The Animators(92)

The glow from the laptop flickers out. She reaches over and smacks it shut. She’s gone too far to go back, and she knows it.

“What did you just say,” I repeat.

Mom goes recalcitrant, now, her voice small and wavery. “He was mad at me,” she says. “Daddy. But he loved you anyways. Loved you enough to sign the birth certificate.” She starts to fidget with her glasses.

I shift off my bad leg, wobbling. Stunned. I hear Mel cough in the next room. “Are you being serious,” I say.

“Sharon, please.” Mom’s voice breaks. “I’m so sorry.”

“Who else knows.”

“Nobody.”

It’s coming to me, in bits and pieces. I think of Allen, behind the church, during the funeral. I think of the great aunt who hugged Shauna, but merely grasped my hand, avoiding my eye. Dad at the dinner table, studying my face—at ten or eleven years old—as if trying to figure something out. His youngest, the most alien from him, the most distant. Whole worlds between us.

“No no,” I say slowly. “You know Dad told people. He could get pretty chatty when he was wasted, remember? He told Uncle Allen. That I do know. That stupid fuck had it written all over his face whenever I was in the room. Probably the rest of his brothers, too. That’s why they were always such dicks to me. They were fucking mean, Mom. They were downright ugly to me when I was a kid.”

“Buncha sleazy hillbilly assholes. You shouldnta paid them any attention.”

“I was a kid.”

“I wanted to protect you,” she says.

“Well, you did a crap job.”

“It was for your own good, to not know,” she says louder. “How would it feel to grow up a little girl, knowing your daddy maybe wasn’t yours?”

“It felt fairly fucking shitty, that’s how.”

She flaps a hand at me. “Oh, you didn’t know.”

“I always knew something was wrong,” I hiss.

Her head is bent. I see a tear slide down her nose.

“So who was it,” I say. “If you want to redeem yourself at all, you need to tell me.”

She hitches in a breath, wipes at her eyes with both hands. Sniffs. “Walt Kroger. Used to deliver the mail,” she whispers. “He’s been dead a year. Maybe two.”

“He was my father?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “There was a man from Owensboro out here with the extension office for a while. Then he went back. His name was Hatfield. Maybe him.”

“There’s two maybes? Christ Jesus, Mom.”

She presses her hands to her face. Removes them. Blinks. “You remember the Caudills,” she says. “Next door. Little Teddy, the one you used to play with.”

My entire body goes cold. I shake my head. No. No no.

“Honus Caudill,” she says. “That was his name. Could have been him.”

I hear Mel exhale.

“Honus Caudill,” I repeat slowly. “The pedophile. That one?”

She snorts harder. “Maybe. No one knew anything about him then. I had no idea.” She pulls out a pink Kleenex. Blows her nose. “Your daddy and I were separated. None of you know that, but we were, for a little while.” She stops, takes a watery breath. “I was different back then. I’m not proud of it.”

“You sure it wasn’t Dad? You sure you didn’t, you know, accidentally sleep with him while you were sleeping with three other guys?”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, shut up,” she mutters, making her way to the paper towels and tearing off a big hank.

“You don’t get to tell me to shut up right now.” I point over the rise, to where the Caudill house once stood. “Did he know?”

“No. Even then he was…a little strange. I didn’t want him knowing nothing.”

“How was he a little strange,” I say.

She shrugs, says nothing.

“How,” I scream. She jumps. “How was he a little strange? I deserve to know. You owe me this, goddammit.”

“Good God, Sharon,” she bleats. “He could get rough when you’re not supposed to, all right? When he shouldn’t have been.” Her head tilts forward, her shoulders tremble. She’s sobbing. “God bless it, I hope you ain’t been with anyone who’s done you that way. Trying to get you to do things you don’t wanna do—”

“Okay. Please stop.” I cover my face. “Everyone knows you’d let me get hit by a train and not do a fucking thing about it. Please stop paying lip service to this bogus mothering instinct that does not exist.”

She lifts her head. Her face twists into a snarl. “You know what,” she says, “you always thought you were just a little bit above the rest of us. Since you were little. We all knew it. They used to talk about it. Well, let me tell you something, honey. You most definitely are not.”

“How in the fuck can you project that onto a little kid. That’s sick. How dare you.”

“I ain’t projectin nothin, darling. I know an uppity bitch when I see one.”

I hear Mel shift in the next room, then stick her head in, cutting her eyes at me. I hold my hand up.

“And Daddy did, too. Cause he didn’t like it when someone looked down on him. And now the whole world’s gonna look down on us, and that’s exactly what you want. You ain’t changed a bit. You’re still a spoiled brat. And a mistake.”