Burying the Honeysuckle Girls (6 page)

Chapter Six

October 1937

Sybil Valley, Alabama

Miss Isbell, the schoolteacher, sent home a note pinned to Walter’s shirt. He wouldn’t even hold still long enough for Jinn to unpin the thing but tore away from her grip, ripping off the corner as he ran outside. Collie banged on a mixing bowl at the counter while Jinn read the torn note. Then she folded it into a tiny, hard square and tucked it in the pocket of her apron.

At supper that night, she told Howell.

“Walter’s been picking on the young ones,” she said. “Pelting them with chestnuts while they’re saying their lines for the Christmas pageant.” She didn’t look at Walter but she could feel him, slouching on the left side of the table, swallowing down a lump of potatoes. His eyes seemed to burn right through her.

“Practicing for a Christmas pageant in October? Lord
God
, these women.” Howell forked a piece of ham onto his plate and jerked his chin. Jinn hopped up and ladled a circle of gravy for him.

She didn’t know if he was referring to Miss Isbell specifically or the long string of schoolteachers Sybil Valley had hawked up and coughed out over the years. Howell had driven a few to nervous distraction himself, back when he was a boy. One up and walked out of the classroom—the whole building and all the way down Main Street to the boardinghouse where she stayed—right in the middle of the day.

“I don’t have time to go down to the schoolhouse and drink tea with some dried-up, horse-faced schoolmarm. You take care of it.” Howell winked at Collie, who giggled. He cracked his neck and addressed Walter. “You leave them kids alone. Or I reckon I’ll jerk you outta that school, and you can go to work like me and my daddy did when we was your age.”

Walter sat like a stone.

“Huh?” Howell held his knife and fork over his plate like two daggers. “You gonna throw chestnuts or study your books?”

“Study.”

“That’s what I thought.”

The next afternoon, at five ’til three, Jinn walked through the front doors of the school. As the children trooped out, she clutched her pocketbook and pressed her back against the wall. In the classroom, Miss Isbell was sitting at her desk, waiting. Walter and Willie Stocker sat at their desks. Tom Stocker stood by the window. When she came in, he grinned at her. Something fluttered low in her belly.

Tom was a widower who lived up the mountain a ways in a big brick house with his young son. His wife, a petite, refined woman named Lucy, had died soon after Willie was born, and he’d never remarried, even though he had piles of money and was probably the most eligible bachelor in north Alabama. Folks said he couldn’t get over Lucy. It was true. Jinn had seen him offer Lucy his arm every Sunday she was alive when they walked out of church. She’d seen the way they looked at each other.

Tom and Jinn had kissed once—forever ago, when they were kids, in the schoolyard, long before she ever went with Howell, before Lucy and her family moved to town. But after Lucy had been dead a couple of years, Tom began to pay Jinn extra attention whenever he ran into her at the hardware store or the feed store. He bumped into her regularly enough, when she was in town, that Jinn began to take notice.

One June day after church—another Sunday Howell had begged off—Tom had appeared beside Jinn as they descended the steps. He offered her his arm. She took it.

He never touched her, other than that one time, nor said one unseemly word. But still. Any husband who was paying the slightest bit of attention would be riled. Even Jinn had to wonder: what was Tom Stocker, with his bright eyes and ready smile, waiting around for? A bolt of lightning to cleave Howell Wooten in two?

“I suppose we should begin,” Miss Isbell said.

She explained that Walter and a few of the older boys, the Wise Men, had been pelting little Willie Stocker, a sheep, with chestnuts and baaing at him during the practice for the pageant. One of the chestnuts had struck his eye, leaving a bloody gash in the white of it. Miss Isbell had made Walter write
I will not throw chestnuts
on the chalkboard, which Jinn could see he’d completed. His cramped, cursive scrawl rose in row after row on the board behind the teacher’s head. In addition to the punishment, Miss Isbell wanted to settle things between the parents.

