by Karen White
“Sugar!” she screamed, racing down the steps to gently move the old woman to a more comfortable position. She reached for Sugar’s wrist, feeling a feeble yet steady pulse.
“Stop doing that. I’m just resting my eyes,” Sugar murmured.
Merilee sat back with relief. She knew Sugar wasn’t well, but at least she was alive and alert.
“I’m thirsty,” Sugar said. “I hope you have some water. But if you’ve got only your sweet tea, I’m desperate enough right now to drink some.”
And then Merilee began to laugh, absurdly and uproariously, at the circumstances that had brought her and this woman here, to this exact spot, to talk about sweet tea and marvel at the strange power of those who called themselves survivors.
Thirty-seven
SUGAR
Sugar pursed her lips as she studied the hospital gown in an unflattering shade of green that she’d been forced to wear, as well as the needles and IV tubes that were stuck to her skin with tape that would hurt when it was yanked off. Her arm hurt from where they’d had to open up an artery and stick in a wire to put in a stent. That would definitely leave a scar.
She felt unsettled and at loose ends, annoyed at something she couldn’t name. She frowned at her visitor. “Nothing new from the blog? I’m already tired of listening to the news about the storm and Heather Blackford.”
Merilee shook her head. “Not a word—which surprises me. I’m sure the blogger has a lot to say about what’s happened. I’m actually looking forward to it.” She smiled at Sugar. “You’re lucky, you know.” Merilee sat on the side of the bed with the latest edition of the Sweet Apple Herald under the bandaged arm resting on her lap, her crutches leaning on the bed. “If it hadn’t been for the tornado, we might not have known about that blockage in your heart.”
“You mean if you hadn’t thrown me down the stairs, they wouldn’t have needed to take me to the hospital and run all those tests.”
“I didn’t . . .” Merilee stopped, then smiled. “You’re right. So you’re welcome.”
Sugar grunted. “So, what’s the final damage to the house?”
“Just roof shingles blown off both houses, and a few bricks from the chimney in the farmhouse, water damage to the tile floor in the cottage bathroom, but that’s about all. The tornado touched down in the woods, then took off the roof of Sweet Apple High School before skipping into the new subdivision behind your property. Toppled a few street signs, but happily no one was seriously hurt. Wade said he’ll have everything fixed at both houses before you get home.”
“Ha. He wants it all fixed up to sell. He thinks if I were in that place with Willa Faye, they would have been able to tell I had a problem with my heart.”
Merilee shook her head. “No. But he does worry about you living on your own. I agree that you’ll need home health care while you recover from your surgery, but as far as any permanent plans, no decision can be made without you, okay? You’ve been making your own decisions about your life for a long time, and nobody’s going to mess with that now. Especially not me. I’ve seen what you can do when you’re angry enough.”
Despite herself, Sugar let out a bark of laughter. “How is Heather Blackford?”
“Hurting, I hope. She has a concussion, and we both broke our ankles. I have no idea how we managed that and continued to run on them. That whole night is such a blur.”
Sugar thought for a moment. “I lost my last plastic bonnet. I have no idea how I’ll replace it.”
Merilee looked back at her, unblinking. “That is a tragedy. But at least the binoculars aren’t hurt. Not even a dent. They certainly don’t make things like they used to.”
“No, they certainly don’t.” Sugar looked at her arm, so pasty against the sheets, her veins a pale blue swimming beneath the skin’s surface. “I’m not going to pretend that I’m sorry Heather’s not dead. A lifetime in prison is a good substitute.”
“They’re charging her with attempted murder for what she tried to do to me. I don’t think it will be too hard to pin Dan’s murder on her, too. They’ve dropped the charges against me, so at least they’re on the right track.”
“Good. But poor Dan. He was a good man. One of the best.” Sugar blinked away a tear that insisted on clouding her vision.
“He was,” Merilee agreed. “And so is Wade. Stupid man. When he couldn’t get through on the phone to either you or me, he drove through the storm to get to us. I still can’t believe he did that, but I’m glad he was there to tell us the coast was clear and to help us out of the cellar. Thank goodness he thought to borrow a cell phone so he could call an ambulance. Still, it was stupid.”
