Bound by Blood and Brimstone (19 page)

under the pillow, feeling justified anger and shame at the same time.

“I just think it’s easier to take what is, instead of trying to fight what you can’t win,” she

said.

My sister slept on a pallet in the front room that night. Me, I never shut my eyes all

through those dark hours before dawn. To add fuel to my fire, there was a wedding to face the

next day.

Momma exchanged vows with Reese Watkins in our own front room, with a “brought

on” preacher performing the ceremony. Lorrie Beth and I were the only witnesses, with Baby

Sam as a third, if he could be counted. I held him in my arms with a bottle stuck in his mouth to

keep him from crying. It just wouldn’t be right, Momma had told me, to have any disruptions

during such a solemn occasion.

Momma had her hair done up in something she called a French twist and wore a cream-

colored dress covered in lace. I would later learn that she’d worn the same dress the day she

married my daddy. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks pink, and she scarcely resembled the

haggard creature who’d drooped about the house like an animated corpse just weeks before. I

have to admit, even now, that she was beautiful, standing there in a ray of afternoon sunshine. It

made me sick to look at her.

At one point I glanced at Lorrie Beth and saw tears glistening on her face. I had no idea if

the source of emotion was happiness for Momma, which would be just like Lorrie Beth, or if she

was thinking about Daddy. When she glimpsed me looking at her, she actually grinned.

Naturally, I had apologized to her for my cutting words the night before. My sister

couldn’t hold a grudge against Satan himself, and in dealing with such a tender heart, I knew my

cruel words would come back to bite me in the butt.

Reese actually took Momma over the county line that night to stay in the Green Waters

Inn, leaving Lorrie Beth and me alone. It wasn’t that I was afraid to be without an adult in the

house after dark. It just made no sense to me for them to leave like that. So far as I knew,

Momma had never stayed in a motel before, and I couldn’t see any reason for it now.

When they got back home the next morning, Momma all red-faced and giggling like

some empty-headed schoolgirl, I was overwhelmed with the urge to punch her dead in the

mouth. Reese strolled in with an outdated newspaper under his arm and headed straight for the

kitchen.

“Ember Mae, Honey, fix me and your Momma a cup of coffee. And you girls best be

hurrying, if we’re going to make it to church on time.” Lorrie Beth sidled out of our bedroom in

her overalls and an old shirt.

“I didn’t think you and Momma would be going to church today,” she said hesitantly.

“Why on earth would you think that?” Momma chided. “You know we don’t ever forsake

the assembly of the saints. This is the Lord’s Day, and it must be honored.” Her words struck me

as stilted, almost rehearsed. I had the eerie sense that they weren’t her words at all, and as

unsettling as that thought was, I headed to the kitchen without comment to make coffee.

I’m sure it was no coincidence that Reese’s sermon that morning was on marriage. I

figured he was covering his own behind, in case some of the congregation might get the idea to

oppose their preacher marrying such a new widow. I should’ve known how it would turn out. He

had them eating out of his hand. By the time service was over, congratulating church members

surrounded him and Momma.

“I’m so glad for you, Mona,” I heard Thelma Bates say. “I know Will wouldn’t have

wanted you to be alone without someone to look out for you.” I had the unkind thought that she

looked more like a heifer in her flowered tent dress than the wife of a sheriff.

Day followed day, and life went on, if it could be called that. Daddy had left this world

taking a piece of me with him, and what remained of Ember Mae Roberts had to be closed off

and walled up to stay with her sister. I learned to numb myself to the hot flood of feelings inside,

to keep them caged up and locked down.

Somehow, I could do this by focusing on my hands, which never seemed to stop. I’d

never balked at all the work that was part and parcel of having a small farm. Chores were simply

part of life, and I accepted them. After Reese came into the picture, however, they seemed to

double.

While Daddy’s presence had graced our lives during evenings and on weekends, Reese

was there morning, noon, and night. He spent his time reading his Bible, preparing sermons,

which he practiced on us, and dictating pretty much all that was done and how to do it.

For the first time in my memory, Momma had someone telling her what to prepare for

meals, what we should wear, how to keep a cleaner house, and how to speak more like a “God-

fearing woman.” The worst part of all, the part that brought bitter gall up into my throat, was

simply seeing him and Momma together.

One night in early summer, a noise yanked me out of a deep sleep and, assuming the

wind had blown the back door loose as it sometimes did, I got up to check it. My bare feet made

no sound as I padded through my doorway in the silver light of a full moon. On the way to the

kitchen, the noise was louder, though I sensed it was somehow muffled.

It was coming from behind the curtain to Momma’s bedroom. I stopped. It was Momma’s

voice, raw and urgent, moaning, gasping. My breath caught in my throat. She was hurt! Reese

was killing her! Acting on instinct, I rushed the last few feet to pull the curtain back. What I saw

behind that curtain, I’ll never speak of to anyone.

Despite my education at the hands of Janine Westerfield, I barely grasped what I saw, but

it both terrified and appalled me. My face burned with the realization that Momma wasn’t being

hurt at all.

I didn’t even remember making it to the back door, but somehow I found myself standing

on the edge of the porch, retching until everything in my churning stomach was gone.
I was

wrong
, I thought.
There is a God after all, and He’s sent
me to hell.

The next day, the last one of that school year, I came home to the scent of fresh lumber

stacked in our back yard. Reese was on the porch on his knees, wearing a sweat-stained

undershirt and holding a hammer. He glanced up at me and positioned a nail, pinching it between

fat fingers before hammering it home.

