Rosalia emitted a quiet giggle beside me.
My eyes slid to Lella and Irv and I saw their heads bent to their hands. They were playing thumb war, my daughter’s tiny fingers curled around her grandfather’s very not tiny fingers. I watched him let her win. I listened to her soft giggle. My eyes moved to my husband to see he was also watching, his face in profile but I could still see was soft.
Then I went back to pouring pumpkin stuff in the pie shell.
Lots of people, lots of mouths to feed.
I had to get my shit together so I could feed my family.
*
Just to explain and update a few things…
*
That day five years ago, Irv knew how to find me because Irv knew that hunting cabin. Every black man and woman in the tri-county are did. And they did because Arnold Fuller was what he was because his Daddy and Granddaddy taught him how to be that way. And, back in the day when they could get away with it, any black man who stepped outside of what the Fullers and their brethren felt was their place, Fuller’s Daddy, Granddaddy and their brethren took them to that cabin and taught them their place.
And Irv explained this to Ty and the police after he explained that a buddy of his who had the pastime of listening to police band radio called to let him know I was taken. He remembered that cabin, he knew Arnold Fuller, he figured he’d hold a nasty grudge and he knew, if Fuller did, he’d act on it.
Going to that cabin was a long shot but he took it and it turned out he was right.
He should have called the police.
He didn’t because he had a son to win and a score to settle.
It was a decision based solely on emotion which made it not wrong but also not right.
What it was, was understandable.
Like father, like son.
And in the end, he saved my life.
*
Three months after Fuller kidnapped me, my husband disappeared in the night and he didn’t come home until the early hours and when he did, he took a shower before coming to bed.
I didn’t ask.
He didn’t tell.
The next day at the salon, as it does, word spread that someone torched that hunting cabin in the night. Luckily, they doused all around with water so the flames didn’t spread and it was so old, it went up like a light and burned fast.
And then it was gone.
An ugly piece of history, up in smoke and generations to come would never know it existed at all.
It would be a long time later, at his pace, when Ty told me what he did and explained he wasn’t alone. Dewey, Tate, Deke, Wood, Pop, Shambles, Ned, Irv and Jim-Billy went with him.
So did Chace Keaton.
Yes, straight-arrow Chace Keaton.
Then again, Chace was a man in the business of righting wrongs, he’d put his ass out there to do it before so I guess it wasn’t surprising he’d do it again regardless of the methods he needed to use.
I thought the building might be gone but the ghosts probably remained.
I also thought those ghosts probably got a kick out of watching those men burn that shithole to the ground.
*
Ty talked to me, Tate talked to me, Chace talked to me, even Officer Frank popped by the house one afternoon to talk to me about shooting Arnold Fuller. They thought I’d freak considering the fact that I did at the hospital. Delayed reaction to Irv going down, me being kidnapped and me taking Arnie out.
I was fine.
Until one day, I wasn’t.
Driving home from the grocery store on my Monday off, I got the shakes.
And my hands on the steering wheel guided the Charger to Carnal Police Department. I walked on shaky legs inside and asked to talk to Detective Keaton.
He came right out.
He held me while I lost it in an interrogation room and when I say lost it, I mean I lost it. Then, when he calmed me, he got me Kleenex. Then he sent an officer out to get me a latte from La-La Land.
Then he sat with me while I drank it.
Then he followed me home to make sure I got there okay.
Then he went straight to the garage and told Ty what happened. He also explained to Ty that I didn’t go to him because I didn’t want him to see that, that last piece of me that Fuller took since Fuller took so much from Ty already.
From the time Chace left me to the time Ty got home, I was a nervous wreck. I thought he’d get pissed, thinking I’d gone behind his back, not liking that I shared that with another man. I was such a mess, I didn’t even phone him to attempt and detect his mood because, if he was going to lose it, I didn’t want it to come sooner rather than later.
But Ty didn’t get pissed.
He just came home from the gym as usual but did a thorough scan the minute he saw me. I knew he saw I was anxious and my anxiety had hit the red zone. But he just walked to me, wrapped his hand around the back of my head, gave me a kiss, touched my forehead with his and asked me to make him a shake. Then he went up to take a shower.
I made his shake and I did it grateful that he got it and didn’t get pissed.