A Place to Call Home (22 page)

“I will! Hurry!”

I carefully set the receiver back on its berth. “Thank you, Mr. Sullivan.” My voice squeaked. “I’ll wait up at the road. Thanks.” I turned. Big Roan stared at me. Suddenly he raised his metal leg and propped the fake foot-shoe on the couch. As if his leg was one of those automatic arms that close off a railroad crossing when a train’s coming. He trapped me behind his side of the tracks.

“That was my boy on the phone, wadn’t it?” he asked in a low monotone. “You squealin’ for him to come get you.”

“I—well, I gotta go, Mr. Sullivan.”

“No, you stay the hell put. I wanna talk to you.” I stared at the way his pants leg hung on the metal limb as if there were nothing but a skeleton’s leg under there. “You better put your leg down, Mr. Sullivan.” I could barely breathe. “I don’t want to climb over it or something. I mean, I might bend it.”

He snorted. “Shit.” After that, he didn’t budge. Neither did I. We gazed at each other for what seemed like forever, him scrutinizing me with hard eyes like wet marbles, me trying very hard to appear unconcerned. I heard the baseball game on TV. I heard the blood throbbing against my eardrums. I counted silently as several minutes ticked by on a clock atop the TV. Finally he leaned forward and whispered, “You turned my boy against me.”

Ice in my veins. “No,” I whispered. “Nope. Sir. I don’t th-think so.”

“What’s so special about you?” He flung an arm out and plucked at the sleeve of my T-shirt. I flinched. His fingers twisted tighter in the material. “Too good to talk to me, ain’t you?”

“I’m talkin’. See? I’m talkin’. But I gotta go. Sir.”

“How’d you win him over, fluffy?” He fingered the hem of my sleeve between his thumb and forefinger. “You little pink-faced, redheaded busybody. You think you’re a pretty little thing, don’t you?”

Politeness wasn’t working. My head reeled from the closeness, the stink, the heat, the terror. I tried sternness. “You let go of my shirt. You put your leg down. Right now. Or I’ll … I’ll tell my daddy and he’ll come over here and knock the tar out of you.”

I was reduced to Daddy threats. But anybody with more sense than a stump knew better than to mess with Holt Maloney’s kids.

Big Roan’s eyes gleamed. He didn’t have gray eyes like Roan’s; his eyes were some washed-out color, hooded under puffy eyelids, like the eyes of an alligator submerged in muddy water. He jerked hard on my sleeve. “You ain’t no Daddy’s girl. You’re a little wet-tailed, ass-waggin’ bitch.” He raised his hand toward my hair.

I punched him in the face.

He bellowed in surprise and grabbed me with both hands. I screamed, kicking wildly, punching in every direction. Grunting and cursing, he dragged me across his thighs. I hit him in the face again, and he slapped me, hard, not just on the face but on the whole side of my head. I slammed into something. There were crashing sounds. I couldn’t see anything but stars for a second, I couldn’t think, I didn’t know where I was.

Then he had me by one arm and I was facedown on the cluttered floor, wedged between the furniture, with him on top of me, mashing the breath out of my lungs. I
squirmed furiously, listening to my own high-pitched shrieks. He twisted one of my arms behind me and something tore, something inside my shoulder, and the pain flooded me like a black wave. He jerked the wide straps of my overalls down my arms, he held me down, he pulled my overalls to my ankles. He grabbed me between the legs.

All I knew was that I had been snatched up in the jaws of a nightmare, that the monsters who lived under children’s beds and in their closets were real, and that nothing, nothing in my entire life, would ever be the same.

Then there were sounds, there was shouting, Roanie’s voice, guttural and wild, like a dog’s furious snarls. I don’t know what happened exactly. Thudding noises, violence, chaos. I was free, pulled free of the weight, Big Roan grunting, yelling, cursing, Roan’s hands on me, dragging me across the dirty floor.

I heard Big Roan bellow, “Goddamn shit, you raise a hand against me and I’ll—”

And then the gunshot.

It cleared my mind; it shocked the darkness out of my eyes. Moaning, crying, I rolled over and stared. Dear Jesus, dear Jesus, dear Jesus.

I had never seen a person with his brains blown out before.