“And you carried me down the steps with a broken ankle,” Sugar pointed out.
“You mean I threw you.”
Sugar tried not to smile.
Merilee leaned over and took her hand. “And you saved my life.” Tears formed in her eyes, and she let them slip down her cheeks.
Sugar looked down at the sheets. “Well, Heather wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t called her and left that message.”
Merilee squeezed her hand. “You saved my life,” she said again. “And that’s all that matters.”
“At least it gave me the chance to give Heather a sharp blow to her head. She had it coming to her.”
Merilee smiled. “The things we do for those we love,” she said.
Sugar pressed her lips together.
“We don’t have to say anything more about it, and we can go back to pretending you don’t have a heart. But I know the truth. And I suspect Wade does, too.” She let go of Sugar’s hand and sat back in her chair. “You haven’t asked me about the damage to your woods.”
Sugar stared back blankly. “I shouldn’t have to. If there’s something to say about them, I would think you would have told me already. You seem to like talking.”
Merilee’s face remained expressionless. “The tornado cut them in half. You can smell freshly cut pine for miles around your property.”
Sugar didn’t say anything, focusing instead on smoothing the blankets over her lap.
“It didn’t touch the cemetery.”
“That’s good.”
“Wade said the flowers you placed on several of the graves the last time you visited were still there. Untouched. It’s amazing, isn’t it? How a tornado that can knock down trees with such force can leave something as delicate as a flower completely untouched.”
“Amazing,” Sugar agreed, wondering why she felt so tired all of a sudden, when she should be more alert than ever before. But she was tired. It was exhausting to hold on to a secret for so long.
Merilee continued. “But when Wade went in to make sure the cemetery was okay, he did find something interesting not too far from there.”
“He did?” Even to her own ears, she didn’t sound convincing.
“He found what he’s pretty sure is an unmarked grave. Well, not exactly unmarked. It’s a small mound with two large rocks marking the top and the bottom, but nothing was written on them. It was protected by a pine bough that was partially covering it, but it looked good as new when Wade lifted the branch off. He said it appeared to have been there for a long time, but somebody has been keeping it clear of weeds. But no flowers. They could have been blown away in the tornado, but probably not if the ones in the cemetery weren’t. You can’t see one from the other, according to Wade, but they’re close enough so that when the tornado picked a place to draw a line, the cemetery and the one lone grave were on the same side.”
Sugar met Merilee’s gaze. “Where’s Wade now?”
“I sent him to your house to pick up a few things I thought you’d need while you’re in the hospital. So you’d be more comfortable while you’re away from home. Like your nightgown. And lipstick.”
Again, the annoying prickle behind her eyes. “Thank you,” Sugar said. Her
gaze slid involuntarily to the door, then quickly back to Merilee’s face. “Tell him not to go in my daddy’s library downstairs with the closed door. It’s a mess in there, and I don’t want him to see it.”
Merilee pulled out her phone and began typing. “I’ll text him now.” She lifted her gaze from the screen. “So you’d have time to tell me the rest of your story, if you’d like.”
Sugar studied Merilee, recognizing a part of her younger self. They had both left their girlhoods long behind them, probably before they’d been ready. But they’d survived the transition, bruises and all. Maybe it had been the holding back of a secret that had kept them alive, kept them breathing. Kept them moving forward. Yet Merilee had no more secrets to tell, her life now an open road allowing her to choose where to turn. Or not turn at all. Sugar straightened her shoulders, marveling at how rounded they’d become over the years. Maybe that’s what the burden of a secret kept for nearly seven decades did to a person.
“The army trunk in the cellar . . . ,” Sugar began.
Merilee leaned forward. “Yes?”
“I didn’t put it there.” She paused, her fingers plucking at the fabric of the blanket. “But I know who did.”
