The Good Daughter

by Alexandra Burt

  There was the constant worry. Once a person in town opened this hive of secrets, everybody would demand answers. Maybe things would change come spring, but after the summer, the next fall and winter loomed on the horizon.

  Quinn was lonely and the child had become trying, demanding to go out, and play, and the days of baby bliss had long passed. She was headstrong and defiant and even though their lives were dreary, a thought took shape in Quinn’s mind, a thought as clear as day: she couldn’t see herself spending the rest of her life on this farm, tucked away, just so people wouldn’t ask questions.

  Her mind no longer could conceive of this life on the farm being all there was going to be.

  Regardless of her trying ways, the child was heaven-sent, was her salvation. She seemed to erase all darkness when Quinn watched her learn to walk with knees made of rubber, how she wobbled before falling, laughing and clapping. She was such a happy child, never sullen, and so beautiful. The way she giggled and ran toward her, extending her arms, wanting to be picked up, and held, those moments kept Quinn alive, reminded her that people were inherently good and loving; otherwise the weight of her memories would have crushed her by then, would have swept her away.

  —

  That day they prepared dinner. It was five in the afternoon and every miniscule task and chore Quinn dragged out as long as possible. She allowed the child to wash potatoes in the deep sink, took her time to peel them, check for tenderness.

  Just as they leaned over the pot in the sink and inhaled the steam, there was a knock on the door. It echoed through the house and Quinn switched on the porch light. She moved the curtain and saw two shadows standing motionless.

  It wasn’t until the taller of the two lifted his hand and rapped on the door again that Quinn realized they weren’t ghosts; it was Tain and a man with an unkempt beard and matted hair. Not knowing what to do, Quinn just stood there, but the third knock came and she knew it was a matter of time until they’d demand to enter. Quinn thought of Nolan’s shotgun that still rested on the mantel. Quinn had no idea if it was loaded or if it even worked. She sent the girl to her room. Opening the door and thinking that the visit wasn’t going to end well happened simultaneously.

  Tain was thin and her brown eyes were black pebbles stuck in snow. Her face seemed paler than Quinn remembered, her head too large to be held up by her fragile body.

  Not long after Tain and the man entered the house, the man, who went by the name of Delbert, demanded alcohol. “Beer if you have it,” he said. A crooked smile exposed a row of rotten teeth.

  “I don’t have any beer. I don’t drink. But I have a bottle of whiskey somewhere in the house,” Quinn said, “I’d have to go look for it.” His smell, repulsive, filthy, grimy, entered the house the moment he crossed the threshold.

  “You do that,” Delbert said and went to the living room, plopping himself on the couch, his dirty boots resting on the edge of the table. “You got somethin’ to eat too?” he yelled toward the kitchen.

  She didn’t answer him but heard Tain open the fridge behind her, randomly pulling out whatever she could find that didn’t require cooking, stuffing cheese into her mouth.

  Quinn wanted to rip it out of her hand but then told herself that Tain knew nothing of the long drive she had to make with the child to a neighboring town to buy groceries. She allowed her to eat, remembering that she had never been able to teach Tain any kind of manners.

  “How’s it going?” Quinn asked and watched Tain pull off her boots, her socks barely holding together with the heel poking out. There were blisters and raw skin and lots of caked-on dirt on her feet.

  “I need money,” Tain said without looking at her, bending down and pulling off chunks of dead skin as she winced.

  “Let me get you some warm water to soak your feet in,” Quinn said and walked to the stove to put on a kettle, the calcium making a swirling sound as it swished around on the bottom. “I have some iodine somewhere. You don’t want that to get infected.”

  “We’ll spend the night and then we’ll leave. But I need money and—”

  “Let’s just fix you up,” Quinn interrupted her and put the kettle on the stove with an angry clang.

  Tain hadn’t even asked for the child, hadn’t even so much as looked around to see if there were any signs of her. Quinn wondered if she had forgotten about her altogether or if the child just wasn’t of any concern to her.

