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When Big Joe’s buddies at the KKK meeting reported to him that his son had been seen talking to a young Jewish girl after school, Big Joe took that as a very serious matter. He’d gathered the children up into the living room and gave them a stern lecture all about white supremacy and racial purity. Then he’d given Petey a big clap on the shoulder and told him that it wasn’t his fault, not at all. Big Joe had told the children not to worry because he had saved the reputation of the family by explaining to the Klan that Edna had recently become derelict of her duties as a mother. That she had fallen short on teaching the children right from wrong. Big Joe assured the Klansman that he would take care of the matter.
Then Big Joe had lined his three children up against the kitchen wall and forced them to watch as he’d beaten their mother half to death. Edna McCabe had been unable to move for three days from that kitchen floor. Big Joe had called into work and took over Edna’s household duties. He’d don an apron and whistle while he made blueberry pancakes for the children. Then, the children had been made to eat at the table while their mother had lain battered, bloody, and moaning on the floor at their feet. Big Joe would dance around Edna each morning with a toothy grin as he served the children crisp bacon and fluffy eggs. Just before they’d walk out the door, he’d warn them that if they should tell anyone about their mother’saccidentthen he would have to bash her head in with the bat, and they would come home to find their mother’s brains all over the floor.
Big Joe McCabe would fill his three children’s lunch boxes with bologna sandwiches, crispy homemade pickles, and extra cookies. Then with a pat on the head and a kiss on the cheek, he’d send them off to school.
On the eve of Petey’s twenty-first birthday, Big Joe had announced that since Petey was a grown man, it was time for him to join the Klan. Big Joe took his son to his first meeting that very evening.
Edna had stood at the window and wept silently as she’d watched them drive away. When they came home, Petey had gone straight up to his room, but in the middle of the night, Pinky had heard her brother weeping and vomiting in the bathroom.
It had been just the three of them for breakfast that next morning: Edna and her two oldest children. By that time, the courts had deemed Lilah incorrigible and had sent her off to a youth center. And Big Joe had just left for an early shift at the gun factory.
Edna had stood at the kitchen window and watched as Big Joe hopped into Eddie Keegan’s Ford and drove off to work. Then she’d moved faster than Pinky or Petey had ever thought possible.
While her children had looked on in shock, Edna pushed the refrigerator away from the wall and grabbed the crowbar she had hidden behind it. Carefully and quickly, she’d proceeded to pry away at the rotted wood.
“Stick your hand in that hole in the wall will ya, honey, and get me that box.” She’d nodded to her son.
“There’s an envelope full of money in here, Mamma,” Petey cried out in shock as he’d handed the box over to his sister.
“Mamma, these are notices for bills you haven’t paid in months!” Pinky exclaimed. “When Daddy finds out he’ll kill you!”
“Shhhhh.” Edna had looked around the room furtively as if Big Joe would suddenly materialize. “I want you to take this money and your daddy’s car and drive clear to my sister’s house. She’ll be waiting for you. Don’t stop and don’t ever come back here.”
Petey and Pinky had looked at each other in incredulity. Then Petey spoke gently to his mother as if she were insane. “Auntie Helen lives halfway across the country, Mamma, and Daddy’s car ain’t working. Now give me the bills and I’ll take that money and pay them at Nichols Five-and-Dime before Daddy finds out what you’ve done.”
Edna had smiled at them then, in a way she hadn’t smiled in years, and it lit up her pretty deep-green eyes. And for a moment they’d had their mother back again. The mother they’d had before the beatings and abuse had driven her straight out of her mind. Or so everyone had thought.
“I loosened up a couple of spark plugs.” She laughed gleefully. “That car works just fine.”
Petey and Pinky had looked at their mother and each other in awe. A small spark of hope ignited and had begun to grow. Maybe their mother wasn’t so crazy after all.
“Mamma, we ain’t even packed. We have no clean clothes …”
Edna had cackled in triumphant glee. “That big old fool, he thinks he’s so damn smart, watching every move I make. Every time I washed your clothes I held a few back. A shirt or a pair of undies here or there. There’s a suitcase full of clothes for you both in the trunk of the car. Gas tanks’ on full too.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Petey had said with admiration and looked at his mother like he had never seen her before.
“Mamma, what are you gonna do?” This was all coming at Pinky too fast. Hell, she had just woken up not more than twenty minutes before. “What are you gonna do about Daddy?”
“I’m gonna kill him.”
“Mamma, what? No!” Pinky cried out. “You’ll go to prison for the rest of your life over that no-good-sonofabitch.”
As Petey and Pinky looked on in amazement, Edna’s face had become completely transformed. “Don’t you worry none about that. Harold is helping me out.”
“Harold Sherwood, from the pharmacy?” Petey asked.
“Yup, he and I used to be sweethearts, a long time ago. Everyone in town knows your daddy beats me silly, but Harold’s the only one who’s offered to help. He brewed up something for me to give to Big Joe, and I put it in the soup I made him for lunch today. And that big old bastard is gonna drop dead from a heart attack on the spot. I’m gonna collect the insurance money, then after a spell, Harold and I are gonna retire in Boca.”
Pinky and Petey had kept their promise to their mother, drove straight to Aunt Helen’s house and never looked back. Six months later, they had gotten a letter from their mother with pictures of her wedding to Harold and their new house in Boca.
All’s well that ends wellwas Pinky’s last thought as her eyelids started to get heavy.
Pinky must have drifted off to sleep because when she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was the red sky of the morning sun.
The second thing she saw was Prosper Worthington.
He was sitting in the seat across from her, leaning forward with his bloody, swollen hands resting on his thighs.
