by Gwen Florio
“What’s that?”
It was too late. She was asleep.
When Lola awoke for good—she’d peed exactly as much as she expected, and she also had vague memories of a couple of befogged conversations with the editor—the air was redolent of strawberries. She put her hands on the side of the tub and pulled herself to her knees, then grabbed for a towel rack and pulled harder, until she was standing. She made the mistake of looking in the mirror. She bent over the sink, turning on the cold water and splashing it on her face until it was numb. She turned off the water and toweled her face, making sure to avoid a second encounter with her reflection.
She followed her nose to the kitchen. There, Margaret stood on a chair at the counter, wielding a potato masher against a bowlful of strawberries with such force that her face, hands, and clothing—along with a good portion of the surrounding real estate—were splattered with red juice. Pal stood beside her, methodically smashing berries with somewhat less force but more effectiveness, the contents of her own bowl a pulpy mass.
“That looks disgusting.” Lola’s voice came out in a croak.
“You look disgusting. Don’t you have a comb? And some clean clothes? You know, the last time I checked, there was a shower in that bathroom.”
Lola thought Pal was enjoying their role reversal just a little too much. Bub arose from a spot in the far corner, and circled the room to get to Lola, sticking close to the walls on the way. Lola saw movement under the table and realized the cause. Jemalina had settled herself there, on a nest of shredded, scarlet-blotched newspaper.
“Good Christ. What’s that chicken doing in here?”
“Quarter, Mommy. She was lonely. Besides, she likes strawberries and Bub doesn’t.”
“She can’t eat strawberries outside? Oh, never mind.” A few hours of shut-eye, Lola thought, and the entire order of the universe had been upended. “Is there coffee?”
“No more coffee for you. How about some juice? And I thought we might go for a run later.” Pal elbowed Margaret. Giggling ensued. Lola hadn’t thought Pal capable of laughter, let alone something as frivolous as a giggle. She brushed past the treasonous pair and made the coffee herself, holding a mug under the stream as it began to flow from the coffeemaker, not substituting the pot until the mug was full.
“Ahhhhh.” Her eyelids lifted. Joints became limber. Her ears, attuned moments earlier only to the gurgle of the coffeemaker, picked up a tinkling sound, simultaneously glassy and metallic. “What’s that noise?”
Pal lifted a wooden spoon from her bowl, splattering the counter with red, and pointed with it toward the stove. Two outsize cast-iron pots sat there, one covered, its lid jiggling as puffs of steam escaped. “We’re sterilizing the jam jars. If you must poison yourself with more coffee, finish it fast. We’re about ready to start cooking down the berries. You can do that. All you have to do is stir. Even you won’t be able to ruin it.”
More giggling.
A basketful of intact strawberries sat on the counter. They’d saved the best for eating. Lola picked one up and started to run her thumbnail under the cap. Then she remembered how long it had taken her to scrub the worst of the stains from her fingers. She found the paring knife in a drawer and sliced off the cap and popped the berry in her mouth, savoring the burst of flavor against her palate. She put down the knife and lifted her coffee mug.
“What do I have to do?” she said around the strawberry.
“Here.” Pal handed Lola the bowl of mashed berries and the spoon. “Put these in that pot. Add Margaret’s. Dump in that sack of sugar. Stir until it dissolves. Squeeze those lemons over the pot. Make sure the seeds don’t get in. Heat it until it simmers. Stir it up good so it doesn’t burn. Keep stirring. That’s it. Think you can handle that?”
Lola tilted the bowl over a pot that could have held all of Jemalina and a couple of her friends besides, something Lola thought would have been a better use for the pot. The strawberries slid out of the bowl with a sucking sound. Some missed the pot and slopped onto the floor. Lola looked askance at the sugar. “Do we need that much?”
“It’s half what my mom used. Hey. Keep stirring or you’ll ruin it. I’m going to take Margaret and clean both of us up.”
