A Mother's Promise

by K. D. Alden

  His breath tickled her ear and sent a shiver over her skin, raising goosebumps. Making her nervous as all get-out. “I’m-a need your help real late one night, Ruth Ann, as a lookout.”

  “At night? Someone might hear me sneak out.”

  “You done it before, remember? An’ nobody heard.”

  “But it was awful when we got caught, Clarence. Just plain awful.”

  “Ain’t no Mother Jenkins here now, Ruthie.”

  “No, but if they catch us up at the main buildin’ in the files, they might call the police!”

  “Shhhh. We ain’t gonna get caught, Ruth Ann.”

  “But—”

  “You need my help, and I need yours. That’s the simple truth. So just trust me. It’s gonna be aw right.”

  She wanted to believe him. But would it be? And was it wise for her to help break into the Colony’s files when she had so much at stake with the court case looming?

  Twenty-Six

  It was three nights later that Ruth Ann crept out of her bed at two a.m. to meet Clarence up at the main building. It wasn’t wise of her at all, but she was determined to bring back the color to Glory’s cheeks and the hope to her eyes. The innocence was long gone; it would never waft around Glory again. That still made Ruth Ann angry, but it was one thing—like virginity—that nobody could ever steal back.

  Bonnie slept peacefully in the bunk above hers with Calico Bear clutched to her heart under the covers. Ruth Ann checked on her and paused to cover up one of her feet again; she’d kicked off the blanket. Then she stood in her chemise in the dark, listening and shivering in the night air.

  Around her there came the sounds of deep even breathing from the other bunks, an occasional whimper from a nightmare, a gentle snore. And…what was that? Soft weeping. She was pretty sure it wasn’t possible for a body to cry in her sleep, so that meant someone in the room was awake. Which meant Ruth Ann couldn’t leave.

  The sobbing seemed to be coming from the far left corner, where a new girl had been placed in a lower bunk. Should Ruth Ann go and see if she could comfort her? Not that she was good with that sort of thing…Or should she crawl back into her bunk and wait out the grief?

  After a brief debate with herself, Ruth Ann decided that it was unkind to ignore her. That if she were in the same situation, she’d want someone to comfort her, uncomfortable as that might be—sympathy from a stranger.

  So she felt her way through the forest of bunks until she got to the right one. It was definitely the new girl. “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

  Sniff. “I hate it here,” the other girl whispered back.

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  “Never.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jenny. Yours?”

  “Ruth Ann.” Great, now she could be identified by a witness if anything went wrong up at the main house. “Jenny, can I sit down?”

  “I guess so.”

  Ruth Ann did. “It’s gonna be okay, but it’ll take a while. The girls here aren’t bad. A little gossipy, maybe. A couple mean ones. But you’re lucky that you didn’t come while Mother Jenkins was here…”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The old house mother. She was a wicked witch with bats in her behind.”

  Jenny giggled. “But she’s not here anymore?”

  “No…” Ruth Ann told her stories about Mother J and made her laugh about “boiled-shoe” stew and the day the old woman came back from the outhouse with a corner of her skirt tucked into her bloomers, and how nobody told her; they’d just let her go about her business like that. That they all cheered when she left…until Jenny’s breathing slowed again and became deep and even.

  Then, as the clock struck three a.m., Ruth Ann crept back to her bunk and dressed hurriedly in the dark, hoping she didn’t have a similar wardrobe malfunction to Mother J’s while doing so. She listened carefully again, and then, shoes in hand, made for the door. Before she could ease it open, Bonnie climbed down from her bunk with Calico Bear in tow. “Where are you goin’, Ruthie?”

  Applesauce! This was not working out at all as they’d planned. Not even a little bit.

  “Just to meet a friend, Bonnie.”

  “Can I come?”

  “No, sweetie. Go back to bed, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “But we’re not s’posed to leave this room at night. You’re breaking the rules.”

