“Fucking sucks because I was looking forward to a lot of stuff,” he said, smoking.
“Yeah, I was too,” she said, without knowing how it came out of her mouth when all she wanted to do was scream and cuss and cry.
For two days they took kiss breaks in his truck, and he promised he’d write and be back in Goldie sometimes, told her that he was crazy about her.
“I mean it, Muffin Mix. I’ll talk soon,” he said, kissing her goodbye for the last time.
2019
37
Rosemarie
Well, shit. They hadn’t planned on Trey’s body resurfacing so quickly. They’d killed him on Friday—making it Good—and there he was on Sunday, like Jesus.
Except Trey was, like, the literal opposite of Jesus.
Kasey told the police that Trey had come to the farmhouse on Friday night. That he’d been upset about Caroline being in the hospital and wanted to talk. She told them he was a little drunk when he showed up and he kept drinking. That he admitted what he’d done to Caroline and he was torn up about it. Kasey told them he was distressed and out of it, wandering the property, wondering aloud if the Foxberrys should purchase it and use it as a small distillery since it was right next to the water. He was being so weird it scared Kasey, so she went inside and locked the door.
That was the last she saw of him.
She figured he didn’t want to drive since he was so drunk and he’d wandered off somewhere. That he’d come back for the car later, but he never did. On Saturday, when Caro let them know Trey’s mom had opened a missing person report, Kasey called the police station to report Trey’s car being there. By Sunday, the cops had towed it away.
“Trey’s mom asked me if I was a lesbian. She asked if Caroline was my girlfriend, or if she ever had been,” Kasey said. She was sitting on the counter in the farmhouse kitchen, eating cherries out of a green glass bowl.
Rosemarie was sitting at the table, nursing a glass of ice water. She’d had no appetite for the past few days, and sometimes even forcing herself to drink water was a hassle, even when she was thirsty. Esme’s brother Ambrose, her oncologist, texted earlier that morning, asking if she’d adjusted to the new meds he’d called in for her, but she hadn’t even gone to pick them up yet and she wasn’t going to. They made her puke and she was tired of puking. She was tired of chemo cocktails. She was a hippie about that stuff and always had been. She’d tried it when she was first diagnosed in 2016 and they made her feel awful, but at least they worked.
They couldn’t work the same way now because her cancer was back, everywhere, and it’d kill her if she wasn’t killed by some Random Act of God first. Her cancer wasn’t a Random Act of God; it was the same cancer that killed her aunt. Once she’d stopped thinking of it as simply “cancer” and instead as “her cancer,” she realized that she finally accepted it for what it was.
This cancer was hers and the double mastectomy didn’t fix it and no medicine would fix it either. Her cancer was her death and all she had to do now was wait for it. In the meantime, she’d try to love the people she loved as much as she could love them. Protect them. Try to make the world the best she could. So no, she didn’t think twice about killing Trey Foxberry, because that was an Act of Love. They made Caroline’s world better by doing it. Esme’s brother could call in whatever prescription he wanted; it wouldn’t matter. Rosemarie had returned to Goldie to hang with her parents and her sisters, to sing with Leo, to die in the sunshine.
When it was time, she’d tell her parents. She’d tell her sisters too.
But it wasn’t time. Not yet.
“Was she serious?” Ada asked, chewing on her thumb. It was what she did when she was nervous, and although she’d handled everything way better than Rosemarie had ever imagined she would, she was easily the most anxious of the three of them since she had the most to lose if they got caught. Kasey was born scrappy and Rosemarie was obviously hyperaware of her numbered days, but Ada had Grayson and those four boys and Plum Everything to think about.
All three of them lost it in their own way after killing Trey. Ada got drunk fast and cried a lot; Kasey had nightmares and woke up early. Rosemarie had been the most stoic, only fully breaking down in the shower, but even then, more out of relief than fear. Most of the fear had burned out of her now. If Caroline was okay, if Rosemarie knew God would forgive her for everything, Whom （or what） shall I fear? she thought.
“Oh, she was definitely serious. She said I was probably in love with Caro and that we were weirdly close when we were in high school. She said that about all four of us, actually,” Kasey said. “Then she said I probably held a grudge against Trey for taking my woman away when he married Caroline. She said maybe that was why I didn’t come to Goldie for the wedding.”
“Are you serious?!” Ada asked.
“Ada! Girl! She’s obviously serious!” Rosemarie snapped. So far, they’d done a good job of not snapping at each other under the stress and they rarely argued, but Ada’s anxiety was spilling out and Rosemarie was tired of having to clean it up. The room spun a little and she picked up her water glass again and drank.
“I’m sorry. Right,” Ada said, nodding. “Sorry.”
“She said stuff about how, yeah, I grew up in this town, but I’ve been gone so long, and she threw some wild, out-of-pocket stuff in there about how my mom worked at the grocery store on Sunday mornings and never took me to church and that everyone knows my mom never went to church anymore after my daddy died anyway,” Kasey said. She was eating while she talked and not showing any real emotion. Rosemarie knew it was what she had to do to get through it. She’d seen Kasey pull this move a million times. She could push through until things were taken care of. It was how she dealt with Roy growing up and Rosemarie could see how effective and economical that attitude would be working in New York finance too. Kasey could do it without seeming cold and Rosemarie loved that about her. It was truly inspiring.
“Like the Foxberrys are an ideal Christian family? Oh, please! No one in that family is a Christian,” Ada said.
“At this point y’all are right outside the police station?” Rosemarie asked.
“Yep,” Kasey continued. “She said Caro wouldn’t get one penny of Trey’s money and they’d decided that a long time ago. She called Caro ‘gold-digging trash looking for a payday’ and said that was the only reason she married Trey anyway,” Kasey ended.
“Are you s—” Ada stopped herself.
“That bitch,” Rosemarie said softly.
“What did you say? What did you do? The whole time you were just standing there listening to her say all this? How?” Ada asked. She stepped over to the cherry bowl and got one out, started chewing on that instead of her thumb.
“Because I was exhausted from the cop’s questions, and the less said, the better. I don’t give a shit what she thinks about me. She can look as hard as she wants for someone to blame this on, but she knows in her heart that Trey did this to himself by being who he was. Exactly who she raised him to be,” Kasey said.
“Go back to her saying you’re a lesbian right quick, because honestly, I’m jealous she didn’t mention me. How am I the only one sitting here with an actual girlfriend, but no one accused me of being a lesbian? Please make it make sense,” Rosemarie said. She finished her water and got up slowly.