Roan crawled to me on his hands and knees. I hurt all over. I passed out for a little while. When I came to, we were outside. Roan was hunched on his knees, bending over me. He held one of my hands. He was crying. “Claire,” he said. “Claire.”

That was the scene that God and Jesus and all the angels—none of whom were dependable, I decided then—looked down on: a nearly grown boy and a half-grown girl with bloody faces, huddled together in the lowest, darkest place in the world, scared and hurt.

Everything else was so quiet.

• • •

What happened during the rest of that day was mostly vague and distant to me—the effect of shock, I suppose—like watching a horror movie with one eye shut and my hands over my face. I had never seen Mama and Grandma Dottie in hysterics before. I had never seen Daddy cry from sheer rage. Hop and Evan had never been tearfully sweet to me before, either.

Roanie and I were taken to see Uncle Mallory. Our busted lips, my black eye, my sprained shoulder—I was numb to all the prodding and fixing until Mama and Grandma got me undressed down to my panties and it sank in that Uncle Mallory wanted to look between my legs for some reason. Then I burst into convulsive sobs and had to lie on his table wearing nothing but a paper sheet while Mama cried and held my good hand and he pried around where nobody but me had any right to pry.

When I was dressed again, doped up on some kind of medicine that made me feel fuzzy and limp, my right arm in a sling and my cut lip smeared with yellow antiseptic, Daddy carried me into the waiting room and there was Roanie, his eyes haunted and intense as he stared at me, his lower lip and scraped chin tinged with yellow, too. All I could manage to do was paw my good hand at him, desperately trying to reach him, but when he raised a hand toward mine, Daddy turned away. “Is she all right?” Roanie asked hoarsely.

“Yeah,” Daddy answered, but it was a tight word, not what Roan deserved. Daddy’s anger stuck in my drugged thoughts.

I was taken home and put to bed in Mama and Daddy’s room. Great-Gran had already been put in her bed. Grandmother Elizabeth sat with her and they drank peach brandy. Grandmother held Great-Gran’s hand.

Mr. Tobbler came to the house. “Damn white-trash Sullivan,” he told my folks, and he cried. Renfrew didn’t cry. She took over the kitchen and began to cook for the crowd.

Every relative within reach came as soon as they heard. And Cousin Vince showed up before long, and his deputies came, and other men in uniforms, men I didn’t know, and they took Roanie into the living room and shut the doors.

I kept trying to ask about him, but my tongue wouldn’t work. I sank into helpless, woozy, half-conscious sleep. “My little girl, my hurt little girl,” I heard Mama sobbing. “Everybody was right, Holt. Look what it’s come to.”

“She’s a trooper,” Daddy answered. “At least she wasn’t … Big Roan didn’t …” Daddy’s voice trailed off.

“He would have,” Mama said. “That must have been what he had in mind. Oh, my God.”

“But Roanie saved me, and he didn’t do anything wrong,” I mumbled over and over to everyone, until finally Grandpa, who had taken charge as calmly as anybody could, came upstairs and, realizing what terrified me, whispered, “Don’t worry, sweet pea, Roanie’s not going to jail. He did the right thing.”

Okay. Then we would just forget Big Roan, we’d get well and go on. Of course. I fell asleep.

“Where’s Roanie?” That was what I wanted to know when I woke up. It was after dark.

“He’s in his room,” Mama told me, smoothing my hair and looking as if she might start crying again at any second. “Hop and Evan are with him.”

“I want to go see him. I have to see him.”

“Not right now.”

“Why not?”

“Vince wants to talk to you,” Daddy said gruffly. “If you think you can do it. You don’t have to.”

“I don’t mind. Why are you mad at Roanie?”

“I—I’m just mad in general, honey. Because my little girl got hurt.”

“But Roanie didn’t do anything wrong! He came to help me. It was my fault.”

“Oh, honey, it wasn’t your fault at all. Don’t worry about Roanie right now.”

“When can I worry about him?” I was still fuzzy.

“Not ever again, if I can help it,” Mama said.

I thought that sounded promising.

Mama helped me put on a nightgown and my pink terry-cloth robe. She gave me a pill. I didn’t hurt at all. I felt quite happy, actually. Daddy carried me downstairs. All my aunts and uncles were there and some of my grown cousins. I remember the tearful faces, the strained, angry faces, the sympathetic faces. “Hi. I’m fine,” I announced with gauzy determination as we passed through the crowd in the hall. “Roanie’s fine, too. We’re fine.”

