Crime

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SHE’D WANTED TO tell Momma that this one was no good. Like the one back home in Mobile. And that bastard in Jacksonville. But her momma was doing her eyes up in front of the mirror, and telling her to hush and make sure that all the shutters was fastened cause they reckoned a storm was going to be blowing in from the north-east tonight.

The girl went to the window and looked out. All was calm. The shining disc of a moon pulsed blue light into the apartment. It was broken only by the limbs of the dead oak tree in the yard outside; spreading keen varicose shadows, creeping across the walls, dark and vital. Snibbing down the springed catch to secure a slatted wooden barrier, mindful of pained fingers past, she strategically pulled her hand back, thinking of it as a smart mouse stealing cheese from a trap. Then she regarded the vacant intensity of her mother in the mirror’s reflection. She used to like to watch Momma fix herself up, all pretty, that way she would really concentrate with that little brush and make those big lashes dark.

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