Sadie's Mountain

by Shelby Rebecca

  “I’m not on the pill,” I blurt, as the water drips and pats on the tile shower floor.

  “I figured as much,” he says, smiling candidly. “We do have all of those other bedrooms,” he reminds me. As I try to fathom the idea, he rubs me down with a sweet scented, fluffy white towel. When I’m dry, I rub his hair with a towel wrapped around my hands as he leans down to make it easier for me. I’m wondering if deep in my belly a tiny new life is growing molecule by molecule—sprouting up out of what used to be ruins but now feels like fertile ground.

  I don’t know if I’m prepared for that.

  We get ready together, quite aware that we are new to this dance around the room. He reassures me with kind touches, as we pass by one another, him leaving the sink, me on my way to my one small bag. He gifts me loving smiles from the bathroom mirror as he shaves and I dress in my fitted dark jeans, a dark blue button up shirt, my suede boots, and my grey scarf. The one I’d been wearing the day I arrived. Was that really only three days ago?

  With damp hair falling in tendrils just over his eyebrows, he pulls on some black boxer briefs, faded jeans that fit on his hips just so, and a white pull-over, cotton long sleeved shirt.

  As I apply some eye shadow and a bit of blush, he leans into the deep sepia colored linen cabinet and watches me with a sly grin. “It’s so weird to see you doing normal stuff,” he says.

  “Well, I am a real person. Maybe you put me on too high of a pedestal.”

  “Maybe I did,” he admits. “But I love watching you.”

  I don’t have time to dry my hair so I brush it into a ponytail. “You look stunning,” he says, shaking his head as if he’s amazed. I grab my small purse and sling it over my shoulder. Where am I going to keep the gun? I should have brought a bigger purse. I should be okay. I’m armed with something even better. Proof.

  In the car, he turns on the radio. “I think you know that I’ve been playing you songs that remind me of you,” he says, while tapping the screen with his long thin fingers. “I can play this for you now because we’re almost there.”

  “Almost?”

  “Yes.” Oh, he means he wants to marry me.

  “Adele again,” I fake a smirk, as ‘One and Only’ pops up on the little screen. He grins at my teasing.

  A lovely piano begins to fill the car and as she starts to sing, I think that this song is about him having doubts about me. I bet he did for a while. Then, it’s clear. He wants to be my one and only. He wants me to forget my past and choose him. He’s right. Had he played this for me, even yesterday, I would have burst into tears and felt guilty. Now, with an almost clear conscience, I hold his hand and rub the tip of my finger over the little scrapes on his knuckles. I wonder if he got them from fighting or from punching the wall in Momma’s closet.

  “Were you nervous last night?” I ask, thinking of the line in the song about having imagined being with the one you love so many times that you wonder why you’re even nervous.

  “Oh, God, yes,” he says. “I wanted it to be perfect for you. I was scared I hurt you.”

  “It was perfect. You are perfect, just how you are. But I’m not, Dillon.”

  “Sadie!”

  “I think you should stop putting me on that pedestal. I’m just a regular, flawed person, you know.”

  “I’ll try,” he says, staring at the road. “But, to me you are everything.”

  I’m going to disappoint him. I know it.

  We are almost to my Momma’s house, but we’re going next door. I have those boomerangs again in my stomach, like the ones I felt on the plane three days ago. I feel like I’m going to be sick. I hold onto the door handle. I think I could rip it off in one fell swoop.

  “Don’t be nervous, baby,” he says, as we pull up to his childhood home. A deep brown stained house, two storied and cottage-like. From where we are, I can see the top of the roof on the shed. The setting for the most horrific thing that’s ever happened to me. I want to throw things at it. As I get out of the car, I’m actually measuring up rocks that would do the job. “Everything will be better once we talk to Donnie,” he says, reading the change in my mood, taking my hand.

  Yeah it will. I don’t want him to catch me looking at the shed. I’d already mentioned it up on the mountain the first time we saw each other again.

  “Speaking of that, Dillon,” I say, trying to stop the shaking in my voice. “I really don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I’d like to talk to him by myself.”

