Valentine

by Elizabeth Wetmore

  * * *

  Corrine is right on Mary Rose’s tail when they roar through Penwell, a fusty little town on an otherwise empty stretch of earth interrupted only by pumpjacks and railroad tracks and a single row of telephone poles that looks as if it stretches to eternity. There are seventy-five or so permanent citizens, many of them living in trailers they hauled from Odessa and parked among the remnants of the original pecan-wood oil derricks. All that remains of the old gas station and dance hall is a stack of lumber and broken glass, and piled-up tumbleweeds against a rusty sign lying on the ground. Dance To-night.

  Two little boys are standing on the side of the road, and they cheer as the women blow through a traffic light that hasn’t worked in forty years. They pass the gas station without seeing any sign of Potter’s truck. On the other side of town, the road veers south and starts running alongside the railroad tracks. The asphalt disappears and the road deteriorates to a dusty mess of ruts and tumbleweeds. The dust cloud is still ahead of them, mostly, but the wind is unreliable. It dives and dips, seizes the cars and shakes them fiercely before letting go suddenly. When Mary Rose swerves to miss a piece of pipeline that has fallen across the road, Corrine does the same.

  Mary Rose hits the brakes a second time, veering madly and leaving Corrine to stare down a mama armadillo ambling across the road with her four pups. She slams her foot against the brake pedal and jerks hard to the right, her face hitting the steering wheel with enough force that stars swim at the edges of her vision.

  The two cars careen toward the edge of the road and come to a stop. Potter’s truck is parked up ahead, and a second, older pickup truck is next to it. Corrine taps her horn and tries to pull up next to Mary Rose, but the road is narrow and Mary Rose will not look at her, so Corrine reaches across the wide expanse of her front seat, opens the glove box, and sets her pistol next to her cigarettes. If they get out of this situation with everybody still alive, she is going home and smoking that whole pack. She is going to drink herself half stupid, and then sleep for three days.

  Mary Rose’s car rolls slowly down the road until they are only a few yards from the two trucks, and it is only then that Corrine spots the man and girl walking side by side along the railroad tracks. He is small and thin with stooped shoulders and black hair, nothing at all like the man whose pictures were all over the news in the wake of the attack on Gloria Ramírez. Debra Ann’s bangs are in her eyes and she is wearing her favorite terrycloth shorts and sparkly pink T-shirt. In one hand the man holds a jug of water and oh, what Corrine wouldn’t give for a little sip of that. His other hand is gently folded around D. A.’s grimy fingers.

  Corrine rolls down the window and leans out to shout at them, but she sees Mary Rose’s car door swing open and lays on the horn instead. It is a long unbroken wail, not so different from the plant whistle, and it gets their attention. Jesse and D. A. stop and turn around, and after a brief pause, he bends down to say something to her. The child shrugs and rubs her eyes, and looks at her feet.

  Mary Rose jumps out of her car and runs toward them, the rifle bouncing against her shoulder, bullets spilling onto the ground behind her. Corrine’s heart jumps as if she’s just grabbed an electric fence. She has been living across the street from this young woman for months, watching her grow thin as a mesquite leaf, noticing the dark shadows under her eyes when she sits on the front porch and watches her daughter as if she might disappear at any moment.

  A few weeks before the trial, while the girls were giving the baby a bath and the women were having a cigarette on Mary Rose’s back patio, Corrine thought she saw in her neighbor’s eyes, ever so briefly, something that might have been despair.

  Do you need anything? she asked Mary Rose.

  No, Mary Rose said, I guess I don’t.

  When was the last time you got a good night’s sleep? And Mary Rose let loose with a laugh that was more snarl than anything else. Well, she said, I’m one of those women who has to get up and pee every ten minutes, pretty much from the day I get pregnant, and the baby’s three months old, so I’d say it’s been about thirteen months since I slept through the night, give or take.

  Honey, what about Robert? I know he’d come into town and help out, if you asked him to.

  Robert’s busy with his cows. Mary Rose looked out at her lawn and kicked at one of the half dozen extension cords that were spread across the patio. And I don’t want him here anyway.

  She walked to the edge of the porch and stepped on a large black spider. Keith Taylor was over here the other day helping me get ready for the trial, she said, and he asked me about living here in town, if I didn’t miss being with my husband, and I didn’t know how to answer him.

