“I’m not. I can get it.” Annie dropped down on her knees, lifted the skirt, and peered into the darkness. “Found it!” She scooted herself under the sofa then reappeared with dust bunnies stuck to the front of her shirt.
“Oh dear,” Ida said, “I guess my housekeeping leaves a lot to be desired, but with Bill being sick for so long…”
The way her words trailed off made Suzanna wonder if there was something more to the story, something left unsaid. But, she reminded herself, she would be here for one night, so it would be better if there were no questions asked and none answered.
Once Annie was preoccupied with the dog, Ida took Suzanna on a guided tour of the house. As they walked from room to room, she mentioned tiny flaws that to Suzanna seemed invisible: the cracked leather on William’s favorite chair, bookshelves in need of painting, and windows that needed washing.
As Ida told of the summer William planted hydrangeas along the front of the house and how he’d fenced in the yard so Scout would have a safe place to run free, Suzanna wondered why anyone would leave a daddy like that. It could only be someone as callous and uncaring as her own father. She’d been right in thinking of them as one and the same person.
Later that evening, with Annie fast asleep in the upstairs bedroom, Suzanna sat across from Ida Parker listening to tales of the granddaddy she never had. She pictured William a tall man with gentle hands and a kind heart and imagined herself part of the family. She could envision him buying her ice cream cones, teaching her to ride a bike, and lifting her onto his broad shoulders. When Ida told of how on her christening day the four of them had stood side by side at the altar as Pastor Henderson repeated the name Darla Jean Parker, the scene became as vivid as a movie unspooling inside her head. By the time she stirred a spoonful of sugar into her second cup of tea, she was all but convinced that, much like her own mama, the mild-mannered Caroline had been bullied and bossed about by a tyrannical husband.
It was almost midnight when she kissed Ida’s cheek and said, “Goodnight, Grandma.” Throughout the evening she’d told herself it was a game of pretense, something to enjoy for a day or two before moving on, but she’d turned a blind eye to the truth.
Earlier that afternoon there had been a moment when it was still possible for her to have explained the misconception, but she didn’t. The thought was there, the words on the very tip of her tongue, but she pushed them back. She’d seen the grin on Annie’s face and figured, what harm could it do?
That night as she snuggled beneath a quilt stitched with roses and lavender ribbons, a tiny voice at the back of her mind warned that she was opening the door to trouble.
The real Darla Jean could show up at any time, the voice said. Then what?
She won’t, Suzanna reasoned. Tommy’s family had been gone 25 years. There was no earthly reason why any of them would come back now.
Really? the voice argued.
Pushing aside the troublesome thoughts, Suzanna hushed the voice then turned on her side and closed her eyes. Tomorrow morning they’d be gone, and that would be the end of that. It was not something she had to worry about.
As she drifted on the edge of sleep, the voice again whispered, Really?
Earl Fagan
Sun Grove, Florida
WITH THE HOUSE QUIET AS it was and the raging headache that came from mixing beer and whiskey, Earl didn’t hear the front door click shut when Suzanna left. In fact, he didn’t even stir until almost 1 p.m. that afternoon. When he finally did open one eye, he saw the empty bourbon bottle on the nightstand and started to remember the events of the previous night.
“Crap,” he groaned and rolled onto his other side.
This was going to be a bad day; he was certain of it. The best he could hope for was Suzanna giving him the cold shoulder, maybe go a day or two without speaking, but that was unlikely. Not after last night.
He cringed, remembering how he’d come home with a buzz on, fell over the end table, and sent the lamp crashing to the floor. There he was, face down in the middle of all that broken glass, but instead of showing some concern for him she started yelling about the damn lamp. One word led to another, and that’s when she called him a hopeless drunk.
“I don’t know what I ever saw in you,” she said. “You’re way worse than my daddy!”
Earl knew he should have ignored her and gone to bed, except he didn’t. Her saying that bothered him; it was the kind of thing that got under his skin and made him feel like he’d slept in a bed of poison oak. He could already feel the blisters rising up. Instead of walking away like he should have, he gave her a taste of what she’d given him.
“Seems to me a girl who’s knocked up don’t have a whole lot of choices.”
The worst of it was, he didn’t stop there. When she came back at him with a smart-ass answer, he smacked her upside the head. Smacked, not punched. There was a red mark on her cheek, that was it. But as luck would have it, Annie saw it happen. She’d been standing in the doorway for less than a minute, but it happened to be that minute. As soon as he yelled at her for being out of bed, she hightailed it back to her room.
The kid seeing the fight is what sent Suzanna over the edge. Thinking back on it, Earl regretted the slap; he should have
