“I can’t. You’ll think I’m the most awful person you’ve ever known.”
Cornelia was vehement. “No, no, no. I couldn’t never think that. I couldn’t. Not even if you killed somebody. I’d say to anyone who asked, they must’ve had it coming.”
How surprising her choice of words.
Rae Lynn said, “I got to get these biscuits done.”
She began working the dough again; then she stopped and the words came, slipping from her as if they would choke her.
“That’s what happened.”
Cornelia stared. “What do you mean that’s what happened?”
“It’s hard to talk about, Nellie. Real hard.”
She spread flour over the tabletop, dumped the dough out while her heartbeat sounded like a hammer in her head. She was about to cry, and if she did, she didn’t think she’d be able to stop. She’d lose that careful control she’d kept hold of so well.
Cornelia said, “You can tell me. I won’t breathe a word. I can see how it causes you such pain.”
Rae Lynn sank into a chair. She buried her face into her arms, her hands still coated with flour. She heard Cornelia move away, but in seconds she was back, pressing a cool rag to the back of Rae Lynn’s neck. Bless Nellie. She was an awful good friend. They’d grown close in a short amount of time, and Rae Lynn had grown to depend on her calm manner, her ability to put her at ease, but she’d held on to this thing she’d done for so long, the thought of telling someone made her sick.
She mumbled into her arm. “I can’t never take back what I done.”
“What you done?” As she spoke, Cornelia flipped the cloth over, and the cool came down on Rae Lynn’s neck again, and Cornelia said, “It can’t be all that bad.”
Rae Lynn sat up and the cloth fell to the floor. She stared at the whorls in the wood of the tabletop and her voice trancelike, empty, she began telling Cornelia.
“After he fell, whatever was wrong, it was like he was dying from the inside out. Spitting up blood, black as that tar made out yonder in the distillery. Like I said, he wouldn’t let me fetch a doctor. He couldn’t get out of the bed. He was trapped in a living hell, and begged me for his gun. Said he wanted to kill himself. Then he asked me to do it, like he’d done for his old dog. I refused, so he quit eating and drinking. Nellie, he looked dead already, but still, he breathed. It was unnatural seeming, and I couldn’t stand seeing him suffer after days of this. I finally give him his pistol like he wanted, and I ran. I didn’t want to stay, only, I changed my mind. I thought I was horrible for leaving him in such a moment. I went back, heard the gun before I got in the house. I thought I would die myself, right there. Lordy, what he’d done to his self. He messed up bad. Gut shot. I reckon it’s where his pain was greatest. Worse, he was still alive. I don’t know how. Laying there, bleeding something awful. It was only a matter a time, but his agony was so great, I done like he asked. Like he was begging me to do. I . . . I . . . took that gun, and I held it here.”
She put the stub of her finger against her temple and stopped talking. She waited for judgment to come, for Cornelia to condemn her actions, for Cornelia to tell her she had to leave. She couldn’t look at her, didn’t want to see her friend’s horror. While she believed she had no choice, did it matter? Wasn’t she still a murderer? They should’ve let her die in that box. Cornelia’s silence was enough. Rae Lynn sighed, prepared to hear the disgust. She heard a rustle, felt the tip of a finger come under her chin.
Cornelia said, “Look at me.”
Rae Lynn did, eyes spilling over, her nose starting to run. She held herself in check, not wanting to sob.
“Now listen. You had call to do what you done. It was an act of compassion. Why, I could a killed Otis more than once, for no good reason other than he’s just plain mean. What you done couldn’t be helped.”
Rae Lynn felt a knot rise up in her throat. She couldn’t speak she was so grateful for the kindness of her friend. Cornelia’s face was close to hers and Rae Lynn clung to the hope she’d tell her more, tell her she’d have done that very same thing. Instead, Cornelia leaned in and pressed her mouth to Rae Lynn’s, an awkward move that lasted only a second because Rae Lynn jerked her head back and jumped up.
She yelled, “Nellie! What’re you doing?”
Cornelia put her hand over her mouth, her eyes as wide as they could go.
She said, “I don’t know! I . . .”