Deliver Us from Evie Read online

  Dad would be too tired when he ever did get in from the fields, and he’d be in the office studying the futures figures with Mom. They always went over the prices when we were getting ready to plant.

  “Parr?” Angel said. “Don’t come tonight. I got homework, anyway.”

  “It’s Easter vacation, Angel!”

  “I got Bible school homework, honey. Mama says I haven’t been paying enough attention to church.”

  “Because of this? Is that why she said that?”

  “I think so…. Evie isn’t one, is she, Parr?”

  “Would you care if she was, Angel?”

  “I’d be afraid, Parr.”

  “Of Evie?”

  “Well, not of Evie … of what she was, if she was one.”

  “You got more sense than that, Angel!”

  “She’s supposed to be after Mr. Duff’s daughter.”

  “Did the sign say that? I bet it didn’t say that!”

  “I didn’t see the sign.”

  “I don’t think it said that.”

  “I only know what they’re saying at Barker’s.”

  “Is your mother telling people about the P.O. box?”

  “Of course not! That’s government property. She wouldn’t tell who had a box there. She just told us.”

  “I’ll try to get over there tomorrow,” I said. “I don’t know how, because we’re planting tomorrow.”

  “It’s better to wait, Parr.”

  “Wait till when?”

  “I’ll call you…. I don’t know how Daddy’s going to take this. You didn’t tell me if she was or wasn’t, Parr.”

  “Of course she’s not!” I lied.

  “I hope not,” said Angel. “I got to go now, Parr. I’ll call you.”

  “Love you, Angel.”

  “Love you, too. ’Bye!”

  I dialed Cord’s number and didn’t get an answer.

  I knew, anyway, it was too late to get that sign down.

  The damage was done.

  23

  I WISHED I HAD a place to go that night.

  I sat around watching TV, watching Evie sit around waiting for the phone to ring. I knew that was what she was doing. She kept looking at her watch, pacing, opening Cokes, and eating a lot of licorice candy, which she claimed helped take away the nicotine craving.

  After Mom and Dad finished in the office, Dad went up to bed and Mom started baking.

  She always made a lot of cookies for Doug when he came home, and for all of us busy with the planting.

  She noticed Evie was downstairs, and she knew why, too. Evie was expecting a call, and she wanted to be the one who grabbed the phone when it rang.

  “Is Patsy expected tonight?” she asked Evie.

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so.”

  “You were right.”

  Evie was reading the Ruth Rendell mystery Cord had given her for Christmas, but she wasn’t turning the pages very fast.

  “Do you think she’s going to call here?” Mom asked Evie.

  “I know she is. It’s early, though.”

  “It’s ten o’clock,” said Mom.

  “She’ll probably be another hour. They were going to have dinner on the way.”

  “Patsy and Mr. Duff?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Mrs. Duff, too?”

  “No. She’s busy with her gin bottle.”

  “That’s not kind, Evie.”

  “She’s not kind. She doesn’t give a damn.”

  “Maybe that’s why Patsy’s the way she is,” Mom said. “Poor child.”

  “Patty’s not a poor child. She’s a survivor. And she’s not the way she is, quote unquote, because of her mother’s drinking.”

  “You don’t know that,” said Mom.

  “Do you think I’m the way I am because of something you and Dad did?”

  “I don’t think it helped that your father got you all interested in repairing tractors and doing other male things. Just because Doug wasn’t good at that kind of work didn’t mean you had to take it on.”

  “Oh, Mom, get real,” said Evie. “I came out of the womb ready to handle tools. I knew how to change a tire when I was six, and when I was ten I could fix anything broken. You couldn’t have learned it if Dad had spent an hour every day of the week instructing you!”

  “Too bad you forgot,” I said. “You could have fixed the mower and saved Cord and me a trip today.” Saved your own neck, too, I thought, because I was looking for something to blame that damn sign on besides myself.

  “Don’t count on me so much,” said Evie. “Not anymore don’t.”