Lola dragged the spoon through the mashed berries, pinwheeling the white lines of sugar deeper with every swipe. Bubbles rose to the surface and broke noisily, a backbeat to the clinking jars. The mass of berries was surprisingly heavy. Her arm ached. She heard water running in the bathroom. Then a cracking sound—once, twice, three times, the old danger signal. Bub lifted his head. The chicken clucked. Lola glanced through the window. Nothing. She knew those cracks as gunfire. If she’d been in Afghanistan, she’d have assumed ill intent, bandits at best, insurgents a more likely and far more dangerous scenario. Here, it was probably somebody plinking at prairie dogs. Afghanistan had been years ago, she reminded herself. Time she got over it. Still, she listened hard. Nothing, other than the shower, still running. She picked up the paring knife and, still stirring, decapitated another berry one-handed, sucking the sweetness from it as she checked the window again. A line of dust hung above the ridgeline, signaling an oncoming car. Her heart jumped. She glanced at the clock. Two in the afternoon. Early for Charlie, but not too. She forgot to stir. She forgot that she’d resented his proposal. Forgot that they were in the midst of a fight. Forgot everything other than the fact that he was finally here, that for the first time in days, everything wasn’t going to be on her. She left the spoon in the bubbling strawberries and crossed the kitchen in giant steps. She flung open the door, arms raised to wrap around him, face lifted for his kiss.
“Well. This is quite the welcome.”
A foot wedged into the doorway. Lola looked first at the unfamiliar cowboy boot, then the face. Skiff Loughry grinned down at her, even happier to see her than she’d been to see Charlie.
THIRTY-FOUR
Fear ascended the muscles in her calves, her thighs, her back. Bub’s hackles stood up like saw blades.
For each step Lola took back, Skiff took one forward, a halting dance of retreat and pursuit. He closed the door behind him. “Where is she?”
Lola listened. The preserves simmered thickly, bubbles plopping and bursting. The glass jars shivered against one another in their boiling bath. But no water running, not any more. Nor voices.
“Out,” Lola said. “Probably on one of her runs. You should go look for her.”
“Nice try.” Why was he still smiling? “I just drove up that road. I didn’t see her anywhere.”
Lola’s chest heaved with the effort of breathing. Margaret, she thought. Margaret. She tried to remember what Skiff had just said. “Sometimes she runs the ridge. You should go up there.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Guess what?”
Lola wet her lips and took a half-step sideways. If she could get past him. Get outside. Maybe they were out there. Maybe Pal had seen Skiff drive up. Maybe she’d helped Margaret crawl out the window. They could get in Lola’s truck. Lola had out-driven Skiff once. Pal could, too.
“What?” she said. “Why do you want to see her, anyway?” Maybe, Lola thought, she was overreacting. Maybe this was a friendly visit.
“I’ve got a friend in town goes out with a girl on the rez.” Skiff looked as though he’d smelled something bad. “What can I say? No accounting for taste.”
Something flickered behind him. Motion in the hallway. So Pal and Margaret—oh, God, Margaret—were still in the house. Lola raised her voice to a half-decibel below shouting.
“Skiff, why should I give a shit about your friend? Why, Skiff?” Putting a little English on his name. Afraid to chance another glance at the hallway, but hoping they’d heard.
“Because, Lola.” A mocking imitation. “My friend’s girlfriend works in the tribal offices. Says she faxed something for a couple a whitegirls. Says it was pretty interestin
g.”
Another motion, this time at her feet. Jemalina streaked past, beady eyes intent upon Skiff’s feet, only to find her beak bouncing off his cowboy boot. She let out a surprised cluck and regrouped. “What the hell was that?” Skiff said. “What’s that thing doing in the house?”
“I ask myself that every day,” Lola said. Maybe she could stall him with humor. Even get him to leave. “I throw her outside. She sneaks back in.” She forced a smile, all teeth and no eyes. Skiff laughed. She felt Bub relax a millimeter against her leg. Jemalina hunched, flapped her wings, and launched another attack. Skiff stepped to one side, reached down, grabbed Jemalina and snapped her neck with a single twist. He flung Jemalina’s body across the room.
