Chapter 45
Now
Mama.
Mama, who had been thrown to the ground. Who’s arm was mangled, but had been silently watching. She now stood next to us. Bunny’s shirt bundled her injured left arm close to her body, and her right hand was outstretched.
“Y’all don’t have to do this,” she said.
I snuck a look over my shoulder.
The sun was now directly overhead and shined brightly, catching the silver in her blond hair. Hair like Frances’s.
“You can give me the gun. He’s an Anderson. If you kill him, somebody has to pay for it. He’s not one of Aunt Hattie-May’s pests.”
“Listen to your mama,” Burt sneered, but his tone once again teased playfulness. “Y’all know what’ll happen if you kill me. Prison might be an upgrade for Milly, but, Frances, there are no bamboo sheets or facial Fridays in the cellblock.”
I’d wanted a way out of this. Because, to my great shame, Burt was right about me. I didn’t have it in me. Not anymore. If I had, wouldn’t I have pulled the trigger by now?
And here was Mama, hurting and weary and offering me a life raft.
“Give me the gun,” Mama repeated. “We’ll figure this out. You girls can’t give your futures to this man.”
“No.” Frances’s voice rose. “We have to—”
“Frances,” I said. “Please. I…I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t,” she said. She blinked and bit her bottom lip, then, defeated, her hand fell away from mine.
I placed the gun in Mama’s good hand. And maybe I did feel like a failure, but I mostly felt relieved.
Burt laughed.
He laughed until tears sprang to his eyes and slid down his cheeks.
“Good.” Mama took the gun and held it at her side. “He hit you? Often?”
Frances nodded.
Before anyone could realize what was happening, Mama slid her mangled arm from the makeshift sling, crying out in pain as she racked the pistol.
She took three steps toward Burt, until she could’ve reached out and touched him, and emptied the clip into his head.
He fell to the ground, his laughter still aloft in the air.
I’d never seen human brains before, and I hoped I never did again.