I wiped my face and shrugged. Now I felt tired, aching tired, so deeply tired it was hard to pull air all the way down into my lungs. “Maybe,” I said.
“I won’t go back until I know you’re gonna be safe.” Mama’s voice was determined. “I promise you, Bone.”
“I won’t go back.” The words were so quiet, so flat, they didn’t seem to have come out of me. But once they were said, some energy seemed to come back to me.
“I wouldn’t make you, honey.”
“No. I know. It’s not that, Mama. I know you wouldn’t.” I sat up, rocked my head forward, and heard my neck bones make an odd cracking sound as the muscles stopped straining. When I spoke this time, my voice was strong, the words clear. “I know you’ll go back, Mama, and maybe you should. I don’t know what’s right for you, just what I have to do. I can’t go back to live with Daddy Glen. I won’t. I could go stay with Aunt Carr for a while or move in with Raylene. I think she’d be glad to keep me. But no matter what you decide, when you go back to Daddy Glen, I can’t go with you.”
“Bone.” Mama got up from her mattress so fast I felt myself push back against the wall nervously. Her hands came down on my shoulders, squeezed gently. “What are you saying to me?” she asked.
I could see her face. The moon must have risen. In the dim reflected light from outside, her cheekbones and shadowy eyes were ghostly. She was afraid.
“I love you,” I said, “but I can’t think of anything else to do.”
She gripped me hard. I could feel her fingernails biting in, the intensity of her fear. She shook her head and pulled me to her neck. “Oh God, what have I done?” she cried.
“Mama, don’t,” I said gently. “Please.” She let go of me but still knelt there close. I wondered if she could see me as clearly as I could see her. If so, what was she seeing in my face?
A rain began to fall outside. With no wind, it came down in a sweet, sprinkling whisper, little drops flicking through the tender new growth on the trees and bushes. Mama put her palms flat against her eyes. “All right,” she said. “All right.”
I swallowed. I wanted to reach for her, to say I was sorry, to say that I hadn’t meant it, that I would go back with her, but I didn’t move. After a minute she got up and went back to her pallet. She didn’t smoke anymore. She pulled her blanket up and lay still, so quiet she might have been asleep as soon as she lay down.
Much later, in the early dawn with the blanket pulled over my head, I heard Mama start crying, trying hard not to make a sound and almost succeeding. Only her breath catching every little while gave her away. My own eyes were dry. I didn’t feel like I was going to cry. I didn’t feel like I was ever going to cry again.
20
I t was peaceful out at Aunt Alma’s. The spring ripened until the yard and surrounding woods were lush green and full of singing birds. The three surviving puppies ran in stumbling leaps and falls, rolling over each other and digging between their mama’s titties. The clothes scattered across the yard had to have the dirt shaken out before they could be washed. The washer itself worked pretty good, though Earle could not figure out how to fix the wringer. I hung the soggy clothes out on a line that Grey put up between the porch and the black walnut tree, though none of them came truly clean and some of them Mama set aside as garbage. I made a big pile off the porch of the things that were broken beyond repair, and Uncle Earle hauled it away.
Alma came back to herself slowly. She didn’t want to talk much, but then neither did I. Mama came out every afternoon for a while, then every other day, and finally every few days.
She’d bring Alma some little treat, some sweet corn succotash, or chow-chow and biscuits, or once even a little blackberry cobbler. For me she brought books, paperbacks she traded for down at the book exchange, or magazines she got from the women she worked with over at the Stevens mill. One afternoon, Alma passed her the razor she’d been keeping in her apron pocket.
“You’ll feel better if you take this away,” she said to Mama. They both looked at the deadly thing.
“You sure you don’t still need it?” Mama ran her fingers over the smooth polished handle and the dull outside edge. “If it makes you feel better, you should just keep it.”
“No.” Aunt Alma sighed and combed through her hair restlessly with her fingers. It had gone full gray in the weeks since she’d wrecked the house, and she had cut it off short with that razor the afternoon before. “I an’t got the urge no more. I still don’t want to see Wade yet, but I an’t thinking about cutting his throat no more either.”
