Lovesick (17 page)

And then, suddenly, Isabelle's head is pressed against Freddie's chest, Freddie's arms wrapped around her. Isabelle begins to cry, and Freddie pulls her closer, close enough she imagines she can feel the baby in Isabelle's belly kicking between them. She reaches up to stroke Isabelle's head. The ribbon falls to the floor.

“There. There. Sweetie. Don't you worry. Everything will work out. Just you wait. Now, why don't you tell me everything?”

And Isabelle does.

Later, when she is alone in the kitchen, after Isabelle has cried herself to exhaustion, Freddie repeats the promises she has made to Isabelle, the confidences of her own that she has shared with her.

Isabelle has changed to her nightdress, washed her face. In the soft yellow glow from the small table lamp by the bed, Freddie can see her eyes are swollen from the tears. Freddie turns the covers down for her.

“What would you say if I told you that Mr. Odom was going to be leaving here very soon?”

Isabelle sighs as she scoots down into the bed.

“I would say ‘good riddance.' But he isn't going anywhere as long as there is free room and board for him here.”

“I wouldn't count on that,” says Freddie. “And after he is gone, I want you to know that you can stay here for as long as you need. As long as you want.”

“But what about your sister? Would she allow this?”

“You don't have to worry about her. We are in agreement on the matter of Mr. Odom.”

“I had no idea.” Isabelle smiles. “I would sure like to see the expression on his face when you tell him.”

“Yes,” says Freddie. “I am certain he will be surprised.”

Freddie is still sitting at the kitchen table with her half-eaten plate of cold chicken and cucumber salad in front of her when Jewel and Mr. Odom return.

“My goodness,” says Jewel. “Are you just now eating dinner?”

“I forgot,” says Freddie. “I sat on the front porch watching the sunset and I guess I just lost the time.”

Jewel laughs. “You would lose your head if it wasn't attached.” Freddie can see that Jewel doesn't believe her excuse, but she doesn't care. Things like that don't matter anymore.

5

“Good Lord Almighty!” squawks Jewel the next morning when Freddie enters the kitchen wearing her work pants, overshirt, and boots. “You could have given me some warning.” Freddie doesn't speak to her, just goes to the cupboard, takes out her cup and saucer, pours herself some coffee, and leans against the counter.

“When you have her breakfast ready,” she says, “I will take it up to her. And put a couple of pieces of bacon on a plate for me while you're at it, if you please.”

Jewel turns from the stove. She looks to speak, but Freddie stops her.

“I wasn't putting that up for a vote.”

Mr. Odom has stopped reading the paper and sits slack-jawed, staring at her. She tips the saucer of coffee to her lips, drains it in a long gulp.

“Jewel doesn't like for me to drink my coffee out of the saucer. Says it makes me look common.”

“If you are trying to shock me,” says Mr. Odom, “you will need to do more than drink coffee from a saucer. Or dress in men's trousers.”

“Well, the way I see it, someone has to wear the pants in the family. I figured it might as well be me.”

Mr. Odom puts the paper down. “Miss Winifred, I think you are trying to pick a fight with me.”

“Not a fight, sir. And please do call me Freddie. It is what I prefer.”

Jewel puts a plate on the tray. “It's grits and scrambled eggs. I made them the way she likes them. A piece of toast. Some preserves. I hope that will meet with your approval.”

Freddie smiles. “Jewel, you make a good wife. Yes, you do. Don't you agree, Mr. Odom?”

She tops up her coffee and sets it on the tray. She finishes it sitting in the white wicker rocker near the window of Isabelle's bedroom while Isabelle picks at her breakfast.

“You need to eat it all,” she tells her.

“Everything just tastes so salty,” Isabelle complains. “It makes me thirsty.”

“I will tell Jewel to make you a pitcher of lemonade. That should be nice on a hot day.” Freddie puts her cup and saucer back on the tray. “Now, Isabelle. I want you to promise me something.”

“Yes, what?”

“Just remember everything we talked about last night. Just remember that I told you I would make him go away from here.”

“Yes.”

“Well, it may take some convincing. So, you just stay up here. Play your records. And by this time tomorrow . . .”

Isabelle nods. “Do what you must. You don't need my consent. He is a miserable bastard, and I will be glad to be shed of him.”

Freddie takes her hand in hers, squeezes it. “Then I will see you—afterward.”

 

It takes no effort to draw Mr. Odom into the barn. Freddie merely says she has something she needs to discuss. Undoubtedly, she imagines he must think she has another treat in store. Take the car again, why don't you? The surprise, however, comes when she knocks him hard up side of his head with the ax handle she has purchased from Standard's for just this moment. It doesn't knock him out like a conk on the head does in the movies, but it does bring him to his knees. He instinctively brings his hand up to his temple, stunned, searching to see if there is blood. This delay provides her a moment to wrap the rope suspended from the pulley overhead around him, underneath his arms, cinched tightly behind. Easy as trussing a bird.

