his younger brother—less vicious but powerful in his own way—was more
than he’d bargained for.
“What’s going on?” Tyler repeated. He eyed Shawn, inching forward as if
approaching a rattlesnake.
Mother stopped crying. She was embarrassed. Tyler was an outsider now.
He’d been gone for so long, he’d been shifted to that category of people who
we kept secrets from. Who we kept this from.
Tyler moved up the stairs, advancing on his brother. His face was taut, his
breath shallow, but his expression held no hint of surprise. It seemed to me
that Tyler knew exactly what he was doing, that he had done this before,
when they were younger and less evenly matched. Tyler halted his forward
march but he didn’t blink. He glared at Shawn as if to say, Whatever is
happening here, it’s done.
Shawn began to murmur about my clothes and what I did in town. Tyler
cut him off with a wave of his hand. “I don’t want to know,” he said. Then,
turning to me: “Go, get out of here.”
“She’s not going anywhere,” Shawn repeated, flashing the key rings.
Tyler tossed me his own keys. “Just go,” he said.
I ran to Tyler’s car, which was wedged between Shawn’s truck and the
chicken coop. I tried to back out, but I stomped too hard on the gas and the
tires spun out, sending gravel flying. On my second attempt I succeeded. The
car shot backward and circled around. I shifted into drive and was ready to
shoot down the hill when Tyler appeared on the porch. I lowered the window.
“Don’t go to work,” he said. “He’ll find you there.”
That night, when I came home, Shawn was gone. Mother was in the kitchen
blending oils. She said nothing about that morning, and I knew I shouldn’t
mention it. I went to bed, but I was still awake hours later when I heard a
pickup roar up the hill. A few minutes later, my bedroom door creaked open.
I heard the click of the lamp, saw the light leaping over the walls, and felt his
weight drop onto my bed. I turned over and faced him. He’d put a black
velvet box next to me. When I didn’t touch it, he opened the box and
withdrew a string of milky pearls.
He said he could see the path I was going down and it was not good. I was
losing myself, becoming like other girls, frivolous, manipulative, using how I
looked to get things.