Jinn promised Miss Isbell and Tom that Howell would give the boy a good whipping, and she’d take away his supper to boot, and then they all stood, shook hands. At the front doors, Tom laid a hand on her arm.

“Jinny,” he said.

She liked the way her name sounded in his voice. Nobody called her Jinny anymore, except her father, and when he did, it had an altogether different sound. In fact, her father said they’d named her after a mule for obvious reasons. But when Tom said it—
Jinny
—she got goose bumps. And now, something more. Something sharp and insistent leaping up from her belly. It made her more nervous, being here without Howell with that feeling in her gut.

“You boys run on home,” Tom called out to Willie and Walter. “We’ll be along.” Tom turned to her. “Walk with me,” he said. “We need to talk.”

Jinn wasn’t so sure she could walk with Tom and talk to him at the same time. They’d only ever had scraps of conversation between them. Never a whole back-and-forth, not since they were kids.

He had this thing he did. He’d wait until she asked a question or said something that invited a reply, then give her a look that said,
We’ll talk later
and amble off. It left her so unsettled. Yearning for, yet dreading, the next time they met and the conversation could inch one step further.

Jinn had a feeling that one day they’d reach the end of the conversation, and then what would happen? If it came down to it, would she choose Tom Stocker over Howell? Could she really and truly make that choice? If she did, she’d be turning her back not only on her husband, but on Jesus as well. Touching Tom Stocker would make her a backslider.

She followed him down the steps of the school and around back. Her heart was hammering, belly flopping like a fish. They cut across the schoolyard, just a square of hard-packed dirt, knobbed with shiny tree roots. Even though it was barely past the edge of dusk, a raccoon was already out, worrying at a brown lump of something. An apple core or the remainder of a child’s sandwich.

“You remember the time I kissed you out here?” Tom said, right off.

The wind kicked up, sending dirt clouding around their ankles. A thread of cool ran through it. A tinge of the winter ahead. She didn’t answer him, not because she couldn’t recall the day, but because she wasn’t sure what to say.

“I guess that was a long time ago,” he sighed.

“I remember.”

He stopped. Turned to her. Studied her.

“It was May Day,” she said after what seemed like a long time. “When Howell bid on my bouquet.”

“You mean, after he snuck in the auditorium during lunch and filched it before the auction even started?”

“That’s right.” She smiled. “I thought you were gonna pop him one good, you were so mad.”

“I considered it.” His eyes were flashing now, the sly grin making her weak. “Then I remembered he was three years older and twice my size. And I decided I’d be smarter finding you, so I could get my kiss in first.”

He took one step closer. Hands in his pockets. Her heart thudded.

“I thought I should give you the kiss you’d be comparing all the others to for the rest of your life.”

Her eyes slid to watch the raccoon scuttle around the corner of the building.

“This is what I wonder,” he asked. “Did it work?”

He spoke so quietly; she almost didn’t believe he expected an answer. Maybe because he already knew what she’d say.

It had worked, but then Tom had gone away to college. Howell had stayed. He’d stayed and sworn to her that if she married him, he’d keep her safe. He’d never let her daddy darken the door of their house. He’d never let Vernon hurt her again.

She looked back at Tom and felt a tremor of fear. His face had hardened, his eyes dimmed. Something was wrong, more than just Howell or what had happened all those years ago. Something was terribly wrong.

“What is it?” she said.

“I’ve got to show you something, Jinny. Up on the mountain.”

“What?”

He was quiet.

“Tom. You’re scaring me.”

“It’s something . . . just something you need to see.”

He offered his arm, and she took it. They left the schoolyard and headed into the woods, stepping carefully through the blackjack oaks, hickories, and pines. Climbing over beds of slick needles and acorns. It was a path, nothing but a narrow deer trail, but it went for miles up the mountain, around mossy boulders and across dozens of trickling branches.

