The men begin pressing forward again, no longer caring to give Juna and me our place of honor. They shout about justice and repentance and the rights of all. The men from the newspapers wave their notepads. They wanted to see a woman sheriff pull that lever. It’s damn well why they’ve traveled so far. Children are tossed from their fathers’ shoulders. Mothers press kerchiefs to their mouths, grab their children by their hands, and pull them toward home. They’re realizing Joseph Carl has been dead for hours. He was dead when they awoke, and yet their children are still hungry, their houses still cold, their shelves still empty. He’s been dead for hours, and yet nothing is good again.
I wonder if these folks, like me, will start to fear they’ve been wrong all along. Have they remembered the man Joseph Carl was, the man they knew to take his mama by the arm and open the door for her and remove his hat before walking into church? And are they figuring that baby inside Juna might have taken hold weeks, maybe months, before Joseph Carl set a foot back inside Kentucky? Will they start to fear Joseph Carl didn’t really kill Dale, and will they wonder who did?
The crowd continues to press toward the gallows. Juna and I bounce against each other, shoulder to shoulder. She is pushed one way. I am pushed the other. The jackets fall from our shoulders and are trampled. We link hands and try to hold on.
18
1952—ANNIE
FOR TWO WEEKS, Daddy has slept downstairs. The first night, he slept in a kitchen chair, his feet propped on the radiator, while Abraham continued sleeping it off on the sofa. Daddy had shook his head as he and Mama hauled Abraham out of his truck and helped him into the house. Annie had walked Grandma inside, and once in the kitchen, Grandma hugged Annie, held her face with two hands even though her palms were tore up from the fall, and made Annie promise to never do such a foolish thing again. Mama and Daddy laid Abraham out on the sofa and took off his hat and boots. When they were done, Daddy dropped down on the chair where he would sleep.
In the morning, with Abraham still snoring behind them, Daddy and Mama kissed, but over the next few days, Daddy twice caught Mama staring up at the Baines’ place. At first, Daddy stopped talking much. Annie thought he was still angry with her for making Grandma fall, but then Daddy saw Mama looking out the window a third time, and he stopped kissing her in the morning and has slept downstairs ever since.
Mrs. Baine was buried next to her husband in the cemetery across from the church. Though no Holleran attended the service, Abraham and Miss Watson went and said three of the Baine brothers were there, Ellis Baine included. The ladies served jam cake and coffee in the church basement when it was over, and while the other two boys, men now, left town, Ellis stayed. He has spent every day clearing the land that has gone to seed, yanking up the woody tomato plants, hammering nails and patching holes. Daddy has made more trips than usual to the tobacco barn. He had to keep an eye on the lavender he said. Nights have turned damp, more damp than he’d expected, and it wouldn’t do to let mold get a foothold.
“You ain’t moving my day, are you?” Grandma said, afraid her lavender wouldn’t be ready for the fourth Sunday in June, which is the date she had been telling all the ladies at church.
“No, Mama,” Daddy had said. “I ain’t changing nothing.”
The nights have been no damper than every other year. Daddy just needed an excuse to keep watch over Ellis Baine.
And while the nights have been damp, as damp as usual, the days have brought sun and so the lavender has continued to ripen and turn a deeper shade of purple. Grandma sews her sachets every night, always making sure not to favor her right hand, which took the worst of her fall. She’s been doing her best, particularly in the first few days after her accident, not to walk with a limp or rub her sore hip. Whenever Mama and Daddy ask how she’s feeling, she acts like she doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Why, I already forgot about that fall.
As fast as Grandma sews the sachets, Annie stuffs them. It’s a good job for her because it doesn’t take much thinking. She still stays up late most nights, watching for Aunt Juna, though she hasn’t snuck out of the house again. Each night, as she watches for the faint orange glow, she imagines Ellis Baine doing the same. That was him up there, looking for Aunt Juna, same as Annie, though whatever his reasons, they’ll be entirely different.