A Long Time Gone

by Karen White

  Sarah Beth continued. “You were always telling me I should ask, and I never did. And then you stopped asking. Why’d you stop?”

  I shook my head, not really sure why. “Because I thought maybe you didn’t want to know the answer.”

  Her eyes darkened. “That’s an odd thing to say.”

  “Maybe. I’ve never asked anybody why my mama killed herself. Nobody ever talked about it, like I wasn’t even supposed to know. But I didn’t ask, because I was afraid they’d tell me that it was because of me, because I wasn’t a good and obedient enough daughter. That I didn’t love her enough to make her stay. And I’m glad now that I didn’t ask. Because I don’t think anybody has the right answer for that. But mostly because then I’d never been able to see the answer through my adult eyes. Through a mother’s eyes.”

  “And what did you see?” she asked, leaning forward as if my answer were important to her.

  “That she thought she was doing the best thing for me. That she was only a shadow person, like a ghost who hadn’t died yet. She missed my daddy something terrible, something I couldn’t understand until after I met John. I think her sadness was a blackness inside her that filled her body and her mind like a cancer.”

  My gaze drifted to the apple on a plate on my nightstand, and the knife beside it that Aunt Louise had placed there in case I got hungry. My finger hurt where the knife had slipped and cut the tip of my index finger, and I’d only managed a single slice, because it hurt too much to press on the knife to cut more. I thought of my aunt coming in to make sure my pillows were fluffed, and that I wasn’t too hot or cold. And that I had something to eat. She’d always been like that, anticipating something I needed before I did. She’d never told me, but I secretly thought that she’d always wanted a daughter of her own, how sad she’d been when there were no more babies after Willie. I’d only begun to understand how the universe had fitted us together, each of us filling the missing hole in the other like two pieces of a single puzzle.

  I continued. “I think Mama believed that Aunt Louise could be the mother I needed, the mother she couldn’t be because of her sickness. But she loved me with what all was left of her heart.”

  I regarded her in silence, letting her know that I’d wait as long as it took for her to tell me what her mother had told her about why her name wasn’t in the family Bible.

  “The names of those babies, all five of them, were my brothers and sisters. They were all born alive, but died right away. The doctors couldn’t ever tell Mother why, so she kept trying until the doctor said she shouldn’t try anymore.”

  “But then she had you, ten years later, so I guess the doctor was wrong.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Not exactly.”

  Neither one of us spoke, the rain on the window and the roof filling the silence like the voices of all those lost children. I thought of my own three, and how I’d been blessed with this baby, and how I’d carried her longer than the others.

  “A year before I was born, Mother went to New Orleans to stay with family and see a doctor, because she wasn’t feeling well. That’s what they told their friends here. But she went to a home for unwed mothers, run by the same nuns who had taught Mother in school. That’s where she got me. And then she came back to Indian Mound and said I was hers, and that it was the excellent doctors in New Orleans who’d made sure her baby survived.”

  “But they should still put your name in the Bible, Sarah Beth. You are their daughter, same as if your mother had given birth to you.”

  She gave me a weak smile. “Funny. That’s exactly what I said.” She reached over and picked up the knife from my nightstand. “Mother said it was an oversight. But I think we both know that my mother has never overlooked anything in her entire life.”

  I watched as she examined the blade of the knife, running her finger over the flat side and then softly touching the tip as if to check it for sharpness.

  “Careful,” I said, holding up my own finger to show my wound. “It’s very sharp.”

  She placed the knife in her lap and leaned forward. “Let me see.”

  I wasn’t really surprised at her request. She’d always had an interest in all things bloody, from smashed frogs on the road to buzzards flying over dead animals. She’d once made me walk in the dried-out winter swamp to find a dead boar, a spiral of buzzards over the trees like a giant pointing finger. I’d had to turn away as the buzzards fought with the buzzing flies for pink pieces of flesh. But Sarah Beth had watched with fascination until the sun began to dip in the sky and I made her leave before it got dark. Even she didn’t want to get caught in the swamp after night fell.

  I held up my finger and allowed her to place it between her thumb and index finger and draw it closer to her face, as if she were a surgeon getting ready to suture it.

  “It’s not very deep. It looks bad because it just happened and it hasn’t had a chance to scab. . . .”

  I winced as she squeezed, and two large drops of red blood seeped from the wound. I tried to yank my hand back, but she held it tight for a moment, watching me bleed, before letting go.

  “Look,” she said, completely unaware that she’d hurt me. She picked up the knife and, with the sharp tip, stabbed the tip of her own finger. The knife, forgotten as soon as she was finished with it, dropped to the floor as she, too, began to bleed from the cut, the red bright against the paleness of her skin.

  “See?” she said, holding up her finger. “See?” she said again, thrusting it toward my face to make sure that I did. I pushed her hand away, confused at what she wanted me to see.

  She sat back in her chair, her shoulders falling as if she were feeling an enormous relief.

  “See what?” I asked, angry and confused, as a drop of blood landed on my sheet, staining it red.

  “It’s the same color. Our blood is the same color.”

