Sadie's Mountain

by Shelby Rebecca

  “Who is he, Sadie?” he asks, cautiously, but furious. “You know who he is.” This is no longer a question for him.

  I want to say no. “Yes,” I say, as I nod my head slowly.

  “Please, tell me,” he says, with urgency. “I need to know so I can help you.”

  I can’t tell him. Donnie could have killed us both in our sleep. Why didn’t he? How long was he there, watching us?

  Dillon’s jaw is swelling up now under the purple bruise and his eye looks like raw meat—all red and veiny. I knew Dillon would be no match for Donnie’s strength. I have to take care of this myself. I have proof now—proof that he can’t destroy and there’s no way he’s going to risk losing everything once he knows what the stakes are. Right?

  “I can’t tell you,” I say, unwavering.

  “Why not!” he yells.

  “Because he said he’d rather I was dead than with you. He said he’d kill you if I didn’t stay away from you.”

  “That’s why you need to tell me, Sadie,” he asserts.

  “I can’t. Please, stop asking me to.”

  “Stop protecting this dirt bag,” he says, like he wants to shoot venom into the neck of a faceless man he hates.

  “I’m not protecting him. I’m protecting you!”

  “How? By shutting me out? By keeping the secret?”

  “You wouldn’t be able to take it. If I told you, you’d never be able to help me. You’d go after him and he’d kill you. It’s that simple.”

  He’s stumped. He stands there like a mute as if he’s trying to decide if he could help me if he knew who it was.

  “If that’s what you need, for me to help you. I promise. I won’t go after him. I just need to know so I can protect you.” He’s begging now. He sounds as dangerous as a river too high for its banks.

  “I think you really mean it, but everything will change when you find out,” I say, as I look at the wooden floor. It’s your brother! I want to scream. But he couldn’t take it if I did.

  “I know him then,” he says, as if he’s trying to make that real to himself. I look at him impassively. I can’t let my face tell him my secret this time.

  He looks at me with rage behind his eyes. His whole body is shaking with adrenaline. Out of nowhere, he bites his bottom lip and swings his fist, striking the wall to the left of me. Stunned, I jump to the side and cower away from him as he cradles his hurt hand, his mouth in a pained O shape.

  “Oh, God! I’m so sorry,” he says, as he tries to hold me. I push him away. “I feel so helpless,” he says, in barely a whisper as he grasps his hand. “I just want to be able to make you safe. I couldn’t last time,” he cries, as he walks backward. Pain is written in the creases on his forehead. He leans his head against the corner of the closet, slides his back down the wall like a burden too heavy to carry anymore.

  “He’s right, Sadie. Telling us who this is. It’ll protect you,” says Missy in a hushed tone, trying not to wake up the baby tucked up to her breast.

  “I just want to find Daddy’s gun. Can anyone help me for Christ’s sake?”

  “The Lord’s name,” Momma rasps from her bed loud enough for me to hear.

  I get up, walk past Dillon still leaning into the corner and stand on the side of Momma’s bed. “I’m sorry, Momma. It won’t happen again.” I pick up her weightless broken-bird arm and stroke her fingers.

  “I know,” she stops to take a breath, “where it is,” she says. I swallow so hard my throat aches.

  “Where?”

  “What happened, baby?” she asks.

  “The man who raped me, he came here tonight. He was in my room when I woke up and he...,” I want to tell her that he hit Dillon but I’m scared that she’ll be mad that he was sleeping in my room. I’m still the pastor’s daughter, after all.

  “It’s in the dresser, honey,” she says, pointing her boney finger toward the highboy dresser underneath the ‘Sadie’s Mountain’ painting. “Top drawer,” she rasps.

  As if in a trance, I pad my way across the wooden floor and pull on the handle. My hands are fishing around until I feel it encased in leather nestled between soft nightgowns. Cold steel—Power. Safety in one small package. This will keep me safe. It will be my armor. He will never touch me again.

