Chute took another drink, and she pushed his smoke back to him.
He waved it away and lightly patted her shoulder before stealing back into the kitchen, leaving his condolence with her.
She took one more drag, stamped it out with her dirty shoe, and headed toward home, wallowing, worrying how to explain she’d gotten fired.
Following the mile-long row of old plank-board fencing in Paintlick Field, Flannery made her way under a moonlit sky onto Ebenezer Road.
Flannery was so caught up in her own misery, naked-legged, and growing more miserable by the minute, she stumbled over Hollis’s crumpled body as she passed under the elm. She nearly screamed as her foot tripped over his.
“Hollis?” she cried out, and then squatted to get a closer look, wondering if he was passed out drunk, or what. When she glimpsed the dried blood on his head and face, she realized it was something more.
“Wake up, Hollis, wake up.” She shook his shoulder harder now, rocking him, his fat head rolling back and forth.
Hollis stirred some, grunted, and slowly came to. He raised his head, the moonlight washing cuts of light across his face.
Flannery moved closer and saw the blood in his matted hair. “What happened to you?” She leaned in further. “What the devil happened here, Hollis Henry? Where’s my sister? Where’s your brother?” She looked back over her shoulder.
Hollis pulled himself up to sit, propped his back against the tree, moaning, touching, then rubbing his head.
“Where’s Patsy?” she demanded, still glancing around, growing alarmed. “Hollis”—she shook his arm—“where is she? Where’s my sister? Is she okay? Where’s Danny?”
Hollis slowly pulled up his leg, rested an arm on his knee. “Fight. Had a fight with Danny. Then Patsy—” Hollis winced.
“What about Patsy?” Flannery smelled the booze on his soured breath. “What did you do to her?” She spotted the nylons she had thrown onto the dirt earlier. Her face warmed, and she snatched them up and stuffed them into her apron pocket.
“I didn’t do a damn thing. Danny landed a punch, and that bitch twin of yours must’ve got me from behind.” Hollis looked around slowly as if trying to remember how he had gotten there. He nudged his chin at a good-sized rock lying near where she knelt. “Probably with that damn rock.”
Flannery followed his eyes and saw the small bite of an old headstone.
“She got in a good lick to my head, same as Danny.” Hollis rubbed his glazed eyes, cradled his face, growling.
Flannery leaned over, picked up the rock, weighing it in her hand, pondering Hollis’s words. She frowned and tossed the stone away. “What happened here, Hollis? What’s going on?”
Hollis shouted, “Your twin is what’s going on! She got herself pregnant an’ caused all this.”
Flannery’s eyes grew wide. “What are you talking about, fool? Patsy pregnant? You’re not making any sense, Hollis Henry.” She studied him, not sure if he was suffering from one of those concussions folks got from bad spills, or if he was too soaked in the stink-drink to think straight.
“Patsy. Is. Pregnant,” he spit at her.
Flannery stood up, flared her nostrils. “That’s not true.” Patsy would never keep something that big from her. Flannery knew she wasn’t a floozy, same as her. Accusing her sister of something like that, why, it was the same as accusing Flannery.
“Sure as hell is,” Hollis said, trying to stand.
“Nuh-uh. I’d know if it were so—”
“You don’t know a damn thing, peaches. She was coming on to me, and here Danny accused me of trying to steal her when he caught her trying to cuddle up with me here.” Hollis jerked out his arm. “Right here under this damn tree.”
“I don’t believe it. She loves Danny.”
“Believe what you want, but she wasn’t acting it. She thought she could tease. Humph, the tramp done got herself knocked up with Danny’s baby.” Hollis pulled himself up, bent a little from the pain. “My head.”
“Your brain’s broke, Hollis Henry.”
“Oh, my head does hurt like the devil. Shit . . . Hurts . . . But I swear it, Flannery. I swear on my ma.” Hollis raised his hand to his heart. “Swear Patsy told us she was having his baby. And then those two said they were going to take off, split for good, run away together. They’re probably shacked up a hundred miles from here by now—what time is it?” Hollis looked around like he was trying to remember something.
“After eight.” Flannery thought about Chubby griping about Patsy missing work two days last week. Her sister had claimed a stomach ailment as her excuse. And for the missed days a few times before that, and always the stomach sickness, with Patsy insisting it was the female jitters. Patsy had thrown up just yesterday morning, calling it early prom nerves.
Flannery and Mama both knew about Patsy’s spells, about how she’d always been frailer than most her age. But this? Pregnant? None of it made sense.
Flannery burned, felt the smarting lick of Mama’s embarrassment, the disgrace that would come down on the Butler name.
Hollis said, “I tried to stop them, swear, but then Danny socked me in the jaw when I . . . uh, wouldn’t give him my keys. And Patsy snuck up behind me and—” Hollis pushed a lock of hair away from his eyes, interrupting himself. “Hey, Flannery. What the hell are you doing back this way anyway?”
“Chubby let me off when Junior showed up.” She brushed off the question with a quick half-truth. “A baby? Are you sure?”
Hollis studied her closely.
“Guess your daddy’s gonna need to hear about it,” she said quietly, looking down Ebenezer Road, frowning. “The whole stinkin’ town’ll hear about it too.” She cocked her head toward him. “Everyone fifty miles wide, even.”
“Dad probably doesn’t need to know everything.” Hollis lightly rubbed his hurt jaw, touched his head. “We can maybe skip that part, the part about the baby.”
“We don’t even know if it’s true,” she snapped.
“Maybe we don’t,” he said as if they were scheming together for some greater good. “But if those two don’t come back from the prom, do you want to risk letting everyone gossip about it? Side-talking ’bout big sister like that? The bastard that may or may not be coming?” Hollis poked a finger at her. “Want your mama fretting over that, too?”
She flinched. It would break Mama’s heart.
“Hey, peaches.” He touched her elbow. “Here’s a good idea. If they don’t come ’round to their senses, if they don’t come back in time, I’ll tell Dad those stupid kids stole the Mercury and lit out on their own when I stopped for a whizz. That those lovesick pups were running away to get hitched. That I tripped and fell trying to chase ’em to stop them. ’S’all.” He pointed to his sore head. “Or maybe I’ll tell the old folks, lil’ brother got ahold of a rock and socked me when I tried to talk some sense into them both.”
Flannery turned it over in her mind, taking a match to his words, wary of his plan hatched from liquored lips. “Danny sure has been asking for trouble lately.” She shot a blaming eye at Hollis. “Used to be a real nice fellow, and he’d hit the books pretty hard. But lately—” Flannery said.
“Pft,” Hollis said. “A man don’t need those kind of lesson books as long as he knows the ’portant ones. Those good ones like my very favorite, Under the Bleachers by Seymour Hiney,” Hollis chortled.
Flannery rolled her eyes. “You should know, Hollis Henry. Took you a while to learn ’em. Two years ‘a whiles’ stuck in Mrs. William’s first grade like that.”
“Damn straight.”
Flannery hoped Danny wouldn’t turn out like Hollis, but feared the younger brother already had. She’d have to have a good talk with Patsy one of these days.
Hollis squeezed her arm. “C’mon, peaches. No one will ever know—will ever need to know about all this—as long as you don’t tell. No one will know about the baby, about Patsy coming on to me like that. Just say so, that you’ll stick with me.”