“No!” Lola shouted. She’d hated the chicken and its last act had been to defend her. She took a step toward Skiff, intending to—what, exactly? She didn’t have to decide. Bub was across the room in two long bounds, the second launching him airborne, the whomp of his body against Skiff’s sending them both to the floor, attached by dint of Bub’s teeth sunk to bone in Skiff’s thigh. Bub snarled and Skiff hollered, and then Skiff’s hands were around Bub’s neck. Lola leapt into the fray, dropping to the floor beside Skiff and pummeling his face with her fists. He let go of Bub, which was good. But he turned to Lola, which was very, very bad, she decided as he locked his hand around her wrist and hauled her upward. He was exactly as strong as he appeared, jerking her around in front of him with no more effort than if she’d been an empty flour sack. Bub picked himself up off the floor, arching his back and hacking. He lifted his head and bared his teeth again, hindquarters bunching in preparation to spring. Skiff dropped Lola’s wrist and drew back his leg. His booted kick landed squarely on Bub’s chest. Bub yelped once and fell limp.
Lola whirled and leapt for the door, grabbing the paring knife from the counter as she went. Skiff moved fast to cut her off. He stepped squarely in the wet slickness of spilled berries and careened toward her, arms cartwheeling, grabbing at her for balance, catching at the front of her T-shirt, tearing it to the waist. She flung up her arms to push him away, forgetting that she still held the knife. The thin blade caught him under the chin, sliding through the soft part of his throat. He bellowed with anger and drew an arm back and landed a fist so hard against the side of her face that she crumpled, dropping the knife and catching at the counter for balance. She bent over it, things blurring black.
Skiff’s harsh breathing filled the kitchen. Lola moved her head slowly from side to side to clear it, and pushed herself upright and turned to face him, her back against the stove. She felt the heat of the pots, bubbling away behind her. Skiff pressed a hand beneath his chin. He lowered it. Blood ran from the cut.
“Look what you did,” he said. “Look what you did.”
“Like you did to Mike,” she heard herself say.
“No,” he said. “Not like that at all.”
“You’re right,” she said. It hurt to talk. “This was an accident.”
He put his hand to his chin again. Blood oozed through his fingers and dripped onto his shirt.
She looked away. Her gaze fell upon the knife. He saw her looking at it, and kicked it. It spun across the floor toward the door. She lunged away from him, but he was faster, catching her by her arm and jerking her around so hard that she lost her footing. He let go of her and she slammed against the floor.
“Stop,” he said. “Don’t you know when you’re done?”
She pushed herself up on all fours. He put his boot to the small of her back and shoved her back down. She lay there, face in the spilled berries, arms reaching for the door.
“Stop,” he said again.
She pulled her arms back and locked her hands behind her head, her elbows covering her ears so she couldn’t hear him. He was saying things and she shook her head. No. Whatever it was, no.
His booted toe nudged her. “Turn over.”
She shook her head, and he drew his foot back as if to kick her.
“No,” she whimpered.
He laughed. “Then turn over.”
She pushed herself up on her hands, and rolled into a semblance of a sitting position, hugging her knees to her chest. Her nose ran. She tasted blood in the back of her mouth.
He stood above her, straddling her. “You hurt me,” he said.
Her head throbbed.
“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?”
She leaned over and spit blood. Then she raised her face to him. “I don’t care,” she said.
“Well, you should,” he said. He held out his hand. “Here. Get up.”
She let him pull her up, then dropped his hand and backed away from him, leaning against the stove for support. The pots burned her back.
He looked her up and down. She wished she’d worn a bra.
“You stay right there,” he said. “I’m going to check the house. Then I’m coming back for you. Don’t even think about moving. You know what I’m capable of.” He turned away, toward the hall. There was no mistaking his walk for anything but a swagger, Lola thought, cocksure in his certainty that she was too cowed to disobey.
