The young woman pulled to the right side of the road, released the gas, and switched off the headlights in a single fluid motion. She let the car roll to a stop and watched the driver ahead of her do the same, stopping in the same spot as he had for the last three Friday nights, leaving mere inches between his car and the mountainside. Had he realized she was following him? Probably not. He had looked right at her tonight when he staggered through the creaking hanging screen door of the bar to his car. Or through her. Even when the neon sign buzzed on, highlighting her momentarily as she leaned against her own car, he didn't acknowledge her.

She shivered as he opened his car door, pulled himself upright against it, and then tottered across the road to the guardrail, still gripping his beer. He looked neither right nor left.

As he relieved himself over the guardrail, she turned off her overhead light and carefully, silently, opened her own car door, edging herself outside and sliding the battered wooden bat across the seat as she did. She left the door ajar to avoid any noise that might alert him. After looking up and down the road, she inched her way silently to the opposite side of the road and then stood there—watching him—until he finished his business

The cold is bitter, she thought as she tugged at the cloth of her thin black lace-covered gloves and wrapped her arms around herself. I always thought that saying strange. Not any more. She hugged herself even tighter until she felt her ribs through the tight, low-cut, rhinestone-covered black sweater. Weaving slightly so he would think she, too, was inebriated, she made her way slowly down the road toward the man now leaning on the guardrail, the sparkling rhinestones marking her way. He finally saw her and watched her come closer and closer.

"You ought not be out dressed like that on a cold night like thiss." He leered at her, slurring his words like the drunk he was. "Come little closer, an' I'll warm you up." He waggled his eyebrows at her.

Give me a break, she thought. What does he think he is, funny? He's not funny. He's nothing. Nothing but a potbellied, balding drunk.

Neither of them took their eyes off the other as she got closer and closer. Two feet away from him, she shivered convulsively. He thought she shivered from the cold. "Com'on now, girly. I gotta heater in the car." He tilted his head toward his car on the other side of the road, door open, interior light on.

All the light I'll need, she thought.

"I'll start the heater. Get your fingers and toes warmed up. Then I'll warm up the rest of you. How's 'at sound?" He made to stand away from the guardrail.

"Wait," she said. "Why don't you let me start the car, get warm so I can move about better? Then you join me."

"I could do that."

"And you would have time to finish your beer."

"I ain't drunk, girly. I ain't had that much to drink. Don't you worry. I can take care a' ya."

"I'm sure." She lowered her head and her eyelashes briefly. "I'll need the keys."

"Sure, dolly. Here. You take the keys and start the car and turn on that ol' heater." He swapped the beer to his left hand and fished the keys from his pocket with his right hand. "Here y'are, girly." He held the keys out to her like she was his wife. Or his sister.

She looked at the outstretched calloused hand, then stepped closer and unwrapped the fingers of her left hand from her body. She held her fingers out from her side for the keys. He leaned forward to give them to her. Their eyes met again. Hers cold, his blood shot and registering nothing.

"You want to know my name?" she asked in a low, husky voice.

"Sure, girly, wha's your name?"

She whispered her name to him. His eyes widened in startled recognition and met the gleam in her eyes. He stepped back against the guardrail, dropping his keys beside it.

She, too, backed up a step, then turned her upper body and raised the bat up and out from behind her right side. The gut, swing for the gut, she told herself. Not his head. Not his eyes. I want him to see the dark, the nothingness as his hands claw to grasp at it. I want him to see me watching him fall. I want him to know what it feels like to have no one to reach out to, no one to hang on to.

Whumpf. She swung the bat, connecting below his belt buckle. Hard enough to send his beer flying. Hard enough to knock him off balance. He struggled to regain his balance. He couldn't. His upper body fell backwards over the rail and his feet flew out from under him.

She hurried to the guardrail still clutching the old bat, and stood there, watching him in the faint light of the car's interior as he toppled over the side, flailed his arms, and grabbed at the air. Not a sound except the thud of his body finally hitting the cold hard ground.

