by Cheryl Reid
It was eight thirty when I locked my car behind Papa’s store. I put the starter in Papa’s drink cooler and took a Coca-Cola. I dialed Lila and told her where I was so that she would not worry. She asked about Marina and the baby, and I could not help but smile.
“You sound happy,” Lila said.
“I’m at peace,” I said.
She told me Eli and Gus were with Father McMurray, but they’d be back later, and she’d let Eli know where I was. I hung the receiver in the cradle and I snuck out the back door.
I took the towpath by the river and headed east toward my house on Poplar Street. The sun was gone, and in the east sat a sliver of moon and a scattering of stars. My eyes adjusted to the darkness among the gray tree trunks, and my feet pressed into the dark earth, damp from the days of rain. I looked out over the river and felt alive. The noise of the cicadas and frogs vibrated in the air and bounced off the canopy and the silvery black water. The sounds, the water, my breath in my ear, my heart in my chest—all this comforted me.
I crossed beneath the bridges and past the loading docks. The thump-thump of cars drowned out any other sound. I remembered coming here as a girl, and as the train went over, the rumble filled my whole body and the flash of the horn deafened my ears.
I began to run. The old courthouse with its black windows, like dead eyes on a stone face, reminded me of Marina’s black pupils, her hard labor, the medicine that made her feelings run over like a flood. Across the way was the corner of the post office, and I thought of Orlando Washington, and how my husband and Ivie and others, whoever they were, took Mr. Washington, to scare him and to show him they would do him harm if he tried to rise above his station in life. The frogs sang loud in my ear, the whippoorwill called. Ivie and the others would harm me too, if I gave them the chance.
I ran and a stitch pinched in my side, but I felt full of purpose, and pain would not stop me. I came off the path and stood at the back door of my house; it was dark and quiet. I was not afraid on the path in the night, but I was afraid in my kitchen, of who I had been and what I had done inside those walls. The smell of the house and our life together filled my nostrils. A wave of shame passed through me as the cuckoo clock ticked and the river frogs groaned and the night birds chirped.
My blood felt cold. If they came now, they would catch me. But Ivie was not here, nor were the folks Michael warned me about. I was alone and Verna’s lights were off. In the drawer nearest my stove, I kept a big box of matches. I took them out and began.
In each room, first upstairs, then the basement, then the main floor, I struck a match and then another. The sulfur tip caught to an orange flame and I set it to paper, to cloth, to curtains, pictures of him or whatever would burn. The place felt eerie in the glow and lick of flames spreading around me. In the kitchen I looked beneath the sink and found Lila’s pint of whiskey. I lit the stove and the oven and tossed a towel over the flame so it would spread. I poured the whiskey, lit it, tossed the last of the matches into the fire, and backed out the door.
Beneath the white mulberry trees, I waited for the fire to take hold and looked one last time at the garden Elias and I had planted together. The pole beans were his and the tomatoes mine. The eggplant hung heavy on the small bushes and the okra had grown taller than me. All of it gone to waste.
Smoke filled the windows. Marina’s silver would warp and melt, the pictures of him would shrivel to ash, and all the walls and beams would burn in the night. I thought of the cuckoo, the furniture, Papa’s rugs, the giant church coffeepot. The fire and the gossip would distress Marina, but she had a beautiful distraction to help her forget the misery of this place.
They had burned Orlando Washington’s home, and I had burned my own, but the act was not the same. They had pushed him out on the threat of death. They might come for me too, but maybe I had bought some time. Ivie or some other fool would brag that they had burned my house. Maybe the others would be appeased.
The orange flames filled the windows. I’d leave it a place for birds and squirrels to nest, an eyesore to greet Verna daily. I was happy Mr. Washington was safe. I was happy the house would burn to ruins, save the stone porch on which he had stood.
I could see the flames growing and feel the heat rising, and in a few moments, the windows would pop. Flames would pour out the openings and scorch the brick. The noise of bursting glass would wake Verna and she might call the fire department or she might not. She might let it burn and gather a crowd to revel in my suffering. They would think I got what I deserved.
