A Long Time Comin'

by Robin W. Pearson

  Catapulted back in time, Ruthena didn’t tell her husband she’d never called Henton that.

  Ruthee,

  Hey ther girl. You probly dont know wat to say hearin from me like this. I dont ritely know wat to say miself. Mosly, Im ritin to tell you Im livin in Jasper and I got a job. Won day Ill send yall somthin to hep you get by. You mite not wont to hear from me rite now but won day you mite.

  Wen you was a babe I wuld just stand and look at you sleepin in that drar. You was probly the prittyest won of all them, lookin jes like your mama. Yo daddy wont noware to be seen. You had these beads of swet on yo nose and youd be chewin on yo fist. You was always hungry. B culdnt feed you enuf. She usta cry out at nite wen you bit her. Like you tryin to git more out of her. Seems to me you lached on to that Bible so tite sinse you new it was time to give up on yo mama.

  I sit somtimes wondrin wat you gone turn out to be. How will yo man treat you? Will you have chillun? Wat will you do for work? I just hope I can see for miself won day. Ruthee, Im sho sorry for havin to leav yall, but ther aint much els I culd do. Yo mam try to ty the rope roun my neck, but it aint me she shuld be huntin. Im the won who stood by her. I dint go noware wen she needed sombody—

  “Oh yes, you did,” Ruthena murmured.

  —an I was ther for you even tho I dint have to be. I was willin to liv wit B but I aint gon suffer and like to die for doin it. Such a shame Milton had to. B can find me wen she see the lite and let up. I just hope it soon. Its cold heer, colder than home without all yall. If you get ol enuf to com see bout me, you can look me up at 23 Reedy Creek in Jasper. I imagin I hear from you for I ever hear from yo mama.

  Ruthena was dumbfounded as she read Henton’s name at the end of the letter. He wondered how my life would be, if I would be happy, about my husband? Why am I learning about this now, God? Where did this letter come from? She studied the crinkled, yellowed pages, but no clue presented itself. Ruthena picked up the envelope to note the postmark and felt its weight. Another letter? Lord, I don’t think I can take more surprises. Not today. Ruthena carefully folded Henton’s letter and set it on the counter beside her.

  “Ruthena?”

  She looked up.

  Matthew stood a few feet away, fiddling with the measuring spoons. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t really know, Matthew.” She pointed to the letter she’d set down beside the grocery bags. “That’s from Henton. My—my father. And this—” she held up the other note she’d just pulled from the envelope—“is another. So far, I’m not sure why my niece thought I needed your support. They’re just old letters.” Yet her heart seemed to slow as she unfolded the two pages.

  Rutheena . . .

  Her mother was the only one who spelled her name the legal way. Ruthena herself hadn’t discovered it until she was in the seventh grade when she’d happened upon her birth certificate.

  Girl, I hope you can take some time up from those knees and spare me a minute. I imagine that after you read this and the letter from Henton you’re going to fall right back down on those knees, and you might stay there for a long, long time. I guess I can use that prayer. “Just what is going on, Mama?” I can hear you asking in that long-suffering voice of yours. Well, Rutheena, the fact of the matter is, I’m dying.

  Ruthena skimmed the next two paragraphs and cried out, “She’s dying from leukemia! That’s why she sent Evelyn here, to deliver this . . . this . . .”

  “What else does she say?” Matthew stepped closer, but Ruthena’s outstretched hand stayed him.

  You’ve been doing fine keeping in touch, so don’t feel like any of this is your fault. Elisabeth lives just around the corner thereabouts, and she was about knocked off her feet. I have done my share of worrying and working things out, and I’m not worried no more, to tell you the truth. I done laid it at His feet. Now, don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t right much care how you deal with this. Just see that you do. I’ve got the how part to figure out, so the way I see it, your part is a bit easier.

  Ruthena gasped, a hand to her mouth, and closed her eyes. She thrust the letter at Matthew. Once she felt him take it, her eyes opened, and she watched his mouth move as his eyes silently pored over the words. After a few minutes, she picked up where she’d left off, her voice hoarse and thick as she read aloud.

