The Butcher's Daughter

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  After a couple of minutes, he reappeared with a glass of sweet tea. “Someone is on the way. I have to be at choir practice in ten minutes, but you can wait right here for her.”

  His eyes were kind. No judgment. He’d wished her well. “I have a spare room upstairs,” he’d added. “In case you need a place to spend the night when . . .”

  When it’s over.

  Oh, how she longed for it to be over.

  What-ifs jabbed her as she sat stiffly on the nubby green davenport. She sipped the tea but there was too much sugar for her liking, so she set the glass on a coaster and clasped her hands in her lap.

  On the bookshelves, modern novels were sprinkled among dog-eared classics. Sue Kaufman’s Diary of a Mad Housewife alongside Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

  She thought of Charlene, married to Gary. Gary, burning his draft card. Travis, burning crosses.

  Was this the courageous choice, or the cowardly one?

  A middle-aged woman showed up to drive her to another town. She had a towering blond beehive and a deeply tanned face, and had called Melody “hun.” She’d brought along her knitting, pink yarn poking out of a bag on the front seat between them. They’d made small talk, sharing no personal details—not even names. Unnecessary, the pastor had said. Easier that way. Safer.

  They arrived at a little house tucked at the end of a magnolia-bordered lane. Melody thought of the Brothers Grimm, and how the cannibalistic crone had lured Hansel and Gretel, disguising her lair with sweet confections.

  Two vehicles were parked out front. One was a pickup truck with Georgia plates. The other had North Carolina plates and was occupied. A redhead, who appeared to be in her early thirties, sat in the driver’s seat, smoking a cigarette and reading a movie magazine. Melody sat huddled on the front seat as the two women exchanged longtime acquaintance pleasantries.

  “How’s that little grandbaby of yours doing?” the redhead asked Beehive.

  “Gettin’ bigger every day. Already outgrew the sweater I made her, so I’m knittin’ a new one for Christmas.”

  Melody had stared down at the pink yarn and thought about the baby inside her and wondered how far along might be too far along for . . . this.

  There were no rules regulating the procedure itself, only laws making it illegal. And she knew nothing about obstetrics, beyond basic birds and bees information.

  After some time—twenty minutes, an hour, maybe several—the screen door creaked open. Redhead closed her magazine, propped her cigarette in the dashboard ashtray, and got out of the car.

  The woman in the doorway appeared to be in her late forties, maybe early fifties, with a weathered face and an unkempt, lopsided salt-and-pepper bun. She wore a wedding band, a house dress, and white pumps. Her arms were wrapped around her midsection as if she were cold, or in pain, or . . .

  Bereft.

  “All right, there, Dottie?”

  “Always am, ain’t I?” the older woman told her escort, as her eyes met Melody’s. No tears. No shame. Nothing at all.

  Chilled, Melody cast her own gaze downward, and saw that the woman’s leather shoes were spattered in blood.

  The redhead had helped her into the passenger seat and driven her away.

  Melody’s driver had turned to her. “You ready to go on in, hun?”

  “Does it . . . hurt?”

  “There’s a lot of things in this old world that hurt a whole lot worse.”

  “I didn’t mean me, I meant . . . does it hurt the baby?”

  She saw the woman wince behind her reassuring smile. “It’s all over real quick, that’s what I know.”

  Melody closed her eyes, bowed her head and whispered, “I can’t.”

  Inside Cyril’s house, Otis whines and scratches the door. Inside Melody’s belly, tiny feet and fists hammer as if to break free.

  “Come on out,” she whispers. “Come now, and when your daddy gets back, he’ll take care of us. It’s going to be just the three of us, forever.”

  She rocks the chair, cradling her unborn child and staring at the wisteria blooms dripping over the porch rail, until the sun rides high in a clear sky hung with puffy white clouds. Haint blue, Cyril calls it, like his front door and her parents’ porch ceiling and Travis’s eyes, too.

  You couldn’t see the shade in the newspaper photo she’d found in his drawer, but their expression was vivid. Those eyes beamed with hatred, and were unashamed for it.

