by Sala, Sharon
Linny saw the blood running from her father’s lip, and she took a deep breath. As long as Bren was here, nothing bad could happen.
“Did you find the aloe?” Brendan asked.
She handed it to him and then slipped beneath her mother’s arm.
“I’m okay, baby. The coffee was hot. It was just an accident,” Delle said.
Anson picked up the toast he’d dropped and tossed it in the trash, swiped the blood off his lip with the back of his hand, and pointed at his daughter.
“Make me some more toast, girl.”
Linny flinched.
Delle tightened her grip on Linny’s shoulders.
“Make it your damn self,” Delle said.
Linny spun out from under her mother’s grasp, grabbed the other piece of toast from the toaster, and thrust it into her father’s hand.
He grabbed her by her ponytail, yanking her head back just enough that she was forced to look at his face.
“You don’t feed your daddy leftovers,” he snapped.
Linny knew Daddy burned Mama. Her anger made her brave.
“It’s not leftover, Daddy. I never took a bite,” she said calmly.
“Turn loose of her now,” Brendan said.
Anson looked up. Brendan’s hand was only inches from the knife-filled butcher block. It was time to deflate this before it got dirty. He laughed and released his grasp.
“Son-of-a-bitch, ya’ll. Calm down. Everything’s cool. Like your mama said, it was an accident.”
He winked at Belinda and then took a great big bite out of the middle of the toast, chewing loudly as he left the kitchen.
Brendan spun to face his mother.
“Why do you stay with that bastard?”
Delle’s voice was just above a whisper.
“He’s my husband. I took a vow to—”
“He took the same vows and he’s broken every one of them, which damn sure nullifies yours,” Brendan snapped. “You and Linny can come live with me. I have plenty of room and the apartment is air-conditioned.”
Delle’s shoulders slumped. “If we did, he wouldn’t let it go. None of us would ever know peace. He wouldn’t leave you alone until he hurt you, son.”
Linny was shaking as she slipped back beneath her mother’s arm.
“I’ll watch out for her, Bren,” she said.
“You’re supposed to be playing and being a happy little girl, not standing guard against Anson Poe.”
Delle frowned. “Hush, Brendan. Do not bad-mouth your father in front of me.”
“I’m twenty-six years old, LaDelle, not twelve, and Anson might have supplied the sperm that made me, but he is not, nor ever has been, any kind of father. Now stop talking, get your feet out of the sink, and let me have a look.”
“Do not call me LaDelle,” she muttered. “I am your Mama.”
“It got your attention now, didn’t it? Let me see your feet, please.”
She moaned as he turned off the water. He began patting her feet dry and frowned. Water-filled blisters were already forming.
He upended the bottle of aloe and carefully squeezed the cool gel on both of her feet, then wrapped them in the oldest, softest dishtowels he could find.
“That’s the best I can do,” Brendan said. “Linny, go get Mama’s purse.”
“What for?” Delle asked as Linny ran out of the room.
“You’re going to the hospital.”
She panicked. “No, no, I can’t go. I’m making gumbo.”
“It can finish cooking on the back of the stove,” Brendan muttered.
“But Anson—”
Brendan’s eyes narrowed sharply, and in that moment, Delle shut her mouth. One Poe could be as hard as another.
Linny came back with the purse, only steps ahead of her father.
“What the fuck do you all think you’re doing?” he yelled, as he strode into the kitchen.
Brendan pulled the cloth back from one of Delle’s feet.
The sight actually left him speechless.
Brendan wrapped it back up and picked his mother up in his arms.
“Linny, get the door,” he said.
Anson reached for his daughter. “She stays with me.”
“Like hell. Linny, get the door,” Brendan repeated, then turned his back on Anson.
Anson was furious. “Boy, you overstep your bounds! That’s my wife and my daughter and this is my house. You don’t—”
Brendan pulled the door shut behind him and all but ran toward the SUV, half expecting to hear gunshots.
