Flannery grabbed one from the crushed box inside and saw one of Hollis’s guns poking from beneath, a barrel of a snub nose.
Quickly he leaned back over and slammed the glove box shut. Stomping down on the gas pedal, he barreled toward the Butler house. When he didn’t pull into the drive all the way, and stopped at the mailbox, Flannery reached shakily for the door handle and looked back over her shoulder, wanting him to make it all right, wanting to say something more, not let it all just lie there.
He turned his head away. “I loved her, too. Never stopped.”
Flannery flung open the door.
“Just didn’t know quite how to back then,” he whispered, and cut on the radio and sped away.
Mama was dozing on the porch with her sewing basket at her feet and several tins of loose buttons stacked beside it.
“I’m home.” Flannery gently tapped Mama’s shoulder.
Mama startled. “Flannery . . . I thought I’d try and sit on the porch. I feel useless waiting in the bed. Was that Sheriff Henry?” Mama asked, pulling herself up from her rocker. She peered around Flannery’s shoulder. Mama cupped a hand over her eyes, stretched her neck toward the trail of smoke the sheriff’s car had left.
Hollis hadn’t bothered to come in, and Flannery didn’t fault him for it. She didn’t know what she should tell her mama, what to spill about today or what she and Hollis had left out long ago.
“Where’s your automobile?” Mama asked. “What happened to your clothes? What did you find out, Flannery?”
Flannery kicked off her muddy shoes. “Come on inside, Mama. It’s been a long day, and gonna get longer.” Flannery held open the screen door for her. “Let me get out of my wet hose, clean up, and we can have some tea and talk.”
“But what about your automobile? And the one in the river—?”
“Let’s go in. I felt a little weak, and Hollis offered to drive me. His deputy will drive my car out here later.”
“Tell me. What’s going on, baby girl? Did they find them?” Mama rushed nervously.
“Please give me a minute; let me get out of these filthy clothes, and I’ll tell you everything,” she promised, borrowing time.
“But—”
“One minute.” She hurried past before Mama could see her wet eyes and could fill her own. Flannery peeled off the jeans and her nylons beneath them, tossed the dirty clothes onto her twin’s bed. Nothing had been changed in the room since the day Patsy left. Mama’d bought new pillows and sheets, but kept the old coverlets and matching drapes. It was as if time had stopped, held its musty breath for her return.
Flannery slipped into clean stockings, a fresh shirt and pants.
Mama did little more than dust the old maple furniture. Flannery ran a finger along the lip of the dresser, then dropped to her knees in front of it and pulled out the bottom drawer. It was exactly where she’d left it and exactly how she’d left it, though Chubby’s apron was rust-spotted and yellowed some.
Flannery had lied to Mama back then about so many things, too many things that couldn’t be righted easily now. When after a few days Patsy still hadn’t come home from her prom date, Flannery’d needled Mama into letting her “quit” Chubby’s, telling her she’d find babysitting jobs. Wrecked with worry, Mama agreed to keep her younger daughter around home more.
Flannery never told Mama about Chubby firing her. As far as Flannery knew, Chubby never had the heart to tell either.
Shaking, Flannery dug out the necklace and bullet, rolling them in her hand, clinking, clapping the loose pearls against the cold, copper bullet. She wanted to give the heirloom piece back to Mama. It would be a small consolation, maybe a balm for the bad news coming. But if she gave the pearls back now, Flannery would have to tell everything—both her secrets and Patsy’s. The way Patsy lit out with the drunk Henry boys that night. Hollis’s argument and the heinous acts he’d claimed her sister did. And the pregnancy Hollis accused her of having. That is, if Hollis didn’t spark the words first and twist them uglier.
Flannery inspected the bullet, its shiny copper jacket, the pushed-in nose. The sound of clanking rose up and stole her breath, grounding today’s memory of the assistant tossing the other bullet. The one dredged up with the Mercury.
Flannery was sure Hollis knew more than what he’d told back then, that he was hiding something, maybe a lot of bad somethings. She’d have to figure a way to find out what he was hiding and if it was true what he’d said about Patsy.
Until then, how was she going to explain today to Mama?
