He looked stunned. “Leah, dear, you don’t have to worry about marrying me. But you can still live there. I have the deed right here. It’ll be easy to put it in your name. Your husband doesn’t want you. Don’t forget what you just told me. And when you’re settled, I can come and visit you. I—”
She realized the truth. Like lightning over the mountain. “You’re already married.”
“Not in the ways that matter.”
“You’re already married!” She was furious, but only at herself. “And you’re right, it don’t matter. ’Cause I wouldn’t have you, Daniel Flaherty, if you had the preacher standing right there beside you and I was a free woman. You’re like the fox that preys on my chickens. You’re bigger and faster, and you’ve got the power of our futures in your hands. You think that gives you the right to take anything you want!”
“Think carefully. Where are you planning to go, if not with me?”
“First thing? I’m going to find whoever bosses you. And I’m going to tell him what you tried to do and why. And next I’m going to find one of those news reporters that’s been snooping around up at Skyland writing about our misery. And I’m going to tell him a real story he can print. You set out to make me think you wanted to help us, but all you ever wanted was me in your bed. And in the end, you brought a brand-new hell crashing down on all of us!”
Even as she said the words, she knew that all of them shared the blame. Jesse, Daniel and her. Daniel had preyed on her weakness, but Jesse had fed it with his silence. And she? She had done little to help Jesse. She had taken his rejection as a sign that he didn’t love her, instead of a plea for help. She had abandoned him when he needed her most, just as he had abandoned her tonight.
“Don’t do that,” Daniel said.
For a moment, she didn’t know what he meant. Then she remembered that she had just threatened him. Threatened him only moments ago, although it felt as if years of understanding had passed.
“Look, I have the deed,” he said. “It can still be yours. And there will be money to go with it. I’ll make certain of it. Enough to help you get a start.”
“I don’t want your money!”
“It’s yours by right for the land, not a gift.”
“You let someone else bring me the deed and the money. It’s our money, and I’ll take it, glad enough. But I want no part of anything else from your hands.”
“You were married. I didn’t see the harm in this. I thought I could help you. I thought—”
“You thought you could have me anytime it pleased you! Well, I’ll tell you what I think. I think if I ever see your sorry face again, I’ll go running for a gun.”
She was halfway back to the house before she realized the full impact of what she had done. She was truly alone now.
Until a man stepped out of the shadows.
Jesse stood in the moonlight, his face unreadable. If he had been there all along, he had heard her conversation with Daniel.
“What are you doing there?” she demanded.
“I was coming after you.”
Five words. Simple words. And yet they were the sweetest she had ever heard. “Why?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “If you thought I hadn’t been true to you?”
“I guess because you being true wasn’t as important as you being here.”
She flew into his arms. He held her tight, kissing her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. She slipped her arms around his neck, her bundle falling to the ground.
“I love you, Jesse,” she whispered. “Nobody else.”
“I thought I’d lost you for good. Then I heard everything you said to him.”
He was holding her so tight, she could hardly breathe. She didn’t care. She would gladly have died in his arms.
He put his hand below her waist, his fingers splayed against her skirt. “Ours,” he said.
“We cain’t raise him here, not fighting the government. When the time comes, we have to think of him or her.”
“We’ll do what’s right for all of us.” He kissed her. “I been talking to Aubrey. He’s coming to see us tonight or tomorrow. Maybe we’ll go in on that lawsuit. Maybe we’ll move. But we’ll decide together.”
They were losing so much, but they hadn’t lost each other. They would start over. The three of them and Birdie.
“Birdie.” She pulled away. “We have to tell Birdie. She thinks I’m gone.”
“I have something to do.” His eyes flicked down the road where Daniel had waited for her.
She grabbed his arm. “No, Jesse. You forget it. Come with me. Daniel Flaherty’s not worth a fight.”
“I’ll be home soon enough.”
She heard the determination in his voice. “I don’t want to be the cause of more misery.”
“I have a few words to say to him. I’ll be home soon enough.”
She knew better than to argue. Jesse might have forgiven her, but he would never forgive Daniel Flaherty, and tonight, Daniel would understand what that meant.
“I’m going in, then. You be careful.”
He swung her off her feet, around and around; then he set her down and kissed her. “Baby needed a ride.”