  After the water was just right, Quinn squirted some soap into a plastic tub and watched Tain grimace in pain when she immersed her feet into the sudsy water.

  “Who’s that man?” Quinn asked while she prepared sandwiches.

  “He’s my boyfriend,” Tain said and took a hearty bite out of the sandwich.

  Quinn put two more sandwiches on a plate. She stepped into the living room, where Delbert was picking his nose with one hand and flipping through the TV channels with the other. Quinn never watched TV and what little reception she got through an air antenna wasn’t worth mentioning.

  “You found that whiskey yet?” Delbert asked as if to scold her for her sluggishness and snatched the plate from her hands.

  Quinn recoiled when his dirty fingertips touched her hands. He looked filthy and she would have to clean the couch after he left. She would never touch anything this man had sat on.

  “Not yet,” Quinn said. She jerked when she heard a whine coming from upstairs, hoping it was merely a few words uttered in her sleep. “Let me get that whiskey for you. I’ll be right back.”

  Quinn rushed upstairs with a throbbing heart, fearing they might follow her, scare the child, get her upset, and make her cry. She was so small, not used to people, and became uneasy when people stared at her too long. Tain, with her slow-witted ways, might grab her, pull her from her warm bed and hold her tight, too tight—she had never known the right amount of love to give—and then there’d be tears and crying and wailing. What if they just demanded Quinn pack a suitcase for the baby? She was Tain’s child, biologically she was, but no one was going to take the child from her. No one.

  With wide brown eyes she said, “Mommy,” wrapping her scrawny arms around her.

  Quinn held her for what seemed a full five minutes before her eyelids closed but then she jerked awake again.

  “You there, Mommy?” the child asked, as if she was afraid Quinn wasn’t going to be there next time she opened her eyes.

  She finally fell asleep and Quinn went into her bedroom to get the bottle of whiskey from the closet along with a pair of socks for Tain. She looked around frantically for a knife or something sharp she could use in case things went wrong and she couldn’t get to the shotgun in time. There wasn’t anything but a glass carafe that Sigrid had given her but it seemed silly to arm herself with that and suddenly Quinn realized it was Friday and she couldn’t go to the bank until Monday morning and there was no way she could give them any money until then. The clerk would ask her to wait another day or two because the amount was too high to be withdrawn in cash—Quinn just knew Tain would be outlandish in her demands and ask for an excessive amount—and Quinn couldn’t see herself spending all weekend and even longer with Tain and that awful man and his dirty body on the couch. Tain was no longer Tain, she was just someone she used to know, now she was running around with this criminal—Quinn could just tell by looking at him—and she hadn’t asked for the child at all, just demanded food and drink and money.

  Silence echoed in her ears and she wondered what they were doing downstairs, didn’t know if she could do what it took to rip that shotgun off the wall, point it at them and pull the trigger. Did she have it in her to just bust into the living room and shoot that criminal who rested his muddy shoes on her table and picked his nose on her couch? And Tain, what was she going to do about her? She could never hand the child over to Tain, knowing full well she was in danger with her, blood or no blood. And then the void of panic slowly
filled with a cold, howling storm of resolve that refused to let up. If they took the child away from her, she’d be completely and utterly alone on this farm, entirely alone in the world.

  Downstairs, Quinn found the man asleep on the couch and Tain still soaking her feet. She had rummaged in the large drawer of the kitchen table with the odds and ends that were in the way or things Pet shouldn’t get ahold of, like matches, a knife, a mousetrap. Aspirin. There were also things that reminded her of Nolan; some of them had been there for years.

  Tain held Nolan’s mug in her hand, twisted it about, ran her thumb over it, and inspected it as if it held some sort of revelation. She put the mug down with a thud. “That’s Nolan’s mug. He never liked anyone else drinking out of it. Nolan would be mad at you.”

