A Mother's Promise

by K. D. Alden

  “You’re not giving me anything, Doc.”

  “Sit down.” He drew several cc’s of fluid into the syringe, then withdrew the needle and put the vial back into the cabinet. Then he calmly advanced upon her.

  “Get away from me,” Ruth Ann warned him.

  “Sit down, I tell you. No? Have it your way. I’ll administer it with you standing.” He grasped her arm.

  Ruth Ann spit in his face. Then she snatched the needle out of his hand and stabbed it into his shoulder, depressing the plunger.

  While he wiped his face and opened and closed his mouth in shock, staring at the syringe, she lunged toward the cabinet and grabbed the first weapon she saw: a scalpel.

  “Help!” Doc Price shouted. “Help me, somebody!” He pulled the syringe out of his meaty shoulder.

  She brandished the scalpel at him while he shrank into the corner. “You stay away from me, Doc. And you stay away from my sister. You ever touch her again, Momma and I will get you. Don’t think we won’t.”

  “Help!” yelled Doc Price.

  The door flew open, and the nurse on duty ran in, quickly taking in the situation. She clamped down on Ruth Ann’s right wrist with an iron grip and hung on with all her might while calling for another nurse.

  Doc came out of the corner, wobbling now from the medicine, but still strong enough to grab Ruth Ann’s left wrist. The second nurse came in to help.

  They pushed Ruth Ann’s face into the wall. Then they yanked her wrists together, slammed her to the floor still kicking and screaming, and one nurse sat on her while Doc staggered over to his chair like a drunk and collapsed. The other nurse ran to the cabinet and found bandages.

  They secured her wrists. Then they gave her a shot of whatever was impairing Doc.

  “Gether to tha Distwessed uny,” he ordered. Then he pitched forward onto his desk.

  Thirty

  Ruth Ann awoke blearily, muzzily. Her head had been stuffed full of cotton wool and hurt like the dickens. She tried to put her hand up to it but couldn’t. She couldn’t move her feet, either. She was tied to the bed she lay in. It was dark and smelled of must and body odor. She had no idea where she was, and she had to pee.

  “What…where…?” she mumbled.

  “Well, butter my butt an’ call me a biscuit. Sleepin’ Beauty’s awake,” said Momma. Her voice came from somewhere to the right. Ruth Ann turned her head and made out her slight form in a bed next to hers.

  “Welcome to the Distressed unit, darlin’. You was droolin’ on yourself when they broughtcha in, so you prob’ly don’t remember much.”

  “No,” said Ruth Ann. “Can’t say as I do.”

  “Well, the word is you attacked Doc with a syringe and his own scalpel.” Sheila cackled. “I’m right proud of you, girl. But what I’d like to know is why.”

  Momma’s proud of me, after all these years. Ain’t that rich. “He did the operation on Bonnie while I was in court,” she said.

  Sheila lay there silent for a long moment. “If I ever get me the chance, I’m-a operate on him.”

  Ruth Ann believed her.

  “I swear it: I will chop somethin’ right off that man.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  They lay together in silence for a few moments.

  “He said it was on account of infection,” Ruth Ann told her.

  “He’s a lyin’ sack of shite.”

  “I know.”

  “An’ just how was court? Have a ball, there, with your fancy-pants lawyer-man?”

  “No. It was days an’ days of sittin’ ramrod straight in an awful wooden chair with a snooty judge glarin’ at me and a whole lotta folks tellin’ lies ’bout all of us Rileys. An’ I wasn’t allowed to say a single word.”

  “I told you it warn’t no lucky break. I told you that Esquire fella warn’t on your side. He got somethin’ up his sleeve, he does.”

  “But what? He ain’t gettin’ money. He ain’t gettin’ ‘free milk.’”

  “I seen the way you look at him, Ruthie. You’d give it to ’im if’n he asked.”

  “I would not!”

  Sheila grunted her contempt.

  He was right handsome. But she didn’t need to feed no starvin’ children, and she was nothing like her momma. Never would be.

  No. She’d just screamed and cursed and spat and attacked a man…but she was nothin’ like Sheila Riley at all.

  Oh dear Lord, please do not let me turn into my momma. Anythin’, Lord, but that.

