Using the last of my strength, I worked my way out from under Winnie. Her body flopped, and panic grabbed hold of me all over again, sending me into screaming cries.
“Shut up,” Eddie hollered at me. “Shut up!”
“Why did you shoot her?” I screamed.
“I never meant to.” Spit flew from between his lips when he yelled. The way he grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled, I thought he’d rip it all out. “I never wanted her to get hurt.”
Pushing myself up, I slipped and fell into the blood on the floor.
Getting back to my feet, I stumbled, all feeling gone from my legs. The only thing I could hear was my own breathing. Everything else seemed far away, like I was watching it at the movie theater.
“Are you going to shoot me?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Eddie answered, then looked at Winnie. “What have I done?”
He was sobbing. Using the backs of his hands, he wiped against the tears running down his face.
“Please don’t,” I said. “Please.”
“I have to. It’s too late.”
“Please.”
Then I heard my name. Quiet at first, but then louder and louder. Eddie had heard it, too. He stood and backed away from the steps.
Daddy’s voice from up above, yelling for me.
“Just let me go,” I said, not caring to cover up the begging in my voice. “I won’t tell anybody what you did. You can get away. Nobody’ll miss her but me.”
“I can’t do that,” Eddie said, setting his face hard. “It’s too late.”
Daddy called my name again. “Pearl?”
Looking Eddie full in the face, I screamed.
“Stay away, Daddy!”
“Over there,” someone from the surface yelled.
“Don’t come down here,” I screamed. “He’s going to kill you.”
“It won’t make a difference,” Eddie said. “He’ll come for you no matter what you say.”
I knew Eddie was right.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
A shuffle of feet drew near to the cellar doors. Deep, hushed words moved about, too.
“Tom Spence,” Eddie yelled. “You out there?”
The outside noises all stopped.
“I am,” Daddy answered. “You got my daughter down there?”
“Far as I know, she ain’t really your daughter, now is she?” Eddie drew in a long breath through his nose. “You still want her back?”
“More than anything.”
“Come and get her then.” Eddie didn’t smirk. Instead he did something I’d never seen him do before. He shuddered. “Come on down.”
“Daddy, don’t!” I cried.
“Oh, would you shut up?” Eddie snarled. But he didn’t dare touch me, not with Daddy so near. “I ain’t gonna shoot him ’till we’re face-to-face.”
“I’m handing my gun off,” Daddy said. “I’m coming down unarmed, Eddie.”
“Suit yourself.”
“I’m going to keep my hands where you can see them. I’d appreciate the same from you.”
“Don’t mean it’s gonna happen, Tom.”
Daddy’s boots were the first thing I saw. The scuffed-up leather on the toes and the dust that powdered them. I remembered evenings after supper when we’d sit on the porch, my bare feet on the step next to those boots.
Then his legs appeared. The lap I’d sat on when I had a nightmare or when he’d tell me a story. His hips. Stomach. His chest that I’d rested my head against to hear his heart. His shoulders, neck. Then his face.
The smile I’d loved all my life wasn’t there. His mouth was a thin, straight line with wrinkles of worry deep on his forehead.
Eddie had his gun pointed right at Daddy’s handsome face.
But Daddy had his eyes on me. He didn’t even pay Eddie any mind.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“Not too bad.” Then I blubbered, knowing I didn’t need to be strong anymore. “But Winnie …”
“It’s all going to be over soon, darlin’.” Daddy glanced at Winnie’s still body, then back at Eddie. “You’ve got me now. Let my girl go.”
“Daddy?” I asked.
He turned his eyes back to me. “Darlin’, when Eddie says so, you’ve got to go up those steps. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s a good girl.” His voice soothed me. “Then you have to give Millard a big hug. He’s been so worried about you. You know that?”
I nodded.
“He’ll see that you get home to Mama.”
“She’s okay?”
“She will be once she sees you.”
His smile flashed up and down, but his eyes never sparkled.
“Daddy, won’t you come with me?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not this time, darlin’.”
“Eddie’s going to kill you, isn’t he?”
That was when I panicked. I screamed, feeling the room spinning again.
“Darlin’,” Daddy said. “Darlin’, I need you to breathe, please.”
“I won’t leave you,” I cried.
“Pearl, darlin’,” he said, keeping his voice steady. “I’m coming over there. And I’m going to take slow steps so I don’t scare Eddie. He’s going to be a gentleman and let me come talk to you. Ain’t that right, Mr. DuPre?”
Eddie didn’t answer, but he kept his gun aimed at Daddy.
It seemed a whole hour passed before Daddy got to me. When he did, I fell into his chest. His rich scent wrapped around me. He held me so tight and let me cry. He didn’t hush me or try to make me stop. He just kept saying over and over again that he loved me. He loved me.
He loved me.
When I was finally able to stop, he moved me so he could see into my face.
“I know about the baby on the steps.” My lips pulled down at the sides. “It was me.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry that I never told you.”
“I’m not your daughter.”
Daddy kissed both my cheeks. “You are. You always will be.”
Eddie grunted.
Daddy turned toward him. “Just a few minutes more. Please.”
