The Devil You Know (4 page)

Before they had moved away, Debby and Grandma argued a lot—sometimes on the phone and sometimes in person. When Grandma came over to argue, Ginny was supposed to sit in her room and listen to the radio. Ginny would do as she was told, but she'd lie on the floor with her ear at the space under the door and try to make out the words. Ginny was glad her grandma and Mama weren't yelling at each other now that they were back.

“Do you know how much we missed you, sweetie?”

“Don't be sad, Grandma. We came back to see you.”

“Ginny, can you tell me what happened? Why you had to leave?”

“Mama said I wasn't supposed to say anything.”

“I don't want you to tell me anything you don't want to, Ginny. But it might help you feel better. And I promise I won't let on to your mama.”

So Ginny told her grandmother about the night before they left, when Dwayne had gone out with his friends and come home late and drunk. How he'd crashed through the door and started yelling and knocking things over and woke Ginny and Mama up. How he and Mama shouted at each other and Ginny watched out the window as Dwayne ran outside and tried to drive off in the van and was yelling at Mama to give him the keys and she wouldn't, so he picked up a wooden sawhorse and threw it at her. She jumped out of the way, but it hit her on the leg and made her fall down. And then Dwayne pried the keys out of Mama's hand and drove away and Ginny ran downstairs and helped her mother inside. Mama had put a bag of frozen hash browns on her leg and gave Ginny a Tylenol and put her back to bed, then woke her up a few hours later and helped her put her clothes and her teddies in garbage bags as quietly as they could.

“And then we took it all outside to the van and Dwayne was sleeping on the couch and we had to walk right by him without waking him up. And then we drove all day to come here.”

“My poor little dolly. No matter what happens, I'm not going to let you get hurt any more.”

“But I didn't get hurt, Grandma. It was Mama who got the bruise on her leg.”

Grandma sighed and shook her head. “I know you didn't, sweetheart, not like that. But you're still a little girl, and you need to be with people who can look after you and take care of you.”

“But Mama takes care of me.”

“And she'll keep taking care of you, baby. But what I mean is…I don't want you to move away ever again. Do you want to leave your grandma and grandpa again? Or do you want to stay near us?”

“I want us to stay here. Virginia was okay, but I missed my friends and I missed you and Grandpa and Sunday school and our old house.”

“Well, then, that's settled. No more going away from each other, right?” Grandma smiled and patted Ginny's hand and then the kettle whistled and she made hot chocolate with marshmallows on top for both of them and told Ginny about how to make stuffing.

Joe and Debby returned from the store and Ginny ran out to help them with the bags. She loved Grandma's Thanksgiving dinner: turkey and stuffing and biscuits and gravy and sweet potato casserole with browned marshmallows on top. She could hardly wait for Thursday, just the four of them, eating a big dinner together that Ginny helped to make. She hoped one day to be as good a cook as Grandma.

After the groceries were put away, Ginny shucked corn for that night's dinner while Debby smoked in the rocking chair and read a
People
magazine. Some cars pulled into the lot next door: a red pickup and a silver SUV. The cabin had been rented to lots of different people over the years. Ginny remembered the time the boy with the curly blonde hair had been staying there. He looked like a cherub off a valentine and Ginny had chased him around all weekend playing kissing tag. But these people were all grownups, men with beards and ladies in tight jeans. Mama sat up straighter in her seat and pulled her sweater around her neck. “Hey, I think I know that guy…is that Ed?” She stood up and squinted. “Ed?” she said in a sort of half-yell.

The man with the biggest beard looked over. He squinted too. “Debby Dunn—is that you?”

“Oh my god, I don't believe it!” Her mother squealed like she only did around boys, and jumped off the porch. Ed bounded across the yard and picked Ginny's mother up like a sack of potatoes, while she kicked her legs and screamed. He put her down and they hugged.

“What are you doing up here?” Debby asked.

“Oh, just came up for some hunting with a few friends. I remembered when we booked the place that your folks had a place up here somewheres, but I didn't think I'd be right beside it.”

“What are the odds, huh?”

“So, your folks are still keeping this place up?”

Debby nodded. “Still driving me nuts too.”