For a moment she felt young, in a way she hadn’t in months. “You hurry, now. I’ll be waiting.”
She picked up the bundle and started back toward the house as he headed up the road. She wondered how she would find the right words to express to her sister what had occurred. At first Birdie would be skeptical that everything had been made right between them. Then, when she was satisfied that all was well, she would smile and kiss Leah’s cheek. And that night she would start a new quilt top to celebrate.
The dogs didn’t bark when she approached. She left them behind on the porch as she opened the door. At first she couldn’t find her sister; then she realized why. For some reason the lanterns had not been lit. Only the table was illuminated by several of the special beeswax candles scented with rosemary and lavender that Leah made each year to burn at Christmas. Birdie was standing behind it.
“Oh, Jesse, I do know how much you like my chicken. I fixed it just the way you like it best.”
For a moment Leah thought Birdie was talking to her and had just mixed up the names; then she realized that her sister, who had put away her glasses, didn’t even know she was there. As she watched, Birdie, who had taken down her hair and donned her best dress, held a corner of her skirt away from her legs and did an awkward little dance step.
“I made a peach pie, too,” she said, nearly singing the words. “Just for you, Jesse. Everything I do is for you. I knew
she
would leave us alone soon enough. I was the one you were supposed to marry. You see that at last, I know. Well, we can always be together, now that she’s gone. We’ll go away, and nobody will know that you aren’t married to me. We’ll start over—”
She stumbled through a turn, then stopped dancing and peered into the shadows. “Who’s there?” Birdie fished in her pocket for her glasses, slipped them over her nose and peered at her sister.
Leah felt a jolt of alarm. “Birdie, what are you doing? Who were you talking to?”
Birdie moved closer. “You?”
Leah was growing frightened. Something was clearly wrong. “It’s Leah. I came back. Jesse and I worked things out.” Leah watched her sister’s face, and Birdie’s expression worried her more. “He’s sorry,” she said, speaking faster, as if speed could counter the way Birdie grew still and rigid.
“I don’t love Daniel. I love Jesse. He believes me now. And he knows the baby—” Too late she realized that this was something she hadn’t yet shared.
“Baby?”
“I’m having Jesse’s baby. Least, I think I’m having a baby. You’ll be an aunt. Someone new to love, Birdie. We’ll move away together, if it comes to that. We’ll find a way to be happy somewhere else. You might even find a man who loves you, the way Jesse loves—”
“Stop it!” Birdie backed away—away from the kitchen and over to the fireplace, where the wood stove warmed their house in winter. “I don’t believe you.”
“Aren’t you glad?” Leah couldn’t stop talking. If she kept talking, maybe she wouldn’t have to think about what she had seen when she came in. Maybe she wouldn’t have to think about what she had heard.
Suddenly Birdie seemed to melt. She began to laugh. “You’re fooling.”
“Birdie. Stop. You’re worrying me. I—”
“Jesse loves me. He don’t love you. Don’t you know he just married you ’cause he thought I didn’t want him? And now that you’re gone, he can have—”
“I’m not gone. I’m standing right here.”
“He can have me,” Birdie went on, as if Leah hadn’t spoken. “And I will cook for him and sew his clothes. I’ll be the one he turns to at night when—”
“Stop it! Birdie, stop this! All this excitement, this worrying’s, been too much for you. You need to rest. Tonight’s been too much for all of us—”
“Oh, you think everything is too much for me! You with your perfect legs and strong back and good eyes! You think I don’t know? You think I don’t see what you are?”
“I’m the sister who loves you.”
“Our mama was a witch. First she doomed me by walking through that house and not sitting down. Not even once. Then she traded my health for yours. She made a bargain with the devil. Don’t you know why I was the one got the polio? Mama fixed it that way. What else could have done it? And you got everything else, even Jesse. Even though she was already gone by then. I made sure she was gone, and you still got Jesse!”
Leah was dizzy with horror over what Birdie was saying. “You made sure she was gone?” she whispered.
Birdie’s laugh was high and wild. “It was time for her to die! God wanted her dead, but the devil was holding her here. The fever broke after you went to bed, and she fell asleep. I saw she was better. I put that pillow over her head, and she was too weak to fight me. She couldn’t fight me and God!”
