Chapter 44
Now
For a moment, everyone froze.
“Milly, grab it,” Frances yelled as she scrambled my way. I dove for the gun and scooped it up as Burt punched Ruth, knocking her to the ground. Bunny screamed, stumbling to her feet and toward Ruth’s side. Ruth didn’t move.
She’s out, I realized. He knocked her unconscious.
“Stop!” I yelled.
Burt would happily take everything from me. My sister. My aunts. Mama. I aimed the gun at his chest.
“Didn’t we already go through this? You’re not going to shoot me, so can we cut the shit already? We know how this ends. Give me the gun, so Frances and I can be on our way. This has gotten boring.”
Bunny cupped Aunt Ruth’s cheek. She glared at Burt. “You better hope she kills you.” Her voice cracked. “If she don’t, I can think of a few things worse than dying, and I’d love to teach you about them.”
“Oh, everyone listen to Hard-Times Barbie over here. I’m terrified. Truly.” Burt rolled his eyes, then said to Frances, “Come on, sweets. This is boring, it’s time to hit the road.” He smiled. “We can get ice cream if you want.”
“Shoot him,” Frances hissed at me. “Do it now.” Suddenly she was next to me. My sister’s body pressed against my side, same as she had when we were girls and she was nervous. Same as she had in the meadow, while Shane’s blood dried on our cheeks.
“Do it,” Frances whispered. “End this.”
Something touched my hand, and I flinched.
It was Frances. She wrapped her fingers over mine, both of us covering the trigger.
“Sister?” I asked.
She spoke softly. “I didn’t plan this. Not any of it. I’d never do what he’s saying. Not to Ruth or Bunny and especially not Aunt Hattie.” Her fingers tightened around mine. “The leaves never lie. If he doesn’t die, I will.” Her grip tightened around mine. “Let’s do it together.”
I don’t know if the yard went quiet, or if it was only my senses failing, but for a moment—an eternity—everything was silent.
Ruth lay motionless on the grass. Hattie-May’s chest barely rising.
Bunny crouching over Ruth, wide-eyed as she cupped her cheek and whispered.
Mama, pale and waxy from pain, her arm tied close to her torso with Bunny’s overshirt.
And Burt inching toward his truck.
I stared at my sister and she at me.
She has claws. She’s no one’s baby bird.
Frances had skipped grades as a child. She’d finished her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in record time.
She’d finished her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in record time.
She’d risen from our lot and blended seamlessly into one of the most celebrated families in Alabama.
She was smart and capable and cunning, yet I’d always pushed her into a box.
A girl who needed protecting. Maybe in a way Burt was right. She was so much more than that.
“Come on, Milly. With Burt gone, we can be sisters again.” Frances stood next to me, her hand covering my own.
Only. Something Burt said stuck in my head.
How did Burt know Frances was here and not at the motel? Last night, when we were planning, Frances had wanted Burt to come to Puddle Creek from the beginning. She hadn’t wanted to use poison.
And now, here we were in the front yard holding a gun.
I looked from the gun to my sister.
“Sister?” Frances looked at me.
My stomach clenched. Maybe for the first time, when I looked back at Frances, I really saw her. Burt was right. She was a stranger. A woman capable of great and terrible things.
Perhaps she hadn’t missed me. Perhaps Burt was telling the truth, and she needed someone to kill her husband. And she’d set out to make it happen. Had even called him and told him to come.
And so what?
Even if this was some kind of grand manipulation, did it change anything?
She may not be the breakable, delicate girl I’d known, but she was no monster either. Who she was—who she really was—was a woman always a step ahead who was good at getting what she wanted.
What she wanted now was out of this horrible, abusive marriage.
The gun had begun to grow heavy, sagging in our grip, but I lifted it, pointed it directly at Burt’s face.
My finger was ready to squeeze the trigger and end the life of a terrible man when a voice behind me spoke.
“Girls,” she rasped. “Give me the gun.”