Hearts of Sand(93)

“It wasn’t the kind of thing you did in those days,” Virginia said. “And he was drunk, yes, but he wasn’t sloppy, falling-down drunk. It was a very odd night. Tense. One of those times when there’s obviously going to be a fight somewhere but you’re not sure about what yet and you’re not sure who’s going to be in it.”

“He must have been upset because of those two people dying,” Evaline said. “I’ve never been able to get my head around that, you know. That he was partially responsible for the murders of two people who hadn’t done anything but be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I blame Chapin for that. I know he wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been in him. I know it had to be partially his fault. But that’s the way things are, isn’t it? You have the potential to do harm, but if you’re never put into the right circumstance, you don’t do it.”

“Marty’s been dead a long time,” Virginia said.

“Would it be wrong to say I want Marty back?”

“It wouldn’t be wrong to say it, but I don’t see where it would do much good,” Virginia said. “Chapin’s dead, too, now. I’m sure that the families of the people they killed still find it impossible to accept, and they should. But it’s over, Evaline. It was over the moment Chapin hit the floor.”

Evaline shook her head. “I spent all night thinking about it. It can’t be over. If it was, Kyle wouldn’t be dead.”

“It depends on why Kyle is dead,” Virginia said.

Evaline looked away. She had had a reason for coming to see Virginia. She had had something she wanted to say, or something she wanted to learn. Now she couldn’t remember what it was she had wanted, and she could feel Virginia looking at her with both puzzlement and interest. It wasn’t a good feeling.

“I need to go somewhere and behave like the mayor,” she said. “Maybe I should set a good example and pick up trash.”

“Evaline, is there something going on here? Is there something I should know about? Because you’re behaving—”

“I’m behaving like myself,” Evaline said. “I was like this after Marty died, only I was worse. I’m a little upset, that’s all.”

“I’m a little upset,” Virginia said. “I was married to him.”

“Yes,” Evaline said. There was a piece of trash on the ground right in front of her. Somebody had dropped a wrapper from a Fudgsicle and just let it lie. Evaline picked it up and folded it in her hands. “I just don’t think it’s over,” she said finally. “I don’t think it will ever be over. I think it will be part of all of us always. If it isn’t, then it would be as if it had never happened at all. It would be as if Marty had never been alive at all.”

2

At first, Hope Matlock wasn’t entirely sure of what she was doing. She had walked a long way this morning to get to where the people were. She had started out from her own house at just after six. Then she had walked and walked through streets that were already cleared for the parade and other streets that were empty of everything but parked cars. Her feet hurt before she’d gone three full blocks. The rest of her hurt soon after, and still hurt. She was so heavy these days that she found it hard to move under the best of circumstances. Having to stop and go and turn and twist every few seconds made her feel as if she’d been run over by a truck.

She walked all the way out to Beach Drive. She felt winded the way she had when she was a child and fell off the low slides at Waldham Park.

“Got the breath knocked out of you,” her mother used to say, making it sound like something so vilely stupid that no decent person would admit to it.

After a while, she had hated those slides so much, she refused to go on them.

“That’s why you’re always too fat,” her mother had said. “And you’re going to be as fat as a pig when you get older. You don’t take any exercise. Decent people take exercise.”

But it wasn’t true she had been fat then. She had been a little chunky. She couldn’t help that. That was her genes. Her mother was a little chunky, too, and her father was downright squat.

The day was hot. Hope found a place on the parade route where there was a bench she could sit on. She thought she should have brought a folding chair, but she was pretty sure she would not have been able to carry it all that distance. She sat down and folded her hands in her lap and looked into the empty road.

When she was younger, she used to come down here with Chapin and Virginia and Marty and Tim and Kyle. They would use Chapin’s house, or Tim and Virginia’s, and sit at the end of the driveway to watch the parade come by. The smaller children would stay on the lawn and come to the edge of the driveway only when there was something to see. You always had to worry about them darting out into traffic. On the last Fourth of July before everything fell apart …