  Dawn was creeping through the windows along with the irony.

  “So what’d it get you, all this court nonsense?” Sheila asked.

  “Dunno. Judge ain’t made up his mind, yet.”

  Momma snorted. Then she said, “I got it. I know why Esquire is helpin’ you. I’d bet you anything he is somehow makin’ a name for himself with your case.”

  Ruth Ann thought about it. “There was law students and newspaper reporters in the courtroom,” she said.

  “Oh, was there, now? So your Mr. Fancy-Pants is gettin’ notoriety out of this. An’ next thing you know, he’ll maybe run himself for office. The Senate or some such thing.”

  Ruth Ann thought about that, too. And about morons and imbeciles and idiots.

  She wasn’t at the top of that chart—she was at the bottom. She’d been so stupid. She was a right droolin’ idiot.

  Her man-manna from Heaven…with that C-note he’d dropped all casual-like on the floor. Pick it up…And she had. Given it back to him along with her misplaced trust. She’d been snookered.

  “What happens next, Ruthie?” Momma asked.

  “Well, Mr. Block said if we don’t win this time, he will take my case all the way up to the Supreme Court.”

  “Oh, he did, did he? That’s the big-time. So that’s what Esquire wants. To meet up with a whole pocketful of judges. There’s a bunch of ’em there. Seven, I reckon.”

  “Nine,” Ruth Ann said. “I remember from school. Nine judges on the Supreme Court to decide the law of the land. Oh, dear Lord, Momma. I didn’t understand. They’re gonna make it a law that people like us can’t have babies.”

  Ruby came in presently to untie them and take them to the outhouse, one at a time. Ruth Ann got to go first.

  “Did you really attack Doc Price?” Ruby asked, her eyes wide and shocked.

  Ruth Ann sighed and rubbed at the ligature marks on her wrists. “He done that surgery on Bonnie. She’s my baby sister, Ruby. She’s so young, and she’s in pain. I couldn’t stand it. He did it behind my back, while I was gone.”

  Ruby’s lips flattened, and she shook her head.

  “I didn’t set out to attack him. I did go down to his office to holler at him. And then he says he’s gonna sedate me…” Ruth Ann told her the story.

  “But now you’re stuck here, child. All you did was hurt your ownself, in the end. And don’t think that Doc won’t put all this stuff in your files.”

  She walked Ruth Ann back down the hallway. “I don’ wanna tie you again, child. But I got to. Them’s the rules.”

  Ruth Ann lay wearily back on the bed, and Ruby did her best not to make the ligatures too tight. Her touch was gentle; her kindness once again made Ruth Ann’s eyes sting.

  Then it was Sheila’s turn to visit the bathroom.

  Almost immediately after they left, there was a knock on the frame of the open door.

  “Ruth Ann?” Clarence stood there in a clean flannel shirt and denim trousers, with a bunch of yellow daisies in a jar. He was a sight for sore eyes.

  “C’mon in. I’d get up, but…” She gestured with her chin toward her bonds.

  “Oh, Lord have mercy, Ruthie. What—why—here, let me untie you.”

  “No, Clarence. Thank you, but you’ll just get into a whole heap of trouble.”

  “What happened? People are sayin’ you attacked Doc Price…”

  She told the story yet again, while Clarence listened in disbelief. “So, like they say, you gave the doc a dose of his
own medicine.”

  She nodded. “You shoulda seen his face, when I done it, Clarence! He looked right gob-smacked. He looked like…I dunno, like…one of his shoes started talkin’ to him. And then he passed out on his desk like a street bum.”

  Clarence began to laugh.

  And then she did, too, though there was really nothing funny about her situation.

  “When can you go back to your regular schedule?” he asked.

  “Don’ know.”

  “Doc won’t leave you here forever, will he?”

  Ruth Ann shrugged. “Ruby says he’ll put all o’ this in my file.”

  “Huh. Good thing we know where those are.”

  She smiled at him. “Good thing.”

  “Well, did you win your court case, Ruthie?”

  “Won’t know for a spell. Judge is thinkin’ about it all.”

  He nodded.

  “Clarence, I…I feel dumb as a brick, but I think you and my momma were right about Mr. Block.”

  “Esquire,” he said, with a twist of his mouth. But he didn’t say I told you so.