  Ruth Ann sighed inwardly. “You’re right, darlin’. I am. But sometimes—” She broke off, because she couldn’t in good conscience teach a nine-year-old girl that it was okay to wander around anywhere in the dark by herself. “You know what, Bon? You’re right. Let’s both of us go back to sleep.”

  She helped her little sister back to her bunk, and then crawled into her own, praying that Clarence would understand when she saw him later. It took about forty minutes for Bonnie to fall back asleep. As quickly as she could, Ruth Ann crept to the door with her shoes yet again. Nobody’d bothered to lock it since Mother Jenkins’s inglorious departure, so she eased it open and shimmied out into the night.

  The moon flirted with some night clouds in an inky sky; the stars winked down at her as if to dare her onward toward the dangerous errand up at the main building. A light breeze stirred the branches of the cherry and dogwood trees, and chilly dew had gathered in the grass to chill her naked feet.

  Ruth Ann sprinted for a ways without her shoes on, then paused behind a hedge to slip them on and lace them. So far, so good. Not even an owl had hooted.

  She slipped past the boxwood hedge in the shape of a cross, then the pretty little wishing well that was as big a lie as the lawn—no resident of the Colony ever bothered to wish on it—and finally the gazebo that perched near the curving drive that led up to the administrative building.

  Clarence had told her to meet him in back, so she skirted the edge and snuck around. There was no sign of him. She peered into the indigo darkness, wishing she could part it with her hands like a curtain. There were no streetlamps here, nothing to light the way.

  Ruth Ann felt her way along the ledges of the windows. His plan had been to leave one unlatched during the day so that they could enter through it. She counted down…one, two, three, four and then reached the back door. Then one, two, three—the third was open a slight crack. Clarence must have gotten tired of waiting for her and was already inside.

  Ruth Ann’s hands shook as she pushed open the window. She was breaking and entering like a thief. They were thieves, if she thought about it. They were there to steal information that didn’t belong to them. What she was doing was almost certain to be de-botched and de-generous.

  Then she waved away the thought. The information might not belong to her and Clarence, but it most certainly did belong to poor Glory. It wasn’t fair for her to wonder every night of her life what had happened to her baby. It wasn’t right.

  And Ruth Ann was now an old pro. She’d gone through the window at the Dades’ house, after all. She could go through this window, too. So she did, though the sill was higher and made of brick. It took some very undignified scrambling and waving of body parts in the air that ought not to be waved in the air.

  She landed in a heap on the floor. “Clarence?” she whispered.

  There was no answer.

  He’d said that he’d located the files in an office on the second floor. So Ruth Ann kept fumbling around in the dark like an earthworm. She felt her way past the settee with the feather pillows that felt like leaning back into butter. She banged her knee on the console table behind it. “Ow, dangnabbit!”

  She made her way into the grand foyer and crouched to avoid being illuminated by the gas lanterns that hung on either side of the big, black-painted front door—they shone light through twin glass panels on either side.

  Then Ruth Ann sprinted up the stairs. “Pssst, Clarence?”

  “Over here” came an answering whisper. “What took you so long?”

  She followed the sound of his v
oice down a pitch-black hallway.

  “In here,” he prompted her.

  And at last, there he was, on his knees beside a four-drawer file cabinet, his face ghoulish in the light of an oil lamp. He looked as frustrated as she’d ever seen Clarence look.

  “I done found the files a half hour ago. Got tired of waitin’ for you. What happened?”

  Ruth Ann filled him in. “Seems like you didn’ need my help at all.”

  “Yeah, Ruth Ann, I do.” His tone was surly.

  She was puzzled. “Whatever for?”

  He didn’t answer. Just handed her a file with a tab that said, “Southwick, G.”

  She sank down next to him, and there it was again: his scent of hay, sunshine and Clarence. She breathed it in, then took in a second lungful, hoping he didn’t notice. He sat silent next to her.

  “You gonna open it?”

  “Yes. Why do you sound mad?”

  “I ain’t mad.”

  “You sure seem like you are—”

  “Holy Moses, Ruth Ann, just open the dang file and let’s find out where Glory’s baby is. For Pete’s sake…”

  She did what he asked, and he held the lantern up so she could see better. Even mad, he was thoughtful.

