Perhaps a hasty subject change would distract her enough to calm her down. I needed to nudge her attention in some other direction; I needed to remind her of someone else she hated so she could forget how much she despised me. Given Eliza’s nature, I figured just about anyone could serve that purpose.

“Why did you pay to send Leslie to Pine Breeze?” I asked, throwing my mother in front of her, giving her someone else to be angry at. “If you wanted her out of your hair there were cheaper places she could have gone to have a baby in secret.”

It worked, at least a little. She shrugged one bony shoulder and scanned the room for something. “That’s where she wanted to go.” Her eyes settled on what was left of her drink.

“What damn did you give?”

She ignored me for a second, returning to the bar and to her glass. Eliza reached under the counter and pulled out the bottle of gin. She dumped it straight over the remaining ice and took a hearty gulp. “I didn’t give any damn, and that’s the truth. I went along with it because of Arthur—and because I couldn’t stand the sight of his wife, who hated your mother so much. It was worth paying to keep Leslie out of Rachel’s reach just to keep her angry.”

“You’re not really so vindictive.”

“Oh, the hell I’m not.” Tatie lifted the glass to her lips again, killing nearly half the drink. Her crinkled eyes slipped sideways, peeking at the door. “I wonder when he’ll get here,” she murmured.

“Who?” I asked, then I recognized what a silly question that was, so I answered it myself. “Malachi?”

“Well, yes, Malachi. The police are right. He’s got nowhere else to go. He’ll come here in his own time. And when he does, I’ll be sure and tell him he just missed you.”

“You know they’re waiting for him right outside? They’re parked out in the trees. They’ll catch him if he comes here.”

Eliza’s confidence was disconcerting. It made me wary, and it made me think she knew something the rest of the world didn’t. “I doubt it,” she said. “I know they’re there. They can sit and wait till Jesus comes again and they won’t get my boy. Of course, even if they do, they won’t keep him long.”

“Yes, he rather has a gift for escape, it seems.”

“A gift. That’s a good way to put it.” She was pensive now, or the alcohol was finally seeping its narcotic way into her bloodstream. “It was a gift, though I can’t make him understand it. I believe Indians think madness is a gift, too. His mother . . . his mother, she . . .” Eliza took the drink and wandered back to her chair.