She stood against the guardrail for several minutes more, staring down at the sprawled body, feeling the warmth flow through her limbs, her fingers, her toes as it left his. As she dropped the bat beside the guardrail and turned to walk back to her own car, she swapped the new memory for an old one.

* * *
"Mr. Greer?" Officer Barnes spoke as he gripped the older man's hand. His partner remained on the porch steps.

"Martin. Just Martin."

"Okay, Martin. I'm so sorry to have to bring you more bad news."

"More?" The old man wiped at the side of his sun-hardened, wrinkled face and took a deep breath. Then he clenched his fists. "Charles?"

"Yes, sir, I'm afraid so."

"Is he...is he gone, too?"

"Yes."

The old man turned from the door and motioned the young officers to follow him into the house. He shuffled down the hall and into the kitchen at the back of the house.

"Sit down at the table. I need some coffee." He got out three cups and filled them, his gnarled hands shaking as he did so, and set them on the table. He motioned to the two officers, who were still standing, to sit down. After they did, he sat down, too.

"Tell me." While he listened, he drank the hot coffee as if it were tap water.

"Looks like he stopped to relieve himself by the side of the road. Mountain Top Road. He parked on the mountain side of the road and walked across to the guardrail. Best we can tell, it looks like he might have leaned against the rail to finish his beer and lost his balance somehow. He fell backwards into the creek bed."

"Creek's been dry for years."

"Yes, sir. Water might have broken his fall if there'd been any, but I doubt it. It's a good 50-foot drop."

"Did he suffer?"

"Coroner says it looks like death was instant. His neck was broken along with his other injuries."

"Good. I'm glad he didn't suffer. That's all of them now. All my boys gone." The flatness in his voice belied the moisture in his age-clouded eyes.

"I know, sir. I really am sorry."

The old man pushed against the old Formica tabletop and stood up slowly. He picked up his cup and walked back to the coffeepot. He turned and held up his cup.

"Another?"

"No, sir."

"Think I will. Don't guess I'll be sleepin' much tonight anyway. Like when Thomas and George went. I didn't sleep those nights either. Didn't sleep much any night between or since."

"How long has it been since Thomas's...."

"Accident? How long since Thomas's accident? 'Bout a month. 'Bout two months since George's. Now Charles. Tell me, officer, how does a man lose three sons by accident? They weren't careless boys. None of them. Oh, maybe a little when they was youngsters. But not since they was growed. How does that happen? Can you tell me that?" Martin turned to look at the second officer, a young man he knew from his sons' school days. "Can you tell me that, Johnny Beale?"

"No, sir, I can't. It has to be hard on you." Officer Beale looked down at his saucer and turned it around and around, not looking at the old man. "I was here when Thomas got caught under the tractor. I was out of town when George had the hunting accident."

"Fate," the old man muttered into his cup as he tossed his head back to finish the coffee before refilling his cup.

"I'm sorry? What did you say Mr. ... Martin?" Officer Barnes asked.

The tired old man turned to look at him, his head and shoulders visibly drooping as he did. "I said 'fate.' It was fate."

"Why do you say that, sir?"

Martin looked at him for several seconds. Then he shuffled back to the table and sat down.

"Nothin'. Just the ramblings of a crazy old coot." He raised his head and stared at them. "You'd best be gone now. You have other work to do. I'll be all right."

"Well, there is one other thing, Martin."

"Yeah?"

"This bat, sir." Officer Barnes reached to take the bat from Officer Beale who had kept it behind him and out of sight until now. "We found it lying by the guardrail. It has your initials on it." Martin started to take it from him. "I'm sorry. I can't let you take it. It might be evidence. Do you recognize it?"

"Of course, I recognize it. It was mine when I was a boy. My boys played with it, too. What do you mean, it might be evidence? You said Charles fell."

"Well, sir, I said it looks like Charles might have leaned against the rail and lost his balance. The thing is, there was the hint of a bruise across his belly, about the width of a bat. He fell on his back, so it doesn't seem likely he got it in the fall. Maybe he had another accident in the past few days?"

"None that I know of. 'Course I can't know everything."

"I guess your fingerprints would be on the bat."