He heard vehicles approaching as he was loading Delle into the backseat and looked up. His brothers had just arrived. They pulled in beside him and parked.
Samuel Poe had just turned thirty and was Anson’s firstborn. Chance was twenty-eight, only two years older than Brendan.
“What’s going on?” Sam asked as he got out.
Chance tugged at Linny’s ponytail just hard enough to make her squeal, then tweaked her nose.
“Anson poured hot coffee on Mama’s feet,” Brendan said.
Sam frowned. “The hell you say.” He saw the pain on her face and the wrappings on her feet. He flushed a dark, angry red. “I’m sorry, Mama.”
Delle was scared of what was going to happen to her when no one else was around and kept trying to smooth it over.
“It’s okay, Sam. I’ll—”
“It’s not okay, Mama. It’ll never be okay,” Brendan snapped.
Chance leaned in to give his mother a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Sorry, Mama.”
Delle’s fingers were trembling from the pain as she patted his cheek.
“Linny! Get in the car,” Brendan said.
“Where are you taking her?” Sam asked.
“To the hospital and then to my place to get well. After that, it’s Mama’s call what she does. If she wants to come back, I’ll bring her myself. If she doesn’t, that’s fine, too. Just know that I’ll put a gun to his head and shoot him myself before this happens again. I’m done with him. He’s a mad dog someone needs to put down.”
“Are you taking Linny, too? He won’t like that,” Sam said.
Brendan looked at his brother in disbelief. “So, your suggestion would be to leave her here alone with him? Seriously?”
Sam looked away.
Brendan got in the car and drove away.
They stood watching him go, somewhat in awe of his defiance. They had less trouble with Anson than most people, only because they never balked or argued. All their lives it had been Brendan, the little brother, who would not bend to Anson’s will.
“Boy, he’s done it this time,” Sam muttered and glanced at his brother for confirmation.
Chance shrugged. The war between Brendan and their father was nothing new.
They heard the screen door squeak.
Anson strode out of the house, slamming the door shut behind him.
They saw his swollen, bloody lip and could tell by the length of his stride that he was pissed. Since neither of them was ready to die, they looked away.
“What do you need us to do first?” Sam asked.
Anson pointed toward the packing shed. “Start weighing up Riordan’s order. He’s coming in early to get ahead of the weather.”
“How much time do we have?” Chance asked.
“He’ll be here by 2:00 p.m.”
“Then we better get busy,” Sam said and headed for the shed.
There was a secret room beneath the floor of the old stable that had once been a stop on the Underground Railroad. Back then, they’d hidden runaway slaves. Now, it was where they stashed the dried and bundled pot.
Satisfied his two older sons were on board, Anson looked up the driveway at the slowly settling dust. There would come a time when he and Brendan would come face to face on a subject that couldn’t be ignored. When that happened, one of them would wind up dead, and he didn’t plan on it being him.
****
LaDelle cried all the way to New O
rleans. Her skin was cold and clammy and she couldn’t stop shaking. Shock had set in.
Linny was in the front seat sobbing in concert. Witnessing her mother’s misery was more than she could bear.
Brendan drove as fast as he dared until he hit the city limits, then was forced to slow down. By the time he wheeled up to the emergency room entrance at the Touro Infirmary on Foucher Street, Delle was shaking so hard she couldn’t speak.
Brendan slid to a stop.
“We’re here, Mama. Hang on.”
He jumped out, lifted her out of the back seat, and carried her inside.
“I need help,” Brendan said. “My mother has been burned.”
An orderly appeared with a wheelchair, but Brendan shook his head.
“I’ll carry her. Just tell me where to go.”
The orderly led the way through double doors into ER, then into an empty room. Two nurses followed them in as Brendan laid Delle down on the bed.
“Oh my God, oh Jesus,” Delle moaned, as the nurses began to unwrap the white cloths from around her feet.
