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Sis always knew Peggy Jean was no good. That girl had been running around with boys and breaking hearts ever since high school. Sis had warned her brother when he first started seeing Peggy Jean, but the damn fool had been blinded by her good looks and sweet talk.
She could practically see dollar signs in Peggy Jean’s eyes when her brother got a high-paying job as a traveling salesman. Sure as shooting, Peggy Jean latched herself onto Sis’s brother and started talking about settling down and starting up a family. Sis had told him to grab his opportunity to travel the country and leave this backwoods town behind, but that boy was wrapped so tightly around Peggy Jean’s little finger that he couldn’t see straight.
It wasn’t long after that Peggy Jean found herself clutching a wilting bouquet of snapdragons and yellow roses, standing in an ugly dress next to Peggy Jean’s friends while her brother promised his life away to her.
The only good thing to come out of that wedding was being sat next to Andy Wolloe at the reception. Her brother and Andy had been friends since primary school, and Andy had always been mighty friendly to Sis whenever he came by. She was happy to see how nice he looked in a suit, and even happier to find out, later that night, how good he was with his hands.
They agreed to keep things between them private. Andy had explained that Sis’s brother wouldn’t approve of his friend sleeping with his little sister. It didn’t bother Sis all that much anyway. She had lots of fun working her stress out with Andy. Besides, sneaking out of the house to hook up with Andy only made everything that much more exciting.
To Sis's surprise, Peggy Jean managed to act like a loving, loyal newlywed for a couple of months. She had almost started to believe that Peggy Jean had turned over a new leaf. But barely six months into their marriage, Peggy Jean started gallivanting around with her old high school boyfriend.
It was blatantly obvious to anyone with eyes that something was going on between Peggy Jean and Seth Amos. She was openly flirting with him in public, always standing too close and finding excuses to touch him, and she never seemed to be home when her husband was out of town. Sis’s brother told her that she was seeing signs that weren’t there, but Sis saw a lot of things her brother didn't.
“Can you believe the nerve of that woman?” Sis complained to Andy one Saturday night. “She’s practically flaunting her affair with Seth in front of the whole town. Someone’s gotta put a stop to it!”
“Now, Sis,” Andy cautioned her. “What Peggy Jean gets up to when your brother’s not around is her business.”
“It’s my brother’s business too,” Sis argued. “And if he’s too blind to see it and too lovesick to believe it, then somebody’s got to stick up for him.”
“Let it go,” Andy warned.
But Sis couldn’t let go of it, no matter what anybody said. Her brother was a kind, trusting man, and he deserved better than to be taken for a fool by his own wife. Peggy Jean was humiliating her brother in front of everyone they knew. Just because he didn’t know about it yet didn’t make it any less true.
The diner where Sis worked was always a great source of gossip. Sis kept one eye peeled and one ear open while she worked for news about Peggy Jean stepping out with other men. One of these days she’d find damning enough proof to get through her brother’s thick head.
Her ears perked up during lunch shift one Saturday, when her brother had been out of town for two weeks. “You’ll never believe who I saw Peggy Jean with at Webb’s last night,” Suzanne Baker eagerly related as Sis filled her coffee cup. “Oh!” Suzanne glanced up at Sis and innocently held a hand to her heart. “I’m sorry, Sis, I forgot that Peggy Jean is your sister-in-law,” she apologized, as if she hadn’t been announcing the news loud enough for the whole diner to hear only moments earlier.
Sis snorted. “I’m not the one who married her. I know that woman’s a snake in the grass as well as you do. Now go on.” She scooted into the seat across the booth from Suzanne. “Tell me all about it. Was it Seth Amos again?”
“No.” Suzanne grinned broadly, obviously glad to have news Sis hadn’t heard yet. “It was Andy Wolloe.”
Sis started. “That’s… no. That can’t be. Andy’s old friends with my brother.”
Suzanne smirked. “So’s Seth Amos, but that never stopped him either.”
Sis shook her head. That couldn’t be right. It couldn’t. “Maybe he was just helping her?” she suggested.
“With what? Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?” Suzanne cackled. “Believe me, there’s no innocent explanation for what they were up to. Their hands were all over each other all night. I saw them stumble out of the bar together myself, and Caroline Davis told me this morning that she saw Peggy Jean come out of Andy Wolloe’s house this morning in the same clothes she was wearing last night.” She raised one eyebrow triumphantly.