  What a simpleton. Quinn wanted to say something, wanted to scream at her, How dare you mention Nolan and not waste a single thought on your daughter? Have you no sense at all? But Tain wouldn’t understand, would just cry and get upset and then the ruffian on the couch would get involved and then there’d be this whole commotion, waking up Pet, and then who knows what else would happen. His name alone, Delbert, made Quinn wince. Delbert might hold the baby against his body and touch her, run his hands over her backside, she wouldn’t put it past him at all, touching a child inappropriately, it was something Quinn could just tell about him, and she’d always had a hunch for things like that. Certain brow ridges on men, too pronounced, like the faces of the hunters had had bad written all over them. Delbert was made from the same cloth, she had seen it in his eyes. He was bad news, no doubt about it. Pet wasn’t safe with anyone but her. No one was going to touch her.

  “Why did you drink out of his mug?” Tain insisted with such authority that Quinn had to force herself not to raise her voice.

  “What is it to you?” Quinn replied, getting impatient. “He doesn’t care about the damn mug any longer, does he?”

  “I’ll tell everybody what you did to him.”

  There. Just like that. I’ll tell. “What exactly did I do to him?”

  “You killed him. I know so,” Tain said and reached for the pair of socks Quinn clutched in her hand. “Help me put those on.”

  The audacity. The guts of this girl. Quinn had taken her in, nursed her back to health, had bought her an entire wardrobe, given her a place to live, had loved her, and all she’d done in return was to carry on with her husband. And Quinn had felt for Tain—the only person she had ever loved, except her father, Benito, and Nolan, and him only for a while—but Tain was the sister Quinn never had, she’d given her everything, had even considered leaving her husband and helping her raise Pet.

  But Tain was a moron, just a stupid moron, not understanding even the simplest of things. She wanted money and next time, what would she want then? Pet? The farm? She wouldn’t quit in her halfwit kind of way, the crazy inside of her would never stop demanding and, most of all, wouldn’t understand that eventually there’ll be no money left. Like Pet, who saw a picture of a cake in a magazine and wanted cake, not understanding that there was no cake and cakes had to be baked, but childlike minds wanted what they wanted regardless if it was available or not. That was Tain, always asking for things with her childlike demands, but now she had taken up with that thug on the couch and he wouldn’t play. He was tall and his hands were huge and he wouldn’t care if he hurt her or Pet.

  Quinn handed Tain the socks.

  “I found this ointment in the drawer,” Tain said.

  Quinn stared at it. The magic salve Aella had given her, a key to other worlds she had called it. A way of seeing the dearly departed. Nolan’s limping ghost. Only a little bit. Never on broken skin. Poisonous.

  “Should I rub it on my feet? Will it help?” Tain asked.

  “Give it a try,” Quinn said and watched Tain open the round container and grimace when she got a whiff of the salve.

  Not too much, it can kill you. Nightshades are nature’s ultimate poison, Aella had told her.

  Tain looked down at the metal container, inspecting the foot drawing on the small label. Quinn kneeled on the floor and gently lifted Tain’s feet from the water. She patted them dry, careful not to rub too hard. Quinn then applied the ointment, generously, in round strokes, making sure to cover both feet entirely. “Is it burning?” she asked as she helped slip the socks over Tain’s feet. She felt some fear but mostly she felt relief, something inside her unwilling to stop. She washed her hands and then helped Tain up and held her by her elbow.

  “Where’s Delbert?” Tain asked and scanned her surroundings as if she was lost without him.

  “On the couch.”

  “I’ll stay with him. Take me to him.”

  Quinn led her into the living room, where Delbert’s head had fallen backward and drool had run down his chin. The bottle of whiskey on the table was half empty. Tain plopped on the couch and Delbert briefly opened his eyes, mumbled something, and went back to his alcohol-induced sleep. Tain scooted next to him, her legs propped up on a pillow at the end of the couch.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning then,” Quinn said and waited for her demeanor to change. Quinn suspected the potency of the salve had deteriorated over the years. But more than that Quinn knew it had all been for the birds. Looking at the shotgun on the wall above the fireplace, she knew it was old and rusty, hadn’t been cleaned in years. She didn’t know where the shells were, if there were any in the house at all, and she knew she wasn’t capable of shooting them, but run she could. She had to pack, and before they woke up, she’d be long gone with the child.

