Chapter One
Ripley
Twenty years earlier
“I ain’t goin’ nowhere with you.” My father shouted the slurred words at the officer who walked into the Fishbowl only hours after Mama’s body had been taken away.
I sat huddled in a corner, a pink wood-and-plastic guitar clutched in my arms. I didn’t play it because Mama told me not to when Pop was around. It made him mad.
But he was already mad, and Mama was gone.
A few hours ago, I needed to pee. I wasn’t supposed to be down in the bar while people were there unless Pop had me doing chores, but the bathroom upstairs wasn’t working right. I tiptoed down the stairs, hoping he wouldn’t catch me before I slipped into one of the stalls behind the door marked Cowgirls and Mermaids.
Except I never made it to one of the stalls. The dingy gray tile floor that I was in charge of mopping was stained dark red with a puddle around Mama.
“Mama?” I whispered, even though I knew she wouldn’t answer. She was so quiet, so still.
A man lay facedown beside her in another dark puddle—the man who gave me the guitar—and he didn’t move either.
I didn’t know where the hysterical screaming was coming from until Pearl, one of the bar regulars I liked to pretend was my gran, burst into the bathroom, nearly plowing me over.
“Oh, sweet Jesus. Rip, get out of here. You shouldn’t see this.” She gagged before shoving me out the door.
But I’d already seen it, and I might have been only nine but I wasn’t an idiot.
Mama was dead.
The man was dead.
And now the police thought Pop had something to do with it.
The bar cleared out as soon as word got around why there was a kid screaming in the bathroom, or maybe it was the way I’d run out yelling, “Mama’s dead!” Either way, all the people pushed each other to get out of the bar, even as Pop hollered that they hadn’t paid their tabs.
Now Pop’s face was red as he argued with the policeman.
“You don’t have a choice, Mr. Fischer. We’re taking you in for questioning. Don’t worry, your sister-in-law will stay with your daughter.”
Like an afterthought, Pop glanced over at me in the corner, as if just remembering I existed. Aunt Laurelyn stood a dozen feet away with my cousin, Brandy, wrapped around her waist. She was only six, but she was as mean as any eleven-year-old I’d ever met. I didn’t have any Barbies left because of her. She’d popped their heads off, or cut their hair and drawn on them with markers. When I complained to Mama, she’d told me I had to share because Brandy didn’t have it as good as I did.
Her clothes were my worn-out hand-me-downs and her Keds were gray instead of the original white, so I guessed Mama was right. I still thought she was mean, though.
“Go on, Frank. I’ll stay with the girls. I’ll take them to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal while the police . . . do what they need to do here.” Aunt Laurelyn choked on the last few words.
“Don’t care where you go, but make sure that bathroom gets cleaned up before I get back.”
My stomach twisted at the thought of mopping up those puddles of blood.
“Nine isn’t too young to learn what hard work is. It’ll be good for her.” That’s what Pop told Mama when she said I shouldn’t be cleaning the bar, only the apartment upstairs. Just like every other time, Pop won, and while I pushed the mop over pee and puke, I’d wondered why adults were so gross. Even grosser than kids.
I didn’t dare complain, though, because Pop’s temper scared me, especially when his words were slurring like they were now. That meant I’d end up getting smacked.
“Let’s go, Mr. Fischer. The faster you leave, the faster we get this taken care of,” the police officer with the freshly starched uniform said.
“Right, like I really believe that.”
But instead of arguing more, Pop actually went with them. I didn’t understand why they were taking him, but I guessed they had to have a reason or they wouldn’t do it.
When the door closed behind them, leaving me, Aunt Laurelyn, and Brandy alone, my aunt walked behind the bar, grabbed a bottle from the shelf, and poured herself a big glass. From the color, I assumed it was whiskey, because that’s what Mama liked to drink.
Mama’s dead.
My chest clenched and tears landed on my guitar.
Who could do that to her? Pop made her lip and nose bleed the week before last, but he couldn’t . . . wouldn’t . . . Right?
Aunt Laurelyn downed the glass of liquor before pouring some more. When she lifted it to her lips the second time, she paused.
“She shoulda known better.” She whispered the words as tears welled in her eyes.
“What?”
Aunt Laurelyn drained the glass and lowered it to the bar.
“She shoulda known better than to get mixed up with Gil. I warned her.” Aunt Laurelyn huffed out a harsh sound. “I knew messin’ around with that man wasn’t gonna get her anywhere good. And see what it got her?” Tears spilled down her cheeks.
For the first time since I came out of the bathroom screaming, Esteban, my mama’s parrot, piped up.
“Dirty whore. Dirty whore.”
Aunt Laurelyn sagged against the bar. “The whole world’s gonna say worse, so I guess we better prepare for it. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Two hours later, we came back from McDonald’s and I stared at the bathroom door. The police were gone, and Mama was too.
Aunt Laurelyn took the bottle of whiskey and disappeared upstairs. I swallowed back the bile as I remembered what Pop had said about making sure the mess was cleaned up. Aunt Laurelyn sure wasn’t gonna do it.
When I closed my eyes and saw Mama in that pool of blood, my Happy Meal twisted in my stomach, threatening to land on the floor.
They can’t make me do it. I won’t.
But when Pop came back a few hours later and found it wasn’t done, he started yelling. Aunt Laurelyn didn’t wake up, and Brandy hid.
My tears landed like raindrops as I dunked the mop in the water, turning it red.
Good-bye, Mama.
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