She would have toppled into the grave if I hadn’t had hold of her. Suddenly Davis was on one side of me, Hart on the other, pulling Nola away. She flayed me with a look of pure poison as I released her and Hart hurried her toward the house. She stumbled once but did not look back at us. Steven Teague followed at a respectful distance, probably ready to provide vast amounts of psychotherapy.
Shock silenced the crowd. Except for a sudden, screaming keen as Bradley Foradory sank to the ground.
“That,” Candace offered as I poured her a cup of coffee, “was a hell of a service.” She maneuvered me gently against the kitchen counter and planted a kiss on my cheek. “I don’t believe you’ve sustained any permanent damage. Of course a more thorough investigation will be called for later.”
I smiled at her teasing, her sweet way of coaxing me back toward everyday life. I needed days empty of tragedy and sorrow. I needed days with Candace, time with her, time with my family. I returned her kiss, tasting the spot between her eyes. “I’ll look forward to that, sweetheart.” I fetched a second cup down from the cabinet and filled it with fresh coffee. “Let me take this to Sister, see how she’s feeling.”
The living room was finally empty. The mourners had returned to both our house and the Shivers place for the traditional postfuneral gathering, to eat and drink and converse in hushed tones. Our house was undoubtedly the greater social attraction; no one had called Truda a murderer during the funeral. I’d forced myself to maintain a placid air as people crowded and jostled each other on our porches, in our living room.
Cayla and Davis Foradory had phoned their regrets in. “We just can’t make it, Jordy,” Cayla said in a forced tone. “Poor Bradley was just so upset by the funeral, it’s best he stay home. You do understand, don’t you?”
“Of course, Cayla. May I speak to Davis for a moment?”
She coughed. “Well, Davis is getting Bradley settled. How about I have him call you when things calm down?”
“Sure, Cayla.”
“Please give my best to Arlene and Mark. And Truda.”
“Of course.” I hung up the phone slowly, feeling the tinge of unease I always felt after talking to Cayla. Bradley Foradory might be retarded, but he was hardly high-strung. Generally he was a happy fellow, smiling and likable. Yet the funeral had thumped some horribly raw nerve to set him screaming and crying like that. What was wrong with Bradley?
Although Bradley’s outburst generated a certain amount of talk, it couldn’t hold a candle to Nola’s dramatics. I’d caught Ivalou Purcell murmuring to her daughter, “Well, Arlene showed more restraint with that Nola than she did with Trey. She didn’t hit her.” I’d forced myself not to stop and chew the old bitch out. There had been enough unpleasant scenes today.
Now Sister sat alone with Mama in the living room. Mama had not attended the funeral, but Clo had dressed her in a dark robe. Always one to get an early start on the holidays, Mama was humming the tune of “Away in a Manger,” which she’d plucked somehow from the quicksand of her memory. Sister didn’t appear to be noticing, still wearing her dark jacket and skirt, her sunglasses finally off, her hair a blonde tousle around her shoulders.
I sat down and handed the fee coffee. She accepted it wordlessly, took a sip, and said, “I have to get down to the hospital and see how Junebug’s doing.”
“Don’t you think you’ve done enough for today?” I said. “I’m sure Barbara or the doctors will call us if there’s a change. You need some rest.”
“There have been two men in my adult life I’ve loved, Jordy. I buried one today. And the other one may not make it out of the hospital. I don’t think I can sleep any.”
“You’ll make yourself sick, Sister.”
“Spare me the worried-brother act. You practically accused me of killing Trey this morning.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t believe you killed him, but I had to know for sure. You still didn’t answer my question.”
She rubbed her eye. “I didn’t kill him.”
“Then tell me. Were you over there that morning?”
Fatigue had won out against her defenses. “Yes, all right. I stopped by on my way to work. Even with it being a cold day, I wore those stupid pants ’cause it gets hot in the kitchen and they’re comfortable.”
“What happened?”
Her voice took a distant tone as she spoke, “He was there. Alone. He let me in, said he was even glad to see me as long as I wasn’t there to blacken his other eye.” She sipped at her coffee and closed her eyes.
“Oh, he looked bad, Jordy. You’d seen him. He was a shell of the man he’d been. He’d had so much energy, so much power in his body. That man in the chair had nothing.” She shivered. “I apologized for hitting him-and said I hoped he wasn’t gonna press charges. He laughed and I started to cry. He said I looked wonderful to him. He said… he’d missed me.”
I took a long breath while she paused. “And what effect did all this sweet talk have?”
She shook her head. “Part of me wanted to belt him again. Part of me wanted to tell him to never darken our door. Part of me wanted to hold him. Stupid, huh?”
“No.” I squeezed her shoulder.
“He asked to see Mark. I explained I thought that was a bad idea, that Mark needed more time to get used to the idea of his father back in his life before he saw Trey face-to-face. Trey said I was stalling. He begged, Jordy. He begged to see Mark and I kept saying no.”
“So when’d you get the black eye?”
Sister paid me no heed. “I finally asked him why he’d come home after all this time-why hadn’t he just stayed away? He wouldn’t look at me for a while, then he said that he’d finally stared death in the face and it had made him a man. I said that was crazy, and he said you’d understand.”
I eased back on the couch. Famous words from Trey from the tree house. It’d been his argument for our foolishness that long-ago day.
“So,” Sister continued, sniffing, “he said abandoning us was the most terrible mistake he’d ever made. He wanted to come home more times than he could count, but he was too ashamed. And he said he knew I wouldn’t take him back, and he was afraid Mark would reject him. It wasn’t till after that bull nearly killed him that he decided to come home.”
I didn’t say anything. I saw Candace standing at the kitchen door, tears in her eyes, her fingertips on her lips.
Sister looked up at the ceiling-or perhaps past it, toward God and heaven. “He said he still loved me, he’d never stopped loving me. And he wanted to be a father to Mark. I told him it was impossible, it could never be like it was before. He pleaded with me, and I ran out.” She started crying again.
“I don’t understand. When did you get the black eye?”
“Oh,” she said, wiping tears away. I handed her a tissue. She dabbed at her eyes. “I stumbled when I fell down the stairs. I hit my face.” Sister got up and retreated to the kitchen. She looked back at me. “Now you know everything, Jordy. Happy? If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get something to eat, take a shower, and go to the hospital.” She ducked past Candace, who regarded me with concern.
“She’ll be okay, Jordy. She just needs time.”
I didn’t say anything; I just sat back down. Trey had neglected to tell Sister the most important point of all: just why had he so regretfully left Mirabeau in the first place?
14
Franklin Bedloedrummed his pencil against his pad as I finished talking.
“Well, you’ve been busy,” he said. I couldn’t tell quite yet if he was angry or not.
I’d invited him to stop by, and when he arrived, basically I’d spilled my guts. What I’d found out from Ed, from Scott, from Steven Teague, from Thomasina Clifton, from Hart. The only item I omitted was that dogged bit of Sister’s pants. She’d told me what I believed was the truth about her seeing Trey and there was no need to tell Franklin about it. At least in my judgment. I could pinch a penny if I gave him a pound.
“Well, we had been talking to Mr. Teague about his treatment of Mr. Shivers,” Franklin began uncertainly, then stopped. I waited politely. Junebug had always told me Franklin was a bright fellow with a future. I hoped he