“Your mother and I talked about it. We decided maybe it’s time for you girls to have your

own rooms. You’re getting older, and we figure you’ll be wanting your privacy.”

I stood there, not trusting myself to speak. Finally, I said, “You mean here on the porch?”

He took another nail and, before placing it, said, “Yep. I’m closing in this porch to make

a brand new bedroom. You and Lorrie Beth can decide who wants it, but I guarantee it’ll be nice.

Whoever winds up with it will be proud to have it.” For just that instant, I thought maybe Reese

Watkins wasn’t so bad after all.

Lorrie Beth wasn’t nearly as taken with the idea of having her own room as I would’ve

thought. “You go ahead and take it, Ember,” she said, avoiding my eyes. “It doesn’t matter to

me. Besides, I’m not so crazy about the idea of being cut off from the rest of the house. I think it

would make me feel, well, creepy.”

“Well, I don’t want to take it, and then have you change your mind when you’re not

feeling so creepy,” I retorted. For some reason, her generous attitude got my back up, and I

didn’t like the feeling.

“Oh, never mind, I’ll take it, and if you want it later, just tell me,” I said with a sigh. “I

guess it’s not that big of a deal anyway.” What I didn’t say was that, while I was wildly excited

at the prospect of my own space, bedtime without our nightly talks wouldn’t be the same.

Lorrie Beth offered me one of her signature smiles, the kind destined to break millions of

hearts. “Yeah, and anyway, maybe if I get lonely, I can come in and we can talk, just like

always.”

All I could do was shrug it off and try to glean a little satisfaction in having a room to

myself and in reaching the end of another school year. It had been pure torture going back after

Daddy’s death and again after Momma’s new marriage. I’d felt nothing when Miss Hacker

cornered me in the cloakroom to tell me she thought I should consider a future as an author.

“You have real talent, Ember Mae,” she said, her chin whiskers bobbing, “the kind of

talent that could make people pay to read your words.”

“Yes Ma’am,” I said politely, but there was anger inside. How could you possibly know

that or anything else about me?

Basically, we suffered those last weeks without bother, most of our classmates figuring

they should respect our grief. Of course, Caleb and Sue Lee were the exceptions. They’d

continued their usual taunts and veiled threats with Lorrie Beth. Something was different with

them, however, and I couldn’t pinpoint what it was. My “window” was wide open again, and

through it, I saw nothing but red.

Much of that summer was little more now than a flash of brief images, like a rapid shuffle

through a stack of photographs: my new room with its lavender walls and braided rag rugs,

rocking Baby Sam to sleep, sneaking off to Wonnie Dean’s, washing endless mountains of

diapers, Reese’s booming sermons, lying in bed at night, reveling in the silence around me,

grateful to know my sleep would never be disturbed again by any hideous sounds from

Momma’s room. And, of course, there was Lorrie Beth.

During those few hot months my sister had transformed completely, morphing into

someone we barely recognized. It was the closest thing to magic I’ve ever seen. She’d already

grown a couple inches taller since the summer before, but now, overnight it seemed, she

developed the kind of curves that could wreck a train.

Her legs grew longer, the calves more shapely, and her girlish features matured, growing

more refined and delicate. She was only eleven years old, but would’ve passed for twenty-three,

a child trapped in the body of Delilah.

Just like everything else we shared, both of us were developing that summer, but Lorrie

Beth’s changes were stunning, whereas mine were hardly something to write home about. I

simply leaned out a bit in the waist, losing my boxy shape, and started wearing a bra, which was

hardly the highpoint of my year.

Lorrie Beth found joy that summer in the first love of her life. On a stifling Saturday

afternoon she charged through the front door, panting and dirty but smiling through the grime

and sweat on her face. Momma had sent her to pick corn, but there was clearly no corn in the

basket she tossed to the floor.

I was diapering Baby Sam and wondering if she’d just gotten a case of sunstroke when

she burst out, “Momma, I’m in love, and you just have to meet him! He’s on the porch. Oh, he’s

so handsome. I know you’ll just love him!” Before Momma had a chance to get a word in, Lorrie

Beth turned and called out, “Come on in, Max!”

Max strolled in with his head up and his tail wagging. He went straight to Momma, sat

proudly at her feet, cocked one ear, and grinned at her.

“Well, don’t just stand there, Max, say hello to Momma,” Lorrie Beth said calmly. Max

barked twice, then reached out a paw. That was it. Max was in.

He had the markings of a collie, but he was bigger, with stouter legs. One ear stuck up,

the other down, and his snout was scarred, but to Lorrie Beth he was a descendent of canine

kings. There were times I could’ve sworn he had a human soul locked in that furry body. He had

a way of laying his head in my lap and peering at me like he could see inside me and feel all the

pain buried there.

Lorrie Beth talked to Max the same way she talked to me, not in the baby talk some

people use with their dogs. Funny thing was, I believed he understood every word she said. Max

was the keeper of the secrets of her heart, and on warm nights, as I lay in my new room

searching for my own answers, Lorrie Beth turned to her four-legged confidante.

The bedtime talks we’d shared before, she now shared with Max, sneaking him into her

room after Reese had gone to bed. She only had to warn him to leave before Reese woke up.

Max always did.

Max made every step Lorrie Beth made, fetched whatever she asked for, cried when she

cried, punctuated her laughter with tail wags, and growled at anyone who spoke harshly to her.

In short, Lorrie Beth was his.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it was a bit of a relief to me. It kind of took some of the load

off. I began to think maybe even Caleb and Sue Lee Jacobs would finally have to back off and

leave us alone. Max could easily make lunch out of the likes of either of them, leaving two less

thorns in my flesh.