The Saints of Swallow Hill(21)

Rae Lynn was on the verge of tears.

“Warren. You can’t mean that.”

“I do.”

Sickened, she exclaimed, “I can’t. You shouldn’t ask me.”

“It’s. Unbearable.”

His hands shook as he laid them on his left side. She left the room, alarmed, afraid of what he asked, and his plea followed her through the house.

“Please.”

She tried to distract herself by cooking breakfast as if nothing was wrong. She brought it to him, but he’d turned his head so he faced the wall. She sat down, preparing to do like she’d been trying to do each and every morning, offer him some soft-cooked eggs, except he turned his head to the wall.

“Won’t you eat?”

Silence. She set the plate down, angry.

“That ain’t the answer. I wouldn’t ask you, if it was me.”

“Ain’t asking. I’ll do it.”

The words blew through her like a cold wind in the dead of winter. She pictured him doing what he wanted, and her standing there, letting it happen. My God. Just thinking about it gave her such an emotional jolt, she felt dizzy, nauseous.

She said, “I don’t understand this thinking. Let me bring the doctor, Warren!”

“Too. Late.”

Arguing with her cost him because he began panting. Rae Lynn went to him, reached out, and he pulled away. Hurt, she left the room and paced the kitchen floor. She tried to see it his way. Would it be an act of kindness? She was torn by his suffering, but this idea of his, it was barbaric.

She marched back into the room and said, “I’m getting Doctor Perdue.”

His eyes widened, and she thought it was because of what she said, but instead he heaved onto his side and threw up in the basin, filling it with thick black matter. Frightened, she went to him, rested her hand on his back as he continued to expel what was in him. He collapsed back on the bed, his mouth rimmed with what had come out of him. The smell in the room had changed, coming from what he’d left in the basin, as if he was dying from the inside out. For a second, she thought he had, until his chest rose and lowered. He still breathed, only barely.

Backing out of the room, she went outside onto her porch and took a deep, cleansing breath. At the end of the property line was a sagging, old tobacco barn, and she walked to it. Once there, she tugged the door open, the rusty hinges squealing. Stooping to enter, a memory came of her and Warren running inside it because of one of those typical, pop-up thunderstorms suddenly appearing on what had been a hot, sunny day. She turned her attention to where they’d lain as the pungent odor of tobacco greeted her, and those long-ago moments, a gift from her past, came rushing forward. She remembered taking off her wet dress, and Warren, usually shy about relations, shrugging out of his overalls and having her right there.

Afterward, she was sure she’d get pregnant because the impromptu act was as passionate a moment as either ever had. With Warren, it had always been lights out, under the sheets, hidden away. But, two weeks later, her blood came, and as was their way, neither of them said a word about how they’d been married several years and had yet to have a child. Rae Lynn didn’t know why. Didn’t know, was it her fault or his, and had long ago concluded it must be her. There was Eugene, after all. Her thoughts were chased off by what was going on at the house, as if she still stood beside their bed, the only witness to his suffering.

“Lord, please, please have mercy on him. Take him. Give him peace. Free him of this awful pain. Don’t let him have to do this,” she whispered.

She put her memories and prayers away, and left the barn. Halfway to the house she heard it, exactly the same as with sweet Bessie. The gunshot echoed through the woods and she almost screamed, No. Instead, she ran, her mouth set, her shoes thudding against hard-packed soil, slipping in the lowlying area that always held water, where mud slick as oil caused Warren’s truck to get stuck time and again. The house came into view, and she slowed to a walk, hoping she was wrong. Her legs trembled, and the tremors traveled upward until she shook all over. She was petrified as she climbed the steps. At the threshold of the front door, the old clock on the mantel clicked away time, a sound she usually barely noticed, but it now filled her ears. From where she stood, it was easy to see Warren was no longer in the bed. He’d slid off it and onto the floor, his legs twitching with an unnatural movement, like he was having some sort of fit.

She put a hand over her mouth to quell the sound welling up inside of her as she willed herself forward. Warren’s midsection was covered in blood. Her gaze traveled to his face to discover him staring at her, mouth opening and closing, as if trying to speak. With his eyebrows raised, he seemed to inquire, Would she? She quickly knelt beside him, brushed his hair back.

She whispered, “Dear God, Warren, what have you gone and done?”

His mouth moved, and she made out the words, just barely.

“Messed . . . up. Finish. It. Please.”

He’d managed to get out of the bed and over to the dresser, and she couldn’t help but think, even in this, Warren had somehow bungled. The gun lay on the floor by his hand. She knelt by his side and picked it up. He nodded, reassuring her. Like Bessie, she reasoned. Merciful at this point, she rationalized. She laid a trembling hand on his forehead, moved his head so he faced away from her, and saw his gaze turn to the blue sky visible through the open window. Lord, dear God, how it could be such a pretty day when such was happening. She took a breath, gripped the handle with both hands, her amputated finger making the hideous task more difficult. She aimed close to his temple, doing her best to not to touch his skin. She didn’t want that to be the last thing he felt. He lay with eyes wide, waiting, and she spoke the final words he’d ever hear.