A Mother's Promise

by K. D. Alden

  Ruth Ann, glad to be untied, upright, bathed and in a clean pinafore, didn’t say a word of greeting to the traitorous sow in the lace collar. She did get a cheap thrill when she realized that Mrs. Parsons was afraid of her.

  The story of her attack on Doc Price must have gone around the Colony like wildfire, since Mrs. Parsons instantly backed away from her once she came through the front door and looked as though she’d lunge for the telephone at the slightest wayward move on Ruth Ann’s part. It was somewhat, somehow…delicious…to be feared.

  She curled her lip at the woman. “Why, how downright lovely to see you this fine morn’, Mrs. Parsons. I thank you ever so for makin’ me look like a slut in the courtroom, when you know I was only expressin’ my misplaced gratitude to Mr. Block that afternoon. I surely won’t ever forget your kindness.”

  Mrs. Parsons put a hand up to her lace collar and smoothed it. Then she smoothed her hair. Then she swallowed and backed up another step.

  Your head looks like it’s on a doily, restin’ on a servin’ platter. Wonder what you’d say if I told you that, Mrs. P?

  “I—I—” the woman said.

  Ruth Ann raised her eyebrows and waited.

  “Mr. Stringer—he asked me to testify if I had ever seen any improper behavior on your part with a gentleman.”

  “Oh, I see. And did you tell Mr. Stringer that ’twas Mr. Block kissed my hand first? When I done hired him with his own money?”

  “Well, Mr. Stringer didn’t ask me—”

  “No, o’ course you didn’t see fit to mention that.”

  “Well, but—”

  “You know what, Mrs. Parsons? I would sure like a nice cuppa tea and a biscuit or two.”

  The woman’s mouth dropped open.

  “I think it’s the least you could do, don’t you, Mrs. P?”

  “I don’t serve the likes of you, Ruth Ann Riley!”

  “Well, then. Maybe you’d best serve the hates of me…otherwise they might just find you in your bed asleep at night, huggin’ your guilty conscience like a pillow.” Ruth Ann smiled at her, real polite.

  Ruth Ann sat on the same silk-upholstered settee and sank back into the butter pillows, but took no pleasure in them this time. She felt a different person from the girl who’d so readily given her hope and trust to Wilfred Block, Esquire.

  Lo and behold, she got her tea—with sugar, no less—and two fine shortbread biscuits, with strawberry jam.

  In due course, Block arrived in his shiny black Model T, hat set at a more rakish angle than it had been on the way to the Amherst County Circuit Court.

  He entered the parlor with gravitas, turned down the offer of tea from the now-simpering Mrs. Parsons and soberly handed his coat, hat and driving gloves to her before turning to his client. “Ruth Ann. I trust you are…well? I was told of an incident…”

  “I’m fine, thank you.” She took a sip of her tea. “But my sister Bonnie is not.” She set the cup down in its saucer and stared him right in the eyes. “Doc Price must-a done her surgery the day after he testified in court, and afore I got back.”

  Block averted his gaze and became unaccountably fascinated with his own waistcoat.

  “That tells even a feebleminded gal like me that Doc knew which way the judge was leanin’ on the case.”

  Block sat down in the chair opposite her. “No, Ruth Ann. That’s an assumption on your part—”

  “And you did, too.”

  “Now, the Virginia legislature passed a law that upholds such surgeries as the one performed upon young Bonnie, so—”

  “Don’t you stand there and flap your gums at me, all legal-like.”

  “I beg your pardon? Dr. Price did nothing wrong—”

  “Nothin’ wrong? There’s nothin’ wrong in slicing open an eleven-year-old child for no good reason? No reason other than to stop her havin’ a baby that the good Lord might put there someday? Who gave Doc Price the right to play God? You tell me that, Mr. Block!”

  “My dear Ruth Ann—”

  “Don’t you ‘my dear’ me, Wilfred.” She used his Christian name deliberately, even if it felt strange coming out of her mouth.

  He gaped at her.

  Shocked, was he? Why was it fine for him to call her Ruth Ann, while it was some kind of terrible manners for her to call him Wilfred? Who had set him above her, anyways? Why was he all high and mighty, while she was some kind of lowly serving wench? How had God decided that he would go to university an’ law college, while she could only finish the sixth grade? How had God decided that his father would survive to pay for that college, while hers would not?

  And did everything boil down to dollars?

  She thought of the one he’d dropped on the rug, right there. How it had hooked her like a trout and then he’d reeled her in. Self-loathing almost suffocated her.

  The silence between them stretched on. “I understand that you are…emotional…about your younger sister, Ruth Ann—”

  “Do you? Congratulations, Wilfred. You’d have to be a damn turnip not to.”

  “But this hostility is—”

  “You used me. Plain and simple. You’re using all of us.”

  “I—I—what hysterical nonsense is this?”

  “You’re using Momma, you’re using me, and shame on you: you’re using my little Annabel. And don’t think I’m so feebleminded as not to notice that you surely didn’t fight real hard for me in that courtroom, Mr. Block.”

  His face went pale. “What gibberish are you spewing now, Miss Riley?”

  She’d somehow scored. “It ain’t gibberish. I ain’t hysterical. And guess what, Esquire? I ain’t feebleminded! I done some thinkin’, while I was tied to my bed in the loony bin. I done a lot of non-loony thinkin’. And it just don’t make sense that I done real well in school, an’ finished the sixth grade, but all’s a sudden, when I’m old enough to milk a cow an’ do the wash an’ cook a supper by my ownself, that it don’t make no sense to leave me in school, on account of I can now earn my keep. And did you know that the Dades rented me out to other families, too, for money?”

  “Miss Riley, I must say, how is it possible that you blame me for a decision that was made years before we met?”

  “I ain’t blamin’ you for that. And I ain’t blamin’ you for the Dades kickin’ me outta their home after I got taken ’vantage of and got knocked up, neither. I ain’t blamin’ you for them all’s a sudden declarin’ me feebleminded an’ stickin’ me here in this Colony where I don’t belong, just on account of I had to be hid from decent folk.

  “But I sure as hell do blame you, Esquire, for pretending to work for me, when we both know now that you were workin’ against me in that courtroom.” Ruth Ann was surprised to find that her voice was trembling.

  “Balderdash! Ridiculous nonsense. How dare you?” he blustered.

  “How dare you, Block? Don’t you lawyer fellas swear some kinda oath to do your job right?”

  Block’s face had gone pale; now it turned green. Another score for her. She was definitely onto something.

  “I have done my job right, and I will continue to do it. I came here to tell you, Ruth Ann, that your case will now go to the Virginia State Court of Appeals.”

  “So you lost.” She said it flatly.

  “The judge decided in favor of the law,” he corrected her.

  “Right. You lost. Only question in my feeble mind, now, is whether you done lost on purpose.”

  Block turned the same beet color that Doc Price had, when she bearded him in his examination room. “You have the effrontery to suggest that I would—”

  “Ain’t got no clue what that word means, Esquire, but I’m pretty darn sure you ain’t got my backery. Otherwise—a man like you—you’d be a lot more put out that you lost in court. Not downright chipper to be appealin’ to a new judge, a higher judge.”

  Mr. Block looked down his too-handsome nose at her, his green eyes unable to disguise his dislike of her. Low-class country girls weren’t s�
��posed to speak truth to power, ’specially power disguised as kindness and charity, and Esquire—he didn’t like it one bit.

  “This interview is at an end,” he snapped. “I will write my briefs on your behalf and submit them to the court. I will keep you apprised of the decision.”

  “So I don’t go to this higher court with you, Mr. Block?”

  “There is no need for that. The court of appeals will rule solely based on the written transcripts, the exhibits and the legal briefs.”

  “But what if I want to get up in front of them judges and tell ’em like it is?”

  “It’s too late for that. The court of appeals is merely reviewing the lower court’s decision to see if it agrees or not.”

  “Too late,” she said flatly. “Well, ain’t that convenient, Mr. Block. So now I just sit here at the Colony and wait?”

  “Yes. And if the court of appeals shall uphold the circuit court’s decision, then we will wait yet again while the Supreme Court decides whether to hear the case.”

  “How long’s all this likely to take?”

  “It’s a matter of weeks for this appeal to be decided. With the Supreme Court, it may be a matter of months—or years.”

  “Well, I s’pose I’ll pass ’em the usual way: doin’ a few tons of laundry, choppin’ and cookin’. Weedin’ the gardens and harvestin’ the vegetables. Canning what we don’t use in the kitchens. And what will you be doin’ to pass the time, sir?”

  “I am very busy in my legal practice, as you know, young lady.”

  Ruth Ann nodded. “Oh, indeed. Writin’ up your legal papers to do your best by your clients. Enjoyin’ the company of your dear friends Mr. Stringer and Doc Price.”

  The lawyer’s face went from beet-colored to eggplant-colored. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Well, an’ you should, Esquire,” Ruth Ann said calmly. “You should. I surely wish I’d never met you, sir.”

  “Likewise. Good day, Miss Riley.”

  “Good day, Mr. Block.” Ruth Ann didn’t get up from the settee as he stalked to the door. She calmly finished her shortbread biscuits and tea.

  Mrs. Parsons made sheep’s eyes at him while helping him with his coat and seeing him out. As his motorcar purred to life, she whirled. “You were unconscionably rude, Ruth Ann!”

  “Was I.” Ruth Ann got up and walked calmly over to her.

  Mrs. Parsons backed up three steps and eyed the telephone again.

  “Well, I quite enjoyed it.” Ruth Ann handed her empty plate, cup and saucer to her.

  Mrs. Parsons goggled at this fresh outrage. “You don’t deserve for that fine gentleman to work on your case, and that’s a fact,” she spat.

  Ruth Ann’s mouth twisted. “You’re quite right, ma’am. I don’t deserve it.” And she brushed past her, opened the door and walked out without another word.

  After an interview with a head doctor on staff and a solemn promise of good behavior, Ruth Ann was allowed to visit Bonnie and go back to living in the female dormitories. Evidently, the Distressed unit needed her bed for someone even crazier than she was. Sheila would get a new victim to gnaw upon.

  When Ruth Ann went to the infirmary, the attending nurse eyed her as if she had escaped from the zoo. Clearly, once again, the rumor of her attack on Dr. Price preceded her.

  But Bonnie lit up at the sight of her. “Ruthie! Where did you go? I missed you.”

  “Hi, darlin’.” Ruth Ann kissed her on both cheeks and hugged her for good measure. “I, well, I had to go somewhere for a few days.”

  “Back to the courthouse?”

  “Somethin’ like that. How are you feelin’, honey?”

  “I’m good. It doesn’t hurt as much down there. And look!” Bonnie held up Calico Bear, who was now smartly dressed in a burlap coat with neat lapels and two brown buttons. He also wore a matching burlap hat with a feather in its band. “See what Glory and Izzie made me? And Clarence found the fabric and the feather for the hat.”

  A lump swelled in Ruth Ann’s throat, making it impossible for her to speak. Despite the tiff they’d had, Glory had come through. She hadn’t taken out her anger at Ruth Ann on her helpless little sister. And she’d set a good example for Izzie, who desperately needed one.

  “Doesn’t he look nice?”

  “Calico Bear looks like the cat’s pajamas,” Ruth Ann managed, when she could speak. “He sure does. Did you say thank you to Miss Glory and Izzie and Clarence?”

  “Yes. And Clarence brought me chocolate cake from the kitchens today.”

  There were dark brown crumbs scattered across Bonnie’s white blankets. “I can see that. Was it good?”

  Her little sister nodded. “I had it with fresh milk that Izzie got from the cows.”

  Bonnie glowed. The color had come back to her cheeks, and she looked like herself again: a Swedish doll from a bandbox, not a pale, listless wax figure.

  It’s your fault, Ruthie, that she’ll never have no babies. Sheila’s words echoed through her mind again and again. Your fault. Your fault. Your fault.

  Ruth Ann sat down on the bed next to Bonnie and took her small hands. She squeezed them. And she looked into those blue eyes, the eyes that told her she walked on water. Float like a witch, more like. The trust and love she saw there gutted her more than anything nasty that Sheila could say.

  “What?” Bonnie said, puzzled.

  “Nothing, darlin’.” There was simply no way to tell an eleven-year-old that she’d never be a mother and that her sister was partly to blame for that. It wasn’t a conversation that she ever wanted to have, but one day she’d be obliged to. “I’m just so glad you’re feelin’ better.”

  “Did Dr. Price take out the disease? Is it all gone now?”

