The Seventh Mother (27 page)

I
froze for an instant, then grabbed Jennifer’s arm and pulled her back into the coffee shop, pushing Jenny ahead of us.

“Call the police!” I yelled.

The barista took one look at us and at the people scattering on the street in front of the shop, and bolted for the door, locking it.

“Get into the back room!” she shouted.

We ran to the back, and I heard Brannon banging on the door.

“Damn it, Emma! Get out here!”

“Oh my God,” Jennifer whispered. “Oh my God!”

“Jenny, take Henry into the bathroom.” MommaJean’s voice was firm, steely even.

Jenny paused for a split second, then reached her hand out to the little boy.

Jennifer put her son down and pushed him toward the bathroom.

“Go with your cousin, honey. Okay? And stay put! You stay in the bathroom until Mama tells you to come out.”

The little boy looked at her, confused, tears welling in his eyes. But he took Jenny’s hand and followed her down the hall.

“Lock the door!” MommaJean yelled after them.

“Goddamn it!” Brannon bellowed from the sidewalk. “Emma, let me in! Come on, babe. It’s me; it’s your husband. Just let me in so we can talk.”

“This is Carrie Appleton—I’m at Lazy Daze Coffee House. Ten South Johnson in Irvington. There’s a man out front with a gun trying to get in!”

The barista sat huddled against the back wall, her cell phone pressed to her ear.

“Damn it, Emma! Let me in!”

I crouched down on the floor, my arms over my belly.

An explosion of sound shook the building. Glass flew toward us from the shattered door. Brannon reached inside, unlocked the door, and stepped in. He was panting heavily and looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

“Oh my God!” the barista shouted into the phone. “He shot out the door! He’s in here!”

“Emma?” Brannon’s voice was soft now, cajoling, pleading.

“Emma, honey, it’s me. It’s Brannon, your husband. Come out here and talk to me, babe.”

MommaJean gripped my arm as he walked toward us.

“Bray?”

Jennifer stepped in front of me, blocking Brannon’s path.

He stopped short, his mouth open, eyes wide. Slowly, he lowered the gun to his side.

“Jen?”

“It’s me, Bray. It’s Jen; it’s your little sister.” Her voice shook, but she stood where she was, planted between Brannon and me.

“Jen . . . my God! Jen, I tried and tried to find you.”

“It’s me,” she repeated.

“Look at you, you’re all grown up. Oh my God, Jen . . . I tried so hard to find you.”

“I know.” She spoke gently. “I’m sorry it took so long. I’ve been trying to find you, too.”

She took a step toward him.

“I have a son now, Bray.” She stood directly between Brannon and me. “His name is Henry. He’s four years old. He’s hiding from you right now. He’s scared, Bray. He’s scared of you.
I’m
scared of you, Bray. Please put your gun down.”

“Jen, you don’t have to be afraid of me.”

Brannon smiled that crooked grin, the one that nearly broke my heart.

“I always took care of you, remember? When Mama came at you, I always got in her way. I took all of it for you, Jen. And when we were in that place—that awful place with those awful kids—I protected you. I always protected you. Don’t you remember, Jen?”

“I remember some of it,” she said. “I was so little.”

“So little and so pretty and so perfect,” he said. “And now . . . my God, you’re all grown up, Jen. Look at you, all grown up. And a mother, too.”

“Did you kill those women, Brannon?”

He froze, his eyes widening, and raised the gun again.

“I had to, Jen. I had to protect Jenny.”

“You didn’t need to protect her from her own mother, you bastard!”

MommaJean stepped up beside Jennifer, her eyes blazing.

“Hailey loved that baby with all her heart. She wouldn’t ever hurt her!”

Brannon sneered at her for a long minute.

“She slapped Jenny’s hand,” he snapped. “I saw it. She hurt my baby girl. She deserved to die.”

He looked down at me then.

“You
bitch!
” he shouted. “You took my daughter away from me. She’s
my
daughter, not yours! She belongs with me.”

“This is your daughter, too.”

I rose to my feet and put my hand on my belly. “Are you going to kill her, too?”

Brannon took a step back, but he didn’t lower the gun.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Emma,” he said.

And God help me, he sounded like Brannon again then, just like my own sweet husband, the one I’d fallen in love with.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he repeated. “I just want my daughter back. Give Jenny back to me, and I’ll go.”

He cocked his head and smiled at me. He actually smiled. My stomach churned.

“She’s scared of you, Brannon,” I said as calmly as I could.

“Only because of you, you stupid bitch!”

He took a step toward me and aimed the gun at my head.

“If you’d just done what I said, if you hadn’t gone snooping through my stuff, we’d be okay, all of us! We’d still be in the house, and Jenny would be in school. We’d be okay, damn it! But you had to go snooping through my things.”

“Daddy?”

We all turned and my stomach dropped.

Jenny stood just behind me, touching my arm lightly. She’d closed the bathroom door behind her, Henry still inside.

“Jenny! Baby, come here. Just come with Daddy, and everything will be all right.”

Brannon’s voice came soft and sweet. He smiled at her.