Bile rose in Leah’s throat. She fell to a chair and put her head in her hands. “You’re touched.” She couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it. Yet no one had suspected. Birdie was different, yes. But none of them had understood in exactly what way. No one had understood how deeply the polio and its aftermath had affected her, the constant pain, the resentment of a sister who hadn’t been struck down with her.
“No, I got a way of seeing things you cain’t see. And I know what’s what.”
“We’ll get you help.” Leah rose and started toward the fireplace, where Birdie warily watched her. “Somebody can help. I reckon you don’t mean the things you’re saying now.”
With a speed Leah couldn’t have imagined, Birdie reached up and took down the German Luger that Jesse’s father had gotten in the war. She aimed it at her sister, clutching the pistol against her chest to steady it. “I know what will help me most. I didn’t want to hurt you. I thought you would just go. That I wouldn’t have to do what I did to Mama. Why didn’t you, Leah?” The last was a wail.
Leah froze. The gun was always loaded. “We’re sisters. We love each other.”
“I have tried not to. You are the devil’s spawn, a sorry bargain Mama made, and I aim to keep myself pure.”
“Birdie, I’m so sorry you were the one who got sick. But maybe I didn’t get sick just so I could be healthy and take care of you. Maybe that’s what God intended. That’s what I’ve tried to do. Haven’t I?”
“You took Jesse!”
“You never told me you loved him. You never showed a sign of it.” But even as she said the words, Leah knew the signs had been there all along. The way Birdie had always opened up to Jesse, the way she had fussed over him, even the way she had paused for such a long time in front of him on Leah’s wedding day, as if Birdie herself were the bride.
“You got between me and him,” Birdie said. “It was me he loved, but you took him, the way you took my health. You are a scourge on my soul.”
Her arm shot out, and she held the gun directly in front of Leah. She was shaking, but her aim was straight enough.
The door opened, then closed. Both women turned at the sound. Jesse stood just inside, his eyes wide with astonishment in the candlelight.
“Birdie?” He moved toward them, gracefully, slowly. “What’s wrong, Birdie girl?”
“She’s trying to take you from me!”
Unlike Leah, Jesse seemed to understand the situation immediately. He kept his voice low and calm, but he moved closer.
“It’s been such a terrible day. You’ve been through so much. But you’re our strong, wonderful Birdie girl, and I reckon you aren’t going to do anything as foolish as shooting your sister.”
“She came back! She was supposed to leave us alone.”
“You just let me talk to her. I aim to straighten this out. You trust me, don’t you? You know I’ll do whatever is best.”
“No, she’s got the devil inside her. Don’t you see it? She made you marry her, when I know you wanted me. You cain’t control what she does. Nobody can.” She lifted her arm higher.
Jesse darted a frantic glance at Leah. He moved a little closer to Birdie.
“Birdie girl, this ain’t no way to start our time together. Not with something like this hanging over our heads. You can see that, cain’t you? You want to be with me, then you got to give me your trust. I promise I’ll make things right here.”
The gun wavered. “We can go somewheres, just you and me, Jesse. But she cain’t come.”
He glanced at Leah. “Leah, you heard that, right? Now that you understand the way things are, you can go with that Flaherty fellow after all. You just tell Birdie so.”
“Yes.” Leah nodded emphatically. “Birdie, I didn’t know. I guess I just never saw what was in front of my eyes.”
Birdie’s arm was trembling violently now. She began to lower the gun, and Leah felt a surge of hope. Then, with a cry, Birdie lifted the gun again, this time holding it steadier with both hands.
“No! She’s fooling us, Jesse. She’s got your baby inside her. That’s why Daniel Flaherty don’t want her. I see it now. She’ll never leave us alone.”
“We been married nearly two years, Birdie girl. And do you see a baby? There ain’t no baby inside her, either. She just said so to make me sorrier.”
Leah nodded. She was crying now. “Just put the gun down and I’ll leave. Then you and Jesse can have your supper. Please, Birdie.”
“No, you leave first.” Birdie motioned with the pistol. “You go on out that door, and don’t you come back. Not ever.”
“I understand it all now,” Leah said. Frantically, she caught Jesse’s eyes. He gave the slightest of nods. She knew that once she left, he hoped Birdie would relinquish the gun and he could subdue her. Then Leah could return and they could decide what to do.