Lola felt blindly behind her, reaching for something, anything. The pots. She turned. Her fingers closed around the scalding handles of the kettle holding the jars. Muscles tore in her back as she hoisted the heavy pot in a single motion. Holding it high, she swung toward Skiff, who turned at the sound of her escaping scream. She opened her hands wide and the combined weight of the pot and the force of her spin sent it flying from her hands and into his face. The iron rim caught his brow. It tilted, splashing boiling water across his face and down his chest and over his hands as he raised them to protect himself. Lola screamed again as Skiff Loughry crumpled to the floor in a mess of hissing water and breaking glass and the faint fizz of dissolving flesh.
“Hey. Lola. Hey.”
Lola summoned a superhuman effort and turned her head toward the door. It opened a crack. Pal stood outside. Lola raised her hands, heavy as weights, in a warning.
“Don’t let Margaret in here.” Lola would not have thought herself capable of a full sentence, words as much of an effort as action, but there it was.
“Then come out here. Can you?”
Lola took a step. “I guess so.” She felt something beneath her foot. She raised it and saw the knife. She picked it up and slid it into her back pocket. She reached the door.
“Fix your shirt,” Pal whispered.
Lola pulled the edges of her shirt together and slipped out onto the porch. Margaret shrieked.
“It’s your face,” Pal said. “It looks like blood.”
“It is,” Lola whispered.
Pal ran a finger across the mess on Lola’s face and held it before her. Blood mingled with a brighter, stickier mess. “Look, Margaret. It’s just strawberries.” She licked it. “Guess we’re blood sisters now,” she whispered to Lola. She held her finger out to Margaret. “Taste.”
Margaret shook her head, but swallowed her cries. She let Pal place her shaking body in Lola’s outstretched arms. Maybe, Lola thought, as she held her daughter against her, feeling every place where Margaret’s body touched hers, kissing her again and again, there had been another moment in her life that matched this reunion with her daughter, both of them alive and safe. She couldn’t think of one.
Behind her, Pal’s words tumbled disjointed. “I’m so sorry. So sorry. I left you in there alone. But Margaret—”
Lola stopped her. “You did right.”
“I wanted to get the truck and go for help. But I was afraid if he heard me leaving, he’d—” Pal left unsaid whatever Skiff might have done. “Margaret. She was so good.” Pal’s voice broke. In the last twenty-four hours, she’d told Lola the worst thing that had happened to her, all in a droning monotone. Lola turned to face her. Pal’s teeth were sunk in her lip, blood wel
ling but the tears successfully held back.
“I be’d quiet,” Margaret said. “Bad man gone?”
“He’s not gone,” Lola said. “But he’s not going to hurt us.”
Margaret twitched experimentally. “Get down?”
If she put it in the form of a question rather than her usual demand, she wasn’t ready, Lola thought. Besides, she herself wasn’t ready to let go. “Not yet.”
Pal moved to where Margaret couldn’t see her face and mouthed a question. “Is he—?”
Lola shook her head. Pal looked toward the door, but stayed put. They were going to have to go back in there, Lola thought. Or, at least one of them was. They couldn’t leave Margaret alone on the porch. A halloo interrupted her thoughts. Margaret, looking over Lola’s shoulder toward the road, saw the source first. “Delbert!” she squealed. Her wriggling turned assertive. Lola opened her arms. Margaret flew down the porch steps and toward the man hitching up the road on his bad leg, a shotgun in his hand. He held the gun far to one side as Margaret reached him.
“Saw that big outfit of his go by,” Delbert gasped as he approached, his face pale with pain. He pointed with his chin toward Skiff’s silver truck, hard by the side of the house. “Couldn’t call. Tire’s flat. Got up here as fast as I could on foot. Shot three times, hoping you’d get the message.”
“I heard,” Lola said. But she’d ignored her own instincts when she’d heard the three shots sometimes used as a distress call. “I’m sorry,” she said, apologizing to herself as much as Delbert. Apologizing to all of them.
Delbert looked at Lola holding the remains of her clothing together, and unbuttoned his blue work shirt. “Here.” Lola turned her back and fastened it around her. Margaret took Delbert’s hand, leading him toward the porch. “Mommy? Where’s Bub? Where’s Jemalina?”
