by Meg Moseley
“You won’t let a man get away with anything, will you? It was only a pain pill, ground up.”
“Martha, go to bed and stay there.” She turned on him with a horrible new suspicion. “How many times have you drugged me?”
Finally, he met her eyes. “It wasn’t drugging in the criminal sense. Your doctor prescribed a medication for you. You needed it. I simply neglected to mention that I was administering it.”
“How many times?”
“Three times. Applesauce, yogurt, pudding. It’s a problem, this belief that medicines are somehow—”
“No, the problem is that you sneaked drugs into my food!”
“When you hurt all over, you’re hard to live with. Oh, pardon me, I didn’t mean to say anything so scandalous. I wouldn’t want Martha to think we’re living together.”
“Mama, what’s he talking about?”
“Nothing.”
Martha scooted closer to him. “Uncle Jack, why’s Mama always mad at you?”
“Because I’m always doing something stupid. Don’t worry, sweetie, it’ll all blow over.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” Miranda said. “Martha, go to bed. Now. And if you come downstairs again, I’ll … I’ll take away your scissors and paper for two days.”
Martha’s face fell. She slipped inside, closing the door with a thump.
Jack drummed his fingers on the arm of his rocker. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I hate to see you in such misery. And so exhausted. That was my fault, keeping you up half the night with my questions.”
“Don’t pretend to be compassionate. It’s about control. It’s about tricking me into doing things your way. This cancels out all those apologies.”
He let out a sharp sigh and rose. “I’d better vamoose. Can I bring you anything first? A cup of the hot hay water you call tea?”
“Do you really think I trust you to bring me anything to eat or drink?”
“I guess not. Good night, then, Randi.”
“You—what—where did you come up with that?”
“It’s written on the flyleaf of your Bible.”
“You stay out of my Bible!”
“Yes. Certainly.”
He lifted his fingers to his brow in a crisp salute, then ran down the steps and into the darkness. The Audi’s engine growled and the driveway came alive with lights. The car backed up, swung around in a tight turn, and sped away.
“Don’t hurry back,” Miranda said.
She’d have to get rid of the prescriptions. The older children might know where he’d put them.
Fighting the dizziness that never quite disappeared, Miranda went inside, leaving the bowls and spoons. Jack had brought them onto the porch; he could take them in again, with his two good hands.
Unless she locked him out.
It was past midnight. A faraway owl hooted as Jack climbed out of the car. The house was dark. Nobody had left the porch light on for him.
He retrieved half a dozen bags from the trunk and climbed up the five broad steps. He set two gallons of milk on the porch and tried the door.
Locked. And Miranda had never given him a key. Now she never would.
She wouldn’t hear a knock. Thanks to the narcotic in the pudding, she would be dead to the world for a few more hours, but one of the kids might hear his knock and take pity on him.
He knocked, lightly at first and then harder when no one came. He began contemplating his limited breaking-in skills.
Once more, he made a sharp rat-a-tat-tat, the bags growing heavy in his hands.
The stairway light came on. Moments later, footsteps approached.
“Who is it?” It was Rebekah, sounding scared.
“Your long-lost uncle.”
She opened the door. Wrapped in a bulky blue bathrobe, she rubbed her eyes. “Where were you?”
“The Walmart in Clayton. Sorry to wake you. I don’t have a key.”
“It’s okay.” She yawned. “I wanted to talk to you anyway.”
“Yeah? Shoot.”
She followed him into the kitchen and helped put groceries away. “When I came down for a drink of water, Mother asked me to take the pills from the hospital and flush them down the toilet, but is that all right?”
“Of course. That’s her decision. She’s your mother, and you should obey her.”
“But is it all right with you?”
“That shouldn’t matter. Unless she asks you to do something that’s illegal or immoral or dangerous, you should do as she asks.”
“Okay, but I can’t find the pills.”
He opened the cupboard over the stove, careful of the pathetic, one-winged angel that stood guard over his Scotch and the pills. Miranda had ordered him to put the figurine away without mending it.