  “O’ course we was right,” Sheila said, coming back into the room with Ruby. “I ain’t never wrong. Who’s this?”

  “Clarence, Momma. Momma, Clarence. Clarence, be afraid. She bites.”

  Sheila hooted. “Only on occasion, young sir.”

  He looked uncertainly from Ruth Ann to her mother and back again. Then he grinned and shook his head.

  “And this is Ruby, who takes care of us ‘violent lunatics.’ Ain’t she lucky?” Ruth Ann rolled her eyes.

  “Hi, there, Ruby.” Clarence put out his hand.

  Ruby was clearly taken aback—not used to white folks wanting to shake with her. But she finally smiled and stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Clarence.”

  “Likewise.”

  “Well,” said Ruby. “I got to get on with tyin’ Miz Sheila to her bed agin.”

  “Right,” said Clarence, as if this was totally normal. He hesitated, then put the jar of daisies on Ruth Ann’s nightstand. “These are for you.”

  “Thank you.” She wished she could get up and kiss him—on the cheek, of course. Her thoughts tried to wander back to that night by the file cabinet, but she blocked them.

  They locked eyes.

  “Will you—”

  “D’you want me to—”

  “—come visit again?” they said simultaneously.

  They smiled at each other.

  “Yes,” they said in unison.

  “All right, then.” Clarence walked to the door.

  “I’m glad you came,” Ruth Ann said.

  “So am I.” Clarence left, whistling.

  “That boy is sweet on you,” Sheila said once his footsteps had faded.

  Ruth Ann didn’t respond. She didn’t want to talk about Clarence with Sheila. He was…private…to Ruth Ann. He wasn’t an object for gossip.

  “What a shame ’bout that hand of his. He’d be a right handsome fella if not for that—what’d’ya call it—stump. But that there is off-puttin’.”

  “I don’t even notice it,” said Ruth Ann, through gritted teeth.

  “Well, I sure do. Even with his wrist stuffed down in his pocket, I can tell there’s no hand there. He could save himself the trouble of hidin’ it.”

  Ruth Ann’s pulse kicked up and beat hard at her temple. “Can’t you understand he’d be self-conscious ’bout it?”

  “Things is what they is,” Sheila said flatly. “Cain’t change ’em.”

  So true. Ruth Ann thought of the fable about the scorpion and the frog crossin’ the river.

  “Wonder what happened to the hand,” her momma mused. “Was it cut off by farm machinery? Was he just born a freak?”

  “Clarence is not a freak,” Ruth Ann snapped.

  “Well, well. Listen to you. You’re sweet on him, too.” Sheila cackled. “My girl is sweet on a circus freak!”

  If Ruth Ann could have stood up, bed and all, she would have. She’d have whacked her momma with the headboard. Since that was impossible, she lay there and simmered.

  “That ain’t smart, Ruthie. Do yourself a favor and go for a man who’s got both hands. That boy’s never gonna make a proper livin’, walkin’ ’round like that. Nobody’s gonna hire him, if ever he could leave here—”

  “Clarence,” said Ruth Ann, “can do anything—anything—that a man with two hands can do.”

  “Oooh, she’s gettin’ tetchy,” Sheila jeered. “Aw right. Let’s see ’im do push-ups.”

  Ruth Ann turned her head and squinted at her mother. “I’m tellin’ you: he can.”

  “Let’s see ’im drive.”

  “He does.”

  Let’s see ’im…” Sheila racked her evil brain for something she knew Clarence couldn’t do. “Huh.”

  “Conduct a symphony? He could. Shoot a gun? He could. Do carpentry work? He’d find a way, I promise you.”

  “My, my. You have gone an’ fallen for that red-headed circus freak. You gonna marry him an’ pop out some little one-handed ankle-biters?”

  Ruth Ann searched her mind for a word that could describe someone as horrible as her momma, someone who took joy in hurting others, in stepping on their soft spots and grinding in her heel. Malice came to mind. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start.

  “You know what, Momma?” she said. “I think I will marry him. Long’s he don’t run screamin’ for the hills at the prospect of you for a mother-in-law.”

  Ruth Ann lay next to Sheila for three days. It was seventy-one hours too long.