“It’s just as well,” Mama told her. “Leave him alive to suffer. He’s been staying over at Fay’s, and Carr’s been with him every minute. She says she don’t dare go home again until she knows Wade’s gonna be all right. But between his leg itching him and her nagging and whining at him, Wade looks like he’s liable to shoot himself again any minute.” They both smiled.
Nobody said anything about me having to go to school out in the country. Mama had brought me a list of books to read and a note from my teacher, saying that so long as I wasn’t gone more than a month everything could be made up. I wondered what Mama had told her, but I didn’t ask. It was such a relief not to have to sit in those boring classes, to be able to read as much as I wanted, sit up late with Alma, and get up when I felt like it. Mama and I were being a little easier with each other but still tender. I heard from Reese that Mama had seen Daddy Glen a couple of times and they were talking again. I tried not to worry about the future, not to think too much about anything. I worked in Alma’s garden, saving what I could of her herbs and flowers, and put in some seedlings and cuttings Raylene brought by. The days were a gift, long and warm, the nights quiet and cool. I slept dreamlessly and woke up at peace.
The afternoon Daddy Glen showed up, Alma was out in the garden by herself, putting in the tomato seedlings Raylene had brought over the day before. I planned to go off on a picnic, had packed a cloth bag with a bottle of tea and lemons, and was spreading bread with peanut butter to go with it. The puppies had gotten in the kitchen and were tumbling over themselves to beg me for treats. I gave them each one teaspoon of peanut butter and dragged them out on the porch to watch them chew and yawn and try to lick the tops of their mouths.
I was giggling at them when a Ford pulled up into the yard and Daddy Glen climbed out. He looked the same, though there was a scar over his left eye and he seemed to limp slightly as he walked toward the porch. He wore his work clothes, khaki trousers and white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His brown shoes were scuffed and dusty. There was a little beard showing, as if he had shaved the night before and not this morning. I stood and watched as he came up the steps, not knowing what to do.
“Bone,” he said. His voice was hoarse and deep. I wondered if Aunt Alma heard it out in the garden behind the house. His eyes looked bright and intent, his jaw tense. “Your mama an’t here, is she?” he asked.
I shook my head no. I put my hands behind my back and clasped them tightly. He stepped up on the porch and looked me over, up and down, and back up to my face. His lips thinned out.
“You’re getting bigger,” he said. “Gonna be ready to start dating boys any day now. Getting married, maybe, starting your own family.” He spat to the side. “Breaking some man’s heart just ’cause you can.”
I licked my lips, unclasped my hands. “I’ll get you something to drink,” I said. I pushed through the screen door as fast as I could, but he was right behind me, his hand pulling my fingers off the little latch.
“You do that,” he said. He looked at the table, where the peanut butter jar still stood with the lid off. “Making yourself a sandwich? Make me one.”
I didn’t know what to do. Get him a glass of tea, make him a sandwich, keep my head down, and hope that Aunt Alma would come back in? I thought of her and her bandaged hands, her sore back and thin neck. I looked in Daddy Glen’s eyes again and was too afraid to move.
“Don’t act
like that. You an’t got no reason to be afraid of me.” He moved toward me. “I talked to Anney, you know. She’s gonna come back. She promised, just needs a little time, time to make it up to you.” I saw his fingers curl up and loosen again. He flung his huge hands out to the side and shook his head, laughing.
“That woman loves you more than I can understand. Needs time to work things out with you.” He sneered the words. “Time with you. My sweet Jesus.” He shrugged his shoulders, put his hands on his hips, and put his face close to mine.
“You’re gonna have to tell her it’s all right,” he said. “You’re gonna have to tell her you want us all to be together again,”
He paused, looking at me intently. My stomach hurt. I looked down. My sweaty fingers were rolled into fists.
“No,” I whispered. “I don’t want to live with you no more. Mama can go home to you. I told her she could, but I can’t. I won’t.”
