So Shall the Tree Grow, page 14
Andrea was saying Sherry Lynn had just had some kind of brain fart this morning and would forget all about the birthday, the watch and the dog by suppertime. Drew was saying he could probably get his hands on a golden retriever, if his mother really did want one. Which she didn’t, they both agreed.
She’d bring it up again at supper, breakfast and lunch tomorrow and by suppertime tomorrow night she could work herself up into a snit because they hadn’t done as she asked.
Sherry Lynn smiled, kept rocking and knitting, stood way up above that door locked down deep in the pit of her soul where the hatred dwelt. Looked as passive as some poor fool who didn’t have all her marbles.
At times like last night when she knew, when she got it, really got it, understood what was going on — at those times she was aware of the fact that something was wrong with her mind. When she was lucid like that, she was aware that fog rolled into her mind — often — and when it did, she couldn’t see anything clearly. But she didn’t waste that time of clearheadedness to ponder whether or not she was going bonkers. All old people went bonkers eventually, didn’t they, nothing new about that. No, she’d used her “clear” time well, thought out a plan, understood that because of her mental issues she might have trouble keeping to the plan, but at least she had one. And she’d remembered it this morning when she woke up, still did. Yeah, she had a plan to ruin their schemes, a plan to get payback, finally, after all these years.
She’d name the dog Dog, she thought; that way she wouldn’t forget the beast’s name. She hoped they didn’t get her one that licked all the time — who wants a face slathered with dog spit? Yes, she’d call it Dog because that was God spelled backwards. And Sherry Lynn intended to descend on those who’d betrayed her with the wrath of God, strike them down, make them pay.
Somebody said revenge was a dish best served cold. Ohhhh, she liked that! Cold as a dead body. That struck her as hysterically funny and she laughed and laughed.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Okay, so this was ridiculous. Just admit that right up front and be done with it. It was crazy for Ruth to be so obsessed with keeping their Righteous Weed safe that she’d taken to personally standing guard over it.
There it was. No denial.
Did the fact that she wasn’t denying the absurdity of what she was doing somehow mitigate that absurdity? The logic being that if she recognized that her behavior was ridiculous, then it wasn’t ridiculous anymore.
Now there was some convoluted thinking for you. If I do a dumb thing but I know it’s a dumb thing then it’s not really dumb.
Well, the semantics of it all did, at least, occupy Ruth’s mind as she sat there. And she was clearly in need of something to occupy her mind because she was planning to continue sitting here in the dark with nothing to do for … how long? Until morning? That was hours away.
But realistically, which was better — lying in her bed awake all night, worrying about somebody breaking into the barn and stealing weed, or sitting here in the barn awake all night, to prevent it?
Until a week ago, Ruth hadn’t given a moment’s thought to the security of the weed they were growing because nobody outside the family even knew it existed. Grow weed by the acre and you have to hire workers to care for it, harvest it, dry it and then hand-trim the buds. Workers talk — oh, not to the law, to their sweethearts, wives, grandmothers, somebody. But growing just 250 plants, the four of them — Papa, Ruth, Willa and Drew — could do all the work themselves. They had hauled in the equipment, had set it up, had planted the individual seedlings. Then Willa’d sat on the plants like a mother hen on her nest — nurturing, trimming, watering, fertilizing and sexing, making sure the field wasn’t co-ed, plucking out the male plants before they could fertilize the females. It would never occur to anybody in Callison County that the Hannacker family had decided to get back into the weed business. Why now, after four decades? Even if they did, why would they grow all of it in one spot, indoors instead of scattering a few plants here and a few plants there in dozens of secluded locations deep in the hollows where nobody could find them? And Land’s End? Seriously? The law never did find out forty-five years ago where they’d processed Righteous Weed. Land’s End, and crazy, suicidal Malcolm Murdock had skated. There was nothing connecting the historic horse farm to the Cornbread Mafia.
