by Lori Roy
“Because it was true,” Caroline says. “Told them I followed you anyway. Even told them I stole from you, took your flashlight.”
There she goes again, even trying to get the better of Annie’s guilt.
“They don’t care about no stolen flashlight,” Annie says. “You tell about the cigarettes?”
“I did, but Daddy said they didn’t find any. Said maybe we saw something else. Asked was I sure.”
Annie shifts around until she’s looking at the dark ceiling. “And?”
“Said I was sure. Said maybe I was sure.”
“I’m going again,” Annie says.
Caroline rolls on her side, lifts up on one elbow, and looks down at Annie. “Going where?”
“I think it was Aunt Juna up there,” Annie says. “Thinking she’s the one who left those cigarettes.”
The smile Jacob Riddle had put on Caroline’s face fades. “You shouldn’t be wishing for something like that, for Aunt Juna to come home.”
Mama and Daddy didn’t have to sit Caroline down the way they sat Annie down. The next year, when Caroline reached the third grade, Mrs. Johansson called her off the playground, walked with her to a shady spot near the swing sets no one used because the bolts were nearly rusted through, and after that, Caroline didn’t jump rope anymore.
“Ain’t wishing for it,” Annie says.
“Then why would you go? Why do you care? Tell Mama and Daddy. They’ll see to it.”
“Mama would tell her to stay,” Annie says. “I’m going to tell her to leave.”
“You can’t go,” Caroline says, sitting up. “I won’t let you. I’ll wake Mama right now. I’ll wake Daddy too.”
Only one time did Mama say those nasty cigars of Daddy’s reminded her of her own daddy. She waved a hand as if to rid the house of the sweet, smoky smell, and when that didn’t work, she walked out the door, letting it slam behind. Daddy had snubbed out the cigar and hollered after her that he was sorry. That smell in Mama’s own kitchen brought something to mind, brought it too near. Whatever memories Mama had of her childhood, she could manage them until they were resurrected by the smell of that cigar. That’s how it is with Aunt Juna. Annie can manage the thought of her when she is at a distance, is strong enough to keep her own evil nature from taking root, but if Aunt Juna were to get too close, she’d be like the sweet, smoky cigar. She’d bring to life things Annie would rather leave dead and buried.
“Do you promise?” Caroline asks. “Do you promise you won’t go?”
“Sure, Caroline,” Annie says, knowing Caroline never suspects folks of lying. “I promise.”
Caroline keeps staring at the side of Annie’s face, waiting for her to say something more. Or maybe she knows Aunt Juna is Annie’s real mama too. Annie never thought about that. Caroline doesn’t like hearing about the pigs Abraham slaughters every year or the chicken on the table being so fresh it practically walked itself into the oven. Instead she likes the smell of lavender and cleaning the bristles of her best hairbrush. But because of the way she’s staring at the parts of Annie just like Ellis Baine did when he was sitting at the kitchen table, because her eyes travel from the top of Annie’s head down to her chin and back up to her yellow hair, if Caroline hadn’t considered it before, she’s considering it now. She’s thinking about Ellis Baine’s visit to the house and understanding now why he came to see Annie. Caroline is being forced to see what’s behind the supper being served. Annie and Caroline aren’t real sisters.
“It wasn’t Jacob Riddle I seen in that well,” Annie says, tired of trying her best to be angry at Caroline. As much as Annie can’t help being taller than most any other girl, Caroline can’t help that life is so much easier for her. “But I expect he’s the boy you seen.”
• • •
MAMA AND DADDY and the others were supposed to play cards, but not thirty minutes after Caroline falls asleep, Abraham Pace and Miss Watson say their good-byes from the porch and climb into Abraham’s truck. The engine sputters and rattles and fades as it drives toward the road. Grandma is all the time saying how fragile Miss Watson is, so most likely, she was still angry with Abraham for shouting out and that’s probably why they didn’t stay for cards.
Another thirty minutes and the last lamp is switched off and the springs in Mama and Daddy’s bed creak as they crawl in. Their muffled voices travel down the hall and through the small crack where Annie and Caroline’s door isn’t quite shut. Then they fall silent, and lastly, Grandma’s quiet snores float up the stairwell from her downstairs bedroom.
