Broken Branch (5 page)

She'd set her sights on Saturday night for leaving because most folks went to bed early on Saturdays on account of church the next morning, and on Thursday night, she stood out on the porch before bed, looking at the clear sky, thankful that no clouds appeared on the horizon. The stars were bright and she remembered what G.L. had said about being born on the night so long ago when they fell. What a wonderful legacy, she thought, to be so connected to magic, to something beyond the flesh and bone of everyday life.

Later, when she climbed into bed, she felt a deep peace. Her life would go on beyond this place, and one day she'd look back on these days as a mistake, but also a lesson. A lesson that taught her that attaching oneself to another for any reason other than love was foolishness. It would also remind her of how those that claim to know the most about God and His ways are the scariest people of all.

She sat up abruptly several hours later when the rain began its furious assault on the roof. At first she thought it was Rodney. Sometimes at night when an attack came, the thudding of his knee against the wall sounded like this. The noise was unbearably loud, so much that it almost became a kind of silence, a great, impenetrable wall that pressed on her from above. She wanted it to stop, but she realized this was going to be another big one.

She climbed out of the bed and went into the front of the house. James had fallen asleep with the Bible open on his knee, his head tilted back as he snored openmouthed. In that moment, he seemed more vulnerable than ever, and in a way he reminded her of Rodney. She almost felt something for him then; not love, but something familiar, something like kindness, but she shrugged off the urge at the last minute. These were the thoughts would make her want to stay. Staying wasn't an option.

Out on the porch, she saw the woods were on fire. Damp smoke drifted toward the cabin and beyond that flames licked the hollows of the night. Tree fires during the storms were not uncommon. Most of the time the rain put them out, but Trudy was surprised to see how bright the fire was, and she wondered if this one wasn't larger than normal.

She was about to go back inside when a blast of lightning turned the world white and she saw Ben sitting on his porch across the way. The world went dark again, and she reached for the door. Another strike illuminated him and this time he spoke, his voice sounding like it was coming from a long way away.

“It's good weather for just sitting and thinking,” he said. “Hold on.”

And then he was on the porch with her, soaked to the bone, shivering. Another flash of lightning and she saw his smile. “Would you mind bringing me a blanket or something?” Ben said.

She went inside, moving slowly and carefully so as not to wake James, and returned with a dry blanket. He sat down in James's chair and nodded at the one next to it. “I don't bite. Not much anyway.”

“It might look improper.”

“Never knew you to be one to worry about such things.”

She looked through the window into the darkness of the house. If James did wake up, would he come out onto the porch? And what if he did? She had already told him she was leaving him. That made her decision easy. She sat down beside Ben.

“I been meaning to tell you that what you did the other day was something.”

Trudy looked at him. One side of his face was lost to the shadows. The other side seemed kind. She had to resist the urge to touch his cheek, to run her fingers along the rough, short hair that grew there.

“I mean helping that old man. I should have done it too.”

“Why didn't you?”

“Don't rightly know. Probably because I'm scared. You, though, . . .” He laughed. “You're just a little thing, but you don't get scared. Seems like the stuff the rest of us worry about doesn't touch you.”

“I'm not that brave,” she said. “Besides, you don't seem like a man who'd be afraid.”

“Oh, I'm afraid plenty, Trudy. My whole life is just being afraid of one thing after the next.”

“I'm leaving,” she said. “Saturday night. James isn't coming.” She wanted to say more. She wanted to tell him he should come instead. She knew it was wrong. She knew it was, but knowing and caring weren't always the same thing. It would be terrible of her to do that to Eugenia, though, and that was what stopped her.

He leaned back in his chair, and his entire face came into focus in another flash of lightning. He was staring at her.

“See what I mean? That's brave.”

“You could leave too,” she said. “You and Eugenia. The children. You could come with us. Mary and Maggie could play all the time . . .” She trailed off. He was shaking his head.

“As bad as it is here, I know this place, Trudy. The world out there . . . I've forgotten it. It's forgotten me. Besides, even if I wanted to leave, Eugenia wouldn't come.”

“Why not?”

He laughed then. Loudly, and she put her hand on his arm to quiet him. His hand covered hers and held her hand in the crook of his elbow.

