“Gotcha. I take it you usually went grocery shopping with her?”
“Yeah. So I know more or less what to get even if she doesn’t send me a list.”
“They sell sugar or salt in bulk? Because I’m pretty sure we’ll need a lot.”
“No, but I’m not planning on barricading this entity,” Mack informed me flatly. “I’m just taking him out.”
“Now that plan I like. Can I shoot it?”
He gave me a feral smile. “Only if I don’t get to it first, cher.”
3
Opelousas hadn’t changed at all in the nine months or so I’d been gone. All the streets were still cracked and badly patched. The old ’60s storefronts were the same. The businesses lining the main street were unchanged, ranging from Mexican restaurants to Avon stores. Now that I had other places to compare it to, I realized my hometown was definitely the poorer relation. At least everything was clean and kept up.
Brandon studied it with interest. He didn’t say much, but his eyes kept sweeping either side of the street, taking it in. I had mixed feelings about him seeing the place. On the one hand, I wanted to take pride in my hometown. But truth was, even I didn’t like it much, and I wanted his opinion to match mine. As we passed the various stores, I saw ghosts wandering the sidewalk, only their manner of dress and slight transparency separating them from the living souls. A fine shudder raced over my skin, and I thanked heaven Brandon was driving. The ghost population had gotten worse, I’d swear on that.
I’d walked these streets often while growing up. With only one vehicle, and seven people, my mother hadn’t always been able to get her kids to the right place at the same time. Most of us ended up walking somewhere, or biking the few times we’d managed to lay hands on a bike. I hadn’t walked so much as run along these streets, trying to avoid the things I couldn’t understand. Or worse, the ones I did and needed to avoid at all costs. Driving along the main strip was like a tour of all the battles I’d survived in my childhood.
Yeah, couldn’t say that I missed the place at all.
“Your mom said to swing by and hug her first? Where’s she?”
“She works as a cashier at JB Sandoz. Hardware store on Main Street. Go straight, straight” —I indicated with two chops of my hand— “then turn straight at the light.”
“Honey.” Brandon blew out a breath, amused and patient. “Can you translate that for us non-Southerners?”
“Oh.” Right, people outside of Louisiana didn’t understand our directions. I’d learned that with Beau. “I meant, go straight through the next two lights then take a right at the third.”
“This is going to be fun, I see it now,” Brandon muttered, easing up on the brake as traffic started moving again. “People are going to be giving me interesting directions the entire time I’m down here. I take it that hand motion was supposed to tell me how many lights I go through?”
“Yeah,” I said, abashed. But then he grinned at me, amber eyes crinkling up in silent laughter, and I realized he was teasing. “You have to count how many straights someone tells you. That’ll also indicate how many lights or stop signs.”
“Yup, really interesting directions,” he said, already resigned. “Thank god for GPS.”
“Fortunately, we have addresses for most of where we need to go.”
JB Sandoz had been around for many, many years. It’d taken over an old factory, which was obvious at first glance. The orange brick building stretched out low to the ground, huge picture windows dominating the lower half of the building. There wasn’t much parking in front, just a long, narrow strip. Brandon parked near the front doors with the tailgate sticking out near the edge of the road.
We stepped out, and I was very grateful to escape the SUV for a few minutes. Shopping at Whole Foods had worked some of the kinks out of my thighs, but I still wasn’t looking forward to spending any more time in that car.
I stepped through the front door, the chime ringing above my head, and looked for my mother. She stood behind her cashier counter, and when her head came up, a smile lit up her face. Her tawny skin highlighted her smile, and she’d made some effort to look nice. Her curly dark hair was normally in a loose ponytail but today she’d tamed it into some sort of up-do bun. Trying to impress Brandon, perhaps?
“You’re finally here!”
She came around the edge of the white Formica counter and threw her arms around my waist, hugging me in tight. My mother was a petite wisp of a woman, and she tucked right in under my chin. I frowned a little as I hugged her back, as it felt like she’d lost weight. Maybe twenty pounds or so. I could feel the definition of her shoulder blades and ribs even through the t-shirt and store vest she wore. My mother hadn’t had twenty pounds to lose to begin with.
Dammit.
Pulling back, she gave me a wide smile. “You look good, mon bébé. This handsome man must be Brandon.”
I turned, my arm still tucked around her shoulders, and introduced the two of them. “Indeed he is. Brandon, meet Adélaide Lafayette.”
“Adelle,” she corrected, as she always did, and went up on tiptoes in order to hug Brandon hello. Brandon bent in half to meet her, and it looked awkward from my view just because of the height difference, but they both wore smiles stretching ear to ear.
“It’s enchanting to meet you,” Brandon told her, straightening.
“Likewise, chile, likewise. Mercy, Mack wasn’t joking, you’re a giant. What did your maman feed you growing up?”
Brandon grinned at her. “Everything.”
“I believe it!” She turned to me and said seriously, “You made good time, and I’m glad for it, mon bébé. It’s been bad at Edmée’s. Bed bugs infested her house and we couldn’t get them out for love or money. That lousy landlord of hers refused to do anything about it. I helped her move out quick, but it’s been a real ordeal. She lost most of her furniture in the move.”
I winced. “No wonder she moved, then. How’s Cali?”
“Scared and clingy, and we don’t blame her. I got you two bags of road salt here behind the counter. Dylan’s donated it to the cause. Road salt’s okay for this, isn’t it?”
“Any salt’s good for it,” I assured her. “And thank Dylan for me. We only popped in to say hello. I’ll swing by the house first, put groceries away. Then we’ll be at Edmée’s.”
“Don’t put anything in the freezer,” she requested.
Oh god. She still hadn’t replaced the fridge? But I’d sent her money for it…no, I bet I knew where the money had gone. “Still, huh? Alright. Anything frozen we’ll leave at Edmée’s for now.” I hugged her again and promised, “We’ll spend proper time with you later.”
“You don’t worry about me, you go save that baby and your cousin.” Pulling back, she touched Brandon’s arm lightly. “You both be safe, alright? I’ll cook dinner for you tomorrow.”
“Looking forward to it,” Brandon promised her.
We fetched the twenty-pound bags of road salt—just what did my mother think I was going to do, exorcise a whole graveyard?—and loaded back in.