Excerpt: Justice for Logan

Logan was dead. They were burying him today and she would never see him again. The weight of her grief crashed down upon her suddenly and she nearly threw herself down on the ground in front of the chairs. She was in so much pain it was a wonder she could sit up straight at all, and the pain increased as the ceremony progressed. She gripped Anna Laura’s hand tightly to keep from getting up and running away. Delta, Anna Laura, her mom, her dad, Meemaw, her aunts, and uncles, and her other cousins all cried like babies. Even the preacher wiped away a tear or two. Delta doubted he had buried many men as young as Logan.
Only the family had made the drive out to the remote cemetery and for that Delta was grateful. Delta was also glad that the ceremony was mercifully short. Before she knew it, it was over and they were climbing back into their cars. Delta slept on the way back home as well, and when they got home she went wordlessly upstairs, declining to stay up and eat with the family. She took a long hot shower and got into bed. She did not know if she slept or just lay there, but after a while Anna Laura came upstairs.
“I think we are going home in the morning. And we are about to go to Meemaw’s for the night.”
“Okay. I had fun last night. But now I am just miserable.”
“You are hung over.”
“I am depressed.” Delta said, rubbing her eyes with her hands “But I guess its understandable.”
“You will be alright.” Anna Laura replied “It just takes a while.”
“I think I am going to take to my bed for a while.” Delta replied “I cannot deal with the world right now.”
“Okay sweetie, but when you come back out, come see me in Tupelo. We can go to Memphis the next time we sneak out!”
Delta smiled and sat up to hug her cousin. “I’ll see you after a while.”
With that, Anna Laura left the room and Delta fell asleep. She woke up in the dark because her stomach hurt and she realized she had not eaten anything all day. She went downstairs to get a glass of milk. She could see a light in the backyard through the kitchen window. She looked out the back door. Her dad had built a fire in his fire pit and was sitting, gazing at the flames and poking them with a broken fishing pole. A half empty whiskey bottle sat in the grass beside his feet. He was drinking whiskey over ice in a glass that he held in his other hand. He looked tired and forlorn and suddenly very old. Delta poured herself a glass of milk and went outside.
Dad’s fire pit was made from an old wagon wheel that he found at a scrap yard and brought home because he thought it would be useful for something. He was always doing things like that. An old watering trough from the same scrap yard graced the side of the back porch, and served as a planter for water lilies as well as a breeding ground for mosquitoes and tadpoles. He had also rigged a spit over the fire pit and sometimes roasted pork or chicken over an open flame. The rest of the family good naturedly referred to such meals as “Dad’s caveman food.” Tonight he was just burning a bunch of old logs and staring mournfully at the fire.
“I am never going to be able to sit here with Logan again.” He said miserably as Delta walked up. She didn’t know what to say, so she just sat down.
He continued drinking in silence. Finally he looked at Delta and said “I feel so responsible for this.”
“It is not your fault, Daddy.” Delta replied, “Logan made his own mistakes, no matter what we did to try to keep him safe!”
“This is different….” He began. “The day before Logan died, he came to me asking for money. He was unusually honest with me. He said he owed some people money and that he was afraid of what would happen if he did not pay them back. I thought he was exaggerating or scamming me and I told him no. He got really angry and stormed out. I did not see him again until I saw his dead body at the hospital.”
He looked stricken “I should have given him the money!”
Delta hugged her dad “You had no way of knowing that he was not just trying to talk you out of some money so he could buy drugs. And how do you know that it was not just an accident, or that he was not driving under the influence?”
“There wasn’t anything in his system when he died. I saw the toxicology report. And I just have a feeling that he was telling the truth. He sounded so different than he usually did. And when he stormed out in anger, underneath all that fear, he looked really afraid.”
“Did you talk to the cops?”
“They seemed to think it was a cut and dried single automobile accident. It was really early in the morning on an empty road and no one saw what happened. But they said he probably fell asleep or got distracted and ran off the road and hit the tree.”
“But did you tell them what he said?”
“They said they would look into it, but I don’t think anything is going to come of it.”
“Still, it is not your fault. You can look back with regret and blame yourself all you want, but you did not know. And you thought that not giving him any more money was in his best interest.”
“Delta, no matter what you say, I will always blame myself.”
Delta turned away to look at the fire so that he could not see that she had started crying. After a while, he poured another drink, but only took a sip of it before saying “I think I have had enough. Do you want this?”
“No. I am still sick from last night.”
He chuckled, “I wondered where you and Anna Laura snuck off too.”
“Well don’t tell mom.”
“I won’t . And in all seriousness, don’t tell her about what I told you earlier. I do not want to burden her with that. I should not have burdened you.”
“It is okay, Daddy.”
He tossed the rest of his drink into the fire, which blazed briefly. He picked up the whiskey bottle and walked into the house. Delta sat watching the fire and thinking for a while longer. She felt horrible that her dad blamed himself for Logan’s death. She also felt determined to get to the bottom of what had happened to her brother.