wet with moonlight. "Don’t talk like that."
"He come to me, Marlene. While I was asleep." A little lie, but he’d told worse. In truth, he hadn’t been asleep at all.
"Don’t tell me you’re one of those crazy people who dream about dead folks? I liked you better when you was just another guy trying to work his way inside my dress."
"This ain’t about liking or not liking. It’s about doing what’s right." Roby eased forward, his boots hushed in the grass.
"Marlene turned, tried to run, but was cornered by the fence and the underbrush. "Get back, or I swear I’ll scream."
He stopped a few feet from her. She could scream, but Buck and Sarah wouldn’t find them for at least two minutes. Plenty of time. "I ain’t going to hurt you. I just want you to do one thing."
"Sure you do. And I was ready to do it. Only now I don’t want to."
Roby reached into his pocket and brought out the mashed and balled wad of sweet potato pie. He held out his fist, hoping his hand wasn’t shaking. "Here."
She was suspicious. "What’s that?"
"For you."
She looked at his hand as if he held a snake. "What is it?"
"Eat this."
"What are you talking about?"
"Eat it. It’s what your daddy wanted." He used the past tense, to make it easier for her.
It’s what your daddy wants. Because he loved you, and you have to love him in return.
"I ain’t eating that. Whatever it is."
"Pie. It’s good."
She looked up the path, at the house that now probably seemed a hundred miles away. "I’m sure it’s good. Because Beverly Parsons made it, right?"
Roby smiled, but the expression felt wrong on his face. He pressed his lips together. "She made it special for you folks. Wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings, now. That wouldn’t be neighborly."
"What about my feelings, Roby? You got no right to scare me out of my wits. You’re a real creep, you know that?"
"Eat up. It’s good for you."
"No." She eased deeper into the shadows, edging for an escape up the path.
"Your daddy wants it this way."
"Leave me alone."
"You won’t scream. You won’t, because then I’ll have to tell."
"Tell what?"
"About Alfred’s fifteenth birthday present. Behind the barn."
She said nothing. There was nothing she could say.
Roby held out the clod of pie.
"Nobody…" Her voice was like a wind over ice, brittle. "Nobody saw."
"Family secrets. We keep it in the family."
"Nobody saw."
"Somebody did. How do you think I found out?"
"Nobody saw."
"Your daddy did. And he told me all about it. Last night."
Her words were like notes played on the wet rim of a crystal glass, uneven and piercing. "My daddy was dead last night."
"I know."
"My daddy was dead and nobody saw and you’re crazy and you and your pie can go to hell." She sprang forward and slapped at his hand.
The pie flew from Roby’s open palm, parted some leaves in the underbrush, and landed in the creek with a liquid thunk. Marlene clawed her way past him, screeching. He looked at his empty palm under the moonlight, then watched her grow smaller and darker until she was nothing but a moving shadow. Then her figure was outlined in the light of the screen door. She went inside and the door to the kitchen slammed closed.
After a minute of listening to the creek, Roby walked to his truck, started it, and headed for Clawson’s Funeral Home.