Promises to Keep - Ann Tatlock [109]
Daddy aimed the gun again, pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
And again.
Nothing. Nothing but three dead clicks.
Tillie moved forward.
Daddy slapped the gun against his palm and swore aloud. He jiggled something on the barrel and pulled the trigger. The gun came to life, exploding once again and sending a bullet through the floor. Daddy reeled, righted himself, lifted the gun once more, but it was too late.
Tillie reached him now, the bat still clenched in her hands. She swung, hitting Daddy squarely on the side of the head. The impact hurled him into the bedroom even as it thrust Tillie up against the wall, where ever so briefly, she stood as though stunned, until slowly she slid down to the floor. One wide streak of blood marked her path on the wallpaper. A second widening circle of blood stained the front of her gown.
Mom bypassed Daddy, sprawled on the bedroom rug, and rushed to Tillie’s side. “Hold on, Tillie. Hold on,” she pleaded, her voice shaking. “I’m calling for an ambulance.”
Mom grabbed the extension in the hall and dialed zero as I finally found my legs and ran to Tillie. I was trembling, every inch of me shivering with fear. Even the house itself seemed to vibrate with panic; the air felt thick with it.
Mom said something into the phone that I could scarcely hear over Valerie’s shrieks. When she finished, she didn’t hang up but left the receiver dangling by the cord, turning ever so slightly in the air like someone hanged. She ran to her room, and I called after her, “What are you doing?”
“Stay with Tillie,” she hollered back. I waited a moment, but she didn’t say more.
“Tillie,” I whispered. “Tillie.”
Her eyes were open. She settled them on my face.
I was crying now and breathing hard, gasping for air. Don’t die, Tillie. Don’t die.
She stretched a hand toward me, the hand that had gone to her chest when she was shot. I didn’t want to touch it, didn’t want to touch the blood. But when her warm moist fingers curled around my palm, I held on tight. “I love you, Tillie,” I said.
She tried to smile. She gazed at me with eyes that seemed to be drifting, losing focus. “I love you too, Roz,” she whispered. She looked away from me, beyond my shoulder, gave a small gasp. Her eyes widened, took on light.
She said my name again, but this time it didn’t quite sound like Roz. It sounded like Ross.
I looked over my shoulder then back at Tillie. Her eyes were closed now, and her chin drooped toward her chest. A siren wailed in the distance. Valerie went on screaming. I saw Mom lean over Daddy, feel his neck for a pulse, lift the gun from the floor. She held the weapon in the palm of one hand as her other hand went to her mouth. She was weeping quietly, her tears capturing the overhead light and glistening on her cheeks. After a moment she stood and, aiming with both hands, pointed the gun at Daddy’s head.
As I waited for her to pull the trigger, I felt Tillie’s hand lose its grip on mine.
chapter
47
Long minutes passed, one melting slowly into the next, as I stood motionless in the sterile room. Any noise around me – the clanking of medicine trays in the hall, the occasional voice over the hospital PA system, even the click and the hiss of the equipment around the bed – became little more than white noise to me, I was so lost in thought. I was trying to make sense of all that had happened since our move to Mills River, and as insights came to me piecemeal I worked to fit them into a meaningful whole.
“You lied to me,” I whispered to the figure in the bed. “I can’t believe you lied to me.”
And yet, why was it so unbelievable? They had all warned me. Wally, Mom, Tillie, even Mara. They had told me Daddy couldn’t be trusted, and I hadn’t listened.
Daddy lay there between the sheets, wide bandages wound tightly around his broken skull, reaching down even to cradle his chin. His face was drowning in a pool of white. White gauze, white linen. His eyes were shut, unseeing. His ears peeked out of cracks in