Beanie didn’t understand a whole lot of things. One of the things that plain didn’t make sense to her was death. She couldn’t figure out how a body could have breath and a heartbeat one moment and the next be still and without life.
I wasn’t sure I had a good handle on it, either, for that matter.
Mama tried to explain Mr. Jones’s death anyway. The fact that he’d killed himself confused Beanie even more. We sat at the table, Mama trying to get it through my sister’s head.
“He’s not coming back?” Beanie asked. “Like Baby Rosie?”
“That’s right,” Mama answered.
“Did he get full of dust?”
“No. Remember, I told you he died a different way.” Mama reached across the table and patted Beanie’s hand. “He did it to himself.”
“Baby Rosie’s in heaven.” Beanie pushed her eyebrows together the way she always did when she tried real hard to figure out something. “So Mr. Jones is in heaven, too.”
Mama let out a big sigh and pinched the very top of her nose.
“They’re together in heaven.” Beanie nodded and smiled.
“Rosie sure is,” I said.
“Mr. Jones can take care of her now.”
“He never took care of her when he was alive,” I snapped, surprised by how good it felt to be angry at that man.
“Pearl Louise,” Mama gasped.
“It’s true,” I said. “If he’s in heaven, I hope he’s not allowed anywhere near her.”
Mama didn’t say anything against that because she knew how mean Mr. Jones was.
“You think he’s in heaven?” Beanie asked, looking at me.
“I don’t know where he’s at,” I answered. “All I care about is that he can’t hurt anybody anymore.”
Beanie sat for a long time, her eyebrows pushed together. All at once, she got up and stormed up the stairs and to our room, slamming the door behind her.
“Leave her be,” Mama said.
She didn’t have to tell me twice.
Beanie never came downstairs for dinner, so we ate without her, as much as it bothered Meemaw to do it.
“She’s going to get hungry,” Meemaw argued.
“Mother, she’s near grown,” Daddy said. “She’s got to learn. Life’s hard, but we can’t go into a temper tantrum every time something goes wrong.”
“She just don’t understand, is all.” Meemaw crisscrossed her fork and knife across her empty plate. “You should know better than to tell her things she can’t understand.”
“Mother,” Daddy said, his voice smooth and calm. “Beanie is going to be all right.”
“I wish I knew that was the truth.”
“Would it make you feel better if I went up and checked on her?” Daddy sipped the last of his coffee.
“It would, and I thank you.” Meemaw dusted a crumb off her chest.
“Excuse me,” Mama whispered, getting up from the table, her shoulders tense as she moved. She carried her plate to the counter.
“It don’t make no sense to me, Mary,” Meemaw said.
“What don’t?”
“Why you would tell Beanie a thing like that. You knew it would just get her all in a bunch.”
“She had to know.” Mama poured water into a pot and put it on the stove to boil. “We can’t keep these girls from knowing what goes on in this world. I don’t keep secrets from my children.”
Meemaw huffed out air and shook her head. “Since when? Seems to me you’ve got a whopper of a secret under your hat.”
“Mother,” Daddy said, glancing at me. “Don’t. That’s not the way.”
Mama turned, her cheeks red. “I’m doing the best I can.”
“Well, Beanie ain’t never gonna understand things.” Meemaw folded her hands in her lap. “I’d have thought you’d know that by now.”
Mama grabbed her plate and threw it to the floor, smashing it. Meemaw yelped and lifted her hands to her chest, and Daddy stood. My heart beat so hard, it shook my whole body. Mama lifted her hands to her head and gathered bunches of her hair in her fingers.
“You think I don’t know that?” she yelled. “She is my daughter. I know her. I know she isn’t right. I do. And I wish to high heaven I could fix that for her, but I can’t.”
Daddy stepped toward Mama with his hands out as if he was cornering a steer.
“No.” Mama shook her head, eyes huge. “Don’t you—”
“Mary, I need you to calm down.” Daddy took another step.
“I just want you to leave me alone.” She turned her head this way and that, as if she was searching the kitchen for something. “All I want is to get out of this county. Out of this godforsaken state. Everything’s dying here. It’s all falling apart. And I think I’m coming to pieces along with it.”
She touched the counter, running her hand across it, pushing off a layer of dust.
“It doesn’t matter what I do. This house is always dirty. It’s filthy. All I do is scrub and sweep, and it doesn’t make one lick of a difference.” Mama’s voice weakened. “Tom, if you want me to stay married to you, you best find a way to move this family. We can’t live here no more.”
“Mary—”
“Thomas, I’m not just talking.” She gritted her teeth. “If I have to stay here another day I very well may end up like Si Jones.”
“Don’t you dare say something like that.” Daddy smoothed his voice like he was calming a child. “You know you wouldn’t. We need you too much.”
“You hear me? The girls and I can’t live like this anymore. We can’t take it.” She pointed right at him, jabbing her finger into his chest. “I’ll take the girls, and I will leave you behind.”
“I ain’t never thought I’d let a woman talk to me like that.” Daddy shook his head and pushed his lips together.
