Lacy grinned back, nodding her head back and forth and side to side, and the silly way she did it so reminded Jesse of his Abigail that he felt someone had socked him in the chest. He felt the sting of tears, suddenly missing his own little girl so badly it physically hurt. Jesse pulled the biscuit from his mouth, stood up, and walked over to the window, not wanting anyone to see him blinking away his tears. Where was Abi now? Was she safe? He propped his elbows atop the old piano and stared out across the winter landscape, at the approaching dusk. Had Dillard found out about the massacre at the General’s? If so, what would he do about it? What lengths would he go to to cover his own involvement? Were Linda and Abigail in danger? He won’t kill them, won’t go that far. Jesse pushed his hand through his hair. You’re fooling yourself. You know exactly what that man’s capable of. He’s gonna want them out of the picture, and sooner than later. “Fuck,” Jesse whispered.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned.
“You’re worrying on your little girl,” Isabel said. “Aren’t you?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Do anything just to give her a big hug right now.”
“It’s hard, I know. That feeling of someone needing you and you can’t be there for them . . . can’t do nothing about it. Tears you up inside.”
Jesse looked at her, could see she needed to say something. He waited, giving her space.
“The other day . . . when I told you about trying to kill myself . . . there was more to it.”
“Thought there might be.”
“My boy . . . his name is Daniel.”
Jesse couldn’t hide his surprise, tried to understand how Isabel could possibly have a child.
“I miss him . . . every day.” She waited for him to say something, but Jesse had no idea what, not to something like that. “It wasn’t some cheap fling,” she continued. “I ain’t like that. I loved him. Loved him very much. Named his boy after him.”
Jesse nodded.
She studied him a minute. “Can be hard sometimes for folks to understand. They tend to think the worst of you.”
“I ain’t in no position to be judging anyone. Wouldn’t think no worse of you if I were.”
“I know you wouldn’t. Don’t care much what folks might think about me, not anymore, not about that anyhow. But I do want you to know why things went the way they did. Why I would leave my own baby.”
They watched Lacy take one of the biscuits over to Freki. She wasn’t much bigger than the wolf’s head. Freki sniffed the biscuit, then licked it right out of the little girl’s hand. Lacy giggled.
“I didn’t have a lot of friends,” Isabel said. “Seeing how I was a Mullins and all. Folks tended to steer clear of us Mullinses on account that mental issues ran in the family. I know it’s why my daddy ran off, because of Mama’s fits. I’d known Daniel since I was six, he was the only real friend I ever had. But that made no matter to Mama. She wouldn’t let us date. Said I was too young, and maybe I was. But that didn’t stop us. We took to sneaking around; dated in secret for near on a year. And during that whole time we didn’t do much more than kiss and hold hands. I mean Daniel made a few halfhearted advances, but he was just so shy about such things. He’d always been rather awkward, the other kids liked to tease him about it, y’know. But that’s what I liked about him . . . he was such a goof. There was such a sweetness about his way.
“Then he got drafted. Vietnam. Those bastards sent him his notice just one week after his eighteenth birthday—one goddamn week. Off he goes to Fort Bragg. And that two months he was gone to Basic, that was the longest two months of my life. The Army gave him just four days leave before he was to ship out to Vietnam and he spent most of it on a bus coming home to see me. You wanna know what he’d done while he was at Bragg?” Isabel looked at Jesse.
“Sure.”
“He’d saved up all his pay and bought me something special.” She tugged a cord out from her jacket. A gold ring hung from the end of it. “Had to hang it around my neck on account it won’t fit my finger no more. He couldn’t afford a diamond, but it is solid gold. And it was then, that night, after he gave me this ring, after he promised to marry me, that’s when we laid down together. We planned on getting hitched just as soon as he got back. It was our secret. A thing only between us and that made it all the more special. But things don’t always go the way folks want . . . or hope. Life ain’t like that.”
“He didn’t make it back, did he?”
“He stepped on a mine. First month he was over there. One step took him away from me forever.”
“Isabel, I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. She sat down on the piano bench. “So there I was, knocked up and without a man. Not the first girl to ever find herself in that predicament, but you couldn’t have told me that, not then.
“About the time they shipped his body back I was starting to show. I was so small and the baby rode high, so Mama found out soon enough and when she did, she locked me in the closet, read me Scripture through the door for two days. When she let me out she told me I was gonna have to get rid of it. I told her that was against the Bible. But Mama tended to only hear what she wanted to from the Good Book. Told me she was takin’ me to see some woman she knew over in Madison . . . a fixing woman.
“That baby was all I had left of Daniel. There weren’t no way I was gonna let ’em kill his flesh and blood. And I told her so. Made it clear she’d have to kill me first. And . . . well,” Isabel cleared her throat. “She tried . . . that woman starved me, even tried to feed me poison once. She wouldn’t let me leave the house, kept the shades down, such was her fear someone might find out.
“But somehow I had that baby, had him on the bathroom floor. And when I did, when I saw that baby boy, then I knew that Daniel’s spirit was watching over us, because our baby was alive . . . alive and healthy. Had a strong set of lungs and let the world know he was here. I could see his daddy in his face, even that small, I swear I could. Gave him his daddy’s name.
“I made it to my bedroom and passed out with him suckling at my breast. When I come to he was gone. Found them in the living room, Mama leaning over him, whispering, talking her God talk. At first I thought she was dressing him, thought maybe seeing his face had softened her heart. Then I saw, and what I saw turned my blood cold. She had a pillow over his face, over my baby’s face. I could see his little hands clutching at that pillow. I snatched the crucifix up off the top of the TV and smashed it against the side of her head. Not once but several times, until she lay still on the floor. I think I killed her, but don’t know, not even now. Because after I done that, I picked up my baby, wrapped him in a towel, and run off. And even though my insides felt like they’d been torn open, I walked the two miles over to Daniel’s parents’ house.
“Daniel’s parents didn’t know about the baby, not even about mine and Daniel’s engagement. I showed them the ring and told them our story. I had no idea how they’d take it, but I didn’t have no other place to go. Well, I never seen folks so happy to see a baby. It was all over their faces, it was as though I’d brought them their son back. I knew then that little Daniel would be safe with them. Told them I had to go get something out from the car. Of course I didn’t have no car. I just walked down the driveway and kept going, didn’t really know where I was headed, not then, just kept walking and walking, all that day and into the night until I found myself up in them hills.