“Look at her eye,” Aunt Lucille moaned. “And her mouth. Oh, God.”

“There’s the result of associating with lowlifes,” Aunt Arnetta said loudly. “I told everybody nothing good would come of this. But oh, no, would anybody in this house listen to me?”

“Nobody’s arguing with you now,” Uncle Eldon growled.

I would have. But we went into the living room, and I couldn’t think fast enough.

I knew things were bad when I saw Uncle Ralph. If Uncle Ralph had come from Atlanta, we needed lawyer advice. He sat beside us on the couch and told me I was one brave cutie.

Daddy held me on his lap. I clutched Mama’s hand. Sheriff Vince sat across from us. He smiled at me and asked me to tell him exactly what had happened. I told him once. I told him again. He made notes.

“Roanie cried,” I blurted out desperately. “He cried because he had to shoot his daddy. I know he was sorry.”

“Now think hard,” Vince said. “What did you hear Big Roan yell before you heard the pistol go off?”

I had already repeated, “ ‘Goddamn shit, you raise a hand against me and I’ll—’ ” twice.

But it dawned on me what he was getting at and what I had to do for Roanie. I stared into space. I pretended to be in deep thought. Then, giving a large and dramatic gasp, I looked Vince straight in the eye. “Mr. Sullivan yelled, ‘Goddamn shit, if you turn on me I’ll
kill you
.’ ”

Two words. That was all I had to make up. Vince looked relieved. “You sure about that last part, Claire?”

I nodded fervently. “I forgot before. But now I’m sure.”

“There you go,” Uncle Ralph announced. “That settles it. There’s no question about the justification. That’s just added confirmation. Case closed.”

“Roanie can’t go to jail!” I yelled. “It wasn’t his fault!”

“Whoa, whoa,” Vince said. “It’s all right, Claire. We’re just getting all the details. He’s not in trouble.”

I exhaled shakily. “Promise?” I looked at Mama, at Daddy, at Uncle Ralph. “Promise?”

“I promise, cutie,” Uncle Ralph said.

“Everybody promises?”

“He’s not going to jail,” Daddy said, looking away. “Mama?”

“I promise,” she said, covering her face with one hand.

“Okay. Then I’ll go see him now.”

“No,” Mama said. “He needs to rest.”

Something was peculiar. I just couldn’t figure out what it was.

I lay in the dark beside Mama in her and Daddy’s big bed, staring owl-eyed at the wooden slats in the ceiling. I felt as if I were in a dream, the kind where a person can only think, not move or talk. My small, important lie had settled in my chest like a heavy acorn and I think Daddy and Mama suspected it.

Josh and Brady arrived from the university about midnight.
I heard the clocks chime twelve and the soft, deep song of their voices downstairs. They and Daddy and Grandpa Maloney went over to Uncle Bert’s farm to have some kind of powwow.

Roanie will absolutely stay here forever now, I thought as I fell asleep. Because Big Roan’s gone and Roanie did the right thing. And we’re fair.

I didn’t suspect it then, but fairness had nothing to do with it.

S
ullivan’s Hollow burned that night. Big Roan’s spattered blood and brains, his trailer, his garbage dump, his junk, his old truck, everything. Of course it wasn’t an accident. Daddy and my brothers and our relatives did it, but nobody said so.

The next morning Daddy trailered the farm’s bulldozer over there and pushed every speck of Big Roan Sullivan’s existence into the gully at the bottom of the Hollow and covered it over and planted some kudzu vines on top, which is about the most insulting thing a farmer can do to a piece of land. He tore down the mailbox and wiped out the driveway. He erased the Sullivan from Sullivan’s Hollow forever.

And he meant to erase Roanie, too.

But I didn’t know about all that until later on.

“Where’s Roanie?” I asked the next morning when Daddy carried me downstairs. It was just him and Mama at the kitchen table. The house felt too quiet, eerily quiet. And it wasn’t even morning, I discovered. I’d slept past lunch.

“He and Grandpa went up on Dunshinnog,” Daddy said. I watched the careful glances being exchanged.