  “Rutheena, part of me thinks of any of my children, you’ll work this out the best. Not because of that faith you put such store in, but because of that man Matthew who believes in both you and the Lord. When I see you with him, I see the real you, the one you hide behind your Bible. That need to know and be known, to love and be loved. The Rutheena that’s forced to lean instead of standing straight. You’re probably going to be the one who holds up the others or makes them so mad at you they’ll be too busy fretting over me, and for that, I’m grateful. Thomas for one don’t have that same willfulness.

  But for that same reason, I wonder about you. Always have. When you were running to that church, I thought for a while you had something else going on, but you sure have stuck to it. You even found you that husband there. Maybe that’s where I should have looked. That work ain’t going to save you no matter how often you flip through them hymnals and rinse out them Communion cups. Remember that. I’m going to pray you find what you need and not what you’re scrambling for. So stop borrowing the happiness and the sorrows that belong to other folks. Hold tight to what’s yours, because it don’t pay to go through life always wanting something else or looking beyond the here and now.

  That’s about all I can give you right now, and I hope you take it. I’m not going to say I’ve done what I could for you because I know I’ve done what I wanted to do, what I needed to do. I’m just hoping to hear, “Well done” from my Savior. I love you, even though you do bother the hell out of me sometimes—but I guess that’s exactly what you’re trying to do.

  Take care of yourself, girl, by letting that good man take care of you.”

  “Oh, Ruthena, Ruthena, I’m so sorry.” Matthew tried to wipe Ruthena’s face, but she brushed his hands away.

  “Don’t say that. There’s no need for that.” Ruthena hadn’t realized she was weeping. “What do the old people say? ‘God don’t make a mistake.’ And they’re right.” Ruthena rose slowly, leaning on Matthew as little as possible.

  “But—”

  “I don’t know why I’m crying. What kind of good-bye is this anyway? It’s just Mama’s way.” Her voice strengthened. “Beatrice is in God’s hands. Now we just have to pray that one day she’ll be in His Kingdom—”

  Matthew took Ruthena’s hands and pulled her to him. Ruthena braced her hands on his chest and pushed back.

  “No, Matthew, stop. I’m fine . . .” But her voice faltered.

  Matthew pulled Ruthena to his chest. He smoothed the wavy strands that had worked their way out of her low ponytail and stroked her back as she pummeled his chest with tightly balled hands. He locked his arms around her until Ruthena’s struggles grew weaker.

  “No, Matthew . . . no,” she breathed into his neck, though it wasn’t Matthew’s comfort she rejected. In her heart she screamed, No! to God. Finally she clung to him tightly, sobbing, her stomach heaving.

  When Caryn and Jacqueline flung the doors back on their hinges, Matthew waved them off, tucking his head against his wife’s and whispering in a cracked voice that eventually broke on the last word, “Oh, Ruthena, God, help us . . .”

  Chapter Fourteen

  THOMAS, AGE 5

  “Dare.”

  The minute Thomas let the word trickle off his tongue, he knew he’d made a mistake. But there was no taking it back. Doing so would be like trying to get back a toy or a card you’d traded. No kid wanted to hear, “Blackjack, no trade back.” He could take whatever they dished out.

  Or so he thought. He watched helplessly as Myron and Floyd put their heads together.

  Then Myron emerged, grinning slyly, rubbing his hands together. “Okay. We decided you got to go in your hous
e and hide in your mama’s closet. Count to one hundred. Then come out.”

  Thomas’s mouth dropped open. “But—”

  “Are you wimpin’ out?” Floyd sneered.

  “No, but—”

  “Good. Now go on. And you better brang back somethin’ to prove you was really in there. Don’t just hide in the kitchen.” Myron pushed him.

  Thomas didn’t want the label of lily liver, chicken, or scaredy-cat, but . . . Mama’s closet? Yet he knew the brothers were counting on him to back down so they’d win his pretty blue marble. They didn’t expect him to do it because they thought his mama was mean as sin.

  Myron cut his eyes at his brother, and in tandem they tucked their hands under their armpits and flapped their elbows. “Bawk, bawk, bawk.” They laughed.

