“M’daddy killed ‘em,” Shannon said matter-of-factly as she entered the kitchen.
She walked past everyone and set her plate on the counter. Then she turned to face us sitting at the table, crossed her arms firmly over her busty chest. I made note of the hardening of her jaw and the threatening gleam in her eyes as she looked across at me and Thais.
“They came on our land,” Shannon began. “We fed ‘em, boiled water for their baths, gave ‘em a place to sleep. Then after a week they robbed us, held Aunt Emily at gunpoint and tried to make off with weapons, food, and our hospitality.” Her arms fell at her sides. She looked at her father with frustration, anger, and went back toward the kitchen exit. “So m’daddy shot ‘em.” She stopped underneath the archway and looked me dead in the eyes. “And if you’re here to hurt my family, or take anything from us, you best expect me to be the first one to come at you—and I ain’t afraid to blow a man’s brains against a wall. It wouldn’t be the first time.” Her tall, athletic figure disappeared around the corner.
Thais and I looked at one another in stunned silence.
“Don’ worry about my Shannon,” David spoke up. “Thing was, I knew those two were trouble—I could sense it”—his gnarly finger came up and tapped his temple—“I’m smart like that, can tell if yer bad people or not.”
“Then why did you let them stay here?” I asked.
“He let ‘em stay,” Emily said, “’cause David ‘ere always tries to see the good in people, to give ‘em a chance, y’know?” Her fork clanked against the glass plate as she rose into a stand. “He always knew my James was a bastard, but I never would listen to ‘im.”
Breakfast gave me more reason to believe these people were not dangerous. And before nightfall, late in the afternoon, I gave in enough to enjoy David’s conversation.
We sat outside on the porch for a long time, drinking. Trick, the family dog, came bounding across the yard toward us, a dead rabbit dangling from his slobbering jaws. He dropped the rabbit on the porch at David’s feet with a plop and sat still on his haunches until David gave the go-ahead signal, waving two fingers, and the dog snatched the treat off the porch railing and ate happily.
I wondered why the dog didn’t just keep the whole rabbit for himself instead of a much smaller piece of meat, but I decided that a dog was a dog, and loyalty and love made dogs—and people—do strange things sometimes.
THAIS
Inside the house I helped Emily with the dishes, and we went on about things that seemed insignificant in a world turned on its head: how nice the weather had been in Kentucky the past several days; we talked about canning jellies and preserving meat; Emily showed me her handmade quilts and the scarves and sweaters she had knitted before she ran out of yarn. I showed Emily—and Sour Shannon, who joined us for a while, even if only to keep her eye on me—how I could braid hair in unique ways. And I spoke in great length of my love for books and poetry and stories.
“Yes, I do know some poetry by heart,” I said, sitting in the living room with Emily and Shannon. “Sosie Fenwick was one of my favorite poets.” A tear nearly slipped from my eye, but I smiled instead, thinking of my sister.
And I recited one of Sosie’s poems, standing in the center of the room, my arms gesturing in a dramatic, graceful motion as I performed.
Emily, and even Shannon, watched me perform many other poems afterward, even a few of my own. I was shy at first, because poetry had always been Sosie’s thing.
And I told stories and we laughed and we sang—oh how I loved to sing.
ATTICUS
As I sat outside on the front porch with David, Thais’ angelic voice filled my ears. And broke my damn heart.
More every day I spent with her, I felt something new, yet familiar, something from so long ago that I had thought dead to me: hope.
Hallelujah…Hallelujah, she sang, and I felt my chest constrict and my hands tremble and a warm wave of what I could only describe as happiness raise every hair on my arms.
Hallelujah…
I forced her voice out of my ears, swallowed down the unwelcome emotion caused by it, and accepted reality.
A fire burned in the front yard; coils of thick black smoke rose from the brush pile where an old tire had been tossed; it had been burning for three hours and was finally dying down. I drank down my second homemade beer and set the empty mug on the porch beside my boots. I peered absently into the distance at the field that rose out against the darkening horizon, and glimpsed the mare we’d left at the barn, standing out in the open, her head lowered to the grass.
David also gazed into the field, but with a strange interest, I noticed right away.
“Is he usually back by now?” I asked, looking over at David in the chair next to me. “Lance? Is that his name?”
“Oh yeah,” David said, realizing. “I was wonderin’ ‘bout Lance. But he’ll be all right. Been gone longer before huntin’. Was worth it when he came back though—had an eight-point buck.”
The rusty hinges on the screen door squeaked as Rachel came out onto the porch. I caught her gaze as she stepped closer, and it turned her lips up at the corners. I looked away, intent on remaining a respectful guest and not taking advantage of the host’s daughter.
“How ‘bout bringin’ us another beer,” David told Rachel.
Rachel, standing so close now that I could smell the light perfume she wore, gave me all of her ambitious attention.
“Would you like more beer?”
“Sure,” I said, avoiding her eyes. “Thanks.”
Rachel bent over in front of me—I could see down her shirt—and she took the mug from beside my boot, bumping her arm against my leg. Then she went back into the house, her long, brown hair swishing behind her; the screen door slapped against the frame as if she were in a hurry.
I sensed David’s movement beside me as he leaned over, the lawn chair creaking underneath his weight. “Y’know, Rachel is available,” he said in a low voice.
I tensed.
“My sister has been tryin’ to get that girl a decent man since we found this place. She’s twenty-two”—he reached down and positioned his hands on his hips and made a vulgar gesture—“could carry lots o’babies with those hips; and she’s quite a looker, don’ ya agree?”
I went to take a drink from my mug as a distraction, until I realized the mug was no longer in my hand.
“Um, yeah she’s pretty.”
David raised back up. “Don’ get me wrong,” he said, “she’s my niece, and I’d never look at her that way myself, but she needs love as much as any of us”—he pointed at me and chuckled—“or jus’ a good time, if ya know I mean.”
Yeah…okay.
Rachel came back out onto the porch with two mugs of beer, handing David one first, and saving me for last. I couldn’t avert eye contact this time. She held onto my mug, dragging her fingers over the top of my hand as she slowly pulled away.
“Can I…talk to you for a minute?” Rachel asked.
I looked to and from her and David.