  Ruth Ann bowed her head. “It’s all gone now.”

  Ruth Ann found Glory in the kitchens, covered in flour and kneading bread.

  “Hi,” she said to her, awkwardly. “Thank you for making the coat and hat for Bonnie’s Calico Bear.”

  Glory looked up at her but didn’t stop kneading. Tension rose in the air along with the loose flour. “You’re welcome,” she said, after a pause that made Ruth Ann think she might not speak to her at all. “Couldn’t disappoint the poor mite, now, could we?”

  She was so relieved that Glory wasn’t just lookin’ right through her an’ stayin’ mute that her knees almost gave way. She flattened her hand on a cabinet door to steady herself. “There’s lots of adults who disappoint children, Glory. I’m just glad you’re not one of ’em. It was real nice, what you did.”

  “Well, Clarence brought me the fabric, and Izzie was dyin’ to help.” Glory took her hands off the dough and dusted them on her apron, searching Ruth Ann’s face. “You all right? The grapevine’s been buzzin’ and you been missin’ from your bed. They say you got locked up with your ma.”

  “That’s where I was. But I’m out now—thank the good Lord. Doc Price coulda left me there a lot longer.”

  “They’re sayin’ how he coulda left you there all your life, after what you did. Declared you a dangerous lunatic.”

  Ruth Ann nodded. “I’m not sure why he let me out, truth to tell. I just got told they need the bed for some other crazy.”

  “You’re not crazy.”

  “No. But I did go right ’round the bend when I heard what Doc done to Bonnie. Never been so mad in my life.”

  Glory compressed her lips, took the dough in both hands and started slammin’ it on the kitchen counter. Blam! Blam! Blam!

  Made Ruth Ann want some dough to abuse, too.

  Then Glory started punchin’ it with her fists. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

  Ruth Ann hesitated. “Lookit, Glory—when we argued—”

  “I still want to see my baby.” Glory caressed the dough now as if it were a newborn.

  “I know, and I wasn’t meanin’ to say I won’t help you. We just got to be smarter about it than we was before, with Annabel. I been thinkin’. If you are the poster child for good behavin’
here at the Colony, and you was to ask, real polite, if you could write a letter to Lily’s foster mother, I’ll bet you they’ll say yes. An’ then maybe if she writes back, you can ask if you can see Lily sometime.”

  Glory’s lips quivered. “An’ what if the answer is no?”

  “Well, then we’ll come up with a different plan. I promise you that one day I’m leavin’ this place for good, and I’ll help you get out, too, if you want.”

  Glory stopped kneading the bread. “Where you gonna go?”

  “I don’t rightly know. But I do know that I don’t belong here. I ain’t feebleminded, no matter how many times they tell me I am. I can read, I can write, I can do my figures. They just brought me here because I got knocked up and couldn’t be around decent folk. I’m bettin’ that’s what they did with you, too.”

  “They brought me here on account of my daddy beat me black and blue and kicked me to the curb. Didn’t have noplace else to go.”

  Ruth Ann remembered the details in Glory’s file. The notations about the bruises. “But your file says your daddy’s whereabouts are unknown.”

  “I know exackly whereabouts he is,” her friend said bitterly. “In his own home, whereabouts he’s always been. He just don’t want his whore of a daughter there with ’im.”

  “Oh, Glory…”

  “I’ll tell you whose whereabouts really are unknown,” she continued. “And that’s my baby’s father. Mr. Marriage Proposal an’ Scram. Didn’t take so well to my daddy comin’ for ’im with a shotgun.”

  “Did you go to school, Glory?”

  “Sure. Through fifth grade.”

  “An’ you can read an’ do figures?”

  “Yeah. I ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I’m at least in the drawer.”

  Ruth Ann laughed, but the funny faded pretty darn quick. “Then you ain’t feebleminded, neither. You’re just like me—they had to put you somewheres.”

  “But…” Glory punched the dough again. Thwack! “But we ain’t things. Objects to be put somewhere. In a drawer or in a closet or in a Colony.”

  “Oh, now, Glory.” Ruth Ann shook a finger at her. “We are farm animals for breedin’ and for labor. We are weeds, choking off the garden vegetables. Don’t you go thinkin’ that we’re actual people.”