  That did it. Thomas hitched up his pants and gathered his meager reserves of courage about him. “I’ll do it,” he mumbled, though in his own mind he spoke firmly, resolutely. He studied Myron and Floyd intently. “You’ll watch out for me, right? You’ll whistle or call or somethin’ if Mama comes back from town?”

  The brothers nodded solemnly.

  Thomas ducked into the backyard from around the side of the house where he and the boys had been playing. Furtively he pulled open the screen door and stepped inside. There, standing in the quiet of the kitchen, he almost turned back, but once again, he summoned strength—or foolhardiness—from somewhere and tiptoed into his mama’s room.

  Only one small window let in the late-afternoon sun, and with its eastern exposure, the room already had grown dim. He and Mary had been kicked out of there years before when they were barely out of diapers, but he didn’t take inventory now. He ran to the closet and gingerly stepped over his mama’s few pairs of carefully placed shoes. “One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . .” As he counted, he looked around him, searching for something to take as proof. A shoe? One of her dresses? “. . . twenty-seven . . . twenty-eight . . .”

  Whirrree!

  A whistle! Was that a whistle? Thomas jumped up and ran from the closet, but before he could escape through the bedroom door, he heard voices—Mama and . . . Is that a man?—coming from the kitchen door. The voices entered the house and moved in his direction. Thomas’s heart pounded so loudly he was sure they would hear it. He raced on his toes back to the closet—first a prison and now his sanctuary—and closed the door.

  And not a moment too soon.

  Thomas heard floorboards creak as Mama and the man entered the room. What was Mama doing with a man in the house, in her room? It sounded a little like his daddy; then again, it didn’t. And what was that click? The door—did Mama lock the door? Thomas sucked in his breath as he listened to the two of them walk farther into the room. What . . . what was that? Did he say, “I’ve missed you”? Whatever Mama said, Thomas couldn’t hear. Her voice was low and husky—he’d never heard that kind of voice coming from her. He scooted close enough to the door to press his ear to it. But he heard no more voices. Instead he heard rustling and movement. The sound of bedcovers being turned back. More rustling, more movement. The bed squeaking. Thomas leaned away from the door and covered his ears.

  Thomas lost track of time. All he knew was the smell of shoes, the itch on a place on the back of his neck where the clothes brushed it, and the dark that enveloped him. So focused on drowning out the noises on the other side of the door, he had no idea when the noises actually stopped. Suddenly, though, he realized it was as quiet outside the closet as it was inside. He held his breath and again trained his ear to the door, listening intently for anything, not wanting to hear anything. Silently he twisted the knob and pushed the door open first one inch, then two, then three. Finally he opened it just wide enough to squeeze through. He sucked in a lungful of fresh air and leaned back against the closed door, exhaling with relief.

  “’Bout time. I almost went in to get you.”

  Thomas’s bladder emptied itself. Balancing precariously on wet, shaking legs, he thought he would pass out. His searching eyes settled on Mama, a shadow in a darkened corner of the room. Silent tears erupted and spilled onto his cheeks, mixing with the cold beads of sweat on his face. Neither he nor Mama said anything. His right hand tried to cover the darkened spot on his blue jeans.

  “Need a towel?”

  Slowly Thomas shook his head one time from east to west.

  “Whatchyou doin’ in my closet, boy?” Mama emerged from the corner. Her arms crossed over her tatty blue robe.

  Thomas shook his head again. His tongue wouldn’t budge from the roof of his mouth.

  “I bet you got an eyeful, didntcha?” Mama came within two feet of Thomas and stopped. She perched on the end of the bed.

  Thomas hiccuped and choked back a sob. He whispered, “I didn’t see nuthin’.”

  Mama nodded. “Oh, that’s right. You was cowerin’ ’hind that do’. Guess yo’ ears got pretty worked over today.” She studied his pitiable form. “You got somethin’ to say?”

  Thomas shook his head briskly this time. He just wanted out. He didn’t want to say anything or hear anything else.

  “Well, I guess if somebody had to be sneakin’ round in here, I should be glad it was you and not none of the rest of ’em. Though for the life-a me I can’t guess why you’d be in my closet this time a-day or anytime a-day for that matter.”

