Page 45 of The River We Remember

“Don’t listen to gossip,” Brody advised. He was relieved when his mother came into the dining room and announced, “Dinner’s ready. Call the children.”

AFTER THE MEAL ended and the dishes were done, Brody joined the women, who were going for a walk. They left Tom and Sean sitting in the shade on the front porch, talking crop prospects and complaining of the ever-rising cost of fertilizer and seed.

There was a long, grassy lane that ran past the outbuildings and between planted fields all the way to a creek that was spanned with a narrow wooden bridge built by Brody’s grandfather. As a kid, Brody had spent a lot of summer days on this lane. Because it was lined with all manner of wildflowers, the lane was always aflutter with a host of butterflies. When he was very young, Brody would simply chase them. But as he grew older, he became fascinated by them in many ways—the differences in the colors and patterns on their wings, their sizes, the flowers they were particularly fond of. He wanted to study them. So his mother had made him a butterfly catcher from an old pillowcase that she sewed around a hooped coat hanger and affixed with tape to a sawed-off broom handle. Brody caught his butterflies and put them in a jar with a little rubbing alcohol to asphyxiate them, then mounted them on white cardboard with a label under each telling its common name and its Latin name. He hung the cardboard posters on his bedroom walls. He recalled a day when he was bent to this work and had looked up to see his father standing in the bedroom doorway, watching him. Brody had smiled, hoping for some encouragement, or maybe that very rare word of praise. Instead, his father simply shook his head and said, “I don’t see the point.”

Garnet walked with Brody’s mother and Brody walked with Amy. They talked of the children and what summer held for them all. Eventually, Brody’s mother stopped and turned to him and said, “You look so tired.”

“Not sleeping particularly well these days, Mom.”

“This Jimmy Quinn business?”

She was only in her mid-fifties, but her face was deeply lined, the skin pulled taut at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her hair, which had always been a rich walnut color, was becoming dull gray.

“It’s terrible,” Amy said. “Such a tragedy.”

Brody’s mother said, “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, Em?” Garnet said.

“Me, I married a good man,” Brody’s mother replied. “He could be a hard man sometimes, but he was a good man. He never raised a hand to me. Brody, did your father ever once strike you?”

Yes, but not with his hand, Brody could have replied.

Instead, he said, “No.”

“I’m not sure the same could be said of Jimmy Quinn,” his mother said. “I knew both his wives and all his children, and I swear every one of them feared that man. I never saw any bruises, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t abuse them. He liked his drink, too, and I’ve never seen alcohol do anyone any good. So, I’m just saying that in some ways life’ll be hard going forward without him, but in others, I imagine, it will be a profound relief for those folks.”

“Maybe we’ll see more of Marta now,” Amy said.

Marta had married James Quinn on the eve of the Second World War, and because she was from Germany, folks in Black Earth County hadn’t been especially welcoming. As a result, Marta generally kept to herself on the farm, except for Sunday Mass at Saint Ignatius. Although the war was long over, her German accent could still raise hackles, and some people in the county insisted on referring to her as “Quinn’s frau.”

Garnet bent and picked a wild daisy. She studied the blossom. “Did Noah Bluestone kill him?”

“You, too?” Brody said.

“It’s what everybody’s saying.”

Brody spoke harshly. “I don’t know enough to say how it was that Jimmy died, and if I don’t and I’m closer to this thing than anyone, then I can’t understand how anybody else can be so ready to accuse somebody of murder.”

“I agree, Brody,” Amy said. “I heard that Bluestone’s still working for the Quinns, and if they’re not worried about him, why should the rest of us be? Right?”

Garnet put the daisy under her nose as if taking in a fragrance. “They weren’t in church this morning, but Father O’Gara read a nice note from Marta thanking us all for the food you and I took over yesterday, Brody, and asking us to pray for them in this difficult time.” She tossed the flower away. “I’ve always liked Marta. I never liked her husband one bit.”

Brody could hear the distant voices of the children still in the farmyard and, from somewhere down the lane, the call of a meadowlark. He wanted to be done with this conversation.

“Father O’Gara announced that the visitation and funeral are scheduled for Friday,” his mother said. “I expect it will be well attended.” She glanced toward the farmhouse. “We’d best be getting back.”

When they came to the house, Brody said, “I should be going. Lots to do.”

He kissed his mother and sister goodbye, then whistled and called for Hector, who came running.

Garnet said, “I’ll walk you to your car.”

At his cruiser, Garnet said quietly, “I thought about you last night, Brody, alone in my bed.”

“What do you want me to say to that, Garnet?”

“That maybe alone in your bed you think about me, too.”