A Mother's Promise

by K. D. Alden

  She looked at all the leather-bound books with gold writing on their spines. She wondered what they were about. She wondered just how many pages were in each one; how many words were on each page; how many letters made up every word. So many gazillions of little tiny black marks, each with its own sound and meaning.

  Justice sneezed twice. Then it crouched down and began to cough and hack.

  “Are you aw right?” she asked the cat.

  It lashed its tail.

  “Fine. I won’t ask again.”

  Justice gasped and hacked some more. And then it hurled a big, nasty hairball right out onto the constable’s hearth. It shook its head, licked its chops, then turned around and stalked off, leaving the mess there for someone else to clean up.

  That was all Ruth Ann remembered about Justice.

  Twenty-One

  Ruth Ann returned to the present, to reality and to her mother’s loathing of her.

  Even as she stood there, seared by Sheila’s vicious gaze, she retreated emotionally to a safe distance. As an observer on this different and unreachable planet, Ruth Ann felt pity for her. She examined each harsh, unforgiving, bitter line in her mother’s waxy forehead, her drawn, bunched, spittle-flecked lips, the brackets that grief, hardship and betrayal had carved around them.

  Here, then, was the answer, the key to her misery. She’d pried open the door and shrunk back as the reason for her mother’s malevolence bludgeoned its way out.

  But the long-buried anxiety and devastation within Ruth Ann escaped with it, and at least the confusion bled away. The wound remained, but at least there was at last a reason for it.

  “I was a child,” she said quietly. “Younger than Bonnie. I thought that man was killing you. I ran to get help.”

  “You set my life on fire,” Sheila hissed. “Then you helped your ownself. Never a thought for me or for your sister—”

  “That’s not true! I didn’t understand what would happen—that they’d take you away, that they’d split us all up! I didn’t know how you were making money. I didn’t know exactly what that stuff was in the tub. I ain’t never heard tell, back then, of Prohibition or prostitution!”

  “What’s Prohibition?” Bonnie’s voice came from the hallway. “Why are you fighting?”

  Sheila’s face underwent a transformation before Ruth Ann’s very eyes. The wrinkles smoothed out, her lips plumped, and her eyes shone with love. It was unnerving…and it was strangely reassuring. There was goodness and light in her mother.

  “We’re not fighting, angel.” The acid faded from Sheila’s tone. “So you found the potty?”

  Bonnie nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Just down the hall, like you said.”

  “Good girl. You come in here again and give Momma a kiss.” She pointed to her cheek.

  Bonnie did as she was told, then settled comfortably into the armchair next to Sheila and laid her head on her mother’s shoulder.

  Ruth Ann stared at this scene of domestic bliss and swallowed the lump that began to build in her throat. She fought the urge to crawl into the chair, too—or even to sit at the foot of it, just to be part of it in some small way. But it was clear that wasn’t ever going to happen. Sheila would never allow it.

  She took herself out of the equation and dug deep for the love she felt for Bonnie, for the gratitude that, thanks to Mr. Block, she’d found her sister and mother at long last.

  And that Sheila had found Bonnie. Their mother was softening around the edges; the contours of her bitterness blurring into light as well as shadow. Ruth Ann could see vestiges of her prettiness coming alive as the long-buried love within her was rekindled.

  It was a downright miracle.

  The grandfather clock downstairs in the hall chimed four times, startling Ruth Ann. “We have to go,” she said. “I have to take Bonnie to meet Dr. Price. And then Mother Jenkins.” She barely restrained a shudder. Perish the thought.

  Sheila’s face fell, and she cast Ruth Ann a look of annoyance.

  “I’m sorry, Momma. But it won’t do to keep Doc Price waiting.”

  The lines around her mother’s mouth returned, along with the wrinkles in her forehead. “No. We can’t waste the fine doctor’s time. He’s got patients to mutilate, don’t he?”

  A rare moment of synchronized panic hit both Sheila and Ruth Ann. She could see the flash of it in her mother’s eyes, where it froze.

  “Bonnie, my little doll, will you run and tell Ruby it was real nice to meet her?” Sheila said, giving her another kiss.

  Bonnie nodded and obediently scrambled down from the armchair. “Where is she?”

  “She’ll be here, in one of the rooms. Maybe snipping old Mr. Daughtry’s whiskers in 219.”

