Curses and Other Buried Things, page 27
My nostrils prickling with the earthy musk of tannin, I comb my fingertips through the water. It’ll take me like it took Mama. I’ll wade into the depths, my eyes glittering madness, and end up as pale hands tangled in lilies. Someone will find my pieces or clothes and pencil my name into the ledger of firstborn daughters lost to the curse.
“Leave me alone,” I tell my intrusive thoughts.
They continue to whisper, reminding me cursed people curse other people and I’ll leave hexes in my wake. I spiral into the ideas as the sun climbs higher. I am the reflection of the women before me. I was doomed from the moment I took my first breath.
My story has already been written, so I give in and let go.
Nanny and Papa call for me when I enter the house. They eat breakfast in the kitchen. Papa hunches over a bowl of cereal with a Band-Aid decorating his sun-spotted hand. He motions for me to sit next to him, but I grab my keys from the table and leave.
This is what cursed Prather girls do.
I go to Godwin’s house and find him in the barn feeding horses and hauling around tack. He notices me and drops a hay bale, grinning so big his face is all stars and dimples.
My heart beats in the tips of my toes.
“So much for space, huh?” Godwin looks at me, into me, as if every moment is last night, or it could be if we continue to stare like this.
“You don’t have to come any closer.” I lean against a stall door.
Godwin pets a horse’s velveteen nose, then moves toward me. His expression is lightning in my bloodstream. “Yeah, no, that ain’t gonna work.”
He rests his forearm above my head, the barn shrinking to the walls of his chest and shoulders. I brush my lips against his mouth, and we stay like this, not quite kissing, breathing each other’s air. I could slice the tension with Nanny’s cake knife.
Godwin runs his calloused hands along the sides of my neck and through my hair. “I want you too,” he whispers into the space between our skin.
Words so simple they sound like poetry.
I pull him closer, fitting with his grooves. He sweeps me up into his arms and presses me against the stall door. We kiss, and I’m a wildfire, but I always have been, and if I’m destined to burn, I want to go out like this, as flames, not embers.
Nuzzling my neck, Godwin fixes me to his frame. I could pick his hands out of a lineup. I fade into the feeling of them, quiet my thoughts in the darkness behind my eyelids.
The person I’ve become feels like a stranger in my own body. She goes against the grain of what I know, yet I don’t stop her from taking over.
Maybe I never knew myself to begin with.
Godwin smiles against my neck. “We should’ve done this ages ago.”
If someone asked me about him, I don’t think I’d be able to talk without glowing. I kiss him across the barn and into a hay bale.
We spend the next few days slowing time with each other. I play hooky from school. Godwin and I row his boat into the Okefenokee, intending to fish but kissing instead. We take his truck to the Berryville Drive-In and get stuck on back roads.
A week into our relationship, I develop insomnia. I use the barricades at night as a precaution. Not sleeping is somehow more frightening than sleepwalking.
The insomnia is a telltale sign of what’s coming. I distract myself with Godwin.
He must sense my oblivion because he also behaves as if he’s on fire. We act young and reckless and move too fast. I can’t stop myself.
Nanny corners me one evening and says I look ill. She asks if there’s anything I want to tell her. I ask her the same. After a lengthy deadlock, we part ways.
I sneak out my window and go to Godwin’s house.
He thinks we’re in love. He says as much while boiling water for ramen and recounting our relationship timeline. I do love him, but I also think our romance helps me reclaim control of my life. Being here, doing what we do, feels like rebellion.
I insist we get stuck on more back roads and pay to not watch movies at the drive-in. I slip away to his house night after night. Eventually I stop going home except to swap clothes, and I do that when Nanny and Papa aren’t around.
I have nothing to lose.
Godwin and I take his tractor for a slow drive across his land. He must hear my stomach growl because he drapes his arm over my shoulders and offers me a pack of crackers. That’s what I love about him. Even in silence, I never go unheard.
He asks me to make peace with my grandparents.
I tell him I already know what they’ll say.
