Page 110 of The Giver of Stars
‘Bennett,’ she said, blinked and looked away. It wasn’t as if she was physically moved by him any more, she realized, searching for the reason for her sudden discomfort. There was only the vaguest hint of residual affection. What she felt was mostly disbelief that this man, standing here, was someone she had wrapped herself around, skin to skin, kissed and pleaded for physical contact with. This strange, unbalanced intimacy made her feel vaguely ashamed now.
‘I … I heard you were leaving town.’
She picked up a can of tomatoes, just for something to do with her hands. ‘Yup. Trial looks to end on Tuesday. I’ll be headed out on Wednesday. You and your father won’t have to worry about me hanging around.’
Bennett glanced behind him, perhaps conscious that people might be watching, but all the customers were out-of-towners, and nobody saw anything gossip-worthy in a man and a woman exchanging a few words in the corner of the store.
‘Alice –’
‘You don’t have to say anything, Bennett. I think we’ve said enough. My parents have engaged a lawyer and –’
He touched her sleeve. ‘Pa says nobody managed to speak to his daughters.’
She pulled back her hand. ‘I’m sorry? What?’
Bennett looked behind him, his voice low. ‘Pa said the sheriff never spoke to McCullough’s daughters. They wouldn’t open the door. They shouted to his men they had nothing to say on the matter and they wouldn’t be talking to nobody. Hesays they’re both crazy, like the rest of the family. Says the state’s case is strong enough not to need them anyway.’ He looked at her intently.
‘Why are you telling me this?’
He chewed at his lip. ‘Figured … I figured … it might help you.’
She stared at him then, at his handsome, slightly unformed face, and his baby-soft hands, his anxious eyes. And briefly she felt her own face fall a little.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly.
‘I’m sorry too, Bennett.’
He took a step back, ran a hand down his face.
They stood for a moment longer, shifting a little on their feet.
‘Well,’ he said eventually. ‘If I don’t see you before you leave … safe travels.’
She nodded. He headed for the door. As he reached it he turned, his voice lifting a little to be heard. ‘Oh. Thought you’d like to know I’m fixing to get the slurry dams made up. With proper housing and a cement base. So they can’t burst again.’
‘Your father agreed to that?’
‘He will.’ The smallest smile, a flash of someone she had once known.
‘That’s good news, Bennett. Really good news.’
‘Yeah. Well.’ He looked down. ‘It’s a start.’
With that her husband tipped his hat, opened the door, and was swallowed by the crowds still milling around outside.
‘The sheriff didn’t speak to his daughters? Why not?’ Sophia shook her head. ‘It doesn’t make no sense to me.’
‘Makes perfect sense to me,’ said Kathleen, from the corner,where she was stitching a broken stirrup leather, grimacing as she forced the huge needle through the leather. ‘They got all the way up to Arnott’s Ridge, to a family they was expecting trouble from. They figure the girls wouldn’t know nothing about their daddy’s movements, given he was a known drunk who used to disappear for days on end. So they knock a few times, get told to git, then give up and come back down, and it takes them half a day each way to do it.’
‘McCullough was a sundowner and a mean one at that,’ said Beth. ‘Might be the sheriff didn’t want to push them too hard in case they told him something he didn’t want to hear. They need him to sound like a good man to make Marge seem bad.’
‘But surely our lawyer should have gone asking questions?’
‘Mr Fancy Pants out of Lexington? You think he’s going to ride a mule half a day up to Arnott’s Ridge to speak with a bunch of angry hillbillies?’
‘I don’t see how this is going to help us none,’ said Beth. ‘If they won’t talk to the sheriff’s men they ain’t hardly going to talk to us.’
‘That may be exactly why they would talk to us,’ said Kathleen.
