“Daddy?”
We all turned and my stomach dropped.
Jenny stood just behind me, touching my arm lightly. She’d closed the bathroom door behind her, Henry still inside.
“Jenny! Baby, come here. Just come with Daddy, and everything will be all right.”
Brannon’s voice came soft and sweet. He smiled at her.
“Did you kill Jackie?” Jenny’s violet-blue eyes never left his face. “Did you kill Trish and Cara and Ami?
“Did you kill my mother?”
He paused for a long moment and then looked down at the barista, still huddled on the floor, her phone clutched in her hand.
“Get out!” he screamed at her. “Get out of here. This doesn’t concern you.”
She ran for the door.
“Baby,” he said, turning back to Jenny, “I was only protecting you. That’s what daddies do, they protect their children.”
“Emma didn’t go through your boxes,” Jenny said. “I did. I found the lockets and the driver’s licenses. I Googled Jackie and Ami and Trish and Cara and . . . and Briana. I Googled them all. Briana and Ami are dead, Daddy. They died where they lived with us. Cara is missing. I don’t know about Jackie.”
Her voice caught in a sob.
“Jackie was really nice,” she said, staring straight at her father. “She was really nice to me. Did you kill her?”
“Baby, just come with me.” Brannon’s voice was pleading now. “Just come with me, and we’ll go someplace new and everything will be all right. It will be just like it used to be, just you and me. Come on, baby.” He reached his hand to her.
“I’ll come,” Jenny said, her voice shaking. “I’ll come with you . . . but only after you let Emma and the rest of them go.”
Brannon made a strangled sort of sound in his throat.
“Let them go, Daddy. And I’ll come with you wherever you want.”
He stood a long minute, his gun still pointed at me.
“Brannon, please,” I whispered. “She’s just a little girl. She deserves a real life.”
“Get out.” His voice was flat.
“Go on!” he shouted. “Get the hell out of here, all of you!”
“Henry,” Jennifer called. “Come out now, honey. It’s time to go.”
I didn’t blame her. She was protecting her son.
Henry walked out and stopped briefly, staring at Brannon and the gun.
“You’re a bad man,” he said.
Jennifer scooped him up and ran toward the front door.
“You too!” Brannon yelled, pointing the gun at MommaJean. “Get out of here, now!”
MommaJean stood still, her hand on my arm.
“You took my daughter,” she said, staring straight into his eyes. “I will not let you take Hailey’s baby, too, you son of a bitch!”
A single shot brought her to the ground.
“If you’d raised your daughter right,” Brannon said, his voice flat, “maybe she wouldn’t have been such a bad mother.”
I dropped on my knees beside MommaJean and rolled her over. A dark red stain seeped across her stomach.
“No!” Jenny screamed, dropping to the ground beside me. “Nooo!”
“Drop your weapon!”
A policeman stood just inside the shattered door, his gun trained on Brannon.
“Get out!” Brannon screamed. “Get out of here! Just let me take my little girl!”
Jenny looked up at him and slowly rose to her feet. I grabbed her arm, trying to pull her back to me, back to safety.
“Don’t!” I yelled. I don’t even know who I was yelling at.
“I hate you.”
Her voice was low, but it filled the shop, echoing from the corners.
“Jenny, baby, come on.” Brannon reached his hand toward her. “Just come with Daddy now, and everything will be okay.”
“I hate you!” She screamed it at him.
“Jenny . . .”
“I hate you!”
He stared at her for an instant, his mouth open.
“You bitch!” He turned and pointed the gun at me.
Please, God! Please protect my baby.
I waited for the noise that would end my life.
The police officer tackled him, knocking him to the ground. The gun he’d been pointing at me clattered to the floor.
“You bitch!” Brannon screamed again, raising his head to stare at me.
The officer put his knee firmly on Brannon’s back, forcing him to lie flat.
“We need an ambulance!” I yelled, dropping back down beside MommaJean.
“It’s okay,” I crooned to her. “It’s over now. It’s all over. Please don’t die, MommaJean. Please don’t die!”
55
Jenny
We sat a long time in the hospital waiting room, tense and testy, avoiding one another’s eyes, staring at the pastel blue walls. Lily got there first, with her boys; her husband came right after. Then Rudy arrived, all four of his kids with him. I couldn’t remember all their names. One of them looked almost my age. Not long after, Rudy’s wife, Anita, rushed in. Then Lorelei came. Had Emma called her? I didn’t know.
Jennifer and Henry were there, too. And after a little while, Jennifer’s husband arrived, rushing toward her, dropping down beside her, hugging her tight. He lifted Henry to his chest, clutched him, tears streaming down his face.
My family, I thought, looking from one to the other. This was my family, the one I never even knew I had, the one Daddy never told me about.
We were all waiting to hear if MommaJean was going to die. She might die because my father shot her. Right in front of me. Daddy shot her.
The whole time, Emma never let go of my hand. She held it in the coffee shop after the police handcuffed Daddy and dragged him away. She held it in the police car on the way to the hospital, sirens blaring. She held it still as we sat waiting in the hospital to hear about MommaJean. Emma never let go of me.
“Is Imogene Wright’s family here?”