Mama’s heart was going to break now, no matter what Flannery told her. The unanswered questions, more doubts that would soon leave her mama more heartbroken, and worse, shamed. Flannery was ripped from moment to moment. How much and what to tell her? She was sure Hollis would say anything to save his own neck.
One truth welled up. Flannery couldn’t have the town thinking her sister was a whore.
Flannery looked down at her watch and made up her mind: She’d tell Mama as little as she could get by with. Grab those fleeting seconds, like Honey Bee’d taught her long ago, fight for ’em, before the time thief snatched them up as his own.
Flannery pressed the pearls to her mouth. She tried to think through the jumble of what ifs and what fors.
Mama called for her. Flannery rolled everything up in the apron and put it back in the drawer. She’d break it to Mama bit by bit. Later Flannery would have to find a way to make Hollis tell her everything. She stuffed the only piece of Patsy she had left, the stolen shoe ribbon, into her jeans pocket.
Flannery walked into the kitchen and found Mama by the radio, her hand frozen in the air above its knob. Mama’s face was weighted, the flowery duster she wore drooping, a sleeve slipping off her slumped shoulder.
“The radio just told folks,” Mama whispered incredulously to Flannery. “Just told us they found them . . . Glass Ferry’s missing teens. Danny Henry and our Patsy. It can’t be true.”
“I’m afraid it is, Mama.” Flannery went to her side. “It’s them.”
Flannery dug out the piece of fabric that Mama had long ago tacked to her daughter’s shoe. “I’m sorry. It was the Henrys’ old Mercury down there. And our Patsy.”
“Patsy.” Mama held up a shaky finger and trailed it lightly over the bow. Tears leaked from Mama’s eyes. “Dear Lord, my Patsy girl. I’m going to have to bury her. Bury a child again,” Mama cried, collapsing into Flannery’s arms, rocking her daughter with sobs until they both crumpled and slowly sank into a tangled heap on the kitchen floor.
On the bright yellow counter above them, Patsy’s strawberry birthday cake sagged under the weight of the afternoon hours, its thick, pink icing cemented, the berries shriveling in the dead air of Mama’s earlier festivity, a soured decay rising into the rot of heartbreak and despair.
A burst of wind pushed through the screen door, rippling curtains, smacking at the bones of the old house and its weeping mistresses.
CHAPTER 24
Sometime during the night while the Butler women slept, Hollis and his deputy returned Flannery’s car.
The next afternoon, Flannery lit out on foot to Ebenezer with a shovel in hand while Mama tried to rest back at the house.
Flannery knew she would have to see what was buried there with her own eyes to believe what Hollis had told her about Patsy.
She dug under the elm for an hour with no luck, the roots bigger, thicker, and spread out more than twenty years back. Knee-walking around to the next spot, scratching in the dirt in another, looking over her shoulder all the while doing it. She moved to the back of the tree and stood. As she cut the dirt with the shovel, the metal hit something hard. Flannery dug around it and unearthed an old distillery bottle, tossing it over her shoulder, shaking her head at all the holes she’d made when she saw it snugged next to a root.
Flannery tugged and pulled up some elastic and tattered bits of a thick nylon fabric. She poked the shallow grave with a stick and brought up another
tiny piece of material with a faded imprint of pink polka dots, then pulled out another bigger section attached to dirty, limp elastic. Scratched at the fanning threads.
For a moment she tried to believe it could be anyone’s from anywhere. From a bird’s nest, a passing stranger, or a dog?
When she was little, a farmer’s collie had gone around stealing folks’ shoes and boots from their porches and would carry ’em all back to its master’s steps. The farmer could never break the dog from doing that and spent many mornings trying to find out whose shoe was whose. Most times, understanding folks just stopped by the farmer’s home to collect them quietly from his porch. Then someone, robbed of his working boots and time, up and shot the old collie.
It was no use. This was a different type of dog who’d done this. “Her shamelessness is right out there under the elm,” Hollis had told her. “Do you hear me, peaches? Hear what I’m trying to tell you?”
Flannery knew these underwear belonged to Patsy, identical to the matching ones Mama had bought Flannery long ago, the twins both begging for them in the fancy department store. She remembered how mad Patsy got because Mama had purchased the same pair for Flannery.
Hollis had been there, watched her sister take them off. Likely even had a hand in getting them off.
