Mama loved Gramma. Trusted her. Would have wanted to say good-bye to her.
That night.
Woody woke me, babbling, “Mama… mama… gone.” I tried ignoring her, and when she wouldn’t let me, I groused, “What’re ya doin’ up? Did ya eat too many Red Hots? You’re having a bad dream. Lie back down and go to sleep.” I rolled away from her, but she came after me. “Papa… Papa,” she moaned, and that’s when I heard him, too. Thrashing about in the woods, bellowing, “No… no. Mother… how could you?” At the time, I thought he meant our mother. That in his drunken state he was referring to her in an outraged way. Somebody else was back there with him, but I couldn’t make out who and by the time I found my binoculars, I heard our father’s grunting, cursing effort to get his feet situated on the fort steps and Woody could, too, and she grabbed on to my neck when he hollered up the trunk, “She’s… she’s… gone. Get down here.”
That somebody else I saw darting around in the trees was Gramma Ruth Love. She killed my mother and Clive took a picture of her doing it, so she killed him, too.
“Evie was a wicked woman, yes, she was,” Gramma says. “She was carryin’ on with Sam Moody, too. Did ya know that he’s Gus’s illegitimate? Back when we were young, Elizabeth Moody tempted my Gus with her young flesh. Running around the house half-clothed. How could the man resist?”
Blind Beezy is out in the Jackson’s cottage, grieving for the loss of her son, who is about to be prosecuted for a crime he didn’t commit. Grampa knows what his wife has done. Blackie and Papa, too. They’re trying to frame Sam. Blame him for Gramma’s badness.
“Elizabeth Bell, she’s the next one the Lord wants me to take care of. Isn’t that right?” she politely asks the Jesus statue on the dressing table.
“Mama,” I whisper over and over. “Mama.”
“I got the note from her somewhere right back here, if you want to see it.” She is ripping through some papers and cards that’re in an envelope that’s taped to the back cover of the album. “I’m sure finding this out comes as somewhat of a shock to you, dear, but once you read it, you’ll know you’re better off without her.” Gramma slips a piece of folded yellow paper out of the envelope. Brings her glasses that she keeps on a gold chain around her neck up to her eyes. “Yes, this is it. Read it, please,” she says, passing it to me. “Out loud.”
Mama’s writing, her delicate hand. I choke out:
Sweet peas,
By the time you receive this letter from your grandmother, I’ll be gone. I know how much you love your father, so I can only hope that you will understand why I must leave. I can bear the slap, a shove, but you, my darlings, I’m afraid the anger he feels towards me may soon spread to you. Leaving is the only thing I can think of to stop him. We will start anew. Please, please try to understand. I’m not abandoning you. I’ll be close by. Sam will bring you to me when you’re ready. I’ll be waiting. I love you.
Forever, Mama
I bring the note up to my nose, breathe in her hope.
“That’s real sad,” Gramma says, dabbing at her eyes with the edge of her creamy nightie. “You know, despite all her failings, I miss Evie sometimes. She could be real-”
“How dare you!” I haul back my hand and slap her across the mouth before she can take my mother’s name in vain one more time. She tips sideways, catches her head on the sharp edge of the bedside table, and collapses onto the floor. She’s bleeding from the head, the same way Mama is in the picture that Clive took of her in the clearing that night. She’s not moving, her chest barely rising.
I bend down to her and cry, “Jesus also said, ‘Life for life, eye for eye.’” I cannot help myself. My temper. I reach for my pillow off the bed and place it over her face, press and press until my knuckles whiten. Being the fine Southern lady that she is, my grandmother does not struggle.
Chapter Thirty-one
I thought my grandfather was holding me in his arms until my cheek brushed up against the cool badge on his chest and Andy Nash commanded, “You’re comin’ with me, Miss Shen.”
The sheriff isn’t carting me off because I killed Gramma Ruth Love. I wanted to, almost did, but my twin was all I could think of as I was pressing down on that pillow with all my might. Woody could not get by if I got sent away for committing murder. I had to stop, for her sake, not because I didn’t want Gramma dead. I wanted to take her life the same way she took our mother’s.
After I let up on the pillow, I crawled over to the window. I’ve got to get to Woody. That’s all I was thinking. Gramma came awake when I was sliding over the sill. “You’re just like your mother. Go… go on… run away the same way she tried to,” she raved, waving at me with her lipsticked palms. “You won’t get any further than she did.”
The blood from where she cut herself on the bedside table was scalloping her forehead like a crown of thorns. The overwhelming horror of it all came over me and I lost my grip on the trellis and went tumbling down to the ground and landed hard on the grass below. I’m not sure how long I lay there before I felt the sheriff pick me up. I didn’t even bother putting up a fight.
What was the use? While I was blacked out, Gramma must’ve hollered downstairs and told Grampa that I escaped. He must’ve called the sheriff, who came rushing right over. That’s why I’m sitting in his county car now.
My father’s oldest friend and Kappa Alpha fraternity brother, Doc Keller, is along for the ride. Him and his black bag are slouched next to Sheriff Nash in the front seat. It’s after midnight. The doctor has been roused out of his bed. That’s why his breath smelled like an old shoe when he patched up my arm that Grampa hurt. “It’s not broken, just sprained,” he told me as he wrapped the bandage from my wrist up to my elbow and back down again. “You’ll be fine in a few days.”
I’m in the backseat. The windows down. The doors locked. The mountain air blowing my bangs. My grandmother’s dried blood is caked on my hands, under my nails. I didn’t tell the sheriff what she confessed to me about killing Mama and Clive. I’m sure he already knows. He’s on my father’s payroll.
“Where are ya takin’ me?” I ask the back of the sheriff’s head again.
He says, “We’ll be there before you know it.” His eyes are studying me in his rearview mirror. “Why don’t you just sit back and relax? This will all be over soon. Isn’t that right, Chester?”
Doc Keller doesn’t acknowledge the question. He’s staring out the window. We’re near the peak of the mountain. Behind us, the lights of the Founders Weekend carnival are illuminating the sky, and in front of me, the lights of Lynchburg stretch out. I know where the sheriff is taking me now. That’s why Doc is coming along. He needs to add his signature to the commitment papers, which have probably already been signed by my father. He must’ve told them to take me to the Colony because I’m not his beautiful daughter of the stars anymore. I’m the daughter who knows that his mother killed my mother. And that my family is framing Sam Moody for that crime. What will Papa tell people? That I ran away? Yes. He will spread the word that I have always been a handful. Everyone in town will believe him. He’s Walter T. Carmody, the most superior court judge in all of Rockbridge County.
That’s all right. I’m getting exactly what I deserve. The search I undertook for my mother is what’s caused all this. It was pride that convinced me that when I found our mama and brought her home, our lives would be restored to their previous shiny glory. If only I’d humbly accepted Mama’s missing right off the bat, none of this awfulness would’ve happened. Sam wouldn’t be in jail waiting for his trial that I will not be allowed to testify at. Beezy wouldn’t be over at Mr. Cole’s place crying her blind eyes out for her son. Woody would be snuggled safe up in our fort instead of hopefully hiding under the covers over at the Tittle place. And I would not be on the way to The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded.