The Last Innocent Hour

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  Jason had been forced to take her elbow and manhandle her out of there. She’d been livid, staggering, slurring words at him right there in front of the restaurant while the valet got their car. And he’d taken it off her; he’d even tried to reason with her. He didn’t know why. It wasn't that he cared about her, or what she did. The Jap deal was done, and all he wanted from her, all he needed was her land.

  He should have focused on that, but once he stuffed her into the car, she passed out, and the smell of booze rose off her, a rank cloud that gagged him. Her head bobbed on her neck, and he started thinking how she sickened him. What was he doing here, a guy like him stuck with an old drunken bitch like her? Hadn’t he had his fill of drunken bitches? Everyone one of them a fucking whore? Why was he letting this happen again? And that was when the noise came. For the first time since he was a kid, the furry thick buzzing swelled in his ears, and as much as it caught him off guard and half-panicked him, he welcomed it like the old friend that it was. He felt strong because of it; it gave him substance, made him feel real and alive. But then, driving mile after mile, the noise started to wear on him. It made him want to scream.

  And he looked at Lucy, at her chin rolling on her chest and reaching over, he shook her, and shook her again.

  She raised her face to him, blinking, mouth open. After a moment, she closed it and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. She fussed with herself, yanking her skirt, straightening her spine like she could convince him she was sober.

  “Jesus,” he muttered.

  “What?” she demanded. “You should talk about someone you know,” she added and the words were like mush.

  “You know, if we had a kid, you'd have to sober up,” he said and then he wondered, What the hell? He might want a kid, but not with her. Never with her. He jammed his foot down on the accelerator, scarcely bothering to check for traffic when he changed lanes. Maybe he wished someone would just plow into them and smash them to hell, huh? Maybe that would be best.

  “I don't want another child,” she said carefully. “One who hates me is enough.”

  “We aren’t talking about Beth,” Jason said, and he could scarcely hear himself over the noise in his head that was at full throttle now, like a climbing jet engine. He adjusted the vent, directing the current of air toward his face, drawing the chilly stream deep into his lungs.

  “Of course not. I was you, I wouldn't either,” he heard Lucy say. “I'm no better than you,” she declared after a pause. “I refused to believe her.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don't play stupid with me, Jason. Don't pretend you don't know what I mean.” Lucy's voice was suddenly clear and clipped into precise syllables.

  Jason glanced at her from the corner of his eye. Sometimes he got the sense that she only acted drunk when it suited her. Her chin dipped; her hair swept forward, as if to purposefully block his view of her face. He slowed and took the exit for Wither Creek. The buzz in his brain fell into a low hum. They were almost home, maybe seven miles south of the farm. Traffic was sparse. Jason drummed his fingertips on the steering wheel. He didn’t like the memory Lucy forced on him. Who did she think she was, trying to run him, control him?

  He took another look at her, went on the offense. Only God knew why. “You aren't making any sense, but why should that surprise me?”

  “Oh, I think I’m making perfect sense,” Lucy said. She stared out the passenger window. “I used to think your interest in me was genuine, that if you didn’t love me, you respected me and my money. At least that. I trusted you. But Beth was right. It’s nothing but my money you’ve wanted all along, and whatever social standing I could give you. And my daughter. You took her too.”

  She turned to face him, her eyes bright with accusation. “It breaks my heart when I think now how I signed that check, paid for it, and you got off the hook scot-free.”

  “Goddamn it!” He glared at her. “I hate you when you get like this. You should have kept your nose out of it.”

  She gave a bitter laugh. “Wouldn't we have made a pretty picture.”

  “Shut up. You're out of your head, as usual, you and your boozed up fantasies.”

  “Wonder what you'd do if I went to someone about it now? What if I told it in town? What would happen to your precious image then and all your plans, hmmm?”

  “Shut your mouth.” He stared hard at her. “I’m warning you, you go raking up that old shit, I'll kill you. Do you hear me? Do you?”

  But she was saying, “Stop the car,” in a harsh whisper. “Stop it, now!” Her voice rose in a thin shriek.

  He heard the snap of her seatbelt, recognized she was fumbling with the door and slowed. What was she doing? Within seconds, she got the door open and half-stepped, half-fell onto the street so fast he didn't stop right away but traveled maybe fifteen, twenty feet before what had happened resolved into a reaction.

  Later he'd think it was being drunk that saved her. But right then his stomach lurched seeing her inert form lying on the tar-drizzled pavement like some giant hunk of road kill. He shifted into reverse, and the wish that he could drive away, leave her there for someone else to find and take care of, hadn’t much more than formed when who should appear but Lance Devers, Lutie Mae's brother, who was a Lincoln County deputy sheriff.

  So when Jimmy Lee had said earlier that Lucy had a reputation, it was an understatement. No one blamed Jason for it either. They were sympathetic to him, admiring of his patience in his care of her. It was ironic that in marrying him, Lucy had simultaneously elevated his status with the townsfolk and destroyed hers. But the public could be fickle and as easily manipulated as Jimmy, and under the right hand, folks could become downright docile in their relentless wish to be banded together and herded in the same direction. That was something else a man didn't need a college degree to learn, Jason thought now.