"Mine and all three of the boys. And maybe more." Martin straightened his back and glared at Officer Barnes. "Are you saying you think I knocked my own boy over that rail?"

"No, sir, but we do need to consider any possibilities."

"You think I did it," he yelled at the officer. "Do you think I caused Thomas and George's accidents, too? They was all accidents, I tell you!" Then more subdued, he asked, "You gonna take me in?"

"No, sir. We don't expect you to be going anywhere out of town, of course."

"Of course," Martin growled at him.

"Would you like for us to call someone for you?"

"There ain't no one left to call." Martin sat there lost in his thoughts before finally raising a hand as if to stop them. "Wait! Annabelle."

"Sir?"

"Annabelle. Charles's daughter. Someone has to tell her and her other grandparents, Abe and Mary Simmons. That's where she is. They keep her on weekends since her mother died."

"Tiffany, right? The mother. She died in that car wreck Charles had, didn't she? He was drinking then, too, wasn't he?" Officer Beale wrote something in his notebook.

"Yeah. What of it?" Martin glared at him. "It wasn't his fault, Johnny Beale! It wasn't!" The two officers looked at each other knowingly. "Just because he was drinking," Martin continued. "That don't make it his fault. It was her car, you know. Old car. Ford Fairlane. Didn't have seat belts. She should have bought a newer car. She could of. She had the money. One with seat belts. Especially since they had Annabelle." His voice had risen higher and higher before dropping to a whisper. "She.... Tiffany.... She was thrown from the car. She wouldn't have been hurt if she'd had a seatbelt. That's what the coroner said."

"I remember that old Ford," said Officer Beale. "I thought Charles was the only one who drove it. I didn't think they ever had Annabelle in it."

"You'll make it his fault, won't you? It wasn't. They didn't take Annabelle anywhere in it. Annabelle was with Abe and Mary that night. Charles and Tiffany were going out dancing. She should have gotten rid of that old car. She'd be here now to take care of Annabelle. And Charles wouldn't have started drinking more and more." Again the officers looked at each other but didn't say anything.

"You want to call Tiffany's parents to tell them?" asked Officer Barnes.

"No. I don't want to talk to them. You tell them. You go tell them tonight. And tell them not to call me! I don't want to talk to no one, you hear? No one! Not tonight!" Martin stood up and shouted at them, "Not ever!" Then he sat back down and dropped his head into his burly, worn hands.

After a few moments, Officer Beale raised a finger and spoke. "Wait. I thought you had a daughter. She was my age. Paige, I think her name was. I don't remember her being in high school with us, but she was in junior high with us." He also remembered that he had had a crush on her and that she always seemed so sad. Then she was gone. When he asked her brothers about her they said she'd gone to live somewhere else. They never mentioned her again. He didn't think this was the time or place to mention any of that.

"Daughter!" the old man looked up and spat the word at the officers. "I ain't got no daughter. I gave her to the state years ago. It's all her fault. All of it. Her Ma would still be here if she hadn't been born. I told Martha I had three sons, and I didn't want no more young'uns, but no, she wanted a girl. What'd we need a girl for anyway? We had Martha." He stared into his cup for the longest before continuing. "Then it was time. Baby wouldn't come. She'd had all three boys here at home with that midwife woman. But this one wouldn't come. That midwife kept after me to call the doctor. 'Doctors cost money,' I said. She kept on and kept on, and I gave in. But it didn't do no good to call him. Had to pay him anyway. He got here in time to pull that baby from her mama, and then Martha was gone. He should've left that baby where it was, but Martha begged him. 'Save my baby, please,' she told him. He did. He didn't save Martha though. Martha looked at that baby like I never saw her look at the boys. Touched her fingers and her toes. Smiled at that crying thing. Smiled at me and told me to get her sister to come and stay to help with that baby. Then drew a harder breath than any that night and died. She just died. Left me with that bloody thing to raise on my own! If Martha had to die, she should have taken that baby with her! Bad, that baby was. Killed her own Mama! Bad from that day on! Never did nothin' good. Never did nothin' right." He clenched both fists and banged them on the table, jerking himself up as he did, moving faster than he had since he had heard about George two months earlier. "I ain't got no daughter!" he yelled at them. Then he held his hand up to stop the officers from saying anything else and repeated, abruptly but calmly, "Time for you to go now. Now."