A doctor wearing blue scrubs walked into the room, carrying a clipboard.
All of us rose, walked toward him in a cluster.
“Is she going to be all right?” Lily asked, the only one of us who could form the words.
“She’s going to be okay,” he said, smiling at us. He looked tired. “She lost a lot of blood, and we had to give her a transfusion. But thankfully, the bullet didn’t hit any major organs. She’ll need to stay here a few days and we’ll monitor her. But she’s going to be all right. She’ll live.”
Lily started crying then, scooping her sons into her arms. Her husband leaned in and hugged them all, crying, too.
“Thank you, God!” Rudy hollered. “Thank you, Jesus, for your merciful grace!”
His kids gathered around him, and he held them tightly to him.
Jennifer, Daddy’s sister, sat quietly. She held Henry in her lap. She didn’t say anything, but her lips moved in a silent prayer. Her husband held her hand, stroked Henry’s cheek, kissed them both.
I stood in the middle of all of them, Emma’s hand still in mine.
I felt like I might throw up.
MommaJean was going to be okay.
I was so grateful. I was so glad she was going to be all right, this woman I didn’t even know until yesterday—this woman who was my mother’s mother. My grandmother, who had been so happy to see me, so welcoming, so brave as she stared down my father in the coffee shop.
My father shot her.
My father shot her.
My father shot her.
Daddy killed Jackie. He killed Trish. He killed Cara. He killed all of them . . . all of the women who’d lived with us, taken care of me, tried to love me. All of them.
Trish, who couldn’t cook, but tried so hard, even when Daddy made fun of her. Cara, who did cook, who made fettuccine Alfredo better than anyone. Jackie, who always made me laugh and braided my hair so gently.
He killed them all.
He killed
my mother. My mother . . . Hailey, who had birthed me and loved me and sang to me in a voice I could almost remember. He killed her, too.
He almost shot Emma . . . Emma, who was pregnant with my little sister, who convinced him to stay in Kentucky, who never let go of my hand.
And he said he did it to protect me.
I jerked my hand free of Emma’s and ran to the bathroom. I threw up into the toilet. Then I threw up again. And again.
It was my fault. Daddy had said so. All of them were dead because of me.
“Jenny?”
Emma’s voice—her dear, kind voice, the voice that almost was silenced today because of me—called to me from outside the stall. “Honey, are you okay?”
“No.”
“MommaJean is going to be fine,” she said. “Everything is going to be okay.”
“Jackie won’t be okay. Trish won’t be okay. Cara and Ami won’t be okay.”
I heaved into the toilet again.
“My mother won’t be okay.”
I sat back on the floor.
“They’re all dead because of me.”
There, it was out.
“Jennifer Adele Bohner, open this door right now!”
I’d never heard Emma sound angry before. I unlocked the door to the stall, rising from the floor. She grabbed me hard, pulling me into her soft tummy.
“Don’t you ever, ever let me hear you say that again! Do you understand? Never!”
“But it’s true,” I said. I started crying then. I cried so hard I almost threw up again.
“Jenny,” Emma crooned, holding me tight. “It’s not your fault. None of it is your fault. Your dad had a terrible, terrible childhood and it damaged him. That’s not your fault. It’s not your fault that he had an abusive mother. It’s not your fault he got put in foster care and lost his sister. It’s not your fault that he did what he did. Your daddy is sick, honey. There’s something wrong in his head. But it’s not your fault. None of it is your fault.”
“Are you okay?” Jennifer stood in the doorway.
“We will be,” Emma said firmly. “We’ll be fine.”
We walked back to the waiting room, and everyone there hugged me. My aunts and uncles hugged me. My cousins hugged me. Lorelei hugged me. They didn’t blame me. They didn’t say it was my fault. They just hugged me and let me cry.
We got to see MommaJean later that day. She was very pale and had tubes stuck in her arms, but she smiled when we walked into the room.
“There’s my girl,” she said. “Come give your grandma a kiss.”
I sat on the side of the bed and held her hand.
“You were very brave today,” Momma Jean said.
I shook my head. “You were the brave one.”
“Actually, I think all of us were brave today,” Emma said. “We did what we had to do, and we’re all going to be okay.”
MommaJean smiled at her. “We’re a strong family,” she said. “A strong family with strong women.”
That night at Lorelei’s, I sat on my bed with the photo album I’d found in Daddy’s box.
“Your mother was really pretty,” Emma said, standing by the bed. “I wished I’d known her. I wish . . . I wish everything had been different.”
Emma sat down beside me and wrapped her arm around my shoulders.
“I know you wish that,” she said. “But you can’t undo what’s done. You can only pick yourself up and go on. And you can do that, Jenny. I know you can. You are the bravest girl I’ve ever known, and I am so proud of you.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Then suddenly she sat up straight and smiled.
“Here,” she said, taking my hand and putting it on her belly. “Do you feel that?”
A tiny bump moved under my hand.
“That’s your little sister,” Emma said. “She’s moving.”
I stared at the roundness of Emma’s belly.
“Wow,” I said. The baby moved again.
“Come September, I’m going to need a lot of help,” Emma said.