  “Okay.”

  Once Bonnie was gone, Sheila clutched the armrests of her chair until her fingers went white. “Promise me, Ruth Ann. You promise me that you won’t ever let Bonnie see that butcher alone. You know what I’m talkin’ about. You seen my scar.”

  “Yeah. I seen it. And I won’t. Doc Price lays a finger on one hair o’ her head, I will make him sorry he ever been born.”

  Sheila relaxed her death grip on the chair arms and sat back, shrewdly evaluating Ruth Ann. “I believe you mean that.”

  “Never meant nothing more in my life.”

  “He gotten to you, yet? The doc?”

  Ruth Ann shook her head. “No, but he wants to. I told you. That’s why I have me that lawyer, remember? Mr. Block. The one got the hole in ’is suit, now, thanks to you. He’s the one who went off an’ found us Bonnie, even though you were right ’rageous awful to ’im.”

  “The Block-head found our Bonnie?” Sheila frowned. “There’s somethin’ not right about all this. And agin, how is you payin’ this fancy lawyer man? You goin’ off behind the barn with ’im? You gotta be.”

  “Momma! I told you, I’m not like that.”

  “Miss High and Mighty, ain’t you? Lemme tell you somethin’: any and every woman alive is ‘like that,’ if it comes down to feeding her kids or not. Yes, even you. A good God-fearin’ preacher’s wife is like that, if her husband is dead and her children is hungry and cryin’ and don’t got no place to go. If she got to blow the man what works at the bank—”

  “Momma! Stop it.”

  “—so’s she don’t lose the house, she gonna blow ’im! If she got to screw the dry-goods clerk for a pair of shoes for her boy, ’cause he cain’t go barefoot through snow three miles to school, then by gum, she gonna hike her skirts and bend it over right next the dang cash register!”

  Ruth Ann was horrified. “Momma—”

  “So don’t you give me none of your guff, your I’m not like that. You think you’re better than me? Huh? Well, you ain’t! What kind of brat calls the constable on her own ma, the woman tryin’ to keep food in her belly and clothes on her back and a roof over her dang head?!”

  “I didn’t call the constable on you. All’s I did was take a ride from Mr. Petrie into town. I didn’t know what a constable was, nor any better than to talk to him!”

  “What’s a constable?” asked Bonnie, popping back into the room. “Why are you yelling at each other?”

  “We wasn’t yelling, sweet girl,” Sheila told her. “We was just raising our voices.”

  “Oh.” Bonnie frowned.

  “And I don’t think I’m better than anybody,” Ruth Ann told her.

  “Okay.” Her little sister looked uncertainly from one of them to the other.

  “Are you ready to go meet Dr. Price?”

  Sheila met Ruth Ann’s eyes fiercely. Ruth Ann gave a single nod. On this, they were in 100 percent agreement. Another miracle.

  “I’m not sick,” Bonnie said. “But I guess so.”

  “Not at all, sweetheart.” Ruth Ann took her hand. “Doc Price is a nice man who wants to do a simple ‘wellness’ exam on you. Just take some notes on your age, height, weight and so on. Is that all right with you?”

  Bonnie shrugged. “I’d rather stay here with
Momma.”

  That makes one of us.

  “I’d rather you stay with me, too, darlin’,” Sheila said. “But we got to follow the rules ’round here.”

  “Who makes them?”

  “People like Doc Price and Mother Jenkins. So come along, now, Bonnie. You can come back to see Momma tomorrow.”

  “Please do, baby girl.” Sheila hugged her tightly yet again and pressed a kiss to Bonnie’s forehead. “I love you.”

  The shock of those words, again. Ruth Ann felt kicked in the gut. Sheila had never said them to her, not ever. Though mayhap she’d said them when she was a baby.

  “I love you, too.” Bonnie wriggled out of her embrace and skipped to the door where Ruth Ann waited. She took her hand again, looking up in puzzlement at her expression. “Don’t you love Momma, too? Doesn’t she love you?”

  A pregnant pause ensued. “Of course,” Ruth Ann and Sheila said in unison. “Of course.”

  Mother Jenkins hated Bonnie’s blond braids upon sight. Hands on her hips, she looked her up and then down again. “Turn around,” she ordered, and glared as a confused Bonnie did so. “You think you’re right precious, don’t you? A little Swiss Miss. With your big blue eyes and all that hair.”

