Sadie's Mountain (19 page)

“We’re just gonna wrap the front door knob so we don’t wipe away any of the evidence. This room will have the yella’ tape across so no one can go in there ‘til it’s cleared, understood.”

Dillon nods his head yes. “Where’s my brother?” He asks. I wince.

“I’m not sure, sir,” says the deputy who looks a little like Barney Fife, slightly more muscular, but an underachiever at best.

“Is he on duty?”

“Not that I know of sir?”

No, because he’s a real shadow who steals women’s virtue in his spare time.

“I’m going to call him.”

I don’t even move a muscle. He’s not going to get a hold of Donnie tonight. I’m sure of it. His nose is probably broken.
How’s he going to explain that?

I just want to go to sleep. I’m not letting go of this gun either. I stare at the light grey metal—watch it sparkle in the light from the lamp on the side table. I remember, Daddy taught me about it when he showed me how to use it.

It’s a Ruger Old Army.45 caliber. Daddy got it in 1976 when it was brand new in honor of our bicentennial. He loved it because of the swirled engravings and the random deep ridges in the sepia colored handle. As I run my fingers over the handle, it feels like it must be some type of animal bone cut into the shape of a handle and drilled in place. Daddy said it was mammoth tusks. I wonder if that’s even possible. It’s probably worth a lot of money—but it’s priceless to me, for other reasons.

It’s loaded now. Dillon did it for me, while I examined the process like a dog watching someone fill its bowl. I drooled over the sleek gold bullets as he slid them in one by one—six in all. I can almost imagine the bullets finding their target right now and it feels like retribution. I like the feeling of settling the score. He deserves it. All he has to do is leave me alone and these bullets will stay in their chambers. But if he won’t, I’ll do what I have to do to survive.

Dillon grabs his jacket off the chair, pulls his phone out and taps before putting it to his ear. “Renae? Where’s Donnie? No, they say they don’t know either... Well, have him call me. We had a break-in over at the Sparks’ house... No, everyone’s okay. Thank you so much. Sorry to call so late... Okay! Tomorrow... Sounds great. I really appreciate it. See you then.”

 He puts his phone on the bed and stands in the doorway looking at me like a lost puppy dog.

“Renae, Donnie’s wife, invited us over for lunch tomorrow,” he says.

I nod my head yes, as if I’m being nonchalant. My head swims for a moment as if I’m spinning down the drain, but when it stops, I realize,
this is perfect
. I’m going to let him know, just like he informed me in the shed, next time there will be consequences for behavior like that. He has to let me go. He will have no choice. There, in his house, I will declare my own freedom and there’s nothing he can do to stop me. 

As Dillon walks effortlessly toward me, he sits down and turns his legs into a lap on the couch perfect for me to cuddle up on. He puts his arm over the top of the back of the couch and leans toward me, drawn to me.

“I need to get you some ice,” I say, concerned.

 Hesitantly, I put down the gun that I’ve been holding like a pacifier between my two cupped hands.

“I’ve got it,” Missy says, wielding an icepack covered with a light green kitchen towel.

I take it from her and pull my legs up onto the couch under me like a spring. I don’t even know where to put the ice first. I settle on his eye because it looks worse than any eye I’ve ever seen before. With my other hand, I trace the bruise on his chin and lean in to place soft angel kisses on the darkest purple spot. He winces.

 “We can’t stay here on the couch,” he says.  “I’d like to take you home.”

“Home?”

“To my house,” he says, cautiously but there’s a bit of enthusiasm in his voice. “We can sleep there. I’ve got good locks,” he says.

For the first time, I look at the clock. It’s 2:30 am.

“What about Momma and Missy?”

“Your brothers are coming right now,” he says.

My eyes feel weighted. “I’m exhausted,” I say, with a yawn so sizeable it hurts my jaw.

Just then, Seth and Jake wander into the living room, bewildered and brandishing shotguns. ‘Barney Fife’ is putting the finishing touches on the plastic on the front door. It’s funny to me that the cops don’t even flinch about all of us holding guns. It’s just normal around here.

“Whoa, you guys aren’t messing around? Where were you?” I say, shocked by the large weapons in their hands.