The rest of Sis’s shift went by in a blur. She changed out of her uniform when she got home and headed over to Andy’s house to give him a piece of her mind. She grabbed her personal shotgun from where it leaned against the wall on a whim before heading out the door.
His front door was locked, so Sis jimmied the lock and let herself in. Inside, she grabbed a chair from his kitchen table and dragged it out to the hall, where she’d have a clear view of Andy as soon as he walked in the door. She sat down and made herself comfortable with the shotgun in her lap.
She’d only meant to scare Andy a little and put some proper fear of God in his heart. The shotgun would have stayed in her lap if Andy had been the only person to walk through the door that night.
Sis straightened up when she heard the doorknob turn. Andy came home, but he wasn’t alone. He didn’t notice Sis, either, not at first. He was too busy swapping spit with Peggy Jean.
“So that’s how it is, is it?” Sis asked while gripping the gun in her lap.
Andy spun away from Peggy Jean to face Sis. His eyes widened at the sight of the shotgun. “Sis! It’s not… we’re… we never said you and I were exclusive.”
Sis narrowed her eyes back at him. “You’re right, we didn’t,” she acknowledged. “More’s the fool me for thinking we were.” She rose from the chair, shotgun in hand. “But out of anyone, anyone at all for you to carry on with behind my back, you chose my brother’s cheating wife?”
Peggy Jean crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one hip. “We’re all adults, Sis. You don’t get to make our choices for us.”
Sis swung the gun to point it at Peggy Jean. “Oh, I am well aware,” she declared. “You haven’t made a choice I agreed with in your life.”
“Girls, let’s keep our cools, why don’t we?” Andy offered anxiously.
“Don’t call me a girl,” Sis snapped.
“I didn’t ask for your advice,” Peggy Jean chimed in before turning back to Sis. “And you’re just sore because you have to share your brother’s earnings with me.”
“I’m ‘sore’ because you’re taking advantage of my brother’s trusting nature and generosity,” Sis spat back. “He could have gone places, but now you’ve trapped him in this podunk town with an unloving wife, no doubt to eventually raise a passel of kids who aren’t his own.”
Peggy Jean shook her head. “Going places? Your brother? You and I both know he’s never been further than Candletop.”
“He could have gone to Atlanta!” Sis shouted. “He could have been a big shot!”
Peggy Jean laughed bitterly. “He would never have gotten anywhere close, with or without me. Your brother’s never been nothing but a damn loser.”
“Don’t talk about my brother that way!” Sis took off the safety and aimed her gun at Peggy Jean.
“Sis, no!” Andy ran in her way, but it was far too late. He crumpled to the floor in a bloody heap in the aftermath of the gunshot.
Peggy Jean ran to Andy’s body. “What have you done, you maniac?” she cried.
But Sis’s blood ran ice-cold in her veins. “Go to hell, Peggy Jean.” She methodically reloaded her gun, took her aim, and sent her straight there.
Afterwards, she stole a shovel from Andy’s tool shed and carried Peggy Jean’s body as far into the woods that she could reach. It was fortunate that Peggy Jean was a petite little thing. She weighed less than a wild hog and was easy enough to sling over one shoulder. Sis buried her in a dreary spot deep in the woods, where her body would never be found.
She’d meant to do the same with Andy when she got back. She never meant to drag her brother into this mess. She hadn’t even known he was back in town.
Unfortunately, it took her half the night to find a suitable last resting place for Peggy Jean. By the time she returned, it was all over. That crooked judge had already convicted and hanged her brother in one night on nothing but circumstantial evidence.
Sis told herself that if she had been in town that night, things would have been different. She could have saved her brother if she’d been there. But nobody else in that backwoods town had spoken up for him while she was gone. None of them cared one whit about him. They were perfectly happy to turn a blind eye to Peggy Jean’s cheating tendencies, but wouldn’t lift a finger to save an innocent man’s life.
She packed her bag that night and hopped on the first bus out of town the next morning. She wouldn’t spend another day in that rotten town. Someone in her family had to make it out. Besides, she had a story to tell, and she'd make sure it got heard this time.