All Things Cease to Appear Read Online Free PDF Page B

farm where his mother had first carried him and then bore him and held him as an infant in her arms, and now he cried some more, this time like a man cries, when he knows what is to come.
    —

    HIS NAME WAS Cole Harold Hale. He’d been named after his great-grandpa, who had bought the farm in 1908 and turned it into a dairy. Cole’s father, Calvin, had grown up here and had taught Cole and his brothers how to do things just like his own father had taught him. He hadn’t gone past high school, but if you asked him anything he always came up with some answer. Didn’t matter what it was about, he knew a whole lot of things. He was tall and stoop-shouldered and walked around in an old blood-colored coat, and he had a tight, sewn-up look on his face, like he’d swallowed glass. His hands were big as Frisbees and they’d fly at you when you didn’t expect it. He spoke in a code. Not even Eddy understood it. He could hurt their mother. Doors would close. He’d drive off in his truck.
    On that night, though, he didn’t go anywhere. He stayed out in the barn with his whiskey. Finally, their mother went out to check. She stood in the doorway, holding a blanket like a sleeping child, but he wouldn’t take it. She came back to the house and lay on the couch with her back to the room. Cole covered her with the same blanket and waited for her to say something, to tell him he was a good, thoughtful boy like she often did, but she said nothing, and he went up to find his brothers.
    The room was cold without much heat and they all three of them got into one bed with all their clothes on and lay with their arms and legs touching and their eyes on the ceiling. Wade fell asleep first, as he always did. He wasn’t a worrier like their older brother, Eddy. Worrying kept Eddy up at night. He’d open the window and climb out on the roof and sit there and smoke, and when he came back he brought the cold in with him and the stink of cigarettes.
    In the morning, Mrs. Lawton came over with her boy, Travis Jr. Cole’s mother had washed her face and brushed her hair and put on lipstick. She stood at the mirror buttoning her sweater. She had yellow hair and little baby teeth, and people smiled at her like they do at babies or cupcakes or butterflies. Even with nothing she’d made cookies, and the whole house smelled good and sweet, like it always used to when he was little.

    Why don’t you boys go for a walk, Mrs. Lawton said. Your mother and I want to talk.
    Travis was a year younger than Cole and went to St. Anthony’s and had to wear a uniform. St. Anthony’s was around the corner from the middle school, and sometimes Cole would walk over and watch the St. Anthony’s kids behind the fence in their blue shirts and gray trousers, the girls in plaid skirts. He knew one of those girls, Patrice, and was in love with her.
    They went down to the creek, getting their sneakers wet, and started throwing rocks. Cole’s went the farthest, which was no surprise. He was tall for his age and had big hands and feet like his father and would grow up to be as big and tall as him, that’s what everybody always said. People always compared him to his father, but they didn’t know anything. For one thing, he didn’t plan on being poor, and he’d never hurt a woman or use a belt on his children, and when he thought about these things his chest went on fire and his eyes prickled, but he wouldn’t say a word. How he really felt about his father was nobody’s business.
    Travis Jr.’s father was the county sheriff. One time Wade got caught stealing something in Hack’s and Sheriff Lawton walked him into the parking lot and put his hand on his back to talk some sense into him. They stood there with their heads bowed like two men praying, but it made no impact on Cole’s brother, who was always figuring a scheme.
    He fished one of his mother’s butts out of his pocket and lit it, aware of Travis Jr.’s eyes on him. His mother smoked Pall Malls. He