Abraham’s dog is gone, same as the last time Annie made this trip, and even though there’s no moon, she’ll know the way. She passes through the kitchen, the light over the stove helping her to walk around the table without bumping the chairs. She pushes the door open only enough to slip through and holds on until it settles in its frame.
She ran up the hill last time and had a candle and matches that she knew would light her way once she reached the top. She has neither this time, and she walks instead of runs through the rows of lavender.
She’s feeling bad for lying to Caroline. She always feels bad when she lies, but most especially when she lies to her sister. Caroline never lies, probably doesn’t even understand the inclination. She has no need for lying. She never does anything wrong, so no need to lie to cover up. She always does well in school, so no need to lie about grades to Mama and Daddy. She doesn’t understand about people who have to lie just to make their way.
Where the rows of lavender end, Annie stops, closes her eyes, listens, and draws a deep breath in through her nose. She wouldn’t have known before that Aunt Juna is a smoker, but after finding all those cigarettes, she knows. She inhales again and yet again. No stain of cigarette smoke in the air. Opening her eyes, she looks toward the dark barn. No orange tip glowing in the doorway.
She’s come at midnight, same as last time. Her heart is beating hard and fast in her chest. If she finds someone, it’ll likely be her mother, her real mother, and Annie is ready to tell her to go. She’ll tell Aunt Juna every Baine isn’t gone like she thought. Ellis Baine is back, and so she has to go. And if Aunt Juna already knows that and if that’s the reason she’s sneaking around instead of walking right up to the door and knocking and saying hello, then she should go because no one wants her here.
The envelopes Annie took from Mama’s bedside table are hidden under Annie’s pillow. She had planned to read the letters, every one of them from the first to the last, while everyone else was busy eating ice cream and spice cake. Pulling each letter from inside its card and pressing it flat, Annie had studied it for a date. Most had at least a year scribbled in the top margin. A few were dated only by the numbers Mama wrote on the back of the card. Annie sorted the letters into a single pile, the most recent on the bottom, and the one dated December 1937 on the top. And that’s where she had begun.
She drew her fingers over the slanted writing as she read the first letter. Some of the ink words were more faded than others. She held the thin yellow paper lightly and read only as far as the second line. Annie would have barely turned one when that letter arrived. Caroline would have just been born. Mama likes to say, whenever Annie or Caroline has a birthday, that she and Daddy loved Annie so much, they couldn’t wait to get started on Caroline.
In those first few lines, Aunt Juna wrote her congratulations to Mama and Daddy for having another perfectly lovely daughter. How blessed you are, Aunt Juna wrote. And then Annie stopped reading the letter, folded it over, the one letter and the rest of the pile, and slid them and the stack of cards under her pillow.
Annie had been a baby, probably not yet able to walk or talk, and Aunt Juna had done nothing more than write a letter. She hadn’t bothered with a visit or a gift. Or maybe that wasn’t what made Annie put the letters away. Maybe those few lines, written by Aunt Juna’s own hand, had changed her from a legend to an ordinary person for maybe the first time in Annie’s life. Tomorrow, Annie will return the c
ards and letters to their envelopes and slip them back in Mama’s bedside table before she has a chance to miss them.
It’s not such a long walk from the end of the lavender field to the barn, but the ground isn’t plowed and smooth and the walking is harder. Several times, an ankle nearly gives way, and Annie stumbles twice before reaching the barn’s open door. Her breathing is heavier now, and she can’t hear as well as she’d like. She draws in one deep breath, holds it, and leans into the barn. Still no hint of a cigarette. Not a sound. She swallows and exhales.
“That Annie in there?”
Annie swings around but doesn’t step from the barn’s doorway. It’s a man’s voice. She remembers it well enough. Rough, like it’s rolling over gravel.
“Yes.”
She waits for something more. Her blood is racing, and her breath and her heartbeat too, and she can’t still any of it.
“Yes,” she says again.
She takes one step outside the barn, and she hears it. Down below, down near the house, a dog is barking. Maybe it just started, or maybe she just now heard it. She takes another step, looks across the rock fence, and sees nothing. It was Ellis Baine she heard calling out to her. It had to be, but he’s gone now.
