by Julie Kibler
May would not hesitate to give Lizzie up eventually. And Mattie knew what Lizzie couldn’t see—that despite Lizzie’s rough past, returning to the real world now would destroy her.
She locked her knees. “I can explain.” Miss Hallie’s answering gasp could have stopped a thief, but it was no match for Mattie’s loyalty.
Mattie had left Sister Susie not ten minutes earlier, and the woman came quickly upon seeing Miss Hallie’s horror-stricken face. They gathered in Brother JT’s study, where Mattie stood before the three and substituted herself for Lizzie in the story. Her cheeks flooded easily with tears once she faced her jury. “I knew it was a risk,” she claimed, “but I couldn’t let her leave, not after everything I’ve learned here. The Lord placed her before me, to care for her.” She focused on her shoes. If they didn’t throw her out for breaking the rules, God might strike her dead for lying.
Brother JT tugged at his coat buttons, his doubt obvious. “It’s difficult to understand why you’d flout our authority so blatantly, and this brings to mind another conversation I had this morning, with—”
“Lizzie had nothing to do with it!” Now Mattie went from sobbing to shaking. Why had she spoken Lizzie’s name?
Miss Hallie scoffed. “Good heavens, to think I defended her today! Gertrude was cruel, but I knew something was askew.”
Mattie cringed. Now there’d be more lies, but Lizzie couldn’t be implicated. “You know she goes walking after dinner when she needs to, Sister Susie.” The woman nodded cautiously. “She caught me in the barn.”
“Caught you? How long, exactly, has she known?” Miss Hallie’s voice rose on each word. Brother JT hushed her.
“She struggled with it horribly. She wanted to tell. I—I said I’d blame her if she did and say she was lying. I deserve to be expelled, but not Lizzie!” Mattie collapsed on the hard floor and buried her face in her skirt. Her insides heaved and the undigested sausage she’d intended for May, but gobbled earlier when anxiety had pushed her to it, rose in her esophagus. She feared she might vomit, right there on the polished floorboards. What if they didn’t believe her?
But Brother JT tilted her chin up and looked into her eyes, as if searching for the whole truth, even if he didn’t make her speak it. “Get up, Mattie,” he said. “How is May now?”
Mattie struggled to her feet, hoping her stomach would cooperate. Lizzie hadn’t updated her today. “She’s…better. Eating, drinking, and all but done with the sweats. She wants back in.” Mattie’s uncertainty increased her anguish. “I knew it was near time, but…I was afraid. I’ve done a terrible thing. I’ve taken advantage of everything you’ve sacrificed for us.”
“You’ve risked our reputation, indeed,” Brother JT said. “As if it weren’t precarious already. But what if someone discovered we keep half-clothed drug addicts in the barn?”
Mattie stared. Behind his stern expression was a hint of amusement. If she wasn’t mistaken, he was laughing inside. Finally, her stomach began to calm.
“We will retrieve May from the barn and bring her inside. Sister Susie, we’ll isolate her again, naturally, until she’s no longer a danger to others. Perhaps it won’t take long.”
“She broke her contract,” Miss Hallie said. “Do our rules mean nothing?”
“Miss Taylor, surely you agree rules must be adjusted for circumstances at times. What Lizzie said this morning was true. What would we teach about grace—with a capital G—if we turned May away now, especially when she’s half well?”
Comprehension dawned in Miss Hallie’s expression, though still fused with judgment.
“Sister Susie?” Brother JT said. “Shall we bring our lost sheep home?”
The one who’d suffered the brunt of May’s temper nodded. Mattie breathed a sigh of amazement. She might have given Gertrude the nickname, but Susie Singletary was the real saint in this place.
“Now, Mattie, you meant well,” Brother JT said, “but deception isn’t without consequence. Sister Susie will need a right hand with May.”
Mattie nearly laughed—not from amusement, but from marveling at the chaos this day had brought. Worse, it wasn’t over yet. And helping with May certainly wasn’t how she’d planned to get away from the kitchen, but it was better than packing a suitcase—or worse, watching Lizzie do it.