She pulls him to his feet, and then, just for good measure, hoists him so that he is forced to stand tiptoed.

“Holy shit!” he mutters. “Have you lost your mind?” He bellows for Jewel.

“If you think she is going to come and help you, I'm afraid you are going to be disappointed,” she tells him. “This is a working farm, Mr. Odom. I am sure you have noticed that, though I can't see that you have actually contributed much in the way of labor.”

He starts to speak, but she prods him with the handle. “No, don't, please,” she says. “The time for you to lend your support will come, rest assured.”

He shouts again for Jewel. This time, Freddie hits him with the end of the handle. “Ugh!” he grunts. “You crazy bitch. I will—”

Freddie hits him again. “You aren't going to do anything. To me. To anyone. As I was saying, this is a working farm. Everything here serves a purpose. We raise crops, and we make a profit on them. We raise hogs, and then we slaughter those hogs in the autumn to sell. And we will turn a profit on you as well, Mr. Odom.”

She has his attention. He looks at her wide-eyed. “Please don't hurt me,” he says.

Freddie laughs. “My plan, Mr. Odom, is to kill you. How much pain you suffer depends on you.”

“Oh, Jesus God. I am a sinner, but I don't deserve this,” he cries. “Jewel! Jooo-el!” The rope catches him tight up under his arms, so that his elbows are thrust up and out above his shoulders. His breath comes in short gasps. “I never did a thing to you. Never. You have no right to treat me this way.”

“I am astounded by the audacity,” she says. It is oppressively hot in the barn. Sweat drips down the back of her neck. She takes out a kerchief and wipes her face, dries her palms. “The sheer nerve it must take just to be you. To get up every day and just be—you. Tell me now, if Jewel had come to you with the same pittance that you brought to us, would you have thought that a fair deal?”

“I told you, I have had setbacks, misfortunes. I was limited in my options. I could not travel and leave the girl.”

“Yes, I have heard them all, Mr. Odom. Answer my question.”

“No,” he says. “I would not have considered it a fair deal. But I never claimed to be anything that I am not. Now, please, if you—if Jewel—if my being here is a cause for distress, I will leave. I will leave today, and you will never see me again.”

“And would you want to drive the car? Or would you expect someone to take you to the train, to buy you your ticket, perhaps pack you a sack lunch?”

“Goddammit. I don't know what you want from me.”

“The truth is, Mr. Odom, you are worth your weight in gold to me. I may just buy myself a tractor with the profit I will make off you. I could use a new tractor.”

“I don't know what you want,” he repeats.

“What I want is for you to take responsibility. Own up—be a man,” Freddie says, resting the handle on her shoulder. “Now, tell me about the girl.”

“Isabelle? What do you want with her?”

“I want to know what you did to her.”

“Do to her? I did nothing to her. Anyone who says I have not been a good father to her is a liar. A goddamn liar. I may not have been able to give her much, but I have provided the best I could.” Freddie notices that his shirt has bunched up around his middle. She pokes him with the tip of the handle and watches as it sinks into his slack belly. “Tell me about Isabelle. Tell me how you provided for her. Tell me about the baby.”

“Fuck you!” he sputters. “I know what you are, Miss Freddie Bramble. Your sister and I talk about you at night in the dark. I know about you.”

She swings hard, catches him on his left side, just under his ribs. She can feel the bone splinter as she hits. He screams. “Why are you doing this? I never did hurt you. I never did hurt anyone.”

“Tell me about Isabelle. Tell me about the baby.” She pauses for a moment and steps closer to him, close enough to whisper. “Tell me about Alice.”

Panic floods his eyes and he kicks out at her. She steps away as he loses his footing and spins around like a ham dangling in the smokehouse.

“Vile. Unspeakable. Disgusting things they are. You all are. Her and that girl. That Alice. Has she come around here?”

“No, her parents have married her off to a boy from their church. Her mother sent Isabelle a letter. Said Alice had begged her to send it so Isabelle would know what had happened to her. Wouldn't think she had just abandoned her. Said she only agreed to get married if she saw her put it in the mail.”

“God will punish you,” he says.

Freddie ignores him. “So Alice is gone. A wife. And Isabelle?”

He begins to cry. “I raised that girl after her mama passed. I didn't have to do that. I could have left. She's no relation to me.”

Freddie aims for his left knee. There is a loud bang, like a pistol firing as it shatters. A dark stain runs down the front of Mr. Odom's pants.