  After Lucy had sobered up from that night, he had told her she shouldn't bitch about the gossip. She was damn lucky Lance hadn't hauled her in for public intoxication.

  But public opinion was a two-edged sword. What it cut, and whom, depended on who had a grip on the handle. He needed those papers, needed to get them to Royce as quickly as possible. He wouldn’t go back to Houston without them, not when every second they sat in Lucy’s house meant Beth might find them.

  Chapter Nine

  After dinner, with Chrissy at her heels, Beth went through the bathroom and into the spacious linen closet. Earlier she'd lifted sheets for their beds from the shelves. Now she wanted towels.

  “Mommy? What's in here?” Chrissy opened a door at the back of the closet.

  Beth looked into a dark stairwell. “Oh, sugar, be careful. Those stairs are slick.” She pulled a couple of thick terry towels and some wash cloths from the shelf and went to stand behind her daughter. “They go down to the kitchen,” she said. “When I was a little girl, I used to hide in here.”

  Chrissy peered up at her mother. “You played hide and seek like me and Daddy?”

  “Uh-huh.” Beth leaned her head against the door frame. She could almost hear the sound of Maizie's deep laughter floating up the stairs mixed with Mama’s and Daddy’s voices. How safe she had felt here when she was small.

  “Let's go see.” Chrissy took one step down.

  “Tomorrow. We'll go exploring tomorrow.” Beth switched off the light, and pulling Chrissy back, closed the door.

  She filled the old claw-footed tub and helped Chrissy out of her clothes and into the water. From habit, before dipping her hands into the warm water, she took off her wedding band and set it on the edge of the pedestal sink. It shone against the white porcelain, a plain but heavy circle of twenty-two carat gold, the gift of one of Charlie’s heady streaks of luck. Back when he’d courted her, when he’d wooed her for all he was worth, Beth had been drawn to the excitement of his up and down life. She’d lived with him in the moment without thought or plan. But then she’d become pregnant, and Chrissy’s birth had altered everyt
hing.

  Beth sat down on the stool beside the tub. She handed Chrissy the wash cloth, helped her to lather and rinse, both of them going at the task with somber concentration born of fatigue and too much emotion.

  “Are we going to stay here, Mommy?”

  “I don't know, sugar.” Almost as an after thought, Beth lifted Chrissy's hair, pulled it into a knot and clipped it to the top of her head. Some curls were too short and pasted themselves to her cheeks. She took the cloth from her daughter and soaped Chrissy's back and under her arms.

  That’s when she noticed the series of bruises that cupped her armpit. “How did you get these?”

  Chrissy raised her arm, glanced at the place, and shrugged. “That man pulled my arm right there real hard so he could get me away from the horse. I was scared, Mommy, ‘specially when he came with the gun and shot it.” Tears bumped in Chrissy's voice.

  “I know, sweet girl. I'm sorry he scared you. I'm sorry about Knight, too. If I had known how bad he was, I would never have let you and Daddy go near the barn. You know that, don't you?”

  Chrissy nodded. “Don't cry, Mommy. Okay? And I won't either.” She lifted her hand, patting Beth's cheek, leaving it wet.

  Charlie appeared in the doorway. “Let me take over,” he said to Beth, and she wasn’t surprised that his voice was so cool. “Your mother's in the library. She wants to see you.”

  Beth rose with the ghost of old resentment. “Drinking again, I guess?”

  “Not that I saw. She asked me to check on Maizie, which I did. That's a nice little place she has down the way.”

  “Daddy had that cabin built for her. He thought she deserved to have her own home.” Beth handed Charlie Chrissy’s towel. “Maizie was feeling better, I hope.”

  “She seemed to be. She said she had a nap. She showed me her herb garden.”

  “In the dark?”

  Charlie smiled, and his expression lightened, briefly. “It was just getting that way. She said she can cure what ails you.”

  “I wish. She hasn't done much of a job with herself.” Beth started through the doorway, but Charlie caught her around the waist.

  “Say good night to your mother, and I'll get Chrissy into bed. Then we need to talk. Okay?”

  Beth nodded even as the weight slipped from her heart to her stomach.

  Mama was waiting in a chair she’d pulled close to the shuttered fireplace. Beth immediately checked the decanter on the bar. Maybe it was at the same level. In any case, there wasn't the smell of drinking or even the aura of it in the room. She closed her eyes, savoring the luxury of hope.

  Spotting Beth, Mama beckoned her to the nearby footstool. “You didn't eat a thing at dinner. I know you’re upset about Knight, and I'm sorry. You have a right to blame me. But that horse-- Beth, I've hated that horse ever since what happened to your daddy.”

  “But Knight never acted up like that before I left. He wasn't mean, just skittish. Something turned him, Mama. What was it?”

  Mama stared at her hands clutched in her lap.

  “Jason did something to him, didn't he?” Beth caught her mother’s wrists. “Answer me, Mama. Tell me the truth.”

  “After Jason fired Warren, I told him someone needed to exercise Knight and tend to him, or he should be sold.”

  “Oh, that’s great. You'd have sold my horse right out from under me.”