  Mrs. Jekyll had been there right as she’d woken up: sayin’ as how she was proud of her daughter for attacking the good doctor and amused by it. But Mrs. Hyde had returned soon enough, with gusto and gravy.

  The next morning, Sheila turned her face toward Ruth Ann. Her eyes had morphed from shrewd little raisins to the dead black holes on a shark. They were empty of pride, empty of maternal feeling, empty of humanity. “You are one dumb little twat. You know that?”

  Ruth Ann sighed. “Sure, Momma.”

  “You walked right into the jaws of the trap.”

  “And which trap is that?”

  “Mr. Block flashed his green eyes and his pretty-boy smile at you, and you all but dropped your knickers scramblin’ to do whatever he said, thinkin’ he was like a hero from a fairy tale,” Sheila scoffed.

  The truth didn’t just hurt. It sizzled along the edges of the fresh open wound. But at least now she knew better. Clarence was the hero from a fairy tale.

  “Thinkin’ a lawyer actually cared about you or your case. You a dumber piece of white trash than has ever walked God’s green earth.”

  Ruth Ann was still tied to the bed. She couldn’t escape the words or the bizarre, misplaced hatred that spewed out with them. She took a deep breath. “I’m your daughter, Momma. So what does that make you?”

  “I’m at least smart white trash,” Sheila hissed. “And if I could get up outta this bed, I’d slap your face so hard, it’d kiss your own backside.”

  “But you can’t.” Ruth Ann said it deliberately, tired of her verbal abuse.

  “I’ll be up soon enough, missy, so you’d best watch out. In the meantime, you got only your ownself to blame that the Block-head brought your Annabel here, so’s they could fake some test and call her an idiot. And worse, you got your ownself to blame that he found our Bonnie and brought her here to the butcher. It’s your fault, Ruthie, that she’ll never have no babies.”

  The words were worse than a blow; they were a breaker crashing over her.

  Ruth Ann lay there on her back, drowning in them. She couldn’t seem to get oxygen under the weight of them, couldn’t move her arms or legs or raise her head above them to gasp for forgiveness. All she could do was writhe in misery and guilt and truth.

  “You set her up for it,” Sheila spat. “You walked right into the trap Esquire set and drug her in, too, by her pretty blond braids…”

  Ruth Ann t
hought of the day Block had brought Bonnie to the Colony—how petrified she’d been, how she’d clutched Calico Bear and wouldn’t utter a word. How she, Ruth Ann, had never been so glad to see anyone in her life…besides maybe Annabel. How she’d felt so connected to Bonnie, felt such love and sympathy for her, felt safe at last to feel something, anything at all. Because she knew instinctively that her baby sister wouldn’t attack her just for the crime of loving her.

  So Ruth Ann had made Bonnie feel safe. She’d betrayed her by doing that.

  She wished she could really drown in Sheila’s horrible words. Just go under and breathe them into her lungs until, clawing for the surface, she lost consciousness and they no longer had the power to hurt.

  It’s your fault, it’s your fault, it’s your fault, it’s your fault, it’s your fault…

  “I shoulda used a coat hanger to get rid of you,” Sheila said.

  Coat hanger, coat hanger, coat hanger, coat hanger, coat hanger…

  Ruth Ann released her mind into a helium balloon that floated far above their beds in the Distressed unit. There it could bob in the breeze, be bathed in sunshine or starlight, divorce this place and everyone in it.

  “Yeah, Momma,” she said. “You should have.”

  “I knew you was gonna be trouble. I knew you was gonna bring nothin’ but misery and shame. I knew you warn’t gonna be worth the effort I made to push you out…”

  With her mind up in the balloon, Ruth Ann could almost admire her mother’s sheer viciousness. A body had to work hard to conjure up that much venom, especially for her own blood. It was quite somethin’, the force and habit of her hatred.

  Ruth Ann clung almost absentmindedly to the memory of them all sitting with Momma in the pale green armchair as a family: Bonnie, Annabel and finally, amazingly, Ruth Ann herself. Had that really occurred—that warmth and connection?

  Thirty-One

  It was a week later that Mrs. Parsons sent word to Ruby that Ruth Ann was to get cleaned up and come to Tremont House to see Mr. Block.