Chapter 3 #2
“Don’t even start,” he hissed. “You lost all footing with me. You’re already lying again.
I heard what you were saying. You can lie to everyone else until you’re blue in the face, but you can’t sell that to me, so don’t even try.
Your daughter is in her room. If you so much as look cross-eyed at her, or say anything about her outing you for what you did, you’ll think a year of parole is a vacation compared to what I’d do to you.
Divorcing me won’t get you custody of her either, because you’re a convicted felon.
On parole. So, stop spinning lies. Get off your high horse and feed our daughter before you get so drunk you forget she exists.
I need to get back to work, and your child needs to be fed. ”
Mariah promptly turned on the whine and the tears. “But Roger, I…”
The phone rang, startling them both. “I’ll get it,” he said, and pushed past her.
“Hello? Yes, I’ll be there shortly. See you there,” he said, hung up the phone, and went to get bread out of the breadbox.
“I’ll take my sandwich to go,” he said, and got lunch meat and fixings out of the refrigerator, slapped ham and cheese and lettuce on his sandwich, and wrapped it in a paper towel.
“You make Briar cry while I’m gone, and I’ll give you something to cry about when I get home. ” And then he was gone.
Mariah was stunned. Roger was not the assertive kind. It was part of why she’d married him—because she knew she could manipulate him to get anything she wanted. It appeared those days were gone. She had no working skills and did not want to go back to Savannah and live with her parents again.
Momentarily defeated, she got out two plates, made sandwiches for herself and Briar, then went upstairs to let her know lunch was ready.
Briar bounced down the stairs ahead of her mother, took a seat at the table, and waited. As soon as Mariah sat, she started to say the blessing, then couldn’t bring herself to pray. Not today. She was on multiple shit lists right now and didn’t want to chance making the Good Lord mad at her too.
“Briar, would you like to say the blessing?” she asked.
Briar’s eyes widened in surprise. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, and bowed her head. “Thank you, Lord, for keeping Mama out of jail. Thank you for my sandwich, and thank you for my best friend, Tate. Amen.”
Mariah gritted her teeth to keep from popping off about her daughter’s prayer choices then took a bite of her sandwich instead.
She chewed, swallowed, and then glanced at Briar, making sure she wasn’t chewing with her mouth open.
Realizing she hadn’t gotten them anything to drink, she filled a glass with milk for Briar, then topped off her glass of wine and took a sip.
“I guess Daddy told you the good news that I don’t have to go to jail?”
Briar swallowed the bite she was chewing and then answered. “No, Tate told me first thing when Daddy took me to their house so I wouldn’t cry anymore.”
Mariah blinked. “But I hadn’t had my hearing then. We had to wait for the judge.”
Briar shrugged. “Tate doesn’t need for people to tell him stuff.
He already knows. We played hide-and-seek, and he has a tire swing in his backyard and big shade trees.
We had so much fun. Tate’s mama gave us juice and a cookie apiece.
She sat on the back porch with us. Then Daddy came to take me home. ”
Mariah choked on her own spit and took another sip of wine after she caught her breath.
“We aren’t allowed to go to Tate’s house anymore. The judge said so,” Mariah said.
Briar looked up with a slight frown on her face. There was a slight milk mustache on her upper lip and a tiny smear of mayo at the corner of her mouth.
“No, Mama. You’re not allowed. But me and Daddy aren’t in jail with you. Tate said.”
Mariah frowned back. “Tate’s not the boss of you.”
“No, he’s not my boss. He’s just my friend, and Daddy said I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not in trouble.”
The mere mention of Roger was all it took. Mariah took another bite, and they ate the rest of their meal in silence. As soon as they were finished, Briar wiped her mouth and hands, then started running toward the back door.
“You stay in the backyard,” Mariah cautioned.
“I will,” Briar said, letting the back screen door slam behind her as she exited the house.
Mariah carried their dirty dishes to the sink, rinsed them, and then left them sitting and took her glass of wine to the verandah to keep an eye on Briar.
The summer day was hot. It was her third glass of wine.
Soon after she emptied the glass, she fell asleep.
As she slept, the sky began to cloud over, and the wind began to shift.
When the first drops of rain began to fall, Briar hot-footed it back inside the house, and soon afterward, the first loud clap of thunder woke Mariah.
She sat up, disoriented and in shock that Briar was nowhere in sight, and ran inside calling her name.
“Briar! Briar! Where are you?” And then she heard the tinny sound of cartoon voices on the television in the living room and hurried into the room.
“There you are! Why didn’t you tell me you came inside? I got worried when I couldn’t see you.”
Briar glanced up. “You fell asleep for a long time while I was swinging. You get mad when I wake you up. Don’t worry, Mama. I know how to take good care of myself.”
A wild gust of wind blew rain against the west windows, making Mariah’s heart skip.
“The windows!” she cried and took off upstairs to make sure all of the bedroom windows were shut, then came flying back downstairs, retrieved her empty wineglass from the wicker table on the verandah, and went back inside. All that was hers was safe inside now, out of the storm.
She glanced at the clock, thinking Roger would be home in a couple of hours and she hadn’t even started supper, then went to her room to fix her windblown hair.
After a quick brush and a fresh swipe of lipstick, she moved to the full-length mirror for a once-over and liked what she was seeing.
A tall, slender body. Breasts still holding up—with the help of a good foundation garment.
Her mama always said she looked like a movie star.
Good features. Wavy hair with a tint of auburn, thanks to her hairdresser.
But she could see the beginnings of creases at the corners of her eyes, and between her eyebrows. She needed to remember not to frown.
Rain splattered against the window, reminding her of the downpour.
Her daughter understood way more about her situation than she would have liked, and she was wishing Tate Bandy had never been born as she left the room and headed for the deep freeze to see what she had on hand to make a meal.
Tonight was not the night to come up short on Roger’s expectations.
* * *
The carpenters who’d been rebuilding the Holy Waters Church had finally finished the project, and this coming Sunday it was being dedicated.
The members who were still in the area were excited to have their church back, and anxious to meet their new pastor.
They were celebrating with a covered-dish dinner at the church after the services—all except Abel and Lilith Bandy.
They’d been through the wringer with those people and weren’t about to give them another chance to target their son.
Roger and Mariah were hoping that bringing Briar back to church would shift her focus away from the Bandy boy to people more suited to their social status and beliefs.
And Mariah had already planned to stand before the congregation and beg forgiveness for the harm she’d caused, rededicate herself to the church, and hope the congregation would absolve her of the guilt of what she’d done.
When Sunday came around, the members of the Holy Water Church went up the mountain, and when they came down hours later, renewed in their faith and their bellies full, Mariah Lowe’s plan had worked.
The Bandy family’s absence was accepted without comment, while Mariah’s invitations to social circles had been renewed and the sympathy they had felt for Lilith Bandy was swiftly fading.
But if asked, Lilith would have assured them all exactly what she’d told Mariah, Delores, and Jeanette.
She didn’t feel left out. She wanted nothing to do with any of them.
In her opinion, they were full of dark thoughts and hate, and there wasn’t a woman in Star Ridge that she’d ever called friend.
And since the assault and her brush with death, her antipathy for the residents in this town was deep and real.
But as Mariah had regained her footing in her social circle, what the Lowes had hoped for most didn’t happen. Passing time had done nothing but strengthen the bond between their daughter and Tate Bandy.
* * *
By the time Tate was eleven years old, he was almost as tall as his mother and turning into a heartbreaker. Girls began noticing how handsome he was becoming, but they were fighting a losing battle trying to drive a wedge between him and Briar, and he no longer made any attempt to hide who he was.
It wasn’t uncommon for people to come knocking at the Bandy house to ask if Tate could help them, and sometimes it was people from school.
But with every passing year, he became more aware, instinctively knowing the difference between helping and abetting.
In those instances, he just told them straight out that they were asking the wrong questions, and all he had were right answers.
He wasn’t allowed at Briar’s house, but if invited, he would not have set foot in the place where Mariah Lowe lived and breathed.
Briar defied her parents at every turn when it came to Tate. As long as they were in school, they were together every day. Time and their growing maturity had forever solidified their bond.
* * *
The second day of January.
Six years later.