  He pulls away from me, but I don’t let go of his hand even though mine is shaking. He’s facing away from me, running his right hand through his still damp hair.

  “Are you going to tell him, though?” he looks at me with frustration written in the creases in his forehead.

  “Yes.” Yes, I am. I’m going to tell him he’s never even going to look at me sideways again or I’m making that post live.

  “I just wish you trusted me enough,” he says.

  “I trust you more than you know. But, not this. Please, I need to take care of this myself.”

  “Okay,” he says, biting his bottom lip.

  A woman comes out of the front door. The top story is the main floor in this house, so there are about ten or twelve steps to climb to reach her. As we get to the third step, I remember how the porch wraps all the way around the house. When I was ten, I accidentally dropped Dillon’s black lab puppy from the railing. He was okay, but I felt a lot like I do now. Worried, guilty, wishing I was anywhere but here.

  “Sadie, this is Renae,” Dillon says. I shake her hand and smile. I’m still great at the meet and greet. She’s a small woman, petite, with long dark hair parted in the middle with two barrettes in her hair fastened just at the top of each ear. She pulls up the dark jeans that are too big for her, and fixes a button on the checker-box-patterned shirt with colors washed-out from years of wear. She crosses the faded black sweater over her stomach and folds up the sleeves.

  For some reason, I want to adopt her and take her home with me. She gives off an aura of uncertainty. Like a dog that gets kicked every day and will take any small amount of love tossed her way. And there’s something in her eyes that reminds me of mine when I look in the mirror. How my eyes look dead. I feel like I’m looking at my true self in the mirror.

  The little boy clasping her thigh puts his hands up to Dillon who picks him up and kisses him on the cheek. “Diddon,” says the baby. I think Dillon said he was two years old.

  “Come on in,” says Renae, who seems a little nervous. Maybe that’s just her normal demeanor. I don’t want to, but I can imagine what it would be like to be her. I know it in every fiber of my being; she is an abused wife. Of course she is.

  “I made us some chicken soup,” she says. As Dillon starts to say something on my behalf, I look him in the eye and I shake my head. My lips are tight. I’ll eat anything she gives me. I won’t be able to stand hurting her feelings.

  “That sounds perfect,” I say, and fight back the nervous tears I feel for her that want to come out like fountains.

  “When’s Donnie supposed to be home?” Dillon asks, pulling out the chair for me at the dark wood table.

  “Any minute now,” she says.

  I look at the table. It pulls on a string tied to a memory in my brain. This is the same one we used to do our homework on together. He taught me fractions at this table. I feel like one, too. Not quite a whole. My chin trembles.

  “Sadie Jane,” yelps a voice from the past that I know so well. Dillon’s mom, Dot, pulls me out of the chair and into her arms. “You look so purty, honey,” she says, playing with my hair. That’s it. I start to cry and she holds me to her too large chest. “What’s a’ matter?” she asks.

  “I’ve just missed out on so much while I’ve been gone,” I say, looking at the grey in her hair, realizing the skin on her face makes her look tired in her older age.

  “Well, yer home now, and you don’t have to go nowhere, do ya?” she says, with a gleam in her eyes,
her mouth folding up in a kind expression.

  “No, I don’t,” I say as Renae hands me a tissue. God, she’s sweet.

  “Are you gonna finally marry this poor boy, put ‘im out a’ his misery and give me some grandyoungins?” she says, with a chuckle. “Lord knows, he’s been a’ waitin’ on ya. Cain’t no body tell him nothin’,” she says. That reminds me, when is my period due? I think next week but I’ll need to check my calendar. How does that pregnancy thing work?

  “What happened to yer face?” Dot asks Dillon.

  “I had to fight off the guy,” Dillon explains.

  “Lordy, son,” she says to Dillon. “He’d fight off a whole heap ‘a men fer ya,” she says to me.

  When I look at Dillon, he’s beaming, glowing happiness from his pores. I want to go to him. I want him to hold me. I want to promise my life to him. I do want to marry him. But I have to do this first.