My whole life, people have spoken of love as though it’s finite. I grew up thinking I needed to ration myself because if I handed my heart to another person, I’d never get it back.
Nowadays I don’t think love is so limited. I don’t believe I should regret giving a boy part of me I wanted him to have. Even if I love and lose, I still loved.
That’s a piece of me I’ll always keep.
Maybe I’m delusional and impulsive, and this is proof of the curse inside me. I don’t care anymore. Nanny and Papa can believe whatever they want. I’m on this train barreling toward a cliff. I can’t jump off, but I decide how I spend my final moments. If I can’t sleep or leave town, I’ll stay with Godwin, and we’ll make out in truck beds and pretend we’re free.
Sunday morning, I go home to swap clothes. The carport is empty, so I assume my grandparents are at church. But when I step into the living room, I’m confronted with solemn expressions and crossed arms and eyes that call me a failure.
I’ve waltzed into an intervention.
Nanny and Papa regard me with disappointment. I could’ve broken the pattern if I’d resisted more, if I’d stayed away from Godwin, if I’d had less of Mama in my blood. When I quit trying to choose different, I became a lost cause.
At least, that’s what their faces tell me.
“Principal Chancey said you’ve been skipping school.” Nanny’s voice is firm. Her stare roams my body, avoiding my gaze. “Why’re you doing this, Susana? What’d we do wrong?”
I don’t say a word.
“Running around with that boy . . . it isn’t like you.” Nanny sniffles and dries her eyes. “I don’t understand. We raised you right. You know better.”
“This isn’t about either of you.”
“What, then?” Papa asks. His expression breaks my heart.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Tough luck, we’re talking,” Papa snaps, which is so out of character for him, I flinch. “Look, I get you’re mad, but try to understand where we’re coming from.”
You’re just like her, aren’t you?
I stumble back a step as Keziah’s voice rings through my head. Nanny and Papa act concerned, but they’re liars. They won’t tell me the truth.
You’ll curse everyone in this town.
“Stop!” I scream at the voice. I hurry to my bedroom, leaving my grandparents wide-eyed, and collapse on the mattress. I can’t sleep, but I don’t feel awake. The world is spinning, and the quilts below me reek of the swamp and everything I cannot escape.
Chapter 35
Susana Prather
November, Present Day
Lightning veins the sky, and dust plumes around my car.
I don’t bother to crank up the windows. Instead, I slam the accelerator and veer into Godwin’s driveway. I desert my vehicle next to his truck and climb onto the porch.
As wind chimes sing for the storm, I rush inside.
The door claps shut, and everything goes silent.
“Godwin, you home?” I cross the foyer and rove down a hallway. The house smells different, stale, not of fresh paint and laundry detergent.
Floorboards creak to my right.
Godwin appears in the kitchen’s entry, wearing jeans and a wrinkly button-up. He flushes at the sight of me. “Hey, I thought you had to run errands.”
“Nanny and Papa were at the house—” I step toward him, and he steps back. Something about his expression deflates the air from my lungs. “What’s going on?”
“The rehab people called about Dad.” Godwin reverses into the kitchen, fidgeting with his bracelets. “They, um, said he chugged a whole thing of mouthwash.”
A knot tightening my stomach, I scan the kitchen. Liquor bottles line the counter. The air carries a sweet aroma reminiscent of black licorice.
“I was cleaning out the pantry.” Godwin wags his finger at the cupboard and stack of dry goods on the floor. “I dropped a bottle of whiskey, and it shattered.”
Sweat glistens on his brow.
“The nurse said Dad needs to stay at the center. I knew that was a possibility—heck, I expected it—but hearing it made the whole thing real, you know? Dad isn’t coming back,” Godwin sputters. His eyes are glossy and bloodshot. “Whatever. I figured I’d be stuck with this place for a while. It just feels set in stone now, like I don’t have a choice.”
I can’t believe I need to ask. “Have you been drinking?”