He reached behind the bottle for the prescriptions, one heavy-duty narcotic and its weaker cousin. Miranda hadn’t taken a single pill of her own volition. He removed the lids, wondering if this ten-year-old raised on home remedies had ever dealt with childproof caps, and placed the containers in Rebekah’s hands.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Flush ’em.”
He watched from the hallway while Rebekah made the pills disappear. Just as they swirled away in the water, he wished he’d grabbed one of the strong ones for himself, so he could sleep straight through the rest of the night. It was best to get rid of them though. Pills could be as dangerous as a loaded gun on a nightstand.
Rebekah dropped the empty containers into the bathroom wastebasket and shut off the light. “There. That will make her happy.” She started toward the stairs.
“Wait, Rebekah. May I ask you a couple of questions?”
She studied him with that direct and trusting expression. “Yes.”
He fingered the plastic lids like worry beads. “Can you tell me about your family’s history with the church? How long you’ve been in it, for instance.”
“As long as I can remember.”
“And has your mom been one of the pillars of the church? Or more of an outsider?”
“I think she’s a pariah. Is that the right word?”
“If you mean an outcast, it’s the right word. And I must say you have an excellent vocabulary.”
“Outcasts, yes. That’s what it feels like. Everybody’s nice to us at church, but nobody ever calls or comes over.”
“Because of something your mom did? Or your dad?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did it start happening?”
“I don’t know. A couple of years ago?”
Two years ago, Rebekah was only eight.
Two years ago, Carl died. Six weeks later, Jonah was born. If there was a clue in the timing, Jack couldn’t see it. Except.…
“That must have been a rough time for your mom. Losing her husband, then having a baby.”
“Yes sir. It was hard.” The poignant understatement made Rebekah seem older than ten.
He played with the lids, matching up their ridged edges perfectly. If only it were that easy to match answers to the random questions that bounced around in his head.
“Do you know anything about your mom’s camera?” he asked.
“Sort of. She already had a camera that wasn’t so fancy, but then she bought Jezebel. The lady she bought her from taught her how to use her.”
Jack blinked at the profusion of feminine pronouns. Two women and one camera, all in the same sentence. “And how did it—she—Jezebel—get her name?”
“I don’t know. I just know Mother loves her.”
“Speaking of names, what about the rule against nicknames? Where did that come from?”
Rebekah yawned again. “Pastor Mason says they’re disrespectful.”
“All right. I have a million questions, but they’ll keep. You’d better get to bed.”
“Good night.” She started up the stairs, as graceful as a princess.
Jack wanted some liquid consolation to keep him company while he disobeyed Miranda’s orders. He po
ured a finger of Scotch and drew the angel and its wing out of the cupboard. He settled at the kitchen table with glue from the school cupboard. His fingers big and clumsy on the delicate porcelain, he applied a thin thread of glue and matched the broken edges. Like sliding pieces into a jigsaw puzzle.
Holding the edges together with one hand, he lifted the clouded tumbler in the other and nursed the Glenlivet, listening to the ticks and creaks of the old house as it rocked in the wind’s arms.
After a few minutes, he tested the wing. Nearly solid. The repair would make a weak wing though. The angel needed to be in a safe place. Locked away in the darkness.
Continuing to hold the wing together, he looked across the room at a photo of the kids. Not long ago, they’d been strangers. Now they were like family. They were family. Blood kin, forever. Four boys, two girls.
He was counting again. Constantly, in the back of his mind, he counted faces, shirts, buttons, anything at all. He took after his grandma, who’d admitted to the compulsive counting of tomato plants, tomatoes, and canning jars. Sometimes he tried to calculate how much mental energy he expended on his endless mind games, but those very calculations became another counting ritual.
Once he was sure the mend would hold, he replaced the angel and the Scotch in the cupboard. Then he stood in front of the fire, warming his hands and weighing his options for busting Miranda out of a church that made her a pariah yet kept her loyalty. It made no sense.