“Well, what have you been up to all these years?” he asked.

“Oh, honey, that's an awful long story.”

“Well, listen, why don't you come over tonight for a few beers, tell me all about the last ten years or so?”

“Man, I would love to.”

“All right then. C'mon over after supper and we'll tip a few.” He wandered back over to his cabin, where a cooler was already set up on the porch.

“Who was that?” Ginny asked.

“Oh, just an old friend from high school,” said Debby. She looked at Ginny as if just remembering that she was there. “Sorry I didn't introduce you, baby.”

“It's okay.”

“I will next time, yeah? Here—you wanna read my magazine? I'm going to take a shower.”

That night, Ginny couldn't sleep. The back bedroom was cold and the little wrought-iron bed felt strange without her mother in it to cuddle her and keep her warm. She could hear country music coming from the cabin next door and wondered when Mama would be home.

When Mama was getting ready to leave after supper, Grandma had told her that the last thing she needed was to get mixed up with another bum. Mama had told her to mind her own business and that it was wrong to judge people Grandma hadn't even heard tell of in ten years. Grandpa had taken Ginny by the shoulder and steered her out to the porch, where they had played a few rounds of Go Fish and tried to ignore the shouting and the slamming door.

Ginny crept out of bed and opened the garbage bag with her teddy bears in it. She pulled out Mr. Oatmeal and Floppy Dog and set them on the bed. Then she dug to the bottom of the bag and felt around for the compact rectangle that was her deck of cards. She climbed back into bed and slid the cards under the pillow, but kept her hand curled tightly around them. She thought about how she would surprise her mother by being awake when she came home, and she lay on her side and looked at her teddies and tried not to close her eyes, but she did close them just for a minute and when she opened them again, it was light in the room and she heard the coffee percolator going and Grandma scuffing around in her slippers, and Ginny was still alone in the bed.

In the kitchen, Grandpa sat at the table with a plate of fried eggs. Mama sat beside him, picking at a piece of toast and wearing the same clothes she'd had on yesterday.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” said Grandma. “Are you ready for some breakfast?”

Ginny nodded and her mother regarded her with a bleary kindness.

“Hey, baby,” she rasped. “Did you have a good sleep?”

“She got more than you did, I'm sure,” said Grandma, cracking an egg into the sizzling pan.

Debby scrunched her face behind her mother's back and patted the chair beside her. “The guys next door have all gone hunting today,” she told Ginny.

“Maybe you'll be able to spend some time with your little girl, then,” said Grandma.

She saw Grandpa give her a funny look.

“Course we will,” said Debby, patting Ginny's hand. “Maybe we can go for a walk later or something.”

After breakfast, Mama sat in front of the TV and plucked her eyebrows and watched makeover shows and fell asleep.

Ginny was peeling a turnip on the front porch for Grandma late that afternoon when Ed's truck roared into the yard. The men piled out in their hunting gear, high-fiving each other and talking in loud excited voices. Ed went around to the back, opened the tailgate and pulled a large doe to the edge of the truck bed headfirst. Her soft brown body was splayed across a camo-printed tarp. The men gathered closer, and Ginny could see through the spaces between their bodies to the doe's empty eyes, the line of blackened blood that ran down the side of her mouth, the dark slit in her belly where she'd been gutted in the field. Debby stepped out on the porch and walked over to Ed. Ginny could see that she had put on lipstick and brushed her hair.

“Doe's good eatin',” Ed said, slapping the deer's side. “Let's get 'er strung up and dressed.” He saw Debby and put his arm around her. Mama stood on her tippytoes and kissed Ed's thick neck. “I'll string you up next!” he shouted. “C'mere, Debby Dunn Dallas, and give me some of that,” he said, smacking her wide denim-clad backside. She leapt up and scampered away, giggling. Ed turned and saw Ginny standing on the porch. He waved at her. “Wanna come see your Thanksgiving dinner?” he said. “We're having Bambi!” He laughed and Mama punched his arm and Ginny picked up her turnip and went inside.

Most of the deer meat would improve with aging, but the tougher cuts needed to be cooked the next day. Grandma had offered to make it into a stew alongside the Thanksgiving dinner, and Debby invited Ed to join them. The big silver stew pot bubbled away on the stove for most of the afternoon, filling the cabin with the smell of venison. Ginny made a point of covering her nose and mouth every time someone looked at her.