  I sit on the too soft couch in Missy’s bright blue robe and watch as Dillon talks to the two officers who came to write down stuff in little notebooks. This is futile. They cannot help me. It’s their boss who wants to kill me and bury me in his front yard like a hidden monument. They take a picture of the handle-sized dent on the wall opposite the door. They scuttle into my room and stare at the floor in the corner of the room where I said ‘The Man’ was standing when I opened my eyes.

  “We’re going to have to ask y’all to keep out of this room tonight. We’re gonna need ta’ bring the fingerprinting guy from Fayetteville to check the front door and the bedroom for prints.”

  “Okay,” he acknowledges and looks at me with a troubled expression. It makes me sad and empty to see him so worried. To know that all he wants is to make me safe and I can’t give that to him.

  Part of me just wants to get on a plane right now. But the thing is, I’ve been running from that man for ten years of my life. Even when I was on the other side of the continent, he caught me in my dreams, and showed up at times in everything I did. The way I needed to feel safe. The way I needed everything to be clean. The reason why I can’t have a real relationship with a man. Why I have to control everything in my life. The reason why I have no real friends. I don’t even have a pet. I just live this empty existence filled with nothing but trying to accomplish more and more in my career.

  It’s how I’ve filled the hole in my chest. But unless I face him, I’m doomed to go back to a life I’ve just realized I don’t want anymore. I know that now. I can’t walk away from here again. Here, at home, with my people and on top of the dirt that has been home to my ancestors, I can be a real person. I can live a full life with this man who would do anything for me to love him back. There’s nothing that can take me away from here again. Not even Donnie.

  “We’re just gonna wrap the front door knob so we don’t wipe away any of the evidence. This room will have the yella’ tape across so no one can go in there ‘til it’s cleared, understood.”

  Dillon nods his head yes. “Where’s my brother?” He asks. I wince.

  “I’m not sure, sir,” says the deputy who looks a little like Barney Fife, slightly more muscular, but an underachiever at best.

  “Is he on duty?”

  “Not that I know of sir?”

  No, because he’s a real shadow who steals women’s virtue in his spare time.

  “I’m going to call him.”

  I don’t even move a muscle. He’s not going to get a hold of Donnie tonight. I’m sure of it. His nose is probably broken. How’s he going to explain that?

  I just want to go to sleep. I’m not letting go of this gun either. I stare at the light grey metal—watch it sparkle in the light from the lamp on the side table. I remember, Daddy taught me about it when he showed me how to use it.

  It’s a Ruger Old Army.45 caliber. Daddy got it in 1976 when it was brand new in honor of our bicentennial. He loved it because of the swirled engravings and the random deep ridges in the sepia colored handle. As I run my fingers over the handle, it feels like it must be some type of animal bone cut into the shape of a handle and drilled in place. Daddy said it was mammoth tusks. I wonder if that’s even possible. It’s probably worth a lot of money—but it’s priceless to me, for other reasons.

  It’s loaded now. Dillon did it for me, while I examined the process like a dog watching someone fill its bowl. I drooled over the sleek gold bullets as he slid them in one by one—six in all. I can almost imagine the bullets finding their target right now and it feels like retribution. I like the feeling of settling the score. He deserves it. All he has to do is leave me alone and these bullets will stay in their chambers. But if he won
’t, I’ll do what I have to do to survive.

  Dillon grabs his jacket off the chair, pulls his phone out and taps before putting it to his ear. “Renae? Where’s Donnie? No, they say they don’t know either... Well, have him call me. We had a break-in over at the Sparks’ house... No, everyone’s okay. Thank you so much. Sorry to call so late... Okay! Tomorrow... Sounds great. I really appreciate it. See you then.”

  He puts his phone on the bed and stands in the doorway looking at me like a lost puppy dog.

  “Renae, Donnie’s wife, invited us over for lunch tomorrow,” he says.

  I nod my head yes, as if I’m being nonchalant. My head swims for a moment as if I’m spinning down the drain, but when it stops, I realize, this is perfect. I’m going to let him know, just like he informed me in the shed, next time there will be consequences for behavior like that. He has to let me go. He will have no choice. There, in his house, I will declare my own freedom and there’s nothing he can do to stop me.

