Billy Bob Walker Got Married (42 page)

"You don't know what you're—you're saying." Sam's words were broken, his face shaded gray, his hands reached like claws for the back of a chair to support himself as he hung to it, sick. "I don't believe this pack of . . . lies! You can't do this to us, you can't."

"I didn't believe her, either, for a long time. I just . . . hate her," Shiloh said somberly. "I told myself over and over that she'd done it to hurt me. And then she died. Remember the funeral? You made me go. I didn't want to look at her, to ever think of her. And I thought, she's going to hell because she lied. But I couldn't forget what she had said. And one day I decided to disprove her if I could. I had my blood typed. It took a while for me to figure how to get the information I needed about you . . . and her. I'm B positive. Not her type and—and not yours, ei—then" The word broke as she struggled to tell it all. "But his. His name was David." She made herself look right into Sam's staring eyes. "He was your brother."

Sam flinched. "My God—oh, my God—dear God—"

"And when I was twenty-one, an attorney came to Evans to see me. He'd been holding a little money and David's personal belongings for me for years, since David died. There was a letter. He said since I was the only Pennington in the next generation, he was leaving these few things to me and hoped that I sometimes remembered him. Nothing at all to betray the truth. But I knew."

"She would have . . . told . . . me. She would have—" He moaned.

"I don't know why she didn't, except I think she thought you would kill her. And there'd be no more money from you, ever. As for me, Caroline never thought much about me at all until I became her means to an end. I was born; she handed me to Laura. She ruined his life, and yours, but I won't let either of you ruin mine."

He fumbled for the chair, falling into it, his face beaded with sweat, breathing in dry, hard heaves.

"I'm sorry," she whispered painfully. "I never meant to tell you. But you've got to see now that I never was what you wanted me to be. None of your money or your rules will ever make me into it. I tried. I wanted you to be my father so much . . ." The taste of salt was bitter in her throat. "I love you. But then I began to love Billy, too. And finding out finally that he was in public what I was in secret—to me, it felt as if there was always a link between us. For a while, I told myself that was why I couldn't forget him. He doesn't know, not yet."

"What will I do?" Sam's face was wet with tears as he looked up at her dazedly.

She wanted to put her hand on his arm, but he made no move at all toward her, just sitting there like a toy that somebody had forgotten.

"I'll give you the letter if you want to see it. It's innocent enough. But David was sorry, I know. It's why he left." Tears blurred Sam's papery, crumpled face in front of her. "I took all your rules and your strictness because doing it made me your daughter. You loved me so much—the rules were part of the love. And I was afraid that if you knew the truth, you wouldn't love me anymore. Well, now I'm Billy's wife. Your rules don't hold for me now, but the love does, if it's given without them. Without the conditions. You have to love me the way I am, and take everything else along with me—your brother's mistake, Caroline's weaknesses—and Billy Walker. He ought to be the easiest of them all for you to swallow. Let us be happy. If you can't, then let me go. I never was yours, except by love. Because I chose to be. It was a strong enough link for me. Is it for you?"

He never answered, staring at his own hands on the table.

When Shiloh tried to move to the door, her feet stumbled along like wooden blocks.

"I love you, Papa," she told him quietly before she shut the door behind her.

She couldn't go back to the farm, not in this condition, not until she found some peace of mind. So she walked along the sidewalks of the little town, never noticing whether she was in shade or light.

She had been a liar on her wedding night. "We're free to find out who we are and what we can be," she'd said. But she hadn't really been free; she'd just been approximating it, trying to salvage Sam's love at the cost of Billy's.

Today was total freedom, and she didn't like it much, afraid of its price tag, torn apart by the agony it brought. The only compensation was that she felt washed clean. Honest. At last.

Four years ago, Papa thought she'd made her final choice. Billy thought she'd made it on the Fourth of July.

But Shiloh knew: she'd made it today. Two loves pitted against each other—the decision had come down in Billy's favor.

Billy Bob was gone, without a word to her.

"He left this morning with Harold Bell," Willie told her, trying to restrain his curiosity. "He's done it before, but not in such a hurry. I don't know when he'll be back."