• • •
SUGAR
1943
I lay in bed, unable to sleep. I was in my old bed in the farmhouse, where I’d returned shortly after Tom had gone overseas. My daddy was back at Camp Gordon negotiating for more POWs for manpower on the farm. His crop production was twice what it had been before the war but operating with about half the manpower needed because of all the men heading out to fight.
I’d preferred to stay in my new house, which still smelled of fresh pine and reminded me so much of Tom, and sleep in the bed we’d shared for such a short time. But Mama was scared now to be by herself, and since I knew why, I thought it best that I stay with her on the nights Daddy had to be away.
An owl hooted outside my window from the old hickory tree. The bird hadn’t been there before Jimmy died, but almost every night it kept me company as my belly grew. Most people couldn’t tell I was pregnant yet, even at four months, and I was happy to let them guess. I didn’t care if it was a girl or boy, but I prayed that it would be born healthy but small, on account of people knowing how to count nine months from a wedding date.
I grabbed Jimmy’s binoculars from the nightstand before sliding out of bed and moving the curtains away from the window. An enormous harvest moon lit up the autumn sky and the entire room through the glass. Very cautiously, I slid the window sash up, going slowly over the sticky parts that liked to cling together and make noise. Mama slept lightly, every bump and crack enough to awaken her.
I put the binoculars to my eyes and trained them on the branches of the hickory, trying to spot my feathered friend. I tried for a good five minutes without any luck. Hoot. Hoot. The bird was still there, then. I moved the binoculars’ aim very slowly through the branches, up and down and then from side to side. Hoot. Hoot. In my frustration, I jerked my gaze toward the bottom of the tree and froze. A figure stood in the shadows of the branches, staring at the back porch.
I suddenly remembered the smoke from the chimney in the old deserted house, remembered the feeling of unease as Tom and I had driven past it. I now knew with certainty who had been in that house. And I knew who was leaning down now to pick up a rock and walk toward the back door, with its small windows big enough to fit an arm and a hand.
I stepped back, holding my breath as if he could hear it. I kept backing up, light-headed from fear, until my legs hit my bed, jolting me. Mama. I had to get to my mother. She was downstairs and all alone.
I ran out into the moonlight-flooded upstairs hallway, everything awash in a milky glow that blurred all the edges and made it difficult to run without tripping. I made it to the top of the stairs and had my hand on the banister before stopping at the sight of the figure outlined like a shadow at the bottom of the steps.
I hadn’t heard the window break, but I’d been in the opposite corner of the house. I could only hope that my mother had heard it and locked her door or at least thought to hide.
“Well, hey there, Sugar.” Curtis Brown stood at the bottom of the steps looking up at me like he’d been invited to tea and I was expecting him. “It’s so nice of you to greet me. I was a little disappointed you weren’t at the other house, but this is fine, too.”
I didn’t say anything and remained where I was, wondering how bad I’d get hurt if I jumped from my bedroom window since the sash was already open. But I couldn’t leave Mama. She was downstairs, and Curtis was between us.
“I brought my trunk, figured I’d stay awhile. See, once I decided the army wasn’t cut out for me, I’ve been at loose ends. I hear your daddy’s travelin’ again. Isn’t that convenient? And with that retard brother of yours dead and his nigger friend diggin’ trenches somewhere across the ocean, it looks like it’s just you and me and your idiot mother. So I thought you could use some company.” He smiled, and in the moonlight it looked like a snarl, his teeth pockmarked with black shadows.
I couldn’t speak or shout or move. It was as if I’d become suddenly paralyzed, my feet glued to the floor. Curtis had been climbing the stairs as he spoke and had reached the halfway point before I’d decided what I was going to do. What I had to do. I still had the binoculars around my neck, and they were heavy enough to do damage with enough force behind them. I clutched them with one hand, feeling how heavy they were. How solid.
“Curtis Brown.” I almost didn’t recognize my mama’s voice, since those were the first words I’d heard her speak in a very long time.
