Cavedweller (54 page)

“I’m glad I shot him.” Dede brandished her cigarette in the air and scowled at Cissy’s dismay. “Stupid son of a bitch. Thought he could treat me like that. Stupid son of a bitch.” Her voice was even, but loud, too loud, her gestures a bit too wide. Cissy could see that Dede knew the woman guard at the door was flinching every time she spoke.

“All my life seems like Nolan’s been trailing behind me. All my life those moon eyes following me. All that time I treated him like some dog in the yard, and he just dogged me harder. Swore he’d love me forever, but I knew. I knew when we started seeing each other, knew it would go bad. Man runs after a woman the way Nolan ran after me, he always got to get his own back. Comes the time, he’s going to make you pay.” She flicked ashes in the direction of the little aluminum ashtray, looking around as if she expected someone to nod and agree with her.

“So I’d been waiting for it to come. Knew it had to, that he was gonna do me bad somehow.” Her shoulders lifted and dropped. “That’s how it is. I’m no fool. I know how it works.”

Dede slumped in her chair, and Cissy wished she could take her hand. She had been told she was not to get up from the table and not under any circumstances to touch Dede. She had agreed readily, never imagining how hard it would be to see her sister looking so beaten down and not be able to reach for her. Her face must have shown what she was thinking, for Dede turned away, gritting her teeth.

“Damn! It was still more than I could stand!” She tilted her head and awkwardly brushed her cheek against her sleeve. “I mean, that little bitch! That Sheila! No damn beauty, and stupid besides. That he would use her. Fucking waitress that served me beer and onion rings, and he kisses her like that.”

Cissy leaned forward slightly. “Dede, he wasn’t—”

“The hell he wasn’t!” Dede thumped her elbows on the table. “He damn sure was! You think I don’t know?!”

“Dede, you are not making sense. Nolan never looked at Sheila. Most he ever did was go to Goober’s to eat, and she flirted with him the way she does with everybody. They weren’t doing nothing. She was just teasing him.”

“Don’t tell me that shit. Don’t tell me no lies. I know how it happens. He could have told her to get her butt out of there. Saying he loves me, then kissing that bitch. And I’ve seen her over at Biscuit World, hanging on his truck, swinging that butt of hers, and laughing out loud. I know what I know.” Dede’s hands were shaking. She kept thrusting her head forward and huddling down in her seat.

“This didn’t come out of nowhere,” she shouted. “He wanted to leave me, he could have told me to my face, not done me that way. Lie to me. Ask me to marry him and then lie to me!”

“He asked you to marry him?”

“Damn right he asked me!”

“Oh Lord! Is that what it was about? Damn it, Dede, if you know so much, how come you don’t know Nolan loves you?”

“Loves me?”

“Loves you.”

“If Nolan loved me right, this would have never happened. He loved me right, he would have let things alone. I told him to let it alone. You think about how I felt, believing him, trusting him, letting myself love him, and him to do me like that? I trusted him. I trusted him!” Dede’s face was white.

Cissy stared across the table in terrible comprehension. Delia Byrd’s daughter had done the one thing she had sworn never to do. Dede had put her life in the power of a man, and it did not matter that Nolan loved her.

Never mind the rules, Cissy thought, and reached across to take Dede’s hand. “He does love you,” she said, and ignored Dede’s grimace. “There he is, all shot up and trying to get you out. Says he won’t press charges. Says it was all his fault. If he had his way, I think he would be the one in jail.”

“He should be.” Dede pulled her hand free and shot a glance at the guard, who had not moved. She hugged her forearms in close to her midriff. “He should be,” she said again, this time in a whisper.

“Oh, Dede.” Cissy clasped her hands together to keep from reaching forward again. “You doing okay?” she asked just for something to say. “You need anything?” She could not help but look over at the guard. The woman’s face was stern, her eyes carefully focused on the far wall, but her cheeks were pink and her head was turned slightly so that she could hear every word they said.