“Now she sits up there with your baby inside her, sadder than anyone should ever be. You did that to her. You should have let her go. Instead, you raped her. You raped her again and again. Lay on her and sweated and grunted and stuck yourself inside her. You made her pregnant with your baby. Her nothing more than a child herself. And not just a child. She was your child. You should have protected her. She had no one else.”

“I meant to make her right,” he sobs. “I only meant to make her right. I thought if she knew a man, I could make her right. I never meant for the other. Jesus as my witness I never meant for the other to happen.”

“You did it because you could do it. There was no one to answer to. You could do it and no one—especially her—had the power to stop you.”

“You don't understand,” he says. “I only wanted to save her—from herself.”

“Enough,” says Freddie. “I can't stand any more.” She steps around behind him, raises the handle, and brings it down full force on the back of his head. His skull caves in under the impact, the ax handle leaving a small, channeled indentation down the center. He goes limp and sags lifeless in the harness.

“You are a lying piece of shit,” she says as she leans the handle up against the wall. Freddie fetches the wheelbarrow from the corner and rolls it over to where Mr. Odom hangs. She positions it behind him and then untethers the rope, letting him drop. His head flops back, mouth agape. It is easier to cut the rope than try to untie it—she will only lose a few feet at most, so she uses a large pair of garden sheers to slice through it. She coils the rope and hangs it back where it belongs, hoists the handles of the wheelbarrow, and rolls Mr. Odom's body to the house.

Jewel stands on the steps leading to the kitchen, wringing a dishtowel between her hands. “You should have told me, Freddie. You should have given me some warning what you were planning.”

“What did you want, Jewel? Would you have cooked him a better breakfast if you had known? Fried some country ham instead of bacon this morning?”

“I have a say in this as well. You are putting me in a position I do not choose to be in.”

“I couldn't trust you not to tell him,” says Freddie. “You talk too much. He said you had plenty of talks with him when you were alone. Talks about private matters.”

“I don't know what you mean,” says Jewel. “I am just saying it wasn't up to you to decide this. The girl is here.”

“I don't think she will care. Where is Isabelle?”

“Probably hiding in her room. I have never heard such sounds before—when you were out in the barn with him. She is bound to have heard them as well. She will know, and she will want to know why.”

“She already knows why,” says Freddie. “Now, unless you want him to start swelling up out here in the sun like a dead possum by the side of the road, I need you to help me.”

Freddie instructs Jewel to hold the screen door for her. She then leans over Mr. Odom and lifts him up onto her shoulder, carrying him as if he were a sack of feed. She is strong. She does not struggle with the weight. She controls her breath and marches purposefully up the steps into the house, in through the kitchen, and up the stairs. When she reaches the landing, she turns and heaves Mr. Odom's body headfirst down the stairs so that he tumbles down like a broken toy all the way to the bottom.

She looks down the hall. Isabelle's door is closed.

“Get the bourbon,” she says to Jewel, who has crept into the front hall.

“He won't have drunk any,” Jewel reminds her. “They will be able to tell.”

“You need to just be quiet and let me tend to this,” says Freddie as she pours some onto his shirt. “They will just need to smell it on him. He had been drinking. And he fell down the stairs. It is that simple.”

“We were supposed to wait until after the baby,” says Jewel. “I thought the girl would be gone long before any of this. She should not be here for this.”

Freddie takes a swig of the bourbon to steady herself. She caps the bottle and hands it to Jewel to return to its proper place. “She is here, though. And she is going to stay here. With us. With me.”

Freddie begins to climb back up the stairs as Jewel calls out after her. “I have a say in these things, Freddie. We had an agreement.”

“We can sort out the details later,” Freddie says. “I have to get changed so I can drive into town and get the sheriff. I told Isabelle you would make her a pitcher of lemonade. Why don't you do that? That should help keep you occupied. Make extra. I am sure Joe Parks will want a cool drink as well. I won't be gone long—an hour. Maybe two if he isn't in his office.”

“A pitcher of lemonade. And a dead man at the foot of the stairs.”

“Then just go sit on the front porch and wait. Or go to your room. Or go stand out in the middle of the road. I don't care. Just please shut up till somebody asks you for your opinion.”

Jewel storms out onto the porch, the screen door slamming behind her.

Freddie runs some cool water in the sink, washes herself. Her braid has come loose, and she wonders if she should have Jewel redo it. She decides against it. Before she heads downstairs, she goes to Isabelle's door.

She knocks gently and opens the door. Isabelle is on the bed, lying on her side, her knees pulled up, her face to the wall. Freddie can tell she is hurting.