Nuts and Buried by Elizabeth Lee

coming from the kitchen with a metal coffeepot in her hands. There were already mugs set around the table. A plate of cookies sat at the center. Looked like an afternoon coffee klatch in progress.
    Miranda, her face scrunched up as bad as Melody’s, hailed us and pointed to chairs.
    â€œWhat’s going on, Jeannie?” I asked fast, sitting down next to her. Better to be in control of a situation like this than to let somebody else grab it and start going off on us.
    â€œThis is my mother, Wanda Truly,” she said, gesturing toward the woman staring back at me like a made-up doll left out in the rain.
    â€œHow’d ya do.” Wanda nodded.
    â€œAnd my brother, Billy Truly.”
    I looked hard at Jeannie, who licked at her lips and took a deep breath.
    â€œThought you were in jail, Billy.” Meemaw spoke up before I had a chance to catch what was going on here.
    His mother sputtered and blinked hard across the table. Billy turned slowly to look over at Meemaw, then back down at his hands. “Got out,” he said.
    â€œGlad to hear it,” Meemaw went on as if she were having a happy conversation with a new acquaintance. Like she actually knew him. “Hope things’ll go better for you from now on. Must’ve been awful, being in a place like that. Where were you?”
    He glanced up again and I could see Meemaw was getting to him. Maybe it was the look about her—an older lady, grandmotherly, kind voice. “Huntsville,” he said then cleared his throat and said it louder, “Huntsville, ma’am.”
    â€œWell, it’s nice to meet you. How long you been out now?” She slid into the chair next to him, grabbed the heavycoffeepot, and began pouring out mugs of coffee for all of us. Billy dumped three spoons of sugar in his cup and passed the bowl to Meemaw.
    I could see they were getting along fine though the smile was gone from Wanda’s face and Jeannie looked on in amazement.
    â€œBeen out two weeks,” he muttered then shook his head over and over. “Hard, being out. Six years in a place like that . . . ya kind of lose . . . well . . . you know, like how to make small talk and stuff.”
    â€œBet you do,” Meemaw agreed and passed him the plate of cookies, as Wanda let out a harsh, brittle laugh.
    â€œSmall talk!” She blew out her puffy lips in exasperation. “Living with a bunch of killers all that time. I’ll bet you anything you didn’t sit around making ‘small talk.’”
    â€œMama,” Jeannie warned from across the table. “Don’t start on Billy.”
    â€œI’m not starting nothing,” Wanda spit back, ignoring the rest of us. “Just saying. He’s been through some terrible times. That’s why I came to tell you to get back to that house of yours. You could help your brother back on his feet, you know. Think about somebody besides yerself. That woman’s already stealing things belonging to you. You’re the wife. She’s only his sister. Got no claim and here you are running off like this. For once in yer life you gotta stand up and be a woman. You gotta fight. I been fighting all my life and what do I have? Nothing. Nothing to show for it.”
    So that’s why the mother and brother were here. They smelled money and the possibility of Jeannie coming into a fortune. Sometimes I just wanted to pretend people like this mother didn’t really exist. Or they existed only in fairy tales where the wicked stepmother always got it in the end, like being cooked in an oven, or melted, or run through with a brave warrior’s lance.
    â€œHow’d you find Jeannie?” I stepped in the middle of the mother-daughter battle.
    â€œNone of yer business,” Wanda spit back at me.
    â€œA man at the Barking Coyote told them.” Jeannie turned to me. “He saw you bring me here yesterday. Just driving