Scarecrow

Chapter 11

"Pen, we don't have time for this, we–"

"No, Ed. I've already told you, I'm not going."

"Pen, you don't understand."

"Oh, don't I?" Penny sits down on the edge of the bed, parallel to the open suitcase Eddie has hastily crammed full of clothes.

Stupid, Ed, stupid. He never should have told her of his plan, but lying to the woman he loved had proved too much of a chore. "Eddie, what were you thinking? Selling Lewis out to Jim when you had absolutely no proof? How could you be so cold-hearted?"

"I had all the proof I needed," says Eddie, sitting beside her, "and cold-hearted? Wasn't Jim's condition proof enough for you? Didn't you see him?"

"What I saw, Ed, was my husband fixing up his old scarecrow. Nothing more, nothing less. That doesn't scare me half as much as you are now."

There it is. My husband. How simple this would all be, how quickly he and Penny could just fade into the bliss of life and love, if Donnelly was out of the picture. Eddie secretly hopes that he and Lewis will just tear each other to shreds, but he knows this is a far-fetched prayer, and one that he would never share with Penny. He had felt the strength in Donnelly's arms when the farmer had thrown him across the cow barn. He had seen the look in Donnelly's sick eyes that had been, for lack of a better word, murderous, cold and finite. And he knows that they have to leave. Now.

"Penny, you just have to trust–"

"Trust you? Like I trusted you to 'distract' Jim? No, Eddie, I'm not going to trust you, and I'm not leaving. Not with the baby. Not yet."

Eddie rubs his throbbing temples, squeezing his eyes shut to relieve the headache building there. It at least makes some sense why Penny would be reluctant to leave the safety of the farm in the first place, what with the baby and all. Why she can't see that her precious "safety" is crumbling as fast as her husband's sanity is beyond him.

"Alright, listen. It was wrong of me to use Lewis like that. I should have been honest with you, and I'm sorry. And I get that this little guy," here he turns to her, resting a hand on her belly, "is our top priority right now. I'll stay if you really don't want to leave, but Pen..."

"What, Ed? What?"

He looks into her lovely face, trying to keep his stern. "There is something wrong with Jim. You do see that, right?"

She hesitates, then nods. "I do. But Ed..." she embraces him suddenly, her head against his chest. "We don't have to worry about him right now. Just hold me, and tell me everything will be alright, and I'm yours."

He does tell her this, repeats it over and over as they settle onto the sheets, tells her even as her mouth fills and muffles his own, until he almost believes the words himself. Almost. Perhaps, had he been more alert, Eddie would have heard Jim Donnelly pull up to the house as Penny pulls off his shirt. Perhaps he could have detected Donnelly's light footfalls as he mounts the stairs, sickle in hand, to investigate why the bedroom light is still on at this hour. But alas, Eddie does none of these things, so he spends the last precious minutes of his life in unshattered, lustful, bliss.

Penny grabs a fistful of Eddie's sandy hair and holds it as they twine closer together, warmed and comforted to the bone by his love. Outside is a world of hurt, a world of pain, but as long as she stays wrapped around her lover, it seems, these horrors cannot touch her. Eddie's hands clasp tightly around the small of her back while he kisses her neck, her ears, her breasts, but his lips always seem to find their way back to her own. They have not yet made love tonight, are not at that stage of fervor quite yet, but the prospect hangs in the air like a lingering whisper.