Oh, they all understood that as soon as Baby Bear’s Bed started advertising and marketing, the words “Righteous Weed” would eventually trickle back into Callison County. Nothing they could do about that. But nobody local would take the rumors seriously. Their weed crop was safe for the same reason Willie Ray’s buried tanker had been safe — because nobody would believe it existed.
Then Damien Coulter had shown up last week — didn’t believe for an eye blink that Papa wasn’t back in the weed business. As Papa described it, the man had tried to “charm” him into joining forces with CoulterCulture, Inc., and when that didn’t work, offered to buy Righteous Weed seed outright.
“He wasn’t the kinda fella who’d give up easy … but he did.”
She could tell her father suspected the man was up to something. Though he never said as much, Ruth was sure Papa thought that what Damien Coulter couldn’t buy, he might try to steal.
But to steal it, he had to find it. And that was impossible. Totally impossible. Okay, nothing was totally impossible. Improbable, then. Unlikely. Ruth didn’t like either one of those words. What if Coulter did find where they were growing it — then what?
It was a barn so there were two sets of bay doors, one on the front of the building and one on the back. Both sets were held closed like the doors of a castle — with heavy two-by-twelves set across them in slots. There was a big gasoline-powered generator outside against the wall on the end of the barn, but you had to go outside to crank it because there was no door on the end of the building. There were “people doors” beside the bay doors on both sides. Both were solid core oak doors that locked, and there were only four keys. During the day, someone was always working in the barn — usually Willa, but they all took a turn tending the weed or just babysitting it. But at night …?
Land’s End had as sophisticated a surveillance system as any facility that housed animals valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the lighting, motion detectors and surveillance cameras tied into the screens monitored by the two night watchmen were set up to secure the horse barns. The barn where they were growing weed was on a hillside half a mile from the nearest horse barn. It was “abandoned” there in the brush and encroaching forest.
When they started work in the barn — coming and going from the back that nobody could see, going over the top of the knob and down the trail to Middleton Road on the other side — they’d installed their own security system, a new and improved version of what the Cornbread Mafia had used to protect their processing site years ago. But the basic element of the earlier system had stood the test of time and remained the same — a simple hose alarm, like those used in gas stations back when the “ding” would summon an attendant to fill your tank and wash your windshield. Though not as glitzy and high tech as the rest of the system, it would sound an alarm if a vehicle turned off the highway on the other side of the knob and drove up the road leading to the back of the barn. The movement sensors in the woods were state-of-the-art, but could be triggered by a deer, a raccoon, even a particularly rambunctious squirrel. They blinked off and on, as random as a Joe’s Beer Joint sign. The silent triggering of the hose alarm, however, set off a domino effect in the motion sensors, and they would track the movement of whatever had triggered it, beeping an alarm and displaying the position and progress of the intruder on a map that she, Willa, Drew and Papa had on their phones.
Ruth trusted the surveillance system, she really did. But …
Then, on Monday, Willa offered to take over Ruth’s marketing calls for a week. She said Ruth looked exhausted; Ruth said that was the pot calling the kettle black. Truth was, they both were exhausted. Their nerves were frayed, the soon-approaching harvest adding its own special sauce of stress. Willa had made the offer to help Ruth out, but the time away from the farm would be good for Willa, too. So Ruth handed over her appointment schedule, Willa headed out for Lansing, Michigan to meet with the owner of a dispensary called Skymint on Cedar Street and Ruth spent the day in the barn, watering and fertilizing and fussing over the leafy green babies.
And when it got late … Ruth just stayed. Why not? She wouldn’t sleep if she went home, and she could go home in the morning and shower, then catch catnaps during the day to make up for the lost sleep. She understood that she couldn’t stay up all night every night — the Mighty Self-Appointed Guardian of the Weed — until the crop was harvested, dried, cured, sealed in pound blocks for sale and shipped out. But right now, staying set her mind at ease, and that kind of peace was worth some lost sleep.
She listened to music for a while, then clicked on the Audible app and was instantly caught up in the book she was listening to, Billy Summers by Stephen King. The main character, a decorated Iraq war vet turned hired killer, was recalling a place he and his platoon called the “Fun House” when her earbuds suddenly fell silent.
