by Ann B. Ross
I was just putting the bottle back when I heard a scratching at the back door. Then two little taps. I froze. Scared to death. Who could be at my back door that time of night? Anybody I knew would come to the front and yoo-hoo along with the tapping.
I hesitated, trying to think what to do. Get to the phone? Scream my head off? Run through the house and out the front? In my bathrobe? Stay real quiet and pretend I wasn’t home?
Lord, it wasn’t possible. I was directly in line with the window in the door, and whoever was out there could see me, plain as day.
I grabbed the sherry bottle by the neck and went to the door. I flipped on the porch light and nearly fainted.
I couldn’t get the door open fast enough, and when she stumbled through it, I wished I had fainted.
Hazel Marie Puckett fell against me and clung so that I was looking right into her poor smashed and swollen face. “Miz Springer!” she gasped. I held her upright, feeling the frailness of her bones. “I’m sorry to bother you,” I think she said. Her words were so slurred I had trouble understanding her. “I need to see Junior. Please, I have to see him.”
“Sit down, sit down,” I cried, putting my arm around her waist and guiding her to a chair. “What happened to you? You look terrible!”
Her eyes were almost swollen shut. Her mouth was split and swollen out of shape. Dried blood caked the corners of her nose and mouth, and her whole face was blue and yellowish-green with the worst bruising I’d ever seen. Her nails were dirty and broken, and right from that I figured she hadn’t been in Raleigh at beauty school. Her dress was torn and streaked with dirt, and her bare feet were scratched and filthy. All in all, she was a mess.
“What happened to you?” I asked again, as tears poured out of those battered eyes. Fresh blood leaked from her split mouth, and she put a hand up to cover it. “Have you been drinking?” I demanded.
“Oh, no’m. I…an accident. I’ve been in an accident. Please, Miz Springer, I got to see Junior.”
She wasn’t in any shape to see anybody but a doctor, and I wasn’t ready to admit that her Junior was in Raleigh looking for her. I took out some ice cubes and wrapped them in a dish towel.
“Here,” I said, “put that on your face. It’ll help the swelling. Have you been to the hospital? You may need some stitches around your mouth.”
“No’m, it’s all right. Just some teeth,” she said, pressing the ice pack to her face.
“Teeth! You lost some teeth? You need to see a dentist, and right soon, too. You want to take care of your teeth. I go twice a year. Every year. Whether I need to or not.” I was chattering, but I did that any time I got upset and this was one of those times.
“I need Junior,” she said into the towel. “Please, is he in bed? I just need to be sure he’s all right.”
“Well,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Of course he’s all right. It’s just that somebody’s wires have got crossed. ’Cause he’s in Raleigh, looking for you.”
“Raleigh!” She looked up from the towel with the most stricken look I’d ever seen. “But…he’s supposed to be here! With you, where he’d be safe. I left him here, he can’t be gone! Tell me, Miz Springer, please tell me he’s here with you.”
“Hush, now,” I comforted, “he’s all right. Your uncle picked him up yesterday to take him down to you.”
“You mean…Brother Vern? You mean Brother Vern’s got him?” The look on her face made my heart sink.
“Well. Yes.”
“Oh, God,” she sobbed, and her whole body seemed to shrink into itself. “How could you let him go? I counted on you to take care of him.”
“Now just a minute, miss,” I said, taking immediate umbrage at being blamed for one more thing on a long list. “You left him here with not so much as a by-your-leave. You didn’t tell me word one about where you’d be, and you called Brother Vern to come get him and he did. Was I supposed to keep him from his own uncle? Great-uncle?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t call nobody, wasn’t able to. And ’specially not him. I thought Junior’d be safe here.”
“He would’ve been, if you’d told me what was going on,” I said. I don’t mind saying that I was on the defensive. I hadn’t felt right about Brother Vern ever since they’d been gone, and I hated being told that not feeling right about him was the right feeling to have. “I’m not a mind reader, you know. And if you’d had the courtesy to tell me not to let Little Lloyd go off with, I remind you, one of your own family, then I wouldn’t have let him go. What else was I supposed to do?” Seemed I’d been asking that an awful lot lately.
“I’m sorry, Miz Springer,” she whispered, burying her head in the towel again. That blond hair needed washing, and a new color job, too. “It’s just, well, Brother Vern’s been looking for something since Friday. He tried to get me to tell him about it, but, Miz Springer, I didn’t know what he was talking about.”
“He tried to get you…?” Light dawned in my slow mind. “Are you telling me you weren’t in an accident? Are you saying that Brother Vern did this to you?”
She shook her head, but kept it in the towel. “No, but he let somebody else do it.”
“Thay Lord,” I gasped, and sank into the chair beside her. “And him a preacher! I can’t believe this.”
“Being a preacher don’t mean a thing, Miz Springer,” she said. “Or calling yourself a Christian, neither.”
“Well, child,” I said, shrinking up a little myself. “You’re not telling me a thing I don’t already know.
“Why did Brother Vern want Little Lloyd so bad?” I asked.
“Who?”
“Little Lloyd, the one you call Junior,” I snapped. “I hope you don’t expect me to call him Junior.”
“Oh,” she said. She lifted her head out of the towel and took a deep breath. Then doubled over with a gasp, holding her side. “My ribs. I think something’s broke inside.”
“I’m calling a doctor,” I said, getting up to go to the phone.
“No, please.” She touched my arm, stopping me. “We’ve got to find Junior. I’ve lasted this long, I can keep going till we find him.”
I studied her a minute, looking at the various colors of the bruises and the blood that was dried and cracked on her face. That beating had not been recent. I didn’t know how she’d managed to last without medical treatment, but she wasn’t dead from it, so maybe she could keep going.
“All right, then,” I conceded. “But we’ve got to get you in better shape.”
“Maybe,” she said, pointing at the sherry bottle still gripped in my hand. “Maybe a little of that would help.”
I gave it to her and watched her turn it up. She took several long swallows straight from the bottle. When she came up for air, she coughed and sputtered and had a hard time getting her breath back.
“Shit! What is that stuff?”
“Watch your language in my house, miss,” I told her. “And keep in mind that beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Yes’m, sorry. I thank you for it.” She turned away, trying not to gag.
“Come on over to the sink,” I said, helping her get up. “I’ll fix some warm saltwater so you can rinse out your mouth. That’ll help that missing tooth.”
“Teeth,” she said, pulling back her lip to show me where two had once been.
I thought I’d start gagging, too, but I got her to the sink. When she finished rinsing her mouth, I gave her some aspirin and started her toward the stairs.
“A good, hot shower will make you feel better,” I said.
“But I have to find Junior.”
“Listen to me,” I said, stopping on the landing and taking her by the shoulders. “You’re in no condition to find anybody. You can’t even think straight, and straight thinking is what we need right now. So you just come on with me and get yourself cleaned up and feeling better. Then we’ll decide what to do.”
By the time I got her out of the shower, dried off, and into one of my gowns, it was al
l I could do to get her into Little Lloyd’s bed. She was out on her feet. Pretty tired, I guessed. To say nothing of four aspirins and a fair slug of cooking sherry.
I closed her door, but left mine open. I lay in bed, thinking about this turn of events, wondering if I should call Deputy Bates or Sam or who. Nothing they could do that night, though, as dead to the world as she was.
I’d wait till morning, then try to get more out of her, like why did Brother Vern have her beaten half to death, and why did he want Little Lloyd, and what in heaven’s name was it all about?
I finally went to sleep and dreamed about tires as tall as my head trying to run me down while I searched all over creation looking for that child.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IT WAS NOT a restful night. I came awake fully about five o’clock and got on up, with that child still on my mind. He was all I could think of, for he’d been wandering in and out of my dreams most of the night. And, Lord, what was I going to do about the woman across the hall? I thought about calling the sheriff, or telling Deputy Bates, and just washing my hands of the whole mess. On the other hand, it would be worth keeping her around just to see Pastor Ledbetter’s face when he heard of it. Maybe I’d remind him of David’s harem, and see if he would excuse Wesley Lloyd then.