  One of the girls shouted inside the house and both women stopped talking, ears pricking in expectation of being needed for one thing or another, being asked to solve the next domestic situation, however large or small, but the girls chattered for a few seconds and went quiet.

  Because when I ask myself what is lost between Robert and me, Mary Rose paused and looked at her hands, turned them over and over. Well. How would I even know? Shit, I got my first cheerleading outfit when I was still in diapers. All of us did. If we were lucky, we made it to twelve before some man or boy, or well-intentioned woman who just thought we ought to know the score, let us know why we were put on this earth. To cheer them on. To smile and bring a little sunshine into the room. To prop them up and know them, and be nice to everybody we meet. I married Robert when I was seventeen years old, went straight from my father’s house to his. Mary Rose sat down on a lawn chair and leaned her head against the patio table and began to cry. Is this what I’m supposed to do? she said. Cheer him on?

  Corrine stood and waited for the crying to stop, but it went on and on and after a while Corrine, embarrassed for her neighbor, touched Mary Rose’s shoulder. Call me if you need anything, she said, and let herself out through the side gate.

  Corrine has run less than ten feet when her lungs seize and tell her no, no ma’am, should have thought about this twenty years ago. She doubles over in the desert, breathing hard, then stands up and takes a few steps. Her whole face aches from hitting the steering wheel, and a knot is rising on her forehead. She vomits a little into the sand, nothing but bile and water, and wonders if she might have a concussion.

  Mary Rose is far ahead of her now, and Corrine begins to shout Debra Ann’s name again and again, each word a new challenge to her aching lungs, her parched throat and bruised head.

  D. A. and Jesse watch the two women, one far ahead of the other and moving fast, the other lumbering behind like an old heifer, wishing she’d listened to Potter all those years when he said haranguing teenagers all day long wasn’t real exercise, no matter how many hours a day she was on her feet.

  Let her go, Strickland. Mary Rose’s voice is a steel rod, and it pierces Corrine to the core. That’s not him, Mary Rose, she yells. It’s not the same man.

  Mary Rose stops running and looks at the young man. Corrine knows her friend is close enough to see him clearly. They both are. See there, Corrine calls. That’s Mr. Belden.

  Debra Ann frowns up at Jesse, and they see him stoop down a bit to gently take her by the arm. He stands up straight and waves toward the women.

  Thank God. Corrine takes a step toward them.

  No, Mary Rose says quietly. She lifts the rifle she calls Old Lady and snugs it against her shoulder and squeezes the trigger.

  * * *

  The rifle report tears the day in half. Debra Ann and Jesse fall to the ground and lie without moving. Mary Rose gazes at them calmly. Her head is cocked slightly to the side, as if she is trying to solve a problem. I missed, she says flatly. I fucking missed.

  Both D. A. and Jesse are crying now, both of them repeating what’s going on, what’s going on, and although Jesse’s voice is louder and deeper than Debra Ann’s, it is still very much the voice of a child who does not understand.

  Debra Ann, Corrine yells, get up and come here
right now. The girl rises wraithlike from the dirt and hits the ground running.

  Mary Rose pops the cartridge out of the rifle, bends down, and grabs one of several bullets that lie scattered at her feet. After she slips a bullet into the chamber and pumps the bolt closed, she stands perfectly still, watching. She is tracking him, Corrine sees, waiting for him to make his next move. She’s a good shot. If she fires again, she will not miss. And as if reading Corrine’s mind, Mary Rose yells at Jesse, Next time I won’t miss.

  Corrine reaches Mary Rose at the same time as Debra Ann. He’s my friend, she says, I’m helping him.

  He hurt you, Mary Rose says.

  No. Debra Ann yanks convulsively at her eyebrow, tearing at the thin hairs and flinging them to the ground. He’s my friend.

  Are you okay? Corrine asks, and when Debra Ann nods, she says, What in the hell are you doing?

  I’m helping him go back home. D. A. swipes the back of her hand across her nose and rubs a string of brown snot against her shorts. He needs his truck, and I drove him out here.

  Oh, honey, says Corrine.

  I was coming back. Debra Ann’s face turns red. I wasn’t stealing Mr. Shepard’s truck. I know you love it.