“No, nothing.” Dede picked up the cigarette pack and dropped it back on the tabletop. “Delia was here with some stuff for me. We didn’t get to talk, but she brought me a whole carton of Marlboro 100s. Way it goes in here, I’m practically rich. They wouldn’t let me see her, though, ’cause they weren’t finished booking me. You should of heard her yell.”

She rubbed her cheek against her shoulder and reached up to pick a speck of tobacco off her lower lip. Cissy was glad they had taken those handcuffs off after Dede had come into the visiting room. That had been bad, seeing her led in with her wrists cuffed to her waist.

Dede darted a quick glance at the door. “So, how is he?” Her voice was low as if she were not sure she wanted to know.

When the guard shifted a little, Dede sat up straighter. “He dead yet?” she said in a loud drawl.

Cissy winced. “He’s all right. Delia’s with him. She’ll be back later. Said not to worry, that he an’t going to die.” Cissy heard her own voice, high and strained in the small room. How could you talk normally about such things in such a place? “You fucked him up, his leg anyway. Scraped the bone. Emmer’s going to pack him over to Atlanta for an orthopedic man. Amanda and Tacey are taking care of Nadine.” She hesitated a moment.

“Goddamn it, Dede. Why did you have to shoot him? You’re not crazy. I will not believe that. You had to know what you were doing. Why did you shoot him?”

Dede pulled another cigarette from the pack and stuck it between her lips without lighting it. “It was either shoot him or cut his throat. And, hell, I don’t know.” Her voice dropped a little. “I just shot all the bullets that were in the gun. An’t like it was no forty-four, just a damn little twenty-two. Bee stings. Just bee stings.” She looked away from Cissy. “And I didn’t aim worth a damn. It’s a wonder I hit him at all.”

“But you could have killed him. And we’re talking about Nolan, for God’s sake. You could have killed Nolan!”

“Naaa, I just wanted to hurt him. Make him pay attention. If he had loved me right, it wouldn’t never have happened.”

“Oh, Dede.”

“Well.” Dede lit the cigarette. “Well, you said he was going to be all right.”

“Yeah.” Cissy waited, but Dede said nothing more. The guard shifted again.

“He’s going to be all right,” Cissy said again, and saw Dede nod as she brought the cigarette to her lips. There was that slight trembling along her fingers, and a glitter in her eyes, but Cissy could see the stubbornness taking hold now.

“Yeah, sure. Damn son of a bitch. He better be all right.” Dede pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes once, hard, and turned in her seat to glare at the woman guard. “He better be.”

“I gave Dede’s address as the trailer park and listed Amanda as the person to contact after you.” Emmet handed Delia a little paper cup of water and sat down in the office chair in front of her. She blinked up at him blankly. “Thing is, Delia, there’s been a reporter here already.”

Delia swallowed two aspirin and shook her head. “What did he want? Where’s my girl?”

“What do they always want?” Emmet ignored the second question. His voice shook with anger. “They want a story, a scandal. Girl shoots lover, lover gets hauled off to hospital yelling ‘Don’t hurt her, she didn’t mean it.’ That’s their favorite kind of story. Redneck girls and foolish boys, reporters eat that stuff up.”

“I don’t care about that. I want to see my girl.”

“Delia, you should care. This blows up into a big story, it could be trouble.” Emmet clasped his hands together. He leaned in close to Delia. “You’ve done so good with those girls,” he said softly.

“Good!” Delia’s reaction was raw and bitter.

“Yes, good.” Emmet nodded emphatically. “You’ve had them to yourself all these years. You’ve shown them how much you love them. Reporters been turning up here ever since you come back, wanting to make you into a story, but M.T. and me and the people who care about you been keeping them away from you. Giving you that time.”

“You can’t handle people like that.” Delia was looking.at Emmet skeptically.

“Oh yes you can. If people help, you can. And Delia, you got a lot of people here willing to take a reporter in hand, buy him a drink or drink the ones he buys, talk to him for hours, and never tell him nothing. And you’ve been pretty boring, the way they look at it. Haven’t killed anybody or gone crazy or done much of anything. This could change all that. It’s just too good a story.”

“You can’t stop them,” Delia said.

