24

Narsissa was buried on a Tuesday, the day after Clive Gillespie’s funeral and two days after the town dressed in black for Sheriff Bissell’s service.

The small group, made up of neighbors and Neva Clarkson, assembled in the section of the cemetery segregated for Indians. Moss and rotting tree limbs littered the plot of land. Ella stood next to an anthill and listened to Reverend Simpson piece together a woman he only knew from what others in the community said about her. The magnolia casket that Lanier had stayed up for two days working on now gleamed in the afternoon sun. Ella rubbed the ends of the fish-scale necklace and wished that it really had magical properties. If so, she would turn back time and turn Lanier Stillis away from her farm.

“Jesus promises peace not like the world gives, but eternal peace.” Reverend Simpson closed his Bible and looked straight at Ella. “May your beloved Narsissa have peace.” Then he reached for Ella’s hands. “May you finally have peace.”

Lanier did not join the group that circled around the casket he had made. He chose to stay behind, telling Ella that he didn’t want to draw more attention than had already been given. “I’m an innocent man,” Lanier kept saying long after Sheriff Loring had returned to Bainbridge, taking the bodies of the Troxler brothers to the cemetery where their sister and father awaited them in death. The yellowed papers that J.D. claimed verified Lanier’s mental instability were found, torn from bullets, inside his coat jacket pocket. They were the death certificates of his wife and sister—war tokens, more or less.

Earl’s argument for innocence would turn out to be as riddled with holes as Ella’s home the day he walked out of it. After Deputy Ronnie took testimony from everyone, he wrote up the whole affair as “self-defense and justifiable homicide.” Sheriff Bissell would be memorialized in popular opinion as a fallen hero who had been ambushed by the brothers from Bainbridge. Judge Takerton, the man Clive Gillespie had helped elect, split the report the deputy wrote right down the middle with a pewter envelope opener. “Justice is blind in my courtroom. She has equal balance. A crime is a crime is a crime,” he said the day he signed off on the verdict to send Earl to Raiford Prison.

Even after the bodies were identified, the floors cleaned, and the curtains and windows replaced, the events of that day would hover over Ella and her sons like an estranged relative whose memory never truly goes away.

Riding in the wagon back home after Narsissa’s funeral, Ella and her sons were trapped in their scattered thoughts. A fox darted out in front of them before running back through the high grass that led to a broken-down farmhouse. The gray, rotted porch floor was cracked right down the middle.

Samuel popped the reins a little too hard, and the mule shook his head.

“It’s not his fault,” Ella said.

Samuel popped the reins again, and once more the mule shook his head, causing the bridle to make a jingling noise.

“Samuel, you’re too rough with the reins.”

The wagon wheel dipped into a rut, and Ella was jostled up against her oldest son. His muscles were taut, and he snapped the reins again, harder, until the mule called out.

Snatching the reins away, Ella shouted, “Stop it.”

He balled up his fist like he might hit her, but she never turned away. Ella only gripped the reins tighter and leaned away from her son.

Samuel kicked the floor of the wagon, folded his arms, and simmered until they reached the corner of their property.

Lanier was at the water pump, priming the handle, when the wagon headed up the path toward the barn.

“Samuel,” Ella yelled.

Before the wagon could stop, Samuel had leaped from the seat.

Lanier halfway turned and was knocked backward toward the sunflowers by Samuel’s fist. Sunflower stalks bent in submission.

“You killed her,” Samuel yelled through gritted teeth. He slammed his fist on Lanier’s head twice before Lanier rebounded and swung his weight, flipping Samuel down on his back. Samuel, pinned to the ground by Lanier’s grip on his wrists, kept yelling. “You killed her. You killed her. You killed her.”

Beneath Lanier’s weight, Samuel writhed and jerked like a wild animal being held captive. “You killed her,” he screamed.

Ella pulled Lanier off her son, and Keaton tried in vain to hold his brother back. Samuel bounded forward and bumped into Ella as he tried to get to Lanier. “I said stop,” Ella shouted. When Samuel failed to listen to her, Ella pushed her way in between the two of them.

The hat she wore was knocked askew, and a reddening spot showed where Samuel’s shoulder had landed when he bumped her aside to get to Lanier. Ella kept pulling at Samuel’s face, trying to hold his head still. He thrashed and spat, cursing Lanier. When words failed, Ella struck him square on his face. The crimson shape of her fingers remained on his cheek.

“He killed her,” Samuel said, heaving out the words. “He good as killed her.” Slumping to the ground, Samuel cried harder than he had since his father disappeared.

No one took Lanier his supper that night, and he didn’t venture out of the barn to request it.

Ella opened the door of Narsissa’s cabin. The hinges creaked when it opened, and for a moment, she stood there in the darkness, taking in the smell of herbs that Narsissa kept in the dresser that Ella had given her as a hand-me-down. Never bothering to close the door, Ella lit the lamp and looked in the corner where Narsissa’s bed sat.

