BooksBarbecue
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Chapters (77)
  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Also by Silas House
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Contents
  7. Part One
  8. 1
  9. 2
  10. 3
  11. 4
  12. 5
  13. 6
  14. 7
  15. 8
  16. 9
  17. 10
  18. 11
  19. 12
  20. 13
  21. 14
  22. 15
  23. 16
  24. 17
  25. 18
  26. Part Two
  27. 1
  28. 2
  29. 3
  30. 4
  31. 5
  32. 6
  33. 7
  34. 8
  35. 9
  36. 10
  37. Part Three
  38. 1
  39. 2
  40. 3
  41. 4
  42. 5
  43. 6
  44. 7
  45. 8
  46. 9
  47. 10
  48. 11
  49. 12
  50. 13
  51. 14
  52. 15
  53. 16
  54. 17
  55. 18
  56. 19
  57. 20
  58. 21
  59. 22
  60. 23
  61. 24
  62. 25
  63. 26
  64. 27
  65. 28
  66. 29
  67. 30
  68. 31
  69. Part Four
  70. 1
  71. 2
  72. 3
  73. Epilogue: The Everything
  74. Acknowledgments
  75. About the Author
  76. About Algonquin
  77. Copyright

The boy looked out the open window with such concentration that Asher wondered if he, too, was mourning the loss of Tennessee, grieving the loss of a past whose passing ought to have been celebrated.

Good-bye forever goodbye, he thought, his mother’s face before him.

6

6

Georgia. Justin had dozed off again and Asher kept the music off so as not to disturb him. The Jeep humming a steady song on the long, gray line of I-75, the guilt straddling Asher’s chest. The image of Zelda lying on the floor playing over and over in his mind.

“Forgive me,” he whispered now, not to God, but to Zelda, way across the mountains and pastures.

Justin stirred beside him, his big eyes sleepy but open. “Dad?” he said.

“It’s all right, buddy,” Asher said. “Go back to sleep.”

“You said ‘forgive me,’ ” Justin said. “What did you do, Dad?”

Asher kept his eyes on the road. He tightened his jaw, turned on the music but Justin snapped it off, quick.

“What did you do?”

“Justin—”

“No, you have to tell me. Is Granny alright?”

“Yes,” Asher said in his and-that’s-final voice, turning to look Justin in the eye so the boy would know he was telling the truth. “We’ll call her, once we get past Atlanta.”

As soon as they got on the other side of the city they began to see large red-and-yellow billboards for

TIGHTWAD’S

“THE CHEAPEST GAS IN THE SOUTH,

NOT GUARANTEED”

and after a while the Jeep carried them off the exit to find a similar, gigantic sign perched on the roof of a massive truck stop painted highway-stripe yellow.

“I’m going to call your granny right quick,” Asher said, shoving the gearshift up into park. “You want to talk to her?”

“She’ll just cry,” Justin said. “And tell me to pray.”

“Sure?” Asher was fishing quarters out of the ashtray. “It’d do her good to hear from you, little man.”

“Yeah,” Justin said with some amount of exhaustion, so Asher closed the door and went to the phone.

A young Cherokee woman in cutoff jeans and a red halter top strutted across the parking lot while she smoked a cigarette. Her breasts bounced with each step she took. Her black hair struck her at the waist and she flipped one side of it over her shoulder. A trucker swung down out of the cab of his eighteen-wheeler and whistled at her. “Oh, squaw woman!” he hollered, but she kept her eyes on the truck-stop door. “You’re killing me baby!” He patted his hand against his open mouth as he yelled to make a wo-wo-wo-wo sound. At this she thrusted her middle finger into the air, still refusing to look toward him.

The coins dropped into the phone. Asher was lucky to even remember Zelda’s number, but he had learned it in the days before cell phones. Only two rings and she answered.