A Mother's Promise

by K. D. Alden

  “Y-yes, sir?”

  “Have a lovely afternoon. I’ll be in touch.”

  Fifteen

  Thrice in one week, my dear fellow!” Doc Price exclaimed, as Wilfred Block darkened his office door again. “How marvelous.” Inwardly he groaned. His expensive bottle of Scotch was now as good as gone.

  And get an eyeful of the man’s Joe Brooks attire. Doc coveted this suit even more than the other. It was made of a charcoal-gray superfine, the tailoring so sublime that Price wanted to weep. It had been cut by a maestro and stitched by an artist. Then there was the gold watch he ostentatiously examined before jauntily tucking it away again in its pocket.

  “You won’t believe it when I tell you why I’m here,” Block said. “Spot of giggle water, old sport? Lawyering is thirsty work.”

  “Of course, of course.” Doc leaned forward and opened his bottom desk drawer. He retrieved the precious Glenfarclas and caressed the bottle mournfully before setting it down and fetching two crystal tumblers. He poured a grudging inch into both and nudged one toward his unwelcome guest.

  Block nodded his thanks, took a swallow and then said expansively, “Now, don’t get in a lather, but I’m here on behalf of my client.”

  The suggestion that he might be anything other than calm and even-tempered annoyed Dr. Price. “Your client?”

  “Yes, old man, a client.” Block chuckled. “Ruth Ann Riley.”

  Doc paused with his glass midway to his mouth and set it down again. “How did you manage this so soon?”

  “I am creative, wily and excellent at my job. Thus, I represent her, as of ten minutes ago.”

  Dr. Price opened and then closed his mouth. “Quick work, Block. You do realize, however, that she doesn’t have a wooden nickel to pay for your services.”

  “She must have been the recipient of a windfall,” Block said airily, “which allowed her to put down a basic retainer fee. Besides which, I’m offering her quite a good rate. I’m an extraordinarily kind man. Heart of gold.” His eyes glinted.

  Like your watch. But Doc didn’t say it aloud. He picked up his Scotch again and tossed some back, eyeing the lawyer askance over the crystal rim of the glass.

  “I understand that you have told Ruth Ann of the proposed surgery?”

  “You are correct,” Doc said evenly. “I informed you of that at the board meeting.”

  “The young lady has made clear to me that she does not wish the operation to be performed. I will request, therefore, a stay of…execution…as we bring suit.” With a flourish, Block tossed back the rest of his Scotch.

  “The young lady,” Price said, playing the game, “is a ward of the state of Virginia, and in the absence of a parent, the state decides what is best for her. I am the state’s representative here at the Virginia Colony for the Epileptic and Feebleminded. Need I emphasize that last word?”

  “Ah. But I understand that there is in fact a parent? And that she, too, resides on the premises.”

  “Sheila Riley? Oh, yes, a charming individual,” Doc said drily. “Morally bankrupt, used to prostitute herself. And equally feebleminded—in fact, more so, since she struggles with mental illness. Shall I present you to her?”

  “Please. I’d like to make her acquaintance.”

  “Be very careful what you wish for.”

  “I’m careful in all my dealings, Dr. Price. That’s why I’m here. Listen to what I’m saying and read between the lines.” Block nudged his empty glass across the desk, eyeing it significantly.

  Doc cursed him roundly but silently as he again poured an inch of liquor into his glass. “Which lines?”

  “Bear with me, dear fellow. To have a guardian other than yourself appointed for Ruth Ann, I must meet the mother myself and determine that, in my legal opinion, she is an unfit parent. Are you following me, Dr. Price?” A smile played on the lips of the attorney.

  Doc poured himself another inch of Scotch. “I am,” he said.

  “Are there any other progeny of Sheila Riley’s who can be located?”

  “Yes. Though one is deceased, there are two other children, a boy and a younger girl, I believe.”

  “Are they similarly afflicted by Mrs. Riley’s polluted protoplasm?”

  “We would have to find them first, then examine them.”

  “We will do so. My friend, there is now an end in sight to the legal troubles you’ve encountered recently, while attempting to do your duty to society and stop these—these people (I use the term loosely) from breeding. From further contaminating the gene pool of this great country, these United States of America. We can now move forward with the board’s plan to change the law.”

