Page 10 (2/2)

I spent a nearly sleepless night and was haunted by nightreat-uncle each time I drifted off When I woke fro out through the hole I’d left in the h and that I’d rather stay awake to greet the dawn I found my phone and saw that Peter had textedwith his relative’s zoes said that he lovedthat they hadn’t even seen Uncle Peadar in over twenty years Maybe because the police thought he ht have been h with Tucker at the site of the job he was taking on

First light foundfor Jilo She did her ic a bit farther out, at a crossroads hidden off the dead end of Normandy Street, but she handled the money end of her business here in Colonial

"Well you been busy, ain’t ya?" she said as she plodded across the field towardthe lawn chair she always carried with her to Colonial as a makeshift walker

"How did you know?"

"Girl, they a police station right next door to this here boneyard, and Mother may be old, but she ain’t deaf Now you tell her what you been up to"

"A azine," I confessed, relieved to share with someone Maybe it was unfair,my mother for her silence She had to know I needed her I touched the chain of her locket and pushed the thought away "The poorto focus on the story I could share with Jilo "Confused I think he "

"M to hied, when he keeled over He wasn’t breathing He had no pulse"

"And you thought you would jolt hiic?"

I nodded

"And ended up burning a hole clean through the old buzzard," she said, and then started laughing, that unnerving wheezing of hers that always ended up sounding like a death rattle She winded herself, and leaned ainst the folded chair while she wheezed I reached out toward her, but she held up her hand "Don’t you go helpin’ Jilo none She done seen what yo’ kind of help leads to, and she ain’t ready to stand outside theates just yet"

She burst into another bout of laughter, but ain when she took note of the tears that were forirl You didn’t do nothin’ wrong Ain’t got a thing to feel bad about That old fella of yours, he already dead when you put your hands to him" Jilo did her best to offer me absolution, but it didn’t stick

"How could you know that? You weren’t there"

"Did he have a pulse? Was he breathing?"

"No He had turned blue"

"Well, there you go then A blue cracker is a dead cracker" A sement quivered on her lips She reached out and wiped at ers "Hell, most folk would have never even stopped and tried to help hiirl You done all you could for hiave me the stink eye "They soh, ain’t they Get on with it, girl You tell Mother"

She flipped the lawn chair open and eased her way into it Sometimes she seemed like such a force of nature, but lately I could tell she was growing frailer I sat down at her feet, and she pulled h my hair I don’t know exactly when it had happened, but over the past feeeks, I’d grown quite attached to the old woman of the crossroads, and I knew that whether she liked it or not, she had come to feel the same way about me