  Ruth Ann stood appalled. How could Mother J be envious of an eleven-year-old?

  You are. Why not her? The thought was unwelcome and vile. She didn’t want to be anything like Mother Jenkins, not ever.

  Frightened of the old bat, Bonnie said nothing; just gripped Ruth Ann’s hand more tightly. Ruth Ann gave hers a squeeze.

  “It’s got to go,” Mother Jenkins declared. “That much hair will attract lice from miles around. Carlotta! Get the scissors at once.”

  Bonnie shrank into Ruth Ann’s skirts. “But…I don’t want them cut off.”

  “Did I give you permission to speak? Do you think I care about your opinion, you little slut? What hovel or tavern did Block scrape you out of? What cathouse? Bet they sell you as a virgin every night,” she spat.

  Bonnie shot her a bewildered look as Ruth Ann clapped her hands over her sister’s ears. “Mother Jenkins!”

  The woman had the grace to flush.

  “Mother J, please. She’s only eleven years old and innocent as an Easter chick.”

  “Spare me,” muttered the old bat. But she was abashed enough to look away and get busy with folding some kitchen towels.

  “Please, ma’am, don’t cut off all her hair. I’ll make sure it’s clean and we’ll keep it up off her neck and plaited tight. I promise.”

  Carlotta returned with the scissors, handed them to Mother J and cast a pitying glance at them as she left. Bonnie hid behind Ruth Ann.

  That irritated the witch. “Come out from behind your worthless sister,” Mother Jenkins demanded.

  Bonnie peeked under Ruth Ann’s arm.

  “Out, I said!”

  Trembling, she skittered in front of her sister, but pressed back against her. Ruth Ann set her hands protectively on Bonnie’s shoulders.

  “M-m-my momma likes my braids,” the little girl said. “She’ll be mad if you cut them off.”

  Mother Jenkins stared incredulously at her and then laughed. It wasn’t a nice sound. “I should worry about the likes of Sheila Riley?”

  Ruth Ann took a deep breath. “I would worry, if I was you, Mother J. You know how Momma gets, and Bonnie’s her baby. She’s likely to—”

  “Did I give you permission to speak?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then shut your silly piehole!”

  “Mother Jenkins, all’s I’m sayin’ is Sheila’s mean as a snake, tricky as a fox and vicious as a rabid coyote. You really wanna tangle with that?”

  Ruth Ann got backhanded for this bit of unsolicited advice.

  Bonnie squeaked, turned right around and ran—her offending braids flying out behind her like twin battle flags.

  “How dare you?” thundered Mother J. “And get back here, you little brat!”

  Ruth Ann pressed a hand to her cheek and willed Bonnie to keep running, though the consequences later didn’t bear thinking of.

  “Momma!” Bonnie shouted as she ran. “Momma!”

  Ruth Ann sighed. Now Mother J would know exactly where to track her down.

  Sure enough, the old battle-ax surged through the kitchen door in hot pursuit, huffing and puffing.

  Ruth Ann followed, dreading the scene about to unfold.

  Clarence appeared from around back, to see what the ruckus was about.

  Ruth Ann grabbed his good arm. “Clarence! Quick, run get Doc Price. This ain’t gonna go nowhere good…no tellin’ what my momma will do if Mother J drags Bonnie outta there to cut off her hair.”

  “Huh?”

  “Just run! Get Doc!”

  Clarence hoofed it down the hill toward Doc Price’s office.

  Ruth Ann took off after Mother J again. She could see Bonnie in the distance, braids still streaming behind her, her little white-stockinged legs pumping madly as she ran toward the Distressed unit.

  Mother Jenkins looked like a cross between a charging rhino and an armored tank.

  Ruth Ann didn’t care what she had to do, as long as she got between Bonnie and the ferocious house mother. House mother—she was more like a house crocodile.

  And how would Sheila react to this little party? To this threat to her newfound baby?

  Ruth Ann hoped Clarence would run real fast. They were all about to find out.

  Bonnie beat Mother Jenkins and Ruth Ann by at least a quarter mile. She pounded on the door until a mystified attendant in white opened it and let her in. From there she ran up the stairs and to room 213.

