The Sisters of Glass Ferry by Kim Michele Richardson

Author:Kim Michele Richardson [Richardson, Kim Michele]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2017-10-10T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

Patsy

June, 1952

Patsy pulled inside the curve, gripping the wheel so tight she could feel her nails pricking fatty flesh, burning a fire into her sweating palms. The tires slammed into something that made the front end shake and wobble like the fat Roly Poly clown toy Honey Bee’d given her when she was a baby.

Danny stirred and awakened the argument. “You better not have been h-helping Hollis s-s-slap his Sammy,” he spit.

“Stop, Danny, just stop it.” She fought to straighten the Mercury, flexed her hold on the big wheel. “Stop being ornery. Stop with the lies! You promised not to talk about him anymore when I promised not to ask about Violet—”

“You’ve been sick with the s-stomach ailments a lot . . . a whole lot lately,” Danny slurred, coughing.

“My female spells is all. Hollis is a liar. A dirty, rotten, filthy liar. Look what he did to you, Danny. Look—”

“Don’t you be l-lying to me,” Danny said, struggling, pulling himself up to her back. He reached out and gave a slight tug to her hair.

“Danny, don’t.” She threw back her arm, then latched back onto the steering wheel.

“Hey, hand me that whiskey, baby.” He hung heavy over her shoulder, groping for the flask lying on the seat beside her with his good arm. “Busted shoulder hurts like the dickens, Patsy.”

“Be still.” She batted him away. “We’re almost there.”

“Just one pull; it hurts.” Danny couldn’t reach the flask, and weak, he slumped back in pain, knocking Patsy’s shoulder and head.

Patsy flinched and ducked, losing her tight grip. She pounded the brakes, pumping hard. The steering wheel shimmied in her slipping hands.

A startling image of a proud Honey Bee draping his protective arms over her shoulders, helping her sight in the snub nose, flickered before it waned, then Hollis’s gun with the scratched-in initials.

Patsy’s last thoughts rose up from her tightened throat and screaming lungs. Those of her hunger for Danny and a new life, hate of Hollis and his unborn baby . . . of lost pearls, proms, princes, and princesses . . . of the cold loneliness that would come from missing Mama and Flannery, and the coming chill.

She realized how damning her eight-minute-early arrival into the world had actually been—and thought to pray, call out her sins before the river claimed them.

“Dear God,” Patsy urged.

“Oh-o—” Danny breathed.

The automobile skidded, hit rock and skinned trees, somersaulting, tumbling down toward the night-blackened waters of the cold Kentucky.

“Oh, Fatherrr—” Danny hung his sobering prayer into the rot of dying air, the screams of squealing tires and hissing brakes.

“God—” Patsy cried out. Her head batted against the door, off the roof. Hard blows rocked her shoulders, her skull, bruising, crushing bones. Shards of metal and glass flew at her eyes and neck, blinding, burning, stabbing everywhere before God could collect her paralyzed prayer.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.