Buried In Buttercream

his face. And tears in his eyes.
    “Your mother brought all these kids into the world and then made a child take care of them? And she gave you beatings when you didn’t do it to suit her?”
    “Wasn’t exactly beatings. Just your old-fashioned hide tanning.”
    “Did it leave marks?”
    “Are you kidding? After she took a switch to the back of my legs, I’d have to wear knee socks for weeks. You’d be surprised the sort of bruises and welts a hickory switch can raise.”
    He gently squeezed her hand and said softly, “Savannah, that’s a beating. A felony. How many times have we hauled a guy outta his house in cuffs for doing way less than that to his old lady ... a grown woman, not a kid?”
    “I never thought of it that way,” she said. “I guess if it’s your parent doing it, it’s just a spanking.”
    “If a stranger did that to someone’s child, everybody would be up in arms about it. He’d be arrested on the spot. So, if it’s your parent leaving bruises on you—the person whose job it is to protect you from harm—and not a stranger on the street, that makes it worse, not better. Acting like it’s okay just adds insult to injury.”
    They sat in silence for a long time as Savannah thought over what he’d said. It was as if he had switched on a bright light inside a dark room in her soul.
    He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. “You know, baby,” he said, “times have changed. That crap’s all in the past. They aren’t kids anymore. And your mom’s sitting on a bar stool in Georgia, drinking her way into an early grave. She’s never going to hit you again.”
    “No, she isn’t. Nobody’s ever going to hit me. Never again. I decided that years ago.”
    “So, nobody’s going to beat you if you go in there and tell Vidalia to take care of her own kids. Or if you tell Marietta to make her own damned bologna sandwiches. Or if you tell Macon to get up off his fat ass and pick up his empty pizza boxes and soda cans.”
    Savannah sat, staring at him for a long time, as his words found their way from her ears, through her brain, and down into a place much deeper.
    And in that place, deep in her soul, she heard him loud and clear.
    More importantly, the little girl who had been beaten because her baby brother had broken his bottle, spilling the last bit of milk in the house, heard it.
    Savannah jerked the car door open, got out, and slammed it so hard that Dirk thought his windows would break.
    “Uh-oh,” he muttered as he watched her storm up the sidewalk to her front door. “Hell’s broke loose in Georgia and the devil deals the cards.”

    “Where’s Granny and the children?” Savannah demanded, standing in the middle of her living room and looking around at her siblings, who, from what she could tell, hadn’t budged an inch from the last time she’d seen them.
    “They’re upstairs, taking naps. Butch, too,” Marietta told her without taking her eyes off the television.
    “And not a minute too soon,” Vidalia said from the sofa as she flipped through her movie magazine. “I’m so tired, I’m draggin’ my tracks out, just tryin’ to corral ’em. It’s time Butch lifted a finger to be a father to those younguns.”
    “Gran and the kids are upstairs? Good,” Savannah said. “Then I don’t have to watch my language none when I tell y’all what’s what.”
    Jesup, who was sitting in Savannah’s comfy chair, painting her toenails black, glanced up—as did the rest of them—slightly surprised looks on their faces.
    “Well, boy ... you got a nasty tone there, Sis,” Marietta said. “You best mind how you address us.”
    “Shhh, Mari,” Cordele said. “Can’t you see that Savannah’s experiencing some sort of anxiety attack? It’s no doubt related to the post-traumatic stress she’s suffered from the shooting. We all need to be patient with her as she works through her issues. She’s quite fragile at this time and—”
    “Oh, can it, Cordele,” Savannah snapped. “The last thing I need right now is hearing your psycho-babble. I’m not fragile; I’m fed up. And if I’m stressed out, it ain’t just from getting shot or having three attempted weddings go down the drain. It’s also from putting up with the likes of you!”
    Their mouths dropped open.
    “Well, I never heard such abuse,” Vidalia said, sitting up and slapping her magazine down onto the coffee table.
    It occurred to Savannah that she looked downright unnatural