Bound by Blood and Brimstone (32 page)

He shook his head, sorrow clouding his good eye. “No, Mona. Not me. I grew up in a

boys’ home in Chicago. They said they’d found me in a trash heap, not more than a few days old.

Thrown out like table scraps. The headmaster, warden, whatever he was, he liked to use me for a

punching bag. I guess he never wanted me to forget that I was nothing but garbage.”

He smiled humorlessly, a skull’s leer. “One of his favorite games was to jab me with a

hot poker. If I could take so many jabs without crying, he’d give me that many bites of food.

That’s what happened to my eye, you know. I tell folks my cousin did it, but there wasn’t any

cousin. It’s just easier to say there was.”

Dazed and spellbound, we sat riveted, while Reese revealed a living nightmare of being

starved, beaten, burned, abandoned in the snow, and forced to eat rotten food, all before the age

of fourteen when he managed to run away.

A knot of tears the size of a man’s fist wedged in my throat, the struggle to keep them

dammed, too much for me. I released them in a silent flood, a wash of pity for the man I’d hated

with such fervor. He got to me. Not only that, but I believed him, down deep where it counts,

every soul-wrenching word.

Momma’s news, nearly forgotten in the drama at our kitchen table that Sunday morning,

was word of a two-week delay of the new school year. Folks thought it would help in the search

for Sue Lee Jacobs if more people were available to put up fliers around town. Church was even

cancelled a couple of Sundays. To me, it felt more like the town was in mourning.

True to his promises, Reese trod the earth a changed man. He lost his bluster. His

swagger fell by the wayside. His tenacious reign over our household softened, transforming our

home from a dictatorship under a petulant tyrant to a real democracy. Even his sermons lost

some of their fire and brimstone. In short, it was a miracle.

By the time school finally started, The Dream had ceased to stalk my nights, and the

fevered gossip surrounding Sue Lee’s disappearance had begun to fade, along with the record-

breaking heat of that summer. Given the events we’d survived, a more unstable person may’ve

dwelt on macabre thoughts of what 100 degrees-plus temperatures could do to a dead body,

decaying among the weeds at the bottom of The Gorge.

It wasn’t so with me. No need to twist the knife any further, the way I saw it. Lorrie Beth

and I had paid our dues and then some. I’d made my peace with Sue Lee Jacobs. Lorrie Beth,

however, had never been anything like me.

Before we realized it, the routine of school and chores had set its rhythm, and we

marched to it with our usual obedience. Summer faded into autumn, days waned into weeks, and

sometimes I could scramble through a whole day without thinking of Sue Lee. I managed this

feat the way I’d always managed to avoid thinking too much, by doing.

Baby Sam played a vital part in keeping insanity at bay. Considering the circumstances

of his birth and entry into our lives, it was no surprise he’d form his strongest bond with me.

Though I had no problem playing mother to the little imp, there were times I would’ve given my

right arm to spend one hour without hearing the thud of those fat little feet in hot pursuit.

I’d known from the beginning Sam wasn’t typical, and not in the way all parents believe

their children are special. There truly was something unique about Sam. He walked at seven

months, talked in sentences at eleven months, could look at me in a way that had me swearing he

had something on me. He had Wonnie’s eyes, glittering black and piercing, full of some untold

knowledge.

He nearly gave me heart failure one evening shortly after Thanksgiving of that year. It

happened while I was bathing him after supper. Just as I reached for the towel before pulling him

from the soapy water, he locked those dark eyes on mine, his expression solemn. I stopped. His

lower lip pooched out, a sure sign wails would follow.

“Sam, Honey, what’s wrong? What is it, Baby?”

“Beth,” he intoned sorrowfully. The lip pooched farther. Concerned he might be on the

verge of a full-blown hissy fit, I smoothed back his damp curls and forced a smile I didn’t feel.

“What about Lorrie Beth? She’s fine, Sweetie. She’s in her room, getting ready for bed.”