  “Excellent,” Doc said. “But don’t you have a conflict of interest, here, Block? If Ruth Ann Riley is now your client?”

  “Yes. Therefore, as of this moment, you have just fired me from your other case. I’ll recommend someone to take my place.”

  “What would the bar association say about this?”

  “The bar won’t care a whit. Do you think a girl like Ruth Ann merits their attention? And she wouldn’t even grasp the concept of conflict of interest. Besides, let’s define her ‘interest,’ per se. How is it possibly in her interest to have more illegitimate children that she has no means to support? How is it in the state’s or the country’s interest to support them for her, and for those offspring to continue to breed even more genetically flawed and disastrous generations to come?”

  “I can’t say that it is. My ongoing research proves it.”

  “Exactly. By subsidizing entire ‘colonies’ of these flawed and degenerate beings, we foster an underclass of people who drag the rest of us down—economically, intellectually, morally, socially. So let us have no more talk of conflict of interest. We have a very good case for not breeding more miserable inmates.”

  Block set down his tumbler and leaned forward, his eyes bright. “You, my good fellow, will have a veritable pulpit for proclaiming the results of your research. It will be in all the newspapers! It may even get national coverage, since we are so close to Washington.”

  Doc swirled the Scotch in his tumbler. He would make a name for himself, even trapped in this rural backwater. He’d put into practice decades of unassailable and progressive scientific theory.

  Block continued. “Between Stringer and me…this is a strategy that will vindicate you, Doctor, and free you to do your very important work. And it will bring me into the legal spotlight, give me a platform from which to run for the Virginia state senate. Following that, the U.S. Senate. I will position myself as a champion of the common man—or woman, as the case may be. A defender of constitutional rights.”

  “Be still my heart,” Doc Price murmured, though that greasy thing was back to sliding around in his gut. He ignored it, palmed the Glenfarclas and unscrewed the cap. “Another drink, old boy?”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” answered Block. He pushed his glass toward Doc, who poured long and generously. “Cheers, my man. To strategy!”

  Doc nodded. “To Wilfred Block, Esquire: white knight. And to the science of good breeding.”

  Sixteen

  Ruth Ann had floated, bemused, out of the parlor and somehow down the steps and onto the lawn without feeling her own feet or legs. She had a lawyer! A handsome big timer, who was going to protect her from Doc Price and his scalpel.

  And he’d kissed her hand. Like he was some kind of prince.

  She pulled it from behind her back and stared down at it, the red, raw, mottled, mangled and blistered hand that had been so honored. It was hideous, because of Mother Jenkins and also from months of hard labor: endless loads of laundry, mountains of ironing, miles of floor-scrubbing and acres of potato-peeling and pea-shelling.

  Her hands hadn’t always looked this way. But the burns from boiling water and hot irons, the irritation from bleach and lye and the nicks and cuts from paring knives had all taken their toll.

  What must Mr. Block have thought? How could he have brushed so
mething so unsightly with his lips?

  She wished she could go to a beauty salon, like those rich ladies in town with their fur coats and their own automobiles, and get a manicure. Or at the very least buy some lotion at the five and dime. What she wouldn’t give for some Thurston’s Hand Cream. Mrs. Dade had some near her dressing mirror, along with a fine antique hairbrush and comb set that had been her grandmother’s.

  Clarence caught up with Ruth Ann on her way back to the kitchens. “Hey, Ruthie. What did that swell want with you?”

  “Clarence! You’ll never believe it. He’s my attorney-at-law,” she said proudly. “Me! I have me a lawyer. And he’s going to stop Doc Price from cuttin’ me open. He’s going to file a petition—strange word, sounds like a cross between petticoat and competition. Anyways, it’s a paper that goes to the courthouse. And Mr. Block will talk to a judge for me and ask the judge not to let Doc Price do the operation, since I don’t want it.”

  “Hmmm” was all Clarence said.

  “Ain’t this a marvel!”

  “Yep.”

  What’s wrong with the boy? Why isn’t he excited for me? “I’ll bet Doc Price is going to be mighty annoyed.” The thought gave her satisfaction. The idea that she, all of a sudden, had the power to resist his God-like edicts—it almost made her giddy.

