“I don’t know what you want from me,” Miss Mary said.
“Tell me where to go.”
Miss Mary had tears in her voice but held them back. “This is about the money I took?”
Mother Edna laughed.
“I don’t know where it is,” Miss Mary said.
“Try again.”
“It’s gone. I spent it all getting settled.”
Mother Edna took off the mask and hung it from the rearview mirror. She climbed into the passenger seat and opened the glove box. A pair of wire cutters rested on top of a stack of road maps and a snuff container. Wire cutters in hand, she climbed into the back with us and kneeled over me, slipping the jaws of the wire cutter around my left pinky. “Every lie you tell, I snip off one of his fingers,” Mother Edna said.
“Just let him go,” Miss Mary said.
“Okay. Sorry, pal.”
I felt the jaws digging into my skin and closed my eyes. Time slowed down. I tried to visualize the wire cutters tearing through my skin and bone, my little finger falling between me and Miss Mary, blood fountaining from the stump. Nothing happened.
“I buried it,” Miss Mary said, kicking her feet around, trying to push her mother off me. “Most of it. I kept a few thousand at home. The rest is buried.”
“Where?”
“Here. Out on the property.”
“Let’s go. You have a shovel?”
“There’s a shovel over in the maintenance shed,” Miss Mary said. “You have to promise to let Jalen go before I tell you where the money is.”
“I’ll let him go after I get my money.”
“I don’t trust you. Let him go first.”
Mother Edna leaned over me again and put the jaws of the wire cutters back in place on my left pinky. She squeezed the handles together and I felt pressure first and then a bolt of pain spreading from my hand to my shoulder and I knew there was only air now where my little finger used to be. I looked up at Mother Edna. She was holding my pinky in her hand, dangling it like a slug. Miss Mary was screaming. Blood spread between us. A wave of nausea hit me and I passed out.
When I woke up, I was alone in the back of the van and the first thing I felt was the absence of my finger. I’d dreamed Miss Mary was kissing my neck. I’d dreamed all my teeth were gone and I was trying to kiss her back with a mouthful of slobber. Pain thumped through my body. My ankles were tied together but my hands weren’t. A T-shirt had been wrapped around my left hand and duct-taped into something like a boxing glove. I sat up, drenched in sweat, and looked around. Out the windows all I saw were trees. I heard Miss Mary and Mother Edna talking. Their voices seemed distant at first but then I realized they were right out in front of the van.
“I should’ve killed you before Kingston,” Mother Edna said.
“Just let me dig,” Miss Mary said.
“You and your father, I should’ve fucking done you at the same time. I thought I could make something of you at least. Your father was nothing but that policy he took out.”
I twisted around and made it up to my knees, the pain in my hand throbbing. I straightened my back and strained to see through the windshield. The van was parked on the dirt trail leading to the slave cemetery. Miss Mary was digging up one of the mounds. I couldn’t see how deep the hole was. Mother Edna was standing with her back to me.
“Why do you care about the Tatarskys so goddamn much?” Mother Edna asked.
“You ruined their lives,” Miss Mary said, tossing dirt to the side of her. “That old man killed himself. For what?”
“The money, sweetheart.” Mother Edna shook her head. “I don’t know what the fuck I did wrong raising you. Somehow I let you be weak. I guess that’s from your father.”
“Don’t talk about him anymore.” Miss Mary finally started crying, but she was still fighting it.
“He died because he was weak, and I need weak things out of my way.” Mother Edna paused. “You’re just lucky you got to the hospital that first time, that’s all. Luck’s just luck. It doesn’t last. The things you thought took guts — like stealing my money — didn’t take any guts. You don’t know from guts.”
Miss Mary stopped shoveling and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Get back to it,” Mother Edna said.
Miss Mary didn’t move.
“You need incentive? You, I’m gonna put in that hole, but the kid I’ll turn loose once I have the money. My word’s as good as you’ll get.”
Miss Mary started digging again.
I couldn’t walk with the plastic ties around my ankles, but I knew I’d be able to hop. I scrambled to the back of the van and pulled the handle and then pushed the doors open with my feet. I was hoping for a quiet exit but the doors whined. I jumped to the ground, turned, and saw Mother Edna spinning to me. She didn’t have a weapon that I could see. No gun hiding in an ankle holster either. She came at me, hands raised, and I bunny-hopped to the side, which made the pain in my hand even worse.
“Get back in the van,” she said. “I’ll let you go once I have my money.”
Miss Mary was fast on Mother Edna’s heels with the shovel. She swung it once, aiming for Mother Edna’s back, and missed, slamming the blade into the hard earth.
Mother Edna, lucky for the whiff, turned to Miss Mary and scratched her face, breaking a few of her nails and drawing blood from her daughter’s cheeks.
I hopped painfully past them and went to the hole that Miss Mary had been digging. One of the markers nearby had been loosened. I picked it up with my good hand and held it to my chest. It was an old stone tablet. Thin but sturdy. It looked like bone and felt like it too.
Miss Mary tried to swing the shovel again but she was too close to Mother Edna, who reached out and disarmed her. Mother Edna poked the handle end of the shovel into Miss Mary’s stomach, knocking her to the ground. Then she pinned down her daughter with her foot and swatted her face with the flat end of the shovel blade. Miss Mary whimpered and brought her arms up to protect herself from another blow.
I hopped back to where they were, cradling the grave marker.
Mother Edna stepped back and pointed the shovel at me.
Miss Mary rolled around on the ground, holding her face. Mother Edna was only half-watching her, focusing on me now. Miss Mary was aiming to take out Mother Edna’s legs, but she was off course. She drove Mother Edna closer to me.
I let out a breath.
Mother Edna swung the shovel, and I ducked it.
I hopped closer to her and lashed out with the grave marker, mashing it into the side of her head. The stone split in half. Mother Edna went down hard, landing on her elbows and then collapsing forward. Miss Mary stood, her face covered in blood and dirt, and picked up the shovel. She brought it down on the back of Mother Edna’s head. Mother Edna screamed into the ground. Her blood misted across my legs. I wanted to spit on her.
It was still light out, the sun two hours away from setting. Birds in the trees squawked and sang. Miss Mary kept hitting Mother Edna in the back of the head with the shovel until her hands and feet twitched and she went limp. I noticed those earrings again, tiny guns that weren’t worth shit.
“Ma’am, what are we gonna do?” I asked.
Miss Mary sat down on her mother, holding the shovel across her lap. “I’m so sorry you had to be part of this.”
I leaned against the van, blood starting to soak through the T-shirt wrapped around my hand. “I’m glad she’s dead. I didn’t mind hurting her.”
“She deserved it. Hitting her with that shovel felt good. I know that’s wrong.”