Part 6 (1/2)

CHAPTER 5.

GRETEL CAME HOME. Her empty shoulder was a white cone of bandages. The missing leg seemed to puzzle her more than it distressed her. She'd try to lay her head down on her front legs, then pop back up and make thinking eyebrows at the place where it used to be. Five seconds of brain work was enough to make her too tired to keep on; she'd c.o.c.k her head at an angle that looked to me like the dog version of a shrug and lie back down to sleep.

She fast mastered a three-beat lazy canter, and she got around the house and yard just fine when she chose to heave herself up off her favorite snooze rug. I tried to drown my guilt in grat.i.tude to G.o.d for the small mercies that had been afforded me. She had lived in spite of me, and though one leg down, she was exactly her same dim and lovely self.

For the rest of that week, in celebration, I made what I called manfood, the meaty dinners that Thom liked best. Pork roast with potatoes and baked apples. Turkey pot pie. Stuffed flank steak. The meals were too heavy for me, but if ever a man needed some comfort food, it was Thom. He stomped around with two creases between his eyebrows that pointed straight up like horns.

While I'd holed up in our bathroom drying my long hair and trying not to think, Thom's daddy must have kept on force-feeding him all kinds of c.r.a.p. One piece in particular had gotten way down wedged in Thom's belly. He was grinding and churning at it, but it wasn't breaking down. I could see how it chafed him from the inside out, this thing his daddy had stuffed down him. I'd seen this all before.

I'm not sure if Thom understood his daddy's last visit was the reason he was so set on picking a fight with me, but I sure as h.e.l.l did. I owed Joe Grandee thank-you notes for more than one prior bone crack; Thom may have delivered them, but they were presents Joe had bought and paid for. So I cooked soothing foods that made Thom logy and sleepy, and I tried to live quiet in the corners of our rooms until he'd worked it out.

On Wednesday, Thom looked down at the meat loaf on his plate with one lip curling, as if I'd served up possum sus.h.i.+. It was a beautiful meat loaf, too, made with half ground pork and lots of sage like his mother's, only I didn't overcook mine until it tasted like a chunk of mummy. He didn't so much as lift his fork.

”I was hoping for that sour cream chicken you do.”

He had his wrists resting on the edge of the table, and I watched his hands flex and unflex. He looked to me like a bad storm coming. Like a bad storm almost here.

”I've bought everything to make it at the grocery,” I said. ”I'll make that chicken tomorrow.”

”I wanted it tonight,” he said, mulish.

I thought, And that's the battle cry of every spoiled toddler. And that's the battle cry of every spoiled toddler.

I didn't say it. I knew this game. h.e.l.l, I had helped invent it. But I wouldn't play. I couldn't afford to anymore. Rose Mae was biding her time; she knew that I had glimpsed the path she'd set. It would not take much to get me walking down it.

So I showed him some teeth and kept my brow smooth and my tone mild. ”Why don't you go watch the news? I can throw that chicken together in maybe thirty minutes. I'll use the meat loaf for sandwiches. That'll be so much nicer for you this week than deli ham and cheese.”

His brows moved inward, puzzling up together, and he looked at me like he wasn't sure whose table he'd sat down at. I wasn't sure, either.

”That's ridiculous,” he said.

”I know,” I said. ”But if you really need that chicken for your day to go right, then I want you to have it.”

Now he looked almost forlorn, as if I'd abandoned him.

”Thom,” I said to him, ”I'm trying.” It sounded to me like a plea. I didn't want the gypsy's cards to be for us. They fit her life just as well as they fit mine, and I was doing my d.a.m.nedest to prove it had been her draw. I couldn't do that alone. ”I'm trying so hard.”

His gaze dropped to his plate, and he took a big sniff of air into his lungs. I watched his chest expand. I'd always loved the workings of his thick, sleek body. I loved to put my ear to his chest and feel the boom-thump of his heart, then slide lower to hear the gurgle and sigh of his belly hard at work on something I had made.