  SOUTHWICK, GLORY ANN, read the sheet on top.

  AGE: 15 BIRTH DATE: April 6, 1910

  REASON FOR ADMITTANCE:

  Removed from family home; physical abuse.

  MOTHER: Shaughnessy, Mary Jane DECEASED

  FATHER: Southwick, Peter John WHEREABOUTS: Unknown

  SIBLINGS: Brother, James. Age: 18 WHEREABOUTS: Unknown

  Brother, Paul. Age: 20 WHEREABOUTS: Unknown

  PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:

  Female. Weight: 118 lbs Height: 5’ 3”

  Anglo Saxon. Hair: Blond Eyes: Brown

  MENTAL EVALUATION:

  Moron, Low Grade

  Ruth Ann stopped and quivered with outrage. Glory sure don’t seem like a low-grade moron to me.

  Reading comprehension: Grade Level One

  Mathematics skills: Grade Level One, basic arithmetic

  Able to perform basic household duties

  PHYSICAL EVALUATION:

  In general good health.

  Scar above left ear upon admittance; bruises on upper arms; facial lacerations.

  Gave birth to healthy female, 7 lbs. 3 oz., on September 3, 1924.

  NAME OF CHILD: Lily Southwick.

  Salpingectomy performed by Dr. E. Price on October 13, 1924 due to infection.

  Ruth Ann gasped. “She didn’t have no infection. None at all!”

  “What are you talking about?” Clarence asked.

  “Says here that Doc did a, a, salpin-whatever—his evil surgery—on Glory on account of she had some infection in there. She didn’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “On account of she never said nothin’ about it.”

  “Well, those things are kinda private, after all, Ruth Ann.”

  “Well…” Maybe he was right. “But she hadn’t even seen Doc Price at all since she had the baby.”

  “So maybe he wanted to check her, and then he found the infection. He’s a doctor. He ain’t gonna be doin’ surgeries that people don’t need, is he?”

  “He sure as shootin’ wants to do one on me that I don’t need.”

  “But…there’s a reason. He says you shouldn’t have more babies.”

  “On account of how the Rileys are de-botched, de-generous and whatnot. Fine, if he says so. But he never said that ’bout Glory’s family. Not so’s she heard, anyways.”

  “Well…keep readin’.”

  Ruth Ann kept scanning the pages in the file until she got to the excitin’ part:

  CHILD PLACED INTO FOSTER CARE on September 10, 1924 with Carl and Elizabeth Fawley at 37 Willow Bend Road, Richmond, Virginia.

  “Got it!”

  “What’s it say?” Clarence asked eagerly.

  She turned the paper toward him, so he could read it for himself.

  He waved it away. “Yeah—read it aloud, so’s I can hear you say it.”

  And suddenly she knew. “Clarence?”

  He hunched his shoulders.

  “You can’t read, can you?”

  “I can read just fine.” He sounded mad all over again.

  And she got mad, too. He was lyin’ to her, and she knew it. “Then you read it aloud.”

  He refused to meet her gaze. He folded his arms across his chest and said nothing.

  “Clarence, you don’t have to be embarrassed that you cain’t read. It ain’t a crime.”

  “I don’t wanna talk about it,” he said flatly.

  “They didn’t send you to school, here at the Colony? On account of…” She gestured toward his stump.

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it!” he blazed.

  “I’m sorry. We won’t, then.” Clarence’s face, lit by the lamp, had settled into hard angles that she’d never seen before. A hostile pulse beat under his jaw. His lips were compressed into a straight, bitter line.

  “So Glory’s baby,” she switched the subject, “is with a family called Fawley. They live in Richmond, on Willow Bend Road.”

  “That ain’t exactly close by,” Clarence said. “It’d take hours to drive there from here. A full twenty-four-hour day to walk it.”

  “At least we know where she is now. And we can tell Glory.”

