by T. L. Haddix
Moving carefully, Eliza covered Kathy and left the bedroom, pulling the door around but not closed. She wasn’t sure how much time she had before Kathy woke up, but she’d use what she had to the best of her ability.
“I’m not letting go of you without a fight,” she said as she stood in the kitchen, staring out the window over the sink. “I’m not letting that bastard, Randall Begley, steal you from me too. He’s taken enough already. He’s not taking anyone else.” And if she had to go to Hell and fight him for Kathy’s soul, she would.
Chapter Four
May, 1960
The worst day of Kathy’s life started out sunny and bright. She’d dropped her five-year-old daughter, Moira, off at her mother-in-law’s house so she could get some errands done. Since she was breastfeeding, she had to take the baby, Randall, Jr., with her, but he was such a sweet baby Kathy didn’t mind. He was a toothless wonder of love, all happy smiles and cute chubby cheeks. He and Moira truly were the light in her world.
As she drove up the road that led into the holler where she’d grown up, intent on visiting with her sister, Sarah, Kathy grimaced. Guilt was eating away at her. She had so much to discuss with Sarah, things that had needed saying for a while. Apologies, truths, confessions even. Kathy’d not always been a good sister, and though part of that behavior could be laid at the feet of her husband’s influence, Kathy carried a lot of weight in the wrongdoing. In several wrongdoings.
Sarah had always been their father’s favorite even though there was no doubt Ira Browning had loved all three of his children fiercely. But Sarah seemed to be everything Kathy wasn’t—thoughtful, careful, book smart, funny, and sweet. While Kathy went through life in a manner her mother described as “bull in a china shop,” Sarah eased along the path she was supposed to be on. Given that they had such different personalities, it wasn’t a surprise that Kathy and Sarah had butted heads more than once through the years.
Kathy would have loved to have been more like Sarah, but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t quite pull it off. She’d had mostly decent grades and was plenty smart—though she hid her intelligence from Randall as much as she could, having learned early on in their relationship that it intimidated him and made him angry when she appeared to know more than him—but she hated the classroom and found listening to her teachers and doing her assignments boring. There was a world out there to explore, mischief to get into, things to see and do, and school was holding her back.
Plus, Kathy had an innate need to be liked, to be popular. And no one liked a smart girl—not the way Kathy wanted to be adored anyhow.
That quest for mischief had led to an unplanned pregnancy during her senior year. As much as Kathy’d wanted to have fun and fool around with Randall, she’d never intended to let it go so far that she ended up dropping out of school to have his baby, much less marry the man. Part of her had known all along that Randall was dangerous, and that excitement had drawn her to him like a magnet. By the time she’d fully understood what that danger meant, she was stuck. And being as stubborn as she was, she’d been determined to see things out to their bitter end.
Now though, she’d made another bed to lie in. She’d set herself and her children on another path, one that she was as terrified of as she was excited. Time would tell if she’d jumped out of the pan and into the flames, but it couldn’t be worse than where she was. A fresh start, a new start, was what she needed.
With that fresh start came consequences, among them being the necessity of telling Sarah the truth about a lot of things. The only part of the truth Kathy was really dreading was the news that she feared would break her sister’s heart, news she’d learned over the weekend when she’d seen Sarah’s beau in London. Shoot, it had broken a piece of her own heart.
The baby cooed, and she glanced at the box she’d set him in then strapped to the seat. “Innocent little man. You have no idea how upside down the world is going to turn. Us adults do like to go and complicate things for you little ones, don’t we?”
A while later, her visit with Sarah out of the way, Kathy headed back to town to pick up some things for home. The first inkling she had that something was wrong was when she got back to her mother-in-law’s to pick up Moira.
“Randall came and got her about an hour ago, hon. He took her home.” Mrs. Begley frowned at her, the disapproval the woman wore like a perpetual cloak practically radiating off her body. “He seemed mighty upset about something.”
Kathy felt a cold finger of fear run up her spine. “I’d best head home and see what’s going on then.”
“Surely you’d better. You know my Randall expects certain things from a wife, Kathleen. It’s better for everyone if you just make sure he has what he needs. I can’t reconcile why in the world your mother never taught you that.”
Having heard the lecture more times than she could count, Kathy ignored it and hurried to her car. She was more concerned about Randall’s behavior. He never, ever, ever volunteered to help with the children, and that he was upset…
For just a few minutes, Kathy considered not going home. Something in her gut told her that going back to the little house they rented on the outskirts of Bulan would be a mistake she’d regret forever.
“Please, please, please don’t let this have to do with tomorrow. God, please, don’t let him have found out.” She recognized the irony of praying to God about the situation, but her stomach was churning.
Randall knew. She was certain of it, though she wasn’t sure why exactly. And if she was right, if he did know? Going back to that house could mean the end of her. He’d kill her if he’d found out she was planning to pack up the children and leave town with his boss, Clay Morton, with whom she’d had an affair and who was the father of the baby.
But what else could she do? Moira was with Randall, and Kathy couldn’t abandon her daughter. So she went home.