Brendan’s hand was on her shoulder. He was angry and so sick at heart he wanted to weep, but he had to stay calm, both for her and for his sister.
“Her name is LaDelle Poe. She’s allergic to codeine. All I did was run cold water on the burns. That’s aloe gel on her skin and the cloths were clean.”
“Good job,” the nurse said.
Brendan grabbed his little sister by the hand.
“Linny, stay right here with Mama,” he said. “I have to go move the car.”
The little girl was wide-eyed and tearless as she moved up to stand beside the bed. She laid her hand on her mother’s arm to let her know she was there.
“Brendan, don’t go,” Delle cried.
“I’m not leaving you. I’ll be right back,” he said and left with a hasty stride.
He parked the car in the first empty space he came to and ran all the way back. He could hear her screaming as he entered the building, but upon entering her room, he was relieved by the progress being made.
They already had an IV in her arm and were now cautiously cleaning her feet. He slid a hand across his sister’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze to let her know he was back.
The doctor working on Delle glanced up.
“Are you family?”
“Her son.”
“How did this happen?” the doctor asked.
“Hot coffee spill,” Brendan said.
“These are second-degree burns on the tops of her feet and between her toes and first-degree burns on the bottoms.”
“What happens next?” he asked.
“After we clean them properly, we’ll apply antibiotic ointment and wrap them lightly. I recommended hospitalization for a day or two, but she has refused. I’ll give you instructions on how to care for her at home, including pain meds. She’ll need to see a doctor regularly to have the burns tended and rewrapped, and she’ll need to stay off her feet.”
Brendan frowned. “Mama, if he thinks you need to stay, maybe you should—”
“I won’t stay,” she said.
He recognized that tone of voice and said no more.
“Will she be alone?” the doctor asked.
Even though she was overwhelmed by the sight of her mother in so much pain, Linny stepped up.
“I’ll be there,” she said.
The doctor smiled at her. “Good girl.”
“You’re both staying with me,” Brendan said.
Linny slumped from the relief of knowing she wouldn’t have to face her father alone.
A nurse walked into the room and caught Brendan’s eye.
“Sir, they need you to fill out some papers at the reception desk. If you’ll get that done, we’ll have her ready to go by the time you get back.”
Chapter Two
It was nearly noon by the time Brendan got to his apartment. They rode the elevator up with Delle in his arms. Her hair was damp and stuck to the side of her face from the heat, and the fabric of her little blue shift was as limp as a rag. Her cheek rested against the side of his chest, her face streaked from the tears she’d shed.
Linny ran ahead with the key and had the door wide open as he carried her inside.
For Delle, everything was something of a blur. The painkillers they’d given her were momentarily easing the pain, but the adrenaline crash had left her weak. When the cool air from the air conditioning inside the apartment hit her, she sighed with relief.
“Oh my, but that cool air feels good. I wish we had air conditioning at home.”
“I wish you did, too, Mama,” Brendan said softly and kissed her forehead as he carried her to the spare bedroom.
Her sigh was loud and heartfelt as he laid her on the bed.
“This feels so good,” she whispered, and within moments, she drifted off to sleep, clutching an edge of the comforter as her anchor.
Brendan put a light cover over her legs, and then he slipped out of the room with his sister at his heels.
There was still a bit of kudzu vine caught in her hair and a smudge on her tank top. Her eyes were brimming with unshed tears, her chin quivering. Now that the drama was over, she was left with hard facts. Daddy had hurt Mama bad enough this time to send her to the doctor. He’d never done that before. She didn’t know how it would impact her fate, but she sensed it wasn’t good.
Still, she took comfort in the sight of her brother’s broad, strong back as he walked down the hall in front of her. Sir Brendan, her knight in shining armor had rescued them both today, but he didn’t live with them anymore. She shivered. What would happen to them when they went back?
Unaware of Linny’s panic, he led the way into the kitchen and then the pantry, revealing cans of tuna, soup, vegetables, and boxes of quick-fix foods.
