I lower my eyes, not able to stand the pain that I’m seeing in his. “Of course, you knew,” Papa says, so disappointed. “That’s what you were doing the other day up in my room, wasn’t it? Looking for her diary?”
“No… I…” His Honor holds up his hand in a stop, just stop, I-can’t-take-anymore-of-your-lies way. Sadness is tugging at the skin around his eyes, his mouth. He truly doesn’t understand. He bought all Mama’s clothes. Never let her out of his sight. Held her so tight.
Seeing him so dejected makes me want to brush the lock of hair that’s fallen onto his forehead back where it belongs. To kiss his tears away. How devastated Papa’s going to be when I testify at his trial. “Sam Moody did not murder my mother,” I’ll tell the court. “He couldn’t have. I was over at his place that night and he was there and not in the clearing behind our house where my mother was last seen alive. I don’t know why, but my father is lying, trying to make Sam seem guilty when he isn’t.” The family attorney, Bobby Rudd, will jump up and protest, but it’ll be too late. I will have done irreparable damage to my father. No matter what I told Curry earlier, I can feel my feet growing cold. I don’t think I can go through with it. As wrong as it would be to let Sam take the blame for something he didn’t do-I can’t betray my father. This little man, no matter what awful things he’s done, this runt of the litter is my papa.
“Pay attention.” Grampa taps the back of my head, hard. “Sam Moody’s been arrested for murderin’ your mother in the first degree.”
He was trying to catch me off guard, but I’m too practiced to let him. I feign shock and make myself say what he expects to hear. “He… he… that nigger killed Mama?”
Grampa smiles, showing teeth that are as beautiful and bright as Sam’s, and just for a moment in all that radiance, I can imagine how Beezy let herself fall in love with the richest boy in the county all those years ago.
“Shenandoah.” Papa isn’t sad sounding anymore. He talks to me in the same judgmental voice that he would a prisoner that’s just been found guilty in his courtroom. “You’ve done a bad thing. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, Your Honor, I do. And… I’m begging for mercy. I should’ve told you that Mama was going over to visit with Sam Moody at the Triple S. I realize that now.”
“You need to make things right.”
“Yes, sir. I will do anything I can.”
“When… when the sheriff questions you in this matter I want you to tell him how your mother was so kind.” Papa looks at Grampa for his approval. “And how she was going over to the gas station to help Moody out of the goodness of her heart. And… how you heard him threaten to kill her when she shunned his advances and-”
“Cuckold,” Grampa barks out.
Blackie sneers and says, “Your woman was steppin’ out with your own father’s bastard. Ya pussy.”
They will call each other names into the night. Grampa and Blackie ganging up on Papa.
When my father drops his head into his hands and starts bawling, Grampa Gus says, so repulsed, “For Chrissakes. No wonder your wife went lookin’ for some real male companionship.”
“Go ahead and tell Shenny the good news, why don’t you,” Blackie says slyly to his little brother. “Go on, Wally.”
“I have to get remarried,” Papa says. “To… Abigail Hawkins.”
Even though I’m not supposed to ask questions in these interrogation sessions, I can’t help myself. “You have to get married to her?”
Grampa snorts out, “He damn well does. ’Bout time he made up to all of us for the years of trouble he caused marryin’ that Northern bitch.”
When he mentions Mama, I start to cry along with my father and it makes my lip bleed harder.
“Awww… let me help you with that,” my uncle says. He steps over to the freezer and removes a bag of peas. All I can think of is Woody. I hope she made it to the other side of the creek into the loving arms of E. J. and isn’t wandering around in the woods, not sure what she should do next. “Here you go.” Blackie sits back down and places the cold bag against my mouth, presses down too hard.
“We’ll be heading over to the carnival tomorrow evenin’,” Grampa says, taking a long draw and blowing the most perfect smoke ring. “I bet you’re excited, Shenny. Ya always have loved that freak show.”
I reply exactly how he expects me to. “I’m more excited than a banty rooster in a henhouse, Grampa.”
“Thatta girl,” he says, phlegmy. “Now get me a fresh bottle of bourbon from the dinin’ room cabinet and don’t forget a glass for yourself.”
Grampa and Blackie like to get Woody and me inebriated. They think that’s hardy har har funny.
“You heard your grandfather,” Blackie says, tipping my chair backwards until I have no choice but to do what he asks.
The lights that hang above the pictures of past Carmodys are the only illumination in the dining room. Hiram Carmody. Elsie Carmody. All of them. These black-and-white people dotting our walls are the ones to blame for creating a line of men so mean that they think nothing of framing an innocent man for murder or getting a kid drunk on whiskey or treating women like… I’m going to run out the front door. Make a break for it. Join up with E. J. and Woody over at the Tittles’. I take a step towards the foyer.
“Gotcha! Gotcha! Gotcha!” my uncle says, sneaking up behind me.
When I jump and turn to fend him off, something in the corner of the room catches my eye. Behind the potted plant, I can see my grandmother peeking out from the bushy leaves in her creamy nightie. She’s been eavesdropping on their manly conversation. I step in front of the highboy so Blackie can’t see his mother hiding. The open chest door is now perfectly covering her up. If Gramma gets found, she’ll be in as much trouble as me.
“Don’t forget your glass,” Blackie says. He smells of some musky scent I don’t recognize. “Looked to me like you were headin’ towards the front door. You weren’t thinking of goin’ for a stroll, were you? Why, the fun’s just begun.” He pinches the flesh under my arm and leads me back to the rest of them.
Papa and Grampa have taken their shirts off. They’re comparing muscles. My father doesn’t have any.
“Sit back down, Shenandoah,” Grampa says. When I do, it’s to the sound of a long pass of gas. He’s put his whoopee cushion beneath the kitchen chair pad. He and Blackie burst into cackles.
“Sounds like you need some of them Rolaids ya like so much,” my uncle laughs out. “Say ‘excuse me,’ Shen.”
“Excuse me.”
He slides the empty shot glass down in front of me and fills it over the brim. “Let’s toast Founders Weekend. And the weddin’.”
I only want to pretend to take a sip, but Blackie fingers the bottom of the glass, tips it until I can feel the bourbon burning in my mouth and down my throat. I look over at Papa and plead with my eyes: Please. I need you to come to my rescue. To scoop me up in your arms and take me someplace safe.
Blackie refills my shot glass. “C’mon, drink up. You’re way behind,” he says, poking me in the ribs.
A back porch step creaks. Grampa Gus reaches for his shotgun and shouts, “Who’s out there?”
It might be Woody not able to leave me behind. I open my mouth, ready to shout, “Cantaboo! Cantaboo! Run! Run!” I don’t care how bad they beat me.
“It’s just me,” Lou Jackson says, slipping through the squeaky screen door. “I heard y’all from the cottage. Stopped in to see if you needed me to cook ya up something.”
Light-on-her-feet Gramma enters the kitchen from behind me and says, “That won’t be necessary, Louise. I’ve brought pie.”
Grampa and Blackie look at each other and break into raucous laughter. Barely able to speak, my grandfather says, “It ain’t one of your special pies, is it, Ruth Love? Old Clive never saw that comin’,” and then he smacks his hand down on the table so hard that the salt shaker tips over. That’s bad luck. Superstitious Lou reaches for it and Blackie gets ahold of her. Kisses the inside of her wrist, runs his tongue up the inside of her arm with the most sickening look on his face.