If he could prod her into arguing, their arguments would raise questions. If she would dig deeply enough, she would find the answers. She would own them.
Except, given her slightly twisted perspective, she could easily come up with the wrong answers.
Coyotes yipped, surprisingly close to the house. Just over the nearest ridge, maybe. They were thieving, murderous animals that ate small pets, but he loved the way they howled their attitude to the night. He just hoped they wouldn’t go after Miranda’s goats.
Smiling at the idea of goats as a kind of tax shelter, he headed for the couch but stopped at the sound of feet on the stairs. Didn’t any of the Hanford offspring sleep through the night?
He’d already learned to distinguish different footsteps. These were Martha’s. She moved quickly, lightly. A girl on a mission. A trip to the bathroom, probably, but she would take full advantage of finding him awake and beg for a drink of water or a fresh bandage.
He waited. Sure enough, Martha appeared at the bottom of the stairs. She wrapped her arms around the bulky newel post like a shipwreck victim clinging to a mast. “Uncle Jack? Hear the wolves?”
“They’re coyotes, sweetie.”
“They’re wolves. Michael says so.”
“They’re only coyotes. Don’t worry. They can’t come inside.”
“I’m still scared.”
“But you’re safe, even if you’re scared.”
“But I’m still scared.” The drama princess darted a glance at the front door as if the coyotes might be slavering on the other side of it, then made a mad run for him.
He scooped her up. Her warm head sagged against his shoulder, evoking sharp memories of another little girl who used to call him “Uncle.”
Martha took a deep, shuddering breath. “Aren’t you scared?”
“Of coyotes? No.”
She was silent for a moment, listening. “What are you scared of?”
“Lots of things. I can’t abide dark, enclosed spaces, for instance. Or flying in small planes. Or spiders.”
“Me too. I hate spiders.” She reared up her head, big blue eyes crossing as she matched the tip of her pinkie to the tip of her opposite thumb. “The eency-weency spider,” she quavered, making the age-old movements. “Spiders make my tummy all squidgy. I hate it when they come weencing out of dark corners.”
“So do I.”
“There are spiders in Mama’s Christmas cupboard, sometimes. Is it almost Christmas?”
“No, not for a long time. Easter’s coming though,” he added quickly when he saw her disappointment. “Maybe you can stop cutting out hearts and start doing Easter eggs.”
She ignored the suggestion. “Mama has pretty things in the Christmas cupboard, but I can’t play with them. I may look, but I may not touch.”
Jack smiled at her perfect parroting of Miranda’s warning. “I’m sure you don’t dare.”
Already, the coyotes’ chorus was fading into the distance. Somewhere nearby, their eerie cries might be waking another child. Possibly Michael’s friend. Michael had said the family lived right down the road.
“Do you remember the Gilbert family, sweetie?”
Martha frowned. “No sir.”
“They must have been before your time. Okay, sugar, it’s time for you to go back to bed.”
“But the coyotes—”
“They’re gone. Listen.”
She stilled. Straining his ears, he heard nothing but a soft wind in the pines.
“Those useless critters went back where they came from,” he said. “Now you need to go back where you came from. Bed.”
She sniffed and made a face. “Your breath smells funny. Didn’t you brush your teeth after supper?”
Shocked at the slur on his personal hygiene, he drew back and stared at her. “Yes, I did. Even used mouthwash.”
Then it hit him. She smelled the Glenlivet.
He fought a smile. “Guess I’d better brush ’em again.”
“You better.”
“Now, get to bed and stay there.” He deposited her on the floor.
“Yes sir.” Slow as Moses, she plodded toward the stairs, then stopped beside the black bags filled with hand-me-downs. “I still want that pink party dress.” Her chin quivered. “I want it so bad, but Mama says it’s wicked.”
A pink Cinderella dress? Wicked?
Jack managed to speak gently. “She does, does she?”
