“And you don’t want me to help?” she asked.
“No,” Will said. “I don’t want you to help because if Drew gets loose at any time I don’t want you stopping me. Or stopping Jerome. We mean to keep him safe but neither of us trust him. You understand?”
“I’m on your side,” she said. “I could help.” She looked past him to Drew and Will turned to see Drew watching all of this with amusement.
“I know that,” Will said. “But things change quickly. It’s why John sent Drew away when he started tattooing you. And it’s why I’m sending you away now. Family makes people do strange things. That’s all.”
She looked around at all three of them, then she agreed. They watched her go down the hallway to the bathroom. The light from the lamp, refracted off the walls of the hallway, was the only thing to follow after she had gone. Then, far down, Will heard the sound of the bathroom door closing and afterwards there was no light to be seen at all.
Will brought Drew to his feet then walked him to the chair and set him down again. Jerome had already taken up the shotgun and angled off to the right for a clear shot that would not hit Will if Drew did decide to fight them. Will cut a length of rope away then tied it around the back of the chair, securing it in among the wood. Then he tied Drew’s arms down at the elbows, looped the rope across his chest, and tied it all taut behind. He did the same to his ankles, looping the separate length of rope about the chair legs before securing each ankle to each chair leg. Only afterwards did Will cut the electrical cord from about Drew’s wrists. The rope around his chest and arms was loose enough that he could, with difficulty, bring his arms around and set them on either thigh.
Will tested each rope then stepped back. He looked to Jerome then motioned for Jerome to lower the shotgun.
Drew sat there working his hands open and closed, repeating it over and over again. He looked straight at Will and smiled. “See, you can trust me,” he said.
Will turned away. He found several thick blankets and some nails then tacked the blankets up across the front windows to block what light came from the lamp and the cooking. He was nearly done with this when he looked out the front window on the tree there and the swing moving slightly in the night breeze that came up the hill.
He let that vision pour into him for a time, memories in his head and the knot they created in his throat and in the muscles of his stomach. Then, in only a whisper, he said, “I hope wherever the two of you are you’ve made a life of it better than I ever could.” He let that hang in the air for a while, then he reached up and hammered in the last nail.
IN THE MEDICAL KIT SHE FOUND GAUZE AND ALCOHOL. SHE found things like scissors and bandages, an ACE wrap, and the little metal clips that went along with it. She laid this all out before her on the bathroom counter. The light of the lamp flickering ever so in the stillness of the bathroom, causing each of the items and even the medical kit itself to wax and wane in shadow on the bathroom wall.
She listened for a time but she heard no struggle and she assumed everything had gone okay and even now her brother sat on the chair, his hands free. Mary May did not blame Will for the way he’d talked to her. She knew it was true, she knew when it came down to family, people did irrational things.
“Like crash their pickup truck and run into the mountains for a day or two,” the woman in the mirror said to her, looking at her out of the lamplit gloom.
“John did try to give you an out,” she said to herself. “He tried to tell you not to go up that mountain but then you did anyway and now you have this to deal with for the rest of your life.” She pried one edge of her shirt down and away from her skin. It was stuck in places from either the blood or sweat that had dried there. She looked the word over. It was barely even visible with all the dirt and dust she had on her, and that stuck on her as if she was some fool from yesteryear who had let themselves be tarred and feathered.
She picked up the scissors now and cut the shirt all the way down then shucked it from off her shoulders and let it fall to the ground. She found the can of soda water Will had given her. She cracked the top, poured a little over some of the gauze, and began to wipe it down her chest. She followed the edges of the letters, not wanting to directly touch them yet, the skin beneath the dirt and blood looking red and swollen.
When she was done she brought out a separate swath of gauze, poured alcohol over it and then started in again, wincing with the pain, sometimes crying out as the alcohol touched the raw skin. When she was done she stood unmoving at the mirror, looking at the word there in the lamplight. The tattoo was dark on the skin, she could see in some places how John had gone over it several times, and then in other places she saw how he had used a lighter touch. The effect gave the tattoo a loose and somewhat lopsided appearance, like the drawings of a child.
ENVY. She closed her eyes, hoping in some way it would not be there when she opened them again. But it was there, spanning the skin between her collarbone and the beginnings of her bra, marking her. She thought about what John had said to her as he had put the sin across her chest. She knew she would not forget, but she knew, too, that the way she thought about it and the way John had intended it were two completely different things. She would not forget, and if John had killed her daddy, Mary May was certain she would come for John first.
She slipped one bra strap off, then the other. She kept the back clasped and began to press clean bandages down across the red and swollen skin. If she had lotion or some sort of ointment she would have used it, but everything she turned up was old and had separated within the bottle and certainly could not be trusted. Next, she wrapped the ACE bandage and secured it with the clips. It looked all right. Not professionally done but it worked for what it was.
She put the straps of the bra back over her shoulders then picked up the shirt Will had given her. She put the still-folded garment to her nose. Dust and locked-away places. Mildew, and the faint smell of another woman’s perfume. It was his wife’s and she’d known that since he’d brought it out to her. Now, Mary May let it fall full before her. A gray button-up blouse. She knew he’d picked it out because it would not sit atop the tattoo, but still it was not like the T-shirts she was accustomed to. She put it on and turned and looked herself over. It was almost as if she were someone else. It was almost as if it hadn’t happened, but she knew no shirt could erase the tattoo from her mind, it would always be with her, however she chose to try and hide it.
When she opened the door and came out with the lamp held before her, she could smell the cooking. There was the sound of metal silverware and the low talking of the men. She walked forward but then stopped. In the living room the windows had all been covered with thick blankets, but the lightest of them showed a slight red flicker, like light seen on the bottom of a pool, diffuse and distant. She knew though that this was not light on the bottom of a pool, or anything as pleasant as that.
By the time she reached the window she was sure of it, something was burning. There was a faint smell in the air that had not been there before, rubber or something acrylic. She now had the blanket in hand and she parted it from the window and looked out. The fire lit the night up and the smoke rolled and billowed black into the sky, the flames licking upwards at a height of twenty or thirty feet. All of this was down at the edge of the property. Something had been set afire there at the gate, the flames rising and spreading upward into the trees overhead.