She arched an eyebrow. “A couple?”
“Okay, four years ago. ”
“So, you’re not close. If she died, would you go to her funeral?”
“Sure. ”
“You say that without thinking about it. Why?”
“She’s my sister. ”
Selma nodded, and Trout got it.
“Well, yeah, okay,” he said, “but she’s a nurse and a mother. She’s not a serial killer. ”
“Neither was Homer last time I saw him. He was a scared, lost young man who hadn’t gotten much of a break or a kind word from anyone. His mom gave him up when he was just born—and let me tell you, that leaves a mark—and he was in and out of foster care until he ran away. You ever do a story on foster care, Mr. Trout?”
Trout said nothing.
“Yeah, I bet you have. So, you know what kind of meat grinders they are. Half the foster parents are in it just for the paychecks and they don’t give a flying fuck about the kids. The other half are pedophiles who shouldn’t be around kids. You think Homer got to be the way he was because he had bad wiring?” She tapped her skull. “Fuck no. He was made to be what he was. The system screwed him every bit as much as those baby-raping sonsabitches they call foster parents. Don’t try to tell me different because then you’d be lying. ”
“No,” he said. “I know what those places are like. A lot of kids get torn up in there and that makes them victims of the predators and victims of the system. ”
“And it turns them into predators themselves,” observed Aunt Selma.
“Not all of them,” said Trout. “Not even most of them. ”
“Enough of them. Enough so that people became used to them being killers and when that happened it stopped being an aber … aber … what’s the word I’m thinking of?”
“Aberration?” Trout supplied.
“Yes. And then they say that since most people don’t turn bad then those that do have done so because of choice. ” She threw her cigarette into the cold dirt and ground it under her heel. Trout noticed that she wore bedroom slippers with little hummingbirds on them. A touch of innocence? Or a memory of innocence lost? Either way it made Trout feel sad for her. He wondered how much of her life was forced on her and how much was choice? And that made him wonder if a person who is forced into bad situations over and over again when they’re too weak or helpless to do anything about it will eventually make bad choices of their own simply because they’ve become habituated to them.
He’d have to talk to a psychologist about that. It would make a great motif to string through the whole story, be it a book or a screenplay.
“Are you saying that none of what Homer did was his fault?”
Selma did not answer that right away. She took out her Camels and lit another and puffed for a while, one arm wrapped around her ribs, the elbow of the other arm propped on it, wrist limp so that the hand fell backward like someone considering a piece of art in a gallery. Only this wasn’t an affectation, he was sure of that. She was really thinking about his question. Or, he thought a moment later, carefully constructing the content of her reply. On the roof of the barn one crow lifted its voice and sliced the air with a plaintive cry that was disturbingly like that of a child in pain.
“No,” she said at length, “that wouldn’t be the truth and we both know it. Homer may have been pushed in the wrong direction, but over time … yeah, I think he got a taste for it. ”
“And yet you wanted to have him buried here. ”
Selma nodded. “Yes. ”
“Why?” Trout asked.
“You asked that already. ”
“You never actually answered the question. ”
“He’s family. ”
“Okay, but it’s not like this is your ancestral home. You were born in Texas. Homer was born in Pittsburgh. Why here?”
“It’s the family place now. ”
“Is there more of the family around?”