Cold Feet. Brenda Novak

was the last time you ate?” she asked as she led him to the kitchen.

      He didn’t answer. He was too busy staring at something in the hall.

      Madison turned to see what that something was, and felt her stomach drop when she realized Brianna was standing there. “Go back to bed, sweetheart,” she said. She didn’t want her daughter around Johnny. The fact that he had a drug habit didn’t necessarily make him dangerous. But they hadn’t spent any time together in years, and Madison didn’t feel she knew him all that well anymore.

      “Who’s he? ” Brianna asked, peering at Johnny with the disdain she’d practiced on Caleb Trovato.

      Johnny hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his filthy, tattered jeans and smiled. “Don’t you remember me, pipsqueak? I saw you once, just before your grandpa blew his brains out.”

      “Johnny, don’t,” Madison said.

      “Mommy, how do you blow your brains out?” Brianna asked.

      Madison sent Johnny a look that was meant to silence him. “Never mind, honey. Grandpa went to heaven. You know that.”

      Johnny gave a disbelieving snort when she said “heaven,” but Madison ignored him. Brianna was too little to understand everything that had happened, and she saw no reason to explain the gritty details, at least, not while Brianna was so young.

      “You never could stand the truth,” he said, shaking his head.

      “There’s no need to upset her. She’s only six,” Madison replied. But she didn’t blame Johnny for being bitter. He’d been the one to find Ellis, and everyone knew Ellis had meant it to be that way. Just before Madison and her mother went on an all-day shopping trip, he’d called Johnny and said he needed to talk to him.

      A few hours later, Johnny had found what was left of their father in Ellis’s workshop.

      “She doesn’t look upset to me,” he said.

      Brianna was clinging to Elizabeth while giving him a challenging glare. “My name isn’t pipsqueak,” she told him. “And I don’t think my father would like you very much.”

      Horrified, Madison gaped at her. “Brianna!”

      “It’s true. ”

      “I don’t care if it is,” she said. “Johnny’s your uncle. You’re not to be rude to him or anyone else. Now please go back to bed.”

      Brianna didn’t budge, so Madison gave her a frown designed to let her know there’d be serious consequences if she didn’t obey. Finally, she turned and walked resolutely down the hall.

      “I’ll be there shortly to tuck you in,” Madison called after her.

      Johnny’s twitching seemed to grow more extreme. “You’re gonna have your hands full with that kid.”

      “Brianna’s usually very sweet. It’s just been lately, after I get her back from her father’s, that I’ve run into these attitude problems.” Anxious for Johnny to leave, she handed him a can of Coke. “Sorry I don’t have any beer. I don’t drink it.”

      He accepted what she offered him. “You wrote me about your divorce,” he said.

      “I wasn’t sure you got that letter. You never answered it.” He’d never answered any of her letters.

      “I wanted to believe you were still living the good life.” He said the words accusingly, as though she’d had some choice in the matter.

      “No one lives a fairy tale.” She leaned against the counter. “Does Tye know you’re out?”

      The can hissed as Johnny popped the top and took a long pull. “I went by his place a couple days ago. No one was home.”

      “His wife’s been visiting her mother. Maybe he drove to Spokane to get her and the kids.”

      “Visiting her mom?” Johnny chuckled, scratching his shoulder, then his elbow, moving, always moving. “You mean she left him. Again.”

       Again? This was the first Madison had ever heard of any serious marital strife between Tye and Sharon. “Why would she leave?”

      “They haven’t been getting along.”

      “Are you sure?” she said, disappointed that Tye hadn’t trusted her enough to share this information with her.

      “You know Tye has a temper. They’ve been on and off for years.” Johnny downed the rest of the soda, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and tossed the empty can toward the garbage. When he missed, it hit the floor with a rattle, and Madison quickly bent to pick it up.

      “About that money…” he said.

      She glanced down the hall to see Brianna poking her head out of her bedroom, and knew she needed to get her half brother on his way. “Here you go,” she said, handing him a twenty.

      He frowned at the bill. “You sure that’s all you’ve got?”

      She told herself to remain firm. But when she took in the state of his clothing and the old tennis shoes on his feet, she immediately began to second-guess her decision not to give him more. He looked so needy, so desperate. She hated watching him ruin his life. “Are you okay, Johnny?”

      He blinked at her as though surprised by the question. “Does it matter?”

      “Of course.” She searched through the bottom of her purse. “Maybe I can scrounge together another few dollars.”

      “Thanks.”

      “No problem.” She gave him an additional fistful of change, and he started for the door.

      She should have breathed a sigh of relief and let him go, but something made her call him back. “Johnny?”

      He peered over his shoulder at her. “Yeah?”

      Except in general terms, Madison had never spoken to her brothers about the crimes their father had been accused of committing. Neither Johnny nor Tye had good feelings toward Ellis, so Madison had never expected them to be supportive. Her brothers were too busy trying to recover from their unhappy childhoods to worry about what was happening to their father—a father who’d let them down so badly. But she suddenly felt the need to talk to Johnny now, before he disappeared for another five years.

      “Do you think he really did it?” she asked softly.

      For a moment, Johnny looked more lucid than she’d seen him in years. “You mean Dad?”

      She nodded. She longed to tell him what she’d found beneath the house. She had to tell someone. The burden of keeping the secret was too heavy. And there was no one else….

      He stared at the floor for several seconds. “He did it.”

      “How do you know?”

      “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

      “You never heard or saw anything…out of the ordinary, did you?”

      He was moving toward the door again. “I wasn’t around.”

      “You showed up every once in a while, for short periods of time,” she said, following him.

      “I never saw anything.”

      Madison wished she could erase from her mind the image of opening that locket in the dank atmosphere of the crawl space. “Did you hear what happened to Dad’s grave?” she asked as he opened the door and stepped outside.

      He turned, scowling at her. “I don’t want to know.”

      “But—”

      “Look at me, Maddy,” he said, calling her by the nickname the kids in the neighborhood had given her when she was young.

      She met his gaze.

      “You