When they returned to the barn to fetch her, however, May was already gone.
LIZZIE
Arlington, Texas
1905
Something crackled on the path behind Lizzie. She pulled May’s supper pail close and the flounce of her skirt around it. She stepped soft and listened hard but heard nothing else. A green acorn had probably hit the dirt. At the barn doors, she looked about to be sure.
With May able to carry on mostly sensible conversation now, maybe Brother JT would give her another try. Lizzie prayed as she climbed the ladder. Since she’d found May facedown in the hay, she’d held her breath each time she went up. Tonight, when her head cleared the floorboards, her gut twisted like a hand turned it deep inside.
May was gone.
Lizzie recalled the noise on the path. Had May escaped, then watched Lizzie’s approach? She scrambled up and tossed the loft, like the vice squad in the dives, even shoving back the straw to be sure May hadn’t burrowed until she was invisible. Finally, she dropped onto her haunches. It was silly to keep at it. Everything was gone. Even the rope. If May had taken it with her, it might mean…
Lizzie couldn’t go there.
She pressed fists to her cheekbones, using pure might to keep from crying out. She wanted to shout May’s name, ask why she’d given up when she was so close. She sobbed, from disappointment and maybe dented pride—even if only Mattie ever knew.
Along her return, she discarded May’s supper on the slop pile, asking forgiveness as she buried it in the stink, in full view of the house. She gazed at the windows lit from within by oil lamps. The sweet scene had brought her peace and joy for months, but tonight it was mixed with sour. Her failure weighed her down more than expected, even knowing May’s chances had been slim.
Since Lizzie had been at the Home, she’d been sorry to see others go, rejecting help and friendship. How could the workers carry on, knowing more would leave than stay? She couldn’t stand it, and she’d tried to save only one.
When May had come begging, Lizzie should have turned her away. But she’d believed if the good Lord could rescue her and Docie, he could rescue anyone.
Now she knew better.
MATTIE
Arlington, Texas
1905
It was nearly impossible to fake repentance in the face of May’s disappearance, and between scrubbing what Lizzie had used for May and returning the items to where Mattie hoped they belonged, there’d been no chance to warn her friend about May’s abrupt departure—or Mattie’s lies. Lizzie would be beside herself.
It was well after suppertime by the time Mattie hurried to the dormitory, where three of the childless women surrounded Docie, playing with her hair and tickling her bare toes. She squealed to see Mattie, who gave her a quick hug and said she’d return soon. “I haven’t seen you all day!” Docie said, her lip trembling. “Where’s my mama?”
“I’m going after her. Find your gown and get ready for bed.” Mattie waited at the door until she heard Docie’s giggles again, then headed downstairs. She struggled to summon the energy to search—she felt physically beat up, sick still—but she hadn’t much choice.
Lizzie wasn’t in the old barn, or anywhere along the path. Mattie plodded each inch in the humidity that crept in every evening as darkness approached, nearly worse than the dry heat of day. The other outbuildings were empty. Everyone else was inside by now, and the workers who didn’t live on the property had gone home. Mattie envisioned Lizzie’s hysteria at discovering May was missing. Had she run away herself, ashamed of her self-imposed failure?
No. Docie would be gone too.
Mattie paced until she remembered that gloomy day, months earlier, when Lizzie hadn’t come to visit her grieving new friend, when she’d stayed away out of fear she might hurt Mattie worse—the day Mattie realized how much she’d come to rely on Lizzie and sought her out instead, finding her alone on the boulder in the field, where they’d held each other and wept.
Lizzie wouldn’t look at her tonight. Mattie climbed onto the rock, as she’d done that other time, and put her arm around Lizzie’s thick shoulders. Nascent cotton bolls peeked from the stalks in the soil the girls had tilled.
“She’s gone.” Even after Lizzie spoke, she didn’t turn her head. “Why’d she do it? I worked so hard to help her. Where do you reckon she is? Do you think God cares at all?”
