"I saw fire, fire and brimstone, comin' down, on my head"
1.
Bertha's whole life changed the day that boy looked at her. She felt his eyes from across the room— a hot, rough, hazel-eyed gaze that took in her cheekbones, her lips, the tendrils of hair that escaped her bonnet— but she didn't know how she felt about that look, coming as it did from Jack Bondurant.
But she was on strings that night. Confused, she played on. That evening was one of her first socials out as a young lady. She was bound to enjoy herself, and that look that crossed the room, from a boy in one of the most notorious families in Franklin County, had nothing to do with it.
But in the next few weeks, she found she couldn't ignore Jack Bondurant anymore. That day in the car, she was drinking a coke, but when he left— he and his snakebit smile— she found it hard to steady her hands again, her cheeks flushed. Paw warned her that boys were like snakes— they might look good, lying there in the grass on a hot summer day, but they were trouble, and she knew this one would be, perhaps more than most.
The day he gave her that dress, she knew she had to marry him. It just wasn't the kind of present a boy from Franklin County bought a girl he was courting. It was fit for a wife. For a moment when she pulled the ribbon and the tie fell apart in her hands, she thought there'd be a wedding dress in the bottom of that box.
No, there wasn't, just a day dress from the city, but that same hot, rough gaze studied her in the rearview mirror as she pulled on her new dress, the sunlight and fresh air tickling her naked breasts and back.
2.
That was the day they killed Cricket. Bertha still couldn't believe that day happened, that a police man grabbed her by the shoulder and got her out of the way before they did what they did.
Sometimes at night, she wished she'd stayed. Maybe in front of a young lady, they wouldn't have killed that boy.
It tore her up inside, to see Jack at Cricket's grave, watching the casket as they lowered him into the earth. His brothers had left by then, with a last look at the congregation and precious few words to say. In that moment, Bertha loved Jack. For watching. For staying.
"That boy'll go after 'em," said her sister Jane, who was standing next to her, with a sigh and a shake of her head. Her sister looked up at Bertha beneath blond eyelashes. "And you'll go after 'im."
"Hush, you," Bertha said, watching the boy's retreat. Jack wore a fine suit, he did, and even after everything that happened, she still wanted him. Her father's long, shabby arm barred the way before she could take even a step closer.
3.
She didn't think of Jack again—or of anything, really, what was there to think of after Cricket died? That is, until the Bondurants shot that bastard Rakes. Then the town went back to normal for the first time in a long time. Well, not normal- they were missing too many faces at the tavern for things to be "normal" ever again. And all of Franklin County held its breath while Forrest Bondurant staged another miraculous comeback in the hospital. When his brother was finally well, Jack stopped by Bertha's house with a dozen yellow daffodils and a smile.
When Bertha didn't answer the door— since that day, she'd been forbidden to— Jack hollered for Bertha's Paw, who answered the door with a rifle.
"I want to marry your daughter," Jack said, his voice ringing loud and clear into the house. The two of them, Paw and Jack, sat on the front porch, while Bertha and Jane watched from inside the kitchen window. Jack looked cool under fire, his hat dangling from his right hand, and leaning forward on his left knee with the other hand, but Bertha saw he was both easy and nervous, like a salesman trying to close a deal.
Bertha didn't hear her father's words, but she didn't need to.
No.
Trapped inside the house, she listened to the roar of Jack's car on gravel as she stood behind the kitchen window and cried.
4.
The next week, Jack Bondurant came to church for the second time in his life. Bertha's father almost pitched a fit in the middle of the service to get him thrown out.
"Them Bondurants are idols in this godless town," her father said, as angry as she'd ever seen him. "But they cain't fool the Lord." His voice peaked at the word, "Lord." But the rector was having none of that today. Instead he forced Bertha's father back into his seat.
Then, at the end of the service, in front of the whole church, Bertha left her father's house to go live with her fiancé. She wouldn't be surprised if the church people still talked about Jack and Bertha, and about Alan Minnix who wouldn't let his daughter go. Even the most Christian old maids among them had nothing against Jack taking Bertha for a sweetheart— might have warmed their withered hearts, some of them.
She'd lived with the Bondurants ever since.