These Hollow Bones

Beads of sweat pool at the base of my neck in the curve between my collarbones. Even in the shade, the unrelenting sun and thick blanket of humidity seem to swell in the air. I move the hand-held battery operated fan back and forth in front of my face, its tiny motor letting out a whirring drone. Hot air blows against my cheeks, but I guess it’s better than nothing.

Reaching for my glass, I recline in the patio chair and suck up the final sip of hard iced tea, the end of the straw gurgling at the bottom of an empty cup.

“Time for a refill, Stella?” Lenore Jenkins stands before I can respond and pours what’s left from the pitcher into my outstretched hand.

“This your mama's recipe?” I ask. 

She tilts her head with a nod as she settles back into her own chair, fanning her face with a pamphlet from the local church. “Only good thing that woman ever left me.”

I chuckle as the bourbon begins to hum beneath my skin. "Remember that time she caught us tryin’ to sneak back in after we smoked your daddy’s cigs out by the creek?”

Lenore slaps her knee and lets out a cackle. “Course I do. She locked us out and we had to sleep in the shed with bags of manure for pillows.” 

We clutch our bellies and laugh. The truth is, Lenore had it worse than we choose to remember. Too many nights I slipped through the window of her bedroom to help hold ice against her bruised cheek or clean out a cut on her lip from her mama’s ring. I’ll never forget the fear that lived in her eyes. The day I found out I was pregnant with Luke I swore no harm would ever come to him, at my hand nor another’s.

Through paper thin walls, I hear a faint rustle from inside the house followed by a rush of water from the shower head. Lenore hears it too and gives me a smile.

“You must be happy he’s home.”

I can tell my face is beaming as I nod. “He got in late last night,” I say after taking another sip. “Slept the day away, it seems.”

“He’s earned it, if you ask me.” 

I couldn’t agree more. “I still can’t believe I got me a college boy.”

We’re a town of working-class blue-collar folk. For most of us, imagining a future that doesn’t involve a tractor, a truck, or a badge is a waste of time. My husband worked at the auto-repair shop in town, seven days a week, right into an early grave. Though I dared to dream up a different fate for my son, I never thought it’d come true.

“Does he know about the cop?”

Heat rises to my cheeks and I shake my head. “It’s too soon to know if there’s even anything to tell.” I take another sip. “Bill and me, we’ve only gone on a few dates.”

Lenore gives me a knowing look. “Don’t try to bullshit me. It’s been more than a few.”

I laugh and feel my cheeks turn a deeper shade of crimson and shrug. “What can I say? Ever since that case went cold, he’s had more time than he knows what to do with.”

Switching hands, she continues fanning her face. “To think, this town had its very own killer.”

A chill runs through my veins. “I’m just glad it’s over.” Inside the house, I hear the shower turn off and a door hinge creak. 

“What was it he took from the bodies?” Lenore asks. “I can’t remember.”

I remember. Despite every effort to forget, I’ll always remember.

In the early days, when Bill was wrapped up in the investigation, he’d come over after his shift ended. We’d share a few beers and he’d talk about the case. It was as if he needed to share it with someone, the burden. Nothing like this had ever happened in our town and the pressure of it all, weighing on his shoulders, was like a shaken can of soda pop. If his day had been productive with clues that fit together, he would make love to me slowly, taking his time, seeking my pleasure like a trophy reward. But some days were futile, and instead of uncovering answers, he found dead ends. 

Or another dead body. 

On those nights, he took me hard and fast, and didn’t have much to say about anything at all, just took what he needed and drank to forget. Once, I awoke in the early hours of the morning when the moon was still high in the sky. I found him sitting naked at the dining table with photographs strewn about the counter. I tried not to look as I placed my hands on his shoulders but my eyes became fixed on one of the images. A woman. Her body was bruised and broken in some places, her mouth pried open in a silent scream, to reveal two missing upper cuspids. There was blood on her mouth from where her chalky white lips–chapped and dry–had split.

“Teeth,” I say to Lenore, ignoring the shiver that runs down my spine. “And we don’t know if it was a ‘he’.”

Behind me, the screen door opens with a whine before slamming against the frame. The smell of ivory soap and Head and Shoulders shampoo fills the air and I smile. 

“The prodigal son returns!” Lenore exclaims.

“It’s good to see you, too.” Luke says with a smile and takes a seat across from me. 

Lenore downs the rest of her drink and puts the church pamphlet back in her purse before feeling around for her car keys. “Planning to stay for the whole summer?”

Luke nods and stifles a yawn.

“It’ll go by too fast.” I say as Lenore crosses the patio. “Thank the Lord I got you.” 

“Thelma to my Louise,” she says as she shuffles down the few steps that lead to the grass. When she gets to the car door she gives me a small wave. “See you when I see you.” 

Clouds of loosened dirt rise up from the ground as she drives away, leaving a trail in her wake. The sky is streaked with red and gold as the sun slips beneath the horizon. Across from me, Luke lifts his arms above his head to stretch, freshly shaven and hair still damp, in jeans and a clean button down shirt. 

“Going somewhere?” I ask.

He bends over and shuffles his feet into a pair of shoes. “A few of us were gonna meet up by the lake, if that’s alright.”

I chuckle. “You don’t need my permission.”

He has his daddy’s face, strong and handsome, with eyes as blue as a cloudless sky. When he left for college last year he was still a boy, all arms and legs, not a lick of muscle on his bones. He’s since filled out–stronger it seems–the buttons of his shirt straining against his size. As he ties the laces of his shoes I wonder where the time went. It seems like only yesterday I was braced on all fours in the backseat of our old Volvo with my husband crouched behind me with his hands between my legs, begging me not to push. But Luke had other plans. When the sound of his first shrieks and squeals filled our ears we laughed and cried with relief. 