What had—?
Her phone was dead. Duh. Phones had a nasty habit of dying when you didn’t bother to charge them, which she typically did at night with the charger by her bed. Well, goody. Now, she had nothing to do but sit. That was all guards did anyway, wasn’t it? But the sudden mental and physical inactivity was jarring. Without the distraction of sounds and images, Ruth couldn’t control where her thoughts went. Her mother’s face suddenly appeared in her mind’s eye and a wave of unutterable grief washed over her. Tears literally leapt down her cheeks. It’d just been the two of them for all those years … the “two musketeers,” while Papa was in prison. Looking back, it made perfect sense that her mother had felt compelled to leave the letter for Ruth after the car wreck. Her mother hadn’t sustained life-threatening injuries, though the drunk teenager who slammed into her was killed. Still, lying there in the quiet in a hospital room, thinking about all the “loose ends” in your life … yeah, Ruth could understand how that’d spark a yearning to “get your affairs in order.” So she’d written the letter. And she’d dropped the bomb about Ruth’s father on Ruth, Drew and Sherry Lynn.
Yeah, that had been a watershed moment. Ruth had been waaaay more delighted to learn that Drew was her brother than she had to learn that the man they visited so faithfully in the federal prison in Beckley, West Virginia, was her father. She had always idolized Drew, loved every second she got to spend with him when he came to tend to his foal. She remembered the first time Drew came to the farm after they’d both found out about their shared father. He’d been in the barn when she got home from school that day and she’d gone running there, startled the horse when she stumbled into the stall, breathless. Then she’d felt inexplicably tongue-tied, had finally met Drew’s eyes and saw that he was as confused and shell-shocked as she was. She’d thought to wonder then what it must have been like when her mother told him the truth. She never asked her mother about it, but years later she did ask her mother to tell her about the encounter with Drew’s mother, Sherry Lynn. Her mother described it so vividly Ruth felt like she’d been a fly on the wall that day.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jessica Monaghan keeps telling herself, repeating the words over and over in her head. “I’ve survived worse. I’ve survived worse.”
She’d lost Davie, watched him waste away for years until …
She’d survived being kidnapped by Jackson McClusky … and killing him.
She’d survived giving birth to Ruth — a brutal two-day labor and breach delivery — with no husband at her side.
She’d survived raising the little girl alone.
So she can survive telling Sherry Lynn Hannacker that her husband, Riley, is Ruth’s father.
Jessie has to do it, there’s no way out now. She’s already told Drew and Ruth. Like that Spanish Captain Hernán Cortés, the conquistador who burned his ships so his men would have to make a home in the new world, she has left herself no “out.” She had already had all the arguments with herself, a hundred dozen times. She knows it’s the right thing to do, would have to be done someday, and the longer she waits, the more of Sherry Lynn’s life she will waste waiting for a husband who is not going to come home from prison to her.
Jessie and Riley had never dreamed Sherry Lynn would be faithful! Why would she be faithful to a husband locked in prison when she hadn’t been faithful to him for the ten years of their marriage he was a free man? Sherry Lynn had cheated on Riley with who knew how many men — Jessie knew for certain the names of four of them but there had been countless others. Riley didn’t give her a year, told Jessie she’d find another man in less than twelve months, divorce Riley and marry him. But she didn’t. Year after year went by, and she went to see him faithfully in prison and as far as Jessie knew, wasn’t shacking up with any other man. She had let herself go after Riley was locked up — didn’t put on massive weight like she did after Drew was born, but gained maybe twenty pounds, became plump and plain. No reason not to. Jessie finally figured it out — penance. Sherry Lynn Hannacker was a good little Catholic girl and she’d committed mortal sins … and had been the source of information about the Cornbread Mafia that’d put Riley behind bars. She must have been being faithful in an attempt to atone for that.
Jessie’d called Sherry Lynn last night and asked if she could come by the house, that she has something she needs to talk to her about. Jessie thought long and hard about the best way to tell Sherry Lynn, the best approach, the best place, the best … of course, there was no best. But though there was no good way, there were bad ways. Sherry Lynn needed to be home. This wasn’t a thing you hear and then get into your car and drive away, abiding by the speed limit and all applicable traffic laws.