"Okay. Yes, sir. We'll go now. If you need us, you will call us, won't you?"

"No need to call. Won't need nothin'. You can find the door. Shut it and turn the lock when you leave." He turned his back on them and stood there. The two young men shrugged at each other, and turned away. The youngest looked back over his shoulder at the old man who still stood with his back to them; then they left, carrying the bat with them.

* * *
Martin sat back down and stared into his coffee cup long after the officers had left. He jerked his head up at the sound of the front door opening again.

"Who's there? You officers back again? What for?" He jumped up, knocking his chair over in his hurry. "I said, who's there?" He started for the doorway into the hall but stopped short when the young woman stepped into the kitchen. "Who are you? What do you want? How did you get in here?"

"I had a key," she spoke in the low husky voice she had cultivated over the years.

"A key? How'd you get a key? One of the boys...?"

"Does that matter now?"

"I reckon, yes, it matters."

"The boys." She smiled at him, a glint in her eyes. "They're gone, aren't they?"

"Gone? You mean not here?"

"I mean gone." She seemed to glide toward him, still smiling but the glint in her eyes more sinister. Her eyes. They looked familiar. Not the sinister part. No, something else.

He backed up, suddenly frightened. "You! You've come back! They're gone, but they'll be back soon, you little slut! You need to leave now!"

"No, they won't be back soon. They won't be back ever. Isn't it a shame? Poetic justice, don't you think?" She spoke in that same low, seductive voice with a practiced control that unnerved the old man. "You know they lied, don't you? I didn't push Charles out of the barn when he broke his arm and couldn't help plant the beans. I didn't take that gun from the cabinet, like George said, and shoot a hole in the ceiling and cost you good money to fix it. And I didn't leave that tractor in gear to tear up those rows of corn; Thomas did that." The more controlled her voice, the more Martin fidgeted, pulling at his shirt sleeve, twisting his head back and forth, not saying a word as she kept talking. "They won't lie about anything now, will they? And you won't either. Will you? You won't have anybody to lie to. You won't have anybody here to blame either." Her voice began to rise, losing some of its control. "To blame and berate when the biscuits burn. Or when the furniture is dusty. Or when the white Sunday go-to-meeting shirts aren't ironed to perfection. You won't have anybody to yell at and hold responsible for you having to spend your hard-earned money on silly, frilly things. No, you'll be here all alone now in this big, old house." She spread her arms and looked around the kitchen as if to include the whole house. Now she yelled at him, "Is that what you want? To be here all alone?"

"No," he yelled back, finally able to speak. "But I can't undo what's happened."

"That's right. You can't undo any of it," she told him, her control regained. "You remember the scripture you 'quoted' about a child's wrongdoing affecting the child's own children?"

"I do," he nodded his assent. "The same scripture my father quoted me."

"Did you ever look it up and read it yourself?"

"I never read any scripture. My daddy did that and then Martha, enough for both of us."

"Well, you should have. I did. Your father misquoted that scripture. Do you want to know what it really says?"

"No. Don't see what it matters."

"Oh, I think it matters. What it actually says is that God will visit 'the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.' It's the father's sin that affects the child. It says a little more than that. It says 'of them that hate me.' Did you hate God as much as you hated me?" They stood staring at each other, hatred filling both their eyes.

"So I got it wrong. What about it? Is knowing it supposed to change things, change me?"

"It might have. Then. Not now. It's too late now. God might forgive you. Not me. As you said, you can't change it now. You can't undo it. You can finish it, though."

"How? How can I finish it? Finish what? Haven't you already done that?"

"Almost. But you're still here."

"But they're not! They're all gone! You don't live here no more! There ain't nothing else to finish!"

"No?" Both her voice and her eyes grew soft. "There's Annabelle. What about her? What about your grandchild?"

