by Sharon Sala
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Laurel said quietly. “Let’s take a deep breath and remember to be quiet. Remember, panda bears can’t talk.”
Bonnie’s eyes widened and seconds later, she went from giggly girl to fat, little panda bear before Laurel’s eyes.
One mother tapped Laurel on the back and whispered near her ear, “Did you make Bonnie’s costume? It is adorable.”
Laurel turned around. “Yes, I did, and thank you.”
“Okay, children! We’re walking, we’re walking,” Mrs. Smith said, and clapped her hands as she began moving them along.
Bonnie was in full panda mode, and Laurel felt like she was walking on air. The cost of the black sweats and sweatshirt—ten dollars. The utter joy of being a part of childhood all over again? Priceless.
Thirty minutes later she parted company with her daughter, promised she’d see her at home, and when Bonnie went to the lunchroom with her class, her lunch bag in her hand, Laurel headed back to the office to turn in her visitor pass.
Mavis saw her coming, got up from her desk, and ran to a side table to get a flyer.
Laurel was still smiling when she walked in and handed Mavis the pass. “Was it a success?” Mavis asked.
“Rousing,” Laurel said.
“Here are a couple of flyers for the fall festival this coming Saturday. Didn’t want you to forget about it.”
“Oh, I won’t forget,” Laurel said. “I’m manning the kissing booth. Bonnie volunteered me.”
Mavis chuckled. “Well, you’ll be glad to know that no real kisses are traded. They have several sizes of big red stickers in the shape of lips. Depending on the size of the kiss they buy, you choose which sticker to put on their cheek.”
“I know,” Laurel said. “Believe me, if it had been real ones, I would have already vacated the job.”
“Well, take these anyway,” Mavis said. “Maybe you have a friend or neighbor who might like to come. All the money goes into buying things for the elementary school, you know.”
“Sure, okay,” Laurel said, and took the flyers with her as she exited the office.
She stopped at the Piggly Wiggly for a few grocery items and, to her horror, ran into Adam’s sister, Beverly, in the cereal aisle. Her in-laws had refused to believe Adam had been suffering severe depression and to this day still blamed her for his suicide. She wanted to turn tail and run, but she didn’t.
“Hello, Beverly,” Laurel said.
Beverly Westfall gave Laurel a cold look and then turned her back.
Laurel sighed and tried not to care. It was hard enough losing Adam without losing his family. It was as if they had channeled grief into rage and targeted her because she was still here and Adam wasn’t.
She reached for the cereal she wanted, dropped it in her basket, and started to move on when Beverly suddenly grabbed her arm.
“Turn me loose please,” Laurel said.
“It’s not fair. Adam shouldn’t be dead. You should have—”
Laurel flashed on the suicide scene, and then the rage on Beverly’s face, and lost it. She yanked away from Beverly’s grasp and leaned forward, making sure no one else would hear what she was going to say.
“You are right! It’s not fair! Adam shouldn’t have put that gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. It splattered his brains and his blood all over our bed, and the wall, and the floor, and I had to clean that up. Yes, he was depressed, but he wouldn’t take the meds the doctor gave him and chose to quit going to his psychiatrist. I’m pretty pissed off myself. He left his daughter to grow up without a father. He left me to raise her all on my own. I loved him, and that wasn’t enough. You loved him, and it wasn’t enough. All of you loved him, and it wasn’t enough.” Then she jammed her finger against Beverly’s chest. “I have enough to deal with on a daily basis without wondering if I’m going to encounter Adam’s family acting like jackasses. So here’s the deal, and you pass the message along to the rest of them. The next time one of you says anything negative to me, I’m going to file harassment charges against you, and then everyone else in Blessings will find out what a hateful bunch of people you really are.”
Beverly gasped. “How—”
Laurel shook her head. “Shut your mouth. Don’t ever look at me again. Don’t ever speak to me again. Do. You. Understand?”
Beverly swallowed, then took a deep breath and stepped aside.
Laurel grabbed her shopping basket and walked past her as if they were strangers. She was trembling so hard she didn’t think she could stand up. She finished her shopping and then cried all the way home.
It wasn’t until she topped the hill over the Lorde farm that she remembered the fall festival and the flyers Mavis had given her and stopped at the mailbox. She jumped out with the flyer, slipped it into the box with his other mail, and then drove home. She didn’t have any expectations of him attending, but she’d done her neighborly duty and let him know about a current happening in the community. The fall festival had been a part of Blessings tradition for as long as she could remember and was actually a very popular community event.
She got her groceries unloaded and put away, and then grabbed a cold Dr. Pepper, went out the back door and sat down on the steps, then took a big drink. It burned the back of her throat as it went down, but it was what she needed.
“Oh my God,” she mumbled, and took a deep breath, yanked the ponytail holder out of her hair, and massaged the back of her neck in frustration. “I can’t believe I lost it like that. I have never wanted to hit someone so bad in my life.” A lone tear rolled down her cheek. She swiped it away and took another drink, then held the cold bottle against her forehead. “Your family is crazy, Adam Payne. Wherever you are, do something. I’m sick and tired of having them in my face.”