When he finally spoke, his voice came out so quiet that it was like he had a secret he was whispering to the mashed potatoes. ”I see that,” he said. He started eating, so I did, too. A few minutes later, chewing, he said, ”This is delicious.” He sounded surprised.

I said, ”Good,” in a truly pleased way. I didn't say, ”No s.h.i.+t, Sherlock. My meat loaf tastes great and water is wet and your name is Thom.” ”No s.h.i.+t, Sherlock. My meat loaf tastes great and water is wet and your name is Thom.” I blocked those words in with a bite of salad and swallowed them with a gulp of sweet tea. He watched me struggle to get it all down. I managed it, barely. We found ourselves grinning at each other across the table like children, while under it, Gretel thumped her tail against the floor; usually when I said the word I blocked those words in with a bite of salad and swallowed them with a gulp of sweet tea. He watched me struggle to get it all down. I managed it, barely. We found ourselves grinning at each other across the table like children, while under it, Gretel thumped her tail against the floor; usually when I said the word good good, with such sincerity, I meant her.

He said, ”I'll try, too.” I watched him, wary-eyed, and he added, ”I mean it, Ro.”

I nodded, and then we picked up our gla.s.ses and drank, watching each other over the rims, like we were solemnly sealing a deal with sweet tea and cool water.

The next day, when he came home from work, he paused and stood silent in our cubicle of a foyer. I was sitting on the sofa, waiting for a timer in the kitchen, and I heard him stamping and breathing in that tiny s.p.a.ce, but he didn't say anything. When at last he stepped through the archway, it was as if he'd left his father and his job and the bills and his temper in the cube behind him.

On this side of the archway, we holed up, honeymoon style, eating a quiet dinner and then watching a rented movie with a lot of kissing in it. I sat wedged between Thom and Gretel on the sofa, snug and pleased. By morning, everything seemed fresh-made between us.

It occurred to me I should have hidden in the bushes and taken a couple of potshots at his fool head years ago. It was turning out to be downright good for both of us. I think he was pleased to be alive, and me, I was scared of the secret thing Rose was planning next if he couldn't join me in playing nice.

I kept the house so clean, even Thom's mother couldn't have found a dusty corner with white gloves and a microscope. Thom and I ran together most mornings, going way too fast to bring Gretel, and at night we sat on the sofa, breathing in the orange oil smell of our clean house. We watched a lot of college ball, and I rooted for his teams, even when Bama was playing. If no one we liked had a game, we rented old movies or played gin rummy after dinner.

Four days a week, I cas.h.i.+ered at the gun store, and I didn't let myself b.i.t.c.h to Thom about still making minimum wage, although Joe Grandee was making that harder and harder.

A week into our truce, a salesman didn't show, and Joe asked me to help customers as best I could until he could get in a replacement. I'd been raised up with guns, and I sure as h.e.l.l knew more about our stock than the missing fella. My best times with my daddy had been when he took me out shooting. I'd ask a thousand questions about zeroing or muzzle velocity, then lure him into musing about who made a better .45, Colt or Smith & Wesson, stretching our good hours into half a day. If Joe Grandee had ever looked past my b.o.o.bs up to where I kept my brains, he'd have had me on the sales floor years ago.

I'd been working the floor maybe half an hour when an obvious fat fish came in-midlife crisis fellow with a salt-and-pepper comb-over and three-hundred-dollar pointy-toed cowboy boots. He was looking, he said, for a little home protection.

”Nothing flashy,” he said, meaning nothing expensive.

”Of course not,” I said. ”Guy like you, you want something sleek and plain, with enough power for the job at hand. Not some silly cowboy gun that's all show.”

Ten minutes later, I had his fingers curling around a gorgeous black snub-nosed revolver that cost over a thousand bucks.

”I like how that looks in your hand,” I said, and I let myself sound breathless. I leaned over the counter to get a better view, biting my bottom lip.

I sent him out the door with the revolver and ammo and a gun safe and a cleaning kit and a couple of packs of the overpriced cinnamon gum we kept by the register. He swaggered out hips first like he was toting ten pounds of extra p.e.n.i.s, swearing to come back and take a look at our rifles before hunting season.