  She slapped her thighs abruptly and rose. “Well, I ain’t got time to be sittin’ round in this here robe all day. There’s plenty of thangs to be done.” She looked at him. “And I believe you need to get changed fo’ you go back outside to them friends who prob’ly still waitin’ for you.” Mama moved around the bed, straightening the sheets and the covers.

  But Thomas stood there, frozen, confused about what he’d heard and about what it might all mean. In his young mind, there were two kinds of women: the ones who were mamas and who had husbands and who took care of their children. Then there were the women he and his friends read and snickered about, the women who had their pictures and stories in those magazines Myron and Floyd’s brother hid under his bed. Thomas kept going back and forth between these two women. Which one was his mama?

  Mama must have felt him watching her. She faced Thomas, her hand fisted on one hip. Her closed face and stance told him, “You’d best leave me be.” But with narrowed eyes, she asked him, “What is it, boy?”

  Thomas swallowed the spit and snot in his throat. “M-m-mama? W-was th-that D-d-daddy?”

  Mama said nothing for a moment. Then she answered, “That wasn’t Henton.” She started to turn away from him, but he interrupted her.

  Tears dripped from Thomas’s eyes. His nose ran. Still, he managed, “Th-then, Mama, a-are y-you a-a . . . ?” His lips couldn’t form the ugly word.

  Mama squared her shoulders and looked straight ahead, out the window, before she locked her immutable gaze with his confused one. “I asked myself that once, boy. I can thank of worse thangs.”

  ——————

  “That’s all she said?” Sissy was incredulous. “Thomas?” She raised her voice over the wind, cupping his shoulder to get his attention. “Thomas!”

  “What?” Thomas glanced at his common-law wife.

  “I asked you if that was the last thing Granny B said—‘I can think of worse things’? That’s all she said to you about what had happened?”

  “That’s it. And I never mentioned it again. To her or to anyone else. In fact, you’re the first person I’ve ever told that story.”

  They rode like the wind down Interstate 95. Sissy’s braids streamed out through the open window of the 1980 Porsche 930.

  “How could you live there and never talk about it again? There’s no way I would have let her get away with that.”

  Thomas laughed shortly. “Maybe you wouldn’t have, baby, but you didn’t live with my mama. You weren’t raised the same way we were.” He trained his eyes on the road ahead. “And you just weren’t me. You aren’t me.”

  “What about now?”

&n
bsp; “What about now?”

  “You know what I mean, Thomas. Now that you’ve read these.” The wind rustled the sheets of paper Sissy gripped.

  “Oh.” Subconsciously Thomas’s right foot depressed the accelerator. The ground-hugging car lurched forward.

  “Thomas! Slow down! You’re going to kill us!”

  Thomas let up a bit—but just a little. His right hand loosely draped the leather-covered steering wheel. His left swiped his eyes as if Sissy couldn’t see his wet face.

  Sissy didn’t speak until the car’s speedometer had inched down from ninety to eighty-three to seventy-seven miles per hour. “Is there anything I can do? What can I do?”

  Thomas shook his head once, twice. He swallowed convulsively. “Have you read them? Have you read the letters?”

  “No. I just know what you told me before you tore out the house.”

  “Read ’em.”

  “Thom—”

  “Read them!” Thomas ordered harshly. “Read them out loud. See what Daddy has to say to me after all this time.” He knew in another time and place, Sissy would have lit into him, talking to her like that. She was quick to tell him he wasn’t her daddy—technically, he wasn’t even her husband—and she wasn’t one of his law clerks. She didn’t take orders from anybody. But this was different.

  Sissy seemed to think the same because she flipped to the first letter.

  Thomas snapped off the radio as she began, “‘Tommy—’”

  “Henton never knew how much I hated to be called ‘Tommy.’ Tom, Tommy—they sound alike to me. I remember he’d say, ‘Tommy, git on over here and hep me with this sink’ or ‘Tommy, g’on in and git me a cup of waw-tuh.’ I was his fetch-it boy, too little and too scared to tell him, ‘Hey, my name is Thomas.’”

  “But weren’t you only four years old when he left?”

  “Six. I was six years and three months old when Milton was born. I’ll always remember that because Mama was never the same. And Henton left soon after.” Thomas looked at the blur of trees and grass along the interstate. “Are you going to read?”