  “Meaning what?” My mother looked up at that remark.

  “I’ve been thinking about living somewhere else.”

  “Where would that be, Evie?”

  “New York. San Francisco. A big city, instead of a hick town.”

  “And what would you do?” said my mother.

  “Get a job and work my way through college. I’d like to learn computers.”

  “Well, you’re good with ours. I don’t know half of what you know about ours,” said Mom. I figured she was handling the whole idea in her usual way: not showing she was upset, playing along with whatever Evie said.

  “Ours,” Evie scoffed. “Ours is old hat! Patty’s got a laptop you can send a fax on.”

  “Patty, Patty, Patty,” said Mom.

  “Or Angel, Angel, Angel, when it’s Parr doing the talking,” said Evie.

  Mom looked at me. “And what happened with your date tonight, Parr?”

  “Angel’s got Bible school homework.”

  “One thing I was wrong about,” said Mom. “The Kidders aren’t holy rollers at all. The Church of the Heavenly Spirit is probably much like St. Luke’s. Right, Parr?”

  “The hymns are different.”

  “Oh, well, the hymns are different in the various denominations. That’s not a great difference.”

  “They talk about sin a lot, too,” I said.

  “I think they’re a little more rigid than we are.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I think so.”

  “But you’d never know it from Angel,” said Evie. “She’s not uptight.”

  Just wait, I thought.

  And it was the waiting that was getting to me, the thought of what was happening probably right about then as Mr. Duff drove past the statue, the waiting for the shit to hit the fan.

  But Evie was still sitting down in our parlor at midnight, and I don’t know how many hours past.

  The phone never rang.

  24

  EVERY MORNING AROUND FIVE thirty I got up to use the bathroom, then went back to bed for a half hour. The roosters across the way would be getting up about the same time, and I’d hear them crowing. The sky would be changing from dark blue to light blue.

  I saw Evie’s bed still made, went halfway down the stairs, and saw her sleeping on the couch in her clothes.

  In thirty minutes the clock radio would wake up my folks with the farm report and the day’s prices.

  We had a squeaky mailbox down on the road in front of our house. When it was a quiet day, we could hear the mailman open and shut it.

  That’s what I heard as I was starting back to bed. I knew it couldn’t be any mailman, not at that hour, so I went to the window and looked out in the time to see one of the Duffarm station wagons head down the road. Their wagons were all long white Buick Roadmasters—you couldn’t miss them.

  I pulled on my pants and slipped into my loafers, colliding with Dad as I went out into the hall.

  “Did you see that? Someone from Duffarm put something in our box.”

  “What are you doing up?” I said.

  “I wake up early on planting days. You know that.”

  We went downstairs together.

  Dad put his finger to his lips in a shhhh gesture when he saw Evie on the couch.

  Dad was in jeans, buttoning his shirt, brushing his hand through his hair as we head
ed out the door.

  “You don’t have to come. Make some coffee. I’ll get it,” he said.

  “I’ll come.”

  “You don’t even have a shirt on!”

  “I don’t need one.”

  “Curiosity killed the cat,” he said.

  My heart felt like it’d come through my skin. I was out of breath from it.

  “What in the hell does Duff want?” Dad said.

  I said, “Who knows?” But I knew the chickens were coming home to roost now and I was sick inside for what I’d done to my sister.

  “It hasn’t got to do with Evie, anyway,” Dad said. “She’s right there on the couch…. What’s she doing there? Was she out last night?”

  “No. Where would she go?”

  “That girl’s home, isn’t she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We’re going to make real coffee before your mother gets up. I got a pound yesterday. I’m not planting on decaf…. She won’t even know.”

  “When’s Doug due?”

  “He’ll be here for dinner.”

  That meant noon. We ate dinner at noon days we planted.

  Dad opened the box. He had to yank the cardboard out. There was a piece of paper clipped to it.

  He looked at the sign and said, “Damn!”

