• • •

I’d reached my car, shaking hand on the door handle, when Cal caught up to me. In the distance, I could hear the sounds of the reporters, but they were blocked from reaching the parking lot by a line of deputies, their cameras kept at bay by a wall of bodies. But still they shouted questions: Eve, do you have any idea who might have done it? What are you going to do if you catch them, Eve? I wasn’t Ms. Taggert to them anymore, I noticed. My cheap dress, my hard eyes, my outburst had stripped away the formalities. They all thought they knew me now, had me pegged.

Cal let me open the door, slide into the driver’s seat, before he leaned inside. Made sure to angle himself where even a long-range lens would get only a shot of his back. “Why, Evie?” he asked, voice quiet. “What in the hell was going through your head?”

“Did you see Mama?” I asked, eyes straight ahead. An early-spring butterfly batted against my windshield, yellow wings flapping.

“What are you talking about?”

“She was there, in the back.”

Cal shook his head. “No, I didn’t see her.” He paused, reached out a careful hand and laid it on my shoulder. “Please don’t tell me you’re taking cues from Mama now.”

“Would it be so bad if I was?”

Cal’s hand jerked away. “Hell yes, it would be,” he said. When I looked at him, his face was red.

“Why?” I demanded. “She never let anyone get away with anything. She made people pay when they did wrong by us.”

A short, harsh laugh gusted out of my brother. “Are you high right now? You been into Mama’s stash? Because it sounds like you’re forgetting all the times she used us as punching bags. All the times she smacked us around, forgot to feed us, told us we were worthless.” He scrubbed at his face with one hand, a sure sign he was exhausted and nearing the end of his rope. “I have no idea where this is coming from. I swear to God, Evie, sometimes lately it’s like I don’t even know you.”

Yeah, I wanted to tell him, join the club. “I’m not saying she was a good mother,” I said instead. “And you’re right, she was never shy about slapping the shit out of us. But no one else touched us. No one dared lift a finger to us. Because they knew what would happen if they did.” I jerked my seat belt into position, put my key in the ignition. “I’m just saying, maybe if I’d been more like her, no one would have had the nerve to touch my daughter. Maybe they would have known better.”

“Ah, Evie,” Cal said, his gentle voice making tears sting the corners of my eyes. “Being more like Mama would have been the worst thing you could have done. For you and for Junie, both.”

I thought of my sweet girl, the way she’d snuggle into my side on sleepy Sunday mornings, the way she’d throw her arms around me for hugs, secure in the knowledge I’d always hug her back, press tender kisses to her cheeks. The way she trusted me to never, ever hurt her. Then I thought of her laid out on a metal table, her throat slit open and her life drained away. And I knew that Cal was wrong, because Junie dead, Junie killed, would always be the worst thing of all.