She finished her cold drink and then went back inside. Work never ended. She needed to do a load of laundry and start supper. Bonnie would be home before she knew it.
Chapter 9
Jake worked the rest of the day at the barn, but couldn’t quit thinking about the trespasser down at the creek. He wasn’t sure what to do about it or whether to even mention it to Laurel. She was already touchy about anyone interfering with her parenting skills, and he didn’t want her to think he was judging her for letting Bonnie play there, so he decided to stay watchful but say nothing for now.
By the time he quit to go eat, it was close to suppertime. He’d worked all the way through lunch without giving food a thought. So he decided to call it a day and put away his tools, then walked up to the mailbox to get the mail before going in for the night.
The first thing he saw when he pulled out the mail was the flyer.
“Oh wow. The fall festival. I can’t believe they’re still doing that,” he mumbled, and then glanced through the other mail as he headed back to the house.
Some of his regular mail was finally catching up with him because he noticed the yellow forwarding stickers on the envelopes. Once he was inside, he tossed it all on the kitchen table and then went to wash up. He had food in the freezer and some leftovers in the refrigerator. All he’d had today were Laurel’s cookies, and as much as he wanted to just sit down and fill up on them again, he knew he needed more than sugar in his system and opted for scrambled eggs and toast.
It didn’t take long to make them, and he ate while reading the flyer again, then tossed it aside. It was silly to think about going to something like that. The place would be crowded. There’s no telling what might be going on that could set him off, and he didn’t want to embarrass himself. He started to throw it away, and then on impulse just pushed it aside. There were still a few days before the weekend. He’d give it some thought.
* * *
Laurel wasn’t the only one trying to come to terms with what had happened at the Piggly Wiggly today. Beverly Westfall had been shaken to the core by the torture in Laurel’
s eyes and the rage in her voice. She’d never once thought about what Laurel had seen or what she’d gone through when Adam died. All she’d thought—all any of their family had thought—was that Adam was gone. He’d come home from a two-year tour of duty without suffering a wound. None of them had grasped the depth of his depression, and when he’d suddenly killed himself, their mother had been the one to assume it was because Laurel had surely hurt him in some way.
Her suppositions had ranged from falling out of love while he was gone to asking him for a divorce. She’d surely broken Adam’s heart. None of them had ever wondered if what he’d done had broken hers.
Beverly knew she needed to warn the family about Laurel threatening a lawsuit. None of them had the money to pay a lawyer if they had to go to court, but she needed to tell her mother first. It was up to her how the rest of this played out because she was the one who had started giving Laurel the cold shoulder.
Beverly sat at the kitchen table and made the call, uncertain how she would broach the subject. And then her mother answered, and she started talking.
“Hey, Mom, how’s it going?” Beverly asked.
“I’m okay. I canned pumpkin today. You know how I am. I like my own pumpkin when it comes to baking.”
“Yes, so do I, but I still have some in the freezer from last year, so I’ll use that up before I do any more. Say, Mom, I need to tell you something, and you need to hear me out before you start arguing, okay?”
Adele Payne frowned. She didn’t like the tone of this conversation. “I’m not making you any such promise,” Adele said. “Just start talking.”
Beverly sighed. “Whatever, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. I saw Laurel at the Piggly Wiggly today.”
Adele gasped. “I don’t want to hear a thing about that bitch. My Adam is dead because of her! Why would you think I’d—”
“Mama!” Beverly shouted. “Stop talking and listen. She said hello. I didn’t answer. So when she started to go past me, I grabbed her arm and started in on her, and she freakin’ lost it.”
“What do you mean?” Adele asked.
“She pretty much told me off. Told all of us off. Said she was mad at Adam for killing himself. She was mad that he left Bonnie without a father and left her to raise their girl alone. She said she had loved him. She said we had all loved him, and none of that had been enough. She said he’d quit going to see his shrink, quit taking the medicine they’d been giving him for depression, and what he did was the result.”
Adele was shaking. “I don’t believe it! My Adam wouldn’t—”
“Well, actually, Mama, he did do it. We all know that. The law knows it. Every bit of evidence proved he killed himself. What we didn’t know, because she kept it to herself, was that she was the one who had to clean all that up. Adam’s blood and brains were all over the room and their bed and everything. She was so enraged by what he’d done to her—to their family, to their own bedroom—that she could hardly get it said to me. I know what I saw, and I know what I heard, and after today, I’m not blaming Laurel for what happened to my brother. The war happened to him, Mama, and we’re gonna have to accept that.”
“I won’t! I don’t have to accept any such thing!” Adele screamed.
“Well, you do need to know that Laurel gave us all fair warning. If one of us ever says anything mean to her again, or accuses her of something, she says she will file harassment charges against us, and then everyone in Blessings will know what kind of people we are. Are you ready for that?”
Adele’s silence was telling. “She said that?”
“Yes, ma’am, and her voice was shaking, and her face was all crazy looking. I think she’s been pushed to a breaking point, and I, for one, do not want to wind up in court against the widow of a soldier who took his own life. She’ll have public sympathy if nothing else.”