  She starts to cry. Nobody cares what happens to Jesse, she says. Or me.

  And she is right, Corrine sees now. Debra Ann and Jesse need so much more than anyone has given them. A whistle blows in the distance—the refinery maybe, or a train that is still several miles away. The wind whips their hair around their faces and makes it difficult to hear. In the water-starved desert, the cactuses have turned black and folded in on themselves. Mesquite beans, gray and shriveled, cling to their trees or lie in piles around the trunks, and Jesse Belden lies in the dirt making small noises in his throat, a small and frightened critter, a young man who has seen firsthand how a bullet can tear a body to pieces.

  You stand up, Mary Rose tells him. Get up and hold your hands in the air.

  He can’t hear you, Debra Ann yells. Her face is covered with dirt and tears, and there is a small scrape on her cheek. He can’t hear—her voice breaks—this is my fault.

  Get up, Mary Rose yells. Get up now.

  Jesse rises to his knees and rocks a little as he clasps his hands to his head.

  Mary Rose, Corrine says. Stop.

  I missed my chance before. Her voice is full of sorrow. Corrine grabs her arm, shaking it hard enough that the gun wobbles. You stop this, Mary Rose. This is not the same man. She seizes Debra Ann and holds her out to Mary Rose like an offering. Look. She’s fine. See?

  He’s not well, Mrs. Whitehead, D. A. says. I’m responsible for him.

  I want to go home, Jesse calls to the women. I want Nadine.

  D. A. makes as if to run back to him, but Corrine grabs her by the arm and shakes her hard. Go sit down in my car, lie down in the back seat, and don’t you dare look out that window.

  Yes, Mary Rose says quietly. Tell her not to look out the window.

  They are the most terrifying words Corrine has ever heard in her life, and it occurs to her that she wants to sit down in the middle of this dusty field, and close her eyes, and go to sleep. She imagines Potter standing beside his truck in a field not far from where they are now. He left the house before dawn, she’s sure, because he would have wanted to see the sun come up one more time. He never missed a chance to watch the sun rise. They could be standing in the middle of the smelliest, most gutted corner of the oil patch and he would watch that burning star hoist itself over the earth’s edge. What color of red is that, he’d say to her. What color, that sky? Those clouds? Another glorious day. He’d smile. What shall we do today, Mrs. Shepard?

  Corrine doesn’t want to make a grab for the rifle and risk it going off, so she reaches for the barrel and covers her friend’s hand with her own. What are we going to do, Mary Rose?

  Tears mark a slow path through the dust that has gathered on Mary Rose’s cheeks, and still she stands with the rifle aimed at Jesse Belden, safety off, her finger coiled tight around the trigger. I want some fucking justice, she says.

  I know, honey, but you don’t want to shoot the wrong man.

  Wrong? Mary Rose says. We don’t know what he’s done, or will do, but we know that he sure as shit won’t be held accountable for it.

  Corrine rubs her thumb gently across the hand holding the rifle barrel and then moves it gently up Mary Rose’s arm. The stock is pressed tight against Mary Rose’s shoulder, her arm taut as a violin string. She is trembling with rage.

  In wrath may you remember mercy, Corrine thinks. Mary Rose, if you shoot this man, you will never be the same. And neither will Debra Ann, or me.

  Every day, I wait to pick up the phone and hear his voice on the other end, Mary Rose says. Every night, I wait for somebody to come through my front door and hurt my kids. He is out. They didn’t do one goddamned thing to him.

  I know. But this is not your man.

  Corrine would have done anything to be with Potter on the morning he chose to die. Not to stop him—she knows damned well what he was facing, how hard his death was going to be if they let the illness run its course—but she could have stood with him and watched the sun come up. Don’t be afraid, she could have told him. You’re not alone.

  Thanks for putting up with me all these years, she would have told him, and all my petty bullshit. Potter would have laughed and pointed out some little critter scuttling through the brush. See there? A family of blue quail. See the little hatchlings, nine of them in the clutch? Ain’t that sweet, Corrine?

  And it is sweet, she sees now. Potter knew it all the way to the end. How could she have thought so little of the world? How could she have taken herself out of the equation, she wonders, always looking askance, tearing so much down, giving so little back? She will grieve him until the day she dies, but that is going to be a long time from today—for everyone standing in this field, if she can help it.