  Clarence tugged on his earlobe. “Well, I hate to tell you this, but it sure didn’t look like he was annoyed, Ruth Ann, when I saw him with Mr. Block just shy of an hour ago. Them two was flappin’ their gums, tippin’ back coffin varnish and gettin’ splifficated, if you must know.”

  “Coffin varnish?” Ruth Ann was mystified. “Whatever are you talkin’ about, Clarence?”

  He shot her a glance full of significance. “You know—panther sweat.”

  She goggled at him, uncomprehending.

  “Bootlegged whiskey, Ruth Ann.”

  “Oh!”

  “Yeah. Anyways, the Doc and your fancy-pants lawyer-fella was just jawin’ away, gettin’ along like a house on fire, an’ becomin’ right ossified. Esquire couldn’t hardly stagger ’round, in them glad rags o’ his, by the time I helped him into his freshly polished motorcar and sent him on his way.”

  “Clarence, you seem out of sorts.”

  “Do I, now?”

  “Yes, you do. Aren’t you happy for me?”

  “I’m-a tryin’ to be. But there’s somethin’ I cain’t put my finger on. Somethin’ that ain’t right.”

  She waved this away. “Applesauce! Did you know that Mr. Block had thought of downright everything? He even brought a hundred-dollar bill, so’s I could give it back to him to hire his services.”

  “He brought a what? A C-note?”

  “Yes! I ain’t never seen one before. You?”

  Clarence shook his head. Then he snorted. “Well, ain’t he an egg. Fella’s chargin’ that kind o’ kale, I’d like to see him workin’ for it and not chin-waggin’ with the doc what’s tryin’ to slice you open.”

  “Well, Clarence, he prob’ly’s got to ‘chin-wag’ with Doc, or how’s Doc gonna know that he now can’t do no such thing? He’s gonna write him a letter, when he’s but two hundred yards away on the same patch of land?”

  “All I’m sayin’, Ruthie, is that somethin’ don’t smell right to me.”

  Ruth Ann thought of Mr. Block’s cologne. It sure had smelled right to her. But she didn’t reply.

  “It’s one thing for Esquire to ankle on over to Doc’s office to have a word. It’s another thing altogether for them two to kick their feet up on the desk and polish off a bottle—whiles I polish away on Esquire’s hayburner, by the bye.”

  “Well.” Ruth Ann thought about it. “Maybe they started by havin’ words, but then wanted to make things right? So they shook hands and sealed the deal with a wee bit o’ firewater.”

  “Hokum.”

  “You callin’ me stupid, Clarence?”

  “No, Ruth Ann. But you just don’t know the ways of men—’specially college men who get handed a ticket to the good life and can’t spare a thought or a nickel for people like us, who wash their drawers, their dishes and their motorcars. People who only got one parent in life—or one hand.”

  The hostility in his voice shocked her. He’d always been easygoing, whistling, uncomplainin’ Clarence. A twinkle in his eye and sterling in his soul. But maybe she didn’t really know all that much about him.

  “But he is sparin’ a thought for me. And Mrs. Dade sent him to me, you know.”

  “Right. The lady what’s stolen your baby.”

  “She didn’t—” Ruth Ann struggled with her emotions. “Annabel’s better off with her than with me. What can I give Annabel?”

  Clarence lifted an eyebrow and screwed up his mouth, and her irritation with him grew. Why was he stomping on her hope? Trying to squelch her salvation? What right did he have? What real knowledge of the lawyer-man did he possess? All he had was some weird hunch.

  “Mr. Block is tryin’ to help. He even gave me the money to pay him. Seems to me that’s the way of a good man.”

  “Ruthie. He don’t know you from Adam or Eve. What reason does he have for doin’ this on your behalf?”

  “Why does he need one?”

  “He ain’t a pastor, Ruthie! He’s a lawyer. What if he asks you to earn back that money later?”

  She felt kicked in the stomach, breathless with outrage. “What are you suggestin’?”

  He just looked at her. “Do I really need to spell it out?”

  “How dare you, Clarence!”

  “Have you thought about it? What would you do?”

  “Bite your tongue. He won’t! He’s not that kind. He is a gentleman. He even kissed my hand!”