“Noofcoursenot.” Godwin’s response slurs into a single word. He drops his gaze, and suddenly it’s the night we got together. I’m at the party. Stokes kisses me before I kiss Godwin. Then, it’s a year before that. I’m at the bar, yelling at Godwin while he drunkenly yells at me.
My knees weaken at the memories.
“You told me you’d stopped drinking, that you didn’t want to end up like your daddy.” I remember the beer bottles in his truck bed. “How long has this been going on?”
“It’s not what you think.” Godwin stumbles to the table.
“Are you drunk?” I grasp a fistful of his shirt and yank him closer. His breath reeks of alcohol, so pungent it could remove paint. “You lied to me!”
He pries my fingers from his clothes. “Stop looking at me like that.”
I turn on my heels, aching with so many different pains, I can’t tell one from the other.
“Susana, I messed up.” Godwin chases me into the living room. “I didn’t plan for this to happen. A month or so ago, I was struggling, and I saw the bottles. People drink all the time, and they’re fine. I’m not an alcoholic. I’ll stop. I can stop.”
He folds into me, becoming small like a child, as if my arms might protect him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I can’t break my curse, neither can he break his. We’re both morphing into our parents, or maybe we already have.
“Because I didn’t want you to think I’m out of control. I don’t usually overserve myself, but I was upset, you know? The stuff with Dad is a lot to handle.”
His secrecy nauseates me.
Unwrapping him from my body, I storm to the kitchen and snatch bottles from the counter. One by one, I pour their contents down the sink.
I dump the empty containers into a trash can, then brace my weight against the table.
Godwin clutches his mouth and slides down the doorframe. “I’m not my dad,” he gasps. Tears stream his splotchy cheeks, dripping onto the floorboards between his boots.
He wanted space, but I kissed him anyway. I’ve used our relationship as ammunition against my lack of control. Would I have driven to his house that night if Stokes hadn’t kissed me? Would I have done any of this if I wasn’t cursed?
I tug my neckline, but I can’t ease the pressure under my sternum.
Nanny warned me, but I climbed over the rails of her advice and jumped. This is the pattern, the unbreakable pattern. I am Mama, and Godwin is Gus.
Sick bubbles up my throat and burns my mouth.
I fooled around with Godwin. I’m not sure if what we did was wrong. All I know is I’m like her, the comprehensive her, centuries of secrets buried and shushed. Even if choices weren’t mistakes, if they were treated like shame, then shame they became.
Thunder rattles the house, rippling old coffee in a cowboy mug.
Godwin rises from his crouch. “Susana, look at me, please. Are you ignoring me now?” When I don’t respond, he swears and kicks a chair, splintering wood. “I shouldn’t have moved back here. I should’ve let this house rot.”
Something inside me snaps.
“Go on, then. We both know you’ll skip town eventually. Here, I’ll help you pack.” I march to the living room and grab books, his Carhartt jacket, the photo of him and his daddy.
“Hey, stop that.” Godwin scoops his belongings from my hands and drops them onto the sofa. He grips my shoulders, holding me still.
“You won’t stay in Kettle Creek, and I won’t leave!” My voice breaks, melting into sobs. “We both know how this will end.”
“How can you say that?” Godwin follows me to the foyer and bumps into a side table.
Trembling, I shove open the screen door and stagger onto the porch. Drizzle paints dots on the front steps. Gales bend trees and swing wind chimes.
“I mess things up. I’m sorry.” Godwin hurries outside, wiping snot from his nose. “I left town because I didn’t want to end up like Dad, and look at what happened.”
My skin numbs until I no longer feel the breeze or the skirt billowing around my legs.
“I didn’t want to drop out of college.” Godwin hunches over and hugs his stomach. He cries harder, and I sense these tears aren’t shed for me. He’s mourning the loss of his dreams. He’s angry at his parents and life, maybe even himself. “I hurt Betty, and I hurt you. I’m sorry.”
I go to my car and slide behind the steering wheel. Godwin begs me to stay. He jiggles the door handle, apologizes over and over, but I key the ignition and reverse from the driveway.