  I put my finger in my mouth and sucked on it, tasting copper. “Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  Without answering, she stood again and moved to the window, watching the rain fall from heavy clouds. “I hope it stops raining soon. I can’t put the top down on my breezer when it’s like this.”

  I didn’t say anything about all the farmers who might be losing their crops. Sarah Beth always seemed to have a way of making everything about her, whether it was good news or bad.

  “Do you remember those awful people at the festival?” she asked.

  “You mean Leon and Velma? The same people we’d seen at the Ellis plantation?”

  She nodded, still staring out the window.

  “They’re kin to Mathilda and Bertha,” I said.

  She turned to me slowly, her lips slightly parted. “They’re kin?”

  I nodded, once again smug at another rare occasion when I knew something that she didn’t. “Yes. They have a common-law marriage on account of it being illegal for different races to marry. John told me.”

  She went back to the window, the shadow of raindrops on her face making them look like tears. “Do you remember what they said? About me being no better than I ought to be?”

  I nodded, wishing that I hadn’t. It had been said with so much malice and mean-spiritedness and with no provocation. I also recalled those same words being said at my wedding reception by Chas Davis, and I hadn’t understood the reason for that, either.

  “What do you think they meant?”

  I’d never seen Sarah Beth like this, questioning things she didn’t understand instead of simply dismissing them with a flick of her kid-glove-covered hand.

  I tried to soften the tone of my voice, the way Aunt Louise did when explaining something to me that might make me sad, like when old Saul, Uncle Joe’s foreman and a man whose pockets were always full of candy, was run over by a spooked mule hauling a wagon full of cotton and got killed. As if she believed the tone of her voice would soften the blow of her wor
ds.

  “I think they’re just jealous of you, Sarah Beth. Because your family has money and you never have to worry about where your next meal is coming from. And you live in a big house, and wear beautiful clothes. They don’t have any of that.”

  She nodded as if trying to convince herself. “That’s what I thought, too.” Turning from the window, she smiled brightly at me. “I should probably go and let you rest.”

  I wasn’t tired, but I was ready for her to leave. She bent down to kiss my cheek, then swept toward the door.

  “Sarah Beth?”

  She turned, her expression like that of a child caught in the candy jar. “Yes?”

  “You never told me who you were in love with. Is it Willie?”

  “Shh. It’s a secret.”

  I frowned. We’d never had secrets from each other. “You know you can tell me. I’ve never shared a secret.” I thought of Mathilda, and Chas, and Mathilda’s fear that Robert would find out, and knew that was one secret I’d be taking to my grave.

  “I know. But I’m having fun keeping it to myself right now. It’s like being able to eat a whole cake instead of just a piece.”

  I looked at her closely, wondering what was so different about her. There was a hint of danger in her eyes, something I was familiar with from our exploits as children that always got me the switch.

  “Angelo Berlini is engaged to be married, Sarah Beth. I don’t want to see your heart broken over a man you can’t have.”

  She tilted her head back and sucked in her breath. “That may be. But they’re not married yet.”

  I sat up, ready to question her further, but she’d already opened the door. With a quick wave, she closed it behind her.

  I leaned back against my pillows, listening to the rain and thinking about what she’d said. My gaze fell to my sheets and to the single drop of blood. It had spread out, its color darkening to a shade of rust, and formed itself into the shape of a heart.

  Chapter 35

  Vivien Walker Moise

  INDIAN MOUND, MISSISSIPPI

  MAY 2013

  Chloe and I sat in rocking chairs on the wide front porch, looking out toward the drive and waiting for Tripp’s truck. Carol Shipley’s history book sat closed in my lap. It was almost suppertime, and Cora and Carol Lynne were inside setting the dining table. I was just about getting used to eating from the antique dishes my family had eaten off of for generations, surrounded by my family—new and old—and conversations that meandered through all topics without settling for long on one in particular. It was a marked contrast to the silent dinners I’d had with Mark and Chloe. I’d be medicated enough that I didn’t mind the tasteless food, and enough that I didn’t care that Mark and Chloe spent more time texting on their phones than speaking to anyone at the table.

  But the boisterous dining table was what I remembered from my childhood, where Bootsie always invited friends for supper. I’d looked forward to each evening, when Bootsie would take her time questioning Tommy and me about our days, and when we’d solve the problems of our small worlds over ham and biscuits. At least until my mother returned, and I’d started eating up in the kitchen with Mathilda.

  Since my return home, suppertime had managed to once again become something I looked forward to each day, something that grounded me despite the fact that I still felt like the epicenter of the tornado that had become my life. With Bootsie’s spirit in mind, I’d called Carrie Holmes and invited her and her two children for supper. It was so painfully obvious to all but the blind and stupid that Carrie and Tommy still had feelings for each other, and that left to their own devices they’d never work their way toward any kind of relationship that involved more than bashful glances from across a room.

  “What should we name him?” Chloe asked from the rocking chair next to mine. The dog hadn’t left her side except when she’d gone into the house. I’d told them both that he wasn’t allowed inside until he’d been given a flea bath. He’d waited patiently on the porch, next to a bowl of water and dog food that we’d purchased on the way home, along with a collar and leash and other things that Chloe claimed were necessities, until she came back outside again.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to name him yet. He probably already has a name, and it might confuse him to call him something else.”

  “What you really mean is that you’re not going to let me keep him.”

  “Chloe, you don’t live here, remember? And your dad has always said no to pets, because of the germs and their fur over everything, and because he thinks he might be allergic.”

  “But I could leave him here with you, and then he’d be here when I came to visit.”

  If only the world worked in the way of a child’s logic. “I understand what you’re saying. But I have no idea how long I’m going to be here, or if your dad will let you visit me.”

  Her hand stilled from where it had been stroking the dog’s head. “But he’s letting me stay with you now. Doesn’t that mean he’s going to let me stay with you sometimes from now on?”

  I forced myself not to blurt out that her father was a vindictive jerk, the real truth of just how much somehow eluding me until I’d stopped medicating myself and was able to look back in retrospect. I couldn’t remember a lot about the divorce proceedings, and I was glad. Because what I did remember made my skin crawl with shame. For him to have been able to allow no visits and a restraining order, what was in the record must be very shameful indeed.

  “I don’t know, Chloe. I really don’t know.”

  “But you’re going to ask, right? Because now I have a dog and a garden that I need to take care of.”

  I gave her a sidelong glance, wondering if she was aware that in a roundabout way she’d told me that she liked it here and wanted to come back. Or that she hadn’t mentioned that I’d be here, too. Maybe because, like me, she wasn’t that sure I would be.

  “Yes, I’m going to try. But remember, too, that we’ll have to take the dog to the vet to see if he’s been microchipped, and if he hasn’t, you’re in charge of making flyers to post on telephone poles, just in case he has an owner looking for him. He’s well trained, so chances are somebody’s looking for him.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, they don’t deserve him if he’s been gone this long and they haven’t tried that hard to find him.”

  I spotted Tripp’s white pickup truck down the long drive, then watched as it pulled up in front of the house, a country music ballad about beer and guitars drifting from the open windows.

  He was waving a bottle of what I hoped was a flea wash as he walked toward us. He paused with one foot on the bottom porch step. After greeting us, he said, “I called the best vet I know—my sister, Claire, and she says hello, by the way—and she recommended you give the dog a bath outside with this.” He placed the bottle on the floor of the porch. “There’s a hose on the side of the house by the garden, and if you ask Cora real nice, I’m sure she’ll give you a bucket and a sponge.”

  Chloe slid from her chair and ran to the door before stopping abruptly and turning around to face Tripp. “Thank you. Sir.” She opened the door and ran inside before anybody could comment on how she hadn’t needed to be reminded.

  “Thanks,” I said, admiring his form as he walked up the steps and sat down in the chair just vacated. The dog lay down and offered its belly to him, and Tripp obliged.

  “Apparently that dog has been evading capture downtown for over a month. I’m thinking they’ve either got the wrong dog or they didn’t try very hard.”

  Tripp grinned. “Or he was just waiting for the right family to come along.”

  “Well, we’re hardly a family. There’s no way Mark’s going to allow any dog in his spotless house, much less one without a pedigree.”

  Tripp gave me one of his silent stares that I chose to ignore.

  “I’d
be careful about petting that dog, or I’ll have to give you a flea bath in the backyard, too.”

  His mouth broadened into a wide grin. “I’m confused. Would that be a bad thing?”

  I shook my head and picked up the book from my lap. “Here’s the book I was telling you about—it’s sort of all the local history of the county, as well as the genealogies of the oldest families, including mine. Mrs. Shipley said that Bootsie helped her with it.”

  He took the book from me and opened the front cover. “Well, isn’t this handier than a pocket on a shirt.”

  I snorted, then covered my mouth.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I’m just glad you didn’t say that in front of Chloe. She already thinks you’re a redneck. If she knew what Deliverance was, she’d be expecting to hear ‘Dueling Banjos’ every time you showed up.”

  He looked affronted. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with banjo music.”

  I elbowed him and took the book back. I’d stuck in a piece of paper to mark the spot, and used it to open up to my family tree.

  “Sheriff Adams was here earlier, and I showed him the watch and the photos from the paper. He told me I could hang on to the watch, seeing as how it’s a family heirloom. He wanted my copy of this book, but I told him to see Carol Shipley. The thing cost me thirty bucks.”

  He whistled. “Good thing you’re divorced from a doctor, with all that extravagant spending.”

  “Yeah, right. We had a prenup—which is good in retrospect, because otherwise Mark would probably try to take the farm just to be nasty—but it meant that I took nothing from the marriage that I didn’t bring into it. Just a different car. I think my lawyer felt sorry for me and somehow managed a decent alimony settlement. It doesn’t make me rich by any means, but I won’t starve.”

  He didn’t say anything, which meant that he wouldn’t until I spoke out loud what we were both thinking.

  “And no child visitation. Once he brought the drug stuff up, I didn’t have a leg to stand on.”