Adele was silent again to the point Beverly thought she was going to hang up. “Mama?”
“I’m here,” Adele said. “I’m just thinking. I guess I can speak for myself when I say I’ll leave her be, but I can’t speak for Adam’s brothers.”
“That’s all well and good,” Beverly said. “But you better tell your sons to start digging in their pockets for spare change, because she’ll haul their asses to court and make them pay. Just leave her alone, Mama. She’s grieving. I saw it. She’s grieving, and we left her to grieve it alone.”
“She’s got her people,” Adele muttered.
“We were her people, too,” Beverly said. “Bonnie is our blood. We haven’t seen her in nearly two years, and because of how we’ve been treating her mother, she not only lost her daddy, but she lost all of us. I don’t know how that makes you feel, but I’m feeling pretty damn low about myself.”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Adele said.
“Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, and if any of you wind up in jail, don’t call me to bail you out.”
Beverly was shaking when she hung up the phone, but talking to her mother like that always made her nervous. Adele Payne was a cold, hardscrabble mountain woman who lived by “an eye for an eye” code, even when it didn’t apply.
“Lord, lord,” Beverly muttered, and went about her business. She’d done her duty. The rest of this mess was up to Adele.
* * *
Adele frowned when she realized Beverly had disconnected. She didn’t like to be hung up on. She also didn’t like what she’d just been told. It changed the whole concept of how she’d been grieving. Who would she blame if it were not the fault of Adam’s wife? She couldn’t blame her own son. She’d raised him in the Bible ways and taught him—taught all of her children—that it was a sin to take your own life. If she accepted that Adam had killed himself, then she would have to accept that in her belief, he put his soul in eternal damnation. For Adele, that would have been a black mark against her for raising a child to do such a wrong. She wasn’t sure what to do about all this, but it appeared she needed to warn her two other sons about that woman’s threat just the same.
* * *
Truman was still in Blessings when the sun went down. He and Nester were at the Blue Ivy Bar shooting pool and taking turns buying beer. They were both on the way to being drunk, and May, the barmaid, was about ready to kick them out. She’d warned them twice already to quiet down, and they had turned around and gotten into an argument with another pool player. Rather than trade blows, the player chose to pay up and leave.
May was watching them closely, waiting for an excuse to throw them out, when another customer came in and sat at the bar. She took his order and then glanced toward the back again and could tell by the frown on Truman’s face that he was losing. It would be too much to hope that if he did, he’d just go home.
“Hey, May, you got some pretzels to go with this beer?” the customer asked.
“Sure thing, Billy,” she said, and scooped up a dish just for him.
As she set the pretzels in front of him, she heard Truman yell, “Oh, hell no!” and then something cracked.
She looked up just as Nester dropped to the floor.
“Oh, good grief,” she muttered, grabbed the phone, and made a call to the Blessings police.
“Blessings PD,” the dispatcher said.
“This is May at the Blue Ivy Bar. Truman Slade and Nester Williams are both drunk as skunks, and Truman just laid Nester out with a pool cue.”
“I’ll get someone right there,” the dispatcher said. “Do we need an ambulance?”
“Well, Nester’s down and not moving, so I’d say yes.”
She rolled her eyes at her customer and grabbed the baseball bat from beneath the bar, just in case Truman decided to bring the fight to her.
Billy, her customer, frowned. “I’ll take care of him for you, May.”
“No. The cops are on the way. Let’s stay out of it if we can.”
> Billy nodded, but he had the sense to take a different seat so he wouldn’t have his back to the drunks. Within moments, they heard a siren, and then a second one. May breathed a sigh of relief. Police and the ambulance were on the way.
* * *
Clyde Inman was a new officer with Blessings PD, although he’d been in law enforcement going on ten years. He’d been on the job less than a month and was still feeling his way around with locals, but drunks in a bar were the same all over.
He pulled up to the bar and wasted no time going in. The woman behind the bar pointed. He saw one man holding a broken pool cue and a man with a bloody face on the floor, and headed to the back of the room with his hand on the handle of his gun.
“Sir! Put the pool cue down and turn around.”
Truman started to bluster and argue, but Inman was no fool. He grabbed the pool cue before it became a weapon, spun Truman around, and pushed him facedown on the pool table. He had one of Truman’s arms pinned against his own back and was reaching for the other one when the EMTs came in.
“Back here,” he shouted, as he handcuffed Truman in nothing flat and dragged him out of the way.
The EMTs began examining Nester. “He’s got a good pulse,” one said.
Inman grabbed the handcuffs with one hand and Truman’s belt with the other and physically aimed him toward the door.
“Walk toward the exit, sir.”
“Am I under arrest?” Truman asked.
“Yes, you are.”
“What for?”
“Assault, drunk and disorderly, and anything else Ms. May decides to tack on. Keep walking.”
“But Nester was cheatin’, damn it!”
“And so you broke a pool cue over his head. He’s going to the hospital, and you’re going to jail. The end.”
Truman groaned. “Aw, man!”
May watched them go with a frown. She hated getting on the wrong side of Truman Slade. It would be just like him to return for payback because she’d called the cops.