He had to be part of it. A big part of something, something ugly that he knew a lot more about and was hiding.
“Tramp,” he’d called her sister. Hollis’s words lit Flannery’s skin like someone had poured turpentine all over her and struck a match. She raised her head, belling the winds with her cries. With a heavy heart, she stuffed the pieces of Patsy’s panties back into the dirt, and slowly, unrelentingly, a cold revenge began to nest deep, padding her bones, and for a horrifying second it took her breath. The urge to avenge her sister struck hard, held fast.
* * *
Almost a week had passed since Patsy had been found in the Kentucky, and her mama still wouldn’t toss this birthday cake into the trash.
They both knew it would be the last cake, the final birthday for Patsy. Flannery didn’t have the heart to fight her mama for it, though she did manage to battle the fruit flies for the strawberries, picking them off and dumping them when Mama wasn’t looking.
Mama mostly sat slumped at the kitchen table, staring out into nothing and nowhere.
“How about I fix us a sandwich?” Flannery offered one afternoon.
Mama didn’t say anything. Flannery pulled out the skillet. “I’ll make us a peppery egg sandwich just the way you like it.” She set out plates, placing one in front of Mama, and topped them with slabs of bread.
Flannery fried an egg sunny-side up just the way Mama liked hers, then slid it onto the plate and passed her the ketchup. Mama always poured it on her eggs. Flannery liked mustard on hers, same as Honey Bee, and she set the jar of French’s beside her own plate.
“Go ahead and try to eat, Mama. Don’t wait for me.” Flannery went back over to the stove and cracked another egg into the skillet.
Flannery winced when she saw the double yolk. She let it cook a few seconds and stabbed at it with the spatula, flipping the egg over. Then she carried it in the skillet over to her plate.
Mama pulled herself back from where her mind had wandered and stared at Flannery’s open-faced egg sandwich. “Oh, look. Look, Flannery. There’s still hope,” Mama whispered.
“Mama, please.” Flannery shook her head and put the skillet back on the stove.
“But it’s right there, baby girl. We’re gonna have twins again.”
“It’s just an egg sandwich. Don’t.”
“Oh, Lord, Flannery, Gramma Lettie would turn in her grave if she heard you talk like that. Double yolk always means a birth coming—twins a’comin’.”
“Mama.”
“I’ve had double yolks only twice in my life, and look at my babies. You, Patsy, and—” A gloom passed over Mama’s face, and she cut herself off with a soft “God bless.”
Flannery wrung her hands in her lap. Her brothers were born five years before her and Patsy, and had lived only a short life.
Flannery’d never told Mama she’d carried twins or how she’d lost them. Never told a living soul. Mama knew there’d been a miscarriage, and only that. Knew what Mark had told her mama and others: “I put my wife in the asylum when she wouldn’t obey me, couldn’t dry herself out from the whiskey.”
Any talk of Mark Hamilton, as much as a peep or mention, and Flannery’d light up a shushing hand to the person prying.
“Maybe you’ll remarry someday, Flannery. You’ve been teaching in Louisville a long time now. I thought there would . . . Well, I bet there’s lots of good men who—”
“No, Mama.” Flannery pinched her lip. She didn’t have the strength for that again. Could never take away the hurt soaked inside her. She felt like one of those dogs that had lost its wag. She was sure she’d never trust another marriage.
“Look at the time. I better call Mr. Flagg’s office,” Mama said, and pushed back her plate.
Mama’d been anxious, calling the coroner every day, hoping for word of the remains. Twice she’d sent her pastor to inquire.
Flannery picked at her own sandwich before tossing it still whole into the garbage.
A few minutes before nine on Friday morning a state trooper pulled up to the Butler house.
Flannery and Mama met him on the porch.
“Mrs. Butler,” he said, “I’m Trooper Claymore Green. I’m sorry to call so early, but I wanted to speak directly with you. Ask you a few questions, if I may?” He tipped his uniform hat and nodded toward Flannery. “Mrs. Hamilton.” He fumbled with a notebook.
“Come in . . . come on in, Trooper,” Mama said, pulling the young man into the house by his arm.
