brick building. In the reflection in the bus windows he looked like a seated soldier on a train. When the bus darkened again, the stark image vanished, leaving his dim ghost. He took out the photo and read the number, then flipped it to see his sister. Lila’s hair was curled and she wore a pink sweater. Her tightened left eye gave a look of mischief to her smile. Again the ceiling lights flared when a passenger stepped on. He leaned into the photo: Rosa had pressed the pen too hard. The lines gave the appearance of a worm looping in her right cheek and forehead beneath the skin. He dragged his fingernails down one side of his head and returned the photo to his wallet.
After Lila had stopped her own breath in the river two months earlier, in the mountains, an elder at River Baptist Church told his big brother, Craig, that she had sullied the congregation, by choosing her time, by departing unsaved. It was too much dirt for good people to sift. The kids of churchgoers said Lila was a whore, a witch, and a vandal. She did like to blow things up, but nothing big—mail boxes, air conditioners, exhaust pipes. A lot of kids in Marshal played with pipe bombs. The elder said the family could return to the church later, in a year or two, when time and prayer had washed them through. He assured Craig that the congregation loved them. He suffered every time they had to cut a family off the vine. That evening, Craig announced to Lyle that Lila’s name would go unspoken. “She brought hell into our home, as a test for us,” he said. “Now God wants us to move on.”
The bus stopped across the boulevard from Lyle’s apartment, and he got out. An exposed bulb near the roof of the building showed the orange letters Knights in Arms. Gutters were broken at the joints, and a curtain of rainwater poured through a shopping cart in the stairwell entrance. He and his brother and mom had moved to Eugene into this second-floor apartment a couple of weeks before. He didn’t mind the building. It was better than living in the woods.
Inside at the table, where they had been waiting for him, his mom set down two oven dishes of baked deviled eggs. Craig sat nodding at the food, smiling at her when she got glasses for milk. He’d bought the smoked glass table a week earlier at Walmart. After shopping for groceries, Lyle and Craig had separated to look for her. Lyle found her in the garden department sliding her hand across the glass table, wet-eyed over its beauty, whispering as if to the birds etched into the top of it, frozen in flight.
In her teddy bear nightgown she carried a glass of milk full to the rim. Craig accepted it with two hands, sipping. She didn’t used to take short steps and speak quietly. Before the girl’s passing, she wore western shirts and moved with a mountain swagger. For newcomers she exaggerated her country accent. Barb Rettew. Born here and raised up ranch-style, fourth generation—who the hell are you?
The kitchen air hung thick with the smell of eggs. The three of them joined hands, Craig squinting shut his eyes. When he spoke the words table, and bread, and family, a strange whimper slipped from his throat. It scalded Lyle that his brother was choked up, when it was he who forbade mention of Lila’s name. Lyle leaked air through his teeth, knowing it sounded nasty, and laughed. Craig raised his prayer voice but otherwise ignored him.
The back of his mom’s chair touched the sliding glass door that led to the deck. When rain tapped the glass, she swerved anxious eyes over her shoulder. From her countertop radio a gospel song issued. Her face hardened while she ate. She whispered a few unintelligible complaints before her eyes rested on Lyle.
“You wearing that Halloween costume tomorrow, too?” she asked him. “You look like you’re trying out for the devil contest.”
“There’s no devil contest.”
“There certainly is.”
“Well, I don’t know anything about it.”
Before him on the table a rosy-cheeked porcelain dairymaid offered a basket of toothpicks. He turned his last egg facedown onto its yellow and stuck toothpicks along the white center like a spine.
“Half the people in this town look like devils,” his mom said. She lifted her glass shakily and put it down without drinking any. For a moment she made a crying face, but there were no tears. Craig cut her egg with her fork, stabbed a piece of it, and she took the bite. His feeding seemed to calm her.
“Good people everywhere,” Craig said. “Even some of these hippies are nice folks, once you have a conversation with them.”
She brightened. “Listen to me complaining. I’m sorry.”
“You’re fine. You’re doing great. Isn’t she, Lyle?”
“Sure.”
“They gave her two more shifts at work. Isn’t that nice?”
Lyle nodded.
“Well, say so. Come on, participate in the conversation here. Isn’t it nice?”
“Yeah, it’s nice, Mom. Good job.”
Craig worked in quality control at a vegetable processing plant—after casting resumes all over the Northwest. He got their mom a job, too. Her first day was tomorrow.
“We’ll like the mountains all the more for being gone a year,” Craig said. “Save up some money, keep busy … we’ll get back there.”
She stroked her glass tenderly. When Craig saw that his brother had gotten no milk he poured him a glass.
“I don’t see why we came here,” Lyle said, “if we didn’t plan to stay. I sort of like Eugene.”
“That’s enough talk, buddy. Finish your eggs.”
“Had four already.”
“Eat the last one, and drink your milk.” He snapped his fingers. “Don’t make faces. Lift that glass. Drink it up.”
“What else about home, honey?” she said.
Craig soothed her with plans they had gone over before. He would build a house on the Salmon River near White Bird Hill, where her great-grandfather had homesteaded, down canyon from Marshal but close enough to attend River Baptist, once they were accepted back into the fold. The brothers would each grab hold of a church gal and have a mess of Rettews.
Lyle’s milk went down wrong and he spluttered. His brother poured himself another glass and took his chair. He had a few glasses a day and thought everybody should. At fifteen, Lila had quit milk to spite him. “Fuck milk,” she had said quietly at the table once, in front of their mom. Rattled after hearing the F-word, Craig tried to force the milk into her, most of it spilling down her faded Christian Rock Rules T-shirt. Half of Craig and Lila’s fights had begun with milk.
Lyle was coughing hard now. His hacking rang on the walls.
“Boy can’t even drink his milk,” his mom said.
When his chest settled, he touched a finger to the spine of his egg, tapping the sharp toothpick points as he spoke.
“There’s some people who don’t like milk,” he said. “You have to make them drink it. It’s funny, everybody likes ice cream, but how come some people don’t like milk?”
She drew her hand into a tight fist over her mouth.
“That’s plenty out of you,” Craig told him.
“What did I say?”
“Keep quiet.
