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CHAPTER 3

REDLEY

“I know you're out there,” she shouts. “I heard that damn truck you still haven’t fixed!”

Sometimes when she’s yelling at me, I feel myself slipping out of my own head until she’s yelling at someone else. That happens when she’s beating me too, but it’s more helpful then. Right now, I’m just not sure what she wants me to say. I’ve been doing everything I can to keep it going, and she doesn’t even drive.

I push the screen door open and step inside before I really piss her off. Her package rests in my hands. “The mail came today,” I tell her as I set it down on the kitchen island. She doesn’t so much as look at me, and I swallow, sure I’m already in trouble, though I’m not sure for what.

“I heard. It took you long enough to get home. I’ve been waiting all week for that to come.”

“There was a line out the door.”

I have a strong urge to head to my bedroom, but I’m sure she’s working up to something. Granny bustles around the kitchen, her anger wafting off her like steam, and she’s not the type to let anything go. It’s better to see where this is going. That’s when I notice the bread I baked earlier sitting in the middle of the table instead of in the bread box like it’s on display.

“Something wrong with the bread, Granny?” I ask, feeling like I’m knowingly stepping on a landmine.

“You put enough salt in that?” she asks as she hikes her thumb over her shoulder. “We don’t have flour to waste. You know we have to eat that, don’t you?”

I had a piece for breakfast, and it was good. I don’t actually know what she’s talking about. We don’t have anything to waste, never have a day in my life, and I surely don’t act like it.

“Sorry, Granny,” I say quickly even though I’m almost certain I used the normal amount of salt.

I don’t know if her tastes are changing with age or she’s just getting meaner, but either way, there’s no use fighting her. I’m so worked up between Bobby and the Mills sisters, though, that I really wish I’d taken my frustrations out on someone I was allowed to hit before coming home.

“Yeah, sorry .” She laughs a mean and mocking sound. “You’ll be sorry when I’m dead. Doctor says to eat less salt, so you give me more. Trying to do the Wolf’s job for him, are you?”

Funny that she only follows those rules when I’m the one messing up. Granny ate bacon from Colette’s pig last week.

“The Wolf was doing his own job today,” I tell her, hoping to distract her.

“Don’t try to change the subject. Helen already stopped by.”

She and her friend are like clucking hens.

She slams the counter as she moves things around. She’s not cleaning so much as reminding everything in her surroundings that they’re going to behave exactly as she wants them to. If the woman asked baking soda not to rise, it would probably listen to her and call her ma’am.

“Can’t do every damn thing myself, Red,” she continues.

She doesn’t do half of what she did five years ago when I moved in with her, so she’s telling the truth, but does she even notice I’m the one picking up the slack and have been since I was a kid? She’s always been mean, but things get worse as time passes. I don’t know how much longer I can live out here with her.

“I’m sorry, Granny.”

“You’re not sorry, you’re ungrateful, good for nothing.”

Don’t talk back. Don’t make excuses. Keep your head down. I can’t quite remember what Mama’s voice sounded like even though it’s only been five years, but I hold her advice close. It’s the only way to survive Granny. My lips squeeze together like they're trying to become one, and I miss my parents and brother like a severed limb.

Granny turns to look me in the eye, and it takes everything in me to stand up straight, but without any defiance. She was a beautiful woman once, but we don’t look anything alike. Her once blond hair is pure white now, while mine is a dark brown, thick and heavy. Little curls surround her head, and her eyes are an intense blue that matched my daddy’s before he died. My eyes are green like Mama’s.

Everything about her looks dainty. She stands a head below me now with the slump in her back, but you’d be stupid to believe that. Neither her size nor her age stops her.

She stomps over to me, and a weathered little hand raises before it slaps me squarely across the cheek. Eons pass and I could move or stop her, but I don’t. The slap echoes, filling the kitchen like an old tune. This is what I know, and truthfully, she’s not as strong as she used to be. It doesn’t hurt that bad, but it’s whittling away at my dignity in a way I’m not sure I can stand.

She’s lived too long and too hard to have her own granddaughter lay hands on her, but do I really deserve all of this? I can’t imagine I do. My cheek burns, but my anger is hotter, and I stand there silently as I wait for her to hit me again for something I didn’t actually do. Instead, she just stares me down with a bone-deep hate.

“Get out of my sight, Redley. I swear to God I wish every day the Wolf got your mama and you instead of my boys.”

The words are her second slap, and they hurt that much worse. I fell asleep hiding in my brother’s closet the night they died, or she would have gotten her wish. I should have died with them, and instead, I have to live with her. That stings worse than a whooping with Pop’s razor strap, and I turn to go to my room with tears hanging in my eyes. Leaving her sight is a blessing.

The cabin consists of a main room, a kitchen, and then a short hallway leading to three bedrooms. Granddaddy built this cabin from trees he fell right here on this property, and the walls are deep brown stacks of logs finished with his own hands. I’m not sure if Granny loves or hates the constant reminder of him, but I like remembering there was a time I had a family.

I’m not paying much attention since I want to get away from her so badly, and I fly into my room, closing the door quickly behind me without slamming it, which would only make her angrier. This room used to be my uncle Lester’s, and then it was Granny’s sewing closet before I got dumped on her doorstep and ruined her life.

The remnants of that still take up most of the space, and I need to be careful not to mess with her things. I look around, making sure I haven’t knocked over any of the piles of thread and buttons I’m not allowed to touch. Everything seems to be okay, well, as okay as it can be, but then my gaze settles on my bed.

Because nothing ever goes right for me, rather than the made-up sheets I left this morning, someone is lying on top of my comforter.

“Who are you?” I ask.