"But the farm . . . the nursery . . ."

"It's late in the summer for there to be too much. The next big season is fall, when we gather pecans."

"How—how long will he be gone?" It was hard to ask, to admit that Billy had told her nothing.

"Who knows? He took Chase with him. When he does that, he means to be gone awhile. They change towns— even states—ever' day or two. He rode with Bell—put the horse in one of his trailers. He's not got any way to come home until Bell's ready. He said you'd gone home to your daddy."

"But I came back!"

The bedroom was sunny and bright on this Saturday morning—and completely forlorn without Billy. She felt as empty and confused as she ever had in her life as she lay down on the quilt.

She'd faced Sam, torn herself apart, and for what? Billy was gone. He hadn't cared enough to wait.

Beside her on the table, something shone golden in the rays of sunshine. A ring. It was a wedding band, wide and smooth. And inside, their initials, wrapped together by a fleur-de-lis. Her heart eased a little. When had he gotten it?

He should have put it on her; instead, she slid it over her own knuckle.

Looking at it, she remembered Papa's words: "all those classes at the university."

They'd nagged at her, and now she remembered the books, too. Everything began to fit.

Upstairs, in his old bedroom, she touched the volumes on the shelves, then reached for a notebook, full of scrawled notes. His handwriting. Microbiology.

My God.

Ellen was in the door when Shiloh turned, a flicker of pride in her eyes.

"He's studying to be a vet, isn't he? Why didn't he tell me?"

"I guess for the same reasons he won't tell anybody yet. Only a few know. Most just see him around with Dr. Sanders, and think, there's Billy, hangin' around the vet like he always has. They don't know how hard he's worked to get through the prevet program at Ole Miss. He's almost got it made. Now he has to try to get into a vet school, if he can. He's done it one or two classes at a time. When his grandpa got sick, there was no money for months. He couldn't go at all. It's been nearly five years since he started. Most people do what he's done in two or three."

"Most people give up," Shiloh murmured.

It was frightening, this knowledge about her husband. When he was just Billy, it was easier to put a fence around him.

But then she wouldn't have this surge of pride, the same one Ellen felt.

"He didn't give up on you, either," Ellen returned. "I never told him, but I once found a letter he wrote you and never mailed while you were off at college. I didn't know who Shiloh was then. And it was four years ago, after you left, that he went crazy. Broke out, his grandpa called it. I never knew why, until I found out about you."

"We had a fight last night, right in the middle of the Palace."

"Any fool can see that. It was all over Will when he tore in here. He walked the floor waiting for you. But I've got no sympathy for him. He knows better than to hang around that joint."

"I said some things I shouldn't have."

"You're thinkin' he won't come back. But don't worry, he will, if for no other reason than to tear a strip off of you," she said dryly. "He's not much of one for layin' down and takin' it. And I don't think you are, either."

"I used to be."

"Well, see what a good influence he's having on you?" Ellen said soothingly, laughter in her green eyes. "But look at it this way. Today people figure it's a love match between you two. You don't fight like that unless you care."

"Or you're on the verge of divorce." Shiloh could hear her fatal words ringing between them still.

"Which you are
not.
He'll be back."

It was awkward without Billy at her in-laws that Sunday, and Shiloh veered between worry over her father and despair over her husband, spending the day silent and alone.

On Monday, Laura came after her while Ellen and Willie were out at the fruit stand.

"It's Papa." Shiloh spoke the two words as soon as she opened the door. Laura's face was worn and a little frightened.

"He won't let me in, Shiloh. I went over yesterday afternoon after church to see if he was sick. I knew he didn't go to the golf course. The door was unlocked and the family room was torn to shambles. Pictures burned, lamps broken. He was shut in his study and he told me to go to hell." Laura's mouth trembled. She grasped the door frame so tightly her knuckles were white. "In twenty-five years, in all of our arguments, he's never talked to me that way. Shiloh, what have you done to him? What did you say when you left my house to talk to him?"

"It was something ... I had to do. I called him yesterday. No answer," Shiloh told her painfully.