I didn't realize Joe had come out from the office. He was standing in the doorway to the back, watching me run the endgame. The next day, when I came in to relieve Janine, she stayed perched up on the stool, shaking her head at me. I thought I'd misread my schedule, but Joe said, ”Derek had an emergency, darlin'. Cover the floor for him until I can get a replacement?”

When I clocked out six hours later, Janine was still running the drawer and Derek's ”replacement” had yet to show. After that, it seemed like some member of Joe's sales team needed sick leave or vacation every other s.h.i.+ft I worked. It didn't take a genius to figure Joe was cutting their time because I was better. Meanwhile, I got the same four bucks and change an hour I would have gotten if I'd spent the time under the Golden Arches saying, ”You want some special sauce on that?”

Still, I didn't fight the Joe Grandee party line: Grand Guns was a family business, so I was building up our own future. It was only to myself that I added, And helping Joe buy himself another big-a.s.s Harley-Davidson. And helping Joe buy himself another big-a.s.s Harley-Davidson. After all, that big-a.s.s Harley would be part mine on the merciful day the Lord got tired of Joe pooing up the earth and called him home to heaven. Or wherever. After all, that big-a.s.s Harley would be part mine on the merciful day the Lord got tired of Joe pooing up the earth and called him home to heaven. Or wherever.

At home, I sat on Thom's lap and nibbled his edges and tempted him to bed early. I gave him cheerleader s.e.x, bouncy, full of gymnastics and genuine enthusiasm. In my head the words went like this: Thom, Thom, he's our man, if he can't do it, no one can. Thom, Thom, he's our man, if he can't do it, no one can. Rose would echo, Rose would echo, If not, I have another plan. If not, I have another plan. I cut her off right there, making d.a.m.n sure I never thought a different man's name while Thom Grandee's hands were on my body. I pushed away all memories of other hands from days long past, and I didn't think about old promises made on Alabama nights hot enough to be the sweetest kind of sticky. I cut her off right there, making d.a.m.n sure I never thought a different man's name while Thom Grandee's hands were on my body. I pushed away all memories of other hands from days long past, and I didn't think about old promises made on Alabama nights hot enough to be the sweetest kind of sticky.

Not when I was awake, anyway. Some nights, my sleeping self would see Rose Mae, no more than fourteen, haunting the woods behind Fruiton's old elementary school, waiting for Jim Beverly to s.h.i.+mmy down the oak tree outside his bedroom window and come join her. She'd wake me up, too sleep-logged to stop myself from remembering how it went the night Rose Mae decided to see for herself what manner of pleasure her daddy found in drinking.

The moon was near full that night, lighting the way even as it set. It was so late, the tree frogs had shut up and gone to sleep. This was hours after every kid with a decent human mother had been called home and fed and tucked beneath a blanket. Rose Mae waited in the clearing that she and Jim had made their own when they were nine, watching Jim Beverly come loping through the trees to meet her.

He said, ”Hey, Rose-Pop,” in a whisper, though they were far from any other ears. He kissed her mouth, then set about building them a campfire. He was an exBoy Scout, so he knew to clear a hollow down to the bare dirt and bank it in stones. Rose gathered twigs and sticks to feed it. When it was crackling and cheerful, they sat pressed together, side by side.

”Did you get something?” Rose asked.

Jim pulled a flat bottle out of his back pocket. Amber liquid glinted in the firelight. ”Whiskey. I stole it off Lance,” he said. Lance was his oldest brother. ”I hope it makes you happy because when he notices, I'm a dead man.”

He was grinning that lopsided smile that got her every time, his thin upper lip showing too much gum. She couldn't help but grin back.

Rose Mae said, ”Lance can't fuss. If he starts to kill you even a little, you tell him you'll rat him out for that fake ID.”

Jim cracked the seal and screwed off the cap, then sat, holding it. The fumes coming out of the lip smelled to her like someone had bottled her daddy. Jim started to bring it to his lips, then stopped. Started to lift it again. Stopped.