Ed and Debby had been drinking beer on the back porch since before lunch, half-talking, half-shouting. Ginny was setting the table when they finally came in, the screen door thwacking in the frame. Ed stood over the stove and breathed in the steam from the pot. He asked Ginny's mother about the seasoning: did it need more salt, could it use some pepper? Debby pulled up a chair beside Ginny and flashed her a wobbly grin. Her hair hung low over her red eyes.

“Goddamn!” Ed said. “That's hot!” He tossed the wooden spoon on the counter and fanned his mouth with his hands like a cartoon bear. He lumbered to the table and took a long pull from Ginny's can of orange soda. As he swished it around in his mouth, he ruffled her hair with a heavy palm. He swallowed and belched.

“Looking forward to your supper tonight, I bet? Stew's gonna be the best dinner you ever had,” he said, setting down the can.

Ginny looked at the soda with disgust. “It will not. That deer probably had little babies and you killed their mother and that's a sin.”

“Ginny, don't talk to our guest like that,” said her grandmother.

“It's all right, Missus Dunn. Ginny here just doesn't know much about deer,” said Ed. His words were soft, but his face looked angry. “See, if we didn't kill some of them deer, they'd over-breed and then there wouldn't be enough food to go around and they'd starve. Besides, it's late enough in the season that any fawns left behind would make it on their own.”

“That's right, sweetie,” her mother slurred, as though she knew more about deer than Ginny.

Ginny dug her fingernails into the legs of her jeans to keep from crying.

At dinner, Ed pulled faces at Debby during grace (Ginny had opened her eyes a slit to watch them). He and Debby poured themselves plenty of wine from the white Gallo box, and Ed chewed with his mouth open and Debby didn't seem to notice.

Grandma tried to keep the conversation moving. “So, Ed,” she asked, “what do you do for a living?”

“I was working at the John Deere plant until it shut down. Got a good severance package, but that's nearly gone. Now I'll have to find something else, I suppose.”

Debby patted his shoulder. “Don't worry, baby, you will.”

Ginny looked at the two of them, at how easily Debby had wrapped herself around Ed. It was like they had always been this way, like there had never been a Dwayne, or even a Daddy. Ginny wondered if Ed and Mama would be together now, if he'd move them to some other state and Ginny would have to make new friends again and sleep in a new room. She looked at her grandma and grandpa, who each smiled at her. Grandpa reached over and put another biscuit on her plate without her even having to ask. She wished she could crawl onto his lap right there and start sucking her thumb, like she used to when she was little.

“Gonna fill up on biscuits?” Ed asked, smiling. “What about this nice stew your granny made, aren't you going to have any?”

Ginny looked at the bowl with the chunks of meat floating in brown gravy. She shook her head. All she could think of was the deer's dead eyes.

After dinner, Mama and Ed went for a drive. The kitchen had heated up the house so much that Ginny sat on the back porch without a jacket, halfheartedly playing a game of Solitaire. She kept looking over at the shed where the doe had been hung and dressed. She thought about the little deer babies that might have been left behind, until she got herself crying and hot-faced. Grandpa was watching a show about football, so Ginny snuck off the back porch and went around to the front of the house to go back inside. That way she could get to her bedroom and only see Grandma, and she didn't mind so much if Grandma saw her crying. As she came around the side of the house, Ed's truck pulled in. Ginny stopped and flattened herself into the corner made by the chimney. Ed cut the lights, but neither he nor Mama got out. Ginny could see the flame of a lighter lighting their faces, and then a small orange ember moving between the two of them. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could make out their faces through the windshield. Mama's face looked sad. Ed leaned in and said something to Mama, and Ginny couldn't tell if it was something funny or sad, but Mama's neck stretched back and her teeth showed. Then Ed kissed Mama's neck, and then his face moved down her chest. He seemed to be holding on to her hair. When he let go, Mama's head slumped forward like a doll's, and she wiped her nose on the back of her wrist. Ginny could see only the top part of Ed's head. His baseball cap was on backwards.