After awhile, Jinn let go of Tom’s arm and fell into step behind him. Her coat had come unbuttoned but her back was damp with sweat, so she welcomed the cold air. The smells made her heady—smoke curling up from someone’s distant woodstove, the musk of bear and deer and red fox and bobcats either bedding down or rousing for their night hunt. She thought she could even smell apples too, crisping on the trees.

She wondered what it would be like to tramp with Tom through the woods every night, after supper. Then turn homeward toward their big, brick house with the white painted door. Up to their bedroom to tangle together in soft sheets and blankets.

They’d been walking a good half hour when Tom beckoned her forward. “Almost there,” he said. He held out his hand, and she took it, holding it the last couple of yards. At a curve in the trail, he helped her over a fallen log, its center collapsed by rot and rain, and the scene unfolded before her.

A half-circle of black tree trunks stretched to the gray sky. In their center, between them, hung a strange form. Jinn thought at first it was some sort of sign, a banner like the ones they hung at the county fair. Only this banner had no words printed on it. And it was misshapen, somehow. Nothing was right about it at all.

She took one step forward. And then she saw.

Suspended by ropes between two longleaf pines, about six feet off the ground, was what appeared to be a large dog, its legs dangling downward. A length of rope was looped around its neck and stretched to one tree; another length was tied around its hindquarters and stretched to an opposite tree. The animal was motionless, a deformed monster, against the graying sky.

“It’s a calf,” Tom said. “Hereford. Only a couple days old. Whoever did this stole it from my place and brought it here. They strung it up and left it here. For days. They let it starve.”

Jinn moved closer. Reached her hand up and touched one small hoof. It was wet. She drew her finger back, rubbing the pads of her fingers together. Blood. She reached up again.

“Jinny, stop.”

Then her fingers found the cuts—tiny razor slices along its flank. She used both hands then and felt the sliced ears. The hacked-off tail. The empty, streaming eye sockets. She stepped back. Shook her head, slowly at first, then faster.

She stepped back again but stumbled this time, and Tom caught her. She held her bloody hands high above her head, the way Brother Daley did before he passed out communion, and coughed out a series of sobs that eventually turned into screams. Tom finally had to cover her mouth.

When she’d quieted, Tom whispered into her ear, “Willie found him up here.”

She tried to tell him to stop—she didn’t want to hear any more—but all that came out was a strangled whimper.

“It was Walter, Jinny,” he said. “Walter was the one who did it.”

At supper, Jinn thought if she put one forkful of chicken pie in her mouth, surely it would come spewing back out. So she sat very still and pushed the lumps of peas and carrots around in the gravy. Prayed that Howell wouldn’t bring up the meeting at the school.

He didn’t. After supper, he headed out to the porch to smoke and look through the mail. Jinn sent the children off to listen to
Amos ’n’ Andy
so she could scour the dishes. But she felt Walter’s eyes on her back.

She turned, wringing the dish towel to give her trembling hands something to do. “You still hungry?”

He was staring at her. “Willie told his pap what I done up there on the mountain, didn’t he? And then he told you.”

She knew she should speak, but she couldn’t. Her throat felt all closed up.

“You ain’t gonna tell Daddy, are you?” he said.

The boy was smart to be afraid. If Howell found out he’d stolen a calf and killed it, he’d be furious. He’d pull Walter out of school, once and for all, and put him to work. Calves weren’t cheap, they sold at auction for more than Howell could afford. More money than Howell wanted to hand over to the likes of Tom Stocker.

But Walter’s blank, cold eyes weren’t afraid. They were angry, brimming with warning. She pointed at him anyway, not caring that her finger was shaking and he could see it.

“Don’t you never do anything like that again, you hear? I mean it.”

She turned back to the dishes, and the boy rose from the table and went out to the front porch to join his father.

Chapter Seven

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Mobile, Alabama

I woke up late, the room bright with midmorning sun. Jay lay beside me, arms flung over his head. I rolled away from him. On a morning like this, a normal girl would’ve been feeling . . . what, exactly? Triumphant? Possibly. Or, at the very least, she’d be replaying every lascivious detail in her head.