He kept moving up the stairs toward me like he hadn’t heard anything, my grip on the binoculars tightening. The loud click of a gun’s hammer being pulled back made him stop. I knew it was Daddy’s gun, the one he now kept in his bedside table because of several burglaries on neighboring farms that had been happening over the last couple of months. But I had no idea that Mama knew where it was. Or how to use it.
“Curtis Brown,” she said again, her voice low and scratchy from disuse, but it was definitely hers.
He turned around. “Now, Miz Prescott. You shouldn’t be carrying a gun. You might hurt yourself, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?”
He began walking slowly back down the stairs, casually, like he wasn’t in any hurry. “Why don’t you just give me the gun, and then you can go back to sleep while I finish up some business I have with your daughter?”
He took another step before Mama lifted the gun and aimed it at him. “Get out, or I’ll shoot,” she said, her weak voice making a joke out of her words.
He threw back his head and laughed, then took one more step so he was close enough to reach out and grab the gun. “Let me have the gun, Miz Prescott, and we can all go back to what we was doing.”
She took one step back, allowing him enough room to turn toward the front door. He looked in that direction, and for a brief moment I thought he would leave, that he’d disappear out in the darkness and we’d never see him again.
Except he didn’t. He took a step toward Mama and the night exploded with a burst of fire and gunpowder. Curtis dropped like a puppet with cut strings, a dark puddle slowly seeping onto the pine floors.
The gun fell from Mama’s hand and landed near Curtis’s head. She was so still, and she wouldn’t stop looking at him. I knew I needed to turn on a light to make sure he was dead, but I couldn’t do that with her still there. I thought of Tom, and his love for me, and that gave me the strength I needed to think and to do what had to be done.
I put my mother back to bed and gave her some of the sleeping medicine Dr. Mackenzie had given her. Then I returned to the foyer and turned on the light. Curtis was wearing his khaki uniform top and pants, but all insignia had been removed. It was like when he’d decided not to return to the army, he’d excised them from his life but had been too prac
tical to return clothing he could wear.
The bullet had hit its mark in the middle of his chest, just like a bull’s-eye, and although it had done the job quickly, I felt oddly disappointed. Like he should have suffered more for what he’d done to me and my family. His eyes were open, caught in the moment of surprise, blood pouring out from under his back and crawling its way to the entranceway rug.
Forgetting modesty, I pulled my nightgown over my head and shoved it under him, hating the feel of him beneath my fingers. I needed to alert the sheriff. Needed to tell him my mother had shot Curtis Brown. It was clear he’d broken into the house. That we were two lone women trying to protect ourselves.
But then I thought of my mother shooting him to protect me. Of doing something nobody would have thought her capable of—least of all herself. Even though she’d saved my life, the person she’d once been and perhaps still was would die a thousand deaths if people knew what she’d done. Knew she’d killed a man in cold blood whether he deserved it or not. Maybe the sheriff would press charges—I had no way of knowing what circumstances would allow my mother to escape formal charges. But to her, even in her addled mind, the court of human opinion was all that mattered.
With a calm resolve, I went back upstairs and put on a dress and shoes without stockings. Then I threw on a coat and ran all the way to Willa Faye’s house and rapped on her bedroom window. She must have seen that I was in shock and took over. It’s what I loved about Willa Faye. Because she was silly and pretty, nobody gave her credit for her brains or her ability to figure things out and know exactly what needed to be done.
She picked the spot in the woods for Curtis’s grave and we spent most of the night digging the hole and burying him. I felt nothing when I dumped the first clod of dirt on his face, watching until we couldn’t see the moonlight reflect against his skin anymore. It was Willa Faye’s idea to bury him without his uniform so that if the body was ever found it would be harder to identify. We still had his trunk to deal with, so we figured we’d put the uniform in there. We were going to throw rocks in the trunk and sink everything in the lake—including my nightgown and the rags we’d used to clean up the blood—but Willa Faye said we should hold on to something in case there was ever a reckoning for what had happened that night. Mama was a religious person, and I knew Willa Faye was right. But I knew I’d never speak of it to anyone while Mama was still alive.