“Babies are a lot of work, and I’m counting on you to be my helper.”
She leaned toward me and kissed my cheek.
“I’ve never been around babies before,” I said. “You’ll have to show me what to do.”
“I think you’re going to be a great big sister. This little baby is going to love you.”
Epilogue
Emma
In the end, Brannon confessed to nine murders, including Damon Rigby’s. He ran Damon off the road that night and left him to die in a ditch. And he confessed to killing Mrs. Figg, too. He’d pushed her down the stairs and then watched her die on the floor of her own house. He blamed her for my fall.
He confessed so that Jenny wouldn’t have to testify at his trial. At least, that’s what he said. But I think he probably confessed so he could avoid the death penalty. MommaJean and I went to his sentencing—life in prison with no possibility of parole.
He told the police where he’d buried the bodies of all those women who’d lived with him. And so, finally, Hailey came home. We had a graveside memorial service on a beautiful day in June, surrounded by family and friends. Jenny held MommaJean’s hand throughout the service. Both of them cried.
The publicity was terrible at first. It seemed like everywhere we went, people stared at us and whispered. Reporters called Lorelei’s and MommaJean’s and the bookstore, trying to get interviews with me and Jenny. Our pictures appeared in newspapers and on the TV news. I tried hard to shield Jenny as best I could, and I watched proudly as she learned to cope with microphones and cameras and reporters yelling questions.
And then, two weeks after the first news story appeared, MommaJean got a phone call at the bookstore. My little sister, Clarissa, had seen my photo on the news all the way out in Los Angeles, where she had gone after leaving her own disastrous arranged marriage. A week later, she flew to Indianapolis. It felt almost surreal, seeing her again. All grown up with two young children of her own, she lived with her new husband in California. She had been trying to find me for years, she said. So I guess, in a way the publicity was both a blessing and a curse.
My worries about how to support Jenny and the baby were eased a bit when I got a call from a lawyer in Texas who represented Ami Gordon’s family. There’d been a reward for information about her murder, a reward of fifty thousand dollars. I didn’t want to take it at first, but MommaJean convinced me to accept it.
“You gave that family the same peace you gave me, honey,” she said. “That’s worth all the money in the world.”
We used the money to buy a little row house just two doors down from MommaJean. I enrolled Jenny in school and took a job at the coffee shop, replacing the barista who’d called the police that awful day when Brannon arrived with the gun.
We’ve been down to Campbellsville twice, Jenny and I, to see Angel and Lashaundra, Resa and Harlan, Shirley and Jasper. I asked Jenny if she wanted to move back there, but she wanted to stay in Indianapolis, where her family is. We have a big family now, a big, beautiful, noisy family. Jenny has gotten to know her cousins, and on days when I work she often goes to Rudy’s house after school to play with his daughters.
My belly is getting bigger every single day, it seems. We’ve been decorating the nursery with ducks and bunnies. Jenny loves to buy things for the baby. She is going to be such a good sister.
We haven’t told MommaJean yet, but we’ve decided to name the baby Hailey.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
THE SEVENTH MOTHER
Sherri Wood Emmons
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The suggested questions are included to enhance
your group’s reading of Sherri Wood Emmons’s
The Seventh Mother.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Zella Fay tells Emma that Brannon is carrying a lot of baggage. Are there any red flags in Brannon’s behavior in Idaho that Emma misses? Is she foolish to
leave Idaho with Brannon and Jenny? Have you ever taken a risk that big? Did that risk pay off, or not?
Emma grew up in the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints community, which upholds the legitimacy of polygamy. Do you believe polygamous marriage can ever be okay, or is it fundamentally wrong?
Angel asks Emma if she thinks “white folks are the only ones who can hate,” and says her father hated white people because of the way he had been treated in the South under Jim Crow. Does that hatred make Angel’s father a racist? Or do you agree with filmmaker Spike Lee, who said in a 1991 interview with Playboy magazine, “Black people can’t be racist. Racism is an institution.”?
What role does Jasper Rigby play in the story? Is there hope for his becoming a better man than his father, or has his upbringing sealed his fate?
After Mrs. Figg’s death, Lashaundra tells Jenny that people who don’t believe in God probably go to hell. Do you believe in heaven and hell? Is belief in God a prerequisite to heaven?
Sister Frances tells Emma that all churches are human creations, but she still believes in God. Does that jibe with your experience of church? Why or why not?
Lorelei tells Emma that their meeting at Loretto is “a God-thing.” Is that something you believe in, or is their meeting simply a lucky happenstance? Have you ever had an experience you would call a God-thing?
Jenny comes to believe that Emma is different from all of her previous “stepmothers.” Yet it’s Jenny’s actions that precipitate their flight from Brannon. Is Emma really different from her predecessors, or has Jenny simply become old enough to start asking questions about her father’s life?
Is Emma right to accept the reward money offered by Ami Gordon’s family? Or does it seem like she is profiting from Brannon’s crimes? Would you feel comfortable accepting such a reward? Why or why not?
Given Brannon’s childhood experiences, is he simply a product of terrible circumstance? Does his background in any way mitigate his crimes? Is he in any way a sympathetic character?
The Seventh Mother Page 32