That’s definitely a barking dog. Backing away from the rock fence, Annie lifts the hem of her nightgown up to her knees, turns, and starts to run. Halfway down the hill, the smell of lavender lifting up around her, the barking gets louder. It sounds like Abraham’s dog, but Abraham had unhooked her leash when he and Miss Watson left, lowered the gate on the back of his truck, and whistled for Tilly to hop on.
Annie runs faster, gets closer still. That’s Abraham’s truck parked on the far side of the drive. He’s come back. She would have heard him if he’d only now arrived, so he must have been parked there when she snuck out of the house. The porch light switches on. The drive brightens, and that’s Tilly in the front seat, jumping and barking. By the time Annie reaches the bottom of the hill, Daddy appears in the drive. He’s running from the house toward Abraham’s truck, a shotgun in one hand.
The barking dog woke Daddy. He’ll have heard it first, before Mama, and will have jumped out of bed, run down the hall, and thrown open Annie’s door. “You both here?” Daddy will have said, bracing himself with one hand on the door frame and leaning into the room. “Annie, you here?” Caroline will have sat up, looked at Annie’s empty bed, and known Annie lied. “She went to look for Aunt Juna,” Caroline will have said.
Daddy keeps a gun on the top shelf of the linen closet where no one but he and Annie are tall enough to see it. He’ll have grabbed the gun. Mama will have run after, calling out, “Please, John. It’s nothing. No guns, please.”
“Annie,” Daddy shouts as he runs toward Abraham’s truck.
Grandma appears next, running as best she can around the side of the house. “Annie,” she cries. The sound of her voice frightens Annie most. It’s a fear she’s not heard before. “Good Lord, Annie, where are you?”
“I’m here,” Annie says, running from the dark of the lavender field into the lit drive. “What is it? I’m here, Grandma.”
Daddy sees Annie first. He stops at the side of Abraham’s truck, looks Annie over long enough to know she’s well, and then pulls open the passenger door. Tilly leaps from the car and runs toward Annie.
“Grandma, I’m here,” Annie calls out again because Grandma has not stopped. Her long white hair hangs over her shoulders and in her face, and her robe flaps open, the thin belt hanging loose and trailing behind. “Stop, Grandma. I’m fine.”
Maybe it’s Tilly jumping up on Grandma, or maybe it’s that grandmas don’t run so well, but before Grandma can stop herself, she stumbles and falls, both hands flying out. She lands near Annie’s feet and cries out again, but it’s a different sort of cry.
Daddy pushes off Abraham’s truck, leaving the passenger door open, and runs toward Grandma. Mama comes running too.
“God damn, Annie,” Daddy says. “What in all hell are you doing out here?” He reaches down with both hands to lift Grandma. He gets her to her knees, squats, and looks up into her face. “You hurt?”
Mama runs up, seeming to float in her white nightgown, grabs for Tilly’s collar, and hollers at her to be still. When she has a good hold of the collar, Mama drops down next to Daddy.
Grandma looks from Daddy to Mama and then settles her eyes on Annie. She smiles and swats at Daddy’s hands so he’ll let loose of her. “Oh, good Lord,” she says, “I’m fine. But get that creature away from me.”
Mama stands and drags Tilly toward the tree where Abraham chains her.
“You’re cut here, Mother,” Daddy says, touching Grandma’s cheek. “And your hands.” He takes both and rolls them over. “You see here, Annie? See here what you done?”
“Oh, hush,” Grandma says, swatting at Daddy again and pushing herself to her feet.
“Is Abraham all right?” Mama says, chaining Tilly and telling her to hush and be still. “What’s he doing here?” And then she hurries back to Grandma with a tissue in hand and starts blotting at Grandma’s cuts. “Go help your father, Annie,” Mama says without looking Annie in the eyes. “Go on. I’ll see to your grandmother.”
Annie walks and then jogs toward Abraham’s truck. Behind her, Grandma is telling Mama to stop it and leave her be and go see to Annie.
“What is it?” Annie asks, glancing back to see Mama still fussing over Grandma and Grandma still swatting Mama away. “Is he hurt?”