Flannery thought Trooper Green was all but twenty, still wet behind the ears from high school, still full of boy, the smelly lockers, red-eared crushes, passing notes, classroom chalk that sticks till the world grows the boy up into something tougher, machined.
She knew the man from somewhere, but couldn’t place it, and wondered if he was kin to one of Mama’s friends. Flannery shrugged it off.
Mama made coffee and carried the server into the parlor and set it on Honey Bee’s cellarette he’d built from poplar and yellow pine. The trooper stood, admiring the old wooden case, helping Mama lower the tray, careful not to nick or scratch the liquor cabinet.
The cellarette had been one of Honey Bee’s finest projects, a handsome piece of furniture bathed in warm, golden tones, simple but elegant, its only ornament a brass skeleton-key lock, the chest perched regally atop a matching base with tall, tapering square legs. It no longer served as a liquor case; instead, Mama’d stuffed all of Honey Bee’s old recipes inside and had given it to Flannery. But Flannery had never gotten around to hauling it back to her apartment.
The three settled onto the green velvet chairs. Trooper Green leaned forward. After a long pause, he said, “Ma’am, uh, Mrs. Butler, I wondered if you can tell me anything about the bullet we found in the car. Might you have any ideas why there would be gunshot on Mr. Henry’s body?”
Mama dropped her sugar spoon onto the floor. It tumbled and bounced off the trooper’s glossy black uniform shoe.
The trooper grabbed it and set the silverware on the coffee table.
Flannery placed a hand on Mama’s shoulder, not sure whether she was steadying herself or Mama.
“What, whatever do you mean?” Mama croaked. “Whatever does he mean?” She looked to Flannery for explanation.
Flannery squeezed Mama’s shoulder. “I don’t know,” Flannery said.
Trooper’s face reddened. “I’m sorry,” he said to Mama. “I thought you knew. It’s been on the news. I thought Mr. Flagg would’ve told you.”
Flannery grimaced.
“No one told me,” Mama said, puzzled. “Poor Danny, shot—”
“Appears that way, Mrs. Butler,” the trooper said.
“Patsy. Was she hurt? Sho
t?” Mama swelled up with tears. “Those poor babies hurting like that. Like before. Oh, I feel light-headed.”
“Mama.” Flannery touched her arm. “What do you mean?”
Mama brushed Flannery’s hand off. “I can’t think.” She rubbed her forehead.
Trooper looked lost, uncomfortable.
Mama took a breath. “What did they do to my girl? Did someone shoot—”
Flannery hugged her. “No, Mama, he’s saying it was the Henry boy. Right, Trooper?”
Trooper said, “That’s correct.”
“Danny Henry was a good boy,” Mama said. “Why would anybody shoot such a good boy?”
“We’re trying to find out,” Trooper said.
“Trooper, I need to lie down.” Mama stood.
“Mama, let me help you upstairs.” To the trooper, “Excuse me while I take her up to her room. I’ll be right back.”
“Yes, help me to my room. I’m sorry, Trooper Green. I’ve not been myself lately. Flannery will see to you,” Mama said, fatigued.
Trooper nodded sympathetically, though Flannery could tell he wanted Mama to stay, to ask her more.
Flannery put Mama into bed with a sedative the doctor had left last week.
She came back into the parlor and found Trooper Green still seated, fiddling with his hat, sneaking looks to the mantel where Mama had lined up a long train of framed photographs of Patsy.
Flannery sat across from him. “Trooper Green, are you sure Danny was murdered?”
“We only know he was shot. The state examiner confirmed it. Did Patsy and Danny have any problems? Anyone who would want to harm them?”
“Not that I know of. We didn’t talk much then. We’d been growing apart ever since my daddy died. But I don’t think there was anyone who would hurt her. Or him.”
“Did Patsy act upset that night? Anything unusual?”
“She was excited about going to the prom, that’s all.”
“And when was the last time you saw her?”
“Uh, well, right here before she left.” Flannery hadn’t told a soul about her last argument with Patsy on Ebenezer. It would break her mama’s heart to know they had behaved badly toward each other, fought like the heathens their old teacher had always accused them of being. Flannery didn’t need to share that. She didn’t need anyone else knowing their business and casting a shaming eye her way.
The Sisters of Glass Ferry Page 18