I hurried west along the path, past the old courthouse, and at the bridges, I looked back at traces of smoke billowing gray against the black sky above the trees. All of that sad life was gone, and I had been the one to do it, not Michael or Ivie or any of those who wanted to hurt me, the ones who had tormented Mr. Washington. They wanted to run me off, but every step I took was for someone: Mama, Marina, Eli, Papa, Gus, Lila, Sophie, Elsa, Eliza Anne, Thea, and Orlando Washington.
There were others who had made this path: the Indians first and then later, walking on their journey west, the ferrymen settling this outpost, the men and women working the land or floating bales of cotton down the river, the soldiers resting on the banks between skirmishes. Maybe Ivie now, coming toward me or coming from behind.
Many people shared the guilt I carried. A history of people made us what we were, this town, cut in half. All of us shared responsibility for the bad things that had happened to me, to Elias, to Orlando Washington, but most of us denied it.
The smell of smoke filled the air, and I could not see the stars above the trees where my house once stood. I was not afraid if they came after me. This all will pass. That is what Papa said. They had burned Orlando Washington’s home, and I had burned my own. My heart beat high in my chest as the din of the fire truck carried through town.
Inside Papa’s store, I flipped the light switch and the clutter of his life met me hard. I walked into my mother’s baking room, and in my nervous energy, I started sorting Papa’s things. He had stacked garden tools along the wall and I moved them by the back door to take out the next day. I tossed empty cardboard boxes there too. While I worked, I remembered the fire in her oven, the hot white ash and her baking bread and cooling pies. I looked inside the oven and tried to remember how she used the heat.
Baking in Mama’s oven would be trial and error, but I would learn. Marina wanted bread and I would make it for her every day. Maybe Eli was right to have faith in her, because she had not given me away to Michael, nor had she refused me when I told her I was not leaving. Maybe Marina could forgive me and I would see Eliza Anne again, whether it was tomorrow or next week or in a year or in ten years. One day, I would give her my bread that I made in her great-grandmother’s oven, but for tomorrow morning I would bake in the regular oven. I went to the front of the store to get my starter and some flour to feed it.
Ivie’s face pressed on the glass door and I screamed. When he saw me, he swung a bat and shattered the glass. His long arm reached through the shards to unlock the bolt.
I ran to the back door to get out, but the boxes and the tools I had piled up were in my way.
He swung a bat in every direction, knocking groceries off shelves and busting the register and the counters as he strode toward me.
I threw the boxes at him and he batted them away. He leered at me and seemed to be enjoying himself, but finally he grabbed my bruised arm with one hand and yanked me close. He sniffed my hair. “You stink of smoke and you think you’re going to pin arson on me?” He smelled of musk and whiskey and his face was drenched in sweat. He let go of me with a shove.
I reached around and got a hand on Papa’s garden hoe. “Gus will be here any minute.”
“I don’t think so.” He wore a rope around his waist. “He and Eli stopped at the fire at your house.”
I moved away toward the kitchen. I lifted the hoe with the blade facing him. “Get out.” I swung the tool toward his face.
W
ith a feral look in his eye, he laughed at me threatening him. “You know all about that fire, don’t you?”
Eli and Gus would be tormented watching my house burn and thinking I was inside.
Ivie lunged and I had no choice but to shuffle backward into Mama’s baking room.
“I went looking for you and I saw what you did.” He swung his bat and it grazed the hoe and sent vibrations into my arms. I would lose a battle of strength. “Put that down before you get hurt.” His eyes were crazy, wild. He could bury me with his body.
“Get out,” I said. “You’re drunk.”
“I’m always a little bit drunk.” He swung the bat and knocked the metal shelves that held Mama’s pans and the tools Papa had haphazardly laid there. The tall shelf rocked off balance and landed with a great clatter. The pans rolled around like tops spinning and gave off a ghostly noise.
