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Then Stanwood changed his tone. “Why don’t you let me put her out of her misery,” he offered, as though it were the only reasonable course. “You weren’t even here. Why not?”
“I’ll kill you,” Tammy croaked, but her words sent her into a bloody coughing fit.
“She don’t have to kill you,” Oliver said and raised the ax again. “If you don’t get out of here I’ll do it.”
Stanwood, finally seeing that he wasn’t going to get his way, shrugged and staggered out of the dim house into the light of a lovely spring afternoon.
Tammy held her throbbing face between bloody hands while her shoulders shuddered in uncontrollable fits.
“I’m going for Easter,” said Oliver.
She shook her head. “No. You do it. You got to finish it. You.”
Having created this nightmare, Oliver felt he had no choice but to obey. He dragged a chair to the wall and helped Tammy into it, tipping her head back for support as he’d seen Hodgkins do it. He felt like he was moving through water, slow and heavy, as he picked up Stanwood’s bloody wedge and mallet. Both the teeth were shattered, but the left one was hanging loose, so he went for it first. With one careful blow, he got it free.
Tammy yelped, but didn’t move.
The other tooth wasn’t so cooperative. Part of it fell out after a light blow, but the other half stuck. The first tap didn’t budge it, but when he struck a little harder, Tammy screamed.
“I’m going for Easter,” he said.
Tammy spit out a mouthful of blood, shook her head, and pointed at him.
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Oliver moved her head back again, tilted Tammy’s chin as high as he could, placed the wedge at a sharper angle, and brought the mallet down as hard as he could. What was left of the tooth fell out in a crimson torrent. Tammy’s eyes rolled back and she slumped over in a dead faint.
The mixed smell of blood, liquor, and sweat became unbearable and Oliver hardly had time to turn his head before his stomach rose up. Heaving and coughing, Oliver lay Tammy on the floor and turned her on her side so that she would not drown in her own blood. He tore strips from his ruined shirt and packed pieces into her mouth. He dragged himself to his feet, feeling suddenly like a very old man. And then he ran.
Tammy woke up two days later, in her own bed, wearing a clean nightdress, with barely a trace of blood beneath her fingernails. The gaping sockets in her mouth had been packed with cobwebs and sealed with wax. Easter Carter sat nearby, smoking a pipe; Oliver had taken his blanket and disappeared into the woods.
The whole place smelled wet. The floor had been
washed with scalding water, as had the table and chairs. A chilly rain held the damp inside as Tammy dozed on and off for a solid week. She woke up when Judy arrived with broth and kept her eyes open, watching her and Easter as they chatted, distracting her from the ache and smell of her wounded mouth.
The freshest gossip was about Polly Boynton’s new widowhood. Word was Boynton had drowned falling out
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of his dinghy while fishing for supper. He’d been drinking, of course, and now Polly was back with her father in Dogtown. The girl was said to be weeping night and day.
“She must have loved him,” said Judy.
“I don’t know about that,” said Easter. “Boynton was a drunk and died a drunk’s death. I don’t know why pretty Polly would be sorrowing over that.”