  How could she never have seen him for what he truly was? Had she been blinded by . . .

  Not love.

  She’d never loved him, though she’d assumed she had, before she ever grasped what love was.

  Travis had slipped so easily into her life that it would never have occurred to her that he didn’t belong there. Because women like Melody grow up and date suitable men from good families, with nice looks and perfect manners and enough money to buy a house and support a wife and children. Women like Melody hope that one of those will pick her to be his bride, and when he does, they say yes, just as their mothers and grandmothers had. Generations of women, saying yes . . .

  “I want all your dreams to come true, Melody . . . a husband and children . . . a family, a home of your own . . .”

  If she hadn’t come across the evidence in Travis’s drawer, would she have gone years, decades, without sensing it? Would they have raised a family and grown old together? Or would she have looked into those eyes of his one day and seen the truth?

  Haint blue doesn’t always ward off evil. Sometimes, it harbors it.

  Greg Martinez stops Gypsy in the hallway before her first class.

  “Hey, there. You got away from me yesterday,” he says in his slightly Spanish-accented English, smiling down at her.

  “The bell rang. Everyone got away. That’s what happens when school is over, you know?”

  “Yeah, but most people don’t rush out like the devil is chasing them.”

  “Maybe he was.” He crooks a dark brow, and she shrugs. “I just had some stuff to take care of at home.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Homework. Chores.”

  Trying to figure out whether my father drugged me.

  “Did you hear about the assassination?”

  “Who didn’t?”

  “Upsetting, isn’t it?”

  “It’s an assassination. Of course it’s upsetting.” Not nearly as upsetting as what’s going on in her head, though, or at home.

  “Bet I can make things better for you.”

  “I doubt that.”

  Greg rests a palm on the row of lockers just above her head. She notices his white teeth and sexy dark sideburns.

  “Go out with me.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?”

  “Why are you asking me out?”

  “Because you’re foxy.”

  “There are plenty of foxy girls around here who’d be happy to date you.”

  “You’re the only one who’s smart, too.”

  “Yeah, well . . . I won’t argue with that.”

  He grins. “What do you say? Coke date tonight?”

  “I guess. Sure. Why not.”

  “Outta sight! We can talk about it in class.” He flashes another smile and walks away, calling, “Hey, Pflueger, wait up!”

  What are you thinking? What are you doing?

  She doesn’t need any complications right now. She has to take it back.

  But Greg has caught up with his friend Ricky Pflueger and disappeared into the crowd.

  She turns with a sigh that turns into a gasp. Connie Barbero is behind her. Right behind her.

  “Saw you talking to Greg. What about?”

  “The assassination.” Gypsy sidesteps her, hugging her stack of books against her chest as she heads toward her first class.

  “Um, excuse me? I’m speaking to you!”

  Gypsy ignores her.

  “So rude!” the girl calls after her.

  Connie Barbero is the least of her problems today
, and a date with Greg Martinez is no remedy. But maybe she deserves an escape. Maybe, just this once, she can be just like anyone else.

  Squinting into the sunshine, hair streaming behind her in the warm, briny wind, Melody drives back from Barrow with the top down.

  The car radio reports violence spreading in cities across the country. Washington is burning now, as is Chicago. The president has deployed the army and national guard.

  Where are you, Cyril?

  On the mainland, most restaurants are closed. Passing a seafood shack that isn’t, she smells deep fried goodness wafting in the air. If she’d gotten herself dressed this morning, she could pull into the parking lot, march up to the window, and order up the biggest platter they have. Shrimp and oysters, onion rings, hush puppies . . .

  But this is a small island. People will talk about the crazy housewife roaming in her nightie.

  A little farther up the coastal road, the curb service drive-in is open, though not busy on this somber afternoon. She chooses an intercom-equipped parking space at the back of the lot by the outhouse, scrapes some loose change from the glove compartment and orders as much food as she can pay for. Then she darts into the outhouse. It’s wretched, but she has no choice.