"He didn't go to the bank today. The house is locked up this morning completely, but I know Sam's in there. I heard him ranting and raving at dawn. If you don't come, Shiloh, T-Tommy's gonna break in."

"I'll come, now."

She should have stayed Saturday. No matter how cold he seemed. No matter what was going on with her and Billy.

"I don't know when I'll be back," she told the silent Ellen and Willie. "Papa needs me."

T-Tommy had to break the doors down, anyway. Sam had locked and dead-bolted all of them.

He was upstairs in his bedroom, still in the same clothes he'd worn on Saturday. But the once-white golf shirt was wrinkled and splotched brown, his hair was in wild disarray, his face was rough with the beginnings of a silvery beard, his eyes were bloodshot.

Shiloh had never seen him in such a state; he frightened her as he glared at them from the Windsor chair in the corner of the bedroom as they burst in.

"Get the hell out of my house," he shouted hoarsely. "You-—and you—and"—he shuddered as his eyes fell on Shiloh—"you."

"Papa—"

"Don't. Not now."

"Why not now? I always think of you as that. I called you 'Sam' because I was angry with you. It's the same reason I wore the clothes you hated, drove the car too fast. Because I was a rebellious daughter. Yours."

"You were never that."

"I was always that. I was fighting myself as much as I was you. All of it was over something deeper. I knew down inside myself, whether I admitted it or not, that I loved Billy Bob. That I couldn't marry Michael. You're closer to me than any other person in the world—you could sense it, too. You've always known that Billy was the real threat because . . . you're my father. You know me."

Sam came unsteadily out of the chair, grasping it for support as he stumbled.

Laura tried to reach for him. "You've not had a bite in three days, have you? Let me—"

But he pushed her away, snarling like a cornered, injured animal. "Don't you touch me. Don't you touch me."

Laura stepped back, fright and hurt blending on her face as she twisted to Shiloh.

"Laura, let me talk to him. Alone."

"Are you sure?" T-Tommy asked dubiously. "Sam, you're in a bad way. Let us—"

"Alone.
Please."
Shiloh's voice was near desperation, and Laura heard it.

"Come on," she told her brother. "Do as she asks."

Then it was just the two of them—a pleading girl and a broken old man.

"Papa, Laura loves you. We all do."

"You betrayed me," he rasped, hitting his open hand on his chest. "No."

"You knew all along. And Caroline did. And he—
he
did." His face twisted.

"They're strangers to me. I don't know what they knew. But I know what you're feeling." She wouldn't let him look away from her gaze, trying to press the truth on him. "I was sick to my stomach for four days. Then I hated them and God and everybody else in the world. I hated you because you were such a gullible fool where she was concerned. I wished I'd never been born. But it passed, those feelings about you. And I began to see that what makes a father is something more than biology. It's love and concern and discipline and protection"— she laughed, the tears making her voice rough—"and God knows, you've given me that."

He put both hands to his head, raking his wild hair back with hands that shook. "You just don't take a child from its parent and expect the parent to go on living. To go on being normal. I can't, Shiloh. I
can't."
His voice broke, then pleaded like a child's.

"Then she'll beat you," she whispered thickly, daring to catch at his wrists. He was sick, burning up to the touch. "She'll take the rest of our lives and ruin them, too. Don't let her have us, Papa."

His mouth quivered, but he didn't shake her off. Tears welled at the corner of his eyes, spilling down onto his cheek, catching in the long furrows of his face.

"I'm not your father."

"Yes, you are. I never even saw David. He's no more to me than—than the judge is to Billy. He's a father, a real, live, biological father, and it's worth nothing. Billy's got nobody if Sewell's all there is. But between me and you, there's all the nights you read to me, and the arguments over how much makeup I wasn't supposed to wear, and the day you went to a board meeting with blood on your shirt because I got hurt on the playground at school and you came to the school from the bank, even though you didn't have the time, to patch me up and let me bleed and cry on you."

Pulling his hand up to her face, she pressed the palm to her cheek.

"Papa," she said insistently. "I love you. I love you. I—"

And he reached out, his movements rusty and uncertain—so unlike himself—and gathered her clumsily against his heart.

"Help me," he whispered shakily. "Help me, Shiloh."