Stepping up on the porch, Jessie has an irrational urge to run, to get back into her car and—
The door opens and Sherry Lynn is inside, staring curiously at her.
“What are you standing out here for? Forget how to turn a doorknob?”
For a decade, Jessie has opened Sherry Lynn’s unlocked front door, put her head inside and cried out, “Yoooo whooo” to announce her arrival.
Then Sherry Lynn must have gotten a good look at Jessie’s face because she says, “Hey, something is wrong. Come in. What is it?”
This much at least, Jessie has scripted. She will sit down across from Sherry Lynn, look her in the eye and tell the story, beginning at being in the barn snipping buds off weed plants when rain suddenly hammered down on the roof and she and the other workers decided to call it a day … it was getting ugly out there. The others left. She stayed behind to put the tools away. The silence. The freight-train sound. The horse trough. She will tell Sherry Lynn about Riley coming to check on her. And what happened after that, explain it, make Sherry Lynn understand that they never meant …
But when Sherry Lynn takes her arm and begins to guide her into the kitchen to sit down, she can’t do it. She stops in her tracks.
“Sherry Lynn …” Her voice unexpectedly breaks and the look of concern on Sherry Lynn’s face makes it that much harder. “There isn’t any way to say this, no way for me to make it easier for you to hear. But I have to … you have a right to know the truth.”
A look of apprehension crosses Sherry Lynn’s face and for just an instant, Jessie wonders if she suspects what’s coming.
“Sherry Lynn … Ruth’s father is …” Jessie grabs a breath and holds her voice steady. “Sherry Lynn, Riley is Ruth’s father.”
Sherry Lynn makes some kind of sound, a grunt, shakes her head like maybe there’s something on the end of her nose she’s trying to dislodge.
“What … what’s wrong with you? Why would you say a thing like … why would you make up a thing—?”
“I’m not making it up. It’s the truth. It was … only one time. The day the tornado hit the barn where we were working and Riley came to—”
“Stop …” Sherry Lynn begins to back away. “Stop saying that—”
“We didn’t mean for—”
She puts her hands over her ears.
“Stop it! Stop lying.”
“It’s not a lie. Why would I lie about—?”
“Shut up!” Sherry Lynn shakes her head again. “You … and Riley?” She is incredulous. “It can’t be … he wouldn’t—” She only gets that far in denial before slamming into a truth she has always known: Riley doesn’t love her. He never did. How many times had Sherry Lynn cried on Jessie’s shoulder about how cold and distant he was? For years.
Jessie watches the pieces seem to come together in Sherry Lynn’s head, watches it begin to make sense to her. A horrible, horrible sense. “You … and Riley!” This time, it isn’t a question.
“Sherry Lynn, I’m sor—”
Sherry Lynn slaps her. Hard. So hard Jessie’s head snaps to the right and a fire lights up her whole cheek.
“You bitch!” Sherry Lynn growls the word in a voice full of pebbles. “You …” Sherry Lynn’s rage transforms her face into an unrecognizable mask. “All those years behind my back—”
“No, not years. It wasn’t like that. It was just the one—”
“Get out!” She shrieks the words and begins to shove Jessie the few steps back to the door. “Get out of here. Get out of my house. You … you whore!”
She takes another swing at Jessie, but Jessie dodges back, turns and hurries out the door. Sherry Lynn follows her, screaming, poking her in the back, shoving her to make her move faster across the porch and down the steps. She begins shrieking obscenities, her words making no sense. If Jessie hadn’t been so much bigger and stronger, Sherry Lynn would have leapt on her. Instead, she balls her hands into fists and begins to beat on Jessie’s back before she reaches her truck, pulls the door open and jumps inside. She slams the door in Sherry Lynn’s face but Sherry Lynn continues to beat on the closed window, her eyes wild, screaming until spit is flying from her mouth.
