Valentine(72)

Mary Rose pops the cartridge out of the rifle, bends down, and grabs one of several bullets that lie scattered at her feet. After she slips a bullet into the chamber and pumps the bolt closed, she stands perfectly still, watching. She is tracking him, Corrine sees, waiting for him to make his next move. She’s a good shot. If she fires again, she will not miss. And as if reading Corrine’s mind, Mary Rose yells at Jesse, Next time I won’t miss.

Corrine reaches Mary Rose at the same time as Debra Ann. He’s my friend, she says, I’m helping him.

He hurt you, Mary Rose says.

No. Debra Ann yanks convulsively at her eyebrow, tearing at the thin hairs and flinging them to the ground. He’s my friend.

Are you okay? Corrine asks, and when Debra Ann nods, she says, What in the hell are you doing?

I’m helping him go back home. D. A. swipes the back of her hand across her nose and rubs a string of brown snot against her shorts. He needs his truck, and I drove him out here.

Oh, honey, says Corrine.

I was coming back. Debra Ann’s face turns red. I wasn’t stealing Mr. Shepard’s truck. I know you love it.

She starts to cry. Nobody cares what happens to Jesse, she says. Or me.

And she is right, Corrine sees now. Debra Ann and Jesse need so much more than anyone has given them. A whistle blows in the distance—the refinery maybe, or a train that is still several miles away. The wind whips their hair around their faces and makes it difficult to hear. In the water-starved desert, the cactuses have turned black and folded in on themselves. Mesquite beans, gray and shriveled, cling to their trees or lie in piles around the trunks, and Jesse Belden lies in the dirt making small noises in his throat, a small and frightened critter, a young man who has seen firsthand how a bullet can tear a body to pieces.

You stand up, Mary Rose tells him. Get up and hold your hands in the air.

He can’t hear you, Debra Ann yells. Her face is covered with dirt and tears, and there is a small scrape on her cheek. He can’t hear—her voice breaks—this is my fault.

Get up, Mary Rose yells. Get up now.

Jesse rises to his knees and rocks a little as he clasps his hands to his head.

Mary Rose, Corrine says. Stop.

I missed my chance before. Her voice is full of sorrow. Corrine grabs her arm, shaking it hard enough that the gun wobbles. You stop this, Mary Rose. This is not the same man. She seizes Debra Ann and holds her out to Mary Rose like an offering. Look. She’s fine. See?

He’s not well, Mrs. Whitehead, D. A. says. I’m responsible for him.

I want to go home, Jesse calls to the women. I want Nadine.

D. A. makes as if to run back to him, but Corrine grabs her by the arm and shakes her hard. Go sit down in my car, lie down in the back seat, and don’t you dare look out that window.

Yes, Mary Rose says quietly. Tell her not to look out the window.

They are the most terrifying words Corrine has ever heard in her life, and it occurs to her that she wants to sit down in the middle of this dusty field, and close her eyes, and go to sleep. She imagines Potter standing beside his truck in a field not far from where they are now. He left the house before dawn, she’s sure, because he would have wanted to see the sun come up one more time. He never missed a chance to watch the sun rise. They could be standing in the middle of the smelliest, most gutted corner of the oil patch and he would watch that burning star hoist itself over the earth’s edge. What color of red is that, he’d say to her. What color, that sky? Those clouds? Another glorious day. He’d smile. What shall we do today, Mrs. Shepard?

Corrine doesn’t want to make a grab for the rifle and risk it going off, so she reaches for the barrel and covers her friend’s hand with her own. What are we going to do, Mary Rose?

Tears mark a slow path through the dust that has gathered on Mary Rose’s cheeks, and still she stands with the rifle aimed at Jesse Belden, safety off, her finger coiled tight around the trigger. I want some fucking justice, she says.

I know, honey, but you don’t want to shoot the wrong man.

Wrong? Mary Rose says. We don’t know what he’s done, or will do, but we know that he sure as shit won’t be held accountable for it.

Corrine rubs her thumb gently across the hand holding the rifle barrel and then moves it gently up Mary Rose’s arm. The stock is pressed tight against Mary Rose’s shoulder, her arm taut as a violin string. She is trembling with rage.

In wrath may you remember mercy, Corrine thinks. Mary Rose, if you shoot this man, you will never be the same. And neither will Debra Ann, or me.

Every day, I wait to pick up the phone and hear his voice on the other end, Mary Rose says. Every night, I wait for somebody to come through my front door and hurt my kids. He is out. They didn’t do one goddamned thing to him.

I know. But this is not your man.

Corrine would have done anything to be with Potter on the morning he chose to die. Not to stop him—she knows damned well what he was facing, how hard his death was going to be if they let the illness run its course—but she could have stood with him and watched the sun come up. Don’t be afraid, she could have told him. You’re not alone.

Thanks for putting up with me all these years, she would have told him, and all my petty bullshit. Potter would have laughed and pointed out some little critter scuttling through the brush. See there? A family of blue quail. See the little hatchlings, nine of them in the clutch? Ain’t that sweet, Corrine?