“What are you going to do about it?” Mama trembled. “You gonna beat me?”
“I wouldn’t—”
“Well, you didn’t stop Si from beating Luella.” She crossed her arms. “Maybe you think it’s not a half-bad idea.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” Daddy stepped away from her. “You best calm yourself.”
Daddy turned from her and made his way to the steps. “Mary, I love you dearly. You know that.”
He took the stairs two at a time. I followed him.
“Daddy?” I said.
He didn’t respond, not even to let me know he’d heard me.
“I don’t want to leave.” I touched his back. “I wouldn’t ever go anywhere without you.”
“I know.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Neither would your mama.”
He turned the knob of my bedroom door and pushed, but it didn’t budge. He pushed harder.
“Beanie Jean, you come on and open this door,” he said, his voice raised.
She didn’t answer him.
“I’m gonna have to break this door down if you don’t open it.”
Still, she didn’t answer.
Daddy put his shoulder into the door, grunting as he shoved it. A skidding of furniture across the floor and the door opened. Beanie had shoved the bed in front of the door. How she’d had the strength, I didn’t know.
Daddy and I stepped into the room.
The curtains moved in the wind that blew through the window.
“Beanie?” Daddy called, looking in the closet and under the bed. “Violet Jean?”
Her shoes were set on her pillow, the laces tangled and frayed.
She was gone.
Mama paced the living room, her shoes tap-tap-tapping as she walked. For all the carrying on with Meemaw before, Mama was quiet and pale as she could be. Her breaths came in short gasps.
“She’s going to be cold,” she said, holding Beanie’s one sweater in a lump against her chest.
Water made a tinkling song as Meemaw filled the tea kettle and put it on to boil. We didn’t have any tea, I knew that much. Mama had put it off for months, saying she didn’t need it. Still, Meemaw boiled water and Mama drank it just like it was, sipping it dutifully before she went back to pacing.
The clock struck eleven times. Outside, the sky was black as tar, and the air was just as thick. Mama had finally sat down on the davenport.
After the clock chimed twelve, Mama got up and went out to the porch. I followed her, so tired, but too scared to sleep. My sister had never taken off into the night before.
Standing next to Mama, I wrapped my arm around her waist, but she didn’t act like she even knew I was there. She just stood still, glaring into the black.
“I should go help them look,” she said. “I wish Tom would’ve let me help.”
Daddy had gotten Millard and a few other men to form a search party after an hour of looking on his own for Beanie. He’d taken his truck so he could cover more land. Most of the other men had lanterns with them. Every once in a while, I’d see a bright dot of flame or headlight off in the distance. Like fireflies.
Meemaw was inside the house, praying. Her quivery voice called out to God, loud as it could get. She begged God so much I was embarrassed for her. I didn’t think I had the stomach to listen to her much longer. Her praying made me even more afraid for my sister.
Leaning back against the porch, I said a little prayer of my own. Mine was inside my head or my heart, I couldn’t decide which. If God heard it, I couldn’t tell. Not right away, at least. All I could do right then was hope He was listening. I wondered if that was what faith felt like.
My prayer was just two words that I thought over and over. “Help Beanie.” That was all I could think of. I’d closed my eyes, hoping it would work even better.
Then Mama spoke.
“It’s him,” she said. Then she said it again, louder, and just about jumped off the porch. She ran down the path to the street.
Daddy’s truck rumbled along the road toward our house. The headlights were so bright against the dark I couldn’t see much else. As it got closer, I could see a man driving and two men riding in the back.
I could tell that the men in the back were Millard and Daddy. They leaned over something.
“Pearl, the door,” Mama shouted. “Hold the door.”
I pulled it wide and held it, afraid I wasn’t doing enough to help.
The truck pulled as close to the porch steps as it could before stopping. Daddy and Millard jumped off the back and helped Beanie out. Daddy steadied my sister as she stumbled up the steps. She held tight to his arm and kept her face blank. She didn’t look at me as she passed by.
Mama followed close behind.
I still held the door even after they were all inside, waiting for Millard and the other man to come in, too.
“We’ll wait out here, Pearl,” Millard said. “Go on in.”
I went inside like he said and closed the door.
“Have her sit there,” Mama said, pointing at the davenport. “Mother, my basket of bandages. Please.”
Daddy moved slowly with Beanie, helping her to sit. He was so careful with her, so gentle. And she didn’t want to let go of him, not even with her backside resting on the soft couch. She kept her arms tight around him and moaned when he tried to release her hands.
He didn’t force her and didn’t fight her. Daddy just knelt down next to her and let her cling to him. He wrapped his arms around her and let her head rest against his chest.
“She’s in a bad way.” Daddy turned his head as much as he could manage. “Real beat up.”
“Good Lord,” Mama said, covering her mouth. “What happened? She get caught up in the barbed wire?”
Daddy and Mama met eyes, and neither of them said a thing. The quiet was only stirred by Beanie’s groaning.
“Somebody did this to her. Whoever it was …” He stopped talking, smoothing Beanie’s hair and pressed lightly over where her ear was. “Whoever done this meant to kill her, I think.”