“Did you kill Jackie?” Jenny’s violet-blue eyes never left his face. “Did you kill Trish and Cara and Ami?

“Did you kill my mother?”

He paused for a long moment and then looked down at the barista, still huddled on the floor, her phone clutched in her hand.

“Get out!” he screamed at her. “Get out of here. This doesn’t concern you.”

She ran for the door.

“Baby,” he said, turning back to Jenny, “I was only protecting you. That’s what daddies do, they protect their children.”

“Emma didn’t go through your boxes,” Jenny said. “I did. I found the lockets and the driver’s licenses. I Googled Jackie and Ami and Trish and Cara and . . . and Briana. I Googled them all. Briana and Ami are dead, Daddy. They died where they lived with us. Cara is missing. I don’t know about Jackie.”

Her voice caught in a sob.

“Jackie was really nice,” she said, staring straight at her father. “She was really nice to me. Did you kill her?”

“Baby, just come with me.” Brannon’s voice was pleading now. “Just come with me, and we’ll go someplace new and everything will be all right. It will be just like it used to be, just you and me. Come on, baby.” He reached his hand to her.

“I’ll come,” Jenny said, her voice shaking. “I’ll come with you . . . but only after you let Emma and the rest of them go.”

Brannon made a strangled sort of sound in his throat.

“Let them go, Daddy. And I’ll come with you wherever you want.”

He stood a long minute, his gun still pointed at me.

“Brannon, please,” I whispered. “She’s just a little girl. She deserves a real life.”

“Get out.” His voice was flat.

“Go on!” he shouted. “Get the hell out of here, all of you!”

“Henry,” Jennifer called. “Come out now, honey. It’s time to go.”

I didn’t blame her. She was protecting her son.

Henry walked out and stopped briefly, staring at Brannon and the gun.

“You’re a bad man,” he said.

Jennifer scooped him up and ran toward the front door.

“You too!” Brannon yelled, pointing the gun at MommaJean. “Get out of here, now!”

MommaJean stood still, her hand on my arm.

“You took my daughter,” she said, staring straight into his eyes. “I will
not
let you take Hailey’s baby, too, you son of a bitch!”

A single shot brought her to the ground.

“If you’d raised your daughter right,” Brannon said, his voice flat, “maybe she wouldn’t have been such a bad mother.”

I dropped on my knees beside MommaJean and rolled her over. A dark red stain seeped across her stomach.

“No!” Jenny screamed, dropping to the ground beside me. “Nooo!”

“Drop your weapon!”

A policeman stood just inside the shattered door, his gun trained on Brannon.

“Get out!” Brannon screamed. “Get out of here! Just let me take my little girl!”

Jenny looked up at him and slowly rose to her feet. I grabbed her arm, trying to pull her back to me, back to safety.

“Don’t!” I yelled. I don’t even know who I was yelling at.

“I hate you.”

Her voice was low, but it filled the shop, echoing from the corners.

“Jenny, baby, come on.” Brannon reached his hand toward her. “Just come with Daddy now, and everything will be okay.”

“I hate you!” She screamed it at him.

“Jenny . . .”

“I
hate
you!”

He stared at her for an instant, his mouth open.

“You
bitch!
” He turned and pointed the gun at me.

Please, God! Please protect my baby
.

I waited for the noise that would end my life.

The police officer tackled him, knocking him to the ground. The gun he’d been pointing at me clattered to the floor.

“You bitch!” Brannon screamed again, raising his head to stare at me.

The officer put his knee firmly on Brannon’s back, forcing him to lie flat.

“We need an ambulance!” I yelled, dropping back down beside MommaJean.

“It’s okay,” I crooned to her. “It’s over now. It’s all over. Please don’t die, MommaJean. Please don’t die!”

W
e sat a long time in the hospital waiting room, tense and testy, avoiding one another’s eyes, staring at the pastel blue walls. Lily got there first, with her boys; her husband came right after. Then Rudy arrived, all four of his kids with him. I couldn’t remember all their names. One of them looked almost my age. Not long after, Rudy’s wife, Anita, rushed in. Then Lorelei came. Had Emma called her? I didn’t know.

Jennifer and Henry were there, too. And after a little while, Jennifer’s husband arrived, rushing toward her, dropping down beside her, hugging her tight. He lifted Henry to his chest, clutched him, tears streaming down his face.

My family,
I thought, looking from one to the other. This was my family, the one I never even knew I had, the one Daddy never told me about.

We were all waiting to hear if MommaJean was going to die. She might die because my father shot her. Right in front of me. Daddy shot her.

The whole time, Emma never let go of my hand. She held it in the coffee shop after the police handcuffed Daddy and dragged him away. She held it in the police car on the way to the hospital, sirens blaring. She held it still as we sat waiting in the hospital to hear about MommaJean. Emma never let go of me.

“Is Imogene Wright’s family here?”

A doctor wearing blue scrubs walked into the room, carrying a clipboard.

All of us rose, walked toward him in a cluster.

“Is she going to be all right?” Lily asked, the only one of us who could form the words.