“She's more scared than I am, Trudy.” He leaned his head onto her shoulder and she smelled the rain on him and something stronger underneath, his scent. It was a good odor, full of sweat and strength, the way a man was supposed to smell. Was there something else, though? Something vague, just a whisper? Trudy didn't want to admit it, but there was. It was fear.

She knew the scent well. It lingered in this place like ground fog on a humid morning. Of course it was fear. Everyone felt it. You just had to deal with it, she thought. That told the tale.

She was about to say this when the door behind them groaned open. She stood quickly, putting distance between herself and Ben, which was probably a mistake, as it made it look like she had something to hide and she didn't. Did she?

James stood at the door. “Little late to be calling on folks, ain't it, Ben?”

Ben stood up. “Sorry, James. I came for a blanket. Maggie wet hers again, and the storm woke her up. Now, she can't sleep without a blanket. Just sat down for a moment with your wife because I selfishly asked her to pray with me.”

James said nothing, and it was unclear if he believed any of Ben's story.

“Thanks, Mrs. Trudy,” Ben said. He nodded at James and bunched the blanket up under his arm. He took off into the rain, as the lightning flashed all around him. It went dark again, and he was gone.

James said nothing and went back inside the house.

Trudy watched the storm for a long time before going to bed herself.

The fire wasn't as bad as Trudy thought. Early reports the next morning said that it was mostly out and by the time it reached the creek, it'd be gone completely. The sun came out, and the community seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Otto called a meeting to thank God that the storm did no visible damage to either the homes in the clearing or the small progress that had been made on the church.

Trudy spent the day preparing for leaving. She saw no reason to do her chores. She'd only continued them to keep up appearances, but she realized now, the rest of Broken Branch was too busy to notice whether she did or didn't do them. By the time anyone realized their clothes weren't washed, she would be gone. She packed a single suitcase with clothes and supplies, knowing it would slow them down, but she figured once they were gone from Broken Branch they could go as slow as they wanted to.

But where would they go?

She'd thought about trying to go back to Birmingham, but she'd burned many bridges there after her father's death. People who might have helped her once would no longer be willing to after she'd refused to speak at her father's funeral. Everyone had assumed her ungrateful. She didn't blame them, and she didn't try to explain how the thought of confronting the memory of her father made her feel helpless and weak. It touched her own doubt, her failure to find something greater, something that existed outside of herself. She hated herself for this weakness and even welcomed the derision of the other family members and friends. She deserved it all.

She'd wanted a clean break from that time in her life. She'd looked forward to a more authentic life, a more authentic faith, which she felt James possessed, but she'd been wrong. She'd been so stupid then, so young. This time she had her priorities straight. Her children had to survive, and they had to survive intact. There was no telling what the environment of this place might do to them. Trudy had already witnessed its effect on Rodney and shuddered to imagine how much worse it would be if his attacks ever came to light. She owed them a chance to find their own salvation, even if she'd missed her own.

It made her sad to think like this because her whole life had been shaped by the search for something she couldn't explain, something that couldn't be perverted by Otto and James's selfish interpretation, and she would continue to look for it once she had abandoned this place forever. Yet she understood instinctively that one day she'd remember Broken Branch and wonder. Not about its people or what happened to Otto and James. Sure, those would be minor curiosities, but mostly she'd think about G.L. and the swamp. The storm shelter he'd known about. In two nights she would be leaving with a few regrets. One was obvious: the years she'd wasted with James. But without him she wouldn't have Rodney or Mary, and without them she might as well have died with her father. They were her life, and nothing could change that. Her only real regret would be leaving without knowing why she'd come here in the first place. Without—she thought, realizing it clearly for the first time—finding God.

On the night before she was to leave, Trudy woke suddenly, sitting upright in bed. This time there was no rain, and silence lay over the house. It felt unnatural, and for a moment she lay there trying to understand why she was awake.

Then she knew. They needed to leave tonight. Tomorrow might be too late. It was just a feeling, but the feeling was powerful. Suddenly she was filled with despair by her stupidity. Why had she waited so long? What was special about Saturday night, when any night would have been fine?

She rose, silently, careful not to wake James. The last thing she needed was him waking up. She found the old suitcase and packed it with the supplies she'd shoved into a drawer earlier that day. She took it out to the porch and zipped it up.

“Evening,” a voice said. She nearly jumped out of her skin.

She turned and saw Ben sitting on his porch, his pale skin illuminated in the moonlight.

“You frightened me.”

