THEO
IMOGENE SAT at the picnic table motionless, holding a washcloth to her face. Pearl stood at attention next to her. The store stunk of vomit. “What are you two doing?” I asked.
Neither of them spoke, nor looked me in the eye.
“Why so late?” I asked looking Imogene over. Her hair was a knotted mess, her robe torn, her hands bloody. “What the hell?”
“Theo,” Imogene gulped. “I . . . he . . .,” she covered her face and sobbed into the washcloth.
“Where’s this blood from? What happened here? Somebody say something, now!”
She started to cry so hard she couldn’t catch her breath.
“Toreck,” Pearl finally said, kneeling at her side and patting her hand. “He rape her.” Pearl said it so matter-of-factly that Imogene stopped crying, took the washcloth away from her face, and looked up at me as if Pearl just said something she hadn’t realized until that moment.
“What are you saying?” I asked. Then I saw Imogene’s lips. Blue, swollen, cracked. Her eye was bulging and bruised, and purple fingerprints surrounded her throat. “Oh, God!”
I dropped to my knees and wrapped my arms around her. “Immie—”
Her body stiffened as she tried to sit up straight.
“Where is he?” I asked, looking around at the bloodied cloths, broken glass, and my sister’s rope-burned wrists. “God help me, I’ll kill him.”
“I already try,” Pearl finally said, then yanked the freezer door open. “He not die!”
“What?” I said peering inside the freezer. There he was on the floor, blue lips, puffed-up face and hands, and Pearl’s foot-long freezer knife standing straight up in his chest, blood pooling around him.
“I feed him Newt,” Pearl said. “I chop up, feed him Newt soup.” She smiled at her own cleverness. “No worry, Theo—God already forgive me.”
I stood speechless. “Is he—?”
“No,” she said. “He not dead. He not die. Evil hard to kill.” She kicked Toreck’s bare foot. “We wait.”
Toreck groaned, turned over, opened his eyes, and mumbled, “Padre.”
I plunged on top of him, grabbed his neck and said, “I warned you to end this thing, you stupid son of a bitch.” I gripped tighter around his throat. “I warned you.”
He gasped, flailed his arms, arched his back, and finally took his last breath. His body wilted beneath me and sank lifeless to the floor. His blood coated my hands and knees, but I still gripped in rage at his throat. “You son of a bitch!” I shouted shaking his lifeless body. “You son of a bitch, why couldn’t you let things go? You stupid son of a bitch!”
Pearl placed her hand on my shoulder and said, “It okay now.”
I finally let go, sat back, wiped my hands on my coat, and said, “Good riddance.”
“Amen,” Pearl said.
“Amen,” I repeated.
“Tell Bud I do it,” she said. Her voice sounded far away, mumbled chatter in my head. I stared at my hands. The thirst for revenge was right there, gripped in my bloody fists. What good is a priest with vengeance in his soul?
Pearl yanked the knife out of his chest and said, “Is my good kitchen knife.”
She wiped it off, grabbed the mop and towels, and without hesitation did the thing she always did when she was fretful—went to work wiping up the stain he was leaving on her neatly cleaned, organized, whitewashed world.
“I tell Bud I go coo-coo like he say all the time . . . I lose temper and just kill, kill, kill.”
“It’s okay,” I said finally hearing her clearly. “I’ll explain to Bud.”
“Bud understand,” she said. Then she poked Toreck hard with her finger. Then again, harder. “He dead. Should we say someting about God?”
“No,” I said finally pulling myself up. “I’m not feeling very religious today.”
She stood and wiped her hands, looking at Toreck’s body. “Me too.”
I ushered Pearl out of the freezer, closed the door behind us, and returned to Imogene. Her eyes were sunken deep into her bruised cheekbones, dull, red, and floating in pools of tears.
“We need to get you to the hospital,” I said.
“No!” Imogene cried. “No hospitals.” She sat staring at the clock on the wall. “It’s too late,” she said.
“Late for what?”
“We were gonna dance.”
“You’ll dance another night,” I said remembering how excited Bud was to see her. “There’ll be lots of dancing, but right now we need to get you some help.”
“No hospitals, no doctors, nurses, neighbors, gossip . . . no more gossip.” Tears washed down her cheeks. “I’m fine . . . I’ll be just fine.” She flinched, clutching tighter at her ribcage and dabbing drops of blood from her busted nose.
“You’re not,” I said.
“I’ve seen you patch yourself up plenty of times. Go get your kit.”
“Immie, we need to get you some help.”
“No!” she insisted, slamming her fists on the table. “No hospital. Get your kit.”
“Doc Haydn’s, then.” I stood. “Pearl, grab her coat and some blankets, would ya?”
I tossed Toreck’s bloody knife, cigarettes, and boots into the freezer with him and padlocked the door. I wished I’d killed him two years ago. I should have known men like that don’t change; they just get worse. I should have known.
“No, Theo,” Imogene cried. “I don’t want anybody—”
“Nobody’ll know,” I said. “I promise. No gossip. No nothin’.”
“We can fix her up,” Pearl said. “She be okay. I a good nurse. Get your kit.”
“Well . . . ” I hesitated to agree but didn’t want to upset her more. “Till morning then,” I said. “We’ll reassess after she gets through the night.”
“Bud?” Imogene whispered.
“He’s busy tonight,” I said stroking her matted hair. I carefully lifted her from the bench. She sank into me like a ragdoll.
Pearl opened the door so I could carry her upstairs.
Imogene’s body tensed as she asked, “Tula May?”
“She’s with Oz and Netty,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”