“She’s going to be okay,” he said, smiling at us. He looked tired. “She lost a lot of blood, and we had to give her a transfusion. But thankfully, the bullet didn’t hit any major organs. She’ll need to stay here a few days and we’ll monitor her. But she’s going to be all right. She’ll live.”

Lily started crying then, scooping her sons into her arms. Her husband leaned in and hugged them all, crying, too.

“Thank you, God!” Rudy hollered. “Thank you, Jesus, for your merciful grace!”

His kids gathered around him, and he held them tightly to him.

Jennifer, Daddy’s sister, sat quietly. She held Henry in her lap. She didn’t say anything, but her lips moved in a silent prayer. Her husband held her hand, stroked Henry’s cheek, kissed them both.

I stood in the middle of all of them, Emma’s hand still in mine.

I felt like I might throw up.

MommaJean was going to be okay.

I was so grateful. I was so glad she was going to be all right, this woman I didn’t even know until yesterday—this woman who was my mother’s mother. My grandmother, who had been so happy to see me, so welcoming, so brave as she stared down my father in the coffee shop.

My father shot her.

My father shot her.

My father shot her.

Daddy killed Jackie. He killed Trish. He killed Cara. He killed all of them . . . all of the women who’d lived with us, taken care of me, tried to love me. All of them.

Trish, who couldn’t cook, but tried so hard, even when Daddy made fun of her. Cara, who did cook, who made fettuccine Alfredo better than anyone. Jackie, who always made me laugh and braided my hair so gently.

He killed them all.

He killed my mother. My mother . . . Hailey, who had birthed me and loved me and sang to me in a voice I could almost remember. He killed her, too.

He almost shot Emma . . . Emma, who was pregnant with my little sister, who convinced him to stay in Kentucky, who never let go of my hand.

And he said he did it to protect me.

I jerked my hand free of Emma’s and ran to the bathroom. I threw up into the toilet. Then I threw up again. And again.

It was my fault. Daddy had said so. All of them were dead because of me.

“Jenny?”

Emma’s voice—her dear, kind voice, the voice that almost was silenced today because of me—called to me from outside the stall. “Honey, are you okay?”

“No.”

“MommaJean is going to be fine,” she said. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“Jackie won’t be okay. Trish won’t be okay. Cara and Ami won’t be okay.”

I heaved into the toilet again.

“My mother won’t be okay.”

I sat back on the floor.

“They’re all dead because of me.”

There, it was out.

“Jennifer Adele Bohner, open this door right now!”

I’d never heard Emma sound angry before. I unlocked the door to the stall, rising from the floor. She grabbed me hard, pulling me into her soft tummy.

“Don’t you ever,
ever
let me hear you say that again! Do you understand? Never!”

“But it’s true,” I said. I started crying then. I cried so hard I almost threw up again.

“Jenny,” Emma crooned, holding me tight. “It’s not your fault. None of it is your fault. Your dad had a terrible, terrible childhood and it damaged him. That’s not your fault. It’s not your fault that he had an abusive mother. It’s not your fault he got put in foster care and lost his sister. It’s not your fault that he did what he did. Your daddy is sick, honey. There’s something wrong in his head. But it’s not your fault. None of it is your fault.”

“Are you okay?” Jennifer stood in the doorway.

“We will be,” Emma said firmly. “We’ll be fine.”

We walked back to the waiting room, and everyone there hugged me. My aunts and uncles hugged me. My cousins hugged me. Lorelei hugged me. They didn’t blame me. They didn’t say it was my fault. They just hugged me and let me cry.

We got to see MommaJean later that day. She was very pale and had tubes stuck in her arms, but she smiled when we walked into the room.

“There’s my girl,” she said. “Come give your grandma a kiss.”

I sat on the side of the bed and held her hand.

“You were very brave today,” Momma Jean said.

I shook my head. “You were the brave one.”

“Actually, I think all of us were brave today,” Emma said. “We did what we had to do, and we’re all going to be okay.”

MommaJean smiled at her. “We’re a strong family,” she said. “A strong family with strong women.”

That night at Lorelei’s, I sat on my bed with the photo album I’d found in Daddy’s box.

“Your mother was really pretty,” Emma said, standing by the bed. “I wished I’d known her. I wish . . . I wish everything had been different.”

Emma sat down beside me and wrapped her arm around my shoulders.

“I know you wish that,” she said. “But you can’t undo what’s done. You can only pick yourself up and go on. And you can do that, Jenny. I know you can. You are the bravest girl I’ve ever known, and I am so proud of you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Then suddenly she sat up straight and smiled.

“Here,” she said, taking my hand and putting it on her belly. “Do you feel that?”

A tiny bump moved under my hand.

“That’s your little sister,” Emma said. “She’s moving.”

I stared at the roundness of Emma’s belly.

“Wow,” I said. The baby moved again.

“Come September, I’m going to need a lot of help,” Emma said.

“Babies are a lot of work, and I’m counting on you to be my helper.”

She leaned toward me and kissed my cheek.

“I’ve never been around babies before,” I said. “You’ll have to show me what to do.”

“I think you’re going to be a great big sister. This little baby is going to love you.”