Daddy grabs Annie’s arm and yanks her toward him. She cries out from it hurting so bad. She stumbles and trips, falling at Daddy’s feet.
“What’s he done to you?” he shouts down into her face.
Ellis Baine lunges in Annie’s direction, but as quick as he makes that move, he backs off. Like he did in the Hollerans’ kitchen, he holds his hands out to the side.
“Just staking tomatoes,” he says, backing away. “I’ll go. No need to haul the girl around like that.”
Daddy yanks Annie back to her feet, and she can’t help but cry out again.
“You get home.”
Daddy pushes Annie behind him, and Abraham is there. He grabs on where Daddy let go. Big as his hands are, he doesn’t pinch her the way Daddy did.
By the time Annie gets herself righted and has peeled Abraham’s hand off her arm, Ellis Baine has reached his porch. They stand watching him, all three of them, until Ellis disappears inside.
“Don’t you ever come here again,” Daddy says without looking back at Annie.
“Take it easy, John,” Abraham says.
“You understand me?”
Still Daddy won’t look at Annie.
“Asked you a question,” he says.
There’s something in the way Daddy is talking to Annie, something in the tone of his voice, the way he looked at her, squatted down at the tomatoes, that shames Annie. He’s never shamed her before, never been afraid of her black eyes or treated her like she has bygones to be sorry for. But just now, Daddy is disgusted by her, and that’s a thing she never thought he would be.
“I know you think Mama loves him,” Annie says.
Daddy swings around. He doesn’t mean to, surely doesn’t mean to, but he reaches out with one hand and strikes Annie across the face. It’s like a whip cracking down on her cheek. The sting of it shoots up into her eye and down into her lower jaw. Abraham grabs at her again, yanks her backward, putting himself between her and Daddy, and presses one of his hands in the center of Daddy’s chest.
The most frightening thing happens next. For the first time, Daddy doesn’t know what to do. He always knows what to do. He knows how to tighten the faucet so it doesn’t drip all night long and drive Grandma into a rage. He knows how to take a screwdriver to the top hinge so the bathroom door won’t stick and just when to head inside to avoid the rain. But bending to pick up the hat that flew off his head, dropping to his knees instead of standing, Daddy doesn’t know what to do next.
“She didn’t love him,” Annie says, stepping from behind Abraham and not covering over the sting on her cheek with the palm of her hand even though she wants to. It would be like reminding Daddy he drank too much whiskey and wasn’t there at the well when they found Mrs. Baine.
“Regret,” Annie says. “That’s what he said. Ellis Baine said it’s not love Mama’s feeling; it’s regret. What’s she regretting, Daddy?”
“Ah, Jesus, Annie,” Daddy says. “Jesus, I’m sorry.”
Annie stands in front of Daddy, not saying anything more. He’s kneeling on the ground, sitting back on his thighs. He’s catching his breath, that’s what Grandma would say. Sometimes a person needs to catch his breath. Annie takes Daddy’s hat from his hand and is brushing the dirt from its brim when a movement of some kind makes her lift her eyes. It’s Ellis Baine, and he’s coming this way again.
He’s walking different than before. He’s taking long steps, his heavy boots giving the soft turned-over ground a beating. He’s looking straight ahead, not quite at Annie, not quite at Daddy, but instead at Abraham Pace. And Ellis Baine is carrying something in one hand. It hangs at his side, down along one leg. He’s carrying a shotgun.
? ? ?
ABRAHAM MUST HAVE seen Ellis Baine coming before Annie did. He could have shouted out, could have warned them, but he said nothing. Instead, he is waving a hand in Annie’s direction. Miss Watson is walking toward the fence, and Abraham is waving at her, wants her to get away.
“What is it, Abe?” Miss Watson calls out. She hoists the hem of her skirt and teeters on the heels of her fine dress shoes. She is supposed to be shopping for something new and something blue with Mama and Grandma. “What’s wrong? You were meant to meet me in town.”
Turning her eyes back to Ellis Baine, Annie reaches down and touches Daddy on the shoulder so he’ll look too. And then Annie is stumbling again and falling and being shoved toward the fence. Her hands and knees hit the ground. She skids, falling flat, rocks cutting into the side of her face. She scrambles forward, not quite on hands and knees, not quite sliding on her belly. Daddy keeps pushing at her from behind.
“Go on back down to the house,” Abraham shouts out again.
“Come on with me, Abe,” Miss Watson says. She must not see the gun hanging at Ellis’s side, and she’ll not see Annie pressed up against the fence. “You promised you’d meet me.”