He pushed her hair aside and showed the marks on her neck.
“What is that?” Mama asked.
“Marks from the hands of whoever did this to her. He tried to strangle her.”
Mama’s knees bent and then straightened again, as if her body couldn’t decided what it needed to do. She reached one hand out and held it on top of Beanie’s head.
Beanie was in our bed, resting. Meemaw had insisted that she needed to be with her. The way my big sister sobbed when Mama cleaned her wounds broke all of our hearts. I wanted so bad to be with her and to hold her hand. But Mama said I’d need to sleep on the davenport for a few nights.
“Grab the end,” Mama said, holding up a sheet.
We lifted the sheet in the space above the davenport and it domed up before landing lightly.
“Go on and lie down.” She nodded. “I’ll put the covers over you.”
“Where’s Daddy?” I asked, curling up on the fresh sheet.
“Out on the porch.” She pulled another sheet over top of me. “He’ll be back in right soon.”
“Is Beanie going to be okay?” I nestled into the pillow Mama handed me.
Mama sat on the edge of the davenport, her hands folded in her lap.
“It’s late,” she whispered. “You need to get some rest.”
I closed my eyes, even though I didn’t think I’d ever fall asleep that night. Pretending to drift off, I breathed slower and rolled so my face would be toward the back of the davenport. Mama fixed the blanket, pulling so it would cover my feet.
The front door opened with a creaking and clicking sound. I didn’t stir, hoping Mama would still believe I was sleeping. The adults were looser with their lips when they thought I was asleep.
“How is she?” Daddy’s voice. “Has she woken up at all?”
I knew he meant Beanie. I didn’t figure they’d be talking about me for a good long time.
“No.” Mama shifted, pushing her rear against my legs. “I hope she sleeps through the night.”
“Pearl fell asleep fast.”
“Sure did.” Mama sighed. “She was real scared. It wears a girl out.”
“I bet.”
“You got any idea who did this to Beanie?” Mama asked.
“Not yet.”
“I can’t imagine anybody doing such a thing.”
“The fella who found her is still out on the porch with Mill,” Daddy said. “I told them they should go on home. The other fella’s all shook up. Says he doesn’t want to leave until he knows she’s going to be okay.”
“They don’t have to stay outside,” Mama said. “Tell them to come in. I’ll make some coffee. I’ve got some potatoes I could fry up too.”
Mama got up and went to the kitchen. I heard her shuffling around and filling the percolator.
“Come on in here,” Daddy called out the door. “My wife’s perking some coffee. You drink coffee, do you?”
“I do believe we could both use a little coffee.” It was Millard’s voice.
As slow as I could, I rolled over to my other side and opened one eye, the one closest to my pillow. All I could see were three sets of booted feet. Daddy’s and Millard’s I recognized. But the other pair were scuffed up and dusty.
“Mary,” Daddy called. “Come on in here, darlin’. This here man found Beanie.”
“Oh,” Mama said. “It’s you. You’re the one?”
“This is my wife, Mary,” Daddy said. “Mary, I believe you’ve seen this man before.”
“I believe so,” Mama answered. “You’re the one found Beanie?”
Mama had the edge to her voice she held for folks she didn’t care for.
“Just doing my good turn for the day,” the man answered.
At the sound of his voice all the breath in my lungs got sucked out. I didn’t dare open my eyes any more than they were. Instead, I shut them tight as I could. So tight, orange burst across my vision.
“Eddie here was just telling me he got back to town just tonight,” Daddy said.
“That so?” Mama asked. “Seems convenient.”
“I had work out to Boise City for a couple weeks is all,” Eddie answered. “Found your daughter on the way into town.”
“Well, Eddie, you’re welcome here any time.” Daddy’s voice sounded like it was smiling. “A regular old part of the family now. We do appreciate you helping our girl.”
“I’m just glad I heard her,” Eddie said. “She was crying and carrying on so, I thought it weren’t nothing more’n a hurt jackrabbit.”
I couldn’t help myself, I opened my eyes all the way. Eddie stood looking right at me with those cornflower-blue eyes and a smirk on his face.
The big bad wolf had found his way into the brick house, and there was nothing I could do about it.
“He’s the one who was here begging for food, Tom,” Mama said. “I don’t trust him.”
Millard and Eddie had been gone from our house for only a minute or two before Mama and Daddy whispered to each other about him.
“Mary, he’s not a bad man,” Daddy said. “He’s just tramping around the country. That’s all.”
“I get a bad feeling from him.”
“He found Beanie. A bad man would’ve just left her there.”
“Maybe he wants some kind of a reward.” Mama yawned. “Folks like him don’t do anything for nothing.”
“Well, I can keep an eye on him if you want. But I don’t think we’ve got to worry about him none.”
They were quiet a minute or two, and I almost opened my eyes to see if they were still in the room with me. But then Mama sighed.
“You really believe he’s all right, Tom?” she asked.
“I do.”
It was the first time I doubted Daddy’s wisdom.