“Why were you at my house?” He had gone there to hurt me. I held tight to the hoe, and if he came at me, I would strike him and run.
He swung the bat on my mother’s worktable. The pounding of wood hurt my ears. “Why were you not there?” He drank from his flask. “Because it was you who burned it.”
“Don’t do something you’ll regret.”
“I have no regrets.” He moved stealthily around me. “Me and you have unfinished business.” He lifted my mother’s table and turned it on its side. Papa’s papers fluttered to the floor.
The phone in Papa’s store rang. I tried to step around him, but he blocked my way.
“I wanted to thank you.” A dark smile covered his face.
“Why?” The ringing kept on. It was probably Lila, and I regretted not going to her house. I had thought I was above his threats. I had tempted fate by setting my house on fire, but the feeling I’d had holding Eliza Anne had overwhelmed me to be bold and start new and fresh.
He took a step closer and leaned in. “You did what I always dreamed of.”
The phone rang and I jostled the hoe in his face. “Go away.”
“Whoa, now.” He moved closer, betting I did not have the grit to injure him. “My brother was a goddamn bastard.”
“I want you to turn around and go.” I pushed the flat blade of the hoe into his chest, but he was strong and the force of his body drove me toward the corner. The phone rang one last time, and I prayed Gus and Eli would leave the fire and come here before he hurt or killed me.
His face was slick and his eyes intense. He took a step away, and with a grunt he crashed the bat into the wall. It splintered and he threw it on the ground. “I came here in peace.”
“Your brother loved you.” I tried to think what he wanted to hear, anything to get away from him and what he planned to do. “And now you have the store. He wanted you to have it.”
“Naw.” His body inched toward mine and I did not have the strength to stop him. “He didn’t give a rat’s ass about me.” He drank a long swig from his flask.
“Go,” I said. “Go home and work in your store.”
Quick and nimble, he grabbed the handle of the hoe and pushed me against the wall. He was close and I could smell the whiskey on his breath. “I came for you.”
“Don’t do something you’ll regret,” I said again. I held on to the hoe with both hands and kept it between us. The stitches burst and the blood ran but I did not let go.
“Like kill you?” His face sagged from age and drink but his eyes ran greedily over my face and neck. He lifted the sleeve of my dress and ran his fingers over the bruise. “He was awful to you.” His words slurred and his eyelids hung heavy.
I pushed the hoe into his chest, but he did not notice the pressure of the tool. Either I was too feeble or he was too fixed on me. “Go home, Ivie. You are drunk.”
“He was a mean bastard.” He put his hands in my hair. The tool was between us, but his sweaty cheek pressed on mine. “I watched him hurt you and I watched him get richer and I didn’t get nowhere.”
I did not know if I had the strength to stop him. I pleaded. “If you hurt me, you’ll never be good again.”
“Is that how you feel?” His face hung over mine. “All you ever wanted was a man to treat you nice.” He ripped my dress.
“Leave me alone.” I could feel the old fear rising, but I pressed the blade into the meat of his chest as hard as I could.
“You don’t want to do that.” He grabbed the handle again and his brute force turned my weak arms. He looked like Elias, only where Elias had a keen eye, Ivie seemed bewildered. “If you do that, I’ll have to hurt you.”
“You wanted the store. You have it. You wanted me out of Riverton. At least I’m in Mounds,” I said. “Now leave me alone.”
“I had a new idea.” His breath landed on my cheek. “You and me, we could work together. You ran that store as much as him. You can work and I’ll take care of you, treat you nice.”
His eyes were half shut, and in his reverie, he let go of the handle. I twisted it and shunted it into his flesh. He bent over in pain. “You goddamn bitch.” His voice was gravelly and deep.
The blade had landed on his arm, and blood ran down onto the ground. I got around him, but in two or three steps, he had hold of me and threw me to the floor like I was a sack of potatoes.