The pattern quilt that Narsissa had made out of discarded baby clothing worn by Ella’s sons was laid neatly across the mattress. Ella folded the quilt the same way a soldier might handle a flag and sat down on the edge of the bed. The picture of Narsissa with the man who was once her husband was next to the small nicked and stained nightstand that Ella had replaced in her own home with a nicer version. She looked at the picture and tried to imagine the woman Narsissa must have been at that time. A woman who would follow a man to a distant land. A woman, not unlike herself, who was at one time intoxicated with a love that leaves the mind and spirit hungover. Pressing the quilt against her, she inhaled the scent and for the first time cried harder than she had when Harlan deserted her.

“I’m sorry.” Lanier stood in the doorway with the light striking the side of his body in a glow.

Ella jumped from the bed and wiped her eyes.

When he stepped inside, an owl called out beyond the door. Ella moved to the other side of the room. “Everything’s fine.” She looked around the cabin, seeking a distraction.

His words were crisp and excited, like a schoolchild seeking approval. “I made some more dolls. They’re in the store. Just inside the door.”

A hot breeze stirred through the open door, and the light in the lamp swayed. “There must be a thunderstorm heading our way,” she said and ran her hand across the quilt. “Narsissa could predict the weather as good as any steamboat captain.”

“I’m sorry,” he said yet another time. “Out there today in the yard . . .”

“The shipment from Pensacola came in today. I’ll need to start restocking tomorrow.” She stared down at the woven rug next to the bed that covered Narsissa’s secret compartment.

“I’m sorry . . . about everything.”

“Your dolls are still selling, healing or no healing,” Ella said and then sighed. “I guess everybody is still holding out some hope.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hush!” Ella shouted.

Crickets and bullfrogs called out as a distant symphony. Stepping backward, Lanier turned to go but stopped. “Know one thing. . . . I never meant to bring you trouble.”

“It’s more complicated than apologies.”

“I hate it. I just wish I’d kept going on to New Orleans.”

Ella sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the open door. She didn’t want Lanier to come any closer but didn’t want to tell him so either. “We both know that if you hadn’t ended up here, my sons and I would be in the poorhouse, begging for our next meal. My son might even be dead. You know that. Just the same as if Narsissa wouldn’t have wound up here, I’d be in the poorhouse. I couldn’t take care of myself. I guess I never have.”

“Yes, you could have.”

Her mouth twisted to the side. “No, I couldn’t have. I needed you just like I needed Narsissa. She paid the price in all of this.”

“The price?”

“I cost Narsissa her life by not being able to manage. If I was as strong as her, we wouldn’t be in this situation. I would have let you stay the night in the barn and then Samuel would have taken you to the steamboat the next morning. You’d be in New Orleans, and Narsissa would still be here.”

“This has nothing to do with you. It was . . . I don’t know, timing. . . . Fate. . . . Whatever you want to call it.”

“Of course it’s about me. It is always about me. Always has been.” Ella fluttered her hand and then balled it into a fist. “I’ve been dependent my entire life. I’ve been selfish . . . just waiting for the next person to swoop in and take care of me.” Her voice broke again.

He took a step closer, and she slid farther down the bed. “Don’t,” she said.

“I wish I’d left after we made the cut.”

“You wouldn’t have,” she said. “Because I wouldn’t have let you.”

“Because we’re partners.”

“Partners? I’m married.”

“Partners in business, is what I meant to say.”

Ella dropped her chin and looked at him in a way that would not let him circle the truth.

Lanier ran his hand through his hair. “Look, I feel terrible about all of this.”

“I’m still married. The law won’t let me forget it. And people won’t either.”

“I ain’t gonna stand here and let you beat yourself up like this.” The light illuminated the back of his head. “You helped me just like you helped Narsissa.”

“I helped you all right.” Ella toyed at a loose thread on the quilt before twisting it around her finger and yanking it free.

“Ella, do you want me to leave? Is that what you’re aiming for?”

“What I want and what I need are two different things.”

He reached out and stroked the back of her hair. This time she didn’t move. “Ella, deep down, what do you want? Be honest, now. If you’re ever going to be honest with yourself, now’s the time.” The box springs on the bed squeaked when he sat down.

For the first time that evening she exhaled long and deep. Part of her wanted to fall back on the bed and sink into the feather mattress. “I might not care what these people around here think of me anymore, but I still care about the opinion of my boys.”

“There were no boys in my question.”

“The truth is, Lanier, I want you to stay.”

Lanier’s fingers brushed against her shoulder.

“But right now a bigger part of me wants you to leave.”

The sting of her words etched across his face.