  My teeth began to chatter. Not from the cold. From fear. Not of Dad. Not even of Duff. But fear of what had gotten into me, and I don’t mean the beer.

  “You see this sign?”

  I looked at it. I felt like puking.

  “What the hell is this about?”

  Then he read the paper.

  He read it aloud.

  “Douglas, I took this sign off the Vets’ statue last night! I am going to see Sheriff Starr about Evie. You don’t seem to be able to do anything about her! She may need to told by someone in authority that Patsy is a minor. Thanks to Evie, we have a disgrace on our hands! Everyone in Duffton saw this thing! No more polite warnings, tell her! I mean business now!

  G.K.D.”

  Dad took a deep breath.

  I said, “What’s Sheriff Starr supposed to do, arrest Evie? You can’t arrest someone for having a crush on someone, can you?”

  “Don’t call it a crush. We know it’s no crush.”

  “Still, what’s Sheriff Starr supposed to do?” Could he actually do something to Evie?

  “It’s not the sheriff I’m afraid of. Duff can make plenty of trouble, Parr, and you know it.”

  “Yeah, I know it.” I knew it. Finally. And I knew Evie was the one Duff would get.

  “Now listen to me, Parr. Evie’s not to know about this right away. First things first, understand? We got to get the seed down first.”

  Dad rolled the cardboard up and stuck the note from Duff in his back pocket. We headed back toward the house.

  “Your mother’s got the light on now, so she heard, too. We’re going to tell her he’s having a sale. Tell her he’s selling off some old equipment and putting notices in mailboxes. Remember, he did that last year, sold off those tractors.”

  “Okay,” I said. “She’ll want to see the notice.”

  “Not if I say I left it in the barn. I’m going down there now. You try to get the coffee brewing before she gets downstairs. There’s a bag of it in my bottom desk drawer.”

  “I’ll never make it. She’s probably heading downstairs right now.”

  “You suggest we have real brewed coffee because of the planting. Sometimes she listens to you kids.”

  “Okay.”

  “If I ever find out who did this, I’ll kill ’em.”

  “Yessir,” I said, my stomach turning over.

  “Who’s even seen ’em together in Duffton? They haven’t been hanging around here!”

  “No, they haven’t,” I said. He didn’t know about the P.O. box in King’s Corners. Mom spared him a lot of details.

  “Remember, not one word to Evie, Parr.” Then he added something that made me want to die. “I know you’re close to her, know you probably take her side in this thing, but now it’s way past taking sides.”

  I couldn’t answer him.

  He said, “When you get inside, you start babbling about the coffee. Tell your mother it was just a notice of a sale, and then blah blah about the coffee. Hear?”

  I nodded.

  I did as I was told while Dad went down to the barn.

  He figured right. Mom got into the coffee issue and didn’t pay attention to the sale story.

  Evie was upstairs taking a shower, getting ready to plant, said Mom.

  “If he’d only have one cup, that’d be different,” said Mom. “But he has two, sometimes three, and there’s no sense getting his heart pumping at the crack of dawn.”

  “How about half and half?” I suggested.

  “All right!” Mom laughed. “Half and half. He won’t know the difference. You get the bag from his drawer and put it out here where he can see it.”

  “How’d you know where it was?”

  “You think I don’t know your father’s hiding places?”

  I was trying hard to keep up my end of the conversation when Cord’s pickup pulled into the driveway.

  “Good. Cord’s right on time! Call him in for some coffee,” said Mom.

  After a while both Cord and Dad came inside.

  “Have we got a great day or what!” Cord said.

  “We couldn’t ask better,” said Dad. Then he gave me the eye, motioned me to follow him into the office.

  “You two come back here and get some breakfast!” said Mom.

  “We’re coming, honey,” Dad called sweetly over his shoulder, but when he turned around to face me, there was fire in his eyes.

  “I know who did it!” he said. He was whispering at me, his words spitting out of him. “Don’t say a thing now, Parr. I just solved the mystery!”