  Another little boy comes out from under the table. He’s cute, about eight years old and he’s holding some kind of plastic superhero in his hand. “Daddy’s home!” he announces, and my heart stops for a whole two beats before it starts up again.

  I hear the front door open, and his boots tromping through the entryway before he walks into the kitchen wearing his uniform, with a gun on his belt. His nose is bandaged, and he looks at me with a surprised contempt I haven’t seen before. This is worse than I thought.

  “What are you doing here?” he questions Dillon.

  “I’m sorry,” Renae says. She’s cowering over by the refrigerator. “I tried to tell you this mornin’ but you was in such a hurry to get out a’ here.”

  “We had a break-in at the Sparks’ house last night, Donnie.”

  “I know that,” Donnie says. Yeah, I’m sure he does. He looks shaken and starts to sit down at the head of the table. Before he can make it all the way down, Renae is placing a hot bowl of soup under his nose. He doesn’t even say thank you. He’s got her trained well.

  “Why didn’t you call me back last night? And what happened to your nose?” Dillon asks, raising his voice.

  “My two boys look like they been beat,” says Dot.

  Yeah, by each other.

  “I was on a call. Old Man Wilson was drunk again, beating on his wife. He got me pretty good,” he says, touching his bandaged nose. If I hadn’t been there last night I would have believed his lie, too. Plus, Old Man Wilson has been beating his wife since we were kids. It’s a likely story.

  “So, what are you doing about this?” Dillon asks.

  “Let me eat my food, kid,” he says, taking a big spoonful into his mouth. I wish I could melt into the wall. But I have a job to do here.

  “Why don’t y’all serve yourselves,” Renae invites. I start to get up but Dillon leans over to me, saying, “I’ll get it for you, baby.” As he pulls away from me, I see Donnie’s expression. His eyes are too wide; his top lip is twitching. He’s squeezing the handle of his spoon so tight, I bet he’s losing circulation in his fingers.

  “Thank you, love,” I announce to Dillon as I glare at Donnie and clench my jaw so tight it hurts. I lean back in the chair like a boss, and cross my ankle over my knee as if to say, I’m not scared of you. He gets my vibe and spoons a too large portion of the thick soup in his mouth. Some drips down his chin and, never taking is shaking eyes away from mine, wipes it with the sleeve of his dark blue shirt.

  “How’s yer Momma?” Renae chirps from the kitchen. She’s filling little bowls of soup for the kids.

  “She’s doing as well as possible,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. “But she’s very sick.”

  “How long are ya stayin’, honey?” Dot asks, as Dillon places the hot soup in front of me on the table.

  “Thank you,” I say to Dillon. “I’m not leaving, Dot. Even after the wake,” I say, looking down, trying to push away the empty feeling of not having my momma alive. “Dillon’s asked me to move into the Page-Vawter house with him.” I refuse to look at Donnie. I feel anger emanating from his spot at the table. My breathing has taken a new pace. I’m shaking so I don’t want to pick up my spoon.

  “Oh, honey!” Dot says. “I’m so glad. This boy’s been a’ pining for ya.”

  Donnie shifts in his seat, but I refuse to look at him. Dillon runs his hand along my thigh under the table. It tickles, and I smile at him, taking my hand and placing it on his. He wraps his hand around the curve of my inner thigh.

  “I’m going to have my stuff sent over in a week or two.” Donnie drops his spoon on the table. I wince, and so does Renae, as the sound echoes through my bones like a cold wind.

  “You didn’t tell me that!” Dillon says, beaming from ear to ear.

  “Isn’t that what you want?” I whisper.

  “Of course,” he says, grasping my thigh. I look down at the thick soup. I haven’t had meat in almost ten years. My stomach feels as empty as an air bubble so I find a nice sized carrot and spoon that into my mouth. It tastes like chicken, but I’m not going to say a thing to Renae. I can’t bear to hurt her feelings. She’s got the two boys eating their soup, and finally sits down silently, her back hunched over and takes a bite.