“We been stayin’ nights at Missy’s while Dale’s gone and you’re here,” Jake says.

“You guys okay?” Seth asks.

“Yeah. We’re okay,” Dillon says.

“It don’t look okay, man,” Jake replies, pointing to his face and widening his eyebrows.

“I would take worse,” he says, “for her. He looks at me with the one eye not covered by the light green kitchen towel.

“You guys taking off?”

“If you all don’t mind. We can’t sleep in there,” he says, pointing at the door crossed off with yellow tape. It’s almost funny to me that no one’s wondering what Dillon is even doing here in the middle of the night.

“No, it’s good. We’ve got this,” Jake says earnestly, holding the barrel of the gun at the ground.

“Are you ready?” Dillon asks, standing up and reaching his hand down toward me. I put my palm in his and stand up next to him like a woman about to dance with her sweetheart.

I wonder if he really did buy me a big white house with a big kitchen and lots of rooms for all our babies. I guess I’m going to find out.

Chapter Sixteen—A big white house

I’ve got my long barreled handgun in one hand and the one small bag I brought with me from California in the other. Before I make it to the front porch, Dillon takes my bag so he can hold my hand as we walk toward his Prius. I wonder if Donnie is watching us as we walk out of the house. I feel defiant as I hold Dillon’s hand. It’s likely that he is, since he’d watched me all the time, for years, without me knowing. I can’t believe he told me that today. As a matter of fact, I can’t believe a lot of what happened today.

It’s so odd. Even though it feels like my plane landed months ago, I only stepped foot onto West Virginia territory two days ago. Thursday was my flight and it’s only 3:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. Two days ago, if someone had told me I would be on my way to Dillon’s house in the middle of the night I would have called them a liar. But here I am in my pajamas and wrapped up in Missy’s bright blue robe, going to sleep in his bed with him, I’ve kissed him with a clear conscience, I’ve asked him to make love to me and he turned me down. So much has come about in these two days.

As he opens the trunk to stow my one small bag away for me, I realize it’s not that irrational that two days could change the trajectory of my life when, in reality, twenty minutes in that shed altered my entire existence. I was on one track and then at a moment’s notice, I wasn’t any longer. I wasn’t even the same person anymore.

As he opens the car door for me, I wonder about the house Dillon bought. Here I am, envisioning my future—a dreamlike future that now includes Dillon and a big white house, a big kitchen, and a lot of rooms that we’re going to fill with our babies. It’s great in theory. But, am I capable of such a normal life?

I remember his speech up on the mountain about what he wants from me. He’d spewed his ideal life into the air around us. I’d swatted it away as if I was unworthy of it, but one of the things I’d caught was that he had bought ‘us’ a house. Then, when he refused me in my room, he said that he’d always imagined taking off my white wedding gown in ‘our’ room.

As he turns on the engine that doesn’t really turn on, I gaze up at his face, now marred by violence and a brother’s fixation. He’s swollen and bruised. His eye looks red and veiny.  Seeing him like this is a reality check. Going to Dillon’s house has me bopping around in la-la land as if Donnie hadn’t just broken into my house and beaten his brother nearly to death.

If Donnie hadn’t been scared off by the rest of my family he would have probably killed Dillon and then tried to violate me once again—take what he thinks is owed to him—or worse. This awareness is a rush of lucidity that takes me down quite a few notches on the happiness belt. I squeeze my gun.

I gaze up at Dillon who looks deep in thought as we glide onto Highway 60. I wish I could crawl in there, deep inside his mind and read his thoughts. Truth be told, he’s probably wishing the same thing—much more than I am, actually.

I don’t know what to say to make him feel better. He’s so unaware of all that’s going on inside my mind. The plans I’m making to let go, and truly be his in every way. But that hinges on my evidence and Donnie’s reaction to it. I will use it, if I have to—that I know. He’ll lose everything, his job, his wife, his children, if he doesn’t let me go. Maybe I shouldn’t even give him a chance to decide.

What if I just make the post live? No. I’m not ready to do that yet. To make public the most horrid event of my life, to tell everyone the secrets held deep within me for all these years. It would be like taking off my well-honed veneer and revealing to everyone the scarred little girl inside me.

