Later, when most of the guests had left, Flannery found Patsy up in their room. She sat down on the bed where her sister was curled up, crying. “Hey, Patsy, come down to the barn with me. I think that old mama cat had her kittens a few weeks back. We can go find where she’s hidden them. Take them some scraps from the supper.”
Patsy shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “Can’t stand to go into Honey Bee’s place and not see him. He’s gone, Flannery. Gone! Who’ll care for us now? Who?” Patsy wailed.
“Honey Bee taught me how,” Flannery said, rubbing her sister’s shoulder, her last promise to Honey Bee taking hold, the worry sawing across her bones. How would she bear it all, now that Mama was wrapped in her own silent grief, Patsy coiling inside her own? Who would see to her?
“Our Honey Bee took good care of us,” Patsy whispered.
“I will too,” Flannery said solemnly.
Patsy looked at Flannery, doubt pricked across her brow, but a yearning to believe flickered in her eyes. Flannery sensed that Patsy wanted to be excused from her duty to her sister, the one that comes from obligation as the oldest.
“I always wished I was born after you,” Patsy said quietly.
“Then I’d be the prettiest.” Flannery tried to make light.
“I’m not as strong as you, Flannery. Like you and Honey Bee.”
“Only ’cause Mama says it.” Flannery brushed a curl away from her sister’s wet cheek. “You’re strong and pretty enough.”
“You and Honey Bee were so much alike. I can’t lose you.”
Flannery squeezed her hand. “Shh, I’m here.”
“You’ve always been braver. I wish . . . I—”
“Patsy, I’ll take good care of us.” At that moment Flannery knew. Saw a measure of relief in her twin’s red-rimmed eyes.
“A dear sister, one as good as any friend,” Patsy said. “You’ll always be my one and only.” Patsy pulled Flannery’s hand to her cheek, kissed it. “I love you, sister.” Patsy sighed, a relief in her breath.
“I love you too, sister. I’ll take care of us. Promise.” Flannery crawled into bed beside Patsy and held her until her twin cried herself to sleep.
It was still light when Flannery went into her parents’ room and found Mama asleep on the bed. “Mama.” She gently shook her shoulder.
Mama stirred, fluttered her grief-stricken eyes.
“Mama, I’m scared,” Flannery said. “Can I stay in here tonight? Please. I—”
“Go to your room. Your sister needs you,” Mama said, turning away and onto her side, a sob thickening her breath.
“She’s asleep. Mama, please. It’s only seven. I’m so lonely. I miss him so much. Can I just sit on the bed beside you for—”
“Don’t be selfish.” Mama’s words were strangling, biting.
Flannery went downstairs and sat by herself at the kitchen table. Neighbors and friends had cleaned up and put away dishes. After a few minutes, she snuck out with some fried meats and ran down to the barn. Inside, the feral mama cat slinked past her in the shadows. She watched it disappear behind a crate.
Needing to love and feel that in its wholeness and in absolute, Flannery followed.
She peeked behind the wooden box, dropping pieces of meat, and saw two orange-striped kittens and one calico. Flannery reached, and the mama cat arched her bony back, took a swipe at her hand, nabbing it with a long, blood-tracked scratch, before running away.
Flannery lifted out one of the kittens, then stole one of Honey Bee’s full whiskey bottles from a dusty, cluttered shelf and soaked herself good in the grief, wetting the tiny, mewing kitten with her tears, cuddling the small creature close to her trembling body.
Uncle Mary found Flannery and pulled her thirteen-year-old self out of the barn that evening and lit her tail with a switch all the way back to her porch.
Uncle Mary said, “Lord A’mighty, child, you’ve disgraced our dearly departed Honey Bee. You don’t gulp to a man’s life, you sip nice and neat with a prayerful toast or two for honor. And only when you’re grow’d up.” He switched her legs again. Once more. “And only for your papa. Ya hear me, child?” Uncle Mary carried Flannery into the house, dumped her onto the settee, and called to Mama.
That was all it took for Jean Butler to pack her grief, beg ol’ Uncle Mary to take on and buy the Butler whiskey business.
Flannery cried buckets for her dear Honey Bee to come back, pleading for another chance with the whiskey. Mama wouldn’t budge, but did let her keep Honey Bee’s old recipe books. And that was all.
Uncle Mary placed a weathered hand on Flannery’s shoulder and told her, “It will be waiting for you when you’re good an’ grow’d up, girl. Stay off the witch’s teat, and we’ll partner up in the end, and no charge to you.”
But that was all lost now, dead in the water. Age claimed Uncle Mary eight months later. The following week a businessman from Nashville bought the Butler distillery, the stills, the ferryboat, and moved it all downriver.
CHAPTER 10
Patsy
June, 1952
Hollis fell to his knees and slumped over in the dirt. He was out cold, the last light of day taking him prisoner, wrapping his backside with thick ropes of golden-green.
Patsy dropped the rock and ran to Danny. He sat crutching himself against the tree, moaning, wisps of whiskey breath in each cry. “The sonofabitch ruined our p-prom,” Danny said.
“Danny, shh . . . Oh, Danny, look at you. Where does it hurt? Show me where.”
Danny rolled his head, struggling to speak. “Here. Up here.” He held his hand high on his left arm, trying to stand. “Damn bullet got my arm. I think it shattered something, some bone too. Patsy, it hurts. All over.”
“Dear God,” she barely breathed.
Danny touched his crooked nose. “Bastard b-broke this too,” he said drunkenly. “Get me to a doctor, Patsy.”
“The hospital? The one off the Palisades—?” she asked, trying to pull him upright.
Danny grunted, “Yeah, County Hospital.” Danny limped over to the automobile, using Patsy as a crutch, and folded himself into the backseat. Empty liquor bottles scattered onto the floorboard. Danny looked up at her. “What he s-said? What he said, is it true, Patsy?”
“Shh, Danny, I told you, you’d be the first,” she answered and shut the back door. “Just look at you. We need to hurry now.”
“I—I just want the truth.”
“Hush, I said. Just hush now.” Jumping into the driver’s seat, she was relieved to see Hollis had left the keys. She pushed Hollis’s flask out of the way, shoving it over to the passenger side, and examined the dash, knobs, and the gearshift column.
Patsy had been driving, some here, a little there, on two-lane road spurts when Mama thought she and Flannery needed another lesson, or had an errand to run in town. Lately in Mama’s small old ’40s Ford Coupe with the hard-to-work clutch. And only a handful of times driving in the Palisades when Honey Bee began sneaking her lessons. She’d just turned thirteen, though that was their secret they’d left snagged to the pine boughs up there.
And sometimes when she and Danny rode home with Hollis after school, he’d pull over and let them take turns practicing for a stretch of mile or so in the Henry family’s Mercury with its new and fancy automatic, the automobile Sheriff Henry had turned over to his sons.
Patsy looked past her knees and downward, making sure a clutch hadn’t suddenly appeared. She poked her shoe around for the pedals, kicking a bottle under the seat, pumping the foot feed and brake, testing. Then she pulled out the knob for the headlights, though a smudge of daylight remained.
Scooting up close to the big, skinny steering wheel, she draped her left arm over it and turned the key with her right hand. The engine gave a tiny growl and went quiet. She tried again and only got clicks with the engine cranking but not catching. “Damn.” She pressed her head to the wheel, tried once more, furiously pumping the gas.
“Flooded it,” Danny said hoarsely. “Oh, damn . . . This hurts like hell, Patsy. Like a—oh damn, hurts like a sonofabitch!” He hollered out in pain, then quieted a moment. “G-give it a sec. Try again,” he said, drowsily this time.