LEFT OF SINISTER

CHAPTER TEN

His breathing was labored as he sat about retrieving the broken parts of the mug. He rose up with the sound of his younger brother's voice. He turned around and his visage made it clear to Candy something truly startling had befell him. The sight of him shocked Candy. "Good grief Earl you look like you just seen a ghost!" he said. He shook his head indicating his bewilderment. "Shit Candy I may have." he said in a near whisper. "What–what are you talking about?" his brother asked in absolute amazement.

Shaking his head once more Earl looked at him his distress rather apparent. There was no way he was going to tell his brother he had just seen his dead wife's ghost. "Oh nothing just another trick of the light I guess." he said now turning and nodding toward the window. "I thought I saw someone out there in the back yard–I guess it's just this damn storm, it's got me on edge. How else do you explain I thought I saw a little Asian girl when we drove up that looks like that painting you got hanging up in the living room and just upstairs before I came down that nude woman in the picture I saw her standing in the yard. And how do you explain the trunk being up when we first arrived?

Oh shit I know I must have hit the latch, but neither one of us remembers me doing so. And later like I said before I came down I got to tell you I thought that woman in the painting the one of the beauty queen's mother, I thought she was out there for sure and pointing at the trunk that was open again." he said with a sigh.

"And by god Candy she was just as naked as she is in that painting." he sort of laughed then overwhelmed by the ridiculous nature of it.

Candy fetched several sheets of paper towel from the rack above the counter and came over. "Relax Earl, just relax. Maybe the storm does have you on edge and add to that the circumstance of why you're down here, the fact of what Ryan did and what I had to do to stop him. It's your empathy on overdrive. Look go have a look out the hall window for yourself. See if the trunk is still up, and..." he laughed "...if that former babe is still out there. I'll clean up this mess and get you another mug–okay?" he said bending down and using the towels began to wipe up the spilled coffee.

"That's just it after I got spooked I put the picture back in the closet and when I looked out there again she was gone poof into thin air and the trunk was once again closed."

"Ah fuck check again for your mental stability." Candy insisted. And so he did as Candy suggested and making his way past him back through the living room and directly to the window in the short hallway and once more looked outside beyond the drapes. He looked to his left at the vehicles parked along the wall which the den the hallway led to looked out on. He didn't see the woman nor the trunk of his car up.

Satisfied that he was obsessing on something that wasn't there he let the drapes fall back in place and once turning around saw his brother standing there in the living room holding another mug of coffee for him.

"What'd you see?" Candy asked. "Nothing, and the trunk is closed. Jeez Candy am I losing my goddamn mind?" he asked. "Nah–it's either old age or empathy like I said. You definitely didn't see the woman in the painting upstairs. I could have disabused you of that easy." he said. "How so?" Earl asked taking the mug of coffee from him and heading back to the Lazy Boy where his lunch sat. "Because that date you saw on the legend–well I remembered its significance. That was the day she died. I remembered it once I came downstairs and fixed our meal." Candy explained.

Comfortably seated Earl took a sip of the coffee. "How in the hell did you forget something like that Candy?" he asked. "Shit Earl it was in 1976, thirty eight years ago as a matter of fact, so how do you expect me to remember every detail of something that happened so long ago? I knew the woman briefly, fucked her a couple of times and the next thing I knew she was dead." he said.