  Back in the car, Bobby Goldsboro is singing “Honey” on the radio, and she craves a sticky slick of it oozing over a buttery biscuit, even though the song is about a girl. She flips the knob to find a fresh news bulletin.

  “. . . and at this hour, in Memphis’s Negro District, thousands of mourners are gathering at the RS Lewis Funeral Home, where the Reverend King lies in an open bronze casket . . .”

  She remembers all those strangers filing past poor pale and pasty pink Ellie.

  A carhop walks toward her, bearing a hamburger, French fries, and a chocolate milkshake on a tray. She’s young, black, and strikingly pretty, with long legs beneath her short uniform skirt.

  “Here you go, ma’am. Enjoy.” Her eyes are sad, her voice and her smile faraway.

  Watching her retreat toward the building, Melody wants to summon her back and ask how she’s doing on this sorrowful day, whether she’s okay. Would it be wrong, though, to speak of what happened? Yes—like Amy Connors and Debbie Mason, first in line to weep over a death that isn’t hers to mourn. This time, the loss belongs to this young woman . . .

  And to Cyril.

  She knows, just knows that he’s gone to Memphis. He’ll want to pay his respects to the man who’d had a dream that would have changed countless lives.

  The hamburger swims before her eyes and she’s certain she can’t possibly force food past the lump in her throat. Yet she manages to swallow the first bite, for the baby’s sake.

  A carful of teenagers pulls into the parking lot. It, too, is a convertible. The driver and his female passenger are blond and sun-kissed; the three boys in back are perched parade-style atop the seat. Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” blasts from the speakers. Not a care in the world.

  Melody finds Clapton’s psychedelic guitar riff on her own radio and gobbles the meal as she drives home. Rounding the corner onto her street, she sees her mother’s car parked at the curb. And her father’s. Why isn’t he behind his desk down at the savings and loan? And . . .

  Is that her father-in-law’s new gold Caddy? Yes, and Rodney Lee Midget’s turquoise Impala, and . . . a police car?

  And all those neighbors gathered on the sidewalk out front . . .

  It can only mean one thing.

  Travis.

  Brooklyn

  Oran watches doomed actress Sharon Tate stare at herself in the mirror. She knows she’s about to die. What is she thinking? Is she frightened?

  She’s blonde, with hazel eyes, but her delicate features remind him of his Gypsy. That’s what had drawn him the first time, back in December. Four months later, it’s what makes this particular scene so hard to watch.

  This isn’t how he’d planned on spending the day. He’d arrived at the clinic on time this morning only to find it closed for the day. Carla had been there, hanging a sign on the window.

  “Too dangerous, Dr. Brooks said. Negroes are rioting all over the city. It’s not safe to be out on the streets today. Get home safely.”

  “You, too,” Oran had told her.

  Passing the movie theater, he’d noticed the marquee: Valley of the Dolls–Absolutely the Last Chance! 5 More Days!

  It’s been playing since before Christmas, and he’s seen it, what, ten times? Twelve, now?

  Movie theaters have been a haven since he’d been a kid, when his mother would dump him off at Loew’s Coney Island for hours. There in the dark, he’d never cared where Pamela had gone, what she was doing, or with whom. He was content to watch the same film back-to-back until he knew the lines and the characters felt like real people, losing himself in a fantasy world where his mother didn’t even exist. Later, it had been the same with Linda.

  When she went into labor in the spring of ’54, Oran split.

  Gypsy Colt was playing at Loews. He sat bathed in the big screen’s Technicolor glow, erasing Linda, like his mother, from his consciousness. But his child . . .

  Oh, his child came alive before his eyes. He envisioned a daughter, a glorious beauty with black hair, a brilliant mind, a passionate soul.

  His first true prophecy.

  The moment he’d lain eyes on his baby girl, he’d embraced his mission with fresh fervor. He would deliver her—deliver them both—to eternal salvation.

  Soon he will.

  Last chance . . .

  When he’d seen that marquee, he’d walked into the theater and bought a ticket for the first showing. Now, halfway through the second, Oran wishes he hadn’t come, or hadn’t stayed.