“What proof do you have?” Dillon asks, out of nowhere.

“What?”

“In your room. You told him to
do
it because everyone would know it’s him.”

Oh crap!

 “What proof do you have?” he asks again, impassive, serious. The last thing on my mind when I said that was whether or not Dillon heard me. I was frantic to distract Donnie so he wouldn’t kill him, but he heard every word. I’m spinning through every lie I can tell right now.

The wheel lands on, “I was bluffing,” I try, and then look out the window so he can’t tell I’m lying.

“Well, it worked. I believed you, too,” he says, almost as if he doesn’t believe me. When I check him out again, he’s looking at the road. He’s holding the steering wheel too tight. He has the right to be perturbed over my not telling him—but I can’t.  If I did, if I just let him in here for half a minute, if I opened my mind and let him climb in, he’d be scratching to get out, begging for mercy.
It’s better this way.
I feel guilty, but he really doesn’t need to know. After tomorrow’s lunch, I will be free—then we can really be together.

We’ve driven from Brandon Street down Highway 60 toward town. I wonder where he lives? Hesitation hangs in the air between us—like tension when answering difficult questions in an interview, but this is an interview with my future house. This is silly. I’m being silly, and I’m usually so indifferent to the workings of life. Well, aside from my career, or my antiques.
Is this the new me?

 When we turn onto Page Street, he slows down and takes the little driveway up the knoll to the Page-Vawter house, an old abandoned house that used to fascinate me when I was younger. I always wondered what it looked like inside. It was big enough to be considered a mansion. We’d peeked in through the dust on the tall windows at the oak floors covered in a thin veil of West Virginia grit that had settled there year by empty year. I remember there were so many fireplaces covered in pretty tiles that I’d lost count.

As his headlights shine upon the house, I realize it isn’t rickety anymore and it’s white!

“Dillon?” I question him as he pulls up to one of the most famous houses in Ansted.

“Yes, Sadie?” he says, suddenly buoyant—his voice hopping around like my mood.

“Is this your house?”

He stares at me through the darkness in the car. He turns off the engine and nods his head slowly to show me he really means it.

“How? What? Did you fix it up yourself?”

“I’ve done some of it myself. Some of it I’ve paid to get done.”

I have to close my mouth on purpose when I realize it’s wide open. I look at the house and back at him.
He kept his promise
. It makes my heart pound realizing that he’d never given up on me. My chin trembles so I put my hand to my mouth.

“Would you like to come in?” he says, seductively smooth.

The only thing I can do is nod. This is like the ultimate antique. Covertly, this house is what I’ve never had the courage to admit I always wanted—like a little seed of hope that I’d never watered. In fact, my house in California is a newer version of this house—L shaped and two storied with the gabled kitchen and a wraparound veranda. It has only a fraction of the charm, and none of the history—like a generic copy.

Dillon, having opened my door, is standing next to me, holding his hand out. I look down at the handgun and move it to my left hand so I can take Dillon’s offer to have his support getting up—as shocked as I am, I need all the help I can get.

My black house slippers pit and pat along the rock-dotted path up to the front porch. I can feel the little solid mounds digging into the soles of my feet. We creak up the stairs, my hand in Dillon’s like knotted wood, just like old times. He unlocks one of the double doors and lets it glide open of its own free will. As I cross over the threshold with his hand pressed into the small of my back, I find myself just where I’m supposed to be. I exhale loudly. I just realized I’d been holding my breath.

“Welcome home,” Dillon says, like a foghorn welcoming me on to shore; and when I look at him he’s smoldering again.

“Home,” I say, as if I need to be reminded what the word means.

“What do you think?” he asks.

Inside, the house is just as it always was through the glass, except more real. It smells of polished woods, and newer paint. The wainscoting is cleaner with a new matte patina.  It sounds empty, because it is. Even our breath bounces around, echoing like invisible boomerangs trying to find a soft spot to rest—and that makes me sad. This house is just waiting for a family to fill it up.

“You know I love this house. Why is it empty?” I ask, as I’m imagining all of my antiques in the places they were born to set down in for the rest of my life. Being here brings relief to my system, like a puzzle has been solved.