“She’s sick,” he informed me, holding my gaze.

“Lorrie Beth, sick? What do you mean, Sam?” I was starting to feel a little ill myself.

“In here,” he insisted, thumping his small chest just over his heart. “Something’s bad in

there. It makes her cry.” Now if that wasn’t worth some sleepless nights, I didn’t know what

was.

Christmas came and went with a new addition to the family. With a flourish, Reese

presented Lorrie Beth with a huge hatbox tied with a wide pink ribbon. The holes cut in the sides

were a dead giveaway. When she opened it, her gift nearly knocked her over. “I know he can’t

replace Max,” Reese said, laughing, but I think your heart can find room for him.”

Unable to contain his excitement, the first trick performed by Lorrie Beth’s new puppy,

was to pee all over her lap. Checkers had come home.

He was a border collie, German shepherd mix and had a black coat splashed with patches

of rust. The bushy tail and incessant wriggling were plenty cute, but there was no love match for

my sister.

The magic between Max and Lorrie Beth, apparent from first meeting, just never

materialized with Checkers. Strangely enough, within a week, he actually began to avoid her

advances. First, he’d sniff her outstretched hand, whine, then slink out of the room, like she had a

bad smell. I could see she was hurt, but that dog’s mind was made up, and there was no changing

it.

Sam, on the other hand, was born to be bosom pal to that mutt. Chemistry between them

was obvious and instant, a kind of telepathy too stunning to ignore. There was no doubt in my

mind they spoke to each other on a level none of us could hope to breach. Funny, how sad that

made me feel.

It was a couple weeks after Christmas when I first noticed the change in Lorrie Beth. It

started small, rapidly growing into something bigger than both of us, stifling my nights and

hovering over my days like a noxious cloud.

Our bond, known only to those select few who’ve shared the same womb, was broken.

Shared bedtime thoughts, finishing each other’s sentences, snickering at our private jokes,

holding it together in the eye of the storm, had all ended.

My sister, my constant companion since before I was born, kept all things great and

small, clutched to her own heart. She’d withdrawn into some place I couldn’t get to, taking with

her half of me. In a couple of months her luscious curves had melted away, leaving mere

shadows of their former glory. The spark had fled her green eyes, the pearly skin gone dull and

chalklike.

It’s the secret. It’s too much for her. Lorrie Beth was never built for lying. It’s eating her

alive, and there’s nothing I can do to save her. We can’t go back, can’t undo what’s done.

Desperately, I made a valiant effort to get through to her one night after we’d all gone to

bed. In her room, I crept under the covers, pulling her frail body against mine. Without a word

she thrust her stark, small face into the crook of my neck and groped for my hands with skeletal

fingers.

“Sis, you’ve got to let go of what happened. You can’t go on like this,” I urged. “Just

look at you; you’re fading away to nothing, ready to disappear in front of me, and you won’t let

me help. Can’t you talk to me, please?”

With those last words, my voice cracked, my throat so locked with grief, I nearly gagged.

She lay frozen, silent, yet the tears flowed like warm rain, soaking my nightgown, dripping into

the hollows of my collarbones. I fell asleep holding her. She never spoke once.

Shortly after, Lorrie Beth appeared to rally a bit. Some of her color returned, and a couple

of pounds came back. Once in a while she even smiled at me timidly as if to say,
See, I’m
trying
.

Hopefully, prayerfully, I waited for my sister to come back to me, confident that she had

enough of my Daddy in her to claw her way out. Little by little, she seemed to be doing just that.

Then, another bomb was dropped our way. It was May, shortly after our thirteenth birthday,

when we learned Caleb Jacobs was coming to live with us.

Daddy’s grave was the perfect spot to be alone, and I sorely need that. Slinking away,

escaping the hollowness of Lorrie Beth’s eyes, Sam’s endless questions, and the weight of heavy

secrets, I’d sit among the ancient tombstones and purge my soul to the one person who’d truly

understood me. I hoarded those moments ruthlessly and would’ve killed to preserve them. That’s

why I considered strangling Lorrie Beth when her shrill cries ripped into my solitude on that

balmy spring afternoon.

