Valentine(73)

And it is sweet, she sees now. Potter knew it all the way to the end. How could she have thought so little of the world? How could she have taken herself out of the equation, she wonders, always looking askance, tearing so much down, giving so little back? She will grieve him until the day she dies, but that is going to be a long time from today—for everyone standing in this field, if she can help it.

It is just past three o’clock. The sun and heat are without mercy, and the wind blows hot against their faces. Jesse Belden kneels quietly in the dirt with his hands on his head and his face turned toward the earth, a prisoner who has been waiting his whole life for this. This is the soldier home from the war. These are the years and the walls and the door— Where are those words from? What song, what poem, what story? When she gets home, she will try to find them. If need be, she will take every book off the shelves. Home without Potter, home with a goddamned stray cat and a motherless child, home with a young woman whose face is a mess of gray dust and tears and rage, whose finger is still on the trigger. Home with this young stranger kneeling in the dirt.

Corrine keeps her hand on Mary Rose’s shoulder. We are going to drive back to town, she says, and ask Suzanne to stay with the kids a little longer. We’ll sit out in my backyard and have a stiff drink, and we will figure this out.

What the hell is wrong with this place? Mary Rose’s voice is barely more than a whisper. Why don’t we give a shit about what happens to a girl like Glory Ramírez?

I don’t know.

Mary Rose looks across the field at Jesse Belden. I want to kill someone.

Not this man. Corrine laughs gently. Maybe another time. She wraps her hand around the rifle’s barrel. Her arm wobbles under its weight as she lifts the gun out of Mary Rose’s hand and sets it on the ground and nudges it away with the toe of her sneaker. You’re not alone, she says.

Don’t be afraid, Corrine calls out to Jesse and Mary Rose, and D. A. Pierce, whose face is pressed against the window of Corrine’s car, a small and pale witness, trying to understand what it means when Mary Rose walks over to Jesse and helps him to his feet, when she tells him how sorry she is, how easy it is to become the thing you most hate, or fear. I never knew, Mary Rose tells him, and I wish I still didn’t.

*

They drive back to Odessa slowly, Corrine and D. A. leading the way in the Lincoln, followed by Jesse in Potter’s truck. Mary Rose brings up the rear, her white sedan so covered with dust it is barely indistinguishable from the fields they pass. Tomorrow morning, Corrine tells Jesse, she will drive him back out and they will pick up his truck, which they left parked next to the gravesite of those railroad workers. They will make sure he gets home to eastern Tennessee. Your sister is there, right? Yes, ma’am, he says quietly, and my mom.

When they arrive at Corrine’s driveway, Jesse pulls Potter’s truck behind her car and sits looking through the windshield while she brings him a glass of water. His hands are still gripping the steering wheel when he falls asleep, but when she looks out the window a few minutes later, the truck is empty and he is gone. She will find him in the morning, take him back to Penwell, give him some money, and make sure he gets home.

Corrine steers Mary Rose across the street and hands her off to Suzanne, who opens and closes her mouth a half dozen times before pressing her lips together and saying nothing. If any of this gets out, Corrine knows, Mary Rose is likely to find herself locked up in the hospital at Big Springs.

Slowly, Corrine walks back across the street and draws a hot bath for Debra Ann, who will soak for nearly an hour and leave so much sand and dirt in the tub that Corrine will wonder aloud when this child last bathed.

With soap? Debra Anne says.

Corrine is sitting on the floor outside the bathroom with her back against the door and her legs straight out in front of her. Everything hurts—her knees, her ass, her tits, every damn thing. If you steal anything from me, ever again, she tells the girl, I will send you packing—straight to Suzanne Ledbetter. She’d just love to get her hands on you.

I won’t, D. A. says. Can you come wash my back?

No, honey. Mrs. Shepard just wants to sit here quietly for a minute or two.

I can’t reach it, and it itches.

Corrine sighs and tries to stand up, but her back rebels. She rolls over onto one side and lies there panting, then uses the wall to pull herself up. When she steps into the bathroom, D. A. is hunched over in the bathtub, her round shoulders and back covered with chigger bites and open scabs. Long, ugly scratches mark the places she can reach. Everything else is a mess of dried blood and infected skin. Corrine grabs a washcloth and dips it in the bathwater and then, kneeling on the floor, she rubs it gently against the child’s skin. From now on, she says, you can come over any time, as long as it’s after ten a.m., and I will always answer the door. The little girl sighs deeply and closes her eyes. That feels good.

We’ll need to doctor these bites. Corrine wrings out the washcloth and sets it on the edge of the bathtub. You can come anytime and take a hot bath and watch television, she says, and I will make sure there’s plenty of Dr Pepper in the house.

All I ask in return—Corrine pauses for a few seconds and pushes Debra Ann’s damp hair out of her eyes—is that you don’t tell anybody about Mrs. Whitehead firing that gun. We don’t want anybody to suffer more than they need to.

D. A. nods and slides down into the bathtub until she is flat on her back, pretending to float in a lake, her brown hair fanning out on either side of her face. She never wanted anybody to suffer.