“I didn’t want to do what I did,” she said. “I shouldn’ta had to. I didn’t need any of this,” she said, swinging her arm around. “A coat of paint isn’t gonna help me forget how you shut us out. Not gonna help her forget watching me—” She stopped, breathless, and closed her eyes. Was it any use explaining? “We don’t need your fair-weather friendship.” When she opened her eyes again they were all still there, solemn and sorry.
“For what it’s worth, sweetie,” Sugar Faye said. “I made good on my promise to you. We were a couple hundred strong that night, looking for Charlie. I raised hell until I had an army out there combing the pastures, knocking on doors. You never seen so many flashlights in one place.”
Kit hadn’t known that. The image of all those people banding together to help made her want to cry, but she couldn’t, not here. She wanted to hold on to this anger. It was hers.
“So you’ll listen to Sugar but not to me?” Kit said bitterly. “If you had helped me sooner, maybe I wouldn’t have had to do what I did.” They had wronged her so deeply, she couldn’t see how she could ever feel any different. “I’m sorry, but I’m through being where I’m not wanted.”
Sugar Faye looked pained. Doc swooped in and started muscling the crowd.
“This woman is exhausted. Let’s give her some room now, y’all. Let’s leave her be.” She waved her arms around, shooing them toward the door.
“Now hang on a sec, there, everybody stop!” Caleb emerged, pressing against the exiting throng. He was livid and blew a shrill whistle between his teeth. “Kit, you listen here.” He took off his hat and frisbeed it onto the kitchen table and stood so that he had Kit on his right, and a dozen or so people to his left, with the rest pressed around the house and crammed on the porch. Kit nearly smiled to see him, his cheeks flushed, a little wildflower in his buttonhole. He cleared his throat and wavered, for a moment, as if he were just now realizing he would have to deliver on the expectations he’d only now set.
“Now, Kit, we all”—he swooped his arm across the crowd—“we all owe you an apology. We did the unforgivable. We left you to search for your child, left you to reckon with a cruel and dangerous man, all on your own. Hell, some of us trusted him even more than we trusted you.” He cast a glance at Pastor Tom, who bowed his head in recognition.
“You’re right to hold a grudge. We can be a clannish and suspicious people, and we let you down.” A few people nodded as Caleb’s speech took on a preachy rhythm. Kit had never seen him this forceful. “And you never gave a rip what we thought.” At this he smiled and shook his head. “You couldn’t care less if the ladies talked about your haircut or your misbehaving daughter, you wouldn’t mind how many heads you turned. But some of us have been waiting for you to see that we are here for you. And you have to see here, Kit, that if you want the good you gotta get with the bad. We’re a family here, and family doesn’t get to sign out. Family stays. Family forgives.” A scattering of “that’s it!” and “uh-huh” and “preach!” issued from the listening crowd. Kit burned under this direct and public appeal. And she burned with a feeling so fond and wishful, she began to sweat and dabbed the moisture from her temples with her sleeve. And it wasn’t clear if it was fondness for Caleb or a reluctant closeness with these people gathered around her.
“Now we have come here to apologize to you and Charlie,” he said, reaching into Sugar Faye’s cooler, “to welcome you home, and to eat some goshdang pimento cheese.” He pulled out a stack of tea-size sandwiches with orange filling, slapped them on a paper plate, and set them down in front of Kit. He let his message hang a beat to sink in. “So, what do you say?”
Kit looked out at the faces smiling and urging her on. There was prim and pretty Beulah and Principal Fowler looking chastened; all she could see of Glennis was her beehive; and there were the two old widows who lived together, whose names escaped her, but whose wrinkled faces reminded her of Eleanor, powdery and kind. Eleanor. She wished her great-aunt were here now. Kit thought maybe Manny wouldn’t have gotten past the front door if Eleanor had been there. She imagined Eleanor would have smelled a rat, driven him out, and told everybody in town not to trust him. She’d have protected her family.
All at once, the anger rose, wrapped around her like a swarm of bees, and stung. And she shook her head as if she could shake herself free of this hurt and buried her face in the rough folds of her hands. She had a thousand reasons to hate these people, and only a handful of reasons not to. Her body ached, her heart throbbed, and she was tired, so tired she felt the labor of holding her eyes shut. She was tired of trying, tired of being wronged, tired of being disappointed in everyone and in herself.
Then, there was Charlie, two warm arms skimming her shoulders, squeezing her tight, and tighter. Strong arms. Arms like Kit’s, but free from scars. This child. This child was not doomed to roam. She had an address and enough to eat and she woke up in the same house every morning. She had neighbors who knew her name and family pictures on the wall. This child had a mother. This child was something special.
Tears dripped from her eyes and wet her hands and the bees dispersed. Her chest opened up and there arose in her a warm and grinding hunger, useful and good. She took a soft sandwich and passed it to Charlie, then another to Caleb and took one for herself. She ate it, salty and creamy with a pop of cayenne and a clear memory of the first day she came to this house fourteen years ago and ate this same sandwich at this table. There was a lightening in the room, a collective exhale, and people began filing in. Sugar dealt out paper plates, Doc served the sandwiches, and Charlie dispensed Dixie cups of hooch lemonade. When the house had filled up, people sat on the porch and in the beds of their trucks, on overturned buckets and crates and cross-legged on the grass. Kit was not ready to move among them, but she listened to them tell stories of how she had slain the dragon and saved the town, and how proud they were to know her.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Once she was able to walk on her own, Kit called Caleb to meet for coffee at the diner. He wore a pressed denim shirt and jeans, and his badge was hooked onto his pocket. Of course, he looked nicer than she did, she thought. And she had even tried to look half-decent by combing her hair and wearing her clean jeans. As she looked at Caleb, she noticed things she hadn’t seen before. A scar cutting through the honey blond hair of his eyebrows; a little chip in his front tooth; one deep dimple in his right cheek when he smiled, and he smiled broadly when he saw her. He seemed different in the way he carried himself, more confident, not so cautious. It made her less afraid of damaging him.
They sat down, and the new waitress, Sandy’s replacement, a cheerleader type with a high ponytail and a store-bought tan, brought them two coffees.
Caleb looked like he had a million things to say. “So, how are you?”
“How am I?” she said, feeling anxious all of a sudden. It was strange to be here on a date, at last, with this gentle man, who had waited years for her to give her heart freely. No lures, no manipulations, just the patience of a monk and a heart overflowing.