His gaze and voice were steady as he spoke, and he saw she considered him in a way she’d never done before. She didn’t stare through him. Not this time. She didn’t look away, neither. All he’d ever wanted was for her to see him as he was, imperfect, but a man who loved her no matter what.
Butch, his voice a lament, replied, “I know exactly what you mean.”
Chapter 34
Rae Lynn
The sharp bite of winter was upon them, but she still went ahead and bought a small marble headstone and arranged to have it shipped to the little house under the pines. When she made the trip back to Harnett County again, this time she took Cornelia along, and in a strange twist, Butch helped them to place it, proper and all.
After it was done, he said, “You can come back, if you want. You know. Tend to it, and whatnot.”
She gave him a distrusting look. The house no longer held the same meaning for her as it had when Warren was alive, but she thought maybe this would help her in some way.
She said, “I’d only come every now and then, maybe leave some flowers, if that’s all right.”
Butch said, “Sure, sure. No problem.”
Rae Lynn pondered this while he returned her gaze with a bland one of his own. She chose to trust him.
Later on, in the truck, Cornelia said, “Maybe he’s changed? ”
Rae Lynn said, “Wonders never cease.”
Through long winter days, she and Cornelia did the outdoor work quickly and came back in to cook hearty meals in the kitchen. It was in mid-February they had an unexpected week of warmer weather, and the daffodils and forsythia went into an early bloom. Rae Lynn hadn’t been to Warren’s grave in months, so she cut some of the forsythia branches and daffodils and snipped off a lock of her hair, which had grown past her shoulders again.
She stuck her head in the back door and said, “I’m going to the old place!” as she’d come to call her previous home.
Sudie May was in the kitchen, “Okay.”
Cornelia was washing dishes and said, “Want me to come?”
Rae Lynn said, “Nah, I won’t be gone long. I’m only going to put some flowers out there.”
As she drove, she’d hoped for solitude and was dismayed to see Butch at the door as she pulled up. He disappeared back into the depths of the house, and relieved, she got out and went around the side of the house, toward the headstone. She stood a moment looking. Ida Neill Cobb’s stone and Warren’s were situated in the shade of the trees. She was about to set the flowers on Warren’s when Butch spoke from behind her. He was close. Too close.
“Ain’t nothing ever gonna be different for me, Rae Lynn.”
His proximity made her draw up.
“I ain’t gonna be here but a minute or so, and then I’m gone. Leave me be.”
“Like before. Just gone. I don’t think so. You owe me. Even more so now, after what I done for you.”
He grabbed her the way he had before, his arms like a vise while professing his love for her all over again. She reacted violently, struggling to break free, and somehow, in the chaos of the moment, she freed her arm and when she did, her elbow hit his nose. He let go of her so fast, she fell back, stumbled, and twisted her ankle.
“Damn it, Rae Lynn!” he hollered.
She felt stupid for trusting him. He’d only been pretending, biding his time till she was alone.
She said, “I don’t feel the same about you, Butch. I ain’t ever going to feel like that. I mean, is this what you want? Trying to force me to feel something for you I don’t?”
“It’s ’cause a him, ain’t it. That new feller.”
“He ain’t got nothing to do with it.”
“But . . . I bought this place on account a you.”
“Like I said before. I ain’t never given you one reason to do none of this.”
“I could change my mind, tell Eugene my version, you know.”
Furious, she said, “Go on ahead, but I think he’d find it mighty peculiar you bringing it up after all this time. Maybe he’d think you shot Warren. Matter a fact, maybe that’s what I’d tell him, and say you wanted this place all along.”
They glared at each other, his eyes glassy with pain and anger, hers unwavering, determined. After a few tense minutes, his body sagged, the fight seeping out of him like the blood dripping from his nose.
He pointed at her with a shaking, bloody hand and said, “It’s best you don’t never come back here.”
It was true. She thought it could have worked, this little arrangement, but she could see it wouldn’t. Facing the gravestone, her eyes traced Warren’s name, the dates. She took in the sunny yellow of the flowers against the white marble and committed it to memory.
She said, “I agree.”
As she hobbled off toward the truck, Butch yelled, “Not never again!”
She didn’t let on she’d heard him.
Back at the farmhouse, she was careful to walk as normal as she could into the kitchen, except she couldn’t get anything past Cornelia.
She said, “Were you just now limping?”
Rae Lynn waved a hand through the air in a dismissive gesture, reminiscent of Warren, and said, “I’m all right. I stumbled, turned my ankle.”
Del said, “They said you went to the old place this morning?”
She nodded, squirmed a bit, and Del opened his mouth, then closed it.
Then he said, “Was Butch Crandall around?”
“Yes.”
“Did he bother you?”
It was such a direct question, it caught Rae Lynn off guard. She first focused on the scene out the window, the pastures dotted with cows, the sky with not a cloud in it. She remembered how Butch acted, and it made her face go hot. She didn’t want to lie about it, she wanted to forget it.
Del gave Amos a look, while Sudie May pointed to a chair and said, “Sit.”
Rae Lynn said, “I’m fine, I’m fine!”
Cornelia said, “Um-hmm. You can’t hardly walk worth a lick.”
Del said, “Amos, want to go for a ride with me? I got to go into town and get something.”
Amos said, “Sure.”
The men left while Cornelia filled a tub with water, pouring in Epsom salts.
She said, “Stick your foot in that.”
Rae Lynn did as she was told, and a bit later, Cornelia rubbed turpentine on it and wrapped her ankle in strips of old sheets.
She said, “See now if you can’t walk a bit.”
Rae Lynn stood and took a step. “Better. Thank you.”
Del and Amos came back later on in the afternoon and when Del got out, he held a wood crate. In the back of the truck she thought she heard clucking. He brought the small crate to her as she sat on the porch, her foot propped on a stool.
He said, “I picked up some things for you.”
Puzzled, she pulled aside newspaper to find Ida Neill Cobb’s milk glass dinnerware. Shocked, she lifted her eyes to Del’s, and he winked.
Amos plopped into the chair beside her and said, “Funny how some find they can be reasonable with only a little persuasion, ain’t it right, Del?”
Del said, “Works every time. I got your laying hens too. I’m going back with the trailer to get the mule, while we’re cleaning house, so to speak.”
Rae Lynn hid her smile as she pressed a plate close to her chest, her chin touching the edge. It was like hugging an old friend. She rose from the chair and hobbled over to the truck to look at her hens.
She turned to the men and murmured, “Thank you, the both of you.”
*
In mid-spring that year, 1933, Del began working the longleaf on the back acreage behind the farmhouse. He’d told her how his granddaddy and his pap always wanted a turpentine farm. She had finally started talking to him some about Warren. Not much, but when certain things came up, she offered a little bit of information.
One evening in the kitchen as she was getting supper on the table, she said, “Me and Warren tried to run a small operation too.”
Del said, “Is that how you learned how about turpentining? ”
“Yes. We couldn’t never seem to get it going like Warren wanted, though. I could help you,” she offered.