Eddie didn’t lower his gun, but he nodded.
“That night, the night I found you, I was so scared.” He swallowed hard. “Something bad had happened, and I was walking home.”
I nodded because I knew it was after he’d shot Jimmy DuPre.
“I heard your crying. At first I thought it was coming from a house. But then I saw you. You were all bundled up. And so small. You were tiny. I was afraid to pick you up.”
“But you did anyhow.”
“I did. That’s right. And, honey, you just cried louder. I figured you were hungry.” He breathed in. “But as soon as I started talking to you, you calmed right down.”
He kissed my cheek again.
“Pearl, I took one look at you that night, and you were so pretty I cried.”
“Why did you cry?”
“Because right then I couldn’t do nothing else.” He cleared his throat. “Pearlie, I picked you up off those church steps because it was what I had to do. I never could have left you there. From the very moment I saw you, you were mine. I knew it then, and I’ll never un-know it. I carried you into our home and to your mama.”
“Am I like him?” I asked. “Am I like Jimmy DuPre?”
“Nah. Not even a little. Because you’re mine.”
He left his lips on my cheek for a long time. Then he held me close again.
“Tell Mama and Beanie that I love them,” he said, his voice still smooth. “Will you do that?”
“Daddy …”
“And tell yourself, too. Tell yourself how much I love you every day.” He kissed my forehead. “Be brave.”
I cried so hard that I tripped on the first step. Then I stumbled on the second.
“Just wait until she’s gone, okay?” Daddy asked.
“I can’t,” Eddie answered.
> The gun blasted.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
His eyes didn’t close. Still open, they stared at me, not blinking. His head was on the floor, his body slumped over. The gun he’d held to his own head still in his busted-up hand.
I glared back at him, looking right into those cornflower-blue eyes.
“Shut your eyes,” Daddy said, pulling my face into his stomach. “You don’t need to see that.”
He lifted me, holding my head so my eyes couldn’t see Eddie’s body. Daddy’s boots clomped on the steps up and out of the cellar.
“Take her,” he said. “Pearlie, you’re going to go with Millard, just for a minute.”
He passed me off, and Millard’s arms were gentle and so warm. Daddy slammed the cellar doors and stood, staring at them.
“It sure is good to see you,” Millard said touching my chin to get me to look at him. “You cold, darlin’?”
His words didn’t make sense to me. Nothing did, really. Not the fading sunlight or the breeze on my face. It felt as if I was on a different planet altogether. I couldn’t even figure out who I really was.
Millard lowered me to the ground. Knocking together, my knees struggled to keep hold under the weight of my body. He unbuttoned his flannel shirt, showing the white cotton of his undershirt. It was warm as a hug when he draped it over my shoulders.
“Better?” he asked.
“I gotta get her home.” Daddy rubbed his forehead, leaving a smudge of dirt on his skin.
“What about him?” Millard asked, concentrating on buttoning me into his shirt.
“We don’t have to worry about him going anywhere.” Daddy reached for me. “Let’s get her home.”
Daddy carried me, walking across the old field. When he stumbled a few times, Millard steadied both of us, putting a hand on my back.
From the middle of the field, I could see the sharecropper cabins. The few folks that still made their homes there stepped onto porches, watching us pass. Not a one said a word or moved toward us. All they did was stand and stare.
I was glad nobody asked what had happened. I didn’t know myself.
Leaning my head against Daddy’s shoulder, I wished I could sleep for as long as it would take to forget all that had happened. Already, I was numb. It would have been a mercy to sleep the memory away.
Mrs. Jones and Ray stood on the porch of their dugout, a lantern between them. The glow of it shone all the way to me. Ray took off running toward us. Daddy stopped, and Ray stood beside us, his chin shaking.
“You okay?” he asked.
There wasn’t a good answer to give him, so I didn’t say anything at all. The way he nodded told me he understood.
“Come on, Ray,” Daddy said. “Let’s get her back to her mama.”
Mama. I’d never wanted her more than right then.
Daddy held me close. Millard kept a hand on my back. Ray held my hand.
Eddie DuPre still held my fear.
Mama had to cut the nightie off me, the blood had made it stiff and the buttons dried to the fabric. She had me in the warm water of our tub in no time. I sat in it, letting her scrub my skin clean, until the water turned cold.
I only knew it had cooled because she told me.
Mama hummed as she dabbed me dry with a towel and helped me into a fresh nightgown. Holding me by the arm, she led me to my room and helped me into bed.
“Go on and rest a bit,” she whispered. “I’ll fix you something to eat when you wake up.”
Cool sheet under me and one above chilled my still damp skin. Goose pimples bumped on my arms and legs and my body shivered. Mama piled another blanket on top of me and another folded up and across my legs.
I fell asleep, her hand in mine.
The bullet tore through Winnie, dropping her in a slow fall. Her body spun to one side as she fell, her arms hanging in the air above her. Just like a ballerina, she spun so graceful. Her crushing weight landed on my legs, pushing them deeper and deeper into the dust floor below me, making me sink into a grave beneath her.