“I thought you didn't scare.”

She said nothing. She didn't want him to be there. She didn't want to talk. Any sound risked waking James.

“I don't think you understood me last night, Trudy. About how much I admired your courage. About how I wished I had the same.”

“That's fine. Listen, I can't speak right now.”

“Going somewhere?”

Suddenly she didn't trust him. She couldn't say why. “No. I just couldn't sleep.”

“What's the suitcase for?”

She looked down at her suitcase. What could she say?

“We're leaving tonight. I just have to wake the kids.”

“Don't bother.”

“Excuse me?”

“There's no need to wake them. You're going to change your mind.”

“No, I'm not.”

He stood. “I want to show you something.”

“I don't have time for this, Ben.”

He stepped off his porch. He was fully dressed. He still had his boots on.

“What if I told you that I wasn't going to let you go?”

She looked at him. He was a large man, larger than James or Otto. Only Earl was taller, but she wasn't sure he was as broad and muscular as Ben. Trudy felt the first jolt of panic hitting her system.

“What are you doing?”

“I just want you to see something, Trudy. Like I said last night. I don't bite.” He reached out his hand for her like he wanted to help her down the steps. “I meant all those things I said about you. I just don't want to see you get hurt.”

“Then leave me alone. Let me leave.”

“I can't do that, Trudy. For your own good, I can't. I think you know this.”

It was true. She did know it.

“Will you let me go after you . . . after you show me whatever it is you want to show me?”

He seemed to consider this. “That won't be up to me.”

“Who, then? Otto?”

Ben shrugged. “God, Trudy. Everything is up to God.”

She followed him across the clearing, the ground still muddy from the previous night's storm. He took her deep into the woods in a direction she'd never been. Now that she thought about it, there were many directions she'd never explored in these woods. Like most of the people in Broken Branch, her world consisted of the clearing, the meadow, and the creek. Everything else just seemed like endless trees, not worth navigating.

The best she could reckon, they were heading north. She knew some of the men spoke of another highway in this direction. Otto and James hiked to it to trade sometimes and often came back with fresh fruit in the spring and summer.

The thought of running crossed her mind more than once. But each time she got up the nerve to bolt, Ben would turn around as if checking on her.
Of course he's checking,
Trudy thought.
And once he sees me run, he'll pounce on me
. She could imagine the rest, so she kept walking, thinking only of Rodney and Mary, sleeping in their beds, wishing she'd left one night sooner. Or several years sooner.

They walked for a very long time. Longer than Trudy had thought possible. Surely the woods would end soon, but they didn't. If anything, they grew denser as the trail twisted and turned. At last, they came to a place where the trees broke, not unlike the main clearing in Broken Branch. Here, Trudy could see the sky, the large moon, peeking through the clouds, hanging full and fat directly above them, the stars frozen in place, and Trudy remembered what G.L. had said about the stars falling on the night of his birth. She wished they were falling now, flaming over the land. She would have liked to see it, and she wondered how some were blessed to see fire from heaven while others only looked upon a frozen sky.

But the sky was not why Ben had brought her here.

Gradually, by increments of moonshine, her eyes adjusted. She looked out upon a single, powerfully built tree, not unlike the one that dominated the center of Broken Branch. Then she changed her mind. This was no oak. It was a large willow, its drooping branches creating a natural veil over the trunk. Ben pointed at the tangled limbs, the vines twisted together and swaying as one thing in the wind.

“I don't see,” she said.

“Come closer.”

She did, and the wind shifted and the mass in the willow blew toward her, inching forward. She stopped. The smell. Oh, Lord, the smell was too strong. She covered her mouth and turned away, gagging.

“You'll get used to it. When I came on him a few days back, it was the smell that brought me. Thought it was a dead animal. Imagine the fear that I felt when I saw who it was.”

Who it was?
Trudy felt her knees go weak and collapsed to the ground. Though she didn't want to, she turned to look at the thing tangled in the willow branches. It spun slowly, and as it did the clouds drifted clear of the moon and she saw his face, his sweet, dead, dreaming face.

Simpson. Trudy screamed, howling out into the night until Ben clamped his hand over her mouth and whispered that it was okay, okay, okay, that God was in control today, tomorrow, forever, but Trudy kept screaming into his hand, until her voice came back and echoed inside her open mouth, falling as silent and impotent as everything else.