This Glittering World by T. Greenwood Page B

everything was put away and all of the dirty dishes were loaded into the dishwasher, he pulled the scrap of paper from his back pocket. He figured it would be safer to use his cell phone than his home phone. The home phone would probably show up on caller ID.
    He opened the back door to let Maude out and followed behind her. He stood underneath the awning and tapped out the numbers.
    “Hello?” a man’s voice said.
    “Hi, is this Mark Fitch?” Ben asked, realizing he probably should have come up with a plan first. Thinking maybe he should just hang up.
    “Yeah, this is he.”
    “Hi, I’m, uh, Detective Bailey from the Flagstaff Police Department.” Shit, what was he doing?
    The man was silent on the other end of the line.
    Shit, shit, shit.
    “Do you drive a blue Ford Mustang?” Ben asked.
    “Yeah?”
    Ben’s mind raced. “Well, we got a call in with your tag numbers. Someone apparently saw you back into a red Chevy pickup in the Bashas’ parking lot this afternoon and then take off. Were you driving your vehicle this afternoon, sir?” Damn, why did he describe his own truck?
    It sounded like the guy was covering the mouthpiece of the phone. He could hear his muffled voice saying “Jessie!” or “Betsy!”
    “Who are you talking to?” Sara said. She was standing in the doorway, rubbing her eyes.
    Ben clicked his cell phone shut. His head was pounding, his ears were hot. “Work,” he said.
    “You don’t have to go in tonight, do you?” she whined.
    “No. Ned’s covering for me.”
    “Good, because my parents will be here at noon tomorrow, and the house is just awful. I tried to pick up, but I got really sick. I threw up twice already. I don’t know how I’m going to cook dinner tomorrow.”
    “It’s okay,” Ben said, ushering her back into the house. “I can do it.”
    Sara smiled and leaned into him. Then she took his hand and pressed it into her stomach. When she did, his own stomach twisted and he jerked with the pain of it.
    Sara looked at him, her eyes narrowing.
    “We’ll tell them right after dinner,” she said. “Mom is going to cry.”

L ong ago, when Ben’s life was still whole, Thanksgiving was his favorite holiday. Every year, his mother started cooking the night before Thanksgiving. His father would take him and Dusty to the movies while she stayed at home rolling out piecrusts and prepping all of the casseroles and salads. By the time they got home, his mother would have flour-covered hands and flushed cheeks, and the entire house would smell like ginger and cinnamon and nutmeg.
    The next morning, these smells would linger, but the stronger smell of sage and thyme and the cooking turkey would prevail. His aunt Catherine and uncle Woody from South Carolina would arrive by ten o’clock with their cousins, Jo-Jo and Peanut, spilling out of the back of their station wagon. Jo-Jo was Ben’s age, and Peanut was the baby. While the grown-ups milled around in the kitchen, the kids would watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, eating Krispy Kreme Doughnuts on the living room floor.
    Later, when the football games came on, Jo-Jo and Ben would relinquish the living room to Ben’s dad and Uncle Woody and disappear into the basement to play with Ben’s collection of Matchbox cars or the giant laundry basket full of LEGOs. And Dusty and Peanut would play with pots and pans in the kitchen while Ben’s mom and Aunt Cathy gossiped and peeled potatoes and basted the turkey. Uncle Woody and Ben’s dad would drink beer and snack on the sweet sugarcoated peanuts that came in a blue can. Ben would grab handfuls of them, and that sweet taste would linger on his fingers for hours.
    If it was warm enough outside, he and Jo-Jo would play in the tree house his dad had built in the backyard, leaping off the wooden deck into the musty piles of leaves below. They were pirates. Soldiers. Indian warriors.
    After Dusty died, Aunt Catherine and Uncle Woody kept coming for a year or two, but it