Godwin sprints to his house, and I speed home.
This is my fault. We cursed ones rub off on everything and everyone.
I burst inside and Papa lurches from his recliner. He’s been cracking pecans in the living room as rain pelts the roof and Magnum, P.I. plays on the TV.
I slam the front door, panting at the sight of Godwin’s truck pursuing me down the drive.
Papa abandons his nutcracker and watches me tear off my wet cardigan.
“Susana!” Godwin’s voice.
Papa moves to the door and peers through its screen. His eyes ask if he needs to get his gun.
I touch his arm to assure him I’m okay. After a couple of minutes, I relent to Godwin’s yelling and step onto the porch. “Go home, Godwin!”
He waits in the yard, drenched head to toe. “I’m not leaving.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re worth the dang front porch!” Godwin shrugs and gazes at me with soft eyes. “Look, I want to be wherever you are. I don’t think I had a home until I entered your house. I didn’t have a reason to stay until you.”
My heart in pieces, I enter the cloudburst and slosh across the lawn. I halt at arm’s length, heaving as pain and rain soak every bit of me. “I can’t love you and watch you leave. I am too in love with you to lose you and be okay. I won’t be okay. I won’t.”
Godwin shields his eyes from the torrent. Water drips from his nose, rolls off his bottom lip, and plasters clothes to his body. “Then I won’t go anywhere.”
“But you will. You’ll get bored of this town and me and decide to move on—”
“Aren’t you listening?” Godwin cups my face as a deluge of rain washes the landscape misty blue. He combs his fingers through my hair, resting his forehead against mine.
“You left Betty. She loved you, and you left her. I’ll be another Betty.”
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing.”
“This isn’t working.” I sink away from him.
“We’re not breaking up.”
“Please go before we make this any worse.”
He lowers to the mud and sits with his legs crossed. “I am not leaving you.”
“That night I showed up at your house, I was upset. I’d gone to a party, and Stokes had kissed me. He was drunk. He didn’t mean anything by it. But I lost my head.”
“What’re you saying?”
“Don’t get me wrong. I wanted to kiss you. How we started, though—I should’ve acted differently. We went too fast.”
Godwin scrambles from the earth. “You said you wanted me,” he says, clenching his jaw. Still, the muscles around his mouth twitch. “I thought you’d made up your mind.”
“I do want you.”
“But you think being with me was a mistake.” He steps forward, jabbing his thumb against his chest. “I’m a mistake.”
“You said we bring out the worst in each other.” I motion to our soaked, distressed bodies and the pouring rain. “Look at us, Godwin.”
He shakes his head. “Is this about the booze in my house?”
“It’s about us becoming our parents.” I tense once the words leave my mouth. They’re cruel, but I feel cruel; my pain is cruel.
Godwin huffs as if I punched him.
“We aren’t right for each other.” I’m not sure I believe it, but I don’t feel right, I haven’t done right.
“Please don’t push me away, not again.”
“Go home, Godwin.” I drift toward the farmhouse with hot tears streaming my cheeks.
“Better you leave than me, right?” Godwin treads at my heels and grabs my arm. “I don’t understand, Susana. What’s happening?”
“I’m not myself anymore,” I sob. “Everything I did . . . I wasn’t myself.”
Standing behind me, he loops his arms around my waist and rests his chin in the crease of my neck. “I’ve made mistakes, but you’re not one of them. You hear me?”
“The curse didn’t break. I’m losing my mind, Godwin.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you notice? I can’t sleep. That’s why I haven’t needed the barricades.”
A look of realization washes across his face. He creates distance between us, the desperation in his eyes replaced with anger. “You know why our relationship goes around in circles, Susana? Because you can’t get past your darn fear. It has such a hold on you.”
“The curse is real.”
“I’m not saying it isn’t. I just think you give it too much power. You decide the life you want, not your mama or anything else.”
“Yeah, well, my sleepwalking disagrees.” I hug my chest, shivering as water continues to pound my scalp and shoulders.