Ella lay across the side of the bed with her back to Lanier. She could feel the shift in the mattress and the creak of the springs when he got up. Tucking her hands underneath the heavy quilt, she forced herself to stay still. She heard his boots tap on the floor as he made his way out the door. The crunching sound of his weight against the broken limbs and leaves outside the cabin was soon overpowered by the cry of the owl. Up until now, she had never thought of the bird’s call as mournful.

Fog canopied the road in front of the store, and dew sprinkled like diamonds across the grass on Ella’s yard. Clouds hung so low that the earth and sky became one. Ella stood at her bedroom window and could only make out the azalea bush at the edge of her porch. A spider’s web, dotted with drops of water from the mist, hung from the corner of the porch banister. Ella studied the intricate design that looked like lace and wondered how long it had been there without her ever noticing.

Slipping on her robe, Ella felt the cold surface of the floor on her bare feet and hoped the sensation would jolt the numbness that blanketed her mind. The hallway floor creaked, and she knocked on the door of the boys’ room. “Morning,” she said without opening the door. She said the greeting again, this time forcing herself to add a cheerful lift to her voice.

In the kitchen she pulled the skillet from the cabinet and scooped out the lard that Narsissa had put into a canister. Today will be a good day, she told herself and then prayed for the strength to make it so.

After the boys had dressed for school and eaten, they went about their morning chores. Ella cleaned the kitchen and watched them from the window. They wove in and out of the fog like they were actors coming on and off a stage between scenes.

Scrubbing the skillet faster and faster, Ella jumped when Keaton called her name. He was standing at the back door of the kitchen, his hands placed on the sides like he was holding up the frame. “Mama,” he said. His eyes were as wide as they had been the day Lanier climbed out of the box. “He’s gone.”

Holding the grease-stained rag, Ella looked at him. Her full lips parted slightly as if she were in the middle of forming a word that was now locked in her throat.

“Lanier’s gone.”

Out in the barn, they all stood around the spot where Lanier had made his bed. They stared at the ground the same way they would have if he had shrunk and they were seeking him in the scatter of hay. The mule looked up at them with slivers of hay hanging from his whiskers and then returned to his breakfast.

Macon was the one who found three twenty-dollar bills tucked underneath an oak box that rested on the workbench. He tried to open the lid but Samuel took it from him and completed the job. Inside there were pencils, tubes of paint, a canvas, and three long paintbrushes. “He must have ordered this with that shipment he unpacked yesterday,” Samuel said. He pulled out a piece of parchment paper. With one of the pencils, Lanier had written a note that Samuel read out loud. “I’ve said enough. I’ve done enough. I appreciate everything that has been done to help me but it’s time for me to set out to where I started. I’m going to New Orleans to start fresh. I hope you all will think of me from time to time. Not about the bad things but about the good ones. We natural-born worked, but we did it. We did it. Paint a picture and think of me sometime.”

“That’s all?” Keaton asked.

“What’s in the box?” Macon asked.

“Paint,” Ella stammered.

“Paint?” Macon said.

Samuel handed the box to Ella. “We got to head on. We’ll be late for school.”

“He just left?” Keaton said. “He just up and left without telling us bye?”

“Is he coming back?” Macon asked and then pulled the box lower so he could get a look inside.

“No,” Samuel said. “He won’t be coming back.”

“He just left without saying anything to anybody?” Keaton looked back down at the spot where Lanier had slept.

Ella let Macon hold the box of paints and then looked straight at Samuel. “It’s for the best.”

“Samuel was right,” Keaton said, kicking the spot where Lanier had slept. “He’s nothing but white trash.”

“Mind what you say about Lanier,” Ella said.

“He’s still our friend,” Macon said, looking up at Ella for reassurance. She pulled him close to the fold of her underarm but didn’t reply.

“It’s for the best,” Samuel said and handed the money to Ella. When his fingers brushed up against hers, Ella squeezed them before he had a chance to pull away.

Standing alone at the barn door, Ella watched her sons disappear into the fog and make their way to school. She clutched the box of paint to her chest and heard Lanier in her mind. “Let the art free your mind.” Rubbing the surface of the plywood box, Ella felt she was drowning in the darkness that she pictured as a yoke around her soul. She imagined herself walking into the mist and folding inside the empty feeling that tormented her until she would eventually vanish.

She thought of her aunt and the way she would often wrap her arms around herself and shudder. “I’m just so nervous and melancholy today,” her aunt would say. Ella would quietly walk about the house and peer into the bedroom where her aunt rested during bright spring days with the drapes completely drawn. Her aunt had spent so much of her life behind closed curtains. A shiver ran down Ella’s spine, and she forced herself to step out of the barn and into the damp mist that covered the air. The time for tears had come and gone. “It’s for the best,” she said twice more before forcing herself to take one step and then another back to the house.