Dead in the Family

had stepped up for her. It’s not that I approve of murder—but some people just beg to be killed, don’t they? After all I’d been through, I was forced to simply admit to myself that I felt that way.
    I got home about five minutes before Remy arrived with Hunter. I’d had just enough time to pull off my work clothes, toss them in the hamper, and put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt before Remy knocked at the front door.
    I looked through the peephole before I opened the door, on the theory that it’s better to be safe than sorry.
    “Hey, Remy!” I said. He was in his early thirties, a quietly good-looking man with thick light brown hair. He was wearing clothes suitable for an evening visitation at a funeral home: khakis, a white-and-brown-striped broadcloth shirt, polished loafers. He’d looked more comfortable in the flannel and jeans he’d been wearing the first time I’d met him. I looked down at his son. Hunter had grown since I’d seen him last. He had dark hair and eyes like his mother, Hadley, but it was too early to say who he’d favor when he grew up.
    I squatted down and said, Hi, Hunter . I didn’t say anything out loud, but I smiled at him.
    He’d almost forgotten. His face lit up. Aunt Sookie! he said. Pleasure ran through his head, pleasure and excitement. “I have a new truck,” he said out loud, and I laughed.
    “You gonna show it to me? Come on in, you two, and let’s get you settled.”
    “Thanks, Sookie,” Remy said.
    “Do I look like my mama, Dad?” Hunter asked.
    “Why?” Remy was startled.
    “That’s what Aunt Sookie says.”
    Remy was used to little shocks like this by now, and he knew it would only get worse. “Yes, you look like your mom, and she was good-looking,” Remy told him. “You’re a lucky young man, Son.”
    “I don’t want to look like a girl,” Hunter said doubtfully.
    You don’t. “Not a bit,” I said. “Hunter, your room is right here.” I indicated the open doorway. “I used to sleep in this room when I was a kid,” I said.
    Hunter looked around, alert and cautious. But the low twin bed with its white bedspread and the old furniture and the worn rug by the bed were all homey and unthreatening. “Where will you be?” he asked.
    “Right here, across the hall,” I told him, opening the door to my room. “You just call out, and I’ll come a-running. Or you can come climb in the bed with me, if you get scared in the night.”
    Remy stood, watching his son absorb all this. I didn’t know how often the little boy had spent the night away from his dad; not too often, from the thoughts I was picking up from the boy’s head.
    “The bathroom’s the next door down from your room, see?” I pointed in. He looked into the old-fashioned room with his mouth hanging open.
    “I know it looks different from your bathroom at home,” I said, answering his thoughts. “This is an old house, Hunter.” The claw-foot tub and the black-and-white tiles were not what you saw in the rental houses and apartments Remy and Hunter had lived in since Katrina.
    “What’s upstairs?” Hunter asked.
    “Well, a cousin of mine is staying up there. He’s not home right now, and he comes in so late you may not even see him. His name is Claude.”
    Can I go up there and look around?
    Maybe tomorrow we’ll go up together. I’ll show you the rooms you can go into and the rooms that Claude is using.
    I glanced up to see that Remy was looking from Hunter to me, and he didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried that I could talk to his son in a way he could not.
    “Remy, it’s okay,” I said. “I grew up, and it got easier. I know this is going to be tough, but at least Hunter is a bright boy with a sound body. His little problem is just . . . less straightforward than most other kids’.”
    “That’s a good way to look at it.” But Remy’s worry didn’t diminish.
    “You want a drink?” I said, not sure what to do with Remy now. Hunter had asked me silently if he could unpack his bag, and I’d told him—the same way—that unpacking was fine with me. He’d already unloaded a little backpack full of toys onto the bedroom floor.
    “No, thank you. I got to get going.”
    It was unpleasant to realize that I spooked Remy in the same way his son spooked other people. Remy might need my help, and I could tell he thought I was a pretty woman, but I could also see that I gave him the creeps. “Is the visitation in Red Ditch?” I asked. That was the