“No,” Emmet agreed. “You been in the
National Enquirer
once or twice, and you get mentioned fairly often in
Rolling Stone,
specially since they put out that Mud Dog CD, but that was that old boy fell in love with M.T., and he never said where you lived.” He paused for a beat, then said, “You been safe, Delia.”

“I an’t felt safe.”

“Well, honey, you never would, would you?” Emmet’s smile was gentle. “You an’t the type.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Delia stood up and walked over to the office door. “Emmet, I just want to see her. You bring her to me.” She turned around and looked at him accusingly. “I don’t care about nothing else. Bring me my girl.”

“All right, all right.” Emmet rose slowly from his chair. “I’m telling you what I think you need to know. I care about you, Delia Byrd. You know that. I’d eat dirt for you, and you know that too.”

“I don’t want you to eat dirt. I want you to bring me my girl. Bring her up to me in this office.” Delia’s gaze was level. “And don’t you bring her in handcuffs. You know she an’t going to hurt nobody.”

Delia had thought it would be easier if she and Dede could sit together like two normal people, like mother and daughter, but when Emmet brought Dede in, it barely mattered that her hands were free, that the office had typewriters and chairs instead of bars and a guard. From the moment he opened the door, Delia’s heart began to pound like a train engine.

Dede looked terrible. She had refused to wash up or even to comb her hair, and she kept her hands clenched together as if she were still wearing the cuffs Delia had been so afraid to see. “Mama,” she said, and saw the expression that crossed Delia’s face then. “Delia,” she added quickly, but it was too late.

Dede went to Delia’s arms. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Delia hugged her girl fiercely, pulling Dede’s whole length in close. “It’s going to be all right.” She stroked Dede’s hair.

“Nolan? Cissy told me he was all right.” Dede started to say more, but Delia stopped her.

“He’s fine. He will be, anyway. He’ll be here as soon as he can make that doctor let him go.”

“I hurt him. Oh God, I could have killed him! I didn’t want to kill him.” Dede was shaking in Delia’s arms.

“No, no. I know, baby. It’s all right. Nolan is going to be fine. Don’t think about the rest of it, you just think about that. Nolan is going to be just fine, and you’re going to help take care of him. It will be all right, honey. I promise you. It will be all right.”

“I can’t take care of him!” Dede looked horrified. “I shot him. I can’t take care of him.”

Delia hugged Dede again and then held her at arm’s length. “Yes, you shot him. That’s why you will take care of him. You said you didn’t mean to do it. Are you telling me you don’t love him?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Seems to me Nolan should keep his distance. Hell, seems to me everybody should. I an’t no sane person. I’m crazy.”

“You an’t crazy. Maybe you went crazy for a minute. And maybe it would all make sense if you understood what was happening inside you.” Delia’s voice was a hoarse whisper, her face lined and intent. She took Dede’s hand in her own. “Listen to me. You been all torn up since Granddaddy Byrd died. I could see it, everybody could. We just didn’t know what to do. Closer you and Nolan got, the more messed up you got. What I think, honey, is you don’t know how to love Nolan. What I think is that the idea of him loving you scared you so bad you did go crazy, the kind of crazy that fights for its life the only way it knows how.”

Dede dropped her head and shook it from side to side wearily. Delia leaned in to her and caught her chin. “When did you ever see anybody in love and happy, huh? You grew up on Clint and all that craziness. And you grew up on me, didn’t you? You got every reason to be scared of love.” Her eyes held Dede’s.

“I don’t know,” Dede moaned. “I think I love Nolan, but it makes me feel like my heart is breaking to think about him. And every sweet thing he says to me, I start thinking he don’t mean it. Then I saw him with Sheila, and I knew it was a trick all along.” She shuddered. “Oh Lord, I thought he was just another boy wanted to wear my heart like a badge. The gun was in the car under the seat, that one that I got after Billy Tucker scared me. I don’t even remember going out for it. Seemed like I was watching him kiss her and then I was shooting. I said, ‘You want to marry me, huh?’ and he shouted, and I shot him.”