She let out a long sigh and stared at the ceiling.
”Ma? Can you hear me?”
She didn’t respond. She lay motionless, almost catatonic. I looked over at the bedside dresser. On top of it were several photos of our fractured family.
There was one of my grandfather, wearing bib overalls and following a plow pulled by a mule through a cornfield. There was a framed photograph of me walking across the stage at my law school graduation ceremony. Next to it, in a smaller frame, was a black-and-white of Sarah and me when I was seven years old. We were standing on a plank raft in the middle of a half-acre pond out back of my grandparents’
home. Both of us were grinning from ear to ear. Two of my front teeth were missing.
Just to the right of that photo was a slightly larger one of Uncle Raymond, taken about six months before he died. He was seventeen years old, standing next to a doe that had been shot, hung from a tree limb, and gutted. He held a rifle in his left hand and a cigarette in his right. I walked over and picked up the photo. I looked at it for a minute and then turned back towards the bed. Ma was still staring at the ceiling.
”Can you hear me?” I said.
Nothing.
I sat back down on the chair next to the bed and began to dismantle the picture frame. I pried the small staples loose on the back of the frame, pulled the photo out, and tore it into little pieces.
”Hope you don’t mind too much, Ma, but I’m going to put Raymond where he belongs.” I walked to the bathroom, dropped the pieces in the toilet, flushed it, and watched them swirl around the bowl and disappear.
I went to her bedside and sat down again. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and tried to compose myself, the mention of Raymond’s name still ringing in my ears. Finally, I sat up straight.
”Since you can’t hear me anyway, I’m going to tell you what he did,” I said. ”At least it’ll give me the chance to finally get it off my chest.”
I leaned forward, rested my elbows on my knees, and clasped my hands.
”I was eight years old. Sarah was nine. You and Grandma and Grandpa had gone out-it was a Friday evening-and you left Sarah and me at Grandma’s house with Raymond. He was sixteen, I think.
”I remember watching a baseball game on TV. I must have dozed off, because when I woke up, it was dark. The only light in the house was the light from the television. I remember sitting up and rubbing my eyes, and then I heard this noise. It scared me, because it sounded like a cry for help, but I got up off of the couch and started walking towards the noise, more scared every step I took. I was tiptoeing.
”As I got closer, I could make out some words, something like ‘No! Stop it!’ I knew it was Sarah’s voice, coming from Uncle Raymond’s bedroom. I pushed the door open just a little and I could make out Uncle Raymond in the lamplight. He was naked on his knees in the bed with his back to me. Sarah’s voice was coming from underneath him.”
I stopped and took a deep breath, the image of my naked uncle looming over my sister burning in my mind’s eye. ”Can you hear me, Ma?” I said. ”Are you getting this?” I noticed my voice was shaky. Ma was still staring at the ceiling.
”Sarah kept saying, ‘It hurts. Stop it!’ I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know anything about sex. But there was so much pain, so much fear in Sarah’s voice that I knew it was bad. I finally managed to say, ‘What’s going on?’ I remember being surprised that my voice worked.
”Raymond’s head snapped around and he looked at me like he was going to kill me. He said, ‘Get the fuck out of here, you little twerp.’ I asked him what he was doing to Sarah. And then, Ma, right then, Sarah said something that haunts me to this day. I’ll never forget that little voice. She said, ‘Get him off of me, Joey. He’s hurting me.’ ”
I had to stop for a minute. The rape of my sister had haunted me, and her, for more than three decades. When I started talking to Ma, I thought it might somehow help to finally describe to another human being-even a human being who couldn’t take it in-what had happened to Sarah. But talking about it was transporting me back to that tiny bedroom. I could feel my heart pounding inside my chest, and my hands had become cold and clammy.
”I stood there like an idiot for a second trying to figure out what to do, but Raymond didn’t give me a chance. He jumped off the bed and grabbed me by the throat. He slammed my head so hard against the wall that it made me dizzy. Then he picked me up by the collar and threw me out the door. I remember skidding along down the hallway on my stomach.
He slammed the door, and I froze. I thought about going out to the garage to get a baseball bat or a shovel or an ax, anything. I could hear Sarah crying on the other side of the door, but it was like one of those nightmares where your arms and legs won’t work. I was too goddamned scared to move.
”Finally, after what seemed like forever, they came out of the room. I remember Sarah sniffling and wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Raymond grabbed both of us by the back of the neck, dragged us into the living room, and pushed us onto the couch. He bent down close to us and pointed his finger within an inch of my nose. And then your brother, the one you loved so much, said to me, ‘If you say one word about this to anybody, I’ll kill your sister.’ Then he turned to Sarah and said, ‘And if you say anything, I’ll kill your brother. Got it?’
”Neither one of us ever said a word to anyone, including each other. When that sorry piece of shit drowned a year later, it was one of the best days of my life. I tried to get him out of my mind after that, but I couldn’t do it. Obviously, neither could Sarah.”
I sat back in the chair and let out a deep sigh. ”So now you know.”
She hadn’t moved since I started talking. She lay there, barely breathing, staring at nothing, blinking occasionally.
”I can’t believe you didn’t notice the changes after that day. I can’t believe you never even bothered to ask what was wrong. I might have told you about it, and maybe you could have done something to help Sarah. But you were too busy feeling sorry for yourself, weren’t you? You’ve spent your whole life being miserable, and now it’s over.”
I looked for some telltale sign that she understood. Nothing.
”Did you hear a word I just said? Did you hear?
Ma? ”
There was a knock and the door opened. A nurse’s aide stepped tentatively into the room.
”Is everything all right?” she said. ”I thought I heard someone shouting.”
It took a few seconds before I understood what she was saying. I suddenly realized where I was, like I’d just been awakened from a deep sleep.
”Everything’s fine,” I said. ”Please close the door.”
She turned and left. I got up from the chair and looked down at Ma.
”I guess I better go now. I’m glad we had this little talk.”
April 12
4:00 p.m.
Shitdammit. Erlene Barlowe missed Gus more than ever. He’d have been better than her at handling the TBI agent. As soon as she got away from him in the parking lot, she sat down at the bar and asked herself what Gus would do. She was worried. The TBI man didn’t strike her as the type she could hold off for long. She knew he’d be back, and she knew it would probably be soon.
Like she told the agent, Gus had been elected high sheriff of McNairy County when he was only twenty-six years old. It was nearly thirty years ago. Erlene hadn’t been much more than a baby, only twenty-two, and didn’t know the first thing about the world.
Her uncle on the McNairy County Commission helped her get a job as a dispatcher at the sheriff’s department. She and Gus were sweet on each other right from the get-go.
What she hadn’t told the agent was that Gus was married to another woman at the time, and his wife Bashie caught Erlene and Gus in a motel room in Gatlinburg on a Friday night. Bashie divorced Gus a few months later and he resigned from the sheriff’s department. There was also some talk that Gus was selling protection to gamblers and marijuana smugglers, but Erlene didn’t believe a word of it.