Mattie couldn’t answer the last question any more than she could seven months ago. Instead, she pulled Lizzie’s chin toward her, much as Brother JT had done with her earlier, and told her what she knew for sure. Lizzie’s jaw went slack in Mattie’s hand. She eyed Mattie as if she’d flat-out lied. She wept again, over her guilt at Mattie taking the blame, and at Brother JT’s grace—even if May hadn’t stayed long enough to accept it. Miss Hallie had admitted she’d untied May the moment she’d discovered her, and May had obviously run away just as soon as Miss Hallie left.
When Lizzie calmed, Mattie pulled an envelope from her pocket. She hated to worry Lizzie even more, but she needed her wisdom, for Lizzie had more even than Mattie had believed. Lizzie knew what was right—even when others couldn’t see it. If they’d simply let May back in when she’d asked, maybe she’d still be here now, recuperating in the house instead of headed toward sure death.
“What’s that?” Lizzie said.
That afternoon, after working with Gertrude in cold silence, Mattie had finally made it to Sister Susie’s desk in the small parlor where she conducted the Home’s domestic business. Noting Mattie, she’d pushed her paperwork aside and reached for an opened envelope with several postmarks. “A letter came for you, dear.”
Mattie had stilled. Not a soul knew she was here except her oldest sister. After her baptism, Sister Susie had encouraged her to write her family, to share what had transpired since they’d asked her to leave home. She’d resisted. Finally, though, she’d sent a note, giving only the Home’s name and address and saying she was well—without mentioning Cap. If they hadn’t wanted to know her child when she needed them, they didn’t deserve to know he was gone. She hadn’t expected an answer. None had come in the months since.
Sister Susie had pushed the letter toward Mattie. “As you know, we read all mail to ensure that every girl is honoring her contract.”
It was addressed to Mattie in an unfamiliar hand, though Mattie’s old address at home was crossed through. Below it, in her sister Iola’s distinct hand, was FORWARD and the address of the Home.
The name of the original sender cut her like a knife.
Mattie had left the parlor, determined to read it alone, when and where she could manage her emotions privately. She’d been headed toward the burying grounds when Miss Hallie had come storming around the bend in the path, and she’d hidden it away unread. The letter had dragged her pocket down since, almost as if it kicked at her, crying for attention.
Now Mattie inhaled long and hard before breathing out the name she’d excised from her vocabulary three years earlier. She’d waited months, giving up only when she admitted her condition to her sister—long enough to know there’d be no support of any kind from the man who’d given her all he ever would: her Cap.
“It’s from Charley,” she said. “Cap’s daddy.”
LIZZIE
Arlington, Texas
1905
It was a shiny idea, Mattie going off to Colorado to join Charley, as he’d suggested, where the mining towns promised excitement. But when Mattie read his letter to Lizzie, Lizzie said, “All he wants is a warm body in his bed. Maybe a cook. He’s asking ’cause he’s lonely. Don’t forget what he done.” She pointed out his lack of remorse and his failure to make even a single mention of the child—as if it hadn’t occurred to him Mattie would bring Cap along, if she could.
Mattie had nodded, though Lizzie still detected the tiniest glimmer in her eyes, as if excitement didn’t sound awful at the moment. She could hardly blame her. Mattie had to pretend she was penitent over the fiasco with May, while Lizzie had to pretend her warnings were justified. If they hadn’t been so tuned to each other, it would have been impossible.
Each time Lizzie caught Mattie pining, she took her aside and reminded her, “Charley’s just a good-time guy, honey. You don’t want him.”
After a time, though, she began to suspect it was more than just that. Mattie was moving so slowly, as if she walked in a trance—nearly like she had after Cap died. The weather was partially to blame. After a record cold winter followed by a spring of violent storms, the summer heat bore down on them now, relentless, nearly like birthing pains. She knew Mattie didn’t tolerate high temperatures well, and now she worried the heat was making her sick.
Tempers grew short in the Home, and the girls found the smallest reasons to flare up at one another. One afternoon, a young woman who’d been settling in nicely flew off the handle at another for accusing her of stealing. She packed her trunk and shoved it to the landing, where it fell open and the stolen items tumbled down with it to reveal the truth of the matter.
