Free The Grave of God's Daughter by Brett Ellen Block Page B

then closed the door on me.
    The woman who answered at my next stop was holding a toddler on her hip and smoking a cigarette.
    “Delivery from the butcher,” I said in as low a voice as I could muster.
    “Thanks,” she answered blandly, then she disappeared back into the house as the door lazily swung shut behind her.
    It didn’t cross my mind that these women were cold or unfriendly. That was what I was accustomed to. The fact that one had actually thanked me was more than I had counted on.
    The next delivery was labeled with an address on River Road, but no name. When I got to the house, I recognized it instantly. Unlike all of the other well-tended homes along the river, this one had fallen into disrepair. The tall brick home rose three floors high and loomed over the street like a crumbling monument. Years of neglect had transformed the house into an ominous, hulking wreck.
    The bricks had cracked as the house settled and the posts on the sprawling front porch had begun to bow. Too many harsh winters had forced loose most of the shutters. The roof sagged, as if the sky itself was pressing on it, making the house look as if it might topple with the slightest breeze.
    The front steps felt spongy underfoot, liable to give way at any moment. There was no doorbell here, only a massive knocker that hung in the center of the door. It was nearly too high for me to reach. When I finally managed to get hold of the heavy, brass ring and knock it against the door, the sound reverberated in a low bellow. I waited for a few minutes with no response and was about to knock again when the lock turned. The door crept open to reveal an old woman, her thick, white hair disheveled, her eyes nervous.
    The air that drifted out from inside the house was stale. The lights were off and all of the window shades were drawn. The rooms were brimming with clutter that overflowed into the hallway, where uneven piles of books and newspapers rose as high as the woman’s hips.
    “Delivery,” I said hesitantly, more a question than a statement. “From the butcher’s shop,” I added, but the woman wouldn’t respond.
    She had two sweaters layered over a housedress, as if she were armored for a blizzard, yet the weather was mild that day. Thewoman didn’t look up or make eye contact with me, but I could see her blinking rapidly, as if she were working up the courage for something. Then she held out her hand for me to give her the package. Her fingers did not extend beyond the door frame, not even the very tips of her nails, which forced me to reach in to her. Just as I laid the parcel in her palm, the woman jerked her hand back into the house. It was a sudden movement, a motion she hadn’t appeared capable of.
    The woman stood in the doorway for an instant longer and gave a single, short nod in thanks. It was as though she couldn’t thank me out loud, that those words, any words, were petrifying to utter. She shut the door and rebolted the lock, as though she was trying to keep any more of the outside world from seeping in. I lingered there on her porch for a minute trying to place her. I scrolled back through my memory of faces that I’d seen in town or at church, but I was convinced that I had never seen this woman, not ever.
     
    T HE SUN WAS BEGINNING TO FALL and the breeze coming off the river was laced with a wet chill. It would be dark in an hour, if not less, and still I had one delivery left to make—Mr. Beresik. Him I knew, but only by name. He lived on the opposite end of Hyde Bend, beyond the salt plant on a lonely dirt road that didn’t have a name. For years, he had made a living fixing people’s farm equipment. However, when the steel mill and the salt plant went up, people stopped farming the nearby fields and Mr. Beresik wasput out of his job. Few people in Hyde Bend had cars. There was almost no purpose for them. Most men worked only blocks from their homes. So in Hyde Bend, owning a car was considered an extravagant luxury,