  As Dillon walks effortlessly toward me, he sits down and turns his legs into a lap on the couch perfect for me to cuddle up on. He puts his arm over the top of the back of the couch and leans toward me, drawn to me.

  “I need to get you some ice,” I say, concerned.

  Hesitantly, I put down the gun that I’ve been holding like a pacifier between my two cupped hands.

  “I’ve got it,” Missy says, wielding an icepack covered with a light green kitchen towel.

  I take it from her and pull my legs up onto the couch under me like a spring. I don’t even know where to put the ice first. I settle on his eye because it looks worse than any eye I’ve ever seen before. With my other hand, I trace the bruise on his chin and lean in to place soft angel kisses on the darkest purple spot. He winces.

  “We can’t stay here on the couch,” he says. “I’d like to take you home.”

  “Home?”

  “To my house,” he says, cautiously but there’s a bit of enthusiasm in his voice. “We can sleep there. I’ve got good locks,” he says.

  For the first time, I look at the clock. It’s 2:30 am.

  “What about Momma and Missy?”

  “Your brothers are coming right now,” he says.

  My eyes feel weighted. “I’m exhausted,” I say, with a yawn so sizeable it hurts my jaw.

  Just then, Seth and Jake wander into the living room, bewildered and brandishing shotguns. ‘Barney Fife’ is putting the finishing touches on the plastic on the front door. It’s funny to me that the cops don’t even flinch about all of us holding guns. It’s just normal around here.

  “Whoa, you guys aren’t messing around? Where were you?” I say, shocked by the large weapons in their hands.

  “We been stayin’ nights at Missy’s while Dale’s gone and you’re here,” Jake says.

  “You guys okay?” Seth asks.

  “Yeah. We’re okay,” Dillon says.

  “It don’t look okay, man,” Jake replies, pointing to his face and widening his eyebrows.

  “I would take worse,” he says, “for her. He looks at me with the one eye not covered by the light green kitchen towel.

  “You guys taking off?”

  “If you all don’t mind. We can’t sleep in there,” he says, pointing at the door crossed off with yellow tape. It’s almost funny to me that no one’s wondering what Dillon is even doing here in the middle of the night.

  “No, it’s good. We’ve got this,” Jake says earnestly, holding the barrel of the gun at the ground.

  “Are you ready?” Dillon asks, standing up and reaching his hand down toward me. I put my palm in his and stand up next to him like a woman about to dance with her sweetheart.

  I wonder if he really did buy me a big white house with a big kitchen and lots of rooms for all our babies. I guess I’m going to find out.

  Chapter Sixteen—A big white house

  I’ve got my long barreled handgun in one hand and the one small bag I brought with me from California in the other. Before I make it to the front porch, Dillon takes my bag so he can hold my hand as we walk toward his Prius. I wonder if Donnie is watching us as we walk out of the house. I feel defiant as I hold Dillon’s hand. It’s likely that he is, since he’d watched me all the time, for years, without me knowing. I can’t believe he told me that today. As a matter of fact, I can’t believe a lot of what happened today.

  It’s so odd. Even though it feels like my plane landed months ago, I only stepped foot onto West Virginia territory two days ago. Thursday was my flight and it’s only 3:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. Two days ago, if someone had told me I would be on my way to Dillon’s house in the middle of the night I would have called them a liar. But here I am in my pajamas and wrapped up in Missy’s bright blue robe, going to sleep in his bed with him, I’ve kissed him with a clear conscience, I’ve asked him to make love to me and he turned me down. So much has come about in these two days.

  As he opens the trunk to stow my one small bag away for me, I realize it’s not that irrational that two days could change the trajectory of my life when, in reality, twenty minutes in that shed altered my entire existence. I was on one track and then at a moment’s notice, I wasn’t any longer. I wasn’t even the same person anymore.

