The Mourning Hours. Paula DeBoard Treick

and I passed out. They would find my body there days later, and Johnny and Stacy would feel horribly guilty for what they’d done. I counted all the way down to zero and sat, listening to their silence. I imagined them together on Johnny’s bed, skin against skin, and felt a warm flush on my neck.

      “Shit,” Johnny said suddenly, his voice startlingly close. “Look at the clock—it’s after five. We’ve gotta get moving.”

      Stacy giggled. “Nah, I think I’ll stay here.”

      Johnny was getting up—the bedsprings protesting, his voice moving farther away. “I don’t think so.”

      “Why? Because your mom wouldn’t approve?” Stacy laughed her lilting laugh. “Come on, Johnny. I’ll be really quiet. I could camp here for a few days, and no one would even notice.”

      “Very funny.”

      I could hear Johnny moving around the room, dressing.

      Stacy continued, her voice wistful, “If you want, I’ll explain it all to them. I’ll say, ‘Mr. and Mrs. Hammarstrom, I know you don’t really like me, but I’m moving in with your son.’ I’ll tell them that we love each other and that I’m already physically your wife.”

      “That’s ridiculous,” Johnny said, annoyance creeping into his voice. “Put your clothes on. Let’s go.”

      Stacy’s voice was smug. “Nope—I told you. I’m not leaving. I’m going to have a little talk with your parents when they come home, mister.”

      She seemed pretty pleased with herself for coming up with this bizarre plan. I tried, and failed, to imagine a world where my parents would let Stacy Lemke live in my brother’s bedroom.

      “Stacy, come on.” There was an edge to his voice now, something I’d heard often enough as his sister. I remembered how angry he’d been when Stacy interrupted the wrestling night, that breathless moment when I couldn’t tell if he was serious or joking, when it could have gone either way. Stacy had won that match, but I knew she wasn’t going to win this one.

      Again she laughed. “Sorry! No can do. I guess you’re just stuck with me, Johnny Hammarstrom.”

      “I’m serious.” Johnny’s voice was level, but there was an edge to his calm. If Stacy got up right then, everything would be fine. If she didn’t...well... “Any second now my sisters are going to be here, and we need to be gone.”

      “I’m perfectly serious, too,” Stacy purred. “I’m just going to lie here on your bed, all stretched out, deliciously naked....”

      “Stacy—now!”

      They were both alike, I realized. Johnny never knew when to stop being the aggressor, and Stacy didn’t know when to stop egging him on.

      Stacy ignored him. “I’d be like your own little princess in the tower, catering to your every whim. And I’d be good to you. I’d be so, sooo, soooo good to you. Come over here, we have time for more—”

      There was a slapping sound, as if Johnny was batting Stacy’s hands away. “What are you, crazy? Get dressed! You’re going to get me in trouble!”

      I’d been holding my breath for so long that I felt dizzy.

      “Well, we wouldn’t want that.” Stacy sounded hurt, but as far as I could tell, she hadn’t moved yet.

      Johnny sighed, trying to be patient. “Are you going to get up?”

      “I don’t know,” Stacy said simply.

      “What the fuck, Stacy!” Johnny exploded suddenly. There was a thunk, like he’d kicked something—an open dresser drawer or his bed frame. He swung his bedroom door open, banging it against the wall, and took the stairs two at a time. At the bottom of the stairs, he called back over his shoulder, “I’m going to be in the truck, and if you’re coming, you’d better get moving.”

      Slowly, too slowly, Stacy stood up. She seemed to be muttering under her breath while she gathered her clothes. I pressed my ear to the wall, trying to pick out her words. But, no, she wasn’t muttering. She was humming—as if she had all the time in the world.

      Johnny’s voice carried up the stairs, dangerously. “Stacy...”

      “All right, I’m coming,” she called finally, starting down. “What’s the hurry, Hammarstrom? Got another girl to visit before dinner?”

      When I heard the back door slam behind them, I unfolded myself from my hiding spot, taking in fresh gulps of air like a deep-sea diver coming to the surface. I rushed to my bedroom window, careful not to disturb the curtain as I peeked out. Johnny had already started his truck. Hands on the steering wheel, he stared straight ahead. Stacy only had one leg inside when he gunned the engine. As they made the half turn in the driveway, I saw her reach unsteadily out with one hand and, straining, pull the door shut.

      ten

      There was no way I could tell anyone about that afternoon. Mom and Dad would yell loud enough to be heard in three counties. Emilie would use the information as a bargaining tool in the future.

      Besides, I wasn’t exactly sure how to describe what had happened. The sex wasn’t even the bad part, not really. There was sex in just about every movie on TV, even though Mom cleared her throat pointedly and Dad changed the channel before anything got too detailed. Sure, Pastor Ziegler said every single Sunday that “sexual impurity” was explicitly forbidden by God, but the act itself didn’t seem that strange. My parents had done it, and their parents before them, and even, presumably, Pastor Ziegler and his wife. It didn’t seem all that crazy that Johnny and Stacy would give it a try, too. No, what I kept replaying over and over in my mind was their argument afterward: Stacy refusing to leave, Johnny kicking his dresser, then gunning the engine of the Green Machine.

      And of course, I couldn’t say anything to Johnny. I’m not sure what I would have said, even if I had dared, but the thing that kept coming to my mind was that I was sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have talked to Stacy that day under the bleachers. I shouldn’t have given her message to Johnny. I shouldn’t have encouraged her. Up until that afternoon, I’d been obsessed with Stacy myself. Now she scared me—she was too intense, too demanding. The further things went between Stacy and Johnny, the worse things got at home with Mom, the more I felt the heat of guilt creeping up my skin and sinking low in my stomach.

      But if Johnny had been bothered by Stacy that day, he quickly forgot it. That very weekend, they went to a concert with friends in Green Bay. The next week she came over for dinner, and they held hands underneath the table. Their kisses, with her back pressed against the Camaro, were just as passionate as they had been before.

      By mid-October, Johnny’s mind was more or less occupied with wrestling, anyway. His schedule was packed with predawn runs, after-school practices and weekend scrimmages. Mom and Dad agreed that this would be a good distraction for him, and things seemed to be settling down. There had been no more notes in the wash—either Stacy had stopped writing them or Johnny had become better at hiding them, and after a while, Mom started to soften toward Stacy, encouraging Johnny to invite her over on weeknights to study. “Better to keep them under our noses,” she’d say to Dad.

      Stacy stopped by now and then in the evenings that fall, when Johnny was newly showered from practice, wet hairs still curling on his neck. She and Johnny “studied” in the kitchen, their feet entwined beneath the table, while Mom banged dishes noisily in the sink. They “studied” on the living room couch, textbooks balanced on their knees, Stacy’s head fitting perfectly into the crook of Johnny’s neck, while Dad snoozed in his recliner. Watching them, it seemed to me that they were drawn together like barbed wire to cow magnets.

      I kept a close eye on Stacy at all times, half in love with her, half scared of what she might do. Sometimes it felt as if I’d imagined the whole scene in Johnny’s bedroom, the bedsprings squeaking, her protests that she wasn’t going to leave.... Sitting on the couch next to Johnny, she seemed as sweet and