“Won’t?” He touched my cheek. I looked up at him. “You won’t live with me?” His eyes were hard blue rocks, his mouth an angry line. “You’re not even thirteen years old, girl. You don’t say what you do. I’m your daddy. I say what you do.”
“No.” I said it quietly. My throat was so tight it was hard to say anything. I saw him rock back away from me, close his eyes, push his hands together in front of his body as if he were about to pray. He shook his head.
“No,” I said again.
“I’m trying to be reasonable with you, girl. I want you to talk to your mama. I want you to stop this nonsense before you make me really mad.” His clasped hands shook. He opened his eyes.
“No.” I said it louder. “I’d rather die than go back to living with you.”
“You would?” His lips curled into a mean smile. “I bet you would,” he said in a whisper.
There was a long quiet moment. I could hear my heartbeat.
“Make me that sandwich,” he said, “and we’ll talk.”
I stood unmoving, watching his face and hands. “No. I don’t want to talk. I want you to leave.”
He shook his head and went on smiling.
“I’ll tell Mama,” I said desperately. “I’ll tell her.”
His hands came up and grabbed my shoulders, shook me. “You don’t want to make your daddy a sandwich?” His voice grated with rage. “You don’t want to do nothing for me?” Another shake. He lifted me so that my feet came off the floor. My mouth opened. I wanted to scream, but nothing came out. I remembered all the times he had lifted me like that before, lifted me, shaken me, then pulled me to his chest, held me against him and run his hands over me, moaned while his fingers gouged at me. I had always been afraid to scream, afraid to fight. I had always felt like it was my fault, but now it didn’t matter. I didn’t care anymore what might happen. I wouldn’t hold still anymore.
I tried to wiggle free, and he laughed. He dropped me. I staggered back against the table.
“You’re the one. You’re the reason. She loves me, I know it. But it’s you, you’re the one gets in the way. You make me crazy and you make her ashamed, ashamed of you and ashamed of loving me. It an’t right. It an’t right her leaving me because of you. It an’t right.”
His voice got harder, hoarser but no louder, and it was the quiet that terrified me. It reminded me of Alma with the razor in her hand and madness in her eyes. Daddy Glen’s eyes were just as crazy, more crazy. There was pain in them, deep pain, yes, but hate was the thing that made them burn. Suddenly his fist shot out like it was on a spring. His knuckles raked the side of my chin, and I fell back on the table.
“You can’t destroy me so easy,” he said. “Anney’s gonna come back, she told me. She just needs a little time. I can understand that after everything that’s happened.” He leaned toward me, one hand extended. “But if she wasn’t gonna come back to me, I’d kill you. You know that? I’d break your neck.” His hand touched the side of my face, my ear, my neck, slid down my front, the slight swells of my breasts. His blue eyes trailed down my body.
“Ahhh,” Daddy Glen moaned. He pulled me to his chest, holding me tight, breathing hard. There was blood in my mouth and a roar in my head. I went hard, stiff, metal-hard, as hard as the butter knife I found I had grabbed without thinking. He kissed me wetly, his teeth grinding into my mouth. I jerked that knife up and rammed it into his side hard as I could. It slid along his belt, smearing peanut butter on his shirt, not even tearing the material but hurting him anyway. I could tell.
“Damn you!” He threw me away from him so that my back hit the counter and I slipped down, falling as he came toward me, kicking at me. His boot hit me solidly in the shoulder. His arm came down, caught my right wrist, and jerked hard, pulling me up sharply, then dropped me. Something gave, crunching audibly, while a wave of sickening heat followed, and my arm flopped uselessly under my body.
“You little cunt!” He kicked again, and his boot slipped along the side of my head, cutting my ear so that blood gushed. Then that boot thudded into my belly and I rolled sideways, retching bile down my right arm.
“You!” he cursed, and it echoed in my head. “You goddam little bastard!”
“You!” I told him. “Mama’s never gonna go back to you. I won’t let her. I hate you.”