  It is just past three o’clock. The sun and heat are without mercy, and the wind blows hot against their faces. Jesse Belden kneels quietly in the dirt with his hands on his head and his face turned toward the earth, a prisoner who has been waiting his whole life for this. This is the soldier home from the war. These are the years and the walls and the door— Where are those words from? What song, what poem, what story? When she gets home, she will try to find them. If need be, she will take every book off the shelves. Home without Potter, home with a goddamned stray cat and a motherless child, home with a young woman whose face is a mess of gray dust and tears and rage, whose finger is still on the trigger. Home with this young stranger kneeling in the dirt.

  Corrine keeps her hand on Mary Rose’s shoulder. We are going to drive back to town, she says, and ask Suzanne to stay with the kids a little longer. We’ll sit out in my backyard and have a stiff drink, and we will figure this out.

  What the hell is wrong with this place? Mary Rose’s voice is barely more than a whisper. Why don’t we give a shit about what happens to a girl like Glory Ramírez?

  I don’t know.

  Mary Rose looks across the field at Jesse Belden. I want to kill someone.

  Not this man. Corrine laughs gently. Maybe another time. She wraps her hand around the rifle’s barrel. Her arm wobbles under its weight as she lifts the gun out of Mary Rose’s hand and sets it on the ground and nudges it away with the toe of her sneaker. You’re not alone, she says.

  Don’t be afraid, Corrine calls out to Jesse and Mary Rose, and D. A. Pierce, whose face is pressed against the window of Corrine’s car, a small and pale witness, trying to understand what it means when Mary Rose walks over to Jesse and helps him to his feet, when she tells him how sorry she is, how easy it is to become the thing you most hate, or fear. I never knew, Mary Rose tells him, and I wish I still didn’t.

  * * *

  They drive back to Odessa slowly, Corrine and D. A. leading the way in the Lincoln, followed by Jesse in Potter’s truck. Mary Rose brings up the rear, her white sedan so covered w
ith dust it is barely indistinguishable from the fields they pass. Tomorrow morning, Corrine tells Jesse, she will drive him back out and they will pick up his truck, which they left parked next to the gravesite of those railroad workers. They will make sure he gets home to eastern Tennessee. Your sister is there, right? Yes, ma’am, he says quietly, and my mom.

  When they arrive at Corrine’s driveway, Jesse pulls Potter’s truck behind her car and sits looking through the windshield while she brings him a glass of water. His hands are still gripping the steering wheel when he falls asleep, but when she looks out the window a few minutes later, the truck is empty and he is gone. She will find him in the morning, take him back to Penwell, give him some money, and make sure he gets home.

  Corrine steers Mary Rose across the street and hands her off to Suzanne, who opens and closes her mouth a half dozen times before pressing her lips together and saying nothing. If any of this gets out, Corrine knows, Mary Rose is likely to find herself locked up in the hospital at Big Springs.

  Slowly, Corrine walks back across the street and draws a hot bath for Debra Ann, who will soak for nearly an hour and leave so much sand and dirt in the tub that Corrine will wonder aloud when this child last bathed.

  With soap? Debra Anne says.

  Corrine is sitting on the floor outside the bathroom with her back against the door and her legs straight out in front of her. Everything hurts—her knees, her ass, her tits, every damn thing. If you steal anything from me, ever again, she tells the girl, I will send you packing—straight to Suzanne Ledbetter. She’d just love to get her hands on you.

  I won’t, D. A. says. Can you come wash my back?

  No, honey. Mrs. Shepard just wants to sit here quietly for a minute or two.

  I can’t reach it, and it itches.

  Corrine sighs and tries to stand up, but her back rebels. She rolls over onto one side and lies there panting, then uses the wall to pull herself up. When she steps into the bathroom, D. A. is hunched over in the bathtub, her round shoulders and back covered with chigger bites and open scabs. Long, ugly scratches mark the places she can reach. Everything else is a mess of dried blood and infected skin. Corrine grabs a washcloth and dips it in the bathwater and then, kneeling on the floor, she rubs it gently against the child’s skin. From now on, she says, you can come over any time, as long as it’s after ten a.m., and I will always answer the door. The little girl sighs deeply and closes her eyes. That feels good.