Lee Martin - Late One Night

Ronnie gathered Sarah into his arms and got up off his knees. He covered her up with his arms, holding her tight, as if he wanted to hide her away, close to his heart, where no one would be able to find her if they came looking.

It surprised Missy to feel what she did for Ronnie in that moment. She didn’t want him to have those girls, but now the sight of him overwhelmed her. How much she’d give to have a child she could hold that way, hold as if her very life depended on that heartbeat thumping close to hers. Then she felt the old resentment blaze up — what right did he have to these girls after he’d walked out on them? — and she said, “It’s Wayne and Lois.” Said it in a way that made it clear Ronnie had something to be afraid of, and then she went to the door, leaving him to brace himself for what was going to happen next.

Lois came in first. She had on her nightgown, a white flannel that fell over the tops of her snow boots. She’d thrown on a black quilted coat, and the gown, printed with dainty lavender flowers, hung down below the coat’s hem. Her hair was set in pin curls, and she hadn’t taken time to put in her dentures. Her cheeks were all caved in, as if her face had collapsed from grief.

“Oh, mercy,” Lois said. “Mercy, mercy.” She stood just inside the front door, her arms folded over her stomach, shaking her head back and forth. Finally, she unfolded her arms and reached them in the direction of where Ronnie was holding Sarah, and Hannah and Emma were sitting on the couch. “Mamaw’s here,” she said.

Wayne had already started toward Ronnie, and by the time Missy noticed, Pat had made a move to stop him. Wayne was holding a tire iron. His face was red from cold and temper. His untied boot laces slapped and snapped across the leather as he stomped across the room.

“Wayne, I’ve got Sarah here,” Ronnie said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Come here, sweetheart,” Lois said, and Sarah got down from her father’s arms and went to her.

Pat wedged himself in front of Wayne and started talking. “I know you’re torn up,” he said. “You’ve got every right to be. But there’s no reason for that tire iron. You don’t want the girls seeing anything like that.”

Wayne was chest to chest with Pat, his stare leveled at Ronnie as if Pat weren’t even there.

“Don’t you be talking to me about stupid, Ronnie.” Wayne lifted his arm and pointed over Pat’s shoulder with the business end of that tire iron. It wobbled in his unsteady hand. “I mean it. You don’t have a right to any words tonight, far as I can tell.”

“These are my girls,” Ronnie said.

“If you think I’m going to let you walk out of here with those girls—” Wayne lunged at Ronnie, but Pat got his hands up into his armpits and held him back. “You’re the stupid man, Ronnie,” Wayne said. “You’ve been no good near most all your life.”

Angel still stood in front of the window. Lois sat down on the couch. She put one arm around Hannah and one around Emma. Sarah sat on her lap. Wayne still had his arm in the air, his hand around the shaft of that tire iron. He looked at it, and then his shoulders slumped and his arm dropped to his side.

“I’m not here to make trouble,” he said, his voice now heavy with shame. “Lord knows we’ve got enough of that.”

“I just want to take my girls now,” Ronnie said. “That’s what I want to do.”

“Take them where? To that whore’s house?”

“Wayne, I won’t have you talk like that. Not in front of my children.”

“By god,” Wayne said.

Then, before Pat could stop him, he got close enough to Ronnie to cold-cock him with that tire iron. A blow to the head, and Ronnie went down, face first.

“Wayne, my god, you’ve killed him,” Lois said.

Pat kneeled beside Ronnie and gently rolled him over onto his back. He patted his cheeks a little, seeing if he could get him to come to, but Ronnie was out.

“Is he—” Missy couldn’t bring herself to ask if he was still breathing.

When she paused, Pat filled the silence. He said, “Call for an ambulance.”

Shooter finally got Captain settled down after the fire — got him to bed after the boy had paced the house, his face wet with tears, muttering from time to time. Now, he’d near about dropped off to sleep, and Shooter was sitting in the living room with the lights off, staring into the darkness, unable to get a handle on what had happened that night and what might be required of him now.

Then the ambulance came down the blacktop, siren shrieking, red lights spinning.

Captain was up in a snap, tugging on his jeans and throwing an orange University of Illinois sweatshirt over his head.

“We got to go.” He stuffed his feet into his boots and wrapped the laces around the tops, tied them into loose bows. “C’mon,” he said. “Get your coat. Maybe they’re bringing them back.”

Out the window, Shooter saw the ambulance pull into Pat and Missy’s driveway. He saw Ronnie’s Firebird there, and Wayne Best’s pickup. He saw a fire truck across the road, a crew still spraying down the smoldering ashes and the debris from the trailer fire.

“Bringing who back?” Shooter asked Captain. “What are you talking about?”

“Della and her kids. Maybe they took them to the hospital and made them all right.”

Shooter took him by the arm. “Now listen to me, son. You know what happened tonight.”

“No.” Captain shook loose, and before Shooter could stop him, he was out the door and running up the road, no thought of a coat.

Missy saw him first. The EMTs had left the front door open when they brought the gurney into the house, and she felt the cold air sweep over her. She turned toward the door just as Captain stepped inside.

Ronnie was still out cold, and the EMTs were loading him onto the gurney. Missy knew that one of them, the taller one with the black hair and the black moustache, was a boy from Goldengate, but she couldn’t recall his first name. His partner was a stocky boy with a little bow to his legs. He had a pierced ear, the left one, where he wore a silver stud. Missy knew they’d already had a tough night — they’d been the ones who’d had to drive away with the bodies of Della and her kids. A man knocked in the head was nothing next to what they’d had to do at that trailer fire. Della and her babies. Missy’s throat closed up with the thought.

No one else took notice of Captain. Pat was trying to calm down Wayne, who was beside himself with worry that he’d done exactly what Lois had said — killed Ronnie — and Pat was trying to tell him that no one knew yet how badly Ronnie was hurt. Hannah and Sarah and Emma had gotten up from the couch and gone to stand with Angel, as if to say the only thing they knew on this night when they’d lost their mother, two of their sisters, and their baby brother — and now their father lay unmoving on the floor — was that they had one another and didn’t mean to let go. Even Angel and Hannah’s little spat over the goats was forgotten. Lois, for whatever reason — maybe just to give her something to do with her hands — was busy taking the bobby pins out of her curls.

“Wesley, what are you doing here?” Missy asked Captain. “This isn’t any of your business. Now, go on back home.”

He shook his head. “What happened to Ronnie?”

“He fell down. He hit his head.” Missy didn’t figure she had any obligation to explain what had really happened. Not to Wesley Rowe. What was he doing out anyway, and here it was after two o’clock. Good heavens, what a night. She felt a headache coming on, a dull throb just above her eyes. “Wesley.” She used a stern tone. “Wesley, do I have to call your daddy?”