“Wake him, then. We must see him.”
A long minute went by as she stared at us, then turned away. Before she went back in, I saw her mouth move, though I heard no words from where I stood, but what she said satisfied the men for they stood quiet, shoulders sagging.
A match must have been struck and a lantern lit, for light flared behind a window, and John Garney came out. He leaned against the door, reaching across the narrow space with his other hand, holding onto the frame, and I could see how he shifted, looking for balance and not finding it.
“Where have you been tonight?” he was asked. And so it began, the questions that had no answers anyone wanted or would believe.
“I’ve been in the house all night and what business is it of yours?”
“A good man’s wagon and barn have been burned, the same man you fought for no reason just hours ago. Several of those who helped have suffered injury.”
“That was no doing of mine. If I come at a man he sees my face when I lift my hand to him.”
Through the doorway, I saw Sarah Garney return, to stand behind her husband, just out of reach, and from around the back of the house, Jessie walked, so slowly I think few people marked the movement. She had both twins beside her, one arm around each.
The men waited, calm and implacable, and Garney turned, so unsteady I thought he would fall, but he grabbed his wife by the arm and thrust her before him.
“Tell them,” he said. “Tell them where I’ve been all night.”
Again she waited, silent long enough to give weight to whatever opinion the listeners had of her — that she would lie to protect him, that she would lie out of fear of him, or that she would tell the truth no matter how many were set against her husband.
“He’s been here. He’s been here since the accident.”
Mutters rose in the crowd that it was no accident if a drunk filled himself with moonshine and stepped in front of a team of horses. Nor was it an accident when a lantern broke against both wagon and barn.
I looked over at Jessie, who crouched there now in the snow with her brothers. No one else noticed them. She had made them put on their shoes and coats. I wondered, was it for waiting in the cold while the grownups talked and made their decisions, or was it preparing to run. She saw me watching her, and her arm tightened around Stephen.
The men shifted, stood with their shoulders touching, made a fence of their tired bodies. One spoke. “You will have to leave, Brother Garney. Whether this burning can be laid at your door by the sheriff or not, we know where the blame rests. This is not the first of the many troubles you have brought us. It must be the last.”
Garney took a step toward them. “I’ll not go. Damn all of you.”
“You will. The elders of his ward will speak to the owner of this house and he will evict your family tomorrow.”
I saw Jessie flinch, and heard the outcry from her mother.
“Or you leave by yourself. We have no quarrel with your wife or children. If you are gone, they may stay. We will help them find work. Choose now.”
Jessie’s eyes blazed through the darkness. She knew. There would be too few lanterns in her house for her not to see that one had vanished. Her hand crept further around Stephen, closer to his mouth to keep him from calling out. But I knew he would not. He was still and silent as the ice frozen down to the mud on the floor of the river.
Had he done it to free them? Known the blame would fall on his father? Known to use the men who stood there to finally stay his father’s hand? Men who waited there tired and worn, who would risk their lives to save wood and iron, but would never have saved his family from beatings. Or had he done it out of the broken thinking of victims I have seen so often acted out, to turn on the one who attacks their attacker? I didn’t know. I still don’t. I only knew Stephen would use no words that night. Whatever sent him out into the night with fire, now he would stand and watch, and see what else was done.
As I watched, I knew what the loss of a father, even one so miserable as John Garney, meant to a family dependent on his earnings, but I said nothing. If any of us who knew — Jessie, me, Stephen himself — told that he had set the fire, a promise of restitution would be demanded, but then everyone would turn away and leave Stephen at the mercy of his father. The smell of smoke and burned things hung in the cold air as we waited for Garney to make his choice, the men thinking they were protecting neighbors and property, while I knew they were shielding one boy. Garney turned to his wife, and Sarah, after a wild-eyed look at the people crowded round her steps, wrapped one arm tighter around the baby she held, the other hand on the toddler who clutched at her skirts, and stumbled down the steps.
“You worthless piece of...” he snarled at her, “I’ll be well rid of you and those brats.” He clenched his fist, ready to strike, but she was out of reach so he leaned down, grabbing the worn railing, and spat at her, then spun awkwardly around and disappeared.
My mother moved forward then, put her arm around Sarah Garney, said, “You and your children come home with us until your husband has taken his things and left. The elders will see to him. Marie, Alma, you bring Jessie and the twins along.” So she had noticed them, too.
Before we could turn away, he came back out, a rifle cradled in one arm.
“You’ll not tell me what to do or where to go, you self-righteous sons of whores,” he shouted, and lifted the gun to his shoulder, the barrel swaying back and forth, but always pointed into the crowd.
Two shots rang out, one after another, and he fell back, his shot wild and harming none of us.
Sarah seemed to collapse against my mother, but my mother was strong from lifting clothes heavy with water, so she bore Sarah and the small ones quickly along, and Alma and I followed, Jessie in the center, me beside Micah — I could feel him shaking — and Alma next to Stephen.
My mother forced cup after cup of tea into them all, and then food, and that night they slept in our beds. By the morning, the body was gone, the blood scrubbed from the porch, and the family returned to their house. But a sort of friendship had begun out of the smoke and secrets of that night.
The elders found Mrs. Garney a place at the laundry where my mother worked. Jessie stayed home to care for her little sisters. At her house after school, we would take out our books and homework and teach her what we had learned that day. Stephen and Micah were given jobs at the grocer’s, measuring out grain, washing and trimming vegetables, cleaning up after the butcher. They would come home with their hands nicked and clothes stained, but they would also bring the beets or potatoes or green apples that had not been good enough to sell, and the marbled trimmings the butcher gave to them. The twins never returned to school. Micah eventually drifted off, disappearing for weeks, then months, and then we saw no more of him. As the years passed, Stephen was given increasing responsibilities and came to be manager, and then started his own store. Jessie never married. She had seen enough of the institution and had no use for it, though she would spend her life taking care of other people’s children.
When I finally realized what had come to be between Alma and Stephen, I sat Alma down at the old table and told her what he had done. Not to keep them apart, I had no expectation that was possible, or any wish for it. He was no more like his father than my own had been like his.
Stephen never asked me for silence. I don’t know if Alma told him I knew. I expect she did. They were so close they seemed to share each breath, and after she died, too young, too young, he walked through this world only out of obligation to all those who depended on him.
Copyright © 2011 by Trina Corey
The Long Way Down