dead to pass. At the beep, Hillsicker began his tirade: Bitch, we got your little
note. I say if you want me gone, come make me gone—
Cadell picked up the nearest receiver, the house sealed like a vacuum.
“Who’s this?” he said. “My name’s Cadell. What’s yours, problem?”
He faced Neda, eyes afire. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
“You’re asking who I am? Well, problem, I’ll tell you what, I’m the solution.” He
measured out every word that followed: “Now you listen to me, problem. You
and yours will be gone from that house one way or another, cause I’m running
out of the goodness I got in my heart for a problem like you. Get gone or get
solved, you hear?”
Cadell hung up the phone. “Maybe that will do it,” he said. “Sometimes they
respond to talk. We’ll see.”
Neda’s tongue felt like a stick jammed in her mouth. She was unable to look at
Cadell, instead watched the cloud-streaked sky tilting out a window. Cadell
leaned against the doorframe. She wondered if the house could take it, the size of
him now, plus all that weight of the past. Neda wondered if she could take it.
“I hope that will do it, what I just told him, because I have to tell you straight, I’m
nowhere near ready yet. We’ll have to wait and see.”
“Ready for what, Lonnie? You keep saying that.”
“You weren’t too close with your daddy, were you?”
Neda crossed her arms. “He was still my father,” she said. “Close or not, he
always took care of me. He was a dutiful father. I wish he was here.”
“Let me show you what I mean,” he said.
They drove to his house. Flowerbeds surrounded the foundation, red roses in
bloom, branches neatly pruned. The engine shut off cleanly when he turned the
key, thanks to the work he’d done on the carburetor. Neda followed him down
the brick path through the clipped lawn to his door. Inside, walls eggshell white,
shallow-knap brown carpet, linoleum tiles in the kitchen, vinyl mini-
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