Randall was waiting in the living room with his gun. He hit her in the face as soon as she walked in the door, and he didn’t stop. The attack was systematic, full of cold rage, and calculated to inflict the most damage without killing her. By the time Clay showed up half an hour or so after she’d gotten home, she was on the floor in the living room, too hurt to fight. Even if she’d tried, Randall had hogtied her.
Randall knocked Clay out as soon as he came in, hitting him so hard with a baseball bat that Kathy thought for sure Randall had killed him. Then he dragged Clay to a chair and tied him to it before returning his attention to her. Periodically, when he’d pause in his assault on her, he’d go after Clay, who had somehow survived the head trauma. Through the entire hellish afternoon, Randall alternated between fits of rage and maniacal laughter, going between her and Clay depending on his mood.
The things he’d done to her, all the while goading Clay and making him watch… but those violations didn’t come close to touching the sheer agony of knowing what he’d done to the babies. The only comfort Kathy had was knowing that he’d given them both something to make them sleep before he’d killed them, that they hadn’t suffered, that they hadn’t been tortured the way she and Clay were. Moira had died before Kathy ever pulled in the driveway, the baby not long after they got home.
“You caused this,” he said right before he put a bullet in Clay’s head, ending his misery. “The two of you, going around behind my back, laughing at me. Did you really think you could get away with that? Passing that bastard off as mine! Oh, no. I’ll make sure you live with this forever, Kathy. You’ll never rest, knowing what you did. You killed us all.”
And then it was over. A door slammed outside, red and blue lights flashed from the driveway, and in a flash of panic, Randall raised the .44 to his temple and pulled the trigger. When his body fell to the floor, landing across her bloody, bruised legs, Kathy passed out.
She’d have liked to say she didn’t remember the next hours and days and weeks, but the truth was, until she reached Georg
ia in June with her mother and Aunt Nancy, every single moment was crystal clear. With the exception of a few blurs of time when she’d taken pain pills or something to calm her nerves, she remembered everything.
She’d not gone to the children’s funerals. She wasn’t strong enough. Her mother and Sarah had seen to the arrangements, and Eliza assured her that the babies had been buried in the same casket, just as Kathy had requested, laid in the ground alongside her father, Ira Browning. Oddly enough, the fact that they were beside the best man she’d ever known provided Kathy with a little bit of peace.
Eliza had already been living in Georgia by the time the murders happened. Her devastation over losing Ira the previous November was too strong to let her stay in the house where they’d loved and lived and raised their family. When she had rushed back after the murders, offering only sympathy and grief with no judgment for the role Kathy had played in the tragedy, Kathy begged Eliza to take her back to Georgia.
“I can’t stay here, Mama. I can’t face what I’ve done. I’m not strong enough. Please take me with you.”
“Of course, sweetheart. I’d never ask you to stay here.” Eliza held Kathy while she cried, the first of many, many times she sobbed her grief out on her mother’s shoulder.
A week after her sister’s wedding—which was a quiet, subdued event held in the living room of the house Kathy’d grown up in, a house that now belonged to her brother, Jack, and his wife, Gillian—Kathy, Eliza, and Nancy were on their way south.
Her heart was buried in the hills where she’d been born, as dead as though Randall had killed her along with the children and Clay. She could only hope that the physical pain would go away if she got enough miles between her and the memories.
“If I never have to go back there, it’ll be too soon,” Kathy whispered as they crossed the state line from Kentucky into Virginia. She never once looked back to see what she was leaving. She already knew that all too well.
Chapter Five
1963
Coming awake, Kathy discovered, was a painful process. Especially since every muscle in her body was screaming at her. For a blind, panicked moment, she thought she was back in the hospital the day after her life had ended, waking up for the first time to a world forever changed. Adrenaline and denial jolted through her, and she sat up with a gasp. When she saw the familiar surroundings of her bedroom in Georgia, she nearly collapsed with relief.
With a low groan, she shoved the covers aside and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Everything ached, and she wondered if she was coming down with something until she remembered the day’s events—the beach, the turmoil, Charles.
“No wonder I hurt.” One thing she’d come to understand over the last three years was that when her heart cried, the rest of her did as well. It was as though all the heartache and pain echoed through her body, escaping in bruises no one could see.
Stunned to see that it was nearly three o’clock in the morning, she got to her feet and headed down the hall to the bathroom. She’d come in from the beach just after four in the afternoon. A light was on in the kitchen on the other end of the house, and she figured her mother must have left it on for her.
As she was washing her hands a few minutes later, she glanced into the mirror. Her hair was a wild, tangled mess, and her skin was pale except for the dark circles that looked like bruises under her eyes. Mental shiners. Just as painful as the real thing in their own way. She quickly turned out the light and went toward the kitchen, tiptoeing past her mother’s bedroom so as not to disturb her.
“So you’re awake.”
Eliza’s voice was startling, and Kathy jumped back, her hands going to her chest.
“Mama! You scared me nearly to death! What in the world are you doing up so late?”
“Waiting for you.” Eliza didn’t say anything more, just stared at Kathy over the rim of her coffee mug.
