“Tommy!” Earlene says. “You’d better not harm a hair on my girl’s head. You hear me? Not a hair.”
Tommy, who has always been more than a little afraid of Earlene, doesn’t know how to answer that.
“He held a gun to my head, Mama,” says Nadine.
“Nadine,” Tommy hisses, “you didn’t have to tell her that.”
“I can tell her whatever I want to, Tommy.”
“Tommy,” says Earlene, “now you’d better just stop this nonsense right now. You hear me? I mean it. This is gonna lead nowhere good for anyone.” She pauses. “This is not like you at all. Not at all.”
“I didn’t mean to,” says Tommy. “I was only trying to fight for my marriage, Earlene. And then it just... got out of hand.”
“So take itinhand,” says Earlene matter-of-factly. “I don’t want to hear your excuses.”
“But I just... I don’t... I can’t,” says Tommy. His face has shifted from scared to bewildered.
“Don’t hand me thatcan’tstuff. Can’t never could do anything. Nadine?” Earlene says. “You still there?”
“I’m here, Mama.”
“If he won’t take the situation in hand, then you should.”
“And how am I supposed to do that, Mama? He’s the one with the gun. I’m not in charge.”
Earlene’s voice softens. “You’re a smart girl, honey. You’ll figure it out.” She pauses again, then continues. “And, Tommy? I mean it. You harm that girl, or anyone else, and the cops will be your least worry. Ain’t no wrath like a mama’s wrath. You got it?”
Tommy is silent. The whole room is silent. So silent that they can hear the sound of tires on asphalt. All heads turn to the windows. “Hey, Mama, pretty sure the police just got here,” Nadine says.
“Tommy!” Earlene hollers. “You keep in mind what I said. You hear me?”
“I hear you,” says Tommy, but his voice is already moving away from the phone toward the window, where he can get a better view of the onslaught of authorities as they make their entrance.
“I’d better go,” says Nadine.
“I’ll be praying,” says Earlene.
“I know you will, Mama,” Nadine says. Then she ends the call.
One by one, Nadine, Blythe, and Morrow join Tommy to watch the law enforcement presence grow. But Sylvie stays seated, leaving Morrow to wonder why. She is concerned about the older woman, about the strain of the situation on her. But help is here. With each vehicle that arrives, she feels a mounting sense of both the hope of help and the heft of the situation.
Morrow stands shoulder to shoulder with her fellow captives in front of the windows as more and more emergency personnel collect in the parking lot of the post office. The fire department arrives and more cop cars, some marked, some unmarked. A collection of uniformed authorities of various associations stands at the outer edge of the asphalt, as far away from the building as they can get yet still keep an eye on it, alternating between glancing at the building and talking to one another.
Morrow watches it all unfold, counting the number of helpers who are there. She thinks of that quote by Mr. Rogers. At least she thinks it was Mr. Rogers. “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” Morrow sees the helpers, a whole collection of them, right there on the other side of the glass. Butshe cannot get to them. She thinks of trying again to escape. Maybe this time Tommy wouldn’t fight her. Maybe he’d just let her go.
She glances over at Tommy, who is cursing a blue streak as he, too, watches the helpers assemble. Though he overcame her with force, would he actually have harmed her? He doesn’t seem like a killer, but do killers always seem like killers before they kill? She could risk another attempt to escape but decides it’s not worth it. Better to go along to get along and hope for a peaceful resolution.
Beside Morrow, Blythe’s phone vibrates in her back pocket, the sensation sending a little jolt of fear through her. Tommy has moved to the far window, trying to talk to Nadine in a low, pleading voice. Though from the looks of it, he’s not getting anywhere. All that matters is that he is not paying attention to Blythe. So she takes her phone out to see that Bryan has responded to her text about being a hostage.
You’re joking, right?
She frowns and shoves her phone back into her pocket, recalling as she does her conversation with her mother after the party, how she got from there to here with a bottle of wine and just one question: “Do you ever talk to Bryan?”
Lulled by the wine and her mother’s attention, she had answered honestly. “Funny you should ask that. We’ve actually exchanged a few messages on Instagram.”
Her mother had leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with interest. “I never understood what happened between you two. Nowhewas a catch.” Despite the amount of wine she’d had, Blythe had caught the inference: Bryan was a catch. Aaron was not.
Just like that, panic had filled her. Was she making a mistake?As they talked into the night, her mother’s opinion became clear: She was. But it wasn’t too late to change course, her mother insisted. So Blythe had revealed her crazy idea. And her mother told her it wasn’t crazy at all.