  Quinn went upstairs and dragged out a suitcase, packed all their clothes—which were few—books and toys and all the money she had stashed away. It was a rather large amount and the rest of the money from her father’s inheritance was in an account at the bank, set up to pay the yearly property taxes as to not arouse suspicion, and it would be many years before the money ran out. No one would suspect anything if she never returned to the farm—people might think she’d joined Nolan on some job out of town, some oil fields on the coast. They would be safe for the time being.

  While Delbert and Tain slept on the couch, it began to snow. It was a fluke really—snow was rare in Texas, Quinn couldn’t even remember the last time she had seen snowflakes—it was just a flurry that melted the moment it hit the ground, but Pet, wrapped in blankets as Quinn carried her to the truck, still drunk with sleep and disoriented, woke up and started to ask questions, confused as to why they were up and about in the middle of the night. When Pet saw the snow, she became excited, burrowed out from underneath the blankets. She wanted to feel the snow—she didn’t know what it was, kept asking, What this, what this, what this—and Quinn managed to calm her and by the time she put her in the backseat, she had fallen asleep again and hopefully she wouldn’t remember anything the next day. She’d figure out the story she’d tell her on the road.

  Just when Quinn closed the truck door, she heard a noise, followed by the shattering of glass. She wanted to get in the truck and take off, didn’t care about Tain nor the hoodlum, but there was a blanket she needed, and crackers from the pantry to make the trip more pleasant for Pet, a magazine she loved to look at. And so she hurried into the house, but the moment she passed the threshold, she knew something was wrong.

  Quinn flipped the switch and the living room was bathed in the harsh overhead light. On the couch lay Tain with her arms flailing. Delbert stood above her, swaying back and forth as if he’d been hit by a tranquilizer gun, about to go down. Tain was audibly gasping for breath, her chest heaving. Quinn watched in horror as Tain began yanking on her clothes as if they were strangling her.

  “What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” Delbert yelled repeatedly, out of breath himself. “Babe, babe, babe, babe,” over and over, like a broken record.

  Served him right, Quinn thought, to be such a waste of life, dragging a girl like Tain around, talking he
r into doing things she’d never do if left to her own devices. She watched Delbert drop to his knees, shaking Tain as if she was in the midst of a nightmare and all he had to do was wake her and everything would be okay. Quinn stepped closer and she saw vomit on the carpet and her stomach began to heave in a sickly way and her head spun as if the whole room was one large carousel, slow at first but gaining momentum. Delbert turned and stared at Quinn, his face shiny, covered in sweat, and then she watched him collect items from the table; pipes and foil, lighters and all kinds of objects Quinn didn’t recognize.

  Delbert pulled on his boots and stumbled past her but then thought otherwise.

  “What’s wrong with her?” he asked, his voice wobbly.

  Quinn wanted to slap him but that meant touching him and she was not going to do any such thing.

  “How would I know?” Quinn said and turned her head away to escape his stench, looked past him, toward the couch. Tain’s skin was gray and waxy, all life was gone, Quinn could tell. The salve had done its deed. She should have taken off in the truck, shouldn’t have set foot onto this godforsaken farm again. She could be miles down the road but now there was this brute and she had to figure out what to do with him. “What did you do to her?”

  “I woke up and she was like this. I don’t know.”

  “You must have done something. Look at her.” Tain’s body seemed relaxed but her eyes were wide open, looking upward and back, and there was some foamy spittle on her lips.

  Delbert grabbed Quinn by her coat and twisted it so it went tight around her neck.

  “Go. Just go,” was all Quinn could think of saying. “Forget you were ever here.”

  “Give me some money.”

  “I don’t have anything to give.”

  “I’ll tell the police. I saw you packing up the truck. There’s something you’re not telling me. I ain’t stupid.”

  “Give me a few days, I’ll get you some money. But now you leave,” Quinn spit at him. Time to get away was all she needed.