* * *
Around the same time the quartet of friends (quintet, if you included Huey) were making their gruesome discovery in Michael O’Brien’s backyard, Hector Graham was stumbling up the three short steps to his back porch. He reached in his pocket for his keys before remembering that she never locked the door. Nothin to steal. ‘Cept maybe that piano. But who would want to steal that?
And speaking of the piano, she was still pounding away on the stupid thing. God, was she awful. She played with all the subtle grace of a lumberjack hacking down a tree. No wonder I suck, he thought. It runs in the family. She was attempting the Romeo and Juliet piece that Russell had performed so stunningly the day before. Of course, Hector hadn’t heard him play that particular song (he had been outside arguing with Pete at the time), but he remembered them discussing it at dinner. He recalled the accolades she had rained down upon him. Well, one accolade, really. What was it? "That was lovely"—or something like that. But there had been more to it than a simple offhand compliment. Hector wasn’t blind; he’d seen how her face had lit up.
Barging into the house, a wall of frigid air enveloped Hector’s sweaty body, sending shivers racing up his torso and down his arms. He reveled in the succor the cold provided his pounding head and aching body. Sometimes all it took to make a person feel human again was being indoors.
He went straight to the refrigerator and rummaged around for items he could throw together to make a late lunch. She always kept the ice box heavily stocked—that was one thing she did right—so he had no trouble finding the leftover brisket and mashed potatoes. There were a few Cokes left on the bottom shelf, so he helped himself to one while waiting for the microwave to work its magic.
In the other room, his mother continued to flub her way through the same slow, plodding theme. He had heard it outside, and now, apparently, he had to listen to it inside. It was torture. She was torturing him. It was bad enough that she sucked, but did she have to play the same goddamn song over and over again? Was she trying to make his headache worse?
"Hey, Ma! Ya mind laying off the piano for a while?"
The word "piano" came out sounding really redneck, almost rhyming with the name "Diana," but Hector was too distracted to correct himself. He knew how harshly his words rang in her ears, though he never intended them to sound that way. He braced for her retort. In the interim, he thought of a snappy comeback.
But she said nothing. Her answer came via the Steinway and Sons baby grand.
Black keys, white keys, sour grating intervals.
Noise.
Hector wolfed down his food, because the faster he ate, the sooner he’d be able to jump in the shower and away from the horrible clamor. Several times he had to restrain himself from commenting on his mother’s musical inabilities. He’d rile her up some other time, he decided. She could use a break. And when break time was over, he’d start the cycle all over again. First, he would instigate, and she would remain cool. Then, he would push her buttons a little harder, and she would teeter over the edge but not quite fall over it. Finally, he would push her over the brink, and she would fall silently, helplessly, into the void. Not since he was twelve, had she fought back the way she’d had last night. She’d said "fuck," Hector remembered, a smile creeping over his greasy face. She never cusses. And she’d screamed it, too. He relished this little nugget about Deborah Graham, stowed it in a secret cache he kept at the forefront of his mind.
In the room (the spare bedroom that Russell called the piano room), Debbie sat rigidly at the Steinway and struggled through the tune that had rolled so easily off of Russell’s long, gifted fingers the day before. He didn’t know this, but she had stood in the doorway while he’d played that beautiful song, staring at the back of his head, wondering what was inside of it that set him apart from the rest of humanity, from her. He was only a kid, a teenager, but so enormously talented—not just in music but in all facets of life. Had been born that way? Was he the result of good parenting? A rich upbringing? She often ruminated on stuff like that. For example, why did Russell never need the sheet music while she always did?
Because I’m not like him was the answer that bubbled up in her mind. True, she was no Rachmaninoff, but even by her standards she was playing lousily today. Maybe it was because of the three-inch-long gash in her left palm, the result of picking up a broken dinner plate her bastard son had knocked from her hands the night before. Maybe it was because she had been up all night wondering where the little ingrate had run off to.
She’d ignored him when he came inside, and she’d ignored him when he’d told her to lay off the pie-ann-uh. Where he had picked up that redneck accent, she could only guess. Because there is a difference—yes there is—between a Southern accent and a redneck accent.
The breeze Hector’s body made as it rushed past the piano room rustled the yellow sheets on the music stand. She pinned them against the mahogany with her left hand; her right continued with the melody. The paper crackled like tinder in a fire.
"Hector, come back here."
The music stopped, and Hector lugubriously slunk into the open doorframe. He waited for his mother to speak. What will it be this time? he thought. Another visit from Sheriff Price? I bet she called that fucker up last night. She probably gave him permission to lock me in the drunk tank, too.
Debbie eyed her son up and down like he was a slave on an auction block. Hector’s naked gut flopped grotesquely over the waistband of his dirt-stained shorts. His tits, which were almost bigger than hers, drooped on a slant, nipples close to, but not quite touching his belly. His short, dark hair glistened with sweat. And these were just the things she could see. For a brief moment, a revealing bullet of thought shot through her head. Who would buy this kid? Really, who would? If he were on an auction block, that is. Who would even bid on him?
"I love you," she said finally.
Hector sighed, his stomach heaving out and then in. "Love ya too, Ma." He said it softly, quickly, making it into one long word.
He started to turn, but Debbie stopped him. "Wait…I couldn’t find Lola this morning." She paused before proceeding cautiously. "What I mean is, I think the gate blew open."
It was a lie and she knew it. Russell had forgotten to close it when he left yesterday. Her son had punched Pete in the stomach, and then Russell had helped Pete to his car. No one could blame him for not making sure the gate was closed under those circumstances. If anything, it was her fault for not going out and latching it shut behind him.
Hector stared past her, past the window that never closes right, into the backyard. "She couldn’t’ve gone far. Lemme take a shower, then I’ll go out looking for her."
Except he wasn’t going to go out looking for her—not right away. The first thing he was going to do, after taking a shower, is scrape the remainder of whatever he had run over last night from the undercarriage of his Jeep. He hoped those skin flaps belonged to a deer—prayed for it, in fact—but he knew that they belonged to the dead dog on the Highway 71. But whose dog was it? That was the big question. Every dog has an owner—every dog that matters, anyway—and every owner sure as hell doesn’t want their precious pup ending up buzzard bait on some remote, country highway. With his luck, Hector decided, it would turn out to be the mayor’s pooch, and there would be a long, bloody tire track leading from the scene of the crime to his Jeep under the carport. I shoulda checked the tags, he thought. Shoulda checked the goddamn tags.
Hector turned to leave and Debbie gasped. She knocked over the bench rushing to him. When Hector pivoted to face her, she grabbed his shoulders and twisted his large body around with surprising strength. When she spoke, her voice shook.
"My God, Hector! What did you do to your back?!"