  “I want some more,” Donnie says, hastily pushing his bowl toward her on the table. She jumps up and fills his bowl as fast as she can. I glare at Donnie. I hate him. Hate, in fact, is not strong enough of a word to match the feelings I have for him.

  As I sit here, chewing the carrots and potatoes that taste like chicken feathers floating in a strong breeze, I try to think of another word for hate. Even words like abhorrence and disgust, don’t fully comprise my revulsion of him. There’s not a single synonym that seems strong enough for how much I loathe this man. I want him to die a painful, slow death. I can just see my daddy’s bullets piercing through the evil flesh that he pressed up against me over ten years ago. I can imagine the confused look on his face when he realizes I’ve killed him.

  “Sadie?” My name sounds like it’s being said in a tunnel. I shake my head. Who said that? Dillon touches my arm. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I say, confused.

  “Donnie’s ready to talk to you,” he says, pressing his lips together. I look around and everyone is done eating. The two boys aren’t even at the table anymore. Dot is helping Renae at the kitchen sink. How long have I been fantasizing about retribution?

  “Let’s go out to the porch,” Donnie bellows.

  “Okay,” I say, as my heart falls to my stomach. I stand up like a spring, the chair protesting against the wood under my feet. I catch my balance and bend down to kiss Dillon. This is for you, too, I think, as I allow my legs to take me somewhere private with the man who tried to kill me last night.

  Outside, the crisp air ruffles my hair. From here I can see the rickety shed with its peaked roof. It looks smaller than I remember. It sits there like a disgrace. How opposite my experience with Dillon last night was in comparison to what happened to me in there. I can imagine what it would feel like to rip the wood apart with my bare hands. My compulsion feels so real, I can almost feel the splinters prickling my hands.

  As I lean up against the railing, the same one I’d accidentally tipped Dillon’s dog Mitty off when I was a kid, I think it sure is a long way down. I’m surprised he lived through it. As the back door shuts behind me, I spin around and start to talk before he can. I have the upper hand this time.

  “What the hell was that last night?”

  “What? You think you can bring him home with you and nothin’s gonna happen?” he says, taking too many steps toward me.

  “How long were you watching us?”

  “Long enough to know he ain’t no man,” he says, moving even closer to me. I hold my breath. His natural scent has always been a deterrent—plus, it reminds me of the past, the shed, and what he did to me. I bristle as he leans up against the railing, boxing me in. His proximity makes me feel miniscule, like a mouse in a trap.

  I force myself to speak. “He’s more man than you’ll ever be.
He doesn’t need a knife to sleep with me.”

  “That’s all he knows how ‘ta do, sleep,” he says, with a deep mocking laugh.

  “He didn’t have to cut my throat to make me his,” I say, defiantly, my voice deep.

  “Watch yer mouth, bitch.”

  The tone in his voice turns a switch in me. I stand taller, moving my elbows out to make a reasonable space between us. “Let me make something very clear,” I declare, heaving words at him as though they are toxic. “What happened last night is never going to happen again. Do you understand?” I say, slowly, methodically. Damn that felt good.

  “Listen up,” he says, coming even closer to me, making himself taller, more angular. “I’ll say it slower this time so ya’ understand what I mean.” I lean back and cross my arms. “You ain’t allowed to see him no more. You definitely ain’t movin’ in with him, neither.”

  “What if I don’t care what you say?”

  “If you don’t do as yer told, next time you won’t be so lucky,” he says, putting his hand on his gun holster and smiling to cover up the demon hiding behind his teeth.

  “That’s just it. There won’t be a next time, Donnie. Things have changed and I think you should know just how much.” I reach into my purse, pull the phone out and hold it between my hands like a relic of my faith. “Before you even think about trying to take my phone, just know that you’re going to want me to have it. Without communication from me to someone back home in California, the happy little life you have here is over.”

  He swallows hard and takes a step back. Finally, he looks scared. This feels amazing.

  “Before I share my proof, just know that what I have here is already completely safe. I’ve recreated it so that everyone in the world will be able to hear it in a matter of minutes.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he says, scraping at his stubbly chin with his fingernails. He looks completely confounded.