The Almost Sisters(77)

“You asked her?” Esme wanted to know, all pretense that this was anything but a straight-up recon mission dropped now that I was dishing out the goods directly. It wasn’t very southern of me.

“Of course!” I said, more comfortable now. I’d told the lie that mattered, the one I had to tell to protect my grandmother and her oldest, dearest friend. Everything I had left to say was pure gospel. “Between you and me? I would have done exactly what Wattie did. I would have helped Birchie move that trunk if she’d asked. The law be damned. She’s sick, and Wattie loves her.” Three small-town Baptists, and they were so interested they didn’t so much as blink at the mild profanity. “I honestly don’t think it matters who’s in that trunk or how they got there. Not now. I’ve accepted that I may never know why either. . . .” My voice broke, and it wasn’t spin. I wanted to know the why. I wanted Birchie to tell me. But even if she never did, what I had to say next I believed with my whole being. “I do know Birchie, though. I know her character. So do you, and so does Wattie, and so does this whole town. She’s been the same person for almost a century. Something bad happened in the middle, but a box of bones can’t wipe away ninety years of Birchie being who she is. Whatever she did, or knew about, or kept secret, I forgive her. It’s too late for any other course. She’s very old, and she’s too sick now to explain or defend herself. So I forgive her anything that needs forgiving, and I’m going to defend her. So is Wattie. We’re not going to hide in the house like we’re ashamed of her. We are going to help Birchie go on about her business for as long as she can, and we won’t let people question her or judge her. Wattie won’t have it. I won’t have it. It won’t do.”

Those were Birchie’s power words. I said them for her, using her authority and her inflections, and Alston’s chin came up in response to them. Esme reached out and squeezed my shoulder.

“Good for you,” Esme said, and Grady echoed, “Good for you both.”

“Of course we all know your gramma. I have known Miss Birchie my whole, whole life.” Alston’s eyes were shiny, and the whites pinked as she spoke.

“Good for you what?” Lavender said. She was back with Punchkin.

Alston gave her head a little shake. She smiled at Lavender and took Punchkin’s leash. “Never you mind, young lady. You have work to do! And here I am standing here chattering and letting my heart rate drop.”

“Oh, yes, us, too,” Esme said. “Grady’s doctor says he needs to walk at least two miles every day.”

They paused only to exchange greetings with Birchie and Wattie, and then Esme and Grady hurried back toward their house, disappearing around the corner. Alston took off at a good clip, too, but poor old Punchkin lagged behind her, suffering. After a few hampered steps, she stopped and looked down at him with fond exasperation. He immediately flopped onto his butt again. In Birchville gossip was called “news,” and having some was social currency. I’d just handed Alston and the Franklins big fat wads of it to spend, and gossip waited for no exhausted dog. Alston picked him up and tucked him under her arm like a hairy clutch purse, then bustled away up the street.

We all went back to work. Alston must have gotten on her phone the second she was out of sight, because not ten minutes later Darnette and Larry Pearson came out of their pink brick ranch, set catty-corner across the street from Martina. They were each toting a comfy padded chair from their back patio. They went right to Birchie and Wattie and set them up in the shade, then stood chatting with them.

I hoped no one would ask Birchie questions she ought not to answer. Especially since she was already seeing rabbits. Wattie was right there in case someone tried, and I’d been as clear as I could be with Alston and the Franklins both. I kept picking toilet-paper bits, staying out of the town’s way as it churned and wavered. The air felt charged with a hundred simultaneous phone calls zooming through the airways overhead. The chairs were a good sign, though, especially since the Pearsons had chosen to sit in the center section last Sunday. This might shift them to Birchie’s side.

For the next half hour, even the most sedentary Baptists from both churches had sudden urges for midmorning walks that took them right past the Mack house. Most of these folks had not personally witnessed the lid of the old trunk swinging open. They had only heard about the bones, the skull with its empty eye sockets and its telltale stove-in dome. Hearing was not the same as seeing.

Here in the sunny yard, it was hard for folks to imagine Birchie with a hammer or Wattie stealing a car. I was having trouble imagining these things, and I’d witnessed Wattie’s crash into the mailbox. I’d tucked Birchie’s bare feet into soft socks and watched her do the Tomahawk Chop, her blue eyes blank and unsorry. It all seemed like a bad dream now, as folks from both churches came to rally around them.

I stopped working and simply watched when the first cars pulled up and parked. They were full of folks who lived too far to walk. They came anyway, not bothering with the pretense of happening by. I counted emissaries from more than thirty families, many of them First Baptist folks who had taken center seats on Sunday. We even got RaeAnn Leefly, who I’d seen in the pews behind Martina. She was stiff and uncomfortable at first, but she unbent as Birchie asked about her shingles and her youngest girl, who was having marriage trouble in Montgomery. Birchie, brain-sick as she was, was so hip-deep in the day-to-day life of Birchville that she remembered. Maybe it was Wattie, whispering, remembering for her, but there was no doubting the care behind the questions.