But I’d never been anywhere close to normal, and right now all I felt was anxiety-riddled, my nerves buzzing under my skin, mind racing with thoughts of escape.

I checked the pads of my fingers for any trace of gold. All clear, completely normal. Jay’s torso and arms looked clear too. Maybe I really was getting better. I slipped from between the sheets, picked up my pants and blouse, and crept to the bathroom. I pulled open a couple of drawers looking for some toothpaste and saw it. The bottle of painkillers. Lortab.

My mouth watered and my jaw ached as I imagined the bitter crush of powder in my mouth. I shook my head. Pressed my lips together. Hard.

I picked up the bottle and could instantly feel the warmth the pills would provide; the buoyant feeling that would overtake me, if I took them. Wynn and Molly Robb and Dr. Duncan would shrink to little dots of no consequence. My dad’s words would recede into darkness. I’d be free.

For a while.

I set the bottle beside the sink and eyed it as I pulled on my clothes. On my way out, I stopped. I could take it, stash it in my purse, just in case I found myself in a bind and in need of emergency help. I wouldn’t go so far as to open it. Just knowing the pills were there would be enough to make me feel better. I twisted off the cap and poured the pills into my hand. Replaced the bottle in the drawer.

In the kitchen, I dropped the pills into a zippered compartment of my purse and pulled on my boots. A calendar hung above Jay’s mom’s neat desk, and I put my finger on the last square of the month. September 30, my birthday. Two weeks away, to the day.

Schizophrenia might be genetic, directly inherited even, but the nonsense Dad was spouting about it manifesting on the exact day I turn thirty? That was ludicrous. Medically impossible. On the other hand, if he was telling the truth about some part of it, if something really
did
happen to Trix, Collie, and Jinn on their thirtieth birthdays, how could I ignore that?

I felt it then—the dark, spidery thing that seemed to always hover around me, that fear or madness or whatever it was I’d held back for so long with booze and pills and now AA mantras. It was back, creeping through my brain again, just like when I was a girl.

If my dad and Dr. Duncan and Wynn were right, if I was genetically predisposed for schizophrenia, then I was going to get it no matter what happened. So I could either sit around, gulping Lortab to keep the visions of gold and red ravens at bay until Wynn came to lock me up in the nuthouse. Or I could fight. I could go back out there into the real world and face the darkness. Find out what had really happened to the women in my family.

I studied the Red Raven cigar box, sitting in the center of the island, and I felt a wave of dread wash over me. I couldn’t do it anymore, this white-knuckling my way through life. I had to find out the truth. If I could find out what had happened to my mother—and to my grandmother and great-grandmother—maybe I could figure out a way to stop it from happening to me. Their stories were the only chance I had.

I knew nothing about our family history on my mother’s side. I had an aunt and an uncle and a handful of cousins on my dad’s side, but it was as if my mother had just sprung up out of the river. No one talked about her family. And now, I had two weeks to dig them up.

Fourteen days.

I needed money. A plan. I thought of my car back at the house. Maybe it would start for me today, if the stars were aligned, if I prayed just right. It would have to. I would sneak back, get it before Wynn and Molly Robb had time to formulate a plan. Head somewhere safe. Get access to a computer. I had work to do.

I reached into the cigar box and pulled out an empty vial. It was the oldest one, the one Dr. Duncan had said was my mother’s. I read the label, like I’d read it a million times before. The pills were prescribed from an address in Tuscaloosa. Pritchard.

My heart revved the slightest bit.

Pritchard. The state mental institution. The original structure was over a hundred years old, deserted now, all the patients housed in another modern building on a different part of the property. Everyone in the state of Alabama knew the name Pritchard, synonymous with the worst of mental-health-care abuses. There had been a brief move in the eighties to restore the place, a limp effort that died as soon as the state legislature saw how much it was going to cost, and then, shortly thereafter, the state finally admitted it couldn’t keep up the Victorian behemoth and shut it down. As far as I knew, the place was just waiting for a bulldozer.