"What about her?" he snarled at the woman before him.

"She's the third generation, Papa. Look at her!" she pleaded with him, holding a picture out to him, making him look at it. "Look at her."

"I'm looking! What am I supposed to see?"

"You really don't see it, do you? You don't see the change in her. She was a happy little girl, carefree, sure of herself when her Mama was living. Look at her now!" She shook the photo at him. "Think about her now! Does she smile anymore? Does she laugh? Is she bold and daring at play, confident in school?"

"I don't know. How am I supposed to know? All I know is, after her Mama died, she got more and more like you. She did! Charles noticed it, too!"

"He would!"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"They always noticed what you told them to notice! They saw me through your eyes! Charles saw Annabelle through your eyes! No longer through Tiffany's eyes."

"Enough! You get out of here. Now! I'll.... I'll.... I'll shoot you!"

"That's right. You shoot me. Like a scared little rabbit. Isn't that what you used to say? The rifles are still in the cabinet in the hall, aren't they?" Once again, she became the seductress. "Go get one of them. One shot would do it. Then it would be over. Of course, they're probably going to come back and get you, anyway. That bat and all."

He turned around, away from her, away from the accusations, away from the sultry challenge in her voice. He clenched and unclenched his fists. Finally, he turned back. "You get out of here!" he shouted, but no one was there to hear him. "Where'd you go?" He ran into the hall. No one was there. He ran to the front door and onto the front porch. No one was there. He turned back to the house and went inside. "Where are you? Come back here! Where are you?!" He stopped shouting and stood staring down the empty hallway. He began again in a whisper, "She's not here. No one's here. Not the girl. Not the boys. Gone. All three of them. Dead by their own lies. 'She pushed me, Papa.' 'She got the gun down, Papa.' 'She left the tractor in gear, Papa.' 'Live by the sword, die by the sword.' Now she's come for me. That's it. She came for them, and now she's come for me! And they think it was me!" He looked around him, wild-eyed and frightened. "But where is she?" he shouted. "Where are you? You won't punish me. You won't punish me! I won't let you!" He turned around and around in circles, moving down the hallway as he turned.

When he stopped, he stood staring into the gun cabinet. "I won't let her!"

* * *
Officer Barnes watched as the coroner drove off with Martin's body. "One shot to the head," he said to no one in particular. "No accident here. I guess losing all of his sons was too much. That or the thought of how he lost them."

* * *
The young woman approached the counter but did not touch it. She was dressed in a black wool business suit and an off-white silk blouse. She held her head up and shoulders back confidently. She carried black lace-covered gloves and a small, plain black clutch in one hand. Her only jewelry, small pearl earrings and a pearl ring set with tiny diamonds on either side, softened her appearance as the sweetness of her voice softened her words. "Hello. I'm looking for Officer Barnes. Abe Simmons said I should ask for him concerning Annabelle Greer." The officer at the counter turned to look at another officer at the back of the room, who placed the papers in his hand on the desk and came forward.

"Hello. I'm Officer Beale. Officer Barnes isn't here right now. How may I help you?"

"Abe said he was the officer in charge of the investigations concerning my brother and father's deaths. I really need to speak to him. I can come back if you can tell me when Officer Barnes will return."

"Paige? Paige Greer?"

"Yes. Do I know you?"

"From about a hundred years ago. I'm Johnny Beale. We were in grade school and junior high school together."

"Oh, I see it now. I guess time does change us all a little bit."

"A lot, in some cases. You look so...so...poised." He stood gazing into her eyes till he caught himself. He shook his head and continued, "I'm sorry about your brothers and your father."

"Thank you. We haven't been a family in such a long time, I'm afraid I don't have much memory of them."

"I understand Martin didn't think he could care for a daughter and thought you would be better off adopted."

"Something like that," she smiled.

"I'm working with Officer Barnes. I would be happy to help you if I could."

"Well, what I'm here about is the property, farms and bank accounts, financial obligations and such, of my three brothers and my father. Annabelle and I are their only living relatives. I need to know when I can settle their affairs. I'm in law school and also volunteer as a child advocate. I need to get back as soon as possible."