For a second I considered sliding farther back among the weeds, hiding from the panic in

that voice and what it might mean, playing the ostrich. Of course I didn’t.

“Up here!” I called, standing to peer over a slab of moss-covered granite so I could be

seen from the road. I glimpsed the top of her head, her dark hair wind-blown and sun-sparked,

before her upturned face met mine from the bottom of the hill.

“Em!” she screeched before scrabbling upward, clawing at loose pebbles, grabbing

fistfuls of scrub brush and weeds, practically on all fours. Immobilized by fear, my annoyance

forgotten, I watched as she heaved herself up the last leg of the climb and collapsed on a nearby

boulder. Doubled over, gasping and wheezing, she sat struggling for composure.

I didn’t need to ask if anything was wrong; couldn’t if I’d had a mind to. I was too afraid.

For weeks my sister had been lost, drifting and listless, like some vanquished, earthbound wraith.

Anything powerful enough to shove her out of that netherworld in a mad dash to the graveyard

could be nothing short of catastrophic.

Wordlessly, I waited. Hectic color splotched her cheeks, and her wild mane cavorted

about her head in the spring breeze like glossy, writhing snakes. Her immense eyes glittered

green fire and darted about jaggedly, feral and dangerous.

“Em, you’re not going to believe it. I don’t believe it. Momma’s lost her mind, that’s all;

she’s just lost her mind. What can she be thinking? Oh, God, what are we going to do? I can’t

take anymore, I just can’t. All this time, knowing what I know, knowing what I did, and now

this. It’s too much, just too much.”

Gushing forth like a poison flood, her words, though earnest and pitiful, were tinged with

heat and barely suppressed rage. For the first time in recent memory my sister was fighting mad,

and some part of me rejoiced in that anger. The rest of me, jolted with a pure surge of adrenaline,

prepared to do battle.

Finally, I gave myself permission to ask the question. Closing the short distance between

us, I sat in the grass, cross-legged to face her. “What is it? What’s happened?”

Abruptly, she bolted from her seat, tossed her head back, and flung both arms to the

heavens as if to shake her fist in the very face of God. I barely had time to avoid being knocked

flat, before she opened her mouth and let go with an inhuman cry so full of outrage, it nearly

stopped my heart. Warbling out of her slim throat like some demon call to death, it slammed my

pulse into overdrive, and with it, images of The Dream I’d swum through not so long ago.

I hoisted myself up, fully intending to cut that scream off at all costs, but before I could

do so much as reach my hand out, she stopped and whirled on me.

“Caleb Jacobs! Caleb Jacobs is what’s happened! Caleb Jacobs is coming to live with us.

And it’s all just fine and dandy with Momma!”

I had an erratic impulse to giggle before the shock blindsided me, leaving me with barely

enough strength to stagger to the boulder she’d abandoned. Still, I opened my mouth to laugh,

but what issued forth sounded more like a sick squawk. “What?”

“I’m talking about Caleb Jacobs,” she repeated, thrusting her sweaty face into mine.

“Sheriff Bates has been to the house all morning. Lizzie Jacobs died in the hospital last night.

She went into a coma again and never came out of it. Now Sue Lee is wanted for murder, so the

sheriff is going to be looking for her even harder. He said little Walter was taken in by the

Gibsons, but now Caleb needs a home too, seeing as how he’s been through so much, losing his

whole family and all. So guess who gets to give him that home?”

She was panting, her breath hitching between outbursts, her slender hands punctuating

her words with savage gestures. I, on the other hand, was in the throes of some sort of seizure. I

could hear everything she said, but it echoed from a vast distance. I could see, but it was like

gazing through a vaporous curtain. I tried to jam a few thoughts together, but they’d turned to

sludge, refusing to be ordered. When the scrim cleared, she stood before me, arms crossed,