Abraham is bent over the steering wheel, his head resting on his crossed arms. Even standing outside the truck, Annie can smell the whiskey.
“Sleeping,” Daddy says. “He’s sleeping it off.” And then louder, so Grandma and Mama can hear, he says the same.
“I wasn’t up to nothing, Daddy,” Annie says as Daddy walks around the truck to open the driver’s side door. “I wanted to see—”
“Not another word,” Daddy says. “You know how your grandmother worries. You have to be more mindful.”
They only call Grandma “Grandmother” when times are serious. At a funeral, a wedding, while visiting a sick friend in the hospital.
“Yes, sir,” Annie says. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m just real sorry.”
Annie wants to ask Daddy what Abraham is doing here, parked outside the house, but she really doesn’t have to. Besides knowing it’ll make Daddy all the more angry, she already knows the answer. She knows exactly why Abraham is here. He believes Annie, is maybe the only one other than Grandma who does. He believes Aunt Juna was here last night. He believes what Annie said about the cigarettes and the spark and that she knows something is coming, and he believes Aunt Juna has come home, even thought she might come again tonight.
17
1936—SARAH AND JUNA
THE ROAD NARROWS as it nears the Baines’ place, or maybe it only feels that way because the poplars close in on a person, growing right up to the road’s edge. Before starting up the long drive that leads to the house, I stand still, pull my coat tight around my shoulders, and listen for someone coming up behind me. I’d hear the footsteps on the dirt road, rocks getting kicked about, and heavy breathing if John Holleran were running after me, trying to catch me before I ruined myself. But the night is quiet except for my own breath rushing in and out of my nose.
As I had passed by John Holleran’s house, I drifted to the far side of the road so he or his mama or daddy wouldn’t chance upon seeing me. They’ll be keeping an eye out, not for me but for the men who have come from all the newspapers. They are men with freshly sharpened pencils sticking out of their front shirt pockets and notepads clenched under their arms. They’ve come by car and train and a few by bus. Besides hearing about a woman sheriff and Juna with her black eyes—stories that made them scribble in their notepads and dip their heads to hide their smiles or douse the laughter they couldn’t contain—the men have heard stories of the Baine brothers, and so they must know better than to come here after dark.
The walk from the road to the Baines’ house is uphill, so I can’t see the place until I’m close enough to call out that I’m coming. But I don’t call out; I just keep walking. The house is dark. Still I know one of those brothers is waiting. Not waiting for me in particular. Just waiting. Waiting for some trouble, probably from Daddy or Abraham Pace or the men from the newspapers.
I’m a dozen paces away when a chair creaks. Whichever brother is sitting up there, he hears me coming and tips forward to ready himself. He is there on the porch, just ahead, thinking those are footsteps he hears but not yet able to see me. Behind him, the house is dark, the shutters drawn. Another creak and then the sound of a shotgun being pumped. I keep walking, rocks and gravel crunching under my boots.
My insides ache from the cold, damp air I suck in with each breath. Somewhere nearby, a fire burns. This time, it’s a rifle I hear. The second gun is behind me. A bolt flips up, slides forward. I stop. I can picture Daddy when he wrapped Dale’s hands around a rifle, forced his finger into the right spot, showed him how to brace it against his chest because he was too small to hold it to his shoulder.
“I want Ellis,” I say, wishing straightaway I’d said it differently. But that’s why I’ve come. “Just want Ellis.”
The chair creaks again. I keep walking, never stop because if I do, I might never get going again and I’ll end up back in my house, Daddy sleeping next to the lamp, Juna sleeping a quiet, dreamless sleep even though Dale’s dead. I walk up the stairs, not looking to see which brother sits in that chair, push open the door, and step into the kitchen.
Cousins and nephews and uncles must have come from outside the county. A half dozen men or more sleep in chairs and on the floor. Their snores rise and fall, one right over the top of the next. A small black stove sits in the far corner, the fire inside burning strong and steady, will have been since sunset. Smoky cedar fills the room, and the fire’s yellow glow flickers and bounces off the sleeping bodies, throwing long, rounded shadows on the walls.