Carnal Innocence

inside her. She didn’t want me, but when she found she was pregnant she had to go through with it.”
    “How can you be sure?”
    “She was sure. I heard her talking to Della in the kitchen. Della knew. Only Della.” Satisfied with the knife, Josie slipped the derringer into her pocket. “She hadn’t told Daddy. I guess she was afraid to. And she would have wanted to protect him, and the family, and Sweetwater. So she had me, and she tolerated me,and she watched me to see how much like him I’d be.”
    “Josie.”
    “I was a grown woman when I found out. She lied to me all my life. My beautiful mother, that great lady, the woman I wanted to be like more than anything, was just a liar.”
    “She was only trying to keep you from being hurt.”
    “She hated me.” The words ripped out of her as she slashed the air with the knife. “Every time she looked at me she’d see the way I was conceived. In the dirt, planted in the dirt while she cried for help. And wouldn’t she have to ask herself how much was her own doing? Why did she go there? Did she really care so much about Austin and his pitiful wife?”
    “You can’t blame your mother, Josie.”
    “I can blame her for giving me a lie to live with. For looking at me out of the corner of her eye and thinking I was less than her, or any other woman. She said to Della, that day, that maybe I wasn’t meant to be happy, to have a home of my own and a family because of my blood. My tainted blood.”
    She spat out the words while outside the sky rocked with color.
    “I’d come back here after my second divorce, and she had that look in her eye. That look that blamed me for it. And she said to Della that maybe I wasn’t meant to have a home and children. Maybe it was the Lord’s way of punishing her for keeping the secret, for holding the lie inside her. She was feeling poorly, had been feeling poorly for some time. When she went out to her roses, I went, too. I wanted her to tell me face-to-face. We had a terrible argument, and I left her there, standing in the roses and crying. A little later Tucker went out and found her dead. So I guess I killed her.”
    “No. No, of course you didn’t. It wasn’t your fault or hers, Josie.”
    “That doesn’t change anything. I had something growing inside me. It wasn’t a child—the doctors had already told me I’d never have a child. But what was growing was real, and it was hot. It started with Arnette. She wanted to get her hooks into Dwayne, just like Sissyhad. She thought she could use me, and I played along. I thought about it and thought about it. I’d spend whole nights lying in bed and thinking, wondering. Mama had kept a secret by giving life. I was going to keep one by taking it.”
    There was a roar from outside as rocket after rocket shot up in the grand finale.
    “There had to be a reason, though. I wasn’t an animal. It had to make sense. So I figured it would be those women who teased and strutted and lied to get men. I’ve had myself plenty of men,” Josie said with a smile. “But I never lied to get them.”
    “Arnette—I thought she was your friend?”
    “She was a slut.” Josie shrugged her shoulders carelessly. “Not that she was my first choice. I thought about Susie. I’d always figured if Burke and I could get together … Well, anyway, Susie didn’t fit. She never in her life looked at another man but Burke, so killing her wouldn’t have been right. It had to be right,” Josie murmured while iciness spread in Caroline’s stomach. “So there was Arnette. It was so easy to get her a little drunk, drive out to Gooseneck Creek. I hit her with a rock, then I took off her clothes and tied her up. It was cold. Jesus, it was cold, but I waited until she came around. Then I pretended I was my father and she was my mother. And I did things to her until it wasn’t cold anymore.
    “It was better for a while,” she said dreamily. “I felt so much better. Then it started growing in me again. So there was Francie. She was dangling for Tucker, I knew it. Then it was supposed to be Sissy, but I made a mistake there. But each time it was better. When they called in the FBI, I wanted to laugh and laugh. No one was going to look at me. Teddy even took me to the morgue so I could see Edda Lou. At first it was awful, but then I realized that I had done that. I had done it and nobody was ever going to know. It was my secret, just like Mama. And I wanted to do it again, again, while