Chapter 46
Now
Bile rose in my throat as my knees wobbled, and I fell to the ground. I retched. A piercing whine filled my ears. Someone sank to the ground next to me and pulled me close.
My first thought was Frances. But it wasn’t her.
It was Mama.
Mama wrapped her good arm around me. Together, we stood and walked toward the porch. She’d abandoned the gun, and my sister pressed close to her other side. We left behind the body lying spread-eagle, missing most of his head.
Mama paused near Bunny, who crouched over Aunt Ruth, whose eyelids fluttered. That small movement on my aunt’s face released a knot that had gathered in my stomach.
“She’s alive,” I whispered. The idea of tough-as-nails Aunt Ruth not surviving was both unfathomable and terrifying.
Bunny nodded. “She’s out of it. I need to get her to a hospital.
” She looked to where Aunt Hattie was curled nearby, her eyes shut and face caught in a constant wince.
Someone—Bunny? Mama before she’d rescued us?
—had pulled her oxygen tank outside and looped the tube around her face.
“I need to get both of them to a doctor. And soon.”
Mama nodded gravely and tugged me and Frances toward the porch, where she deposited us next to each other in Bunny and Ruth’s rocking chairs.
She disappeared into the house and came back holding a bag of frozen peas.
She gave it to Bunny, who held it over Ruth’s swelling temple, then knelt next to Aunt Hattie.
“When I checked Hattie-May over,” Bunny said to Mama. “I couldn’t tell if anything was broken. There was a gash on the back of her head, but it’s stopped bleeding. And her breathing is shallow but steady.”
“And Ruthie?” Mama asked.
“She’s definitely got a concussion.” Bunny bit her lip, rare vulnerability flickering over her face. “Maybe worse. How about you? How are you holding up?”
“Never better,” Mama said. Her breaths were sharp and short and sweat dripped from her face. “Are you a nurse?” Mama asked Bunny. It hit me then that they’d never really met before. We’d spent hours together in the car, driving back from the motel, but they’d not had a personal conversation.
“Me?” Bunny said. “No. I run a strip club. I’ve seen my share of fights.” Bunny lifted the bag of peas and gently traced Ruth’s swollen face with her fingertip. She frowned.
As I watched everything unfold, my head felt disconnected from my body, like it was floating above me like a helium balloon.
“Let’s get them into your car. It’s low to the ground. It should be easiest,” Mama said to Bunny. “You take them to the hospital, next town over. Hell, even farther if you think there’s time. Don’t come back here for a while. Not until tomorrow at least.”
“Okay.” Bunny shook her head. “But what are we going to do? There’s a body in the yard missing half his head. I can’t let Ruth or Aunt Hattie get in trouble for that.”
“They won’t. That’s why you need to stay away for a bit,” Mama said. The two women locked eyes, watching each other for a silent moment.
Finally, Bunny gave her a knowing look. Mama cleared her throat. “Milly. Frances. Are you girls okay?”
“Yeah,” Frances said, at the same moment I replied, “No.”
Mama touched Aunt Hattie’s cheek once more, dropped a kiss on her forehead, then pushed to her feet and walked up the few steps onto the porch. She stood in front of me and Frances, her expression unreadable.
“What are we going to do?” I whispered, shock waning. Mama was right. Burt wasn’t a small-town nobody who could disappear unnoticed beneath the roots of Hattie-May’s mourning willow.
“Listen to me.” Mama stood, walking over and resting her good hand beneath my chin, lifting my gaze to meet her own. “You’re going to be fine.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about.”
She inhaled a shaky breath and nodded. “I’m going to be okay. I promise.”
“You can’t know that.”
Frances silently watched us. Burt had tried his damnedest to come between us—forcing us into his game, then shifting the blame to Frances.
He’d insisted this was what my sister wanted all along. Him dead and her hands clean. He’d said she was responsible for lots of deaths, including Blake’s and Andrea’s and Casey’s.
Now, without him twisting my thoughts, I realized it was crazy talk.
My sister—my baby bird—had done nothing but run away from an abusive man and listen to the leaves when they suggested there was only one way out.
Even if she called him and told him where to find her, it had been a means to this end.
“You two have to get out of here,” Mama insisted. “You’ll need to help Bunny get your aunts in the car for the hospital, then y’all can follow her out. You can’t be here when the police come.”
“What?” I asked. “We aren’t calling the police. We can figure this out.”
“No.” Mama shook her head. “I’d already decided before I even came over and took the gun that I wasn’t letting either of my girls lose their lives to that monster.”
“I don’t understand.” I shook my head.
“If you or Frances had been the one to squeeze the trigger, I wasn’t letting you take the blame. You deserve a real life. One that you want.”
“Mama,” I said. “So do you.”
“I know I do,” she whispered. “But sometimes, this is how it goes. Bad men create a violent world, and we’re punished for surviving in it.
But there’s no other way out of this. No jury will believe self-defense.
I emptied the clip from point blank range.
And if we hide his body, there’ll be an investigation.
Eventually, someone would be charged. Not to mention the other reasons we can’t have the police snooping around Hattie-May’s property looking for secrets.
” She sighed. “Having a clean-cut answer to why there’s a dead man in the yard is the only way we can control the situation, the only way I can keep you and Frances safe.
” She sighed and stared into the space between us.
“I hope Ruthie and Aunt Hattie aren’t dragged into it, but if they are, we’ll handle that trouble as it arises.
I won’t let anything bad happen to them. ”
Her words took me back to childhood, to the promises I’d made over and over again to my sister. I’d spent my childhood in the role of protector. I’d done a shit job at it.
Frances continued to stare over the yard.
“Mama, if you do this, there’s no coming back.”
“I know. I did a decade in prison for manslaughter. I’ll likely spend the remainder of my life there,” she said. “But what else is there? I’ve never been able to give you girls anything. But I can give you this. I wasn’t there for your past, but I can give you your future.”
“Can…” The word came out squeaky. I sniffed back tears. “Can I give you anything?”
Mama pressed her lips into a thin line and reached for my hand. I clasped it. “Will you read for me?”