  “How’d you do that?” I said.

  “There’s cardboard just like the stuff Duff sent over here in Cord’s back window. Same cardboard, same black marker. Advertising his pickup for sale!”

  I just stood there, my knees as weak as a newborn calf’s.

  “It figures!” Dad hissed. “That jackass tries to get his own way any way he can!”

  25

  “ANY MESSAGES?” EVIE ASKED.

  “Nothing,” said Mom.

  Dad and Cord were washing up.

  I was finished, and helping Mom get the stew from the pot to plates.

  We weren’t going to wait for Doug.

  We’d had a good morning. We’d done all the back fields, and Cord had started over at Atlees’ already.

  “They say she’s not there,” Evie said.

  “She knows you’re planting, doesn’t she?”

  “Yep. But she would have called, you’d think, say she was here.”

  “She’s here, Evie. Don’t worry. She’s probably gone shopping. Maybe she’s getting her Easter outfit.”

  “From around here? I don’t think so.” Evie chuckled.

  “What are you going to wear to church?”

  “One of Dad’s suits, a necktie.” Evie grinned, and my mother reached out with a mock punch at her chin. “Behave,” she said. “Spare your father today, all right?”

  “I spare him all the time,” said Evie.

  Cord appeared. “Who’re you sparing what?”

  He sat himself down at the table.

  “Not you,” she said.

  “Not me is right. Not anything,” he said.

  “You’re being such a help, Parr,” said Mom. “I suppose you want me to drive you to Angel’s tonight.”

  “Who can move after we finish here?” I said.

  “Since when are you ever too tired to see Angel?” said Mom.

  “I’ll take you over,” Evie said.

  “I’m not going,” I said. “She’s singing at the sunrise service, anyway. She’ll need her sleep.”

  “Who’s taking you to that?” Mom said.

  “I’ll
do it!” said Evie. “What I do for love!”

  “I’m not going,” I said. I was pretty sure I wasn’t invited, and more sure I didn’t want Evie driving me.

  “You coming to church with us, honey?” Mom asked.

  “I do every year.”

  “I wasn’t going to make you do it,” said Mom, “but I do like the idea of the whole family in church on Easter Sunday.”

  Dad came in and sat down at the table.

  Cord said, “I hope I’m included in the family, Mrs. Burrman.”

  “Be delighted,” said Mom.

  “Don’t you ever go to your own church?” Dad asked.

  “Why, Douglas!” said Mom, “What a thing to say.”

  “Just curious why he doesn’t ever go to his own.”

  “Because Evie’s not there,” said Cord.

  “Not ever going to be there, either,” said Evie.

  “So I’ll go where you are,” Cord said.

  “See how much he thinks of you, Evie?” Dad said, and there was an edge to his voice.

  I said, “Who’s going to start the bread around?”

  Cord reached for the bread basket. “We did good today, Douglas,” he boomed.

  “So far,” said Dad. “So far.”

  “I might not go to church tomorrow,” said Evie.

  “You wouldn’t skip Easter, honey.”

  “If she doesn’t want to go, don’t force her,” said Dad.

  “Since when?” Mom said.

  “I’d go if it was sunrise, like at The Church of the Heavenly Spirit,” Evie said, “but we waste the better part of the day going to the eleven o’clock at St. Luke’s.”

  “I agree,” said Dad. “We might not even be finished.”

  “We’ll be finished,” said Cord.

  “Why are you selling your pickup?” Dad asked him.

  “I need a bigger truck bed. That thing’s ten years old anyway.”

  “I saw your sign,” Dad said.

  I said, “Dad, pass me the butter.” I gave him the eye when he did, as if to remind him he didn’t want to get anything started yet.

  He shot me back an appreciative wink. I knew he was dying to get at Cord. I knew when he did, I was going down the tubes with him.

  “What are you going to get?” Evie asked Cord.

  “I got my eye on the Dodge Ram.”

  “You’ll get rooked if you buy it from Deigh Dodge.”