I wince, the image of Philip coming into my head, the understanding that I’ll never, as long as I live, not be a criminal.
“You never planned on telling me the truth,” he says. “I figured that out the moment we made our deal. But I’d hoped that by now I would’ve gained your trust. I can see I’ve fallen short.”
He sighs and stands, taking his stool with him.
“But I do trust you,” I whisper when he’s gone. More than almost anybody, I’m realizing.
But not enough. Not when he still has all the power. Not when I’ve still got none.
Chapter 50
Constance never left my thoughts when I stayed at Jude’s cabin. The wedding preparations were surely going on uninterrupted; the porridge and meat pies already being made; the salves for their wedding night mixed in big stone bowls. If the place my hands used to be was a physical ache, images of what was going to happen to Constance formed a mental one. It would surely be weeks until the wedding, but the idea of their marriage made me want to push up from the couch and start running.
But for the first couple of weeks, I could barely move for the blinding pain and shaking in my limbs that made me sick, and I grew to miss the green liquid they had given me in the Community. Even then, even shivering and burning on Jude’s couch, I pictured how I’d sneak back into my family’s house, unbolt the door, and whisk Constance out of the maidenhood room to freedom.
I kept all this to myself, and I’m not sure why. There was still that deadness in Jude’s eyes, the strange energy that made him never sit still, constantly fetching more firewood until the room was always stifling hot, and the blood-covered couch made the air constantly smell of iron.
“They’re gonna follow the smoke, Jude,” I whispered. “The deacons.”
“Let them,” he muttered, putting more logs in the fire.
It was weeks before I could stand and move around a little, haltingly, with my bandaged stumps held stiffly in front of me. Jude gave me a pair of trousers and a button-up shirt that’d belonged to him, and outside, on a fair day when I was strong enough to stand, I watched as he stuffed my old dress through the top of a rusted-out oil drum and set fire to it. I imagined I could smell it, the wool, the blood, the fears that had seeped into the fabric over the course of years, the only thing to show for it a thread of smoke sewn through a white winter sky.
I stayed there through Christmas, a holiday I only vaguely knew about, the baby and the mother and God mixed together in a way that made my head hurt. We ate potatoes and boiled jerky and Twinkies, and they lit special beeswax candles and sang a couple of songs, though nobody’s heart was in it. Waylon sat in a straight-back chair to the side of the couch, eating from his dented metal plate with slow concentration. Jude and I stacked together on the couch, close to the fire. The house smelled like pine needles and skin.
“What do you do for Christmas?” Waylon asked out of nowhere.
“We don’t have Christmas,” I said after a moment. “But, in spring we celebrate the story of Chad and the Golden Bear. Chad is one of our heroes. He killed a bear who was terrorizing America and wove a crown from the fur.”
“That sounds ridiculous,” Waylon said.
“So does Christmas to Minnow,” Jude interrupted.
“Christmas ain’t ridiculous,” Waylon said.
“Would you shut up, Daddy?”
“It’s my duty to spell out wrong when I see it.”
Jude slammed his plate down on his knees. “Don’t you dare, Daddy,” Jude said. “Nobody wants to hear it.”
Waylon looked like he’d been struck. He opened his mouth to respond but Jude spoke first.
“I can tell you’re getting ready to tell Minnow she’s a sinner, tell her she’s damned, and get your Bible to thump at her, but I won’t let you.”
“You kept this girl secret all this time, doing who knows what in those woods, for years. Fornicating out of wedlock, for all I know. Ya’ll are sinners!” Waylon bellowed.
“Who hasn’t sinned, Daddy?” Jude said, shouting now. “You made me a sinner. You made me violate the most important commandment when I was too young to know better. You’re the worst sinner of anybody here. And I won’t sit by and listen to you tell me we’re damned because you’ll be damned before us, you old drunk!”
Waylon breathed in through his nose loudly. Jude’s limbs tensed, as though ready to spring up at any moment. In the fireplace, a log fell over and sent a spray of embers up the chimney. I watched a spark land on the couch and burn straight through to the stuffing.
“I—I know I done wrong by you,” Waylon muttered.
“Darn right you have,” Jude said.
“I know you deserved a better daddy than the one you got.”