“Jacob Riddle is so much older,” Lizzy says when the other girls turn to go. “You’ll probably be married long before the rest of us. And then won’t you have stories to tell.”
Caroline doesn’t move, not even after the café door opens and closes behind Lizzy Morris and her friends. As she waits for Caroline to do something, anything, Annie picks at her roll, the powdered sugar icing sticking to her fingers. She unwinds the roll until it no longer looks like a cinnamon roll should look but more like a shriveled strip of bark lying across her plate. When Mrs. May asks if something is wrong with the rolls, Annie says no ma’am and tries not to look Mrs. May in the eyes because it makes folks nervous.
Daddy is all the time saying folks most regret the things they don’t do. Mama is quick to disagree because once a thing is done, it can’t be undone, and she warns against forgetting that simple truth. Maybe both are right, but in this moment, staring down on the remnants of her cinnamon roll, Annie is regretting the thing she did not do. Most likely, Caroline loves Jacob Riddle. Not in a childish sort of way, but in the sort of way that will lead them to spend the rest of their lives having children together, making a home, one burying the other when the time comes. Annie ought not have used Jacob in the way she did.
Twenty minutes later, after the milk has warmed to room temperature and both rolls have turned cold and hard, Mama’s car rolls up outside, and she gives a short honk. Caroline stands first and walks from the café without once looking back at Annie.
Normally, Caroline would ride in the backseat since she got to ride next to Mama during the drive into town, but instead she walks to the front of the car. And normally, Annie would argue and insist she get her turn, but not today. Without giving Caroline a nasty look or making a fuss of any kind, Annie walks across the front of the car to sit behind Mama, and as she passes, she waves at Mama through the windshield, being more pleasant than she’d normally be because she’s trying to cover up Caroline’s sulking so Mama won’t ask what happened. But Mama doesn’t smile back, and she barely returns the wave. Annie steps up to the back door, grabs hold of the handle, and from this side of the car, she sees him. She sees the reason Mama didn’t smile and barely gave a wave.
“You really are as evil as everyone says you are,” Caroline whispers across the top of the car. “I’m glad you’re not my real sister.” Then she opens the door and climbs inside.
Annie stares at the empty space where Caroline had been standing. She’s playing it over in her mind, wondering if she heard Caroline correctly and yet knowing she did. As evil as everyone says you are.
A half block away, he’s still there, working a shovel into a mound of dirt at the side of the road. Ellis Baine. He’s the reason Mama didn’t return Annie’s wave and the reason she didn’t hear what Caroline said. Because of all the rain, the dirt he is working in has turned to mud. Even big as he is, he’s still slow with each shovelful he dumps as he refills the hole that’s been dug over his brother’s grave. Annie walks around the end of the car and starts down the street toward Ellis Baine.
? ? ?
TWICE IN THE past few weeks, as Daddy’s been sleeping on the sofa and not kissing Mama in the mornings or rubbing his stubble on the underside of her chin, Annie has seen Ellis Baine working up at his place. One of those days, she stood in the barn door, watching as he yanked out the wooden stakes meant to prop up his mama’s tomatoes and tossed them in a wheelbarrow. The thing Ellis Baine didn’t know as he yanked out those stakes was that Daddy hammered most of them into the ground. Even though Mrs. Baine showed up all too often, yelling for Mama to come out, which led Grandma to insist on fetching the sheriff, Daddy’s been the one seeing to Mrs. Baine all these years. When Ellis took a break that day after uprooting all those old plants, he stood and pulled the hat from his head. Annie waved, and he waved back.
Annie’s halfway to that hole and to Ellis Baine before the car door opens and Mama calls out to her.
“Annie,” Mama says. “Where you going? We have to get home.”
There’s the whine the handle makes on the passenger window, Caroline rolling down her window to see what Annie’s up to.
“You need help?” Annie says, stopping a dozen steps away.
Ellis Baine straightens and jams his shovel in the pile of mud. “The Holleran girl, yes?”
Annie nods, takes another few steps.