Where All Light Tends to Go by David Joy Read Free Book Online Page B

She wore tight jeans that seemed fitted to her legs, leather beach sandals showing off lime-green-painted toenails. A loose-fitting tank top, pieced lace the color of coral, draped her torso. The neck was cut low and showed the tan of her chest, the slight shadows of collarbones. She stayed put there on the rug, didn’t come any further, like that little rectangle was an island or something and all that hardwood an ocean that neither of us could swim across to get to each other.
    “Where’s your dad?”
    “He’s gone.”
    Maggie held a look in her eyes that spoke volumes, but her mouth didn’t mutter a thing. There seemed to be words racing around inside of her, turning a tornado about her brain, but the wall she’d built, the wall I poured the footing for, wouldn’t let a damn bit of it out.
    “What you doing on The Creek, Mags?”
    “We have to talk.” Her blond curls were balled up on the back of her head and there was something in that hair that had it smelling like honeysuckle. I could smell it from where I sat, such smells having a tendency to carry further in a house that reeked of men.
    “What in the world do we have to talk about?”
    “There are just some things that I need to say to you, Jacob.”
    I scooted to the far side of the couch and cleared a spot for her. She looked down on that rug for a minute as if the moment her feet went any further she’d be leaving a place she could never get back to, but she braved it, came over, and sat beside me.
    “What is it, Maggie?”
    “I need a minute.”
    “I’m not worth more than a handful of texts for damn near two years, and you come over here saying you have something to say but ain’t ready to say it?” I’d always given it to her straight and I think that was one of the things she always liked about me. Growing up in a house where nearly everything was a lie, Maggie respected the fact that I never lied to her.
    “I just want my thoughts to be clear. I don’t want to say anything that I don’t mean. I think a lot of times in the past we’ve said things to each other without thinking them through, hurtful things, and I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to say anything without knowing for certain it’s what needs to be said. But part of it is that after last night, I just wanted to be sure you were all right.”
    “Well, I’m fine.”
    “Your hands aren’t.” Maggie glared at my knuckles, the place where skin was still rolled back and dried tough as calluses. The cuts were that yellowish brown of scabbed skin and had started crusting over. It stung a little bit, but I wouldn’t tell her.
    “My hands are fine.”
    “You didn’t have to do that. I can take care of myself, Jacob. It’s not like when we were kids.”
    “No, it’s sure not like when we were kids.”
    “It’s not like when we were together either.”
    “No, it’s not like when we were together.”
    “So long as you know that.” Maggie shuffled on the couch as if she were about to stand and leave.
    “You came all the way over here just to tell me that?”
    “That’s what I said, isn’t it? I just want you to know that I can take care of myself.”
    Her answer was direct and I sat there for a second unsure how to take it. “He had it coming, Mags. I mean I hate you were sitting there, and I wish you hadn’t have seen it, but he had it coming and has had it coming most of his life.”
    Maggie didn’t say anything for a long time. She sat there with her eyes fixed on my hands. I didn’t say anything either but watched commercials flick by on the muted television set. Finally, I turned and looked at her. Those silver eyes were set awfully hard on my hands, and I could see that all that strength I’d admired for so long was there, but fear was fencing all of that possibility deep inside.
    “He’ll forgive you, Mags. I reckon if there’s any sense in him at all, he’ll forgive you.”
    “It’s not me he’d have to forgive, asshole.” A wide smile