And at that thought, I began to feel downright dejected again. My house had become a way station for Wesley Lloyd’s second family, people popping in and out, and me not knowing who to trust and who not to.
One thing I did know. I’d been tricked again, and this time by that preacher in sheep’s clothing. Wesley Lloyd Springer had tricked me, just pulled the wool over my eyes as slick as you please, and now Brother Vernon Puckett had done the same thing. They’d taken advantage of my trusting nature, and I was getting mad as thunder, not only at them, but at myself for being so easy to fool. It wasn’t going to happen again, believe you me.
And in the bed right across the hall was the loose woman who’d slept with my husband for untold numbers of years, and here she was sleeping now in my house. If Wesley Lloyd hadn’t been six feet under, all he’d have to do would be to walk from one bed to another.
The thought made me sick to my stomach. I needed my morning coffee.
I put on my robe and tiptoed down the stairs to the kitchen. Strange, I thought, to start the day with pictures in my mind of Wesley Lloyd with that woman, yet the night before when she’d stumbled into my house with the evidence of a beating all over her, I hadn’t given one thought to Wesley Lloyd. And what they’d done together.
I made the coffee and sat at the table with a cup of it before me. Thinking. Trying to understand what was going on. Trying not to worry about Little Lloyd. A hard thing to do, now that I knew his mother was worried sick about him.
It’s funny about women and children, isn’t it? There was Hazel Marie Puckett, with no money, no home, and no husband. Yet she had a child. And here I was, a respectable married woman with everything to give to a child, and the Lord hadn’t seen fit. This was just one more situation where I wondered what in the world He was thinking of.
I’d fully expected, within a decent time after being married, to welcome a blessed event. But it hadn’t happened and I hadn’t questioned it. But Wesley Lloyd had. He’d announced one morning a few years into our marriage that I had an appointment with Dr. Monroe to find out what was wrong with me. I didn’t like it, but who was I to question Wesley Lloyd’s decisions?
I won’t go into too much detail about what that doctor did to me, but you wouldn’t have liked it, either. They put me up on a table and stuck my feet in these metal contraptions; then the doctor pulled on the bottom sheet and said, “I’m going to scoot you down, now.” And when he did, my knees splayed out on each side, and I thought I’d die when he threw up the sheet and sat down on a little stool to get a good look. And that nurse of his was right down there getting an eyeful, too. And in the midst of that, another nurse opened the door so that anybody in the hall could get in on the picture show. I’m not going to describe how Dr. Monroe poked, prodded, and mashed around down there. Nor where he put his fingers.
It was a mortifying experience, and I decided as soon as they let me off that table they’d never get me back on it. If that’s what it took to have children, I’d just pass altogether.
And wouldn’t you know it, the very next Sunday there was Dr. Monroe waiting in the narthex to usher us to our pew. I couldn’t look him in the face, especially when he smiled and squeezed my arm, so pleasant and genteel with that pink rosebud in his lapel. Humiliating, was what it was, after what he’d looked at and fingered and handled on his examining table. And I didn’t like the way he shook Wesley Lloyd’s hand and asked how things were going.
That did it for me as far as seeking help from medical science. As a predestinated Presbyterian, I had reason not to go messing around with what wasn’t meant to be. I told Wesley Lloyd that I’d just do what Sarah and Hannah and several other barren women had done, and depend on prayer alone. He couldn’t very well argue with that, since that was what he was always recommending to me. I figured if the Lord wanted me to have a child He’d give me one.
Coffee slopped out of my cup as Little Lloyd’s pale little face came to mind. I stiffened in the chair and said aloud, “But, Lord, I didn’t mean give me one this way.”