“I’ve prayed for you to die,” he hissed between set white teeth. His hand caught the front of my blouse and dug into the material. “Just die and leave us alone. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have been all right. Everything would have been all right.” He sobbed and dragged me forward so that I was up on my knees swaying in his grip until my blouse tore, and I fell back under him. He grabbed for me again, and something hit me hard between the legs. I screamed. His boot or his leg? He dropped down on top of me.
“You’re not going anywhere.” He laughed. “You think you’re so grown-up. You think you’re so big and bad, saying no to me. Let’s see how big you are, how grown!” His hands spread what was left of my blouse and ripped at the zipper on my pants, pulling them down my thighs as my left hand groped to hold them. I tried to kick, but I was pinned. Tears were streaming down my face, but I wasn’t crying. I was cursing him.
“Damn you! Damn you! Damn you! God will damn γou!” He reached with one hand to shove my pants down almost to my ankles and with the other to open his britches. “You’ll shut up. I’ll shut you up. I’ll teach you.” He ripped my panties off me like they were paper. Then he jerked me up a little and spread my legs.
“You fucker!” I punched up at him with my almost useless right arm.
“You little cunt. I should have done this a long time ago.
You’ve always wanted it. Don’t tell me you don’t.” His knee pushed my legs further apart, and his big hand leisurely smashed the side of my face. He laughed then, as if he liked the feel of my blood on his fist, and hit me again. I opened my mouth to scream, and his hand closed around on my throat.
“I’ll give you what you really want,” he said, and his whole weight came down hard. My scream was gaspy and low around his hand on my throat. He fumbled with his fingers between my legs, opened me, and then reared back slightly, looking down into my face with his burning eyes.
“Now,” he said, and slammed his body forward from his knees. “You’ll learn.” His words came in short angry bursts. “You’ll never mouth off to me again. You’ll keep your mouth shut. You’ll do as you’re told. You’ll tell Anney what I want you to tell her.”
I gagged. He rocked in and ground down, flexing and thrusting his hips. I felt like he was tearing me apart, my ass slapping against the floor with every thrust, burning and tearing and bruising.
“God!” I screamed with all the strength I had. Not loud enough, not loud enough for anybody but me to hear, but he let go of my throat and slapped my mouth, crushing my lips into my teeth. He started a steady rhythm, “I’ll teach you, I’ll teach you,” and pounded my head against the floor.
“You’ll die, you’ll die,” I screamed inside. “You will rot and stink and cave in on yourself. G
od will give you to me. Your bones will melt and your blood will catch fire. I’ll rip you open and feed you to the dogs. Like in the Bible, like the way it ought to be, God will give you to me. God will give you to me!”
All the time my left hand was flailing, reaching, scrambling for anything, something. Where was that knife? Where was Aunt Alma?
He reared up, supporting his weight on my shoulder while his hips drove his sex into me like a sword.
“Give me something! Give me something!” I begged. I tried vainly to bite him, my teeth pushing up through my clamped-down lips. “Give me something!”
He went rigid, head back and teeth showing between snarling lips. I could feel his thighs shaking against me as my butt slid in the blood under me. “Oh God, help me, let me kill him. Please, God. Please, God. Let me kill him. Let me die, but let me kill him.”
He went limp and came down on me, rag-loose and panting. His hand dropped from my mouth, but the urge to scream was gone. Blood and juice, his sweat and mine, my blood, all over my neck and all down my thighs, the sticky stink of him between my burning legs. How had it all happened so fast? I tried to lick my lips, but my tongue was too swollen. I couldn’t feel my tongue move, just my lips opening and closing with no sound coming out. Red and black dots swam up toward the ceiling and back down toward me. Daddy Glen moved a little, mumbling something I could not understand. I saw past him the open door and the late-afternoon sun darkening. I closed my eyes, opened them, felt like I had passed out briefly. He was Still on me, but something was different, some feeling in the air. I looked again to the door and saw her. Mama’s enormous white face was moving toward us where we lay, toward me.
“Mama,” I tried to say, but never got it out. Glen’s body jerked above me and pulled back. The air hit me like a fist, all my wet and open places. I whimpered. He screamed.
“Anney!”
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