Free Maiden Rock by Mary Logue Page B

she knew, were for herself.
    ***
8:30 a.m.
    Arlene stood in the hallway and quietly pushed open the door to her son’s room. Jared mumbled and stirred but didn’t wake. His long dark hair haloed his head.
    In sleep her son looked like an angel. Always had. But she knew that the sleep he had finally dropped into was as deep as death. She had tried to wake him twice already this morning and he wouldn’t rouse. She leaned in closer to make sure he was still breathing.
    When Jared had brought Davy home two days ago, she could tell that he was strung out on that drug again. When she accused him, he didn’t say he wasn’t. But he promised—this time he really promised her—he would go straight.
    He didn’t sleep at all the first night he was back, watching TV and smoking cigarette after cigarette, picking at scabs on his hands. Then he crashed about four o’clock yesterday afternoon. That was twenty hours ago. Arlene hoped he would wake up sometime today. But what she really hoped was that he could stop taking that awful drug, that meth.
    But hope felt like sand, nothing you could grab onto. As her mom used to say,
wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one gets full first.
Arlene had fed Davy and set him down in front of the TV. Her heart broke to see how skinny that little boy was.
    What was the matter with her sister?
    The matter might be that she was dead.
    Jared had told Arlene about the fire, said he wasn’t sure what had happened to Letty. Then Amy had called. Odd that Jared’s former babysitter was now a deputy sheriff.
    Arlene had always liked Amy, thought she would do something with herself even as a kid. Amy had said how sorry she was about Letty’s trailer burning down. Then she asked her a bunch of questions, said it was too early to tell if there was a body in the trailer. The fire had burned hot and they were still sifting through the debris.
    Arlene didn’t mention that she already knew about the fire, that Jared had been there. No sense involving him in that mess. Arlene was glad she could tell Amy that they had Davy, and that he was fine.
    Arlene half wished her sister was dead. It would be a blessing to know Letty was finally released from this horrible life she had fallen into. Davy didn’t deserve to live like that. Arlene had tried to keep Davy the last time he had stayed with her, but Letty wouldn’t hear of it.
    This time, if Letty was still alive, Arlene would insist on keeping Davy, unless Letty cleaned up. Arlene was determined not to let the little boy go back to that hellish existence.
    A tinny blast of music came from a pile of clothes on the floor—Jared’s cell phone ringing. Arlene scrambled to find it before Jared woke up. There was only one person who would
    call him on that phone and she meant to put an end to it. She found the phone in the pocket of a pair of dirty jeans and ran out of the room with it.
    For a moment she thought of answering it, but she didn’t want to talk to that evil man. She had seen him once when he had stopped by the house. Jared hadn’t invited him in and she never learned who he was, but she knew what he was to Jared. His dealer. With a shrunken face and steely eyes, she thought he looked like Satan reincarnate. And Arlene didn’t really believe in the Devil.
    She turned the phone off and stood in the kitchen, looking out the back window. She checked on Davy, who was still sitting happily in front of the TV, swaddled in a bundle of blankets with a bowl of Cheerios. Carefully he would lift one round circle of cereal up and put it in his mouth.
    Arlene slipped away from him, then opened the back door and stepped outside. The air was raw, not quite freezing but threatening rain. She walked out back toward the pond. Soon the water would freeze over.
    Standing in the rushes by the edge of the pond, she threw that damn phone as far as she could into the murky water. Its entry made a satisfying plop and she watched it sink.
    Once back in the