Martha nodded sadly and proceeded up the stairs as one last, silvery howl hung in the night.
fourteen
Feigning sleep could be an interesting way to begin the day. While the family tiptoed around the couch, Jack kept his eyes closed and his ears open.
The girls’ voices came from the direction of the big brown chair, where Rebekah was combing snarls out of Martha’s hair. Martha was as cross as a frog in a sock.
“Ouch, Rebekah! Don’t yank.”
“Sorry. One braid or two?”
“Two.” A pause. “Please,” Martha added more sweetly. “I hope we’re going to church. I want to wear that pink dress.”
If Jack had any clout, she would wear it. Soon. But not to Mason’s church.
“Mother isn’t up to going,” Rebekah said. “We haven’t gone in forever. I miss Rachel.”
Jack’s nose itched from a faint, flowery scent that clung to the cuddle-quilt. Someone had left it on the couch, and he’d appropriated it to supplement the other quilt. Barely bigger than a crib quilt, it didn’t do much good.
The cuddle-quilt seemed to be the family’s common property. Somebody was always dragging it around, like Linus with his security blanket. Jack had even seen Timothy wrap it around his bare feet when he lay on the couch reading.
The hinges of Miranda’s door squeaked. It was like hearing someone breathe in, and not breathe out.
Then it came, the answering squeak as she closed the door. She rarely left it open unless she was in the room. As if she kept something worth guarding in there. It made Jack want to explore. But he wouldn’t. Even the nights she’d been in the hospital, he hadn’t so much as opened her closet door.
She greeted the girls softly. They answered her and went back to their conversation.
“I’ll cut out lots of yellow hearts today,” Martha announced. “Lots and lots.”
“Don’t,” Rebekah said. “You’ve already made way too many, and they’re supposed to be red or pink anyway. Not yellow.”
“The red and pink paper’s all gone.”
“Valentine’s Day was last month. Isn’t
it time to stop?”
“No.”
Martha’s obsession with construction-paper hearts was driving Jack nuts. She taped them to the fridge, the mantel, the stairway railing. He couldn’t keep himself from counting them in batches. She must have had several hundred already.
As Miranda’s uneven footsteps approached the couch, he concentrated on keeping still. No twitching of his eyelids, no movement of his mouth. His right ankle itched. He ignored it.
He half expected her to order him out of the house with more furious words about the meds in the pudding. That had been a very bad idea.
She passed him without slowing and headed for the kitchen.
He cracked one eyelid. Her back was toward him, her braid messy from a night’s sleep. Presumably, Rebekah would fix it for her. Miranda, with her injured arm still restricted in a sling, couldn’t braid her own hair.
Martha, in profile, sat on the arm of the chair and scowled at something while Rebekah knelt on the seat and plaited a braid. The other half of Martha’s hair hung nearly to her waist.
He lifted his head to see the object of her displeasure.
The bags that held those wicked hand-me-downs. They still stood in a squat lineup, waiting for somebody to dispose of them. He wouldn’t do it. Not unless Miranda gave him a direct order. Even then, he would argue.
He returned to playing possum. The itching on his ankle intensified. As a distraction, he focused on the ever-present scent of smoke and ashes from the wood stove.
Upstairs, something thumped on the floor. The boys were stirring, but he could stretch out his phony sleep for a few more minutes. A man who could fake exhaustion long enough might overhear an incriminating statement or two, or perhaps a clue about how long he could expect to stay in Miranda’s doghouse.
Miranda didn’t know who had let Jack in, or at what hour, but if she’d had anything to say about it, he would have slept in his car.
When she returned to the living room, he was still sprawled on the couch with the quilts pulled up to his chin. His right hand was tucked behind his head, and his left hand drooped toward the floor. How could he sleep through the girls’ chatter?
She moved closer. His hair was tousled and messy. Dark lashes lay peacefully against bronzed skin. If she hadn’t been so disgusted with him, she would have enjoyed her chance to examine him up close.