Marilyn’s face became less clouded. She studied Sunset for a long moment, opened her arms wide, said, “Come here, darling.”
“Say what?” Sunset said.
“Come here.”
Sunset studied her mother-in-law for a time, stood cautiously.
“It’s all right,” said Marilyn. “I ain’t crazy as I was.”
“About half that crazy could be too much.”
“It’s all right,” Marilyn said, and took a step toward Sunset. They embraced. Sunset continued to hold the gun, just in case. She was hoping she wouldn’t end up shooting the whole damn family. Maybe the chickens too.
“I lost a son,” Marilyn said. “I ain’t gonna lose no daughter, too.”
“I didn’t want to do it.”
“I know.”
“No. No, you don’t,” Sunset said.
“You might be surprised what I know, girlie.”
3
The cyclone that tore up Sunset’s house swirled on through the trees, carrying away her roof and goods, headed east, and was still kicking by early nightfall, tossing fish, frogs, and debris. It even threw a calf against a house and killed it.
The westbound train into Tyler caught the tail end of the storm, and the wind tossed fish against it and shook the boxcars and made them rattle like a toy train shaken by a mean child.
For a moment, it seemed as if the train might be sucked off the track, but shaking was the worst of it. The locomotive and its little boxes chugged on and so did the storm, which finally played out near the Louisiana border. The last of it was just a cool, damp wind for some hot people night-fishing on the banks of the Sabine River.