  As he opens the car door for me, I wonder about the house Dillon bought. Here I am, envisioning my future—a dreamlike future that now includes Dillon and a big white house, a big kitchen, and a lot of rooms that we’re going to fill with our babies. It’s great in theory. But, am I capable of such a normal life?

  I remember his speech up on the mountain about what he wants from me. He’d spewed his ideal life into the air around us. I’d swatted it away as if I was unworthy of it, but one of the things I’d caught was that he had bought ‘us’ a house. Then, when he refused me in my room, he said that he’d always imagined taking off my white wedding gown in ‘our’ room.

  As he turns on the engine that doesn’t really turn on, I gaze up at his face, now marred by violence and a brother’s fixation. He’s swollen and bruised. His eye looks red and veiny. Seeing him like this is a reality check. Going to Dillon’s house has me bopping around in la-la land as if Donnie hadn’t just broken into my house and beaten his brother nearly to death.

  If Donnie hadn’t been scared off by the rest of my family he would have probably killed Dillon and then tried to violate me once again—take what he thinks is owed to him—or worse. This awareness is a rush of lucidity that takes me down quite a few notches on the happiness belt. I squeeze my gun.

  I gaze up at Dillon who looks deep in thought as we glide onto Highway 60. I wish I could crawl in there, deep inside his mind and read his thoughts. Truth be told, he’s probably wishing the same thing—much more than I am, actually.

  I don’t know what to say to make him feel better. He’s so unaware of all that’s going on inside my mind. The plans I’m making to let go, and truly be his in every way. But that hinges on my evidence and Donnie’s reaction to it. I will use it, if I have to—that I know. He’ll lose everything, his job, his wife, his children, if he doesn’t let me go. Maybe I shouldn’t even give him a chance to decide.

  What if I just make the post live? No. I’m not ready to do that yet. To make public the most horrid event of my life, to tell everyone the secrets held deep within me for all these years. It would be like taking off my well-honed veneer and revealing to everyone the scarred little girl inside me.

  “What proof do you have?” Dillon asks, out of nowhere.

  “What?”

  “In your room. You told him to do it because everyone would know it’s him.”

  Oh crap!

  “What proof do you have?” he asks again, impassive, serious. The last thing on my mind when I said that was whether or not Dillon heard me. I was frantic to distract Donnie so he wouldn’t kill him, but he heard every word. I’m spinning through every lie I can tell right now.

  The wheel lands on, “I was bluffing,” I try, and then look out the window so he can�
��t tell I’m lying.

  “Well, it worked. I believed you, too,” he says, almost as if he doesn’t believe me. When I check him out again, he’s looking at the road. He’s holding the steering wheel too tight. He has the right to be perturbed over my not telling him—but I can’t. If I did, if I just let him in here for half a minute, if I opened my mind and let him climb in, he’d be scratching to get out, begging for mercy. It’s better this way. I feel guilty, but he really doesn’t need to know. After tomorrow’s lunch, I will be free—then we can really be together.

  We’ve driven from Brandon Street down Highway 60 toward town. I wonder where he lives? Hesitation hangs in the air between us—like tension when answering difficult questions in an interview, but this is an interview with my future house. This is silly. I’m being silly, and I’m usually so indifferent to the workings of life. Well, aside from my career, or my antiques. Is this the new me?

  When we turn onto Page Street, he slows down and takes the little driveway up the knoll to the Page-Vawter house, an old abandoned house that used to fascinate me when I was younger. I always wondered what it looked like inside. It was big enough to be considered a mansion. We’d peeked in through the dust on the tall windows at the oak floors covered in a thin veil of West Virginia grit that had settled there year by empty year. I remember there were so many fireplaces covered in pretty tiles that I’d lost count.

  As his headlights shine upon the house, I realize it isn’t rickety anymore and it’s white!

  “Dillon?” I question him as he pulls up to one of the most famous houses in Ansted.

  “Yes, Sadie?” he says, suddenly buoyant—his voice hopping around like my mood.

  “Is this your house?”

  He stares at me through the darkness in the car. He turns off the engine and nods his head slowly to show me he really means it.