Flannery had talked Patsy into coming along with her to the Deer homestead, to that ol’ garden of forbidden fruit her parents warned them about.
They’d found some Easter lilies that had sprung up by the chimney blocks and brought them home to Mama.
Honey Bee asked where the pretty flowers came from, and when he found out, he puffed up in a fit of anger and lit both their little hineys with a switch, fired their backsides up so bad they had to carry pillows around to cushion their bottoms for three whole days.
Mama had been angrier, and that scared the girls most. Mama never showed an ugly side, ever. But on that day, her face took on a hardness, and her eyes flickered dangerously, Flannery remembered as if it happened just last week.
Mama had firmly shaken each of them, saying, “Don’t ever do that again.” Then she took those flowers straight out into the yard and poured kerosene onto their pretty, sunny heads and set them on fire. After, Mama cried and disappeared into her room for the rest of the day.
Flannery and Patsy cried too. Though they didn’t rightly know their entire wrongdoing and were confused. Patsy was so frightened she broke out in hives.
To this day, Flannery still wondered about those Easter lilies and why Honey Bee and Mama had acted that way, why they wouldn’t speak about it ever again.
Flannery turned away from those thoughts and those clumps of flowers. Once more, she looked down the road for signs of Hollis. Pulling the cardigan tighter to her chest, glancing at Honey Bee’s old wristwatch on her arm and then back down Ebenezer Road and doing it all again.
Several times, Flannery checked her jean pocket, patting. Nearly thirty minutes later than he’d said, he was stealing her time.
His crookery riled her, boiled in her blood. She knew Hollis was just as bad as her ex, always thieving time from her, nipping here and there until it was all spent. Flannery growled “robber” into the winds and tapped an angry foot on a thick tree root.
She couldn’t be gone too late. Mama might need her. Flannery had told Mrs. Taylor she was going out to stretch her legs while Mama napped, maybe take herself a walk to the barn and along the banks of the river.
“The fresh air’ll do you good, sweet pea. Take your time. I’ll take care of things in here.” Mrs. Taylor had happily shooed Flannery out of the kitchen, saying she would stay and put together a meal for them.
Flannery’d walked toward the barn and then, halfway there, cut through the trees, stealing away toward Ebenezer.
Just when Flannery thought he wouldn’t show, and a full hour had been chiseled from her lifetime, Flannery heard his car speeding down Ebenezer, flying gravel biting at the frame and its tires.
Hollis pulled in next to the cemetery gate, started to get out but left the engine running. He stood leaning against the open door with his left foot on the ground and the other propped on the running board.
“You’re late,” she said, annoyed.
He held up a hand. “Louise is expecting me home for dinner. I’ve had a rough day. I sure hope you’re not going to make it worse with more of your nonsense.”
“Depends,” she said, walking over to him. “I want to know about the fight you had with Danny and Patsy that night. Why you shot him. Shot him with my daddy’s gun.”
“Dammit, Flannery, that’s not true.” His jaw hardened.
“Isn’t it? You were packing that night.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know you owned a .38 just like what they said was used on Danny. The very gun your daddy pinched off my daddy for hush pay.”
“He never—”
“I know he did.”
Hollis tightened his mouth and sliced his hand through the air. “Your sister caused this mess. Damn well did, and now I’m left to clean it up.”
Flannery shook her head and poked a finger at him. “I’m going to the state police and you—”
He grabbed her wrist, pulled her to the door frame. “You need to stop this now. Stop railing about this old shit. You’ll have folks upset and talking—”
“Folks’ll know the truth.”
“It’d kill mine, for all you care. Ruin my job, ruin my life. Hell”—he grimaced—“nobody needs to be hurt, and nobody, ain’t nobody needs to know this old, ugly history. Now look, Flannery,” he wheedled, “you can have yourself a nice funeral and put Patsy to rest. Me and my dad’ll even pay—”
“Pay with Butler money.” Flannery gave a short, tight laugh.
“All those taxes he slapped on Honey Bee. He got rich off. Your family got fat from. I believe the Henrys could pay all of Glass Ferry’s funerals while you two are it. I was there when your thieving daddy stole Honey Bee’s gun after my daddy tried to protect us from a few river rats who were set on robbing—”
“Watch what you say. My dad’s not a thief. Everybody in town knows he’s an honorable, respectable retired lawman. And I don’t know a damn thing about that old stuff you’re trying to bring up. But you wanna run ’shine, you’re gonna pay. And Honey Bee wanted to run ’shine,” Hollis said, shrugging. “Them’s the rules. That’s the truth.”
“Honey Bee was a respected businessman with a license, and your daddy—”
Hollis turned and grabbed the car door, dismissing her. “Shut up and go home. You’re just trying to damn the whole town along with you and your mama with the likes of stuff nobody needs to know. Get on home, Flannery, or I’ll throw you in the pokey for disorderly conduct.”
A fear gripped her; memories of her ex having her locked in the insane asylum thumped hot into her eardrums. For a second she almost bolted. A crow cried from its perch on the elm, cawing twice, grounding her. She thought about Patsy’s fear, what might’ve driven her sister to bury those garments under the tree like that. Flannery cut a stony eye at Hollis.
“I need to know the whole truth, Hollis,” she said quietly, taking a breath.
“It won’t do anybody any good. Not now.”
“I know what you did to Patsy.”
“I cared for her.”
She lit her eyes to the old elm.
“Look, Flannery, we were just kids. All of us, dumb kids. Doing dumb stuff.”
“I have to do this, make this right. You have to do this. For me and Mama, for everybody.”
Hollis gritted his teeth. “It’ll surely do your mama in. My dear old dad, too.”
“Not knowing will do her in.” Flannery pulled out the bullet from her pocket and wagged it. “I found this prom night. Right over there by your dirty secrets.”
Hollis’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Th-that old bullet don’t prove a thing. Not a damn thing, peaches.”
“Unless this and that bullet in the Mercury match your snub nose. You shot him with my daddy’s old .38 that your daddy pinched from him. You shot Danny, didn’t you? It was you. Not Patsy. And I mean to safeguard Patsy’s memories. For Mama’s sake. My family’s.”
Flannery could see the truth tightening in Hollis’s cold, silent eyes. “I knew it,” she said. “The one and only question is, you going to tell? Or am I—”
“Dammit, it was an accident. Please, Flannery.” Hollis moved out from behind the car door and faced her. “I swear. Danny went for my gun, and it went off. She was trying to pin her bastard on me first, then Danny—”
“I don’t believe you—”
“It was an accident. She came on to me. Same as she cheated on Danny—”
“Liar!”
“Look here. Nobody killed anybody. Hell, I can’t even remember much of that night. Nothing but getting knocked out by them. Out cold. You saw, same as me. I was lying under the tree over there, coldcocked.”
“Then tell them everything. Tell them about Patsy—”
“Tell ’em WHAT?” he roared. “What? That she played me? Tell them I gave her what my little brother couldn’t? Right over there.” He snapped his arm to the elm. “Tell that the bastard she carried was mine—”
“You . . . you said it was Danny’s on prom night. Right here, you swore it.”
“I know’d it was mine. Saw the truth on her panties she buried,” he said weakly, rubbing his brow, like he suddenly remembered it all. “Shit, Flannery, I would’ve given the bastard my name—could’ve made an honest woman outta the moonshiner’s daugh—”