“Keys are in the car,” I tell him as he bends down and kisses my cheek. I watch him go, leaving a new billowing trail of dirt, until he turns onto the main road and the sound of the engine fades out to the call of the cicadas hiding in the tall grass. 

***

It’s well past nine by the time I finish straightening up the kitchen, drying the dishes, and putting them in their rightful place. This simple nightly routine has given me structure while Luke has been away. Instead of fussing over homework and report cards and endless piles of laundry, I clean my tiny kitchen, make a cup of tea, and sit out on my patio to gaze up at the stars. 

As I dunk a sachet of dried herbs into a mug of steaming water, I look out the window above the sink. The field is full of crickets chirping their nocturnal hymns and the treeline at the edge of the lawn is aglow with fireflies. A quiet calm settles beneath my ribs. With Luke back home, it’s as if I’ve found a missing puzzle piece and finally put it back into place.

Turning towards the front entrance, I notice his bedroom door ajar. He’s home less than twenty-four hours and there are already clothes littering the floor. I sigh, placing the mug back onto the counter and make my way towards the mess. With the laundry basket resting on my hip, I sniff a few shirts and socks for sorting purposes, though most of it ends up in the hamper to be washed. The moon casts its beams across the room and as I turn to leave, I notice a glint of something silver flash beneath the floorboards. 

Setting the basket on the bed, I bend down closer to peer between the cracks but it’s too dark to make anything out in the shadows. There’s a hollowed out knot that I can fit my pinky finger through and I effortlessly lift the wooden slat. Nestled between clumps of dust and cobwebs sits a mason jar with a tin top. Reaching down, it rests perfectly in my hand as I raise it to the moonlight. 

At first, I’m unsure of what I see. Small, cream, pebble-sized stones sit at the bottom, all slightly different in shape, color, and size. I bring the glass closer to my face and note the slightly pointed tips. My chest seizes and my fingers recoil as if the jar was a hot coal. It falls to the floor with a thud and a crack. The glass shatters and the tiny little bones click together as they spill out into a pile on the floor. 

Teeth. 

I’m not sure how long I stand there–a few minutes or a few hours–my heartbeat rattling against my chest, staring down at the impossible. My fingers are clamped so tight against my lips I can taste blood. None of my thoughts make any sense and I scramble to find sanity in a mind storm of chaos. There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation, I’m sure of it. My eyes must be playing tricks on me. I should call the police. Bill–I should call Bill. But one thought drowns out all the others. 

Put them back. 

Picking up the broken pieces of glass, my feet move of their own volition. From a lower cabinet beneath the sink, I retrieve an old brown paper lunch bag and carefully place the glass inside before shoving it to the bottom of the trash bin. On the other side of the kitchen, I frantically search the middle shelf of the pantry through a varied collection of washed out jars. I find one identical in shape and size with the same glass etchings on the sides. 

When I return to the room, part of me expects to find nothing, that it was all a figment of my imagination, but the teeth are right where I left them on the floor. With trembling hands, I bend down and slowly pick up each tooth, placing them in the new jar. My stomach churns as I count twelve teeth. Six victims. Breathing has become difficult but I twist on the metal lid and return the jar, covering it with the floorboard.

I don’t remember leaving the room or scrubbing my hands raw with a new bar of soap. I don’t remember plucking my hidden carton of cigarettes from behind old packets of Nicorette gum at the back of the liquor cabinet. I don’t remember pouring myself four fingers of whiskey or retrieving my husband’s old glass ashtray from the wet bar in the living room. I’m on my second or third cigarette before I even realize I’m sitting outside, smoking one after another, hands shaking so badly I can barely hold it still enough to flick open the top of my old metal lighter to set the end aglow. 

Moments and images surface in my mind—Luke’s second birthday party covered in chocolate cake. The week he stayed home from school, his body marked with chickenpox. His first girlfriend in middle school. His first heartbreak in high school. Sifting through memories, I search for signs of him changing into something I can’t recognize, something dark. But his freckled nose and crooked smile stains the insides of my eyelids and muddles the truth. 

I lose track of time as I sit and stare out at nothing. The stars begin to fade as dawn settles in. I reach for another cigarette. Flick, light, inhale, exhale. There’s a low rumble of an engine getting closer and closer until two headlights appear from around the bend in the distance. The car slows as it approaches the house and parks in its usual spot. 

“I thought you quit.” Luke says as his features come into view from the porch light that hangs at the edge of the roof. I take a long pull off the cigarette and wonder if he can see my heartbeat creating pulsating ripples in my nightgown. 

“I did,” I reply and flick off the ash with my thumb. “Old habits die hard, I guess.”

His eyebrows furrow but he smiles. “Those things will kill you, you know.” 

It’s all I can do to keep from screaming. 

“Did you have a good time?” I ask, trying to keep my voice light and steady.

He nods as he walks by and pauses, placing a hand on my forearm. “I missed this.”

My jaw is clenched so tight I’m certain I’ll crack the crown on my back molar. I swallow the bile that builds in my throat. The screen door groans and he steps inside. “Goodnight, Mama.”

I twist suddenly in my seat to face the house. “Luke?”

He reappears from the shadows, his face latticed through the screen. “Yeah?”

Handsome, just like his daddy. The back of my eyes burn and I force a smile. “I love you.” I say.

He smiles and then leaves. I stare at the screen-door well after he’s gone, holding my breath. Through the walls I hear a wooden board creak as he lifts it from the floor. I hear the muffled sound of the metal lid grinding against the glass jar followed by two soft clinks as he drops two new teeth into his collection. Slowly, I turn my trembling body forward as tears trail down my cheeks. Gazing out at the field, lit up with the first rays of sunlight, I pull out the last cigarette and place it between my lips. Flick. Light. Inhale. Exhale.