Death Rhythm by Joel Arnold Page A

said.
    “It’s good to see you,” Mae said.
    “Have you been a good girl?”
    “Yes.”
    “Where is Edna?”
    “She didn’t want to come.”
    “That’s not true,” Father said. “She had school work that needed to be done.”
    Mae averted her eyes from her mother.
    “Don’t speak so poorly of your sister,” Camille said.  Then she looked at Evelyn. “Come here, Evvy. Let me take a look at you.”
    Evelyn walked over and stood next to Mae. “Why are you tied up?” Evelyn asked.
    “That’s not a polite question,” Father said.
    Their mother winked. “They think I’m dangerous.”
    “Are you?” Evelyn asked.
    “Of course not.” A smile spread across her face and she looked up at the ceiling. Her eyes closed and tears appeared at the corners and dripped down her cheeks. An awful smell drifted off of her. “Of course not,” she said. “Of course not.” She struggled against the restraints, the smile still there, the smell overpowering. “Of course not.”
    “Camille,” Father said.
    “Mommy,” Evelyn whined.
    Mae stared at the stain spreading against her mother’s crotch, yellow at first, turning dark brown.
    “Of course not, of course not, of course not,” Camille sang.
    “Mae. Evelyn. Leave the room,” Father said. “Go tell the nurse to come here right away.”
    They hesitated, unable to take their eyes off their mother.
    “Now!” Father barked.
    They turned and fled to the hallway, all the while hearing the singsong voice of their mother, a voice familiar from the many times she used to sing to them, but now tinged with an incomprehensible madness. And as they raced to the nurse’s station, her singsong voice rose an octave and broke into screams.
    “Of course not of course not of course not!”
    They arrived at the nurse’s station wide-eyed and breathless.
    “What is it?” the nurse asked.
    “Mommy - “ Mae said, unable to finish.
    “What? Is she at it again?”
    They watched the nurse get up and saw the syringe she carried, followed her into their mother’s room where the screams had turned to bulging eyes, sweat, and a squeaky panting. They watched as the nurse plunged the needle into their mother’s arm, watched Camille bite down on her lip until blood oozed down her chin. She went limp.
    “Best to leave her alone for awhile,” the nurse said to Father.
    They drove away in silence, Mae and Evelyn’s foreheads pressed against their respective windows, watching the road blur beneath them. Father wiped at the sweat on his lip with a white monogrammed handkerchief.
    “A gift,” he said. “What do you want?” His voice was frantic and cheery. “Tell me what you want.” He sat hunched over the steering wheel like a protective hawk, his eyes darting about at the bugs smashed on the windshield.
    The girls remained silent.
    “Come on. Mae? Evelyn? What can Daddy buy you? Tell me. A puzzle? New shoes? A book? Anything. Just tell me what you want.”
    There was the sudden blare of a car horn. Mae looked up in time to see a blue car stopped at a stop sign coming up fast. Father swerved to the left and stomped on the brakes. The front wheels thudded over the curb, and Mae bounced up in the back seat, hitting her head on the roof of the car. They came to a stop, the front wheels on the sidewalk, the back wheels in the street. Father held onto the steering wheel like it was all he had left in the world.
    Evelyn’s eyes widened. They had come to a stop in front of Thompson’s Music store.
    “That,” she said, pointing to the display in the window. Marching drums were lined up in a bright, metallic row, a perfect, uniform family. “I want that.”
     

 
    TWELVE
     
    "I can't apologize enough about my father."
    Andy and Natalie walked along the side of the two-lane highway that passed in front of Mae's house, heading away from town. The sky had become overcast, the air crisp and cool. Goldenrod lay wilted and brown in the ditches along the sides of the highway, along