My Better Life

“But it sure was the best way,” Granny mutters so only I can hear.

Tanner and Elijah look down at their hands folded in their laps, the picture of contrition. They heard Ms. Crum as well as I did. They know what expulsion means.

“You boys can’t keep getting in trouble at school.”

Tanner looks up quickly, his eyes flashing with youthful outrage. “We’re bored! We hate sitting in there doing nothing but nothing. How would you like it if somebody made you sit in a chair all day and do stupid worksheets that have no point?”

Elijah nods. “We want to build things. We want to have fun.”

“Rawr.” Shay wrinkles her nose to add to the point.

I shake my head. We’ve already had the “school is important for life” conversation about nine thousand times.

Granny revs the engine and glares at the kids. “Listen to your mother. You’ll do good at school, you’ll behave, and that’s that.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the boys chorus.

I give Gran a grateful smile. She winks at me, then pulls out of the school parking lot, the car vibrating so much it’s almost like a massage. The engine noise is so loud, it’s about all you can hear.

But still, I turn around and ask Tanner. “Why are you telling stories?”

He knows what I’m asking about. Why is he telling the other kids he has a new dad?

His jaw goes hard and he frowns. “You wouldn’t understand.”

As soon as Tanner turned nine, he had a whole slew of things he thought I wouldn’t understand. He’s more sensitive than Elijah, more volatile in his emotions. While Elijah remembers Bobby, Tanner doesn’t, and I think it eats at him. “Try me.”

He shakes his head and looks out the window.

Granny flicks on her blinker and turns to start heading up the mountain. The tailpipe backfires, and then pops again. We all learned years ago to ignore the various hissing, rumblings and pops the mustang makes. This car is twenty-five years past its prime, but Gran won’t give it up.

I glance at her. She’s what most people would call a bag of bones. Her skin sags over her frame and hangs loose like clothes flapping on a line. It’s what comes after nine decades of scraping out a life in the backwoods. For half her life she didn’t have electricity or indoor plumbing. That didn’t come to the mountain until the late seventies. She’s stubborn, proud of her independence, and she swears she’ll die with a shotgun or a fishing pole in her hand, on her own land. She’s a glimpse into the future, and what I can expect to look like sixty years from now. Her face is as craggy as the mountain side, her hair has lightened to a foggy orange, and it’s like the wind has whittled her down to leave only the essentials—stubbornness and wicked humor.

She turns her sharp gaze on me and purses her orangey pink lips. “You dropped your glass off today. At that Wilbur fellow’s place.”

“Williams.”

A needle of anger works through me, and I squirm. Gran narrows her eyes.

“What happened?” Gran doesn’t miss much.

May as well get it out. “He didn’t want it.”

The car backfires, and I think it’s because Granny punched the gas in either anger or shock. “What’s that?”

I grip the fabric of my overalls. “He didn’t want it. He said it was…”—ugly, uninspired, drab—“not what he asked for.”

“I’ll talk to him. I’ll tell him what’s what.” By the look in her eyes, I can imagine exactly what that “talk” would entail—mainly, the end of a rifle.

I shake my head, the horrible feelings of earlier starting to seep back in. “He left town. He isn’t coming back.”

Granny lets out a disgusted grunt. “You worked months on that piece. You put all that time and money into supplies, he can’t just—”

“He did.” I cut her off. I don’t want to talk about it. If I do, I might cry. And I don’t want the kids to see how much this hurts. How much I was counting on this making a difference in our lives.

But Gran knows. She reaches over and squeezes my hand, her papery skin soft on mine.

Tanner wiggles in his seat. “If we find him, I’ve got this new idea about using a trip wire to dump a basket of rotten eggs—”