Her heart still racing from the scare, Kathy studied her mother carefully. Deep concern was etched onto her mother’s face, but so was something else. Something that looked a lot like angry determination. “Mama?”
“Why don’t you tell me about the beach, Kathleen Rebecca?”
“The beach?” she repeated stupidly, cursing Charles in her mind as she scrambled for words that would make things all right.
“Yes. You had plans today, I believe. Important plans. Why don’t you tell me about those?” Eliza set the mug down hard and pushed her chair back, though she didn’t get to her feet. Yet.
The ornery streak that had gotten her into so much trouble over the years reared its head, and Kathy lifted her chin. “Sounds to me like you already heard about it.”
Before she could blink, Eliza was in front of her, pressing her back into the cabinet. Her eyes were full of furious tears, and she had Kathy by the shoulders, shaking her gently. “You listen to me, you willful, stubborn, blessed child. I am not letting you die on me and sure as hell not by your own hand. Do you understand me, Kathleen? I’m not letting that damned bastard take you too. I’m not letting him win. By God, you’re going to fight this, and you’re not going to die on me. What were you thinking?”
By then, they were both crying, holding on to each other as grief and anguish poured out. Kathy felt her knees go out from under her, and she sank. Eliza went with her.
“It hurts so much, Mama. I just can’t handle it anymore. I’ve tried and tried and tried. I didn’t know what else to do to make it stop hurting. I’m so sorry.”
For a long time after that, she sobbed, crying so hard she could barely catch her breath. The whole while, Eliza held her, stroking the hair back off her face, making soothing noises as she let Kathy grieve. After a while though, Kathy was all cried out. She felt utterly empty inside, and she couldn’t even garner the strength to sit up.
“Sweetheart, you need to get help. You know that, right?” Eliza asked.
“I don’t know how. I won’t go back to Dr. Bowling. Not after the way he acted.”
When she’d broken down immediately after having to have a hysterectomy, her regular doctor, Tad Bowling, had recommended she be institutionalized. “Her nerves are too fragile. She’s still hysterical from all the trouble she caused, overwhelmed by the guilt over her part in her children’s deaths. The best thing for everyone would be to treat her in an asylum.”
Until that day, Kathy’d not known her mother could curse so fluently. Eliza’d told him off so thoroughly he’d not set foot back in Kathy’s hospital room the whole time she’d been recuperating.
“You won’t have to,” Eliza promised. “While you were sleeping, Nancy came over. We have the name and phone number of a woman who’s supposed to be reputable. She’s a doctor, but I have it on good authority that she’s very kind, and she’s knowledgeable about situations like yours.”
“Who says?” Kathy pushed herself up, accepting the handkerchief Eliza handed her. “How do you know she’s any good?”
“I trust the person who recommended her, and further, so does Nancy.” Eliza sighed. “We called her and told her a little bit about the situation. She wants to see you first thing in the morning. But Kathy… she wants to put you in the hospital for a few days. Just two or three, I swear,” she hurried to add when Kathy shook her head.
“Mama, no.”
“Yes.” Eliza cupped Kathy’s face, her gaze never wavering. “I love you too much to give up and too much to risk losing you. If Charles hadn’t been there today, you’d not have come home to me. So you’re going to meet with her one way or another. If it takes me and Nancy and Roy and anyone else we can find to help get you there, you’re going.”
As weary as she was, Kathy didn’t think she could possibly feel any more tonight. But the idea of willingly going to a hospital to have her head shrunk? That terrified her.
“What if she won’t let me come home?” she whispered.
Eliza’s sm
ile was sad. “Do you really think I’d let that happen?”
No, Kathy knew better. She shook her head. “Do you think she can help?”
“I do. I think she’s the best chance you have at getting better, at getting the pain to go away, at least enough so that you can live with it. Will you go?”
Kathy’s words from earlier in the day, when she’d told Charles she didn’t have a choice about anything in her life, came back to her. She had to go see this doctor regardless of whether she wanted to or not. “Will you go with me? At least as far as you can?”
“Of course. We’re in this together, remember?” Eliza pressed a kiss to her forehead and pulled her in for a hug. “I promised you three years ago I’d not leave you alone until and unless you could stand on your own, and I meant that. I have no intention of abandoning you.”
“I’m so tired, Mama. I feel like I could sleep forever.”
“I know. I do know that.” Eliza got to her feet then helped Kathy stand. “Let’s get you to bed, and tomorrow, we’ll go see this new doctor and get you some help. I swear to you, we will.”
Kathy let Eliza put her to bed much like she was a little girl again. She simply couldn’t do it herself. Not tonight.
“I should have told you about today,” she said as Eliza pulled the covers up to her shoulders. “I love you, Mama.”
She felt the soft brush of her mother’s hand across her cheek, her hair. “I love you back, my baby. Go to sleep now. Tomorrow’s a new day, a new start.”
As she fell hard into a sound sleep, Kathy’s last thought was praying to God it really was a new start. She didn’t know if she could go on if it turned out not to be.