  “What would you have me do? You were gone, forever, according to what you said. The horse needed tending. Jason said he'd see to it, but Knight wouldn't have it. The more stubborn that animal became, the more Jason was determined to have the upper hand.”

  “What happened? What did Jason do to my horse?”

  Mama shook her head. “There's no good way to-- He took a shovel to him, Beth. Maizie tried to stop him, but he threatened her. I didn't know about it until later.”

  “You didn't know because you were drunk.”

  “But I'm sober now, and there's more than a horse to be sorry for. At least, I think there is.”

  The small grave quiver in Mama’s voice sent a needle of alarm twisting up Beth's spine. “What do you mean?”

  “Things have been getting away from me for a while, honey.” Mama stirred the hair against Beth's cheek. “Jason wants the farm, the land, all of it.”

  “But that’s no secret. Even Maizie knows it. It's why he married you, for the land and your money, and the status it could give him, no matter how much you don't want to face it.”

  Mama didn't defend herself as Beth expected; her gaze slipped away.

  “You aren't thinking of letting him have it, are you? Of course you're not. You can't. The farm's held in trust. It's mine, and after me, it's Chrissy's.”

  “Yes, but you were gone--and--and--oh, I hate having to tell you this. I--I'm pregnant.”

  Beth recoiled as if she’d been slapped. “What? Aren't you too old?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Does Jason know?”

  “No, I don’t want him to. But the thing is, Jason brought Royce out here recently, and I think I might have-- He claims I signed papers and--”

  “And what? Just say it, Mama.”

  Her hands fluttered. “You've been gone a long time, you know? Jason said you wouldn't be back. Royce agreed.”

  “How would they know my plans?” Beth held her mama with her eyes, and the moment stretched, icy hot and unforgiving. Still, Beth told herself she didn’t have to have this discussion. She even stood up, thinking she would just go. She would collect her daughter, her husband, and their things, and walk to Maizie’s. They would leave from there in the morning, and it would be as if they’d never come. Instead, something perverse jackknifed her at the waist, and she bent close to her mama, bent her face close enough to smell her mama’s fear and despair. “You know what happened to make me leave here,” she said. “You know what he did, because I told you. But you don't want to talk about it, do you?”

  “No.” Mama stuck her fingers in her ears like a child.

  “But we have to talk about it, if you want me to stay, if you want Charlie and I to help you.”

  Beth felt no mercy now. The pictures in her head were sharp blades slicing through her mama’s denial, her own resistance.

  “You teased him. You flaunted yourself,” Mama said.

  “No, Mama. He came after me. Whenever you were drunk and passed out, and he was in the mood. Don’t try and say you didn’t know.” Beth’s breath punched the bones of her chest. “Jason said he loved me, Mama. Did you know that? He would lie in bed next to me and whisper to me that I was pretty and sweet and it was me he loved. I knew it was wrong. But everything back then was--”

  “Beth!? What in the hell are you saying?”

  She wheeled. She breathed his name: “Charlie. Oh my God, Charlie!”

  “You had some sex thing with your stepfather?”

  “No. No. It's not what you think.” Beth went to him, hands extended. “Please, let me explain.”

  “What's to explain?” Charlie's voice rode over hers, rode over Mama’s whimpers. “I heard you say he was in love with you. Is that right? Did you love him too? Is that why you were so determined to come back here?”

  “No! See, this is exactly what I knew would happen. I knew you wouldn't understand, just like Mama never has.”

  “Don’t compare me to your mother. This would never happen to a kid of mine. What sort of woman lets her kid have sex with her stepfather under her own roof?”

  “You have no right to judge Mama or me when you don’t know the whole story.”

  “Was it rape? Is that it?”

  The green of Charlie’s eyes had gone muddy with anger. He believed Beth had betrayed him. He thought he’d heard the worst of it, too. But he hadn’t. He’d never stand it. She could see that. It would end everything for him, for them. Beth wrapped herself in a tight embrace. “It's not easy to talk about.”

  “It's a simple question. Was it rape, yes or no?”

  “I guess. I d
on't know exactly. I was sixteen the first time.”

  Beth felt her mama's arm come around her waist. “Jason took advantage of her, Charlie. She was just a child, and I wasn’t well. I admit that.”

  Charlie’s eyes never moved from Beth’s face. “You don't know exactly. Well, maybe you need some time to figure it out. I know I damn sure do.” He spun on his heel.

  Beth ran after him. “But I'm trying to explain.”

  He opened the front door a little way and paused. “What you said, about how you couldn’t stand the guy, that he’d used your mother, wanted her money? That was all horseshit, wasn’t it? Christ. How could you bring me here without telling me? You’ve made me look like a damn fool.”

  “Charlie, please.” Beth touched his arm.

  He shook her off. “You didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth. You’ve never trusted me.” He flung the door wide now, and it banged against the wall.

  Beth followed him, begging him to listen to her. But her words were picked up and swept across the veranda by the wind as if they were no more substantial than leaves. Overhead, lightning broke the sky and was followed by a vicious crack of thunder. When it died, she shouted after him, his name, “Charlie,” and, “Please, don’t go. Not this way....”