Distant Blood Read Free Page A

stomach churned.
    I gulped a couple of long, steadying breaths, then retrieved a pair of scissors from the kitchen drawer. Using them, I pried the card open—the paper resisted for a moment, because the blood gummed the edges closed. Redness lined the missive, like the dark signature of the devil. I saw first the preprinted salutation on the card: THINKING ONLY OF YOU. A scarlet spatter scored the wish. On the other side of the card, letters cut from a magazine spelled out a cheerless message:
    STAY AWAY BASTARD
YOU'RE NOT WANTED
DON'T MAKE ME PROVE IT
    I sat for a long while, breathing through my mouth, reading the hateful words again. Cursive, dainty letters formed the PROVE and they looked incongruous in the hurtful context. Bile rose in my throat, along with a hard, burning anger. I balled my hand into a fist.
    Stay away bastard.
    The phone rang, jarring me out of my reverie. I scooped the receiver up with a shaking hand. “Hello?” My own voice sounded dank and rheumy, as if I'd just surfaced from some deep darkness.
    “Hey, son, how you?” Bob Don's voice revved along, probably fresh from having closed a sweet deal on a fine preowned vehicle. “Hadn't talked to you in a couple of days and I missed you. What's up?”
    I swallowed hard during his flurry of words. My heart pounded in my chest, and when I spoke, my voice cracked on my first assurance that I was well. “Doing fine. How are you?”
    He regaled me with a funny story about one of his salesmen that normally would have had me laughing com-panionably. Instead I forced a weak titter. He asked about Mama and I answered I'd been out to the horse farm and she was well. The dance of words, meaningless to me at the moment, continued until I could stand it no more.
    “Bob Don, let me ask you a question. Did you tell the rest of your family about my coming to this reunion next month?”
    “Oh, sure, son. I weren't hardly gonna surprise them with you and make everybody uncomfortable. I told Uncle Mutt I was bringing you, and my sister Sass, and I'm sure they've informed the rest of the folks. You're big news to the Goertzes. Everybody's real eager to meet you.”
    “I see.” I stared at the blood-smirched card. Someone had not taken the news of my arrival kindly.
    “That's all right, isn't it?” Bob Don sounded concerned. “Son?”
    “Yes, of course it is. I just wondered.”
    “Well, I'm so looking forward to the reunion. I can't wait to show off my boy.”
    Pleasure and pride laced his voice, and I smiled despitemyself. I glanced back on the obscenity on the kitchen table. “I'm looking forward to meeting them, Bob Don.”
    We made small talk for a while, and he invited Candace and me to dinner the following Friday night. I hung up the phone and turned back toward the table.
    I resisted the urge to destroy the card. I got my camera, snapped a couple of pictures of the perverse mail, and carefully slid the card into a plastic Baggie. Telling Bob Don would upset him no end, and I felt furious at the idea of being warned off the reunion by someone so cowardly they veiled their hate in blood and anonymous threats. I stored the card carefully in an antique wooden box in my room, loath to eye it again. I stared down at the shut box and imagined the evil on the other side made the carved lid tremble, ever so slightly.
    I wondered who might hate me so, sight unseen.
    Two weeks later, rich hickory smoke perfumed the air as Bob Don flipped steaks on his backyard grill. Gretchen had flown on her broom to Brenham to visit her aunt and Can-dace was having dinner with her folks. We were bache-loring dinner together, but I had scant appetite for blood-rare steak and a loaded, buttery baked potato, fluffed with salt and pepper. My secret admirer had mailed me good wishes again.
    The second bit of correspondence was more direct in its threat. He or she had opted for another mass-market greeting card, the kind that women buy for other women on birthdays, dripping with