Chapter Four

Over the next week, life in the Elliott household settled into routine. Jillie did as she was told and took care of her chores. The rest of the time was spent either outside exploring the surrounding area or in her room reading and drawing.

Beth had always loved Jillie’s drawings. Once, when Jillie drew a picture of her favorite teacher, Beth had said it was so realistic it looked like a photo.

Other than ordering Jillie around like a slave, Margo rarely spoke to her. And she never once called her by name. It was Come here, girl, or Do that, girl.

Cooking the meals for the Elliotts turned out not to be so bad. But doing the laundry was puke-making.

Unwilling to touch any of the Elliotts’ underwear, she sneaked a pair of long-handled tongs from the kitchen. Almost giddy with relief at how well they worked, she hid them behind the washer.

Cleg and Margo hardly ever left the house, but Mort came and went at all hours. Once in a while, Mort’s cousin Toby Dinkins was mentioned, but he never made an appearance at the house.

Dinner times were always charged and tense. Margo complained about her life at the hands of her spouse, about the state of their finances, and about Mort’s lack of ambition. Cleg mostly kept his head down, eyes focused on his plate, and unless someone asked Mort a direct question, he seldom said a word.

Jillie had always been pretty good at reading people’s moods, but not Margo’s. Things would be calm for a day or two, then some little thing would set her off and she’d yell, throw stuff, and kick the furniture. A couple of times, while Jillie was washing the dishes, she recognized the familiar sounds of flesh smacking flesh followed by Cleg’s muffled whimper.

After a couple of days, Jillie’s stomach began to ache when Margo went into one of her rages. Then she started chewing her nails—sometimes, so bad they bled.

When the social services caseworker telephoned to set up the first appointment for a home visit, Margo’s voice was warm enough to melt butter. “We’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow at two.” But as soon as she hung up, she whirled on Jillie. “You say one negative word, just one, and Mort will pay a visit to your sister in the hospital.” Her eyelids lowered into slits. “He may not be good for much, but even he could unplug a life support machine. He’d sneak in and out of the hospital before anyone even knew he was there.” She pinched the flesh on the upper back of Jillie’s arm hard enough to leave a mark. “You hear me?”

Jillie winced and nodded her head.

The same warning was repeated before each of Jillie’s court-ordered appointments with a therapist. The kindly psychologist tried to get her to talk about Digger’s death and her life with the Elliotts, but she refused to speak.

During the times Mort ate dinner at home, Margo would hammer at him about getting a job. “You think food just magically appears on the table?” She’d shoot dart-looks between her son and spouse. “You’re a lazy bum, just like your father.”

Since Jillie had chosen breakfast and lunch as her two meals, her evenings were spent trying to ignore a growling stomach. She comforted herself with the thought that once school started, she’d get a free lunch. When that happened, she’d opt to eat breakfast and dinner at the Elliotts’. The thought of eating three meals a day again set her stomach growling.

One night, she sneaked down to the kitchen after everyone had gone to bed. But not only had Margo put a lock on the pantry door, she’d used a black permanent marker to mark the level of milk in the clear plastic carton.

And once, when Jillie’s stomach hurt so bad she couldn’t concentrate on her homework, she’d tip-toed down to the kitchen and taken a couple of slurps from a bottle of salad dressing. But it had just made her hungrier than ever, so she’d crept to the garage and drank two bottles of water from the cases stored there. That helped, but not for long.

She’d tried to sneak crackers from the unlocked cupboard while doing the dinner dishes. But Margo must have heard the paper rattling, because she came roaring into the kitchen and yanked the box out of her hands.

“I hope you got your fill, because that was tomorrow’s breakfast.” Margo replaced the box in the cupboard and locked it. A satisfied look on her face, she glanced sideways at Jillie. “I’ll know if you cheat.”

Although Cleg’s plate always looked like he’d licked it clean, sometimes one of the others would leave a bite of pork chop, or a spoonful of beans. Careful to put bones or other inedible scraps on top of the trash where Margo would see them when she did her nightly garbage check, Jillie would snarf down a few bites then quickly wash the dishes.

Nighttime was the roughest. Jillie would lie on her coat on the closet floor with Mickey under her head, stare up into the darkness, and cry.