The night was slowly giving way to morning, with the gray shadows of shrubs and trees taking shape in the yard. I heard the chirping calls of birds break the stillness of the night. Early birds getting their worms. Which reminded me that an Oreo would taste good with a second cup of coffee. That was not the kind of breakfast that Wesley Lloyd would’ve approved of, but as we’ve all noticed, he was no longer around to pass judgment.
I went to the pantry and commenced rummaging around to find the cookies. Lillian liked them, too, and we’d been known to hide the last few from each other. I moved cans of Luck’s beans and Campbell’s soup, and jars of Jif peanut butter and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, and sacks of Lily Maid flour, Dixie Crystals’ sugar, and Yelton’s cornmeal, but I couldn’t find the Oreos. I was determined, so I went through the folded grocery sacks that Lillian saved and, bless Pat, I came across one with something in it.
“Lillian, you sneaky thing,” I said to myself, smiling at the thought of her searching for the Oreos I was fixing to eat.
I reached in the Winn-Dixie sack and pulled out a picture book. I stood looking at it for a minute, coming to realize that I was holding Little Lloyd’s precious sack. The one he always had with him, the one he slept with, the one he never let out of his sight, the one I’d never thought in a million years he’d go off without. I’d thought it held a little boy’s treasures, that’s what Lillian had told me. And she’d also told me to keep my hands out of it, and here I was holding a child’s well-used picture book that’d been hidden away among the empty sacks. I should’ve put it back right then. The child had a reason for leaving it there, even though I couldn’t think why in the world he would’ve.
But, as I’d already discovered its contents in all innocence, I opened the front of the book and read the inscription. In for a penny, in for a pound. I recognized my husband’s heavy, confident penmanship. He’d written: “For your birthday,” and signed it with his full name, “Wesley Lloyd Springer.” I sighed, my heart heavy with the thought of my husband’s rich private life and my barren one. I turned to the title page. Aslan’s Book of Pictures. Wesley Lloyd had no more an idea of what a child wanted for his birthday than I did. But I think I would’ve picked out something better than a book about lions.
I heard Lillian on the porch and felt guilty for plundering through somebody else’s belongings. Then I thought better of it. Lillian should know about this so she wouldn’t gather up all the empty sacks and throw them out.
“What you doin’ up and in the pantry?” she asked as soon as she came in the door.
“Come see what I found,” I said, holding out the book. I told her how I’d come to find it, without mentio
ning Oreos. “I was looking for a pencil,” I said.
“Well,” she said, “you just put that book back where you found it.”
“I intend to.”
“You know what it mean, don’t you?”
“What?”
“It mean,” she said, “that he want to come back. When you leave something you loves somewhere, it draw you back to that place.”
“Lillian, you know better,” I said, putting the book in the sack and folding down the ends the way Little Lloyd had left them.
“I don’t mean it act’ally draw you. I mean it what you want it to do. That chile left here intending to come back, ’cause he left what meant the most to him.”
“Well, I declare,” I said, touched in spite of myself. “I do believe you’re right. I can’t think of any other reason he’d leave it. He certainly put a lot of stock in this sack, or what was in it, or both. And, Lillian, he found a good hiding place for it. I would’ve never thought to look here, if I was looking for it. So,” I said, thrusting the sack under the empty ones, “back it goes, and it can wait right there for him.”
I closed the pantry door and sat down at the table. “Get some coffee and come sit down,” I said. “I’ve got something else to tell you.”
When she was settled, I told her about our new houseguest and her pitiful condition. She punctuated my recitation with a series of “No’s!” and “You don’t mean it’s!,” but I finally got it told and admitted I didn’t know what to do next. Which was no surprise to her.
“That chile in trouble, an’ his mama, too,” she declared. “What we gon’ do ’bout it, Miss Julia?”
“I wish I knew. I’ll take something up for her to eat, it’ll have to be something soft or liquid, Lillian, two of her teeth have been knocked out. Maybe when she eats a little, she’ll be able to help us decide what to do.”