My mother had never been a patient there. I didn’t think.

But I did know someone who’d been connected to Pritchard. Someone I had tried my damnedest to forget.

I lifted the lid of the cigar box, dropped the old empty bottle inside. I tucked the box under my arm and walked outside, turning toward my house. The air was still and thick and humid, like right before the first winds of a hurricane.

I was bathed in sweat from the sticky, two-mile trek by the time I reached Dad’s drive. A tow truck, my car piggybacked on its bed, rumbled past me, and I began waving my arms like an idiot. The driver glanced at me but kept driving. Choking in the cloud of white dust he left behind, I glared up at the house. Molly Robb, in another beige old-lady dress and matching headband, watched from the porch. I stormed up the drive and stopped in the turnaround, hands on my hips.

“You can’t do that!” I shouted up at her. “That’s my car.”

“No, it’s our car,” Molly Robb said imperiously from her perch. “You sold us the title a couple of years ago, remember? And I don’t know what you’ve done to it but Wynn’s going to take care of it for you, so you should be thanking him.”

“I want to talk to him,” I called up.

“He’s busy,” she said. “Talk to me.”

“You’re gonna make a spectacular first lady, you know that? You’re like an entire Secret Service squad squished into one bony little beige package.” She rolled her eyes. “But you’re going to have to get over yourself, because I”—I enunciated each word in a loud, clear voice—“
want to talk to my brother
.”

She shifted. “Wynn is busy. You probably don’t care, but Folly is missing, and your father is frantic with worry.”

“Folly?”

“His dog.”

The Pomeranian or Chihuahua or whatever. Molly Robb must’ve named it Folly. What a bonehead.

“Tell Wynn he’d better grab his shotgun,” I said. “I’ve seen plenty of gators up and down our banks.”

“You’re a monster,” she said. “Your father loves that dog.”

“My father can’t stand little dogs. If he was in his right mind, he would punt that dog into the river like a football. As it is, you’re probably too late. The gators have probably already had him for brunch.”

Without a word, she pirouetted and disappeared inside the house. Slammed the door, rattling the row of windows. I walked to the end of the drive, trembling with fury. On the long walk back to Jay’s, I kept repeating the same words in a loop in my head:
Don’t let him be awake, don’t let him be awake.

I could hear the shower running from the back of the house. I guessed Jay had woken and, when he’d found me gone, decided to let me have my space. This, and the fact that his keys were still sitting on the kitchen counter, were better than an answered prayer. It was a divine gift.

I headed outside and slid into the fragrant leather seat of Jay’s BMW. Pressed my fingers to my temples.

Don’t think, just go. Go.

I said a quick
Veni, Creator Spiritus
in penance—even though I was pretty sure it wasn’t that kind of prayer—and threw the car into drive. I headed upriver about three miles, to a sprawling, stone-and-glass contemporary house that lay almost adjacent to the mouth of the bay. The sight of the place always caused my gut to twist and my pulse to speed up, but if I was going to get information about my mother, this was where I had to start.

Miraculously, there were no cars in the drive, so I parked and knocked on the double front doors. A maid answered, thank God. (A maid, not a housekeeper, mind you, a woman who had to be over seventy and who still wore one of those gray-and-white uniforms from back in the day.)

I said I was an old friend of Hilda Oliver’s—well, all the Olivers really—and wanted to say hello. She told me that although Mrs. Oliver was out, she did know that Mr. Oliver was playing golf at the club with Rowe, their son.

Nervous excitement bubbled up inside me as I nosed the car toward the country club. I sang snatches of the song on the radio, trying not to think about how easy it was to slip back into my old ways. What a terrible person I must be to feel this good about lying, stealing, and speeding eighty-five miles an hour toward another bad decision.