“You seen the boy that day?” Ellis asks.
“He was with Juna and me. But it was early in the day. Had to be before Joseph Carl come along because the boy was with us. Juna, she was fine.” Abraham holds his hands out to the side. “I swear, Ellis. Juna and I, we had our place. We went there that day. Told the boy to wait for us.” And then, because Juna Crowley is Annie’s mama and Abraham thinks Annie will care most, he looks to her. “I loved her. Loved your Aunt Juna. Thought she’d be my wife one day. She didn’t want nobody knowing what we was up to. Most especially her daddy. She said he’d put an end to it right quick. We told the boy to wait. It was shady and nice there by the river. Told the boy to wait and mind his business. Don’t remember no deck of playing cards.”
Abraham has always talked about loving Aunt Juna and that his was the face she saw down in the well. Annie shifts on her knees, braces her hands on the ground. She wants to stand so she and Daddy can go home. She never knew Dale Crowley or Joseph Carl or any of these people, but now she knows Abraham is her real father. She wants Daddy to take her home and she’ll pour iced tea and Mama will start supper soon, probably something that won’t need to go in the oven because it’ll heat up the house and it’s so darn hot outside as it is. She wants to stand, tries to stand, but Daddy is pinning her against the rocks. The jagged edges bite into her right shoulder and knee. She looks up to say something, and she sees it. The gun is pointed at her now. Ellis Baine is staring down, and the slender tip is pointed at Annie.
They must all know. Daddy, Mama, and Grandma too. Once Annie started to sprout, they must have realized Abraham was her father. She should have seen it long before now. And it’s not just the height. Annie has Abraham’s square face too. Caroline has a delicate chin like Mama, and both have a face shaped much like the hearts Caroline is all the time drawing on her notebooks. More and more, Mama will cup Annie’s face on a Sunday morning when she’s dressed for church or when she’s fresh out of the tub and wrapped up in a towel, her hair still damp. She’ll rest a hand on Annie’s face and say striking, just striking. They must all know, Abraham included, that Abraham is Annie’s daddy.
“That ain’t all,” Ellis says again, still looking at Annie, directly into her black eyes. “You go on and tell.”
“I swear to God, Ellis,” Abraham says, dropping his head and shaking it side to side. “I don’t know nothing else. Juna sent me on my way soon as we was done. She didn’t like no one seeing us coming and going together. She and the boy, they was going back to work. Next thing I know, Abigail come to tell me Dale was gone and Juna’d been hurt. I swear to God, that’s all I know.”
“Christ in heaven, Ellis.” It’s Daddy. “Turn that thing away.”
Annie hugs her knees, the rocks still cutting into her shoulder and the back of her head.
Next, it’s Abraham. “Ellis, please. She ain’t got nothing to do with this.”
“Then you better tell right about now.” Ellis squeezes that one eye closed again. The one that is open does not move. It’s set on Annie. No matter which way Daddy moves or how closely he stands over Annie, that eye does not move.
It’s hard seeing through the tears. They pool in Annie’s eyes, spill onto her cheeks. They turn Ellis Baine into little more than a smear, and Abraham the same. Her nose runs, and her hair sticks to her neck and the sides of her face. She dips her head and swipes her eyes with the back of one hand. Off to the right, Abraham is sliding one foot toward Ellis and holding both hands out to the side as if to prove he doesn’t have any gun of his own.
“What else do you want to know, Ellis?” Abraham says. “Anything. I’ll tell you anything.”
Ellis looks down on Annie again, the gun still pointed at her. “You let them bury him like he was a crazy man. Let them bury him where he’d never find a moment’s rest.”
Annie shakes her head, though she knows Ellis isn’t talking to her.
“That’s not so,” Daddy says, his arms stretched out to the side to better protect Annie. “That ain’t what happened, Ellis. Joseph Carl ain’t buried there.”
Ellis pulls away from the gun, but that single eye and the barrel are still aimed at Annie.