She sometimes saw Digger in her dreams, standing over her, yelling and cussing, the veins in his neck standing out like ropes. During those dreams, Jillie could neither speak nor move. She’d wake up sweating, her coat wrapped around her so tightly she could hardly breathe.

During the first couple of weeks of Jillie’s life at the Elliotts’, she’d been allowed to visit Beth only once. The pain of seeing her comatose sister covered with a white sheet, and tubes coming out of everywhere, was nearly more than she could stand. The whole time she was there, she’d held Beth’s hand and poured out her soul to her.

“The nurse says you can hear me. I’m doing okay, so you shouldn’t worry. Just get well.” She’d pleaded with her sister not to leave her and apologized for not keeping Digger from hurting her so bad. “I’ll be back as often as I can.”

But another week passed, and although Jillie begged to go to the hospital, Margo refused. Her eyes blazing, she’d yelled, “Stop ding-donging at me; it’s enough to drive a wooden man crazy. I hate hospitals.” She stooped over to bring her eyes level with Jillie’s. A funny little smile twisted her lips. “Besides, your sweet sister isn’t going to last much longer. She’s just a meat sack waiting to die.”

“She is not,” Jillie yelled. “She’s going to get well. She promised never to leave me, and Beth always keeps her promises.” Jillie ran out the front door as Margo laughed behind her.

When Jillie’s dad died a year earlier, the county wanted to put her into foster care right then and there. But twenty-year-old Beth had promised they’d never be separated. She’d made good on that promise by marrying the first man to ask her, even though he had a reputation for being mean and a womanizer. She said she didn’t care about any of that, as long as Digger was good to Jillie. And he had been, for the first couple of weeks.

But life with Digger quickly turned into a nightmare. He didn’t try to find a job, refused to do anything around the house, and drank. Obsessed with the rumor that the girls’ dad had stashed money somewhere, he’d lived up to his name by digging holes all over the place.

Nearly every weekend he’d get drunk and work on Beth to tell him where their Pop’s money was hidden. At first, he’d just pushed her around. But Beth said she’d read that once that kind of thing started, it always got worse.

So, Beth began keeping back a little money from the monthly checks the government sent after their Pops died. She promised once they’d saved enough, they’d get on a bus and not stop until they were good and ready. Some of the best hours of Jillie’s life had been spent looking over a tattered old atlas with Beth, giggling, and talking about the future.

But they hadn’t planned on Jillie chopping Digger with a machete, or on Beth winding up in what a nurse called the critical care ward.

Within the first couple of weeks, Jillie had explored all the Elliotts’ dilapidated farm. She didn’t do it so much out of curiosity, although there was plenty of that. She did it to get out of that horrid house and because Pops had said it was important to pay attention to her surroundings.

He’d once told her about a hiker who got lost and was never seen again, most likely because he hadn’t noticed things. So, during her walks, Jillie often stopped and turned completely around to learn the view from every direction. Those walks were the only times she felt free.

To the side of and some distance from the main house sat a small shed surrounded by tall weeds. Glass shards resembling stalactites and stalagmites rimmed a small window in the door—a gaping hole loosely boarded up from the inside. With warped wood sides and a corrugated tin roof, the little building looked like a place out of one of those scary movies where teenage actors try unsuccessfully to hide from a chainsaw-wielding fiend. Jillie steered clear of the little building.

Often, when Jillie returned from a walk, her eyes were drawn to Cleg’s pickup. Sometimes, the temptation was nearly overpowering to grab his keys off the kitchen counter where he regularly tossed them and drive to the hospital to see Beth.

But other than the family tractor, she’d never driven a car or truck. She’d probably end up in a ditch. Or she might get stopped by a policeman and get thrown back in juvie.

But mainly, it was Margo’s threat that kept her from doing anything of the kind. She shivered at the image of Mort going to the hospital to finish what Digger started.

As day after day dragged by, Jillie fantasized about ways to get out of the house, to the hospital, and back again without the Elliotts knowing she’d gone. Idea after idea sprung up, blossomed, then died. But a couple of possibilities stuck in her mind and turned into the beginnings of a plan.

She’d have to be sneaky…sneaky and smart. And she couldn’t let her guard down even for a second because Beth’s life depended on her.