  By the time Ruth Ann galumphed up the last stair, right behind the monstrous gray-clad behind of Mother Jenkins, Sheila was stalking down the hallway in her bathrobe and slippers, arms akimbo. Aside from those few details, she was in a Mood. Lethal.

  Her venom, in the form of the most colorful and obscene language Ruth Ann had ever hoped to hear, spewed before her. It was a marvel.

  Sheila insulted Mother Jenkins’s parentage, her status as a human being, her face, her body, her IQ and her right to life. And that was just for starters.

  Mother J was a bastard whelped by a diseased bitch in heat. She had a face that belonged in her drawers, a body bigger than a continent, the intelligence of a maggot—and Sheila was gonna rip her limb from limb.

  Now that she wasn’t the target, Ruth Ann stood back to admire it all. Sheila was a downright poet of gutter-filth.

  Mother Jenkins stood there, mouth agape, trying to process the words Sheila hurled at her. She’d never heard anything like them before—that was clear. And she got redder and redder and huffier and puffier. She looked ready to explode.

  But it got even better.

  Wiry Sheila stalked forward until she was eyeball to massive bosom with Mother J. And she poked a bony finger right into her chest, spittle flying all over. “You touch one hair of my Bonnie’s head, you piece of shite, and I will make you sorry your momma ever got reamed by a chimney sweep an’ his broom! I will creep into your bedroom while you sleep and I will violate you seventeen different ways. Then I will slit your throat. Do you hear me?”

  Mother Jenkins goggled at her, clearly in shock at both her murderous tone and intent.

  “I said, DO YOU HEAR ME?!”

  She’d heard her. Because Mother Jenkins’s reaction was to thrust out her meaty, sausagelike fingers and throttle Momma.

  Bad idea.

  Ruth Ann didn’t like to think about it, but over the years, Sheila must have had to defend herself against various horrid men who wished to do things to her that she didn’t agree with. So Mother Jenkins? She was no match for Crazy Sheila.

  Her mother half hissed, half laughed. And then she did the thing Mother J least expected. She didn’t lurch backward. She didn’t try to pry the hands off her throat. Instead, she sprang upward and headbutted Mother Jenkins, smashing her nose.

  And when M
other J released her, rearing back and shrieking, Sheila hauled off and punched her, once in each monstrous breast. A right hook, bam! And a left one, bam!

  Mother J sagged back against the wall, clutching her nose and whimpering, arms braced protectively across her boobs.

  “Holy smokes!” said Clarence from behind Ruth Ann. He bent to brace himself on his knees, panting from the run to get there.

  “Wanna go agin?” Sheila taunted. “C’mon, Gertie Jenkins! Pull up your saggy bloomers and come git some more o’ this. You sad sack of mule shite!”

  “Oh, my stars,” Ruby murmured. She emerged unhurriedly from room 217.

  If Ruth Ann didn’t know better, she’d think Ruby’d been stallin’ afore she stepped in. Everybody hated Mother Jenkins. Even the kindest, most Christian souls at the Colony. Maybe Ruby had discovered another meaning to “turn the other cheek.” Maybe sometimes turning your cheek meant your eye got turned away with it and didn’t see the necessity of steppin’ in to interfere right away?

  Sheila hollered at Mother J, “You ever frighten my little Bonnie agin—”

  “WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?” thundered the voice of none other than Doc Price. He appeared directly behind Clarence. “I WILL NOT HAVE THIS IN MY ESTABLISHMENT!”

  “That…that termagant!” Shouted Mother Jenkins, pointing a now bloody sausage finger at Sheila. “She assaulted me! She must be tied up, locked up! Never to be allowed out of a cage again!”

  Ruby looked at Sheila.

  Sheila looked at Ruth Ann.

  Ruth Ann looked at Clarence.

  Clarence looked at Doc Price.

  “That’s surely not what I saw,” Clarence said to the doctor.

  “Nor I!” Ruth Ann jumped in.

  “Me, neither,” Ruby put in.

  “She choked my momma!” cried Bonnie, who finally crept out of Sheila’s room. Bonnie pointed at Mother Jenkins. “She put her hands ’round Momma’s neck and started squeezing. She lifted her clean off the floor!”

  “Why, you little liar!” bellowed Mother Jenkins.

  “I saw it myself,” Ruth Ann said.

  “Plain as daylight,” Ruby said.