  “Yeah.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, and she inhaled his scent again. She was tempted to put her hand on his arm, or her arm around his shoulders, just to let him know she didn’t think less of him for not bein’ able to read.

  But she was afraid to touch him because of what the physical contact had done to her the other day. She didn’t want to be Sheila. So she tried to comfort him with words.

  “Clarence, it’s okay. It’s no shame that…you know, that you cain’t—”

  “It is a shame. They wouldn’t send me to school on account of this.” He pointed to the stump. “Why should a cripple like me get any book learnin’? I was never gonna amount to nothin’ anyway.”

  Oh, Clarence…

  She could feel his raw pain, and she couldn’t stand it. “Fine. You’re right. It is a shame—”

  He reared back as if she’d slapped him.

  “—a shame on them. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with you! And ain’t nobody on this earth who’s born perfect, does perfect or dies perfect. You’re smart as they come, Clarence. And kind. And generous. And handsome. You want to know what I think? I think it was your father who was feebleminded, for givin’ a treasure of a boy like you away.”

  He sat there, just starin’ at her as if she’d hit him in the head with a brick. It was hard to tell, in the dim light of the oil lamp, but she could have sworn she saw tears gather in his eyes—quickly blinked away. Then he took her hand in his good one.

  “I think you’re the most beautiful girl I ever seen, Ruth Ann Riley.”

  She could feel a blush climbing her cheeks. “Banana oil. I ain’t much to look at, everybody knows that.”

  “You’re beautiful,” he said again, squeezing her hand.

  The warmth and strength of his touch seeped into hers, and it felt so good that it was impossible for her to pull away. “You need you some spectacles, Clarence.”

  “No, I do not need me any spectacles. You got skin like fresh milk, and lips like raspberries, and—”

  “Raspberries has little hairs all over ’em, Clarence. You sayin’ I have hairy lips?”

  “No! Would you listen to—”

  “And I have an upturned nose like a pig’s—”

  “—what I’m tryin’ to—”

  “—and eyes like—”

  “—say?”

  “—raisins, just like my—”

  Clarence yanked her forward and stopped her words with his own mouth. Firm and yet gentle on hers. Insistent and yet respectful, somehow.

  Her lips parted under his and she yielded to the kiss
, electricity racing through her nervous system and raising a warning that she chose, for the moment, to ignore. How could anything feel so good as to meld into this man, feel his heartbeat thudding under her left palm as she slid it, in wonder, over his chest?

  He let go of her right hand and cupped her cheek with his, stroked her ear, sent shivers throughout her entire body.

  It felt so good that it brought tears to her eyes. To be touched like this…she’d never known such magic. Or such yearning for it never to stop. Such a desire for more.

  He clasped the back of her neck and deepened his kiss, tenderly exploring her mouth.

  And the unmentionable things began to happen in her body again as she responded.

  This was temptation. This was the Devil. This would, no doubt, result in something like what Patrick had done to her—maybe not as violent, but no less humiliating and no less wrong.

  Ruth Ann tore her mouth away from his, pushed at Clarence’s chest and scrambled backward.

  “What?” he asked raggedly. “What’s wrong?”

  “This.” She wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

  “No, it ain’t.”

  “It’s a whole lotta wrong, and you know it.”

  “It’s natural to feel this way.”

  “I don’t feel nothin’,” she said.

  “Liar.”

  “Don’t you call me a liar!”

  “Then don’t lie to me,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “You quit kissin’ me, Clarence. Quit it.”

  “Why? I didn’ do nothin’ you didn’ want me to do, and you know it.”

  “I do not want you to kiss me!”

  He stared at her, shaking his head. “Aw right. I get it. You can’t get past this.” He shook his stump at her.

  “What? No! That has nothin’ ’bout anythin’ to do with it, you dumb ox!”

  “Oh, now I’m a dumb ox. That’s just swell, Ruth Ann. Fine an’ dandy.” Clarence got to his feet and set the oil lamp on top of the file cabinet. “We got to get out of here. It’s comin’ up on five o’clock in the mornin’. Folks ’ll be gettin’ outta bed, soon.”