  “Is that right.” Clarence’s cinnamon freckles faded into a sea of brick red, and his normally calm, rainwater-gray eyes grew stormy. “Well. That’s just ducky.” His tone was scathing. “So what would you do?”

  “I am not ab-whorrent!”

  “Then where’d your baby come from?”

  “Oh!” She raised her hand as if to slap him, and then, shocked at herself, clamped it under her arm so that it couldn’t escape and do the deed by itself. “How can you ask me that, Clarence? How?”

  He averted his gaze, shamefaced.

  “You ain’t never asked me that before. Why now?”

  He stared at the ground, swallowed, shook his head.

  “Not that it’s any of your beeswax! But I didn’t have a choice. Do you hear me? I got my neck wrung like a chicken, my head slammed into a wall, my skirts drug up and my bloomers pulled down. I got laughed at, and I got forced—”

  Shock and naked pain had bloomed on his face. “Stop.”

  “You asked me, Clarence, and now you’re gonna hear it!” Hot tears streamed down her face, surprising her. She went to wipe them away with her sleeve.

  “No—I cain’t. Please.” To her own shock, he slipped his arms around her and pulled her to him, his dry cheek sliding along the moisture of hers. He was solid muscle; he smelled of freshly mown hay, of coffee, of wood shavings. Of simple emotions in a complicated boy.

  She shook in his embrace, not like a leaf but like a whole pile of them, not attached to any twig or branch or tree in the whole world. Just fragmented and forlorn and fallen.

  “I’m so sorry, Ruthie,” he said. “God, I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t know how to react to the simple affection. Immediately her mind jumped to how it would look to anyone who might glimpse them. “Clarence, someone will see. Let go of me.”

  He did. He stepped back, but only so far. He brushed her tears away, tenderly, with his own sleeves. To her astonishment, she saw some moisture in his eyes, too.

  He blinked it away, compressed his lips and said, “I’m-a kill the sonovabitch.”

  “Clarence!” She’d never heard him swear. “You’re not killing nobody. It ain’t worth goin’ to jail for, and at least Annabel came of it all…and…” She ran out of words.

  “Who
did it?” He stood there, ramming the stump of his left hand into the palm of his right, over and over again. It was downright alarming.

  “It don’t matter,” she said neutrally.

  “It does.” His eyes were like gunmetal. Hard. Cold.

  “Clarence, what is eating you? You are not yourself.”

  “What’s eating me?” He gave a short bark of laughter that wasn’t really laughter. Far from it. “I dunno, Ruth Ann. An’ I prob’ly couldn’t spell it, even if I could name it.”

  “Why do you despise Mr. Block?” She put her hands on her hips. Maybe he’d apologized, and she could feel that he cared about her, and that made her feel warm inside, but she still wanted to set him straight. “Is it just on account of he’s got nice clothes and a motorcar?”

  “You’re all wet, Ruth Ann.”

  “Says you! Ish kabibble. Maybe you need to take a look inside yourself: do you hate him ’cause you want those things, and he’s got ’em? That ain’t right.”

  Clarence glared at her. “Mayhap you like him ’cause you want those things, and he’s got ’em.”

  What a hateful thing to say! Her head filled with steam, like a kettle a-boil. Any moment it would whistle, and twin puffs of smoke would pour out her ears. “Well, I never! Now you’re callin’ me a gold digger, after you called me a whore? Nice, Clarence, real nice.”

  He stomped his foot. “I didn’t call you either of those things! An’ I don’t wanna fight with you. Maybe you’re right, and I ain’t bein’ fair to this cake-eater. Maybe I just wanna be the one to solve your problems, not him. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Ruthie.”

  Her mouth dropped open. What exactly was he saying?

  Clarence had gone from his former brick red to beet red. “You want to see Esquire as a hero? I can’t stop you. But I will tell you this: I seen his type before. I ain’t book smart, but I sure am people smart, and that fella—he may look spiffy, but you mark my words, he is a weasel and a windsucker.”

  “Aw, tell it to Sweeney, Clarence.” But there was no heat in her words.

  “We’re done, here.” He shoved his stump and his hand into his pockets, turned and walked away.