“I have stuff for sandwiches and cans of soup. You pick out the soup, and I’ll make sandwiches, okay?”
She leaned against the wall, watching as he began lining the counter with lunchmeat, bread, and mayo. His long fingers were like Mama’s, she thought, able to do hold big loads and able to do lots of stuff at once. Daddy’s hands were stubby. He had a pretty face but ugly hands. She wondered if Daddy knew that. Maybe that’s what made him so mean. It must take ugly hands to do ugly things to people.
“Do you have to go to work later?” Linny asked.
“I don’t work until dark, remember?” Brendan said.
“Yes. You’re the bumper at The Black Garter bar.”
He grinned. “I’m the bouncer, not the bumper, but sometimes it’s all the same thing.”
She turned to the business of picking out soup, then a short while later began setting the table, coveting the rooster and hen salt and pepper shakers and wishing they had a set like that at home.
She could smell the vegetable beef soup heating on the stove and thought of the crawfish gumbo Mama had been making. Her gumbo would have been better, but nothing was better than being with Brendan.
The calm ended with a knock at the door.
Linny gave her brother a frantic look.
“Is that Daddy?”
“It better not be,” Brendan muttered and wiped his hands as he headed for the door.
It wasn’t Anson.
The blonde barely came up to the third button down on his shirt, but despite her fragile appearance, she was very strong and agile. He knew because she’d stripped him more than once of all his clothes while he stood motionless beneath her gaze. It was his Juliette of the sexy smile and dark brown eyes, who just happened to be his neighbor two doors down.
“Hey, Bren. I smelled soup and knew you weren’t sleep—” When a little girl walked into her line of vision, she took a step back. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know your family was—”
He looked over his shoulder and saw the confusion on his sister’s face.
“Come in, Julie. It’s time you met them,” he said and took her by the hand. “Linny, come meet my neighbor. Her name is Juliett
e March, but you can call her Julie. Julie, this is my favorite sister, Belinda Poe, but we call her Linny. As you’ll notice, she’s almost as tall as you are and she’s only nine.”
Linny wasn’t sure if she liked knowing there was another girl in her brother’s life and frowned.
“I have to be your favorite ‘cause I’m your only sister, Bren.”
Julie could tell the little girl didn’t like the competition and quickly put her at ease.
“Men! Can’t live with them. Can’t live without them,” she said and rolled her eyes as she offered to shake Linny’s hand.
Linny smiled in spite of herself. “That’s what Mama says, too.”
“Hey. No fair. I can’t have all my favorite women ganging up on me now,” Brendan said.
Linny got the message. Brendan had a girlfriend.
“Mama got burned,” Linny said.
“Oh no! Is she in the hospital?” Julie asked.
“She’s here,” Brendan said. “They’re both staying here for a while. At least until she’s better.”
“What happened?”
When Linny sidled up beside Brendan and then ducked under his arm to lean against him, Julie guessed it was something traumatic, and she’d heard enough from Brendan to know his father was bad news.
“Anson poured hot coffee on Mama’s bare feet,” he said.
“Oh my God! Why? No, wait, I shouldn’t have—”
“He doesn’t need a reason,” Brendan muttered. “Linny, go see if Mama is awake. The food is ready.”
She ran out of the room.
Julie shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Let it go,” Brendan said and pulled her into his arms. “I’ll just say this day hasn’t started off well, and I’ve come to the realization that one day I’ll have to fucking kill my worthless father.”
Julie wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face against his chest.
“No. No, you won’t, Brendan Poe. You might want to, but you won’t.”
He fisted his hands in her hair, thankful for the comfort of her presence.
“Stay and eat with us,” he said. “Mama will want to meet you.”
“I don’t know… Meeting strangers when you’re sick or in pain is never good. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Check the soup for me, will you? Oh, and get another bowl and plate. I’ll go see if she’s up to eating.”