  He shifts his weight in his seat as the beautiful Sharon Tate toys with the orange bottle of sleeping pills.

  He has a similar bottle at home, stolen in that February “armed robbery” Dr. Brooks had mentioned at that pharmacy around the block from the clinic. Having noted that the place is always deserted around closing time, just the elderly pharmacist there behind the counter, Oran had gone in one stormy night. The whole thing had taken a minute of his time. He’d worn a mask, but he hadn’t had a gun, just made it look that way.

  Crime is rampant in that neighborhood in these times. Even the press hadn’t connected the robbery to the so-called Brooklyn Butcher murders the following week.

  Had Gypsy?

  She’d seemed suspicious of the chocolate eggs he’d brought her a few weeks ago. But then she’d eaten them and fallen asleep, just like in February with the Valentine candy.

  But later, he’d caught her looking at him, wearing a thoughtful expression. As if she knew.

  On-screen, Sharon Tate pours a handful of barbiturates into her hand, swallows them, and lies down to die.

  Oran closes his eyes in the dark, reminding himself that his Gypsy gets just one pill at a time. She isn’t going to die. No, she’s going to live forever. And when Judgment Day comes, she’ll agree that the sleeping pills he’d given her had been a small price to pay for eternal salvation.

  Melody searches her soul for even a hint of shock or sorrow for Travis but feels only relief—and guilt for that. Her foot moves from the brake and the car rolls slowly toward the house where everyone is waiting to comfort the new widow.

  “There she is!” someone shouts.

  All heads turn, and she hears a collective outcry.

  She steels herself for what lies ahead, jangling jitters just like before every musical theater performance back in her school days. Only this time, she’s all grown up and she isn’t . . .

  Aren’t you? Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing? Performing, acting, pretending to be someone else?

  The front door flies open. Honeybee hurtles herself through it, arms outstretched, shrieking gratitude to Jesus. Melody’s father and her in-laws and Raelene are behind her, trailed by Rodney Lee and two local police officers. She knows them both. The younger one, Scotty Jackson,
graduated high school with Travis and Rodney Lee, and had been the valedictorian of their class. The older one, Duke Mason, is Debbie Mason’s father and had grown up with Melody’s daddy. Both men had been guests at her wedding last year.

  Honeybee throws her arms around Melody. “Oh, thank heavens!”

  She tries to pull back, but her mother is suffocating her in an embrace, rambling about Melody having gone missing and the kitchen being “ransacked” and “bloody” . . .

  One of the cops intervenes. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Abernathy, but we’ll need to ask Mrs. Hunter here a few questions.”

  “Ask away.” She strokes Melody’s hair back from her face. “I’m sure we all have the same questions. Melody, what happened to you?”

  “To me?”

  “When I got here and saw the kitchen ransacked and bloody . . . why, I called the police right away!”

  “They’re not here because . . . because something happened to Travis?”

  “Oh, you poor thing. Of course not!”

  She ventures a look at her in-laws, wishing she hadn’t voiced the question. They just stand there, smartly dressed as always, faces stoic beneath their hat brims. Raelene and her father are beside them. Rodney Lee is apart from the others, watching Melody intently, eyes narrowed, lips pressed in a straight line.

  “I was just frantic,” Honeybee goes on. “I called around, and of course everyone rushed right over.”

  “You called Rodney Lee?”

  “No, but when he drove by and saw the fuss, he stopped and he told me—”

  “Shush, now, Honeybee, and let’s leave this to the law,” her father says, with a nod at his old pal Duke Mason.

  The man’s bushy salt-and-pepper mustache quirks above an all-business smile. “Mrs. Hunter? How ’bout we go inside. That all right with you?”

  She nods and turns toward the house. Her mother turns with her, arm still resting on Melody’s shoulders.

  “If the rest of y’all could just wait out here,” Mason adds, “we’d be mighty appreciative.”

  “But I’m—”

  “Come on, Honeybee, let her go, now. She’s just fine, see?” Melody’s father gently tugs his wife away.