I scooted toward the door. “Gus is coming,” I said. “He’ll kill you if you hurt me.”
“Your Gus ain’t coming.” He stood over me with his foot on my arm. His blood dripped onto me as he took the rope from around his waist, to hang me or pull me or tie me. “Now you made me mad.”
I thought of Eliza Anne, of Marina and Eli. I thought of their faces and how much I loved them. I could not move, but I screamed, “If you kill me, you’ll have nothing,”
He barked at me. “What do you have? Huh? What do you have?” He fumbled as he wound the rope around my neck. He held it tight and crouched down over me.
I tried to hold him off with my arms, but his weight was heavy. “I have my children and my grandchild.”
He pulled the rope tight with one hand and groped under my dress with the other. “Shut up,” he said. “They don’t want you. Nobody wants you.”
“Forget about me. Forget about Elias. Just go,” I begged. I could not move away without choking myself. It had been one thing for Elias to touch me. He was my husband and the father of my children. I had wanted to love him. But Ivie’s touch made my skin crawl and I did not want to die at his hands.
“Lay there and shut up and maybe I won’t kill you.” He clenched the rope tighter and pulled at my dress with his free hand.
That is when I saw the shadow in the hall. I did not know if it was someone else come to do me harm, or if it might be Eli or Gus. Ivie was too drunk and too intent on pulling at my underclothes to notice.
When he reached down and fumbled with his pants, I shot my fingers into his eyes and dug my nails into his eyeballs to rake them out. They pushed in deeper than I thought they could go.
His body recoiled and I jerked my knee into his groin. He yanked the rope and choked me. A shot fired and the report filled the small room. He rolled over on his side. I crawled away toward the door and Lila stood above me. She gave me her free hand to help me stand.
Ivie lay huddled near a dark pool of blood.
“Did you hit him?” I coughed and could not catch my breath.
Lila shook her head. She pointed on the wall where the bullet had passed through. She had shot high to scare him. “Any damage is from you.”
The blood on the floor came from the gash I’d given him. I felt weak-kneed and sick.
“Go call the sheriff.” She kept her pistol pointed at Ivie. She sounded firm, but her hand shook.
Ivie whimpered. “I can’t see nothing.” He tried to get to his knees.
“Don’t move, or I won’t miss this time,” Lila yelled as if he were a wild horse that she meant to tame.
His wits were slow from the drink and his eyes were swollen shut, but he knew she meant business, and he sat stone still.
I stumbled to the phone and dialed the sheriff’s office. They knew Ivie and they would come, but I did not expect them to come fast, because of who I was and where we were. I hurried back to Lila through the wreckage of Papa’s store.
“How did you know?” I asked her.
“Someone called and said your house was on fire. I knew you were here.” I could hear the dryness in Lila’s mouth. Her lips and words stuck together like tacky paper. I could tell she was afraid.
“Where’s Sophie?” I asked.
“Asleep in the truck.” Lila kept her eyes on him but lowered the gun. “Go sit with her until they get here.”
I staggered to the truck where Sophie slept. I scooped the warm, sweet child into my arms and her weight reminded me of why I had not left.
The deputy arrived and he sauntered to where I sat with Sophie. He asked, “What seems to be the trouble here?”
As I told what had happened, his hands rested on his belt and he did not take a single note.
“Did you know your house burned?” He showed no concern that my house had caught on fire or that I was bleeding and in a torn dress with rope burns around my neck.
I answered, “Not until Ivie told me.”
“And who discharged the weapon?” The officer looked back at the store and the shattered glass.
“My sister-in-law. She’s inside,” I said.
“Tell me where you were this evening.” The deputy spit onto the gravel.
I held Sophie and felt calm. “I was at the hospital with my daughter and then I went home to get my things and I came here. My neighbor Verna saw me packing and I called Lila to let her know where I was.”
“And why did you leave your house?” He looked at Sophie asleep on my lap.
“I was afraid for my safety.” I stared at him and he spit again.