When I woke, I was screaming and kicking at the blankets, tearing at the sheets.
“I’m here,” Daddy called to me, his voice coming from next to my bed. He sat up and reached for me, holding me until I calmed. “It’s okay.”
“Winnie …”
“I know.”
The whole night was full of fitful sleep and bloody dreams and Eddie’s voice saying, “You’ll never get away from me.”
The next night was more of the same.
It got where I fought sleep with all my might.
Daddy slept on the floor next to my bed every night. Beanie was set up in Meemaw’s old room. As for Mama, she went between all three of us, checking to be sure we were all okay. I swore she didn’t sleep for weeks.
Nights when I’d scream my way out of a nightmare, Daddy would hold me.
“It’s over now,” he’d whisper. “He can’t hurt us anymore.”
He was wrong. Eddie went on hurting me over and over again, whenever I shut my eyes.
Dreams were where Eddie’s ghost lived.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Life went on after the cellar and Eddie killing Winnie and himself. Dusters rolled through, blanketing us in filth. Pastor went on preaching sermons to the faithful few in the pews. Mr. Smalley packed up and went off to find his family in the East. Millard still ate dinner at our table each night.
What didn’t go on was me.
When Mama brought me a cup of bouillon, I’d thank her, not knowing what to call her. Nights when I woke in terror, I didn’t call out for Daddy by name. The house in which I slept and ate and stared at the walls wasn’t truly mine. It was just a place I stayed.
I’d never asked Winnie what she would have named me if she had kept me. Whatever it was, I wouldn’t have wanted to change from being Pearl.
No matter what, I wouldn’t take the name DuPre. Not ever. I hoped I’d be allowed to keep the Spence name.
If everything else was taken from me, I wanted to keep that.
It had been three weeks since I came home from the cellar. Mama had started helping me get down the stairs to sit in the living room during the days. She wouldn’t hear of me lifting a finger around the house.
“Not for another week or two,” she had said. “After you’re all healed up.”
She didn’t understand that the part of me that would heal had already done it. The rest of me, my mind and heart, would never mend by sitting around.
Nobody talked to me about Eddie or Winnie or what had happened in the cellar. I wouldn’t have said a word to them if they had, anyhow.
In that house of people I’d always believed were my family, I felt more alone than I had in the cellar.
It was a Sunday. The only reason I knew was because we’d gone to church that morning. If I’d got worn out listening to Pastor hoot and holler before, it was worse that day. He preached on the wages of sin. He never made it to the gift-of-God part. That man was just too excited about damnation to think about eternal life.
After church, we sat around the table, and Mama served us her last can of beans and a few biscuits she had left over from her baking the day before. With Mr. Smalley’s store closed, she couldn’t pick up and get our few needs so easy anymore. The closest store was a good hour’s drive away.
“I don’t know that we’ve got enough flour to get us through the week,” she said. She hadn’t taken a biscuit for herself, and her puddle of beans was so small it wouldn’t fill the belly of a mouse.
“I’ll have to take a trip up to Boise City.” Daddy tilted his head, eyes on Mama’s plate. “Mary …”
“I’m not hungry.”
Daddy blessed the food, asking for God to provide for us and all of Red River. He said his “amen” and scooped up a forkful of beans.
Beanie fidgeted with her napkin and wiggled in her seat. Her lips pushed together and stuck out from her face.
“Beanie Jean,” Mama said. “Eat you
r food before it gets cold.”
My sister noticed her beans and biscuit like it was the first time she’d ever seen such things. Lifting her fork, she held it over the plate, then lowered it again, clattering it against the side.
“Something wrong?” Daddy asked.
Beanie nodded but kept her eyes on the plate.
“What is it, darlin’?”
“I don’t want her to go away,” Beanie said, moving her eyes from her plate to mine.
“Who’s going away?” Mama reached for Beanie’s hand.
“Pearl.”
“She’s not going anywhere.”
“But she ain’t my real sister no more.” Beanie let Mama rub her thumb against the back of her hand. “In the stories, the not-real sisters always go away.”
“Beanie,” Daddy said, getting up and kneeling beside my sister. “Do you remember when we brought Pearlie home?”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “She cried a lot.”
“That’s right.”
“It made me scared,” she said. “I thought Mama was hurting her. She wasn’t never hurting her though.”
“I’m glad you remember that.” Daddy smiled. “Do you remember what you said when we let you hold her?”
Beanie shook her head and opened her eyes.
“Well, we couldn’t let you hold her right away for fear you’d drop her. You were just six, and your arms weren’t very strong.” Daddy cleared his throat. “You’d cry and fuss that we wouldn’t let you, so we got you set up on the davenport over there and put her in your arms.”
“Did I drop her?”
“No, ma’am. You did good holding her.”
“Did I hurt her?”
“You did not.”
“I was good?”
“You were, Beanie Jean. You were,” Daddy said. “And you know what you said? You said, ‘She’s my sister.’ Nothing’s changed, darlin’.”
Beanie glanced at me, and our eyes caught for just a moment. As soon as my eyes filled up with tears, she looked away.
“Is she mine?” she asked.
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