"Who will take care of Annabelle's interests?"

"I will. Her mother left a document stipulating that in the event both she and Charles passed on, that Annabelle would be placed in my custody."

"Oh? I didn't know you had been back since you were 12."

"Only to visit Annabelle. When she was born, I contacted Tiffany to tell her that I would like to be a part of Annabelle's life but that I didn't want my brothers or my father to know. We became good friends."

"And Tiffany's parents?"

"I'm good friends with them, as well. The four of us discussed the custody issue a couple of years ago. Tiffany's parents felt they were too old to be the best guardians for the child. She's only five years old, and they're in their early seventies. They didn't have Tiffany until late in life. Of course, they will remain as much a part of Annabelle's life as they always have been. And the terms set down by Tiffany, at my insistence, allow them the option of taking Annabelle should I not provide the home and environment they think Tiffany would have wanted for her."

"Did Charles know about it?"

"Of course not."

"If you don't mind my asking, why would Tiffany do that without her husband's knowledge?"

"The boys had begun to use Tiffany as a scapegoat for every little thing that went wrong or that they didn't like." Paige Martin lifted her chin as if in defiance. "Much as they did with me before I was abandoned to the state. According to them, I was responsible for everything that went wrong, even more so the year after my mother's sister died. I was eleven when she died, twelve when I went to my first foster home. He said I was no longer a little girl. He began calling me a 'little slut' and said I should have died instead of my mother. In a way, I was glad he gave me away. Of course, it took three foster home changes for me to escape the lies he told the social worker. I was fortunate. Some children never escape their labels. Anyway, Tiffany was afraid they would do the same with Annabelle if anything happened to her. She couldn't deny Charles's his rights, of course, but she could at least prevent my other brothers and my father from having custody of her daughter."

"Tiffany's been dead almost a year now. Had they been accusing the little girl of things?"

"From what I've noticed and what Abe and Mary have told me about the changes in Annabelle's demeanor, I suspect they had. Even in her kindergarten picture, she looks like a different child. But enough of that. Concerning my reason for being here, I've already spoken to my father's lawyer. Apparently, my father and mother both made wills years ago soon after they married, and he never changed his. The wills were quite simple, like my father. They leave everything to the surviving spouse if one survives. If not, everything is to be divided equally among any children born to the marriage. I'm the only surviving child. Charles had done the same when he married, so anything he left will go to Annabelle, along with half of what I inherit from my father. George and Thomas never made wills, so by law anything they have left goes to the next of kin. Again, that would be Annabelle and myself. Well, there you are. I've told you everything I meant to tell Officer Barnes—and more." Paige smiled at the young man again. Perhaps someday, I can smile at a young man sincerely, she thought. "So, Officer Beale, can I settle their affairs, or do I need to wait for some reason?"

"I think you can go ahead. There was a question about whether or not Charles's death was accidental, but when your father shot himself, Officer Barnes seemed satisfied that if Charles's death was not an accident, and someone caused him to topple over the guardrail, then it had to have been your father. No one else had a key to the house, right? To have access to anything—like Martin's bat?"

"That's sounds reasonable." Paige answered with no apparent notice of the mention of the bat. "Except for his lawyer, of course. I've been away so long, I wouldn't have any way of knowing for sure."

"You never saw your father again?"

"No. I've never thought about seeing him—or going back to his house." She mused at how easily the lie slid off her tongue. "I'll be listing it and the farm with a real estate agent, of course."

"You don't want anything from the house? Not even your mother's things?"

"My father got rid of Mama's things soon after she died. My aunt, Mama's sister, did manage to hide these gloves and these pearls." Paige looked down and touched her gloves and ring and then her earrings gently. When she looked back at Johnny Beale, her eyes were moist. "She hid them from him and gave them to me just before she died. I never told my father."

Officer Beale lifted his hand to reach out to her but quickly put it back on the countertop. "Well, I think that settles that, then. You won't have to go back there ever." He smiled at her, and Paige smiled back at him. This time she almost meant it.