Sister Susie had her hands full, between refereeing such squabbles and calming the nerves of those approaching childbirth. Bertha’s baby boy had arrived in the wake of May leaving, and Lizzie was overwhelmed in the nursery without her while she recuperated. Olive’s girl soon followed suit, and Mattie ended each day steely-eyed under Gertrude’s judgment, worse than ever after Gertrude convinced Sister Maggie Mae to tell her what had happened with May, only to hold it over Mattie’s head if she so much as sneezed in the wrong direction.
As August approached, everyone began praying for rain in earnest. Their fairly insignificant crops at the Home were failing, while area farms were taking on the look of devastation that said it would be a skinny winter if they didn’t see rain—and lots of it—soon.
It appeared their prayers might be answered as the miserable month reached its end, when storm clouds gathered and the wind chased away the heat. But the unexpected north wind brought gritty dirt instead of rain, sweeping it up from dry fields and dumping it willy-nilly, including over the Home, where it forced its way through the smallest crevices, even after all the window sashes were lowered and clamped shut.
The others huddled in the interior hallway upstairs, away from windows and chimneys, attempting to avoid the worst of the dust, but when Mattie didn’t appear, Lizzie went after her. She finally located her alone in the kitchen, gasping for breath, her mouth and nose covered with a damp rag, already orangey brown from the floating dirt. Mattie coughed harder with each new gust that rattled the window glass, and sank closer to the floor, grasping her belly, as if even it struggled for breath.
“Mattie, we’re all in the hall upstairs. What are you doing here? Come with me until the wind and dirt settles.”
Mattie turned terrified eyes on Lizzie. She shook her head behind the rag and retreated deeper into her squatting position against the wall. “I can’t.” She coughed until she choked.
Lizzie stared at her, baffled. “This dust is going to kill you. Can’t you hear yourself?”
Mattie just looked away and held the rag tighter to her face, a new series of coughs shaking her from shoulders to toes. When she had a respite, Lizzie grasped her arm and began to pull her up, but Mattie shoved it off. “Leave me alone,” she cried. “I can’t go up there! It’s so closed in and dark, I’ll lose my mind. Lizzie, I don’t feel well…and the rain is coming in here, just a little. I can stay here.”
She grasped her belly again, and
Lizzie gazed at her. “There’s no rain, Mattie. It’s dry as bone out there, and the dust ain’t stopping for a while.”
“It is raining. I felt it coming inside. It wet my skirts. I tore a piece to cover my face…”
Lizzie noticed then the window was open a crack, and she hurried to close it completely, but nothing except dry wood covered the sill. “Mattie, you ain’t making sense. There’s no rain. You wet the rag at the sink, didn’t you, honey?”
Mattie slumped the rest of the way to the floor, spreading her legs wide in front of her to point to where she’d torn fabric from the hem of her white petticoat. Indeed, it was damp at the edges, and now Lizzie saw it wasn’t pink from the dirt, but from liquid that pooled at Mattie’s feet. The backside of her skirt was soaked.
“Is it your time of month?” she whispered to Mattie, shuddering at the thought of Mattie using her female fluids to dampen her face.
“It was the rain, Lizzie. I saw it and felt it with my own eyes. Do you think I’m lying?”
Lizzie knelt carefully in front of her. She thought back over the months since Mattie had arrived. She’d lost so much weight after Cap died, wasting away from refusing to eat at first, sometimes from feeling so sick with grief she struggled to get, or keep, anything down. Gradually—especially after they’d put her to work in the kitchen—she’d put it back on, and in the last few months, Lizzie had even poked fun at her, saying she was getting plump, but mostly she was relieved Mattie seemed happier and had her appetite back. In the last few weeks, though, she’d stopped eating again, along with her lethargy, and though Lizzie had chalked it up to the heat, she’d worried. She hadn’t thought about Mattie’s menses at all, however. Each young woman in the Home cut her own supply of rags and washed and dried them privately, no mention or display. Lizzie’s bleeding came like clockwork now that she was healthy, a part of life she assumed Mattie also attended to without any fuss.