Dead to the World

The bed.
    “Where is Pam?” he asked.
    “You should call her,” I said. “Do you recall anything about yesterday?”
    “Yesterday I had the meeting with the witches,” he said, as if that was indisputable.
    I shook my head. “That was days ago,” I told him, unable to add the number of them up in my head. My heart sank even lower.
    “You don’t remember last night, after we came back from Shreveport,” I pressed him, suddenly seeing a gleam of light in all this.
    “Did we make love?” he asked hopefully. “Did you finally yield to me, Sookie? It’s only a matter of time, of course.” He grinned at me.
    No, last night we cleaned up a body, I thought.
    I was the only one who knew. And even I didn’t know where Debbie’s remains were buried, or what had happened to her car.
    I sat down on the edge of my old narrow bed. Eric looked at me closely. “Something’s wrong, Sookie? What happened while I was—Why don’t I remember what happened?”
    Least said, soonest mended.
    All’s well that ends well.
    Out of sight, out of mind. (Oh, I wished that were true.) “I bet Pam will be here any minute,” I said. “I think I’ll let her tell you all about it.”
    “And Chow?”
    “No, he won’t be here. He died last night. Fangtasia seems to have a bad effect on bartenders.”
    “Who killed him? I’ll have vengeance.”
    “You’ve already had.”
    “Something more is wrong with you,” Eric said. He’d always been astute.
    “Yes, lots of stuff is wrong with me.” I would’ve enjoyed hugging him right then, but it would just complicate everything. “And I think it’s going to snow.”
    “Snow, here?” Eric was as delighted as a child. “I love snow!”
    Why was I not surprised?
    “Maybe we will get snowed in together,” he said suggestively, waggling his blond eyebrows.
    I laughed. I just couldn’t help it. And it was a hell of a lot better than crying, which I’d done quite enough of lately. “As if you’d ever let the weather stop you from doing what you wanted to do,” I said, and stood. “Come on, I’ll heat you up some blood.”
    Even a few nights of intimacy had softened me enough that I had to watch my actions. Once I almost stroked his hair as I passed him; and once I bent to give him a kiss, and had to pretend I’d dropped something on the floor.
    When Pam knocked on my front door thirty minutes later, I was ready for work, and Eric was antsy as hell.
    Pam was no sooner seated opposite him than he began bombarding her with questions. I told them quietly that I was leaving, and I don’t think they even noticed when I went out the kitchen door.
    Merlotte’s wasn’t too busy that night, after we dealt with a rather large supper crowd. A few flakes of snow had convinced most of the regulars that going home sober might be a very good idea. There were enough customers left to keep Arlene and me moderately busy. Sam caught me as I was loading my tray with seven mugs of beer and wanted to be filled in on the night before.
    “I’ll tell you later,” I promised, thinking I’d have to edit my narrative pretty carefully.
    “Any trace of Jason?” he asked.
    “No,” I said, and felt sadder than ever. The dispatcher at the law enforcement complex had sounded almost snappish when I’d called to ask if there was any news.
    Kevin and Kenya came in that night after they’d gotten off duty. When I took their drinks to the table (a bourbon and Coke and a gin and tonic), Kenya said, “We’ve been looking for your brother, Sookie. I’m sorry.”
    “I know you all have been trying,” I said. “I appreciate you all organizing the search party so much! I just wish . . .” And then I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Thanks to my disability, I knew something about each of them that the other didn’t know. They loved each other. But Kevin knew his mother would stick her head in the oven before she’d see him married to a black woman, and Kenya knew her brothers would rather ram Kevin through a wall than see him walk down the aisle with her.
    And I knew this, despite the fact that neither of them did; and I hated having this personal knowledge, this intimate knowledge, that I just couldn’t help knowing.
    Worse than knowing, even, was the temptation to interfere. I told myself very sternly that I had enough problems of my own without causing problems for other people. Luckily, I was busy enough the rest of the night to erase the temptation from my mind. Though I